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Behrooz Parhami's Blog & Books Page
Page last updated on 2025 July 15
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 2025
Blog entries for 2024
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 2025
2025/07/15 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Science magazine features research by UCSB geographers (see the last item below). [Center] We've come a long way but still need to go further: In her 1996 article “The History of Hand-Held Electronic Calculator," Kathy Hamrick reminds us of sexist comments in ads & press stories for early electronic calculators. [Right] Trump’s new name for the San Andreas Fault in California.
(2) STEM fields may be losers in new federal funding climate: A study by National Bureau of Economic Research reveals that MIT, Stanford, and UC Berkeley are the top producers of PhDs across several technology areas critical to US innovation and security. The study analyzed 1.2 million PhD dissertations from 1950 to 2022, identifying the federal government as the primary funding source (42% of graduates in 2022) for STEM doctoral research. The report warns that reduced government funding could lead to fewer STEM graduates, as private and non-profit funding may not sufficiently replace federal support.
(3) MSNBC commentator Lawrence O’Donnell lambasts the White House press corps for not confronting Trump on his blatant lies about tariffs. [18-minute video]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- US DoD awards $200M to Google, Anthropic, xAI, and OpenAI for national security applications. [NYT]
- Interesting mathematical fact: The largest perfect square in the infinite Fibonacci sequence is 144.
- A mega-project in Afghanistan: The Kosh Tepa artificial river is 285km long, 152m wide, and 8.5m deep.
- A history of aircraft used as Air Force One, excluding features that are classified. [10-minute video]
(5) IEEE Micro magazine’s special issue on Hot Chips 2024 (Vol. 45, May-June 2025) contains articles on:
- Qualcomm Oryon CPU in Snapdragon X Elite: Micro-Architecture and Design
- Lunar Lake an Intel Mobile Processor: SoC Architecture Overview (2024)
- AMD Versal AI Edge Series Gen 2
- Intel Xeon 6 Product Family
- AMD Instinct MI300X: A Generative AI Accelerator and Platform Architecture
- An Open-Source Project for High-Performance RISC-V Processors Meeting Industrial-Grade Standards
- Designing Programmable Accelerators for Sparse Tensor Algebra
- The IBM Telum II Processor
- FuriosaAI RNGD: A Tensor Contraction Processor for Sustainable AI Computing
All Hot Chips presentations, recordings, and Q&A are available to the general public.
(6) Science magazine’s cover feature: UCSB geographers mapped the channel patterns of 84 rivers with 36 years of global satellite imagery to make a transformative discovery. The study results solve a longstanding quandary in the science of rivers, along with providing insights into reshaping future river restoration, erosion hazards, and flood risk management.
2025/07/14 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] More than an hour passed between Camp Mystic receiving a severe-flood warning and a decision to evacuate young campers asleep in cabins by the Guadalupe River (WaPo). [Center] Will we see this scene in Tehran, soon? [Right] Anne Applebaum's Autocracy, Inc. (see the last item below).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Trump is reportedly considering the revocation of comedian Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship. [NYT]
- An Iranian young man lambasts the country’s top officials but stops short of the Supreme Leader.
- Productivity gains will lead to job losses only if we run out of new ideas: An interview with Nvidia’s CEO.
- Puzzle: Rearranging pieces to convert a small square into slightly widened gaps between pieces. [Reel]
- The difference between NYC and Long Island (sort of like England vs. Great Britain). [1-minute video]
- Facebook memory from July 13, 2021: Expecting extra revenue from tourism in Iran is unrealistic.
(3) Book review: Applebaum, Anne, Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, unabridged 5-hour audiobook, read by the author, Books on Tape, 2024. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Applebaum’s deeply researched book shows us how autocratic regimes around the world are cooperating to advance their domestic goals and to spread disinformation worldwide. Economically, corrupt companies in one autocracy deal with corrupt companies in other autocracies for financial gain and/or to skirt various sanctions; hence, the use of “Inc.” in the book’s title.
Devoting a significant part of her narrative to entrenched corruption within autocratic systems, Applebaum argues that autocratic leaders have devised intricate economic schemes to enrich themselves and their allies, while depleting the wealth of their citizens. They keep these financial crimes from being exposed by using a combination of monitoring and oppression methods and by controlling the communication channels to spread disinformation.
Both Russia and China have expansive “news” production facilities, whose fake and distorted stories are translated into multiple languages for broadcasting in other countries or posting on social media. Iran is also a major player in this domain, with its “Press TV” broadcasting “news” in several languages. The same false stories distributed by different outlets in multiple languages (what the author calls “a firehose of falsehood”) creates an aura of veracity.
Autocratic regimes supporting one another is exemplified by Belarus allowing Russian troops & weapons to be stationed in that country, near its border with Ukraine, thus facilitating Russia’s subsequent invasion. Despite sanctions by Western nations, Maduro’s regime in Venezuela continues to receive support from countries such as Russia, China, and Iran. An important part of this support is in the form of technological assistance for suppressing dissent.
A recent threat by President Trump of higher tariffs on Brazil, because of that country’s “witch hunt” against former anti-democratic President Jair Bolsonaro, could be taken as an omen of the US potentially joining Autocracy, Inc.
2025/07/13 (Sunday): Today, I offer reviews of three books on diverse topics.
(1) Book review: Rising, Gerald R., Inside Your Calculator: From Simple Programs to Significant Insights, Wiley, 2007. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I have been teaching annually a graduate course on computer arithmetic for the past 3 decades. The course, based on my own book published by Oxford University Press, covers algorithms and hardware implementations for basic arithmetic operations as well as more-complex functions in digital computers. Due to constraints on cost and, until recently, computational power, pocket calculators do not perform arithmetic with the same methods used for powerful CPUs, GPUs, and supercomputers.
Rising’s book provides a good introduction to the methods used to perform arithmetic operations and to present the results in modern electronic calculators. Older mechanical and electromechanical calculators used still other methods (see, e.g., G. C. Chase’s "History of Mechanical Computing Machinery," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 204-226, July 1980).
Rising presents his material in three parts: The Setting (Introduction); Algorithms and Programs (Chapters 2-9); Displaying Information (Graphing). The book ends with Appendices A-S, which present basic information on programming, interpolation, binary arithmetic, Newton’s method, and a host of other subjects. Part II, the core of the book, contains chapters entitled: “Numbers, Algorithms, and Programs”; “Integer Powers”; “Square Root”; “Rational Powers”; “Logarithms”; “Archimedes’ Calculation of pi”; “Calculating Trigonometric Functions”; “CORDIC Calculation of Cosine.”
(2) Book review: Shanahan, Murray, The Technological Singularity, unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by Tim Andres Pabon, Ascent Audio, 2015. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The notion of singularity shows up in multiple domains, including mathematics (discontinuity), cosmology (the Big Bang), and economics (near-total elimination of manual labor). Technological singularity refers to the point in time when AI surpasses humans in intelligence and thus other capabilities. We now have what might be called narrow AI, which is gradually broadening. The next step will be artificial general intelligence (AGI), which is estimated to arrive in a decade or so, in turn leading to singularity a decade later. The last step in this journey will be the achievement of mind-uploading and digital immortality.
I have read and reviewed Ray Kurtzweil’s two books on the subject, The Singularity Is Near (my review) and The Singularity Is Nearer (my review). In this broad-based but brief overview in MIT Press’s Essential Knowledge Series, Shanahan maintains that the notion of technological singularity has moved from the realm of science-fiction to serious debate, whether or not we agree with the various timelines proposed by AI researchers. A number of singularity theorists predict that if AI continues to develop at its current dizzying pace, the singularity could come about in the middle of the present century, beyond which we will experience an intelligence explosion. Shanahan discusses whole-brain simulation as a way of achieving AGI, noting that the simulation need not be in great detail for the results to be indistinguishable from natural intelligence.
Shanahan describes both biologically-inspired and built-from-scratch AI. He considers what the existence of super-intelligent machines could mean for such notions as personhood, responsibility, rights, and identity. Some super-human AI agents might be created to benefit humankind (envision a super-intelligent Siri), while some might go rogue (a la HAL of “2001: A Space Odyssey”). Thus, the singularity presents both an existential threat to humanity and an existential opportunity for humanity to transcend its limitations. We need to imagine both possibilities if we want to bring about the better outcome.
(3) Book review: Stanley, Jason, Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future, unabridged 5-hour audiobook, read by Dion Graham, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Erasing historical facts is but one of the ways fascists use to construct their self-serving narratives. They also modify or augment history, a la George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (my review), which envisages a society with a number of topsy-turvy ministries, including Ministry of Truth, which is in charge of fabricating lies and revising history, and Ministry of love, which is responsible for terrorizing and torturing people.
Yale professor and best-selling author of How Fascism Works enumerates the myriads of ways fascists promote myths of national greatness, purity, & innocence, and stoke grievances that can be exploited for political gain. The tale of Nazi Germany is presented as a key case study. Nazis concocted a narrative portraying the Jews as an internal threat that was responsible for Germany’s defeat in World War I. By rewriting history to emphasize betrayal and suffering, fascist regimes can portray aggressive policies and actions as necessary for national survival and resurgence.
Authoritarian and fascist regimes use the country’s system of education as a key tool for disseminating ideological messages, obscure inconvenient facts, and mold a citizenry that aligns with their doctrinal perspectives. In the colonial era, educational programs were instrumental in erasing the self-identity and historical narratives of the colonized people. Putin’s Russia and Modi’s India are different in many ways, but they use essentially the same methods to remove wrongdoings and other inconvenient truths from their histories by revising curricula and textbooks.
A day after I had finished reading Stanley’s book and was getting ready to compose my review, I encountered this Elon Musk tweet: “We will use Grok ... , which has advanced reasoning, to rewrite the entire corpus of human knowledge, adding missing information and deleting errors. Then retrain on that. Far too much garbage in any foundation model trained on uncorrected data.” Here comes the Trumpian versions of world history and encyclopedia!
2025/07/12 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Three math puzzles: [Left] Find the length y. [Center] Find the length x. [Right] In this diagram with five equilateral triangles, prove that s = a + b + c + d.
(2) The remnants of Iran's ancient Jewish community face a new age of anxiety after decades of uneasy coexistence with the mullahs’ regime. [Roya Hakakian, writing in The Atlantic]
(3) An interpretation in the context of today’s Islamic Iran, of Zahhak’s story in Ferdowsi’s epic poem Shahnameh. [6-minute video, narrated in Persian]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- AI marches on: Nvidia reaches $4T market capitalization. Microsoft pledges $4B for AI education. [NYT]
- Neanderthals boiled bones in "fat factories" to access bone marrow & other nutrients 125K years ago. [NYT]
- Trump threatens Brazil with 50% tariffs, citing the “witch hunt” against former President Bolsonaro. [NYT]
- Social media move toward voyeurism: People are increasingly scrolling rather than engaging or sharing.
- P. J. O’Rourke: “Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.”
- Kaveh Madani’s 17-minute TEDx-Kish talk on climate change impacts, entitled “Water: Think Again.”
(5) Internet searches involving "Trump Epstein" and "Epstein files" have been trending, with a sharp rise over the last couple of days. Hence, Trump's new tariff announcements to distract.
(6) Observations by political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen.
- Feb. 21, 2025: The Epstein client list is on AG Pam Bondi's desk, ready to be reviewed.
- July 07: The Epstein client list does not exist and the case is closed.
- July 12: There's an Epstein file but it's a fake one, written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, & Brennan.
(7) An Iranian poet’s tooth-shattering response to the mullahs’ regime appropriating nationalistic anthems for use in their religious mourning ceremonies. [2-minute video]
(8) Astronomers detect the third interstellar object ever observed: The roughly 20-mile-wide comet will pass ~150 million miles from Earth, travel past the sun, and eventually exit the solar system. [NYT]
(9) A century-old debate in thermodynamics has been resolved: A landmark proof by Professor Jose Maria Martin-Olalla of U. Seville demonstrates that the long-contentious Nernst theorem should not be viewed as the third law of thermodynamics but as a consequence of the second law. This result challenges the interpretation favored by Albert Einstein and refines our understanding of entropy behavior as temperature approaches absolute zero. Martin-Olalla’s breakthrough centers on a “virtual” engine concept that fits within thermodynamic formalism, without violating physical laws—bridging a gap that has persisted for more than 120 years.
2025/07/11 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] National Kabob Day: From a Luna Grill advertising flyer. [Center] Twitter (X) memories from July 11, 2018: Clarifying misconceptions about a letter by Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, et al. [Right] In London, theater-goers reenact the storming of the US Capitol.
(2) “These immigrants will infest our country,” said the grandson of a German immigrant, the son of a Scottish immigrant, currently married to a Slovenian immigrant, and divorced from a Czech immigrant.
(3) Iran is moving full-steam toward an energy collapse: Outdated infrastructure and opposition to tiered pricing, from powerful entities that benefit from cheap energy, are the main culprits. Also, the regime has not forgotten that one of the country’s largest street protests was triggered by a sudden increase in gas prices.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- David Gergen, adviser to four presidents of both parties and influential political commentator, dead at 83.
- Iran walks back its claim of shooting down two Israeli F35s and capturing the pilots.
- Senators signal plan to push back against Trump's cuts to NASA & its science programs. [Bloomberg]
- In this humorous Persian poem, Mirzadeh Eshghi criticizes God for creating an imperfect being such as him.
- The history and design of the Eiffel Tower. [5-minute animation]
- A visual tour of the Buckingham Palace and its 775 rooms. [3-minute animation]
- Facebook memory from July 11, 2014: Perspective map of the Los Angeles area.
- Facebook memory from July 11, 2014: Visiting Santa Barbara Zoo with my three children.
(5) Religious authorities in Iran issue fatwas for assassinating Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu: A close ally of Supreme Leader Khamenei criticized President Pezeshkian's negative comments on the fatwas as "destructive views of his West-influenced advisers." [IranWire]
(6) Borowitz Report (humor): White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called an emergency meeting on Tuesday to devise an effective strategy for blaming the Texas floods on immigration. Furious about the slowness of the federal government’s blame response, Miller urged the establishment of a Federal Emergency Blame System which would offer faster scapegoating in the aftermath of natural disasters.
(7) Amir Shobeiry II shared on his Facebook page a question he posed to ChatGPT and the response he received (both in Persian): Is it true that some apparently-reasonable commentary by leftist intellectuals bear anti-Semitic underpinnings? In my view, the AI’s response was measured and insightful.
I submitted the question above to the free on-line version of ChatGPT in English and got a fairly long response that began with: “Yes, it is true that some commentary by leftist intellectuals—while appearing reasonable on the surface—can contain or reflect anti-Semitic underpinnings, even if unintentionally.” The response ended with: “Important Caveat: Not all leftist or progressive critiques fall into this trap. Many leftist thinkers are deeply thoughtful, committed to fighting all forms of bigotry, and careful not to replicate anti-Semitic tropes. However, like in all political or ideological movements, blind spots and prejudices can emerge, especially when identity, power, and global politics are in tension. Would you like specific examples or analysis of contemporary figures or texts where this dynamic appears?”
2025/07/10 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Tonight’s free concert in the park: Captain Cardiac and the Coronaries performed classic rock music from the 1950s & 1960s at Santa Barbara’s Chase Palm Park (videos #1, #2, #3, #4). [Center] Business interests vs. public-health concerns: M&M is fighting RFK Jr.’s battle against food dyes (NYT). [Right] Talangor Group discussion on electric vs. gasoline-powered cars (see the last item below).
(2) "Genes Communicate Through Twisting: The Story of Supercoiling in DNA": This was the title of Wednesday's GRIT lecture at UCSB's Campbell Hall. Every summer, UCSB features a series of talks on Groundbreaking Research and Innovative Technology (GRIT), with this year's offering scheduled on Mondays and Wednesdays, from June 25 to July 21.
Wednesday's talk by Dr. Enoch Yeung (UCSB Dept. of Mechanical Engineering) was about how his Biological Control Lab studies genetics in bacteria, organisms that permeate our bodies and live on everything, from the food we eat to the pets we love. Therefore, studying these tiny creatures, ranging in length from 0.5 to 5.0 micrometers, is important. Among the questions addressed is how mechanical forces in DNA change gene dynamics and cell fate.
(3) Wisconsin mandates faculty across U. Wisconsin System to teach at least 8 courses per academic year, starting Sep. 1, 2026. Higher teaching loads, combined with reduced research funding from federal and state sources, will spell doom for many public universities, which are already at a disadvantage in attracting quality faculty in STEM fields, in view of intense competition from the private sector.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- An article in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists urges Iran to accept a no-enrichment deal.
- Eight OPEC+ countries agree to increase oil production by 548,000 barrels per day next month. [NYT]
- Global & domestic pressures can drive nations toward fragmentation: Can it happen to the US?
- Jupiter, Europe’s first exascale supercomputer, powers up, debuting at No. 4 on the TOP500 list.
- In their WH meeting, Netanyahu informed Trump about his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. [NYT]
- An up-and-coming Canadian band that got on multiple on-line playlists was an AI hoax.
- A visual tour of the White House, where the US President and his aides work. [5-minute video]
- Farhang Foundation’s Festival Beverly Hills: Free event in Beverly Garden Park, Sunday, July 20, 2025.
(5) An under-construction wastewater management tunnel in Los Angeles collapsed, trapping 27 people. Four workers entered the tunnel voluntarily to help their colleagues. All 31 people were recovered safely.
(6) Man climbed onto a ledge on the sixth floor of a Paris building and helped save six people, including two babies, trapped by smoke. An overnight hero, he received a thank-you call from the French President.
(7) Tonight’s Talangor Group Event: Group organizers (Hamid Shirazi, Mohammad Fatehi, Reza Toossi, & Mitra Zaimi) led a discussion on “From Cars Powered by Fossil Fuels to Electric Vehicles.” Topics discussed included historical and technical overviews of EV technology, internal combustion engines, fuels, batteries, motors & generators, other energy sources (besides electricity & gas), and driverless operation. The fairly long program, which spanned 3.5 hours with Q&A, will be made available via Talangor Group’s YouTube channel.
If you are an environmentalist, there is no question that EVs do less harm to the environment. If you want to decide between an EV and a gasoline-powered car based on economic and operational considerations, here are the key factors:
- Hardware costs: Up-front cost, minus resale value, both of which favor gasoline-powered cars in the absence of government subsidies or other incentives. EVs lose value quickly due to a combination of technology obsolescence and battery deterioration.
- Fueling costs: For each mile driven, electricity is cheaper than gas.
- Maintenance costs: This element favors EVs, because they have fewer moving parts and need no oil change.
- Operationally, EV’s limited range, dearth of places to recharge, and longer recharging vs. filling-up time can reduce their attractiveness.
Generally speaking, if you own your home (charging in your garage) and mostly commute to work or drive locally, owning an EV makes economic sense. For renters, the recharging problem may be more challenging.
2025/07/09 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The impact of Israel-Iran war on El Al Airlines and its handling of Israeli citizens wanting to return home. [Center] Facebook memories from years past: A selfie photo and three other shots. [Right] How would you complete this half-verse composed in the style of Ferdowsi? The Municipality of Tehran placed this banner on a bridge and encouraged citizens to submit their compositions. There were quite a few funny submissions and, I am sure, many expletives that they had to censure.
(2) UCSB receives $21.5 million from the trust of visionary philanthropist Roy Eddleman toward the establishment of Eddleman Quantum Institute to support pioneering quantum research and to train the next generation of researchers in this all-important field.
(3) A sad fact about US higher education: In 1978, a student earning minimum wage ($2.65/hr) during summer (13 weeks, 40 hrs/wk) could afford to pay a full year’s in-state tuition (averaging $1369) at a 4-year public university, without going into debt.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- With 106 confirmed deaths and 160+ still missing, death toll in Texas floods may surpass 200.
- Meta reportedly lures Apple’s top AI executive with $10s million annual compensation package.
- The US Supreme Court clears the way for mass-firings at federal agencies, without Congress's input.
- Facebook memory from July 8, 2019: Servitude and idol Worship dooms a country to failure.
- Facebook memory from July 8, 2011: Selected verses from a Persian poem by Bidel Shirazi.
- Facebook memory from July 8, 2011: Selected verses from a Persian poem by Vahshi Bafghi.
- Facebook memory from July 9, 2023: Six-word short story, attributed to Ernest Hemingway.
- Facebook memory from July 9, 2021: Persian music, based on a poem by Fereidoon Moshiri.
(5) The mushroom murders: An Australian woman, who invited four of her estranged husband’s relatives and fed them food containing a highly poisonous mushroom, is convicted of 3 murders and 1 attempted murder.
(6) One hundred years ago today — on July 9, 1925 — Albert Einstein presented his paper on "Unified Field Theory of Gravitation and Electricity" to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin.
(7) Japan's Kyoto Prize in the field of Advanced Technology was awarded to Shun-ichi Amari for his work on neural network dynamics & learning theory, and for the creation of "information geometry.”
(8) Final thought for the day: Elon Musk’s new party is doomed to failure. He might have had a chance in attracting many Americans who are dissatisfied with both major parties, but he burned whatever political capital he had by child-like behavior in Washington, praising Donald Trump & his policies, overt racist statements, and irresponsible chainsaw-style budget & personnel cuts to important government institutions.
2025/07/08 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] On super-intelligent robots and humans (see the next item below). [Right] Ray Jackendoff's A User’s Guide to Thought and Meaning (see the last item below).
(2) What will super-intelligent robots or humans look like? Today, super-intelligent robots are invariably depicted like 2025 humans. This shows a serious lack of imagination. Once robots, and thus humans, become super-intelligent, there is no need for them to look as we do today, because their lives will involve very little physical activity and it will not depend on looks. E. M. Forester, in his wonderful 1909 sci-fi/fantasy short story, The Machine Stops (my 5-star review; see my blog for 2025/07/02), portrays an advanced civilization that has built a machine to take care of everyone’s needs. His story’s humans look more like lumps of flesh and neurons than humans, as we know them today.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Eight OPEC+ countries agree to increase oil production by 548,000 barrels per day next month. [NYT]
- The English language is being shaped by influencers instead of editors and other old-style gatekeepers.
- The Syrian regime’s Islamist tendencies are showing in a clothing directive for beaches & adjacent areas.
- Trump has changed his views on Musk: Formerly a genius & a patriot, he's now off-the-rails & a train-wreck.
(4) Book review: Jackendoff, Ray, A User’s Guide to Thought and Meaning, Oxford U. Press, 2012.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Jackendoff connects themes from linguistics, philosophy, cognitive science, and art. Many aspects of these connections are explored in greater detail in the author’s other books, including the following four:
- Semantics and Cognition
- Consciousness and the Computational Mind
- Foundations of Language
- Language, Consciousness, Culture
This fascinating book is structured in four parts with 43 short chapters averaging under 6 pages each.
- Part One: Language, Words, and Meaning (14 chapters)
- Part Two: Consciousness and Perception (12 chapters)
- Part Three: Reference and Truth (9 chapters)
- Part Four: Rationality and Intuition (8 chapters)
The final chapter in Part One deals with questions of whether our language determines our thoughts. Answers to this question vary. I have previously reviewed Through the Language Glass, by Guy Deutscher, who favors the theory that language does impact how we think. Jackendoff’s answer is more nuanced: The impact of language on thought is dwarfed by the impact of culture.
The final chapter in Part Two deals with “feels” in experience. The dichotomies listed are familiarity vs. novelty, positive vs. negative, sacred vs. taboo, and self-controlled vs. non-self-controlled. The latter dichotomy is related to free will. When we move a leg, the act feels like self-controlled, or coming from us, but what we sometimes call uncontrolled sobbing feels beyond our control.
The final chapter in Part Three deals with our thought process and reaction when we encounter conflicting sources of information. Conflicting information triggers a momentary feeling of confusion or disorientation. As an example, consider that you see a cup within reach but can’t feel anything when you try to touch it. The confusion goes away once you realize that the cup is a virtual-reality image.
The final chapter in Part Four deals with learning to live with multiple perspectives. There is no overarching, perspective-free truth about the world. There are different ways of understanding our world, some of which are more suited to certain kinds of questions. “This is not the ideal solution to the problem of Knowledge, but it’s the best we can do, so we’d better learn to live with it.”
2025/07/07 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Parisians enjoy swimming in the Seine, thanks to a major $1.65 billion cleanup effort before the Paris Olympics. [Center] Math puzzle: Prove that r1 + r2 = r3 + r4. [Right] Farhang Erfani's Iranian Cinema and Philosophy (see the last item below).
(2) Struma disaster: Nearly 800 Jewish refugees died in the 1942 sinking of MV Struma, which had been trying to take them from Romania to Palestine. The smallish iron-hulled ship had been built in 1867 as a steam-powered schooner but had recently been fitted with an unreliable second-hand diesel engine. Struma's diesel engine failed several times between her departure from Constanța on the Black Sea on Dec. 12, 1941, and her arrival in Istanbul on Dec. 15. The passengers were not allowed to disembark from the failed ship on orders from British authorities. On Feb. 23, 1942, with her engine still inoperative and her refugee passengers aboard, Turkish authorities towed Struma from Istanbul through the Bosporus out to the coast of Şile, in North Istanbul. Within hours, on the morning of Feb. 24, the Soviet Shch-213 torpedoed her, killing all but one person on board. The sole survivor, 19-year-old David Stoliar, died in 2014.
[Thanks to Amir Shobeiry II who posted the sad story of Struma in Persian]
(3) Book review: Erfani, Farhang, Iranian Cinema and Philosophy: Shooting Truth, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Iranian cinema, as seen by foreigners, is technically and socially sophisticated, leading to a sustained presence at international film festivals, whereas the domestic production of films is rather childish, consisting manily of formulaic soap operas, tear-jerkers, and hero-saves-woman-in-distress genre.
The Iranian government has always been afraid of, and hostile to, independent-minded filmmakers. Other artists haven’t fared any better. The Shah’s regime supported certain categories of “harmless” films and imposed strict censorship on political dialog. Islamic Republic officials extended the banned content to sex and other forms of intimacy and further tightened political censorship. Yet, filmmakers have found creative ways to portray dissent through allegories and associations, including references to philosophical statements and mythologies.
Connecting various art disciplines to philosophy constitutes a new area of scholarship. Through their exploration of beauty, truth, and meaning, art and philosophy offer us a deeper understanding of the human experience, so it is natural to explore their connections. Erfani’s book is the first to do so for Iranian cinema. The chapter titles, listed below, are suggestive of the categories of film and philosophical notions addressed by Erfani.
- How Orphans Believe: Deleuze, National Cinema, and Majidi’s “The Color of Paradise”
- “What Are Filmmakers for in Needy Times?” On Heidegger and Kiarostami’s “Taste of Cherry”
- Committed Perception: Merleau-Ponty and “Children of Heaven”
- Regarding You: Lacanian Gaze and Ethics in Kiarostoami’s “Close-Up”
- Stolen Jouissance: Lacan, Feminism, and Meshkini’s “The Day I Became a Woman”
- Deafening Silence: Bahman Ghobadi’s “Turtles Can Fly” and Marginal Politics
2025/07/06 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Top 10 global research institutions, by article production during 2024 (chart copied from a LinkedIn post by Jack Wilson): Like all other rankings, this too is likely imperfect and must be used with care, but the trend is unmistakable. The only US institution on the list, Harvard University, is under attack by the Trump administration and will likely regress in future. [Center] Science magazine's cover feature on molecular glue (see the next item below). [Right] Math puzzle: Prove that R/r = phi (the golden ratio).
(2) Featured article in Science magazine, July 3, 2025: Molecular glue degraders (MGDs) can target proteins intractable by classical small-molecule drugs, such as transcription factors relevant in cancer. They catalytically deplete unwanted proteins by reprogramming E3 ubiquitin ligases. A new study has revealed more options for MGDs, raising hopes that some of them can translate into MGDs for targeting previously-inaccessible proteins.
(3) CONCACAF Soccer Gold Cup: Mexico beat USA 2-1 in today's final match to win the Cup for the 10th time. USA and Mexico are powerhouses in the Gold Cup tournament, held since 1991 in its current form, with Mexico winning the Cup 10 times to USA’s 7. Canada is the only other country to have won the Cup (in 2000).
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The death toll from flash floods in central Texas surpasses 100 and is expected to rise further.
- Iran earthquakes: There are speculations that several recent quakes were due to underground nuclear tests.
- Teen math prodigy Hannah Cairo from the Bahamas refutes the old Mizohata-Takeuchi conjecture.
(5) Single-shot flu drug can beat vaccines: A US/UK study shows the drug can protect for an entire flu season. Called CD388, the flu shot contains a version of zanamivir, a flu drug also known as Relenza, reformulated to make it long-lasting rather than requiring daily inhalation. At 76% effectiveness, the drug beats flu vaccine’s average of ~40%.
(6) Pulling water out of thin air becomes more economical: More than 2 billion people worldwide lack access to clean water, a situation that will only get worse as a result of global warming and population growth. Atmospheric water harvesters, devices that produce clean water from the air’s moisture, have existed for decades, but they are rather impractical due to a combination of price, energy needs, and low productivity. Two new classes of materials, hydrogels and metalorganic frameworks, are helping push atmospheric water harvesting into practical domain.
(7) Simin Behbahani must be turning over in her grave: She was an ardent critic of the Islamic regime in Iran, writing the poem “I Will Rebuild You, Oh My Homeland” to indicate that Iran will need serious rebuilding once the mullahs’ rule comes to an end. Now, in an ironic twist after the 12-day war with Israel, the mullahs have appropriated her poem for use in religious mourning ceremonies (tweet, with video), hoping to survive by appealing to Iranians’ sense of nationalism.
2025/07/05 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] CACM publishes a special section on sustainability in its July 2025 issue (see the next item below). [Center] Two schools on my Thursday's walking path: Hope elementary school and Bishop Diego high school. [Right] Last night’s 4th-of-July drone light show in Goleta's Dos Pueblos High School was modest (150 drones), but the cheering crowd appreciated this first-time effort (video).
(2) Communications of the ACM's special section on sustainability: Topics covered include understanding the environmental impact of generative AI devices, making AI less thirsty (for power), why efficiency isn’t enough for environmentally-sustainable AI, Brazil’s perspective on sustainable computing, environmentally-equitable AI, energy-optimized supercomputing networks using wind energy, full-stack recycling approaches for computing devices, environmental computing as a branch of science, and continuous Earth observation of forest dynamics and biodiversity.
(3) All 10 University of California campuses are on the list of world’s best universities: With regard to research impact, 8 UC campuses, including UCSB, are among the top 25 US public universities, according to US News & World Report’s 2025-2026 Best Global Universities ranking.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Catholic bishops express concerns about the impact of "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" on the poor & vulnerable.
- Israel’s attack on Iran has revealed deep fissures and competing gangs within IRGC.
- At least 24 are killed in Texas flood, and 20 girls from summer camp are missing. [NYT]
- Wildfires are 5+ times more likely to start on July 4-5 than the average for other days of the year. [NYT]
- Borowitz Report (humor): Americans favor work requirements for billionaires receiving tax cuts.
- An amazing live rendition of the Great Wall of China in a mural. [3-minute video]
- Thursday’s concert at Santa Barbara’s Chase Palm Park: Molly Ringwald Project. [Video 1] [Video 2]
- The man who aspired to make the Grey Poupon of ketchup: Malcolm Gladwell’s 2004 New Yorker article.
(5) Math puzzles about voting anomalies: In the July 2025 issue of Communications of the ACM, Dennis Shasha poses interesting puzzles under the heading “Electoral Trickery: Factoring Primary Numbers.” During the fall 2024 quarter, I taught a UCSB graduate seminar entitled “Mathematical, Algorithmic, and Engineering Aspects of Democratic Elections,” in which such voting anomalies and more were discussed. Here's the seminar’s Web page, where you can find the syllabus, references, and presentation slides.
(6) For its survival, the Iranian regime is trying to appeal to people’s nationalistic sentiments: Even in religious mourning ceremonies, Iran, rather than Islam, has become front and center. [Video]
2025/07/04 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Happy Birthday to America (see the next item below). [Center] Pope Francis' autobiography (see the last item below). [Right] Santa Barbara Courthouse celebrates 4th of July.
(2) Two quotes about freedom for the occasion of celebrating America's 249th birthday:
- “Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.” ~ Albert Camus
- “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
(3) Quote of the day: "Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on." ~ Thurgood Marshall
(4) Book review: Pope Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and Carlo Musso, Hope: The Autobiography, Viking, 2025. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis [1936-2025] was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State for 12 years, beginning in 2013. He was the first Jesuit pope, the first Latin American, and the first born or raised outside Europe since the 8th-century Syrian pope Gregory III. When Francis died on April 21, 2025, I discovered this book, published ~3 months before his death. I guess many other people were also trying to find information on the late Pope, hence the long wait at my local library.
Pope Francis was noted for his humility, informal demeanor, emphasis on God's mercy, concern for the poor, and commitment to interfaith dialogue. He was against unbridled capitalism (including consumerism, over-development, & climate-change denialism), Marxism, or Marxist versions of liberation theology. Corruption of culture and threat to youngsters posed by unregulated media was another concern of Francis. The book contains almost nothing on the subject of sex, a major obsession of Catholicism. In international relations, he was instrumental in restoring full diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba.
It is rare for popes to write autobiographies. Francis felt compelled to do it, with ghost-writer and publisher Carlo Musso, because he wanted to send the message that his mission to reform the Catholic church and re-engage it with the modern world, is unfinished. He was too frail to travel around the world and give sermons/speeches, so he chose the memoir format. Among the interesting tidbits in the book is his denial of speculation that he proposed marriage to two women before feeling called by God in his late teens. We read in the introduction that “an autobiography is not our private story, but rather the baggage we carry with us.” This is such a profound statement; I’ll make sure to quote him in my own memoir!
Nearly half of the book is devoted to family life. Francis describes his younger years in great detail, but his recall is much more selective in the remaining half of the book. He tells stories about how his own and his family’s experiences, such as what his father witnessed during military service in World War I, shaped his opposition to wars and his plea for more compassion toward those fleeing their home countries. While quick to point out his accomplishments in many areas, he understates his role in Catholicism’s colossal failure to protect children from predatory priests.
I guess the expectation of greater openness and enlightened opinions from such a conservative figure is misguided. Francis can be viewed in a positive light, when compared against other popes in our memory, but we must remember that he maintained the traditional views of the church regarding abortion, euthanasia, contraception, homosexuality, ordination of women, and priestly celibacy. He stated that homosexuality isn’t a crime and that we should be kind to homosexuals, but maintained that any sexual act outside of marriage is a sin.
2025/07/03 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] What 730 days in captivity does to a prisoner of war and his significant other. [Center] Throwback Thursday: Partial list of 1963-64 graduates of Tehran’s Alborz High School (I am the second person in the left column). [Right] Talangor Group's talk on Arash, the Archer (see the last item below).
(2) Once again, Republicans feigned adherence to principles in opposing Trump’s mega-bill, but at the time of voting, only 3 actually opposed it, making it possible for the bill to pass with VP’s tie-breaking vote.
(3) Wait for the verdict “AI is the enemy of the people”: Five AI models were asked to fact-check Donald Trump and he won’t like the results. [Washington Post study]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- After 30 years of service to UCSB, Chancellor Henry Yang steps down & returns to teaching/research.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy: Techniques and exercises for ADHD, anxiety, & more. [5-minute video]
- AI-generated video shows what we would see inside if we cut a planet or the Sun in half.
- Facebook memory from July 2, 2017: An adult president’s reaction to disrespect.
(5) "Thinking About Thinking in a Digital World": This was the title of yesterday's GRIT lecture at UCSB's Campbell Hall. Every summer, UCSB features a series of talks on Groundbreaking Research and Innovative Technology (GRIT), with this year's offering scheduled on Mondays and Wednesdays, from June 25 to July 21.
Yesterday's talk by Dr. Kristy A. Hamilton (UCSB Dept. of Communication) was in the area of metacognition, the awareness of how you learn, think, & solve problems and using that awareness to make smarter choices. While technology can stimulate and expand our thinking, it can also stifle and constrain it.
Search fluency via smart electronic devices is often mistaken for understanding, because it inflates our internal knowledge confidence. There are ongoing discussions about how the use of generative AI can undermine our writing skills. Overconfidence in our thinking prowess is even more dangerous.
Dr. Hamilton's research deals with:
- Understanding how affordances of digital media affect decisions about when and how to use technology
- Knowing how to self-assess the state of information “in your head” and out in the world (i.e., metacognitive monitoring) while navigating a digital environment
- Understanding how to regulate and adjust one’s cognitive strategies while using technology
(6) Tonight's Talangor Group meeting: Dr. Elaheh Tabesh spoke under the title “Arash the Archer: A Model of Courage and Selflessness.” Before the main talk, Hamid Shirazi made a short presentation on the 12-day war in Iran.
I was only able to stay for the short presentation. Please check Talangor Group’s YouTube channel, where a recording of the talk will be posted in a few days.
2025/07/02 (Wednesday): Today, I offer two book reviews; the first book has been translated into Persian.
(1) Book review: Forester, E. M., The Machine Stops, unabridged 1-hour audiobook, read by Jerome Lawson, Author’s Republic, 2017 (the original was published in 1909, along with several other short stories).
[Cover image of the book's Persian translation by Ali Mansouri is depicted in the middle above]
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This is a prophetic sci-fi/fantasy story that has had a great impact on my life. I first read it in 1972, as I began to write my PhD dissertation, which was completed in early 1973 at UCLA. My dissertation focused on design techniques for associative memories and processors, with particular emphasis on fault tolerance methods. At the beginning of each chapter, I used a quote from Edward Morgan Forester’s The Machine Stops, which is the story of a civilization totally controlled by and dependent on an omnipotent Machine, which in turn was kept functioning through the provision of a “Mending Apparatus” that automatically repaired any failures and imperfections. All was well for the machine, until the Mending Apparatus itself failed.
As in nearly all sci-fi/fantasy stories about authoritarian regimes, there is a small group of enlightened citizens who want to have more control over their lives, but these rebels are viewed with suspicion by submissive citizens, who don’t want to rock the boat for fear of losing their privileges and comfortable lives.
One of Forester’s visualizations struck me as insightful, in light of extensive ongoing discussions on AI and super-intelligent robots/beings. In lectures/webinars/books, such super-intelligent beings are invariably depicted like present-day humans, usually very good-looking, well-built, and, in the case of women, voluptuous. In reality, humans may evolve to resemble shapeless lumps of flesh and neurons, given that they will not have to do much in way of physical activity. This is how Forester depicts the humans in his story, all of them living in identical standard rooms, or cells, in underground cities, rarely venturing to Earth’s surface.
The protagonists are Vashti, a submissive, productive citizen, and her son Kuno, a rebel. They live on opposite sides of the world. Kuno persuades his reluctant mother to endure the journey to his room. Such journeys and the accompanying personal interactions are frowned upon in Forester’s tale. As a result of this journey, Vashti finds out about what her son has been up to and scorns him for not following “The Book of the Machine” and putting the society in danger, before going back to living her own life.
In time, the society decides not to permit the use of respirators, which citizens need for occasional, approved visits to Earth’s surface. Most citizens welcome this development, as they have come to dislike first-hand experiences, in the same way as personal interactions. A more-important development is that the Machine begins to malfunction. At first, humans accept the deteriorating situation as the whim of the Machine on which they have become totally dependent.
Finally, the Machine’s collapse becomes total as the Mending Apparatus itself fails and thus becomes incapable of performing the voluminous repairs. Meanwhile, the knowledge of repairs has been lost to humans. Kuno comes to Vashti’s ruined room in the final moments, before they both perish. It will fall to the rebel surface-dwellers, who still exist, to rebuild the human race and to avoid a misguided reliance on another Machine.
(2) Book review: Rutter, Tom, Shakespeare and Science, Oxford U. Press, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
When one thinks of Shakespeare, science isn’t a topic that readily comes to mind. His plays feature fairies, ghosts, and spirits, which are rather distant from science. Even though Shakespeare did use the word “science” on a few occasions, what we call science today was known as “natural philosophy” in his day.
Thomas M. Rutter (U. Sheffield) suggests that, in his plays and poems, Shakespeare made detailed use of the knowledge and theories about the cosmos, the natural world, and human biology that were available to him. These range from astronomical & anatomical ideas derived from medieval scholars, Islamic philosophers, and ancient Greek & Roman authorities, to the challenges issued to those models by more recent figures such as Copernicus and Vesalius.
Rutter makes his case in four chapters.
- Chapter 1, entitled “Things in Heaven and Earth,” focuses on astronomy and meteorology.
- Chapter 2, entitled “Matter,” pertains to various views of matter, elemental theory, and alchemy.
- Chapter 3, entitled “The Body,” examines how human body’s structures/processes are deployed.
- Chapter 4, entitled “Maths,” considers the use of imagery related to Hindu-Arabic numerals.
You can read the book’s chapters on this OUP Web site.
2025/07/01 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Universities are about more than education: They feed our culture and economy. [Center] While waiting at the doctor’s office, I made good progress in completing parts of a jigsaw puzzle and organizing the remaining pieces. [Right] Leonard Mlodinow's The Drunkard’s Walk (see the last item below).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Explosion at a pharmaceutical factory in southern India kills at least 36. [Washington Post]
- Operation Gold Rush, the largest-ever health care fraud bust, stops $10 billion in Medicare payouts. [WaPo]
- One by one, Republicans are self-deporting from Congress when they disagree with Trump.
- AI & 3D-printing are revolutionizing dentistry: Regenerative bio-printed tissue can replace teeth & gums.
(3) Book review: Mlodinow, Leonard, The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, Vintage, 2009.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
We humans are notoriously weak in understanding probabilities, those of rare events in particular. In The Improbability Principle, David J. Hand busts the myth that lightening never strikes the same person twice and other fallacies regarding rare events. You may shrug your shoulders and say: “So what. I know little about physics, biology, medicine; let’s add probability to the list.” The difference is that familiarity with probability and statistics affects your decision-making and thus the quality of your life.
We tend to think that our decisions are based on logical analysis to the best of our abilities and often dismiss the role of chance. In reality, chance plays an outsize role. We tend to see order in randomness and randomness in order. There is the story of a Spanish man who was asked how he chose the winning lottery number 48. Here’s his response: For seven nights in a row, I dreamt of the number 7, so I said 7 x 7 = 48, and I bet on 48. In effect, he credited his good decision-making for his winning, which really resulted from a silly error and pure chance.
Randomness is less intuitive than other subjects of study. This is why the notion of probability was introduced later than many other mathematical concepts. According to Mlodinow: "The study of randomness tells us that the crystal ball view of events is possible, unfortunately, only after they happen." In politics, the should-have-known blame game is often played after some catastrophic event: Think Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and Benghazi. Mlodinow also reveals how randomness may have played a role in the lives of some famous people, such as Bruce Willis and Bill Gates. Yes, there is a connection between talent and success, but random influences are more important than we might think.
Mlodinow teaches us about deep mathematical truths using easy-to-understand anecdotes. In the chapter "False Positives and Positive Fallacies," Mlodinow brings to life the concept of conditional probability and the development of conspiracy theories. He notes that the appeal of many conspiracy theories results from “confusing the probability that a series of events would happen if it were a product of a huge conspiracy with the probability that a huge conspiracy exists if a series of events occurs."
Our intuitive decision-making machinery and processes are ill-suited to the complexities of the modern world. Examples cited are the Monty Hall Problem and Daniel Kahneman’s study about whether positive or negative feedback is more effective in improving the performance of a group of Israeli fighter pilots. In the latter case, random fluctuations of performance were mistaken for the impact of reward or punishment. Other concepts are expectancy and confirmation biases, where we preferentially seek evidence to confirm our expectations or support our biases. The latter happens frequently in politics, which can lead to further polarization.
2025/06/30 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Walking near Goleta's Devereux Slough on a Sunday afternoon. [Center] Math puzzle: In this diagram of two rectangles connected by three parallel lines, find x. [Right] A different kind of fruit cake for a summer afternoon.
(2) A June 2024 cyberattack on Synnovis, which provides blood testing, transfusion, and other pathology services to the UK National Health Service, contributed to a patient's death.
(3) Film censorship: Iranian filmmakers are often praised for making engaging films in the face of strict government censorship. US filmmakers faced a milder version of self-imposed censorship from 1934 to 1968. Here are 10 films that skirted those rules.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- A new smart pill can monitor glucose, temperature, serotonin levels, and more after ingestion.
- A Tesla Model Y left the factory in Austin and drove 30 miles to the new owner's home, unassisted.
- History quiz: What is the average number of years a US president serves in office?
- Facebook memory from June 29, 2017: The day I created a fake magazine cover for myself.
- Facebook memory from June 29, 2017: A challenging logical-reasoning puzzle.
- Facebook memory from June 30, 2020: On the resilience and adaptability of universities.
(5) More than one-third of residents on the island nation of Tuvalu have applied for Australian “climate visas”: The first-of-its-kind program represents an effort to assist populations most at risk from rising sea levels.
(6) My 2 rials on the conflict in Iran (for those not familiar with Iranian currency, 2 rials is a lot less than 2 cents; ~10,000 times less): Iran is completely isolated in its fight against Israel & the US, a consequence of decades of chanting death to this & death to that, hostage-taking, assassinations in Europe and elsewhere, and indirect/proxy regional wars. Russia is too busy with its own war to care. China supports Iran in words, but other than taking the opportunity to sell Iran a large number of fighter jets, has done nothing. Countries in the region talk of Islamic solidarity, but have stayed clear of the conflict. Israel is justifying its attacks on account of self-defense. Iran is claiming violations of international laws, as if the mullahs themselves are models of honoring international laws. Hoping that cooler heads prevail in Iran and some in the ruling class realize, before it’s too late, that they can’t fight the entire world.
(7) Final thought for the day: A true leader leads quietly and selflessly. S/He absorbs pressures and shocks, communicating his/her thoughts and strategies to people in order to reassure and comfort them. S/He does not issue endless statements about how everything is messed up, how wonderful s/he is, and how despicable his/her critics are.
2025/06/29 (Sunday): Today, I offer a report on a museum visit.
(1) My visit of June 24 to Santa Barbara Historical Museum: [Top left & center] The building & its lobby (see item 2 below). [Top right] Centennial exhibit, “1925: Santa Barbara Remembers the Earthquake” (see item 3 below). [Bottom left & center] Signature exhibit, "Welcome to the Story of Santa Barbara" (see item 4 below). [Bottom right] Special exhibit, "Don Louis Perceval: His Vision of the West" (see item 5 below).
(2) Santa Barbara Historical Museum: The Museum’s building was erected in 1965 by the Santa Barbara Historical Society, a California non-profit corporation. The Society also acquired two adobes adjacent to the museum grounds from the Rancheros Visitadores, the 1817 Covarrubias Adobe and the Historic Adobe, c. 1836. The museum’s main building constitutes a highly popular wedding venue. [Wikipedia]
(3) Santa Barbara Historical Museum: The special centennial exhibit “1925: Santa Barbara Remembers the Earthquake” depicts Santa Barbara downtown’s devastation caused by a 6.3 quake, which struck at 6:42 AM on June 29, 1925. Structures outside the downtown area were mostly unharmed. The dam at Sheffield Reservoir gave way, flooding part of the lower Eastside. Had the quake struck later, during work hours, the death toll (~10 people) would have been much higher. By studying the Spanish-style buildings that had sustained no damage, city leaders devised a plan to rebuild.
An interesting feature of the exhibit is the use of projectors to display a slide show on the white wall, allowing visitors to see many more photos of the destruction at different sites and from different angles.
(4) Santa Barbara Historical Museum: The Museum’s vibrant signature exhibition, “Welcome to the Story of Santa Barbara,” traces the region’s evolution from the time of the native Chumash people through the mid-20th century, including the glamorous film era of the 1920s when our city was home to a major film studio (Flying A Studio), the legendary Old Spanish Days Fiesta festival, and many captivating people and events that shaped Santa Barbara into the modern-day American Riviera.
(5) Santa Barbara Historical Museum: The exhibition “Don Louis Perceval: His Vision of the West” captures the works and influence of artist & commercial illustrator Don Louis Perceval [1908-1979], born to an artist mother in England and later moving to California owing to his fascination with the American Southwest and the art, history, & culture of the Hopi and Navajo peoples.
2025/06/28 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A greener Amazon: Solar-powered boats allow Indigenous people to navigate the river without polluting it. [Center] How much the tax portion of Trump's “Big Beautiful Bill” would add to the deficits over 10 years. [Right] A local shop in Goleta, CA, posted this sign at its entrance to prohibit ICE agents from entering the private areas of the business without a court warrant.
(2) Happy tau day (6/28): Most people know about pi day, celebrated on 3/14. However, 2pi, or tau, is a more fundamental scientific constant, because it represents the ratio of circle’s circumference to its radius. [Read]
(3) Aftermath of LA fires: In many of the homes that survived, toxic smoke seeped in through vents and under doorways. Industrial hygienists found alarming levels of carcinogens & poisons in every room of a home. [NYT]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Iran beyond the headlines: Jon Stewart talks to Maziar Bahari. [88-minute podcast]
- Activist/Journalist Masih Alinejad addresses Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.
- Will Israeli & US attacks on Iran lead to regime change? Podcast of NPR interview with Karim Sadjadpour.
- Hundreds of Iranians arrested for alleged links to Israel: Several were immediately executed.
- Assault-weapons ban isn’t just a liberal issue: Pres. Reagan favored it. Justice Scalia ruled it constitutional.
- The man with a golden toilet & frequent golfing vacations thinks we have too many non-working holidays!
- California court says copyrighted books are fair use for AI training.
- UCSB announces the 2025 GRIT talks (Ground-breaking Research & Innovative Technology), 6/25 to 7/21.
- A detailed look into US military’s research on alien spacecraft technology & lies to conceal the program.
- New social trend: Brooklyn now has laundromats that double as coffee shops, bars, & hangout spots. [NYT]
(5) “Tatami,” an Iranian film, portraying the challenges of a female athlete aspiring to win a gold medal amid misogyny and politics of hate, opens in Los Angeles and New York.
(6) Some of the claims of the humiliated Islamic regime in Iran after the 12-day war in June 2025:
- We scored an absolute victory over Israel and the US.
- There is no evidence that Israeli jets flew over Tehran.
- B-2 bombers did very little damage to our nuclear sites.
- Our nuclear program will continue with no major interruption.
(7) Evolution: Cod fish are shrinking. Scientists believe it’s because evolution is selecting for smaller fish that are less likely to be caught in fishing nets.
(8) Elon Musk’s tweet of June 23, 2025: “We will use Grok ... , which has advanced reasoning, to rewrite the entire corpus of human knowledge, adding missing information and deleting errors. Then retrain on that. Far too much garbage in any foundation model trained on uncorrected data.” Get ready for the MAGA version of world history and encyclopedia! I've just finished reading Jason Stanley’s Erasing History (review forthcoming) about how fascist regimes rewrite inconvenient parts of their nation’s history to consolidate their power.
2025/06/26 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday: My search engine in the early 1970s, when I did research for my MS & PhD theses. [Center] IEEE Spectrum magazine’s cover feature for June 2025: Self-balancing exoskeletons redefine mobility. [Right] Talangor Group talk on the war in Iran (see the last item below).
(2 "Women in STEM: A Student Panel": This was the title of today's live Coursera webinar, a bit of an infomercial for Coursera, but also containing some useful content.
Current engineering students from Dartmouth, UC Berkeley, Northeastern, and CU Boulder discussed their experiences as women in STEM fields. All four women hold full-time jobs and pursue their master's degrees on-line. They covered topics such as why they chose engineering & how they got started, their on-line degree experiences, finding support, mentorship, & community, and tips for future students navigating STEM fields.
(3) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Kazem Alamdari (author, sociologist) spoke under the title "Nuclear-Military Defeat: A New Order in the Middle East and the World?"
Since World War I, we have gone through six new world orders (an event that is triggered by a major crisis), the last of which came about after the Arab Spring. The 12-day war in Iran will certainly lead to a new regional order and perhaps even to a new world order. According to NYT journalist Thomas Friedman, this war will play the same role in the Middle East as World War II played in Europe.
Islamic Republic of Iran has officially stated its goal of annihilating Israel for decades. Under the direction of Qasem Soleimani, 5 or 6 proxy forces were created to ensure that any war with Iran's foes would be fought outside the country's borders. Under constant threats from Iran, Israel had been beefing up its defensive and offensive forces for decades. With the demise of Soleimani and nearly all his proxy forces, the time was ripe for Israel to strike Iran inside its borders.
The fact that the 12-day war may lead to major reforms or even regime change in Iran is incidental, as Israel and the US attacked Iran for their own goals, not for the benefit of Iranian people. Many Iranians, inside Iran or in diaspora, are conflicted about the 12-day war. They rejoice at the elimination of substantial weakening of brutal regime elements, while at the same time worrying about casualties and damages from an all-out assault on their motherland.
The main consequence of the 12-day war is the establishment of a new order in the Middle East. Islamic Republic of Iran has been substantially weakened and signatories of the Abraham Accords have become more prominent. Russia and China have stayed out of the conflict, issuing only pro-forma statements. Despite a humiliating military defeat, Iran's governing structure is still intact. In such a situation, speaking of a transition period (led by Reza Pahlavi or anyone else) is premature.
Dr. Alamdari is hopeful that the Iranian regime might rearrange its priorities, stating explicitly that it is no longer after the annihilation of Israel and reallocating the vast budgets of its nuclear program and support for proxy forces to solving major economic shortcomings, such as the electricity crisis. Along with these changes, foreign investments and open trade with the word will likely improve the country's economic outlook.
In my view, Dr. Alamdari's optimism may be misguided. Khamenei was a figurehead who derived his power from the adulation of those around him and yes-men who praised his wisdom, even as he made disastrous decisions. His weakening will only make the real power centers around him stronger. The economic Mafia and the immense security, interrogation, and prison apparatus will resist any changes and cannot be simply pushed aside. Ditto for mullahs and other officials who have amassed wealth (some owning dozens of luxury houses and expensive land parcels) under the current regime's corrupt management.
2025/06/25 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Schrodinger’s immigrants: They are both too lazy to work and take away jobs from Americans. [Center] Cartoon of the day: Rulers fight, people crave peace. [Right] Socrates Think Tank talk on AI singularity and its econmic/social impacts (see the last item below).
(2) A Japanese adage: If you realize you are on the wrong train, get off at the first station. The longer you stay on the train, the more expensive your return trip will be.
(3) Tonight’s Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Mohsen Attaran spoke under the title “Singularity: The Role of AI and Its Economic and Social Impacts.” There were ~130 attendees.
In the first half of his talk, Dr. Attaran reviewed the development of AI from performing narrow functions as human assistant, moving toward broader intelligence, and aiming for artificial general intelligence (AGI).
The notion of singularity (“takinegui,” in Persian) shows up in multiple domains, including mathematics (discontinuity), cosmology (the Big Bang), and economics (near-total elimination of manual labor). Technological singularity refers to the point in time when AI surpasses humans in intelligence and thus other capabilities. We now have what might be called narrow AI, which is gradually broadening. The next step will be AGI, which is estimated to arrive in a decade or so, achieving singularity a decade later. The last step in this journey will be the achievement of mind-uploading and digital immortality, perhaps in the second half of the current century.
Dr. Attaran cited several books dealing with the notion of singularity, including two books by Ray Kurtzweil, The Singularity Is Near (my review) and The Singularity Is Nearer (my review), J. Craig Wheeler’s The Path to Singularity, and Murray Patrick Shanahan’s The Technological Singularity. My reviews of Kurzweil’s books contain summaries of their content. Wheeler presents a balanced view, acknowledging both utopian possibilities (improved standard of living, eradication of disease) and dystopian dangers (loss of control, abuse of power). Shanahan talks about whole-brain simulation and intelligence explosion.
In the second half of his talk, Dr. Attaran focused on what he called God-like AI, resulting from exponential self-improvement along with self-replication. Modern thinkers have different opinions of the impacts of God-like AI:
- Ray Kurzweil is optimistic, envisioning benevolent super-intelligence.
- Nick Bostrom fears that super-intelligent systems may be misaligned with human values.
- Isaac Asimov advocates for maintaining control through ethics.
- Eliezer Yudkowsky hopes for friendly intelligence but is also worried about unintended consequences.
- Religious thinkers are hostile to the notion of human-made God.
Regardless of how super-intelligence is developed and its benefits & risks, the possibility of super-inequality, between those who have control over super-AI and those who don’t, is something to think about.
2025/06/24 (Tuesday): Random musings, in 10 parts, of an anxious Iranian-American on the war involving Islamic Republic of Iran, Israel, and the United States, with the oppressed people of Iran constituting the fourth side of the conflict.
(1) Dime-a-dozen commentators and "analysts": Who are these people posting stories and offering analyses on the Iran-Israel-US conflict? I don't recall seeing any of them before. They never cite a source, but speak confidently about what is going to happen. Many of them ask Iranians to get ready for the return of "The King."
(2) A weakened Islamic Republic of Iran is potentially more dangerous: In the event of Iran’s Islamist regime surviving after its humiliating military defeat, watch it try to project strength through desperate acts, including hostage-taking and terrorism.
(3) Uranium enrichment: New US intelligence assessments suggest that the mullahs' atomic program has been set back by a few months, not obliterated. If true, this may be the worst possible outcome for the Iranian people. Spending huge sums of money on rebuilding the damaged facilities, along with economic stagnation and domestic crackdown in the guise of eliminating Israeli spies, will make people's lives miserable.
(4) Stockpiles of enriched uranium: Before the Fordow underground nuclear facility was hit by US's bunker-buster bombs, satellite images showed a long line of trucks waiting on its access road. Apparently, Iran moved its stockpile of enriched uranium to other locations. Israel claims that it knows the whereabouts of the stockpile, but does not intend to bomb them for fear of a nuclear catastrophe.
(5) Exposure of the Wizard of Oz: The conflict has shown that the blustering Khamenei and his top-level allies have no clothes, emboldening the Iranian people to shout their dissatisfaction and demand their rights, once the dust settles. This could potentially lead to some defections in the ranks of military and security forces, but also a brutal crackdown on dissent by those that remain loyal.
(6) I hate the term MIGA: If you want to coin a slogan, at least try to be original. Use elements from Iran's rich history and literature to come up with something genuinely Iranian.
(7) Misogyny and patriarchy: I am distraught by the vile language used by many of the commentators (almost exclusively men), threatening their adversaries and their female family members with sexual violence. These goons consider their sexual organs as weapons to be used against all who disagree with them. They don't seem to have learned anything from Iran’s youth and #WomanLifeFreedom movements.
(8) Divisions among Iranians: The people of Iran are predominantly against the Islamic regime and its thieves & thugs that have wrecked the country's economy & environment and have rendered its currency worthless. These days, however, the regime's opposition has been divided into a large group that blames Khamenei and his goons for bringing war to their country and a smaller group that views rallying around the regime as the safer alternative.
(9) Opposition groups outside Iran: No meaningful activity is apparent, except the various groups blaming and cursing each other. The only fairly organized group consists of the followers of Reza Pahlavi, who has gone from claiming that he wants to lead Iran during the transition period only, to taking on the official title "King Reza II." A vast majority of educated and enlightened Iranians reject monarchy as Iran's future form of government.
(10) Prospects for peace: A fragile ceasefire seems to be holding, but the overt war, following decades of the mullahs calling for the destruction of Israel and having their minions chant "Death to Israel" and "Death to America," has opened a can of worms that would be hard to close.
2025/06/23 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] There are signs that peace, or at least some form of truce, might prevail between Iran & Israel. Both countries have suffered much damage. It is said that Israel might be close to running out of defensive ammunition (although buying additional supplies should not be difficult for them) and Iran may have exhausted its supply of long-range missiles. [Center] Iran’s billboard counting down to the destruction of Israel is still being updated: Only 5569 days (15 years & 3 months) left! Late-night update: Israel has struck and destroyed the billboard. [Right] Vaclav Smil's How to Feed the World (see the last item below).
(2) In the Iran-Israel war, there is a major difference between the two sides: Israel does not want to wipe Iran off the map or turn it into a Jewish state, after throwing all the Muslims out.
(3) Iran is collecting real-time intelligence on Israel by hacking into poorly-protected private security cameras: Their goal is to assess the damage from ballistic missiles in Tel Aviv and to gain improved precision.
(4) One-liners: Brief ne]ws headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Detailed assessment of damage to Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan nuclear sites. [WaPo satellite images]
- Israel bombs the gates of Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, where political prisoners are kept.
- Iran strikes a major US base in Qatar, after notifying the Qataris and, through them, the US.
- Why has Iran been prone to dictatorial rule over the ages? [BBC Persian Pargar Program: Part 1; Part 2]
(5) Book review: Smil, Vaclav, How to Feed the World: The History and Future of Food, unabridged 8-hour audiobook, read by Joe Jameson, Penguin Audio, 2025.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book is faithful to Vaclav Smil’s style of deep research and data-based analysis. I have previously read and offered 4-star reviews of three of Smil’s vast collection of books:
- Numbers Don’t Lie: 71 Things You Need to Know About the World [My review]
- Size: How It Explains the World [My review]
- Invention and Innovation: A Brief History of Hype and Failure [My review]
Smil (Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Environment, U. Manitoba) offers a comprehensive analysis of how the world produces and consumes its food—and an interdisciplinary scientist's exploration of how we can successfully feed a growing population without killing the planet.
Today, the world has many more mouths to feed than ever before. And yet, we lack a good idea of where our food really comes from, how our dietary requirements shape us, and why this impacts our planet in drastic ways. Consequently, we take for granted and fail to prioritize food, the thing that makes all our lives possible.
Smil investigates many of the world’s burning questions. Why do some of the biggest food-producing countries also have the most undernourished populations? Why do we waste so much food and how can we avoid that? Could the whole planet go vegan and be healthy? He explores the global history of food production to understand why we rear some animals and not others, why most of the world’s calories come from just a few foodstuffs, and how this might change in the future.
True to Smil’s rigorous style of writing, How to Feed the World is a data-based, deeply-researched guide that offers solutions to our broken global food system.
2025/06/22 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The diabetes plate: An easy method to organize & control your portions on a 9-inch plate; half non-starchy vegetables, one-quarter carbs, one-quarter protein. [Center] "In the Summertime": Some memories from 55 years ago (see the last item below). [Right] Damage to Iran’s underground nuclear facility at Fordow extensive, despite denials by Iran’s state TV (see the next two items below).
(2) Lies, damn lies: Iran’s state media claim that there is no signs of attack at Fordow.
(3) Iran denies attack on Fordow underground nuclear site: While top Islamist leaders are in hiding, this Iranian state-TV reporter threatens US authorities with sending them 40K to 50K coffins containing US troops in the region. He also says that killing any US citizen, soldier or civilian, is fair game for Iran.
(4) Domestic crackdown out of embarrassment: Iran's mullahs are arresting citizens and charging them with spying for Israel. Accusation of spying was also widespread during the 1980s war with Iraq. Baha'i citizens are in particularly grave danger.
(5) Santa Barbara's 51st Summer Solstice Festival continued at Alameda Park, today.
- The main stage featured Raggae music performances all day. [Sample]
- There was a second music stage, where a DJ played soul music. [Sample]
- Arts & crafts booths: There was a significant law-enforcement presence, but no ICE agents.
(6) In the summertime (memories coming to life from one summer, 55 years ago):
My summer break began in earnest yesterday, after composing and sending feedback to my students regarding their research papers on computer arithmetic. Attending the 51st edition of Santa Barbara’s Summer Solstice Parade on the first full day of summer made my transition into summer mode official.
As I was driving a couple of days ago, the song “In the Summertime” by Mungo Jerry came on the radio and took me back to the summer of 1970, when the song would play endlessly on radio stations.
Despite its nonsensical lyrics, I found the song a wonderful companion, as I worked to finish my MS thesis at Oregon State University that summer. I had moved out of the graduate dorm, Sackett Hall, and had rented an apartment in Corvallis, hoping to submit my thesis before the end of the summer, so that I could move to UCLA in time to start my doctoral studies that fall. When I finished writing the thesis, I rented a typewriter and bought ~100 sheets of high-quality paper and got busy typing. I was pretty slow, so I had to type from morning to evening each day. My apartment had very little in way of conveniences. Every hour or so, I’d get up from my rather uncomfortable chair to stretch and listen to some music. Invariably, “In the Summertime” would play on the radio and I began high-stepping on a small carpet that I had. I’m no dancer, as many people can testify, but the song somehow made me move to its infectious beat.
Typing was torturous. Getting the text formatting, equations, and diagrams right sometimes took multiple tries. I stayed with it and eventually submitted my thesis with time to spare before my self-imposed deadline.
Later, encouraged by my advisor, Prof. Robert A. Short, I published my results in a short paper entitled “Stochastic Automata and the Problems of Reliability in Sequential Machines” in IEEE Trans. Computers.
The thesis & the paper, more than anything else, instilled in me the love of research and were thus responsible for the ensuing 53-year academic career, about to come to a close with my retirement at the end of 2025.
2025/06/21 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top row and Bottom left] Today's Summer Solstice Parade (see the next item below). [Bottom center & right] The US joins Israel in attacking Iran's nuclear facilities (see the last item below).
(2) Santa Barbara's 51st Summer Solstice Parade: The annual Parade marched for about a mile along Santa Barbara Street. My daughter and I arrived an hour before the noon start time, as the marching groups were hanging out and getting ready. Other photos show the Parade passing in front of the majestic Santa Barbara Courthouse, some marching groups with colorful costumes, and my daughter dancing. [Video 1] [Video 2]
A team, marching to 1920s jazz music, emulated the 1925 quake that devastated SB 100 years ago.
(3) Writing and reading research papers in the age of generative-AI: To write a paper, give bullet points to ChatGPT and ask it to write the paper. To read a paper, ask ChatGPT to summarize the paper in bullet points. Well, why don’t we eliminate the middleman by publishing papers in bullet-point format?
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Khamenei is hiding in a bunker & tweeting, while Iranian citizens have neither shelter nor Internet access.
- I wonder which adversary will reach a peace agreement with Trump first: Iran or Harvard?
- Santa Barbara Historical Museum remembers the 6.3-magnitude June 29, 1925, quake: Open till July 6.
- A 3-gigapixel digital camera is set to survey the night sky with ~1000 images over the next decade.
- A joke for my Persian-speaking readers: Iranians were the first in accessing nanotechnology! [Read]
(5) The US uses stealth B-2 bombers and bunker-busting bombs in attacking Iran: Three nuclear sites in Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan were targeted. I am really worried about the Iranian people, not just for harm coming directly from air strikes but also from possible nuclear contamination. I am glued to TV and my computer to learn more about what happened on the ground. Unfortunately, news is slow coming out of Iran, owing to the mullahs shutting down the Internet. Cutting off the Internet for Iranians and leaving them clueless about damages & impending dangers should be considered a war crime. Meanwhile, Islamic officials pretend that all is calm by dining at restaurants and posting their photos on social media.
2025/06/20 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Talangor Group talk of 6/12 (see the next item below). [Center] Unfortunately, we have come to a point when we have to dehorn rhinos to save them from poaching. [Right] Talangor Group talk of 6/19 (see the last item below).
(2) Last week’s Talangor Group talk: Dr. Alireza Mehrnia spoke under the title “Artificial Intelligence: A Martian Odyssey.” Due to other commitments, I was unable to attend this talk, so decided to write a few words in way of introducing the speaker and the techno-thriller on which his talk was based. The book’s ads promote it as “Beyond Human, Beyond Machine: The Rise of Robo Sapiens.” Here is the speaker’s YouTube channel on which you can find video clips about the book, and about AI, more generally.
(3) Nobel Laureates Narges Mohammadi & Shirin Ebadi aren't the enemy. Don’t shower them with insults because they don't agree with us 100%. Focus on the true enemy of the Iranian people, hiding in a bunker.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- By testing a reusable rocket in Northern Japan, Honda makes a surprise entry into the space market.
- Toyota Prius, world’s first mass-marketed EV (since 1997) designated as an IEEE Milestone.
- Puzzling move: Trader Joe’s opens a new store across the street from another one in Sherman Oaks, CA.
- Will handwritten assignments and in-class homework help us solve the problem of AI cheating?
- Sadegh Zibakalam correctly predicted that Israel would attack Iran after removing its proxy forces.
- Quotable: "Hatred and anger are the greatest poison to the happiness of a good mind." ~ Adam Smith
(5) Unconfirmed report: Ali Asghar Hejazi, a senior adviser to Khamenei, is in discussions with Russian officials, possibly seeking political asylum.
(6) Last night’s Talangor Group talk: Freelance journalist Mahdi Saremifar spoke under the title “Tehran, the Defenseless City.”
Tehran is defenseless in several different ways. It is defenseless against a major earthquake or fire, given many high-rises built in neighborhoods with narrow streets, which make the work of emergency crews and rapid evacuation very difficult. My expectation was to hear about Tehran’s defenselessness against an air raid in last night’s talk.
However, Mr. Saremifar presented a comprehensive review of the conflict between Iran and Israel since the October 7 attack of Hamas and the ensuing massacre and hostage-taking in southern Israel. He also offered an assessment of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, its enrichment capabilities, and the various sites in which the nuclear program is pursued, both overtly and covertly. He showed many images related to Iran’s nuclear activities, which he indicated were obtained from open sources.
The recorded talk will be available in a couple of days via Talangor Group’s YouTube channel.
2025/06/19 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Happy Juneteenth: Today is the 5th time Americans observe Juneteenth, June 19, as a federal holiday, commemorating the date, 160 years ago, when enslaved people in Texas finally learned of their emancipation.
[Center] This isn't Tel Aviv (see the next item below). [Right] Ready to begin my summer break: Having completed my evaluation of research papers and working on providing feedback to students today and tomorrow, I am looking forward to a week of great weather for walking and other outdoor activities. A major US heat wave predicted for the coming week will not affect us here in Goleta or the rest of SoCal.
(2) Rampant fake war news: Be extremely careful about images and video clips of widespread devastation in both Tehran and Tel Aviv (such as high-rises toppling down, as people flee). I don’t want to minimize the serious damage to both sides, but the real situation is nothing like this still-frame from an AI-generated video circulating on social media. Iran’s cyber-army is particularly active is spreading false reports of destruction in Israel, in part to save face in what is judged as an embarrassing defeat. Choose your sources carefully!
(3) California has approved the Darden Clean Energy Project, the first development to receive fast-track approval under its Opt-In Certification program. The project includes 1.1 GW of solar power and 4.6 GWh battery storage capacity designed to power 850,000 homes for four hours.
(4) “The Origin of Earth’s Oceans”: This was the title of yesterday’s lecture, streamed on YouTube, in National Air and Space Museum’s “Exploring Space” series. The speaker was Dr. Kathy Mandt (NASA Goddard).
One may wonder why 71% of Earth’s surface is covered in oceans. Results from the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission to the Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko suggest that maybe Earth's water didn't come from comets as previously believed. Dr. Kathy Mandt explained alternative theories on the origin of Earth’s oceans.
This talk was the last one in a series that examined the existence of water in our Solar System, on Mars, on Venus, and on Earth.
(5) Kraft Heinz to remove all artificial food, drug, and cosmetic dyes from its US products by the end of 2027: The company, whose brands include Jell-O, Capri Sun, and Kool-Aid, is the first major food company to commit to the shift since FDA announced plans to phase out synthetic food colorings. Kraft Heinz claims that ~90% of its US products by sales volume are already dye-free, and it will stop launching new products containing petroleum-based additives, effective immediately.
(6) Iran’s rulers have cut off Internet access: Some simple text messages, with no image or video, are allowed to go through, sometimes with several hours of delay. The ridiculous reason cited is to protect Iranians from “the enemy,” who might spread fake news on social media. Meanwhile, the mullahs’ own fake news, including AI-generated images of imaginary destruction in Israel, continues to spread. Iran needs Starlink Internet access more than ever.
2025/06/18 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Iran's broadcasting system headquarters bombed (see the next item below). [Top center] New York Times map of June 17, showing locations of air strikes in Iran and Israel over the preceding 4 days. [Top right] Wars have disrupted flight paths in southwest Asia. [Bottom left] Iran’s Islamist regime has suddenly become nationalist: References to the “Islamic ummah” are increasingly turning into “the great Iranian nation.” One social media post claimed that Khameneh (the Supreme Leader’s hometown) was named after Akhameneh, a variant of Achaemenid. So, Khamenei, a Prophet Muhammad descendent, is both an Islamic Imam and an Iranian ruler! [Bottom center] SCOTUS is inching toward liberalism (see item 3 below). [Bottom right] IEEE CCS talk on soft wearable sensors (see the last item below).
(2) Israel bombs Iran’s national broadcasting system: Run by the government under a person appointed directly by Supreme Leader Khamenei, the national broadcasting system has exclusive ownership of the country’s radio and TV channels (the same was true in pre-Revolution Iran). Having grown tired of religious sermons and political propaganda on many of the system’s channels and of certain hosts who double as security agents and interrogators, Iranians’ reaction to the bombing was muted.
(3) The US Supreme Court isn’t as conservative as it was 3 years ago: Alito and Gorsuch have inched up higher on the conservative scale, while Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Barret (largest change) have become less conservative. In Barrett’s first term on the court, she was aligned with Sotomayor and Kagan 39% of the time, while in her second term, the alignment was 82%, while her agreement with Alito has slid from 80% to 62%. Thomas, Jackson, Kagan, and Sotomayor have remained fairly flat on the scale. [NYT]
(4) Silent data corruptions: As we push the boundaries of making digital circuits smaller, faster, and lower-power, hardware errors tend to increase. Such errors are often not immediately detectable, leading to invisible or silent data corruptions. With denser circuits operating faster on lower energy, material imperfections and timing anomalies grow in their impact. Invisible errors happen when a program runs on a defective chip, completes its execution, does not crash the process or the system, does not raise any exception, and does not produce an output that is obviously wrong. Still the program’s result is incorrect, but no hardware or software detection mechanisms caught it. Unfortunately, we don’t have a clear idea of how often invisible errors arise. Two key questions facing hardware designers and builders are how much we need to invest in solving the problem of silent data corruptions and who should pay the bill.
(5) Tonight’s IEEE Central Coast Section talk: Dr. Andrea S. Carlini (UCSB Chemistry Dept.) spoke under the title “Soft Wearable Sensors for the Continuous Assessment of Biofluids.”
Wearable devices are enabling non-invasive, continuous health monitoring outside the clinic. Dr. Carlini discussed the development of soft, flexible devices that sense physical and chemical changes in tissue environments, with a focus on two platforms: biofluid flow sensors & skin/sweat sensors. These systems are uniquely designed to achieve robust, quantitative readouts in dynamic settings.
Flow sensors use thermal anemometry and calorimetry with integrated NTC resistors to detect microvascular changes and predict vascular access failure in chronic kidney disease. These devices have been validated in bench tests, preclinical trials, and finite element models, and withstand real-world challenges like catheter occlusions and thrombosis.
Microfluidic devices for electrical admittance sweat sensing and colorimetric pH measurements offer real-time data on hydration and skin health.
At its core, Dr. Carlini’s lab is a chemistry lab that designs stimuli-responsive materials. Looking ahead, the aim to hybridize wearable devices with stimuli-responsive chemistries to create soft, adaptive platforms that autonomously sense, respond, and report—paving the way for next-generation tissue engineering systems.
2025/06/17 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Half a dozen math puzzles: [Top left] A rectangular area is split into 10 square areas. What is the ratio of the gray square’s area to the white square’s area? [Top center] In this diagram, with three regular hexagons and a rectangle, find the total green-shaded area. [Top right] This diagram shows two congruent trapezoids with side lengths 3, 1, m, n. Find the product of m and n. [Bottom left] The area of a isosceles triangle is divided into 7 regions as shown, Find the shaded area in the middle. [Bottom center] Find the circle’s radius R. [Bottom right] A square is inscribed in a quarter-circle, as shown. Find the area of the square and the length x.
(2) In a private meeting with foreign ambassadors in Tehran, FM Araghchi signals that Iran is ready to abandon its enrichment activities, a stance no doubt approved by Khamenei. [IranWire]
(3) Today, when we see the photo of a charred building, we may not be able to tell whether it’s in Gaza, Kyiv, Tel Aviv, or Tehran. Stop the wars!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Where are the voices of Palestinians in support of Iran? [Facebook post, in Persian]
- US government’s R&D investment: It’s around 0.9% of GDP now but rose to 1.8% of GDP in the 1960s.
- OpenAI awarded $200M defense contract to develop AI tools for the Pentagon.
- Budget cuts & tuition increases are on the menu for most US colleges. [Higher Ed Dive & other sources]
- A byproduct of our shorter attention-spans: Pop songs, novels, & TV-show seasons have gotten shorter. [NYT]
(5) New "sweating" paint captures moisture and slowly evaporates to passively cool houses: It reflects around 90% of sunlight & emits 95% of absorbed heat. A tested home used 30%-40% less energy on A/C.
(6) Final thought for the day: This LinkedIn post by Fereshteh Yousefirizi speaks for many Iranians in diaspora. “I rarely post anything outside of research on LinkedIn, but today I feel compelled to. Tehran, the city I called home in Iran for over 30 years, is under attack. My mother is there, alone. Every time I see images of destruction, I try to identify the location before I can bring myself to call her. People from all backgrounds around me have shown sincere sympathy and solidarity, for which I’m grateful. But the decisions that lead to war are not in the hands of the people. And no justification can ever make war acceptable. My feed is usually filled with papers, promotions, and conference updates, things I value deeply as part of our scientific community. But today, I can’t bring myself to act as if everything is normal. This may not be a typical post from me, but it reflects what I, and many other Iranians are experiencing right now. I just needed to share it.”
2025/06/16 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Iranians suffer from external actors and its own regime (see the last item below). [Center] Our early celebration of Fathers’ Day on June 14, 2025. [Right] Leading in renewable energy: California’s energy supply on May 19, 2025 (in gigawatts). Note the impact of batteries!
(2) [Resharing from my Facebook post of 2015, on the occasion of Fathers' Day on June 15, 2025]
A father’s open letter to his children: Fathers’ Day is a day when kids express their appreciation to their dads. Taking a cue from Time magazine (issue of June 22, 2015), which asked a number of influential dads to write brief essays in the form of open letters to their children, I decided to write such a letter for the occasion.
Dear Sep3: Let me start by stating that no physical gift for Fathers’ Day would match the gift of your existence and the motivation it provides to me for trying to be not just a better dad, but also a better person. I gave you much fatherly advice as you were growing up, but I also collected life experiences that changed me in important ways. I am not the same man I was before having you, so our influence on each other has been mutual. Now, as I approach the end of my professional life and contemplate retirement, I hope that all three of you will be as happy with your career choices as I have been with mine over the past 42+ (now, 52+) years. Leading healthy, happy, and fulfilling lives is the best present you can give me on Fathers’ Day in the years to come. I love you!
(3) Science reformers play into Trump’s hands: The science reform movement, which aims to improve the rigor of research, has unwittingly handed Trump a way to attack science. Trump’s executive order calling for “gold standard science,” an attempt to target findings that are inconsistent with the administration’s political agenda, was a foreseeable outcome of a movement that overstated the problems in science. But science reformers say integrity concerns are too crucial to tamp down over fears of misuse. [Source: Science, June 12, 2025]
(4) A frustrating situation: I can find no reliable news about what is going on in Iran & Israel. Lots of grainy images and video clips, with arbitrary descriptions and no source. AI-generated and AI-modified content rules.
(5) Final thought for the day: The official death toll from Israel’s missile & drone attacks on Iran is ~200. At least half of the dead are military commanders and other regime elements. Civilian casualties are thus 2 orders of magnitude below the number killed by the Islamic regime, on the streets or in prisons. Physical elimination isn’t the only thing that Islamists have done to the Iranian people. They have also pushed 10-20 million people (estimates vary) below the extreme-poverty line, where they are at risk of dying from hunger or non-existent health care. Another 10 million have been forced into exile, many of whom are living under financial and psychological duress around the world. Yes, my heart aches for Iran and Iranians, as it ached before Israel’s attack, but I can’t mourn the demise of tormenters of the Iranian people.
2025/06/15 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] My birthday gift to Donald John Trump. [Top center] Anti-Trump protest in Ventura (see the next item below). [Top right] Tapper's & Thompson's Original Sin (see the last item below). [Bottom left & center] Father and daughter miniature-golfing and paddle-boarding in Ventura on Saturday. [Bottom right] Iran’s Islamic regime generals & high-ranking officials eliminated by Israel lived in luxury penthouses while asking ordinary citizens to be frugal in the face of economic hardships.
(2) Saturday’s protest march in Ventura, California: I was in Ventura yesterday, so went to the “No-King” protest at the intersection of Victoria Ave. & Telephone Rd.
There was a large crowd of peaceful protesters, holding signs and waving American flags, an hour before the start of the protst march. Here are some of the more-interesting signs/slogans:
- No crown for a clown
- Elect a rapist, expect to be f***ed
- No Faux-King Way!
- All of us are immigrants
- I’m not tariff-ied, I’m in-fuhrer-iated
(3) A Minnesota lawmaker and her husband were assassinated in an act of targeted political violence. [WaPo]
(4) Book review: Tapper, Jake and Alex Thompson, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, unabridged 9-hour audiobook, read by the first author, Penguin Press, 2025.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Based on ~200 interviews, mostly with Democratic insiders, this book details President Joe Biden's physical and cognitive deterioration in the lead-up to the 2024 US presidential election. While slow, robotic walking, incoherence, and slurred speech were obvious signs of the decline, the disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump provided proof positive that Biden was not fit for reelection. According to Axios, "Thompson and Tapper draw a direct line from Biden's decision to run again — his 'original sin' that led to a campaign of 'gaslighting and denial' — and the election of President Trump."
Biden himself was in denial, even after the embarrassing debate led to calls for his withdrawal, claiming that polls showed he would have defeated Trump if he had stayed in the race. The problem is that no such polls existed and those around Biden knew this fact well. White House insiders went to great lengths to hide Biden’s decline from the public, the press, congressional Democrats, and even from members of his cabinet, by limiting access to him, scheduling events to coincide with his good times of the day, and editing videos to conceal his slow, stiff gait. Near the end of his presidency, Biden stared blankly at long-time acquaintances, including actor George Clooney.
To be fair, Biden’s significant cognitive decline did not start immediately after his election win. It began sometime in 2022 and worsened in 2023 and 2024. Several members of Biden’s inner circle note that he became a different man after the death of his son Beau. There were several other tragedies in Biden’s life that gradually took a toll. It is sad that Biden’s legacy will be dictated by this book and several others like it, rather than by a long record of accomplishments over decades. As they say in sports, you are as good as your last fight. With good advice, Biden could have made a much better decision.
2025/06/14 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Three views on relativity: Relativity emerged from the layered contributions of Lorentz, Poincare, and Einstein. It wasn’t born in a single moment (credit: Mario Pinheiro, on LinkedIn). [Center] The two parties in the US aren’t the same, no matter how many times you repeat this falsehood. [Right] David J. Hand's The Improbability Principle (see the last item below).
(2) Quote of the day: "We will only attain freedom if we learn to appreciate what is different, and muster the courage to discover what is fundamentally the same." ~ Thurgood Marshall
(3) The Earth rotates 366.24 times around its axis, not 365.24 times, as it goes around the Sun: How an incorrect SAT question leads to the notion of a sidereal year, which consists of 366.24 slightly shorter days.
(4) Ranking the world’s mightiest supercomputers: In the June 2025 edition of Top500, a list of the world’s most-powerful supercomputers, AMD's El Capitan and Frontier ranked first and second. Coming in at No. 3 was Intel's Aurora. All three are operated by US Department of Energy laboratories. No. 4 was Germany's Jupiter Booster, while Microsoft's Eagle came in fifth. The US extended its numerical lead in the total number of systems on the list, while China continued its downward trend as it no longer submits results to Top500.org.
(5) Book review: Hand, David J., The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2014.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Being struck by lightning is a rare event, so there is a popular belief that one cannot be struck twice. Yet, there are many examples of people who have been struck multiple times. As curious beings, we humans seek the underlying causes of strange coincidences.
The author invokes the Improbability Principle, asserting that extremely improbable events are commonplace. This Principle seems to contradict Borel’s Law, maintaining that events with sufficiently small probabilities never occur; or, at least, we must lead our lives and make decisions as if they are impossible.
Suppose we hit a golf ball and we have numbered the blades of grass on the fairway consecutively from 1 to 1,000,000. There is a tiny probability that the ball will come to rest on any specific blade of grass, but it will come to rest on one of them. The ball cannot stay in the air, so one of the improbable events will happen (the law of inevitability).
Similarly, if you fly rarely, chances of you being involved in a plane crash are slim. But over several years there is a good chance that some plane will crash. In other words, with a large enough number of opportunities, any outrageous thing is bound to happen (the law of truly large numbers).
Many other laws and examples are cited, but the root of the problem is people not distinguishing between a particular rare event occurring and one of zillions of rare events occurring.
The author could have explained the seemingly puzzling dilemma in a few pages, with a handful of examples, but the publishing industry expects a certain minimum number of pages for a book, which necessitates, repetitions, long elaborations, and many examples.
2025/06/13 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] What Trump calls mass deportation is actually a combination of kidnapping, human trafficking, and sending people to concentration camps. [Center] Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is a voice of reason. [Right] Hostilities in the Middle East (see the last item below).
(2) The arbitrariness of Trump's tariffs: If tariffs were imposed based on some form of economic reasoning or calculation, the rates would not be round numbers such as 25% or 50%. Aside from this, loopholes are beginning to emerge. If a manufacturer builds washing machines in America, its costs will rise due to the 50% tariff on imported steel. A foreign manufacturer can offer the same machine cheaper because it pays no tariff on steel and the tariff on complete washing machines is less than the tariff on steel. Because tariffs vary from country to country, a product can be imported into the US via a third country. These are just examples. Wait for anomalies to be discovered and taken advantage of by importers.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Why physicists and mathematicians flock to the stock market to model it with equations and make money.
- The inside story of Hezbollah pagers exploding across Lebanon. [14-minute report]
- US veterans with PTSD travel to other countries to access psychedelics. [13-minute report]
- Persian music: A different rendition of “Baba Karam” by Iranshahr Orchestra, featuring Cameron Sahbazi.
(4) Uptick in hostilities between Israel and Iran: As a person of Iranian origin, who vehemently opposes the Islamic regime and its brutal, hate-filled, war-mongering leaders, Israel’s latest attack on Iran presents me with a serious dilemma. The Islamic regime forced me to leave my beloved country four decades ago and has done the same or worse to many other Iranians of all faiths and ethnicities.
It pains me to see residential buildings damaged or in flames, but I can’t mourn the demise of Islamic military leaders who called for the destruction of Israel on a daily basis. I put myself in Israelis’ shoes. Here is an adversarial country with long-range ballistic missiles on the verge of making nuclear bombs. Two or three such bombs can wipe out the entire country of Israel. Should I sit tight, hoping that the threats are just bluster for internal consumption or should I take preventive action? I would probably choose preventive action.
Yet, the collateral damage resulting from even the most-precisely-targeted bombs pain me. No amount of reassurance that the civilian casualties are justified because they could prevent millions of deaths in an all-out war comforts me. Even a single innocent life lost is too many for me. But Iran’s Islamic regime has killed hundreds of times more innocent Iranians than Israel has.
So, I sit here, conflicted. I’m not happy that Israel bombed Iran, but I can’t feign sadness either. The lying, cheating, criminal, cowardly leaders of Islamic Iran need to be called out for their words and actions. All of these generals and Islamist goons, who scream at Israel from a seemingly safe distance need to know that the distance isn’t really safe. They have to act on their beliefs, if they are sincere, or shut up.
2025/06/12 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Amazing math: Pascal Triangle related to pi. [Center] Legendary Persian archer Arash celebrated by Iran’s largest bronze statue, installed at northern Tehran’s Vanak Square. [Right] An aging US House of Representatives: Number of members 70 years or older (NYT chart).
(2) Presidential history: Our hope is that someday, historians will unravel the abominations of Trump’s two administrations. Unfortunately, they will have an incomplete record to work with, given Trump’s tendency to purge or burn documents, wipe Web sites clean, and avoid leaving written official records behind to begin with.
(3) Largest map of the universe announced: The COSMOS project, with data collected by JWST, consists of all the imaging and a catalog of nearly 800,000 galaxies spanning nearly all of cosmic time.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- In the crash of Air India’s Boeing Dreamliner jet bound for London, at least 240 are dead. [NYT]
- Israel claims to have struck Iran’s nuclear facilities, missile factories, and military commanders.
- Since 2000, cancer rates have dropped by 11% for 50+ adults and risen by 10% for younger adults. [WaPo]
- UCSB's College of Engineering named after its 4th dean, Robert Mehrabian, for his vision & generosity.
- How Citicorp tower was secretly retrofitted after it was discovered to be prone to collapsing in high winds.
(5) In addition to nuclear sites and missile factories, the Israeli strikes on Iran targeted and killed Major General Hossein Salami, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, former National Security Chief Ali Shamkhani, and a few other top-ranking military and civilian officials.
(6) On the quest for eternal youth: We have been making slow, steady progress in identifying the causes of aging, but have had less success in reversing the process.
In early 2024, researchers at Harvard’s Sinclair Lab managed to reverse aging in old mice, restoring them to youthful states using gene therapy and epigenetic programming. Skin, eyes, muscles, even brain tissue, began functioning like those in a young animal again. The process involved reprogramming the “epigenetic clock,” a biological system that accumulates damage over time and causes aging. Use of a 3-gene cocktail triggered the cells to reset themselves to a younger biological age without turning cancerous.
As in the case of AI, technical challenges are formidable, but don’t constitute the whole story. Equally challenging are ethical considerations we will face if and when reversal of aging becomes practical for humans. Initially, the process will be quite expensive for sure. Who gets access to the technology? What are the societal implications of having among us a group of people who choose not to age because they have more power and financial resources? We faced similar challenges in the case of cloning, which was eventually abandoned as a practical medical technology due to widespread objections.
2025/06/11 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: Images of the day: [Left] Do you know why some window security bars have potbellies? [Center] Last night’s cooking production: Orange chicken with rice for dinner, plus pasta with meat sauce, taco-seasoned ground turkey, and salad leftovers for the coming nights. [Right] Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones' Persians: The Age of the Great Kings (see the last item below).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Brian Wilson, the troubled singer/songwriter genius behind The Beach Boys, dead at 82.
- George Clooney tells the story of journalist Edward R. Murrow on Broadway. [13-minute report]
- The 1965 musical film “The Sound of Music” goes on stage with Persian lyrics for the songs.
- Facebook memory from June 11, 2016: My children, flanked by two of their cousins.
(3) Book review: Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd, Persians: The Age of the Great Kings, unabridged 19-hour audiobook, read by the author, Basic Books, 2022. [My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I have previously listened to The Persian Empire (my 5-star review), an audiobook in “The Great Courses” series. The course, narrated/taught by Professor W. I. Lee, aimed to correct the negative view of the Persian Empire, which emerged from accounts by the Greek. Professor Lee maintained that using the Persian perspective results in a vastly different picture of the Persian Empire as a major force with a lasting influence on the world in terms of administration, economics, religion, and architecture.
Historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones also tells the story of the Persians from their own perspective, whenever possible. From the palace-city of Persepolis, the Achaemenid Persian kings ruled over the largest empire of antiquity, stretching from North Africa to Central Asia, for centuries, until the conquests of Alexander of Macedon brought the empire to a swift and unexpected end in the late 330s BCE. This period of greatness served as a model to which subsequent rulers aspired. Llewellyn-Jones tells the epic story of the Achaemenid and the world they ruled, drawing on Iranian sources: Inscriptions, cuneiform tablets, art, and archaeology. The book also includes a map, a family tree, and some photos.
In part because Llewellyn-Jones apparently fell in love with the object of his study, and partly due to his attempt to compensate for centuries of writings entirely based on the skewed Greek accounts, some of the analyses and conclusions come across as too rosy. Events are highly dramatized to make the book read like a soap opera, but this isn’t necessarily all bad. Many reviewers have commented that they couldn’t put the book down!
An important conclusion from this retelling of the story of the Achaemenids is that, despite economic and military might, the empire had one serious weakness: It did not have a well-thought-out succession plan, which rendered it weak during the transition period after a monarch’s death. Because many of the Achaemenid kings ruled for long periods (Cyrus the Great, 20 years; Darius the Great, 35 years; Xerxes I, 21 years; Artaxerxes I, 41 years; Darius II, 19 years; Artaxerxes II, 46 years; Artaxerxes III, 20 years), this weakness may have remained hidden. There is speculation, however, that the weakness may have caused the empire to rot from within as a result of infighting and palace intrigue. Had the Achaemenid set in place clear rules of succession and followed those rules, they probably would have lasted much longer.
Llewellyn-Jones’ deep knowledge of Persia/Iran is on full display in an epilogue entitled “Persian Past; Iranian Present,” where we read that “Iran’s conception of its pre-Islamic past and the use Iranians have made of the Achaemenid era [in politics, literature, art, and architecture] has its own rich history,” requiring another volume to cover its extent, variety, and impact. After the Achaemenid Empire fell apart, the Parthians annihilated the Romans in Mesopotamia, before being replaced by Sasanian monarchs, who looked back to the great kings of the past for inspiration. In mid-20th-century, the two Pahlavi monarchs celebrated the glory of Iran’s ancient past, with Reza Shah changing the country’s official name to “Iran” and Mohammad Reza Shah observing the 2500th anniversary of the establishment of the Persian Empire in an ill-advised lavish ceremony, less than a decade before he was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution in 1979. After decades of incompetent Islamic rule, which sank the country into moral and economic despair, Iran’s pre-Islamic past has re-emerged as an aspiration for most Iranians. Babies are given Persian rather than religious/Arabic names and joyous Persian festivals are celebrated, even when they coincide with religious mourning periods. After some resistance to people gathering to celebrate Nowruz in Pasargadae, the site of Cyrus the Great’s tomb, the Islamic regime has chilled out, in effect using Cyrus and other ancient Persian kings as tools of governance.
2025/06/10 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Author Orhan Pamuk reads from his book, Istanbul: Memories of a City: The Literature Nobel Laureate describes his book about the city where he was born and has lived all his life as half biographical, half essay. BTW, it appears that he writes on paper! [Center] The crater illusion: This photo of the Moon’s south pole was captured by the Japanese spacecraft Resilience. When some people look at the image, they see craters; most see bumps. This variance is known as the crater illusion. It occurs because our brains have limited information about the source and the direction of light in an image (NYT). [Right] New York City is sinking: The ground beneath NYC is made of different types of soil and rock. Some areas are more stable, while others are softer and prone to sinking. The weight of many thousands of massive buildings slowly pushes the land down. Engineers and geologists are studying the city’s flooding and sinking problems, which are made worse by climate-change and the attendant rising sea levels.
(2) I’m totally fine with peaceful protests. I also understand that such protests sometimes get violent, either because emotions get out of hand or agitators infiltrate the peaceful crowd. What I don’t understand is waving of the Mexican flag to protest illegal deportations.
(3) An Iranian Holocaust survivor: In April 2025, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum acquired the diary of Menashe Ezrapour, an Iranian Holocaust survivor. It is a rebuke to the Iranian regime's Holocaust denial.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Governor Newsom addresses President Trump: “Arrest me ... but stop messing with these kids.” [Reel]
- Trump, on the legal requirements for deploying the National Guard. [Video clip from 2020]
- MACO on TACO: Musk says he regrets some of his online posts about Trump last week. “They went too far.”
- The amazing complexity and ingenious design of a car dashboard, with all that goes behind and under it.
(5) John Williams (b. 1932) is perhaps the most prolific composer of film music, including memorable themes for blockbuster franchises such as "Star Wars," "Indiana Jones," "Jurassic Park," and "Harry Potter." A subset of his work is represented in this 201-minute video of a 2022 concert in honor of his 90th birthday.
(6) A new direction is needed for the design of data centers: Current approaches to data-center design and operation face three major obstacles, namely, inordinate power consumption, need for elaborate and thus expensive cooling mechanisms, and inefficient interconnects. The third obstacle also contributes to the first two. The need to provide high-bandwidth connectivity to handle the worst-case data-traffic patterns makes data center interconnection networks highly complex and thus both expensive and power-hungry. Real-world data-traffic patterns in data centers exhibit significant spatial and temporal structures, exemplified by those related to distributed machine learning. Using a combination of optical switches and reconfigurable networks would allow us to build data networks that can self-adjust to prevailing conditions, eliminating the need for both high power (which, in turn, leads to simpler cooling) and bandwidth over-design.
2025/06/08 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Cover feature of E&T magazine (see the next item below). [Center] Wonders of science: Here is a portion of a page from a science magazine of over a century ago (Popular Science, Vol. 79, 1911). The continued-fraction displayed is associated with the golden ratio, phi, which governs, among other things, logarithmic spirals seen in the arrangement of sunflower seeds, pinecones, and flower petals. These naturally-arising spirals are visually beautiful, mathematically profound, and aesthetically timeless (adapted from a post by Cliff Pickover). [Right] Barbara McQuade's Attack from Within (see the last item below).
(2) The visions of future urban living are being given a reboot, with AI at the forefront: This is the theme of E&T magazine's cover feature in its March-April 2025 issue.
Making cities smart, long a dream of technologists and developers, is facing multiple challenges, owing to environmental governance rules, data privacy regulations, and resource (water, electricity) use mandates. Smart-city projects have also been tested by global economic turbulence, pandemics, geopolitics, policy shifts, and societal unease with big-tech players.
Topping the list of smart-city visions, at least in terms of hype if not success potential, is Saudi Arabia's Neom, a sprawling "cognitive" mega-city that promotes tourism, urban living, manufacturing, and more. Neom is envisaged as an independent, liberal, high-tech city, with its own tax & labor laws and judiciary. Barring unexpected difficulties, Neom should be completed by the time of the 2034 Soccer World Cup tournament in the Kingdom.
Other notable entries in E&T magazine's smart-city index are, in order from the top, Zurich, Oslo, Canberra, Geneva, and Singapore
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- President Trump deploys the National Guard to Los Angeles, as protests against ICE agents continue.
- Governor Newsom floats withholding federal taxes in response to Trump's threats of funding cuts.
- Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” is floundering in the US Senate, as Musk’s attacks intensify.
(4) Book review: McQuade, Barbara, Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by the author, Tantor Media, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Disinformation is a favorite tool of despotic rulers and would-be autocrats. Disinformation drives voters to extremes. Rapid advances in technology, AI in particular, threaten to make the problem even worse by amplifying false claims and manufacturing credibility. Legal scholar and analyst Barbara McQuade shows us the many ways in which disinformation is polluting all facets of our society and how we can defend against it.
One important take-away is confirmation of the fact that the threat of foreign terrorism perpetrated by jihadists and other intolerant groups, aptly exploited by populist and xenophobic politicians, has long been overshadowed by the threat of domestic extremism. When one group of Americans becomes convinced that other groups are their enemies, actively plotting to harm them, it is only a small step to advocating for violence to solve the problem.
In a way, there is nothing new in this book. Yet, cataloguing the different ways in which disinformation, and to a lesser extent, misinformation, affects our material lives and our psychological well-being, is an immensely valuable service. The magnitude of the disinformation problem registers better after exposure to a long string of examples. As we listen to or read about each example, we recall how we felt as the events unfolded in real time. More importantly, we see the common threads of greed and power-grab underlying them all. This book is a must-read, not just for Americans but for all citizens of the world.
2025/06/07 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Persian cuisine is 2/3 art and 1/3 food. [Center] On Friday afternoon, an engineering capstone projects fair was held in front of UCSB’s Campbell Hall: Pizza lunch was served, as a large number of attendees viewed project posters, talked with team members, and watched 1/10th-scale Formula-1 cars run around a race track autonomously. [Right] Newspaper lampoons trump by printing his photo in a way that his mouth looks like a giant black hole in a stack of papers.
(2) Confessions of a Republican exile: Alienated by Trumpism, longtime conservative commentator David Brooks tries to come to terms with life on the moderate edge of the Democratic Party.
(3) A math puzzle worth resharing: If you pick any n + 1 different integers in [1, 2n], there will always be two relatively prime integers in the chosen subset.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Trump is preparing to cancel a large swath of federal funding for California. [CNN]
- Borowitz Report (humor): Liberty Bell is renamed Taco Bell by Mexico.
- You have made it as a writer when on the book cover, your name appears in a larger font than the title.
- Facebook memory from June 7, 2020: My article led a special cover feature of IEEE Computer magazine.
- Facebook memory from June 7, 2013: Iranian violin music, with group dancing.
(5) Fixing the US statistical infrastructure: “Official government statistics are critical infrastructure for the information age. Reliable, relevant, statistical information helps businesses to invest and flourish; governments at the local, state, and national levels to make critical decisions on policy and public services; and individuals and families to invest in their futures. Yet surrounded by all manner of digitized data, one can still feel inadequately informed. A major driver of this disconnect in the US context is delayed modernization of the federal statistical system. The disconnect will likely worsen in coming months as the administration shrinks statistical agencies’ staffing, terminates programs (notably for health and education statistics), and eliminates unpaid external advisory groups. Amid this upheaval, might the administration’s appetite for disruption be harnessed to modernize federal statistics?” [From Science magazine, issue of May 29, 2025]
(6) NASA faces a major crisis after the Trump-Musk feud: All science-related agencies are in trouble because of the policies of an anti-science administration, but NASA faces a double threat. Its budget has been significantly reduced and its relationship with Space-X for carrying out space missions, including taking astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station, is uncertain. Multiple missions, already in space or planned for the near future, may be abandoned. Space missions need long-term planning and budgeting, feats that are impossible when policies are driven by temper-tantrums.
2025/06/05 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] Throwback Thursday: The front and back of a 2000-dinar Iranian coin from 1927. [Top right] Throwback Thursday: First group of Iranians sent by Reza Shah to study in Europe: Many prominent future politicians, doctors, scholars, and industry leaders can be seen in this photo. It is a remarkably diverse group in terms of socioeconomic status & political leanings, but, alas, it includes no women. [Bottom left] Today, I attended UCSB Computer Engineering Capstone Project Presentations all morning. [Bottom center] This afternoon, we had a celebration at UCSB’s Faculty Club to honor four of my distinguished ECE colleagues who are retiring at the end of this month. Congrats to John Bowers, Nadir Dagli, Jerry Gibson, and Bob York. We will miss you! [Bottom right] Free outdoors concert at Goleta Valley Community Center: The blues band East Valley Road performed (sample music: Video 1, Video 2).
(2) Nearly 7500 undergraduate and graduate students will earn degrees from UCSB this year. They will be honored across 9 official graduation ceremonies over 8 days.
(3) Endowments, explained: A college endowment is a regulated pool of financial assets invested to support a university’s mission over the long term. Endowment managers withdraw roughly 5% of the fund’s total value each year to help pay for an average of 15% of the school’s annual budget. Over 600 US colleges and universities hold a combined $874B in endowment assets, with a median value of $234M. The largest private endowments are Harvard ($53.2B), Yale ($41.4B), and Stanford ($37.6B). The University of Texas system is the largest among public institutions, with an endowment valued at $46.9B. Endowments are primarily funded through charitable donations designated for scholarships, faculty positions, or research. Unrestricted funds account for roughly 20% of most endowments and are used at the discretion of the school.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Trump & Musk attack each other: Everyone predicted the big egos were bound to clash, and clash they did!
- Mario V. Llosa: “Memory is a snare, pure and simple; it alters, it subtly rearranges the past to fit the present.”
- Science of death: Immortality remains out of reach. But just how elastic is the human lifespan? [Podcast]
- Joke: To help me decide whether I should become an athlete or a criminal, I made a list of pros & cons.
(5) “Apprentice: White House” is unfolding in real-time: Elon Musk’s firing is just the beginning. Trump may have avoided jail time by being elected president, but he will not finish his second term.
(6) Final thought for the day: Until Elon Musk apologizes to the American people, he is just one horrible person who disagrees with another horrible person; nothing more.
2025/06/04 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzle: Two identical squares intersect as shown. Find the area x. [Center] The Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula, as seen by James Webb Telescope: The tallest pillar is about 4 light years long. [Right] Math puzzle: Find the area of the square intersecting a rectangle with the same area.
(2) Governments can suppress dissent without resorting to overt censorship: The three most-effective methods to get around the First Amendment are using benefits to coerce speech, intimidating speakers into silence, and whitewashing government speech.
(3) On the prospects of fueling robots with food to give them more range & power: Even the best batteries fall far short of animal metabolism for energy storage. Fueling robots with ‘food’ could narrow the gap.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Trump orders ban on entry to the US for people from 12 countries, including Afghanistan and Iran.
- Elon Musk escalates his attacks on Trump’s legislative package, urging lawmakers to kill it.
- Cooperation on AI emerges as a key to normalized relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
- Trump’s playbook to cripple “60 minutes,” as told by the program’s senior correspondent, Lesley Stahl.
- People are calling Trump Burger locations in Texas and asking if they serve chicken tacos!
(5) Aiming for AI safety and truthfulness: ACM Turing Award laureate Yoshua Bengio launched the nonprofit LawZero to develop a safe-by-design Scientist AI system that would be fundamentally non-agentic, trustworthy, focused on understanding and truthfulness, and not designed to mimic human behavior or pursue its own goals. According to Bengio, Scientist AI could be used to ensure the safety of agentic AI systems being developed by big-tech companies.
(6) Fascination with large prime numbers: We know that there are infinitely-many prime numbers, but the largest known prime is finite at any given time. The record now belongs to a Mersenne prime, a prime number of the form 2^n – 1. As of late 2024, the Mersenne prime with n = 136,279,841 (a 41,024,320-digit number) holds the record. We know that there are infinitely-many Mersenne primes, but finding them is a different story.
(7) Final thought for the day: “If you feel sorry for him [Joe Biden, because of his cancer], don’t feel so sorry, because he’s vicious. I really don’t feel sorry for him.” ~ Donald Trump
2025/06/03 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] First annual UCSB RoboRacer competition: Four teams of EE undergraduates spent their senior year designing and building 1/10th scale Formula 1 RoboRacer vehicles that can navigate and race around a track autonomously. On June 2, 2025, their 1/10th vehicles went head-to-head against one another on 3 tracks. [Center] Birds photographed during today’s walk on UCSB campus. [Right] UCLA lecture on nepotism in the Islamic Republic of Iran (see the last item below).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Using drones smuggled deep into Russia, Ukraine carries out massive strikes against Russian air bases.
- Attack on Jewish gathering in Colorado to call for release of Gaza hostages injures six. [Update: 12 injured]
- After the US administration’s war on elite universities comes a war on top medical journals.
- Facebook memory from June 2, 2022: An enlightening discussion on synchronization in nature.
- Facebook memory from June 2, 2020: The chicken crossed the road after having everyone tear-gassed.
- Facebook memory from June 2, 2019: A beautiful couplet from Omar Khayyam.
(3) Sunday's UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran: In the last installment of the series for 2024-2025, Dr. Mehrzad Boroujerdi (Missouri U. Sci/Tech) spoke under the title “Nepotism in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Dr. Ali Akbar Mahdi (Cal State U. Northridge) served as a discussant and facilitator of the Q&A period.
Dr. Boroujerdi reviewed the extent and forms of nepotism in Iran, beginning with the Qajar era. In fact, the Qajar state was sometimes described as a “familial state” and the Pahlavi era as the rule of “1000 families,” which refers to the fact that most positions of power in commerce and government were occupied by members of a small number of families, which likely were far fewer than 1000.
The Islamic Revolution was supposed to seize the levers of power from a small group of elites, but it ended up simply replacing the connection web and families by a distinct set of informal institutions and kinship ties. In his research, Dr. Boroujerdi could identify only two people who were MPs both before and after the 1979 Revolution. The new elite under the Islamic regime include clerics, children of clerics (agha-zadeh-ha), those connected to the previous two groups through marriage, and family members of military-men who perished (martyred) in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.
Positions of power in Islamic Iran are occupied by a relatively small number of insiders. The incumbency rate in the Islamic parliament is around 1/3. The higher up we go in importance and prestige of a political entity, the greater the incumbency rate, surpassing 2/3 at the very top. Imam Sadiq University, founded before the Revolution as Harvard-connected Iran Management Studies Center and which now trains a large fraction of Iran’s politicians, is run entirely by the Mahdavi-Kani family.
Dr. Boroujerdi has traced the familial and other ties between 2500+ members of Islamic Iran’s ruling elites who have served the Islamic government in various capacities, often being appointed to several ministerial and parliamentary positions over decades. There seems to be no retirement for these elites. In all likelihood, what Dr. Boroujerdi’s research has unveiled is only the tip of a huge iceberg. Much of the iceberg remains submerged because of several factors, including the fact that clerics often have different surnames in their religious roles (usually the name of the region they come from, such as Khomeini, Khamenei, Rafsanjani), whereas their children go by last names appearing in their national identity cards.
Even though Dr. Boroujerdi did not delve into the past beyond the Qajar era, there is evidence that nepotism in Iran has its roots in ancient Persian empires. In Lloyd Llwellyn-Jones’ 2022 book Persians: The Age of Great Kings, we read about nepotism in the Achaemenid period, when the king’s scores of children, from consorts and concubines, competed with other relatives for power and influence.
2025/06/01 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Triple-trending US counties: Low-income Americans seem to be shifting toward the GOP. Counties that shifted toward the GOP in each of the last three elections mostly have median annual incomes of under $80K, while those that shifted toward the Democratic Party predominantly have median incomes of $80K+ (NYT infographic).
[Image:
[Center & Right] Anil Seth's Being You (see the next item below).
(2) Seth, Anil, Being You: A New Science of Consciousness, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by the author, Penguin Random-House Audio, 2021.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Until fairly recently, the subject of consciousness was in the realm of philosophers, priests, poets and artists. Now, neuroscientists are investigating the enigmatic quality, as they try to answer the key question of how consciousness arises in the first place. As a leading researcher in the field and a superb communicator, Seth explores the notion of consciousness, which he defines as “any kind of subjective experience whatsoever,” in a manner that is both profound and understandable.
What does it mean for you to be you, as opposed to being a stone or a bat, and how does this feeling of being you emerge from the cells inside your skull? Science, which deals with objective truths and realities, is ill-equipped to pursue these questions, which deal with subjective experiences.
Our brains are highly-tuned prediction machines which continuously estimate the most-probable causes of its sensory inputs. These perceptual expectations, which may vary for different people in the same environment, shape our conscious experience. Consider #TheDress, a photo that went viral on social media in 2015. Some people saw the striped dress as blue & black, while to others, it looked white & gold. People who spend more time indoors are more likely to see the dress as blue & black, because their prediction machine is primed to factor in the yellowish indoor lighting, whereas the brains of those spending more time outside are primed to adjust for the bluer spectrum of sunlight.
According to Seth, the dress experiment offers “compelling evidence that our perceptual experiences of the world are internal constructions, shaped by the idiosyncrasies of our personal biology and history.” Color isn’t a physical property of things; rather, objects reflect light in particular ways that your brain incorporates in its internal production of your reality. We perceive ourselves to control ourselves, but we also modulate our behavior in response to our perception of what others may be thinking about us, which forms a part of the social context of our “self.”
Sandwiched between a prologue and an epilogue, the book’s four parts cover the following topics.
Part I: Level (the real problem; measuring consciousness; phi)
Part II: Content (perceiving from the inside out; the wizard of odds; the beholder’s share)
Part III: Self (delirium; expect yourself; being a beast machine; a fish in water; degrees of freedom)
Part IV: Other (beyond human; machine minds)
In the final Chapter 13, “Machine Minds,” Seth addresses the question of whether AI can exhibit consciousness. If you believe in functionalism, meaning that what matters isn’t what a system is made of but how it behaves, then with the appropriate input-output behavior, AI will eventually become conscious. Seth is suspicious of functionalism. In his view, consciousness is rather independent of intelligence. Perhaps it is the case that superintelligence leads to consciousness and super-consciousness requires some degree of intelligence, but an unintelligent being is quite capable of feeling pain.
You may not emerge from reading this book fully understanding consciousness, but you will gain a pretty good idea of why the subject is hard and will come to appreciate why any attempt at taming it requires us to view it from quantitative (levels of consciousness) and informational (what we are conscious of) angles.
2025/05/31 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzle: Determine the length x in the 7-by-7 square. [Center] Looking forward to UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center’s “On Fire” public events series for the 2025-2026 academic year. [Right] Math puzzle: Determine the area of the square.
(2) Social benefits of psychological generosity: Making eye contact and small talk with strangers is more than just being polite. However, the many benefits of interacting with others come with a cost, that is, diverting attention away from your self-interests, which often take the form of staring down at your phone. “One unfortunate consequence is that a person may end up treating interactions with other people as transactions, with a primary focus on getting one’s own needs met, or one’s own questions answered. A very different approach would involve seeing interactions with others as opportunities for social connection; being willing to expend some additional mental energy to listen to others’ experiences and exchange views on topics of shared interest can serve as a foundation for building social relationships.”
(3) Make America Healthy Again (MAHA), but please ask experts, not ChatGPT, about how to do it: A report on healthy eating & living, issued by HHS Department under the direction of RFK Jr., contains factual errors and citation of nonexistent studies, tell-tale signs of using generative AI to produce it.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- At least 111 people are dead after floods caused by torrential rains submerge market town in Nigeria.
- In an oil barter deal, a Chinese company sells to Iran two used Airbus jets at 4 times their market price.
- A French surgeon, accused of sexually abusing 299 people, mostly children, sentenced to 20 years.
- A Stonehenge-like 9000-year-old arrangement of large stones rests on the bed of Lake Michigan.
(5) The most-beautiful English words: They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But who better than linguists to judge beauty in words. Some of their choices follow.
Ailurophile (cat lover); Tremulous (shaking or quivering slightly); Murmur (soft, low sound); Nefarious (wicked or criminal); Mother; Radiance (emitted light or heat).
(6) UCSB Middle East Ensemble concert: Tonight’s live-streamed program includes music & dance selections from Turkey, Egypt, and more. [Bonus links for previous concerts: Spring 2024; Spring 2025; Fall 2024]
(7) The connection between food and mood: “If your brain is deprived of good-quality nutrition, or if free radicals or damaging inflammatory cells are circulating within the brain's enclosed space, further contributing to brain tissue injury, consequences are to be expected. … Today, fortunately, the burgeoning field of nutritional psychiatry is finding there are many consequences and correlations between not only what you eat, how you feel, and how you ultimately behave, but also the kinds of bacteria that live in your gut.”
2025/05/30 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Jafar Panahi, Iranian film director and 2025 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or honoree: “It would be dishonest to show Iranian women wearing the hijab in movies." [Top center] The Cove (see the next item below). [Top right] UCSB graduation ceremony (Photo credit: UCSB Daily Nexus) (see the last item below). [Bottom left] Cartoon of the day: “We’re sorry, but the goodbye-party budget was gutted by DOGE.” [Bottom center] A friendly rabbit I encountered during my walk yesterday. [Bottom right] Trump’s attacks on elite US universities continue: After cutting or cancelling research grants and restricting enrollment of international students, a substantial increase in endowment tax is embedded in his tax bill.
(2) Dense housing development near a restored wetland: I took these photos yesterday, as I walked through the UCSB North Campus Open Space. The controversial development known as “The Cove” consists of 5- & 6-bedroom units, leased to 10-12 occupants. Such a densely-populated development is contrary to the spirit of the Open Space and restoration of ancient Goleta wetlands. The magnificent Open Space will no doubt be one of the selling points of the developers.
(3) Aren’t we lucky to die? This seemingly-bizarre question was asked by evolutionary biologist & zoologist Richard Dawkins. He justified his question thus: To die requires to have been among the lucky ones born. Human DNA can develop a nearly infinite set of genetic combinations, gazillion times more than the ~120 billion humans ever born. The chance of you, with your particular characteristics, existing is near-zero.
(4) Visual clutter can affect your brain: Defined as anything that disrupts the calm and intentional flow of your home, visual clutter is the pile of mail on the counter or the random cords peeking out from behind furniture. Too many objects, colors, shapes or details competing for attention can overwhelm the brain. A visually-cluttered space is not necessarily messy. Even if items are neatly arranged, excessive amounts of visual elements in a space make it difficult to focus on important information or executing tasks.
(5) Final thought for the day (a letter to my students at UCSB): As we near the end of the 2024-2025 academic year, I want to congratulate you for another year of academic progress under difficult circumstances. The American system of higher education is under attack. An incompetent administration is gleefully cutting a tree that holds up our country’s social progress and economic prosperity. Many of you are experiencing uncertainties in sources of financial aid or academic salaries. Others are facing the prospects of visa revocation for their studies or practical training. As xenophobia spreads and anti-science officials take control of our government, the UC faculty and staff are doing everything in their power to protect you against shortsighted social and economic policies. Let’s maintain open lines of communication. We are in this together.
2025/05/29 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] NSF-funded research grants: Annual averages for 2015-2024, vs. the lowest levels in decades for 2025 (NYT charts). [Right] Talk on AI in pharmaceutical and chemical industries (see the last item below).
(2) Ayatollah Khamenei tweets that Iran’s situation is calm, presenting many opportunities for everyone: A few commenters cheer him on, but most assert that he is delusional or misinformed. A commenter reminded him that he should not be posting on a platform that he has banned for Iran’s citizens.
(3) No free speech for chatbots: Lawsuit over teen’s suicide is allowed to proceed when judge rejects defendant’s claim about chatbots’ free-speech rights.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- A Swiss Alpine village is almost completely buried when a glacier collapses. [Story, with video]
- Wall Street analysts’ newly coined term: TACO, or Trump Always Chickens Out.
- First tools made from whale bones date back 20,000 years, ~15,000 years earlier than previously known.
- HBO is making Harry Potter into a TV series: The cast has been chosen and the series will debut next year.
- [Science humor] Teacher: You know the Earth isn’t flat, don’t you? Pupil: It is where I live.
- After a mother attends a $1M-per-plate fundraiser, her son receives a presidential pardon for tax crimes.
(5) Oklahoma’s new high school social studies curriculum includes teaching about “discrepancies” in the 2020 presidential election: Parents are fighting it.
(6) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Mahmood Sabahi spoke under the title “Artificial Intelligence and Developments in Pharmaceutical and Chemical Industries.” There were ~75 attendees.
A vast majority of the material we use daily is produced through chemical processes. The norm used to be a trial-and-error approach, but now we simulate new materials, deducing their properties before we build and test them physically. The same reduction in physical build/test, and thus expansion of the exploration space, occurs in many other domains. Pharmaceutical research (drug discovery) provides an important example.
I joined the meeting quite late, so can’t elaborate more in this summary. The recorded talk will be available in a couple of days via Talangor Group’s YouTube channel.
2025/05/28 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] US national debt, having surpassed $100K per capita, is projected to exceed 125% of GDP in a decade if Trump’s tax bill passes (NYT photo & chart). [Right] Socrates Think Tank talk on the history of light in the universe (see the last item below).
(2) Did Venus ever have oceans? This was the title of today’s talk by Dr. Rita Parai (Washington U. of St. Louis) in National Air and Space Museum’s “Exploring Space” Lecture Series. [The talk, on YouTube]
Often called Earth's twin, there is much debate over Venus' status as a watery world: If Venus had oceans, where did all that water go? Here is one theory. The ultraviolet radiation from sunlight breaks down both carbon dioxide and water into electrically-charged atoms. The “free” atoms then form HCO+, completing the dissociative recombination process. Venus today is dry thanks to water loss to space as atomic hydrogen.
Dr. Parai also discussed NASA’s Veritas mission concept that hopes to return a sample of Venus's atmosphere for analysis here on Earth to further enhance our understanding of the planet Venus. The atmosphere contains a cumulative record of everything that has happened on Venus. Dr. Parai used this analogy: If a teenager’s parents go out and he throws a party while they’re gone, they would know that something had gone on during their absence, even if everything has been put back in its original place.
(3) Tonight's Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Sohrab Rahvar (Professor of Physics, Sharif U. Technology) spoke under the title “A Brief History of Light in the Universe.” There were ~110 attendees.
About 13.8 billion years ago, our universe ballooned outward at an incredible speed. Everything we observe today, which had been packed tightly together, expanded in a roiling mass. It took 380,000 years for this hot, dense soup to thin and cool enough to allow light to travel through it. Today, there are 400 photons in every cubic centimeter of the universe.
In the beginning there was just a soup of protons, neutrons, and electrons, with nothing holding them together. Once it expanded and cooled down a bit, the universe was merely as hot and as dense as the core of a star like our Sun. It was cool enough for ionized atoms of hydrogen to form. Then, hydrogen atoms fused into helium and other heavier elements. Based on the ratio of those elements we see in the universe today (74% hydrogen, 25% helium and 1% miscellaneous), we know that the universe was in this "whole universe is a star" condition for about 17 minutes: From 3 minutes until about 20 minutes after the Big Bang.
Between 240,000 and 300,000 years after the Big Bang, known as the Era of Recombination, the universe was finally cool enough for these atoms of hydrogen and helium to attract free electrons, turning them into neutral atoms. It was at this point that the universe went from being totally opaque, to transparent; the moment of first light. Today, the universe continues to expand, with the finite speed of light meaning that we see various parts of the universe as they existed in the past: 8 minutes ago for the Sun, 2.5 million years ago for the Andromeda Galaxy. [More info]
2025/05/27 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The Philosopher’s Toolkit (see the last item below). [Center & Right] From wetlands to fairways and back: This is what one of my neighbors got from Google Gemini chatbot, when he asked about the Ocean Meadows area (a restored wetland, thanks to UCSB’s wonderful vision), which has been the subject of controversy for the development of high-density student-housing units. AI-generated reports are hit or miss, but this one’s right on the spot. See also the next item below.
(2) Houses in Goleta renting for $15,000 per month: Actually, you don’t rent the entire house, but one of the 12 beds in it, at $1250+ per month. The site, near UCSB’s North Campus Open Space was originally designated for single-family houses, with a number of affordable units promised, which allowed denser development. In the time it took to build the units, usage was changed to student housing with per-bed rental. This is an out-of-town developer taking advantage of the severe shortage of student housing in the area.
(3) Book review: Baggini, Julian and Peter S. Fosl, The Philosopher’s Toolkit: A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and Methods, Wiley-Blackwell, 2nd ed., 2010.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Baggini is Editor & Co-Founder of The Philosopher’s Magazine and author of multiple books. Fosl is co-editor of Dictionary of Literary Biography and Professor of Philosophy at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky. This valuable book boasts a sequential and an encyclopedia-like alphabetical table of contents.
Although one can read a book of this kind from cover to cover in one go, the more likely use is to note the structure and to sample a chapter or two, before filing it away for future reference.
Here are the titles of the 7 chapters and the concepts discussed in each, which forms a useful summary of the book. The book ends with a list of Internet resources for philosophers.
- Basic Tools for Argument (arguments, premises, & conclusions; deduction; induction; validity & soundness; invalidity; consistency; fallacies; refutation; axioms; definitions; certainty & probability; tautologies, self-contradictions, & the law of non-contradiction)
- More Advanced Tools (abduction; hypothetico-deductive method; dialectic; analogies; anomalies & exceptions that prove the rule; intuition pumps; logical constructions; reduction; thought experiments; useful fictions)
- Tools for Assessment (alternative explanations; ambiguity; bivalence & the excluded middle; category mistakes; ceteris paribus; circularity; conceptual incoherence; counterexamples; criteria; error theory; false dichotomy; false cause; genetic fallacy; horned dilemmas; is/ought gap; masked man fallacy; partners in guilt; principle of charity; question-begging; reductios; redundancy; regresses; saving the phenomena; self-defeating arguments; sufficient reason; testability)
- Tools for Conceptual Distinctions (a-priori/a-posteriori; absolute/relative; analytic/synthetic; categorical/modal; conditional/biconditional; de re/de dicto, defensible/indefensible; entailment/implication; essence/accident; internalism/externalism; knowledge by acquaintance/description; necessary/contingent; necessary/sufficient; objective/subjective; realist/non-realist; sense/reference; syntax/semantics; thick/thin concepts; types/tokens)
- Tools of Historical Schools and Philosophers (aphorism, fragment, remark; categories and specific differences; elenchus & aporia; Hume’s fork; indirect discourse; Leibniz’s law of identity; Ockham’s razor; phenomenological methods; signs & signifiers; transcendental argument)
- Tools for Radical Critique (class critique; deconstruction & the critique of presence; empiricist critique of metaphysics; feminist critique; Foucaultian critique of power; Heideggerian critique of metaphysics; Lacanian critique; critiques of naturalism; Nietzschean critique of Christian-Platonic culture; pragmatist critique; Sartrean critique of ‘bad faith’)
- Tools at the Limit (basic beliefs; Godel & incompleteness; philosophy and/as art; mystical experience & revelation; paradoxes; possibility & impossibility; primitives; self-evident truths; scepticism; underdetermination)
2025/05/26 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Happy US Memorial Day (see the next item below). [Center] Soup, salad, herbs, and my son’s sour-cherry-rice being cooked: Who could ask for anything more? [Right] We miss calm, class, dignity, respect. We are tired of child-like tantrums & name-calling.
(2) On this Memorial Day, we honor the memory of those who fell to protect our freedom: Kissing & hugging the flag & wrapping our misguided policies in it are cheap. Helping our veterans, including protecting them from predatory private colleges that mislead them & milk their educational benefits would be priceless.
Mark Twain: "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it."
(3) UCSB experiences hate crimes motivated by xenophobia: In response, the campus community is reminded of resources for reporting hate crimes, various offices that provide support, and free safety escorts.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- A lucky UC campus will enroll California prodigy Alisa Perales, 11, who just earned a 2-year college degree.
- CA community colleges increase efforts to deal with fraudulent students comprising 31.4% of applicants.
- With 86% of fresh tomato imports coming from Mexico, the 21% tariff due in July will have a big impact.
- Once the US government built beautiful homes for working-class Americans to deal with a housing crisis.
- Traditional Persian music: “Chahar-Mezrab-e Mahoor.” [Reel]
- Iranian music: “Jum’ah Bazar” (“Friday Market”), performed in Persian & Guilaki, a Caspian-coast dialect.
(5) College faculty pay has dropped for many disciplines over the past two decades, when adjusted for inflation: Business, healthcare, and STEM fields have fared relatively better, while education has struggled.
(6) Churches around the world: Architecturally, the most-impressive historical churches and cathedrals are found in Europe. St. Peter’s Basilica (1626) and Notre-Dame de Paris (1260, restored & modified several times since then) are familiar to most everyone.
When I visited and photographed Santa Barbara Mission this Memorial-Day weekend (see photos in yesterday's first blog entry), it occurred to me that the design, with its faut columns, is quite modest in comparison with much-older European churches. A plaque on the building traced its history: Founded 1786; Present church completed 1820; Destroyed by earthquake 1925; Restored 1927 & 1953.
During my on-line research, I also chanced upon a list of 10 churches in Iran, which took me by surprise. Most historical Iranian churches have architectures similar to those I had seen in Armenia, but a few, most-notably the Vank Cathedral in Isfahan, incorporate domes and other elements from mosque designs.
2025/05/25 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Today, at the I-Madonnari street-painting festival, held annually over the Memorial Day weekend at Santa Barbara Mission. Shown are samples of the art and artists, along with the Mission's beautiful Rose Garden.
(2) Centennial of Santa Barbara’s devastating June 29, 1925, earthquake: What rose from the rubble wasn’t just buildings, but a bold new identity. Join AIA Santa Barbara on June 29, 2025, 5:00 PM, for “The Earthquake That Built a City,” a 90-minute symposium at Lobero Theatre exploring how one disaster reshaped our architectural and cultural future.
(3) Vaccine misinformation: Amidst the post-COVID vaccine world, a curious term, "Turbo Cancer," has emerged in anti-vaccine circles. The claim? That mRNA vaccines are causing an epidemic of fast-growing, aggressive cancers. However, let’s dive into the science and show why this doesn’t hold up.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Like his dad, Barron Trump was rejected by Harvard: Which explains many of the recent presidential actions.
- Persian poetry and calligraphy. [Video]
- Persian music: An oldie song from ~130 years ago. [Video]
- Facebook memory from May 25, 2015: The Fifth Parhami Family Reunion in Santa Monica, California.
(5) The Biological Weapons Convention turns 50: “Since 1975, the intent of this international treaty has been to prohibit the development, production, and stockpiling of biological and toxin weapons. Global commitment to these objectives is reflected by the treaty’s total membership of 188 states. However, member states have thus far been unable to raise strong barriers against illicit bioweapons development. With rapid advancements in science and technology and the rise of biological weapons disinformation, improvements of the Convention are urgently needed. One way to reinforce the treaty is to consider an inspection mechanism that aims to disrupt illicit programs rather than detect them.” [Science magazine story]
(6) The associative theory of creativity (or why you should read the obituaries): According to psychologist Sarnoff Mednick, highly-creative people have a different kind of memory structure, one that holds a wider range of ideas and forges more unexpected connections between them. His research showed that creative ideas are more likely to emerge from combinations of concepts that are further apart in the mind’s conceptual network. The greater the distance between two ideas, the more original and surprising their combination tends to be. Obituaries are a good source of exposing yourself to distant concepts. Not the half-page write-ups of celebrities or politicians, but the small-print obituaries in New York Times Sunday edition, squeezed into eight columns on a single page, paid for by friends & family. These people aren’t famous, but their lives, described lovingly and vividly by those who knew them best, are often more surprising than any headline obituary. And reading about their lives provides an ideal way to boost your creativity.
2025/05/24 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A gentle math puzzle: Given the dimensions of the 3 rectangles, find the radius of the circle. [Center] Islamic authorities imprisoned Jafar Panahi and banned him from making movies, yet he is back at Cannes Film Festival to accept the Palme d’Or for his illegally made revenge drama, “It Was Just an Accident.” [Right] On logarithmic arithmetic in the human brain and in computing (see the last item below).
(2) Roya Hakakian introduces the Iranian philosopher Aramesh Doostdar [1931-2021], a staunch critic of Iranians' religiosity, in both pre- and post-Islamic periods, which has brought about a total lack of questioning.
(3) Proposal for a single California University: California Competes, a nonprofit research organization, suggests that the 10-campus U. California, the 23-campus California State U., and the state’s system of 116 community colleges be merged. The proposal, which aims to address transfer issues and improve student access and success, is described as being intentionally provocative in order to spark transformative discourse.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Harvard launches the free civics course, “We the People: Civic Engagement in a Constitutional Democracy.”
- Billy Joel cancels his upcoming tour due to a brain disorder that affects his hearing, vision and balance.
- A rocket, that is 3D-printed in its entirety, will go to space by the end of 2025.
- Availability of public data-sets & AI tools are thought to be responsible for a surge in low-quality papers.
- Aiming for 30-day weather forecasts: AI models refute a 2-week limit linked to the "butterfly effect."
- Cardiologist Eric Topol, 70, spent years researching healthy aging: Now, he lives by what he’s learned.
(5) Human brain understands and processes numbers on a logarithmic scale: Ask adults from the industrialized world what number is halfway between 1 and 9, and most will say 5. But pose the same question to small children, or people living in some traditional societies, and they're likely to answer 3, which isn’t the arithmetic mean of 1 & 9, but their geometric mean.
Additionally, in dealing with inaccuracies, relative error is much more important than absolute error. An error of 3 units is a lot more significant in distinguishing between 1 & 4 hungry lions than between 97 & 100 antelopes in a herd you spot. Logarithmic representation maintains a constant relative error throughout the range of representable numbers.
Logarithmic number representation and arithmetic is also used for some applications on digital computers. For details, see my textbook on computer arithmetic (Oxford U. Press, 2nd ed., 2010) and my survey paper entitled “Computing with Logarithmic Number System Arithmetic: Implementation Methods and Performance Benefits” (Computers and Electrical Engineering, Vol. 87, Oct. 2020).
2025/05/23 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Today, UCSB remembers the Isla Vista mass-shooting of May 23, 2014, in which six students lost their lives. [Center] Science magazine’s cover feature: Allelopathic turf algae redefine the chemical landscape of temperate reefs, limiting the recovery of kelp forests, which are vital to the functioning of ocean ecosystems. [Right] Ayana Elizabeth Johnson's What If We Get It Right? (see the last item below)
(2) Light can travel vast distances without losing energy: In other words, photons do not wear out as they move millions of light years across the universe. According to astrophysicist Jarred Roberts, because photons are massless electromagnetic radiation, they can maintain their light speed of 300,000 km/s forever when they travel unimpeded. Light does lose some energy when it bounces off something, such as interstellar dust, but because space is mostly empty, there is usually nothing in the way. Furthermore, because time is relative, a photon, which from our viewpoint has traveled millions of light years to reach a telescope on Earth, has actually traveled for a tiny fraction of a second from its own viewpoint, that is, it moves nearly instantaneously, because space is squished to the photon.
(3) An 18-kilometer tunnel beneath the Baltic Sea will soon link Denmark and Germany: The $8.1 billion project will yield the world’s longest prefabricated road & rail tunnel. Its modular construction will position 90 prefab concrete and reinforced steel segments, each 217 meters long and 42 meters wide, atop a trench dug into the seafloor, which are then fused together, LEGO-brick style.
(4) Book review: Johnson, Ayana Elizabeth, What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures, One World, 2024. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book, which consists of 3 dozen sections (interviews, poems, essays), is organized into 8 chapters bearing the titles: Possibility; Replenish and Re-Green; If We Build It … ; Follow the Money; Culture Is the Context; Changing the Rules; Community Foremost; Transformation. It essentially presents the other side of the coin relative to the doom-and-gloom forecasts we are used to seeing in books and media stories on climate change. Not only our climate future isn’t etched in stone, it is not even written yet.
We humans have faced existential crises in the past, having emerged from them alive and more hopeful. This book suggests that we can do the same with the climate crisis. It’s a long shot, but we can succeed if we imagine life on the other side. “[Here,] you’ll find no sugar coating or downplaying of scientific projections or of the speed and scope of change required in order to birth a future where we have a chance to flourish. You also won’t find wallowing. We are learning lessons and looking forward. Fundamentally changing how we interact with nature and each other certainly will not be easy. This transformation will be messy. It will require new ideas and technologies, and ancient ones. But we can do hard things.” [p. 15]
Each of us can and must get involved. To find out where and how, ask yourself three questions and look at the intersection of the three answers for possibilities:
- What are you good at? What you can bring to the table: Skills, resources, networks.
- What work needs doing? Systemic changes and efforts that can be replicated & scaled.
- What brings you joy? Chose climate actions that energize and enliven you.
Maya Angelou is quoted at the end of the book, before the back matter: “We need joy as we need air. We need love as we need water. We need each other as we need the Earth we share.”
2025/05/22 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math is beautiful: Continued-fraction representation of sqrt(x). [Center] Kindness is contagious. Pass it on! [Right] Senior send-off: Three weeks before the end of their final quarter at UCSB, our ECE seniors were treated to a reception/lunch, as they mingled with their peers and faculty members.
(2) Quote of the day: “We need joy as we need air. We need love as we need water. We need each other as we need the Earth we share.” ~ Maya Angelou
(3) Iran’s electricity shortage and the attendant blackouts are only for the poor: Tehran’s southern areas get 32% of the blackouts, whereas the affluent northern Tehran gets only 1%.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The Trump administration seeks to block Harvard University from admitting international students. [NYT]
- The Democrats should make 2026 a referendum on the three C’s: Corruption, Chaos, Cruelty.
- Langston Hughes: “Hold fast to dreams. For if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”
- Iran’s misogynistic Islamic laws and justice system enable “honor” killings, with light or no punishment.
(5) Perspective on our place in the universe: There are on the order of 1 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, each containing 100 million stars on average. Most of these ~10^20 stars have planetary systems, which likely include Earth-like planets. There are an estimated 2 billion potentially Earth-like planets in the Milky Way Galaxy alone.
(6) It’s always the same pattern: Some Republicans pretend they are against a piece of legislation because of some principle, and they wax sentimental about it for their voters. Then, they quietly fold and vote for it.
(7) Human brain understands and processes numbers on a logarithmic scale: Ask adults from the industrialized world what number is halfway between 1 and 9, and most will say 5. But pose the same question to small children, or people living in some traditional societies, and they're likely to answer 3, which isn’t the arithmetic mean of 1 & 9, but their geometric mean.
Additionally, in dealing with inaccuracies, relative error is much more important than absolute error. An error of 3 units is a lot more significant in distinguishing between 1 & 4 hungry lions than between 97 & 100 antelopes in a herd you spot. Logarithmic representation maintains a constant relative error throughout the range of representable numbers.
Logarithmic number representation and arithmetic is also used for some applications on digital computers. For details, see my textbook on computer arithmetic (Oxford U. Press, 2nd ed., 2010) and my survey paper entitled “Computing with Logarithmic Number System Arithmetic: Implementation Methods and Performance Benefits” (Computers and Electrical Engineering, Vol. 87, Oct. 2020).
2025/05/21 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzle: What is the total area of the two squares inside the half-circle? [Center] IEEE CCS talk on dark matter (see the next item below). [Right] David Sumpter's The Ten Equations that Rule the World (see the last item below).
(2) Tonight’s IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk: Dr. Amalia Madden (post-doctoral scholar, KITP, UCSB) spoke under the title “Dark Matter: Discovering the Invisible Universe.”
The matter we are familiar with (stars, planets, people) constitutes only 15% of all matter. The rest is invisible, neither emitting light nor interacting through known forces of nature. We infer dark matter’s existence only through the gravitational influence it exerts on the cosmos. The existence of dark matter was discovered over a century ago, yet understanding what it is made of and what laws of physics govern it remain among the greatest unsolved puzzles in physics. Dr. Madden explored the compelling evidence for dark matter, discussing why learning more about it is essential to uncovering the history of the Universe.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Qatar’s gift of a luxury 747 didn’t come out of the blue: Trump had been pursuing it for months. [NYT]
- Mother defies Islamic authorities after daughter’s death: “I will die like a woman, free.”
- Facebook memory from May 20, 2021: The four main kinds of bread used in Iran. [Reel]
- Facebook memory from May 20, 2017: Saudi Arabia, according to candidate DJT and President DJT.
(4) Book review: Sumpter, David, The Ten Equations That Rule the World: And How You Can use Them Too, Flatiron Books, 2020. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Upon reading about the 10 most-important equations, one immediately thinks of Maxwell’s, Einstein’s, Newton’s, and the like. The 10 equations discussed in this book are lesser-known, except possibly for Bayes’ rule of Chapter 1 titled “The Judgement Equation.” They are however quite important in our personal and work-related decision-making and in our interactions with others.
Personal experiences have led the author to believe in TEN, his pretend secret society that has produced the 10 equations which have worked for him. “These equations have shaped my thinking in ways that have helped me find happiness and fulfillment. They have also made me a better person: More balanced in my outlook and better able to understand the actions of others.”
In the rest of this review, I list the chapter titles and briefly describe (in parentheses) my understanding of the equations, along with their significance and applications.
- The Judgement Equation (Many scary situations, such as turbulence in flight or testing positive for a deadly disease, become less so if you analyze them through the application of Bayes’ rule)
- The Betting Equation (Logistic regression allows you to cash in on a small informational edge by increasing the probability that you come out on the winning side)
- The Confidence Equation (Pay attention not just to the expected value but also the variations or uncertainties, as in the specification that the value of x is 4 plus-or-minus 1)
- The Skill Equation (The performance of a bank teller should be judged by the number of customers s/he can serve per unit time; the fact that the customer queue keeps growing isn’t his/her fault)
- The Influencer Equation (Random movements or connections can lead to stationary distributions, as in Markov chains, a fact that Google exploited in its PageRank algorithm)
- The Market Equation (Variations in the value of a stock consist of an overall trend, the signal, and local fluctuations, the noise. Deriving and using the signal allows you to make money from long-term investments)
- The Advertising Equation (Advertisers categorize people according to correlations among things they like. This sounds like stereotyping, but it works great as an advertising strategy)
- The Reward Equation (When you watch a series of episodes of a TV show or play a computer game, the decision to continue the activity or to abandon it is based on a running quality or satisfaction score, a value that is updated with each additional step)
- The Learning Equation (Entertainment and e-commerce sites want to keep your attention for as long as they can. They use learning algorithms to predict what will keep you on the site, so that they can sell you things or feed you ads)
- The Universal Equation (The ‘if … then … else’ construct is a universal building block for use in algorithms. It helps us find shortest paths in graph, merge two sorted sublists, or synthesize any other desired function)
I read the e-book version of this title, in which the equations, the supposed heart of the book, appeared as tiny images, making them quite difficult to read and understand. In many cases, I had to take screenshots of the pages and enlarge them in order to read the equations and the associated analyses. I hope this problem is fixed in future editions.
2025/05/19 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Capturing the diversity of trees on the UCSB campus during a walk from the East Gate to Isla Vista.
(2) Quote of the day: “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style” ~ Maya Angelou
(3) Trump threatens Bruce Springsteen, who has been highly critical of his administration while on a concert tour abroad: “This dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country, that’s just ‘standard fare.’ Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!”
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Joe Biden is diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, after a nodule was found on his prostate. [NYT]
- The Chinese spy who for two decades operated a covert police station for China in NYC. [13-minute video]
- Anduril CEO talks about smart, autonomous fighter jets and other weapons systems. [5-minute video]
- Why we have to dig up ancient structures & why there are layers of even older structures underneath.
- Words of wisdom: What kills you isn’t falling in the water, it’s staying under water.
- Quote of the day: “We turn not older with years, but newer every day.” ~ Emily Dickinson
(5) Iran’s President Pezeshkian urges citizens to use less electricity, adding: “Did we have a problem in the old days when there was no air-conditioning?” Well, there were also no cars, elevators, robots in factories, research labs, … Is that where you want to take Iran? Why don’t you tell IRGC to stop mining Bitcoins?
(6) It won’t be long before some of Trump’s henchmen and minions start claiming that they were the adults in the room, accepting cabinet and other positions to prevent Trump from acting on his worst instincts: No one will buy this claim, given what went on during Trump’s first term.
(7) China is building a supercomputer in orbit: The exa-ops computer consists of 12 satellites, each equipped with intelligent computing systems and inter-satellite communication links.
(8) Attending college once provided a similar payoff for students regardless of their parents’ income, but that’s no longer the case: A new working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research asserts that since the 1960s, attending college has become steadily less valuable, in terms of wage and employment benefits, for lower-income students, but increasingly valuable for wealthier ones.
(9) Pope Leo’s Name Carries a Warning About AI: When Robert Prevost announced he would take the name Leo XIV as pope, he cited the rise of AI for his choice. Prevost explained that the most-recent Pope Leo served during the Industrial Revolution and criticized the new machine-driven economic systems turning workers into mere commodities. With AI, defense of human dignity, justice, and labor is even more urgently needed.
2025/05/18 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Henry Samueli, recipient of the 2025 IEEE Medal of Honor (see the next item below). [Center] Science magazine cover feature: Sustainability insights from Late Pleistoscene climate change and horse migration patterns confirm indigenous beliefs that all life is in constant motion, moving and adapting as climate shifts. [Right] Representations of AI in Greek epics (see the last item below).
(2) The broadband boss: Henry Samueli was the main driving force behind changing 14.4 kb/s Internet access via phone lines to cable-based broadband access. In 1985, he had established a multidisciplinary research program at UCLA to develop chips for digital broadband. Over the next several years, he and his team created a wide variety of proof-of-concept chips demonstrating the key building blocks of high-performance digital modems. And in 1991, Samueli, along with his UCLA grad student Henry Nicholas, founded Broadcom Corp. to commercialize the technology.
Today, the innovations in digital signal processing architectures pioneered at UCLA and Broadcom persist in the digital modems that enable both wired and wireless communications in our devices. For these advances, along with contributions to expanding STEM education, Samueli is the recipient of the 2025 IEEE Medal of Honor.
(3) Words matter: ACM has proposed alternatives for potentially charged terms in the computing profession. Examples and suggested replacements include “abort” (cancel, end, and other options), “blind/double-blind review” (anonymous/double-anonymous), “female/male connector” (socket/plug), “gender bender” (plug-socket adapter), “master/slave” (leader/follower, and other options), and “stable marriage problem” (stable matching problem/process).
(4) The US economy is ailing: Moody’s downgrade of the US sovereign credit rating, a predicted recession, and Walmart’s announcement that it may be forced to raise its prices due to Trump tariffs are warning signs.
(5) Professor Brett M. Rogers teaches about the intersection of classical literature and sci-fi & fantasy: In a recent talk at UCSB, which unfortunately I could not attend, he discussed his recent work on representations of artificial intelligence in Greek epics. He focuses on the robotic dogs depicted in the Odyssey, discussing how the ancient Greeks were thinking about automation and the connections we can draw to our own modern ideas about artificial intelligence. Professor Rogers’ research of medieval manuscripts led him to ancient debates about what we now call AI dating back to antiquity. His research suggests that these ideas are not new, they are just repackaged with modern technology. That concept of connecting present day ideas back to antiquity and vice versa is the underlying question that guides Rogers’ scholarly research.
2025/05/17 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Some US critical mineral, degree of reliance on imports, and primary import sources. [Center] Average US hourly earnings by state (source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics). [Right] Talk on Google's quantum chip and its error-correcting capabilities (see the last item below).
(2) Office buildings are sitting empty or sparsely-occupied in city centers: Some have opted to convert them into apartment complexes, but the process is costly. A much cheaper scheme is to make the buildings mixed-use, keeping some of the offices and converting the rest into co-living units, with minimal modifications.
(3) A personalized gene-editing treatment successfully treated an infant with a rare genetic disease known as CPS1 deficiency: This marks the first time a patient of any age has been successfully treated via customized CRISPR gene editing.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Supercollider engineers try to break physics to fix it: If they do, we may finally understand dark matter.
- Piezoelectric catalyst destroys forever chemical: Swiss start-up claims removal of 99% of PFAS in tests.
- From North Asia to South America: Tracing the longest human migration through genomic sequencing.
- No farmer in sight: Dairy farm in Netherlands is operated by a small fleet of fully-autonomous robots.
(5) A rare original Magna Carta from 1300 has been identified in Harvard Law School’s archives: Purchased in 1946 for just $27.50 (~$477 today), it was misfiled for decades and long mistaken for a replica. The sheepskin parchment is now confirmed as one of only seven known surviving originals issued by King Edward I.
(6) “Willow and Quantum Computing Below the Surface Code Threshold”: This was the title of a May 13, 2025, Physics Dept. Colloquium by Dr. Julian Kelly at UCSB’s KITP. Dr. Kelly is Director of Google’s Quantum Hardware unit, located right here in Santa Barbara.
One of the major challenges in building practical quantum computers is the fairly high error rate of qubits, ranging from 10^–2 to 10^–4. Practical application of qubits needs an error rate of 7 orders of magnitude lower, that is, 10^–9 to 10^–11. Quantum computing researchers are trying to achieve this level of reliability by combining multiple physical qubits into a logical qubit, where the logical error rate is suppressed exponentially as more qubits are added.
Dr. Kelly described Willow, Google’s new quantum chip, which meets this challenge, demonstrating exponential suppression of error with a factor of Λ = 2.14 as a logical qubit is scaled up over code distances. The Willow chip has also been used to repeat the Random Circuit Sampling benchmark, finding that the time to classically reproduce this result would be 10^25 years.
2025/05/16 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Where US graduate students say they want to live. [Center] Made aash-e reshteh (noodle-veggie thick soup) from Sadaf boxed ingredients and separately-purchased kashk. Your place was empty. [Right] Iran’s GDP according to World Bank data (in $ billion): The latest figure of $400B is 2x the GDP of Qatar, which has an area less than 1% of Iran’s. PPP stands for “purchasing power parity.”
(2) Surprise, surprise! Trump’s tax bill does not remove taxes on tips, overtime payments, or Social Security benefits, promises he made repeatedly on the campaign trail.
(3) Biden is back & he's not helping the Democrats’ efforts to put their dismal 2024 performance behind them: Many analysts now believe that by insisting to run for re-election, Biden handed the presidency to the GOP. Biden's oft-repeated assertion that he could have beaten Trump is delusional and an insult to Kamala Harris. History will judge Biden’s presidency kindly but will have harsh words for his decision to run for re-election.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Trump the candidate vs. Trump the president, on taking money from certain countries. [Reel]
- Art of the deal: Top-10 best deals for the Trump family at the expense of American taxpayers. [Reel]
- Wishful thinking? Trump claims to have signed a $1.2T deal with Qatar, whose GDP is ~$200 billion,
- New Yorker Radio Hour: Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson discuss Joe Biden’s cognitive decline & its coverup.
(5) Some students are unhappy with their professors’ use of ChatGPT: Ella Stapleton, a senior at Northeastern University, found telltale signs of AI in her class materials—egregious misspellings, distorted text and photos of people with extraneous body parts. She filed a complaint and requested a tuition refund of $8000. [NYT]
(6) Word salad: Trump speaking in front of Middle Eastern businessmen, starts by praising American drones, and then goes on a totally unrelated diatribe, never returning to the main topic of selling American goods.
(7) Improved batteries are key to the future of robotics: For robots to move around, they need to carry their own power source. Just as the weight of needed fuel is a hindrance to the functionality and range of space vehicles, so too the weight of batteries negatively impacts the functionality and range of robots. Battery weight is particularly critical for micro-robots the size of insects. Enter a new technology that stacks feather-weight solid-state batteries to boost voltage high enough to power flying micro-robots and micro-drones.
2025/05/15 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Turing Award Laureates, 2024 (see the next item below). [Center] Of late, my technical posts on LinkedIn have been generating a lot of interest. This past week, my offerings, led by a post about FFT turning 60, got more than 30K impressions. It amazed me that so many people are passionate about FFT and its varied engineering applications. [Right] Tonight's Talangor Group talk (see the last item below).
(2) Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton win the 2024 ACM Turing Award: They have been honored for developing the conceptual and algorithmic foundations of reinforcement learning. Barto and Sutton introduced the main ideas, constructed the mathematical foundations, and developed important algorithms for reinforcement learning—one of the most important approaches for creating intelligent systems. Barto is Professor Emeritus of Information and Computer Sciences at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Sutton is a Professor of Computer Science at University of Alberta, a Research Scientist at Keen Technologies, and a Fellow at Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- US Secretary of Education talks about the positive effects of using A1 (by which she meant AI) in education.
- Candidate Trump on taking dirty money from morally corrupt countries who kill gays & mistreat women.
- Facebook memory from May 15, 2022: Yes, many children of rape turn out okay, but should we have more?
- Facebook memory from May 15, 2017: We give ourselves too much credit when we succeed.
(4) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Farid Akhbari spoke under the title “Information, Disinformation, and Misinformation.” Before the main talk, Sara Mirzaee introduced the Persian book Life Road, which promotes 12 strategies for a well-balanced life (English version forthcoming). There were ~80 attendees.
Distorted information can arise accidentally or purposefully. Possible reasons for it are cognitive (faulty storage & retrieval), social (undue trust in the source), emotional (accompanying fear or rage), technological (speed and extent of dissemination), errors from repeated transmissions (accumulation of small inaccuracies), impact of repetition (which may persist even after a correction has been issued), and public opinion.
The best defense against distorted information is critical thinking. Research has shown that incorrect information spreads about 70% faster than correct information. Unfortunately, critical analysis of information is difficult and time-consuming, so people are unable or less-motivated to pursue it.
Sometimes, a received news item may be correct in what it states, but it is nonetheless distorted because it omits other sides of the story. Scientists are trained to see and seek all sides, the benefits and drawbacks, but ordinary people have no such training and may fall for goal-oriented descriptions that promote a targeted side.
Factors facilitating the spread of incorrect information include:Falsehood coming from a famous person (influencer); Emotional or agitated state of mind; Confirmation bias (pleasant lies); Lies about our political opponents or enemies; Echo chambers; Illiteracy and innumeracy; Fear and anxiety.
Those most-vulnerable to believing false information include the elderly, children, drug users, the mentally ill, and socially marginalized groups. False news stories often carry an exaggerated tone and contain tell-tale keywords and key phrases: Urgent; Breaking news; Don't wait; Act now; Disaster; Danger. The best defense is to not act in haste and to consult a trusted source.
[Web page with much useful information and various guides to help you deal with false information]
2025/05/14 (Wednesday): Today, I offer reviews of three books on diverse subjects.
(1) Book review: Whitman, Debra, The Second Fifty: Answers to the 7 Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond, W. W. Norton & Company, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
In this book, aging expert Debra Whitman, PhD, notes the need for some adjustments, now that Americans are living decades longer than in previous generations. While offering exciting possibilities, these added years also raise crucial questions. How long will I work? Will I have enough money? Where will I live? How will I die? Whitman began to think and write about these questions when she approached her 50th birthday.
Drawing on compelling stories from her own family & people across the country, interviews with experts, and cutting-edge research, Whitman provides a road map for navigating the second half of life. She shares insights on longevity, brain health, financial planning, work, housing and the value of relationships & social engagement. Dementia rates have actually been declining as more people achieve higher levels of education and adopt healthier lifestyles. And while we’ve long known that staying connected to others is critical to mental health, it turns out it is also linked to a stronger immune system, lower blood pressure and a longer life.
I was lucky enough to listen to a conversation with Whitman on May 1, 2025, via a webinar, organized by UCLA’s Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior. In the webinar, Whitman presented practical steps for creating a better second 50 for ourselves. She also called for urgently needed changes that would make it easier for every American to enjoy a vital and meaningful second half of life.
Whether you are approaching 50, into your later years, or caring for someone who is, you’ll find a wealth of wisdom in the pages of Whitman’s excellent book. Given that the problems we face much later in life are qualitatively and quantitatively different from those we encounter shortly after turning 50, I hope Whitman feels motivated to write about “The Fourth Twenty-Five” when she approaches her 75th birthday!
(2) Book review: Galef, Julia, The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t, unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by the author, Penguin Audio, 2021.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The goal of this book is to teach you how to be more like a scout (open-minded, inquisitive, exploring alternatives) than a soldier (rigid mindset, not asking questions, following orders). A soldier’s rigid mindset often has a preconceived outlook and thus looks for evidence in support of that outlook, sometimes fabricating data or evidence for that end. A scout’s open mindsets analyzes the evidence and comes up with a decision that best matches the known facts, whether or not the decision is something s/he likes.
One should not blemish a correct/moral decision/stance by considering one’s emotional reaction about what seems right. It’s not okay to take a bad person or outcome and make it look worse, because we want a backlash against that person or outcome.
These are all valid points that could have been made in a few dozen pages. Much of the rest of the material is padding, at times with little connection to the main theme of the book. I will definitely aspire to be more like a scout, seeing things as they are, not as I wish they were, than a soldier, the default human mode of reasoning in high-stakes situations. Whether or not I succeed in this age of social and political divisions is an entirely different story.
(3) Book review: Rilke, Rainer Maria (translated by M. D. Herter Norton), Letters to a Young Poet, W. W. Norton & Company, revised ed., 1954.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This short, 90-page book contains the texts of 10 letters, 2-7 pages each, written by poet Rainer Maria Rilke to help and comfort Franz Xaver Kappus, who asked for Rilke's opinion of his poetic attempts. "Many weeks passed before a reply came [to my first letter] ... with it began my regular correspondence with Rainer Maria Rilke which lasted until 1908 and then gradually petered out because life drove me off into those very regions from which the poet's warm, tender and touching concern had sought to keep me." Those warm, tender, and touching concerns permeate the 10 letters.
On the second page of Letter 1, we read: "You ask whether your verses are good. ... You are looking outward, and that above all you should not do now. Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody. There is only one single way. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you write: find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart."
In the final paragraph of Letter 7, we read, "do not believe that the great love once enjoined upon you, the boy, was lost; can you say whether great and good desires did not ripen in you at the time, and resolutions by which you are still living today?"
Letter 8, the longest of the batch, ends with this revealing statement: "Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness and remains far behind yours. Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words."
Rilke's letters to his young poet friend shed light on love, sex, suffering, and the nature of advice itself. A 30-page "Chronicle, 1903-1908" tying the letters to events in Rilke's life concludes this remarkable book.
2025/05/13 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Finding square-roots geometrically, with a ruler and compass. [Center] As Iran’s Islamic regime nears the end of its life, it ramps up execution of dissidents for the slightest of infractions. [Right] Talk on the history of ethics (see the last item below).
(2) Today is the 84th birthday of my late friend & colleague, Dr. Farhad Mavaddat. We overlapped for ~6 years at Arya-Mehr/Sharif U. Technology and reunited briefly in 1986, when I spent a sabbatical year at U. Waterloo. But our friendship & collaborations ran much deeper than our limited physical proximity. RIP.
(3) “Ethics Across History”: In the first installment of a 3-part Zoom presentation in Persian, Mitra Zaimi traced the historical development of ethics from primitive human societies to the age of information. Ethics is quite difficult to define. It encompasses elements of traditions/norms, behavioral patterns that are promoted, and taboos, behaviors that should be avoided.
Ethics is quite local. It changes through time and across geographic locations. I mentioned during the Q&A period that ethical behavior is built into us humans through evolution, with collective behaviors that help the survival of tribes and societies being deemed ethical. However, because the snail-like pace of evolution lags behind the cheetah-like pace of cultural and technical progress, we have opted for enshrining ethical principles in our laws and regulations, with the unfortunate byproduct that rulers of societies mix-in their own preferences with ethical principles that are pretty much universal.
A bullet-point list of the topics covered follows.
- Ethics in primitive societies (loyalty to group, deference to elders, fair allocation of resources, respect for nature, spiritual beliefs)
- Ethics in ancient civilizations (justice, truthfulness, kindness, respect for others, importance of society): The civilizations discussed included Mesopotamia (Code of Hammurabi), Ancient Egypt (a strong element of life after death), Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome (justice, rights, good citizenship), China (social order, justice, deference to elders), India (karma), Ancient Persia (good & evil, justice), Americas (respect for nature, wisdom of elders), Africa.
- Ethics in the Middle Ages (religion, sin, seeking salvation)
- Ethics in the Enlightenment Age (rationality, individualism)
- Ethics in Modernity (diversity, practical ethics, as in medicine, nuclear weapons, environment, business)
In the final segment of her talk, Ms. Zaimi enumerated factors affecting the development of ethics (social progress, industrialization, scientific/technological advances, sociopolitical changes), briefly discussed ethics in the age of information (privacy, algorithmic bias, libel, mis/dis-information, child labor & abuse), and pointed to the way ahead (laws & regulations, improving public awareness, promoting digital ethics, ethical technologies).
2025/05/12 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] World champions of chess (1886-2024). [Center] This US medal of honor mentions Persian Gulf twice: So, why does Trump want to change the name? One person posting on social media noted that just as you can’t go to your neighbor and demand that he change the name of one of his children, you shouldn’t be able to change the name of a body of water that isn’t yours. [Right] Global Catastrophic Risks (see the last item below).
(2) Book review: Bostrom, Nick and Milan M. Cirkovic (editors), Global Catastrophic Risks, Oxford, 2011.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
A global catastrophic risk is one with the potential to wreak death and destruction on a global scale. Of late, we have been preoccupied with the dangers of malicious, run-away AI pushing humans aside and taking control of our world, nearly forgetting about all the other extinction-level dangers we face. In human history, wars and plagues have caused havoc on multiple occasions, and misguided ideologies and totalitarian regimes have darkened an entire era or a region. Advances in technology are adding dangers of a new kind. It could happen again.
In this edited collection, 25 leading experts look at the gravest risks facing humanity in the 21st century, including asteroid impacts, gamma-ray bursts, Earth-based natural catastrophes, nuclear war, terrorism, global warming, biological weapons, totalitarianism, advanced nanotechnology, general artificial intelligence, and social collapse. The book also addresses over-arching issues—policy responses and methods for predicting and managing catastrophes. The part and chapter titles are indicative of the scope of this must-read collection for everyone, from students of science/society/technology to academics/professionals/policy-makers in these fields.
- Introduction (Why? Taxonomy and organization. Summary of the four parts)
Part I: Background
- Long-term astrophysical processes (Fate of the Earth. Life and information processing)
- Evolution theory and the future of humanity (Changes in human evolution and culture)
- Millennial tendencies in response to apocalyptic threats (Techno-millennialism)
- Cognitive biases potentially affecting judgement of global risks (Black swans)
- Observation selection effects and global catastrophic risks (Fermi’s paradox)
- Systems-based risk analysis (Defining risk. Risk of extreme and catastrophic events)
- Catastrophes and insurance (Catastrophe loss models. Extreme value statistics)
Part II: Risks from Nature
- Super-volcanism and other geophysical processes of catastrophic import (Super-eruptions)
- Hazards from comets and asteroids (Near-earth object searches. The effects of impact)
- Influence of supernovae, gamma-rays, solar flares, & cosmic rays on the terrestrial environment
Part III: Risks from Unintended Consequences
- Climate change and global risk (Climate risk and mitigation policy)
- Plagues and pandemics: Past, present, and future (Plagues of historical note. Man-made viruses)
- Artificial intelligence as a positive and negative factor in global risk. Threats and promises)
- Big troubles, imagined and real (Accelerator disasters. Runaway technologies)
- Catastrophe, social collapse, and human extinction (Distribution of disaster. Existential disasters)
Part IV: Risks from Hostile Acts
- The continuing threat of nuclear war (Calculating Armageddon. Current nuclear balance)
- Catastrophic nuclear terrorism: A preventable peril (Demand & supply sides of nuclear terrorism)
- Biotechnology and biosecurity (Why biological weapons are distinct from other WMDs)
- Nanotechnology as global catastrophic risk (Molecular manufacturing. Nano-built weaponry)
- The totalitarian threat (Stable totalitarianism. Totalitarian risk management)
2025/05/11 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Happy Mothers' Day to all selfless moms and mother-like figures around the world: We should really honor mothers every day of the year, but on this day specifically dedicated to mothers, we must find ways to celebrate their love and sacrifices by going beyond verbal and written tributes. We celebrated Mothers’ Day with a BBQ lunch, complemented with lubia-polo (green-bean-rice) and other yummies, yesterday.
(2) In what is considered to be the largest foreign gift to the United States, President Trump is accepting a luxury 747 plane from Qatar: The gift raises substantial ethical issues, given the immense value of the plane and the fact that Trump plans to use it after he leaves office.
(3) Our mental image of the Solar System consists of 8 planets orbiting the sun in perfect order: In reality, billions of objects go around the Sun in a messy collection of orbits.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Earnings reports suggest that McDonald’s may have priced itself out of a market it dominated for decades.
- How the US grew from 13 colonies to a coast-to-coast area 11 times bigger. [Video]
- Time zones are more complicated than you think: Here are some of the quirks of the basic logical idea.
- A 54-year-old man sings his touching love song on “America’s Got Talent” stage.
(5) Implied patriarchy: I came across a video clip on social media in which a father told officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran that they cannot dictate how his daughter behaves or dresses. So far, so good. Unfortunately, he added that only her father can tell her what to do.
(6) An odd fact about Iran: If you buy a ream of paper and keep it at home, its value will double in a year or two. Now, if you print currency on the paper, it will halve in value over the same period.
(7) A sure sign of Trump’s cognitive decline: He keeps giving interviews to sources such as ABC and The Atlantic, knowing full well that they will highlight all his lies and stupid pronouncements.
(8) A statement attributed to Prophet Muhammad: “If a woman cooks her breasts and offers them to her husband, she still remains indebted to him. But if she does not obey her husband for a period as short as the blink of an eye, she will be condemned to the most-horrible part of Hell, unless she repents.”
I checked on-line to make sure this isn’t a made-up quote. There is no doubt that some Islamic scholars have reported this story, so at least a few high-level clerics/scholars are okay with the notion, but others have cast doubt on the attribution to Prophet Muhammad. [Tweet, with Persian text images]
2025/05/09 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Making grad students feel less safe in the US puts our economic engine at risk: In top STEM fields, about 1/2 to 2/3 of graduate students are from other countries. [Center] A wonderful verse from the great Persian poet Sa’adi. [Right] An author’s best reward: Today’s surprise LinkedIn post mentioning my graduate-level textbook on computer arithmetic.
(2) Attempts to silence Iranian women are doomed to failure: This young woman has been trained in classical Persian music under the mullahs’ noses. [2-minute video]
(3) Ninety-something Hiroshima survivors, separated for 70 years, each thinking the other was dead, play the music they were practicing when the bomb fell. [12-minute video]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Bay Area public-transit commuters left stranded as BART system shuts down due to networking problem.
- Trump is illiterate in economics: But many who should know better shamelessly justify his actions.
- The Trump administration is admitting white refugees from South Africa.
- The latest in corrupto-currency: With Trump coins, you no longer need cash-filled briefcases to bribe people.
- Frameless: An immersive art experience in London. [Video]
- Facebook memory from May 9, 2022: The Kamkars perform “Larzan,” a Kurdish song.
- Facebook memory from May 9, 2021: Surprise visit to my mom for Mothers’ Day.
- Facebook memory from May 9, 2015: Persian piano music by my nephew Avi.
(5) Disney to build its seventh theme park in United Arab Emirates: Roughly one-third of the world's population lives within a 4-hour flight of UAE, with 120 million people flying to or through the country each year. The resort will be located on Yas Island, a 9.7-square-mile tourist destination that also hosts SeaWorld and Warner Bros. World (a Harry-Potter-themed park is under development). The island had 38 million visitors last year.
(6) The people who criticize DEI and say they favor meritocracy show no opposition to an anti-vaxxer with no healthcare training leading the HHS Department and Fox News hosts being offered key positions.
(7) Final thought for the day: Some billionaires get greedier as they age. Others realize that the money can be put to better uses than sitting in bank or investment accounts. Bill Gates plans to give away the rest of his wealth, more than doubling his foundation’s endowment, directing it to spend all of its funds, as it winds down its operations in a couple of decades. Gates feels that this is the time to go all in on health philanthropy to counter the post-pandemic setbacks and the Trump assault. [NYT and other news sources]
2025/05/08 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Tonight's author talk at UCSB (see the next item below). [Center] The new Pope (see item 3 below). [Right] Captured: The Secret Behind Silicon Valley’s AI Takeover (see the last item below).
(2) The final event of UCSB Reads Program 2025: Speaking at Campbell Hall, author Ross Gay read a few essays from The Book of Delights, UCSB Library's choice for this year's campus and community engagement. Here is my 3-star review of the book on GoodReads.
(3) The new Pope, Robert Francis Prevost (Leo XIV), is from the US: I happened to be writing a review of Pope Francis’s autobiography when the news broke that white smoke is coming out of Sistine Chapel’s chimney, heralding the election of a new pope. I will share my review of Hope: The Autobiography in due course.
(4) Book review: Wylie, Christopher, Isobel Cockerell, and Becky Lipscombe, Captured: The Secret Behind Silicon Valley’s AI Takeover, unabridged 3-hour audiobook, read by the first two authors, Audible, 2025.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The book begins with the 7-year-old story of how Christopher Wylie, a pink-haired young data analyst, blew the whistle on Cambridge Analytica, revealing how millions of Facebook users’ data was being harvested to influence elections. It was supposed to be a turning point, where tech companies’ power would be kept in check through regulation.
But Silicon Valley is now more powerful than ever, with tech billionaire Elon Musk continuously present next to the US President, wielding unprecedented power over our lives. Our destiny is being imagined for us by some of the richest and most-powerful people in the world. They’re promising they can solve all our problems—end toil and suffering, and propel us into a utopia where we can live forever and never have to work.
Will we have a class divide between billionaires who will get to live for hundreds of years and modern “peasants” with life expectancy of ~50 years? Is the main source of our fear the fact that the new Industrial Revolution is affecting white-collar jobs, whereas previous Revolutions impacted only blue-collar jobs?
AI has become a religion. Are we going to follow it? Do we even have a choice? Or have the tech evangelists captured our future? This book moves from exclusive crypto parties in Dubai, to the slums of Kenya where thousands of hidden workers are training AI models, to the hacker palaces of San Francisco where tech’s true believers talk about merging computers with our brains.
The audiobook consists of the following 6 chapters, each lasting from 31 to 39 minutes. Chapter titles are followed by my one-sentence summaries.
- Above the Clouds: Introduction to tech leaders’ lofty goals, from living forever to merging our brains with supercomputers.
- The Hidden Workers: All monuments known by the names of great leaders were built by invisible, underpaid, abused workers.
- The Magic Trick: Current AI has little understanding; it does things the way a magician uses trick boxes to deceive you.
- The Lost Valley: Tech companies celebrate their victories in amassing data and control, as the world collapses around them.
- The World Without Work: If human labor and creativity are no longer needed, how will we spend our days or be motivated?
- Deus Ex Machina: Some billionaires spend money on endless analysis of their bodies, supplements, and medical treatments.
2025/05/07 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top row] Flowers along my walking path from home to Camino Real Marketplace. [Bottom left] Tonight's Socrates Think Tank talk (see the next item below). [Bottom center] Billionaires tell us mere mortals to tighten our belts, but they continue to spend lavishly themselves. [Bottom right] Lego built full-size Formula-1 cars for the Miami GP drivers’ parade (video).
(2) Tonight’s Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Mandana Zandian (California-based MD, poet, literary critic, & social activist) introduced Sunbird, a 2025 Persian-language book which describes the early years of Iran’s Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents (CIDCA), in time to honor the 60th anniversary of its founding. There were ~110 attendees.
CIDCA was born in December 1965 and was taken over by revolutionaries in 1979. Fortunately, the Center survived and is actively pursuing its goals as of this writing. This 2025 book, honoring the Center and its founder, Lily Amir-Arjomand [b. 1938], is organized in two chapters.
Chapter 1 contains a long interview conducted by the author, Dr. Mandana Zandian, with Lily Amir-Arjomand, the driving force behind CIDCA and its many worthy projects.
Chapter 2 presents 23 interviews with Queen Farah Pahlavi, Honorary Chair and key supporter of CIDCA, and 22 of those who made CIDCA’s various activities flourish.
CIDCA was a labor of love for a large group of women, who prioritized the education and emotional development of children and adolescents, shaping many educational innovations and successes in the process.
(3) “Algorithms to Implement Diversity Coding for Link Failures in Networks”: This was the title of today’s Virtual Distinguished Lecture of IEEE Communications Society by Dr. Ender Ayanoglu (EECS, UC Irvine). There were ~55 attendees.
Erasure errors are errors where symbols are lost, which is different from arbitrary errors, where symbols can be replaced with incorrect ones, making their detection more difficult. This talk was about recovering from erasure errors in data transmission through coding, in much the same way that disk failures are tolerated in RAID systems by means of coding. In fact two methods, parity codes and Reed-Solomon codes, are used extensively in both domains.
Network link failures are quite common. According to FCC, in the first 8 months of 2002 alone, 116 network outages with wide-ranging effects were recorded. Since 2001, about 100 of these events have been reported per year. Unfortunately, FCC blocked public disclosure of such data in 2006, citing national security concerns.
In 1975, Nick Maxemchuk introduced the notion of dispersity routing, which consisted of transmitting a collection of erasure-coded data packets and reconstructing the information at destination when a sufficient number of packets have been received. In 2000, Ahiswede, Cai, Li, & Yeung introduced the idea of network coding, showing that good codes for multicasting exist, but not how to design them. Diversity coding is a form of network coding for link failure recovery in communication networks.
A low-redundancy method uses a parity link for single-error recovery, in much the same way that RAID storage uses parity blocks to recover from disk failures. The scheme can be extended to the tolerance of multiple errors. Dr. Ayanoglu has extended network coding methods that often assume specific topologies to networks with arbitrary topologies. Also, a dynamic version of the algorithm has been developed that allows for dynamic provisioning. Qualcom has innovated RaptorQ codes that scale to large blocks and have low encoding/decoding overhead.
Research on both diversity coding for link failures in networks and distributed-storage coding for data centers continues. I wonder if the name “diversity coding” presents a vulnerability with respect to funding in this day and age!
Key reference: E. Ayanoglu, I. Chih-Lin, R. D. Gitlin, and J. E. Mazo, “Diversity coding for transparent self-healing and fault-tolerant communication networks,” IEEE Trans. Communications, Vol. 41, No. 11, pp. 1677-1686, 1993.
2025/05/05 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Good-looking cars from South Korea and Japan: The KIA Niro LX, a compact hybrid SUV, was on display in front of the Costco store in Goleta a couple of days ago. Both Hyundai and Kia are made in South Korea and have some of the most-impressive exterior and interior designs among the cars I see on the streets. The model on display has an MSRP of ~$29,000 and is claimed to offer ~55 MPG. I encountered the Nissan 350Z car as I walked home from UCSB today. [Top center] The 4 seasons, in multi-panel paintings. [Top right] Some plants along my 1.5-mile walking path from home to Goleta’s Camino Real Marketplace. [Bottom] My UCSB ECE 1B freshman seminar class on Monday, May 5, 2025, as students were still arriving. One section of seating on the left in Buchanan 1920 classroom did not fit in the photo.
(2) CBS news-magazine “60 Minutes” displays journalistic courage by airing a segment covering Donald Trump's corrupt targeting of law firms and political enemies, despite his ongoing lawsuit against their parent companies. [14-minute CBS News report]
(3) Extreme misogyny, machoism, and patriarchy in Iran: The father of #DonyaHosseini, who stabbed her to death after she requested a divorce, has been released from prison after serving a 3-month term.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- All Republicans know who Donald Trump is, and they still support him.
- US Secretary of State describes his future boss, the current US President.
- Gendered justice in Iran: A women is executed for killing her husband; her male co-defendant goes free.
- Syria’s clandestine chemical weapons program exposed in detailed report from Middle Foundation.
- Donald Trump’s first 100 days, in 6 comparative charts. [Tweet, with charts]
- Western movie theme music: “Ghost Riders in the Sky”
(5) Human consciousness may depend more on sensory input than previously believed: A 7-year study challenges two leading theories on the origin of consciousness in the mind, with possible implications for diagnosing and treating comas or vegetative states.
(6) Deus ex machina: A Latin phrase literally meaning “God from the machine,” the phrase often shortened to “ex machina,” can stand for an unlikely savior or an improbable event. There is a 2014 British sci-fi film by this title (trailer) which I found super-interesting. In the film, written and directed by Alex Garland, a young programmer is selected to participate in a ground-breaking experiment in synthetic intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a highly-advanced humanoid AI.
2025/05/04 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] Facebook memories from May 4 of years past: "Get in trouble. Good trouble. Necessary trouble." [Right] Adib Khorram's Darius the Great Is Not Okay (see the last item below).
(2) Well-deserved honors of Colonel Ruby Bradley [1907-2002] have been taken away by Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth: Trump has called her a loser for being captured during WWII and Hegseth has deleted her service history, because she was “DEI and woke.” She helped numerous prisoners while in captivity in Manila, where she was known as “Angel in Fatigues.” She received 34 medals in the course of her military career, before retiring in 1963.
(3) The next President of the University of California System: The UC Board of Regents has approved James B. Milliken, the current Chancellor of the University of Texas System, as the 22nd president of the UC system, to assume his role on August 1, 2025. A nationally recognized leader in public higher education, Milliken brings over 30 years of experience advancing student success and harnessing the transformative power of public education to help every student achieve their full potential, uplift communities, and build a brighter future.
(4) Book review: Khorram, Adib, Darius the Great Is Not Okay, unabridged 8-hour audiobook, read by Michael Levi Harris, Books on Tape, 2018. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This “young adult” debut novel by Adib Khorram has received multiple accolades, including book-of-the-year recognitions from Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, and NY Public Library.
Darius (Darioush, in Persian) Kellner is half-Persian from his mother’s side, but speaks little Persian and knows next to nothing about Persian social cues & norms. He suffers from bullies, is looked down upon by his father, has an anemic social life, and struggles with clinical depression.
Darius’s first trip to Iran, where he meets and befriends Sohrab, the boy next door, changes all that. After some initial discomfort arising from cultural differences, the two boys hit it off and end up spending their days together, playing soccer, eating faludeh (an icy Persian dessert), and talking for hours on a secret rooftop overlooking Yazd’s skyline.
In the setting above, many aspects of the pains of growing-up and gaining cultural awareness, which are common to all societies, as well as specific challenges of a Western-raised youth adapting to a traditional society are discussed.
2025/05/03 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] US 2023 federal funding for university research: The Trump administration has targeted a few elite universities, but many more public and private institutions with sizable support remain vulnerable. [Center] Math and the beauty of rose petals (see the next item below). [Right] Daron Acemoglu's & James A. Robinson's Why Nationbs Fail (see the last item belpw).
(2) The mathematics of beautiful rose petals: “Uneven growth in a flat sheet can induce intrinsic curvature, leading to out-of-plane deformation as the material compensates for the curvature mismatch. This geometrical incompatibility between the curvature imposed by growth and the initial flat geometry is the driving force behind many natural patterns. For example, the ruffled edge of a lettuce leaf originates from a mismatch in growth rate between the interior and the edge of the leaf. When the edge grows faster than the interior, the leaf must adopt a wavy shape to compensate for incongruity. This type of morphogenesis, based on Gauss’s incompatibility, is often characterized by extended, smooth, periodic undulations or wrinkles and is commonly observed in leaves, petals, and seed pods.”
(3) Book review: Acemoglu, Daron and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, unabridged 18-hour audiobook, read by Dan Woren, Random House Audio, 2012.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
In Prisoners of Geography (my 4-star review), Tim Marshall suggests that whether a nation prospers or withers is dictated to a large extent by its geography, for it is geography that determines whether a nation can be easily invaded, whether it has ready access to trade routes & shipping lanes, whether efficient internal travel & commercial exchanges are possible, and whether the central government can easily control the far reaches of the land. There is a lot of truth to these assertions, but one can also point to quite a few exceptions.
The book under review here also suffers from too many black-and-white assertions and not enough acknowledgement of the impact of other factors outside the authors’ “extractive or inclusive” dichotomy in economic systems.
In answer to the question posed in their book’s title, Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, winners of Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, point their fingers at lack of social and political infrastructure to support an open economic system. They divide economic systems into two types, extractive and inclusive, with the latter providing the only path to sustained prosperity.
Extractive economic systems, often associated with colonial economies, extract natural resources, with minimal processing or reinvestment, for the benefit of a relatively small group of powerful individuals. Such economies aren’t necessarily inefficient or low-growth, but their extractive policies, which invariably accompany the exploitation of labor, can lead to environmental degradation, social inequalities, and economic instability.
Inclusive economic systems aim to ensure that everyone benefits from economic growth and the attendant opportunities, regardless of their background. It focuses on creating an environment where individuals can participate fully in the economy, earn a living wage, build assets, and have a voice in shaping their future. An inclusive economy tends to reduce inequality, ensure fair growth, create resilient stability, and implement environmentally responsible policies.
Two major questions of today’s world economy are front and center in the authors’ minds:
- Will China’s spectacular economic growth ultimately overwhelm the West?
- Is America creating a vicious cycle that enriches & empowers a small minority?
I think Acemoglu & Robinson present a useful analysis, as well as some interesting examples, if one ignores their pronouncements that nations’ success or failure is predominantly a function of the economic system and the associated infrastructure.
2025/05/02 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) In 1962, Nobel Laureate chemist Linus Pauling joined protesters against the testing of nuclear weapons in front of the White House. After World War II Pauling was at the forefront of voices speaking out against the emerging nuclear arms race. For his actions, Pauling was labeled a suspected communist. Ultimately his efforts paid off. A treaty banning nuclear testing came into force on 10 October 1963. On the same day, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work. It was his second award, having previously received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954.
(2) On the importance of curiosity-driven science: Abraham Flexner, founder of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, writing in the final paragraph of his 1939 essay entitled “The Usefulness of Useless Science”: “We make ourselves no promises, but we cherish the hope that the unobstructed pursuit of useless knowledge will prove to have consequences in the future as in the past. Not for a moment, however, do we defend the Institute on that ground. It exists as a paradise for scholars who, like poets and musicians, have won the right to do as they please and who accomplish most when enabled to do so.”
(3) From Robert Reich: “Two former Wells Fargo execs were fined $8.5M by the Biden administration for covering up the bank’s infamous fake-accounts scandal. Trump slashed those fines to a paltry $150,000 after Wells Fargo gave $1M to his inauguration. See how this works?”
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The US bans any romantic or sexual relationship between its China-based workers & Chinese citizens. [AP]
- Religious schools will get support from taxpayer funds, according to an expected US Supreme Court Ruling.
- Tech companies need academia, so they should come to the defense of universities. [Moshe Vardi, CACM]
- Facebook memory from May 2, 2010: With my daughter, at the Dos Pueblos High School art show.
(5) “The Second Fifty”: This was the title of yesterday’s Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior (UCLA) webinar, featuring aging expert & author Debra Whitman, PhD.
In her book, The Second Fifty: Answers to the 7 Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond, Whitman notes the need for some adjustments, now that Americans are living decades longer than in previous generations. While offering exciting possibilities, these added years also raise crucial questions. How long will I work? Will I have enough money? Where will I live? How will I die? Whitman began to think and write about these questions when she approached her 50th birthday.
Drawing on compelling stories from her own family & people across the country, interviews with experts, and cutting-edge research, Whitman provides a road map for navigating the second half of life. She shares insights on longevity, brain health, financial planning, work, housing and the value of relationships & social engagement. Dementia rates have actually been declining as more people achieve higher levels of education and adopt healthier lifestyles. And while we’ve long known that staying connected to others is critical to mental health, it turns out it is also linked to a stronger immune system, lower blood pressure and a longer life.
Whitman presents practical steps we can take to help create a better second 50 for ourselves. But we can’t do it alone. Whitman also calls for urgently needed changes that would make it easier for every American to enjoy a vital and meaningful second half of life. Whether you are approaching 50, into your later years, or caring for someone who is, you’ll find a wealth of wisdom in the pages of Whitman’s book.
2025/05/01 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday: This khoshkbar store (selling nuts, seeds, & dried fruit) was on my walking path from University of Tehran campus to the bus stop for going home to Vanak. The photo is from 1964. [Center] Throwback Thursday: Qiz (Girl) Bridge on the Qezel Ozan River near Mianeh, Iran, is believed to date back to the Sassanid era, some 1500 year ago. In order to prevent the army from entering Azerbaijan, the bridge was blown up by anti-government rebels in 1946. The 1840 painting is by French orientalist/painter Eugene Flandin (1809-1889). [Right] Talangor Group talk about the #WomanLifeFreedom movement (see the last item below).
(2) A snapshot of North America’s leadership, showing American exceptionalism.
- Canada elected a guy with a PhD in economics from Oxford University.
- Mexico elected a woman with a PhD in energy engineering.
- The US elected a 2X impeached conman with 34 felony convictions.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Facebook memory from May 1, 2022: Happy Int'l Workers’ Day to all hardworking citizens of the world!
- The trade war is lose-lose for countries, but it’s win-win for Elon Musk & Starlink.
- The US GDP growth, which averaged 2.9% during 2023-2024, dropped to -0.3% in Q1 of 2025.
- Quote: “The simple step of the courageous individual is to not take part in the lie.” ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
(4) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Saeed Paivandi (Professor of Sociology, University of Lorraine, France) spoke under the title “From Men’s Honor (Naamoos) to Symbol of Resistance: The Tumultuous Journey of Women’s Bodies in Iran’s Politics.” There were ~85 attendees.
Islamic Iran’s compulsory veil represents the government’s legitimization of patriarchy. The law mandating that women be veiled is a tool of political control over women and a bribe to traditional men to pull them into the camp of regime supporters. The Islamic Republic of Iran recognizes women’s bodies as part of men’s possessions and honor (naamoos).
In part due to the #WomanLifeFreedom movement, young Iranians do not consider themselves bound by the government’s social preferences but follow the code of the international community, given their connectivity to the world through the Internet. A reduction in the number of marriages and a significant increase in the divorce rate clearly defy the government’s wishes. Despite significant hardships, young people prefer cohabitation, even having children without getting married.
Over the last few decades, Iranians have gotten used to leading double-lives, acting free in private and pretending to be pious in public. This level of deceit exerts psychological pressures, leading to mental illness. Beginning in 2022, young Iranians shed their inhibitions, bravely transitioning to a consistent conduct, both in public and in private. They openly dress as they wish, dance, sing, and celebrate joy, in direct defiance of religious edicts.
These new trends converted women’s bodies from something that should remain hidden and serve, exclusively, the whims of men to a tool for protesting the regime-imposed social norms. One consequence is that Iran’s birth rate has plunged to 1.6, whereas it should be at least 2.1 for population stability. The government is quite afraid of the consequences of the low birth rate but its efforts to reverse the drop have been unsuccessful.
2025/04/29 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Virginia Giuffre, who accused Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew of sexual abuse, dies by apparent suicide. [Top center] Canadians are thankful to Trump for causing liberals to pull ahead of conservatives just in the nick of time for yesterday's election (NYT chart). [Top right] The supposedly ultra-smart Elon Musk didn’t realize that the primary buyers of his EVs are liberals whom he has been denigrating. [Bottom left] Our brain has a center for face recognition: This center is so highly developed that it interprets anything even slightly resembling a face as a face. [Bottom center] Levels of consciousness: Chart from Anil Seth’s Being You: A New Science of Consciousness, a book I've begun reading and will review in due course. [Bottom right] Meme of the day: Democratic Presidents clean up the economic mess created by Republicans.
(2) How deep cuts to NIH personnel & funding will impact medical research and the health of Americans for generations to come. [13-minute CBS News report]
(3) Evidence of a Saudi citizen prospecting the US Capitol was never considered during 9/11 investigations. [13-minute CBS News report]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- A man rams an SUV into a Filipino heritage festival in Vancouver, killing 11+ and injuring dozens more.
- Prosecutor letter to New England J. Medicine suggests it is biased & compromised by external pressure.
- Dictatorships will eventually fail, but first, I am sorry to say, they will mess up the rest of our lives.
- Facebook memory from April 28, 2016: Some of my artwork from 6 decades ago.
- Facebook memory from April 29, 2016: Musical collaboration of Santana, Yo Yo Ma, & India Arie.
- Facebook memory from April 29, 2013: Maz Jobrani, on how to play a Middle Easterner in Hollywood.
(5) From my Facebook post of April 28, 2014: “In Germany, it wasn't Hitler who seduced people into actions leading to the Holocaust. Rather, he just exploited sentiments that already existed. If someday a racist administration comes to power in the US, then we will see the true extent of the hidden racism in our society.”
(6) Jon Stewart nails it as usual: An administration official justifies the negative impact of Trump’s tariffs as a genius plan of “strategic uncertainty,” adding that one doesn’t tell the other side about the next move. Yes, but you do tell your own side, don’t you?
(7) One more case of using civilians as human shields: Iran admits that fuel for ballistic missiles was unloaded at a commercial port, rather than at separate military ports run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in order to protect it from “enemy” attacks. The post on X was deleted soon after appearing. Please excuse the obscene comments in and under the secondary post.
2025/04/28 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] At Pope Francis’ funeral: Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, captured Francis’s humility and inclusivity. “He was a pope among the people ... He was also a pope attentive to the signs of the times.” [Center] FFT at 60 (see the next item below). [Right] Revisiting Agent Orange: Cover story of Science magazine, issue of April 25, 2025 (see the last item below)
(2) The FFT algorithm turns 60: The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm, introduced by J. W. Cooley & John Tukey in 1965, has become one of the most-important algorithms in signal processing and data analysis. It reduced the cost of computing the Discrete Fourier Transform from O(n^2) to O(n log n), making real-time signal processing and digital compression feasible. From radio telescopes to JPEGs, from audio codecs to quantum mechanics, the FFT is everywhere!
In 1805, Gauss, studying the orbits of asteroids Pallas & Juno, devised a method to interpolate their trajectories from discrete samples. Gauss’s approach was mathematically very close to the modern FFT but he never published that work and didn’t analyze its computational complexity. It predated even Fourier’s 1822 work on heat diffusion, but without the framing or generalization that Cooley & Tukey would bring 160 years later.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Death toll in Iran's Shahid Rajaei Port explosion rises to 40: Authorities are tight-lipped on the cause.
- Persian music and dance. [Reel by Badri Hematyar]
- To whoever stole my copy of Microsoft Office: I will find you. You have my Word!
- UCSB’s new Associated Students Bike Shop is located near the bus loop and the SAASB Building. [Photos]
(4) The poet laureate of medicine: Oliver Sacks, who was bullied as a kid and later in life came out as gay, was a compassionate doctor who befriended his patients and wrote exquisite case reports about what ailed them and what we can learn from their conditions. The Case of Anna H., the woman who could not distinguish a knife from a plate, is a fine example. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/10/07/the-case-of-anna-h
(5) Oliver Sacks writes about autism and its most-prominent example, Temple Grandin: “What is it like to be keenly intelligent and to care deeply about science and animal life—but to feel absolutely alienated from even the simplest human emotions and interactions? Temple Grandin knows, and her experiences offer rare insight into the enigma of autism.” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1993/12/27/anthropologist-mars
(6) The legacy of Agent Orange: Herbicides such as Agent Orange were sprayed in Vietnam from 1961 to 1971, defoliating the jungle and destroying enemy crops. The main ingredient, TCDD, is now known as one of the most carcinogenic dioxins in humans and other animals, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In 1970, the United States banned dioxin. After a landmark settlement in 1984 of a class-action lawsuit brought by more than 100,000 Vietnam veterans, Congress authorized a review of the herbicide's potential health impacts in the Agent Orange Act of 1991.
A new estimate doubles the amount of Agent Orange and other toxic herbicides sprayed during the Vietnam War. Research just published in Nature indicates that more liquid herbicide was dropped and that the toxicity of the mixtures may have varied more than suggested by prior research.
2025/04/27 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Eightieth anniversary of a seminal report to FDR (see the next item below). [Center] Fruit Loops cereal from Canada (left) vs. the US version: The Canadian version uses fruit juices for color, whereas the US version contains synthetic food coloring (NYT). [Right] Lecture about Iran's Mahsa movement (see the last item below).
(2) “Science the Endless Frontier”: Eighty years ago, Vannevar Bush [1890-1974], Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, submitted a report on a program for postwar scientific research to US President Franklin Roosevelt. The seminal 220-page report laid out the foundation for America’s science and technology dominance through strong support for research and open scientific communication.
(3) A massive ship explosion rocked Shahid Rajaei Port (near Bandar Abbas) in southern Iran, killing 28 and injuring hundreds: The explosion is purportedly linked to a shipment of missile fuel from China.
(4) UCLA Bilingual Lectures on Iran: Today’s installment of this important lecture series was delivered in Persian by Dr. Farhad Khosrokhavar (Retired Professor, Higher School of Social Studies, Paris) under the title “The Mahsa Movement and the Feminist Uprising in Iran.” The talk title is actually the subtitle of Dr. Khosrokhavar’s book, Revolt Against Theocracy (Polity, 2024). The English version of this talk is scheduled for Monday 4/28 at 11:00 AM PDT.
Dr. Khosrokhavar’s talk focused on a social movement that brought new characteristics to the fore, not only in Iran, but also in the Muslim world. It was probably the first genuine, global, and extensive feminist movement in Iran ever, and perhaps in the Muslim world. This is not to deny that women have played a significant role in social movements in many Muslim countries since the nineteenth century. But within these movements, women were not in the vanguard, did not become the main actors, did not express their feminist demands in clear opposition to the powers that be, and men did not follow them en masse.
Dr. Khosrokhavar analyzed the anthropological aspects of the Mahsa Movement, spreading under the hashtags #WomanLifeFreedom and #WomanLifeLiberty, in terms of its major characteristics, namely rejecting the Islamic Regime’s machoistic ideology of martyrdom and proposing instead a culture of Joy and Happiness, in which women play a central role, notably by freeing their bodies from the yoke of clothing restrictions and compulsory veils.
Iranians, women in particular, lead double lives, engaging in a secular modern lifestyle in private (involving mixed-gender gatherings, laughter, singing, dancing) and a superficially pious existence in public. This pretense, and the cat-and-mouse chase by the morality police on the streets, exerts much psychological pressure on individuals, which is a major cause of unhappiness and depression. Women keeping control of their own bodies is a major theme/demand of the Mahsa movement.
During the Q&A period, it was revealed that the Mahsa movement, which was started by young women with support from young men, also enjoyed support from older women and men, that is, the parents, even though the latter group did not take to the streets alongside their children. This absence on the streets might have been a key reason for the movement’s failure to topple the regime, despite delivering a major shock to the Islamic rulers, who realized their utter unpopularity.
2025/04/26 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival: Held in Alameda Park, the event featured an extensive collection of EVs. [Top right] Will humanoid robots go beyond servants & chat buddies? [Bottom left] Math puzzle: What fraction of the square’s area is shaded green? [Bottom center] Talk on the energy use of AI (see the last item below). [Bottom right] If scientists had logos (credit: Kapil Bhagat).
(2) NSF chief Sethuraman Panchanathan, who was hired by Trump 5 years ago, resigns: The reason likely has to do with Trump cutting more than 400 active NSF research awards and pressing Congress to halve the agency’s $9 billion budget. [NYT]
(3) The Trump administration has canceled the lease for NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, housed in NYC’s Columbia University. [NYT]
(4) Presidential job approval rating at 100-day mark over the past 25 years (from Fox News): Bush 63%; Obama 62%; Trump1 45%; Biden 54%; Trump2 44%.
(5) “Where is the Energy Use of Al Headed? Modeling Knowns, Unknowns, and Challenges”: This was the title of Thursday’s talk by Dr. Eric Masanet (Bren School, Mellichamp Chair in Sustainability Science for Emerging Technologies), given under the auspices of UCSB’s Institute for Energy Efficiency.
The growing energy footprint of Al data centers has stressed local power grids and raised concerns about water stress, air pollution, and derailing climate progress. Analyzing this sector's impacts has proven challenging, given its fast expansion, the rapid evolution of Al hardware, software, and applications, and a pervasive lack of data for accurate energy models.
Dr. Masanet provided an overview of modeling challenges viewed through the history of the field, its scientific aims, and the evolution of data centers. Key knowledge barriers were discussed as well as innovative agendas to address them. Next, the results of the 2024 Report to US Congress (third in a series, after 2006 & 2016) were presented, including its methods, findings on rapid Al energy demand growth, how modeling challenges were addressed, and priorities for more accurate modeling in the future.
2025/04/25 (Friday): Today, I offer two book reviews and a photo of four heavenly fruit treats.
(1) Book review: Huq, Aziz Z., The Rule of Law: A Very Short Introduction, unabridged 4-hour audiobook, read by Bill Andrew Quinn, Tantor Media, 2025. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This is yet another wonderful entry in the long list of titles of Oxford University Press’s “Very Short Introduction” series, a collection of brief books that has allowed me to learn entirely new subjects and to brush up on topics that I learned a long time ago.
Dictatorships, oligarchies, and democracies all pay lip service to the rule of law, but few actually do what they preach. Huq presents a concise history of the concept and term, while describing its various forms, adoptions, benefits, and criticisms in the following seven chapters. An epilogue concludes the book.
- Why does the rule of law matter? (Definitions, basic concepts, importance)
- Seeding the rule of law (Aristotle, Locke, Montesquieu, Magna Carta)
- The rule of law’s green shoots (England’s pride, Dicey’s lessons and legacy)
- Three branches of the modern rule of law (Advancing justice, promoting efficiency)
- Why does the rule of law survive? (Institutional foundations, class conflict, legitimacy)
- Cultivating the rule of law in new lands (World Bank, Singapore, China)
- The rule of law condemned: Critics and crises (Pashkanis, Schmitt, inequalities, populism)
Today, it is more important than ever for everyone to understand the various, sometimes conflicting, meanings of “the rule of law.” In many dictatorships, and in Trump-era United States, the rule of law is used to justify arbitrary detentions, enabling mobs to attack, physically or virtually, political opponents, rewarding obedience, and punishing dissent.
(2) Book review: Gates, Melinda French, The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward, unabridged 4-hour audiobook, read by the author, Macmillan Audio, 2025.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I have previously read the author’s first book, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World (my 4-star review), a thoughtful manifesto about the economic and social benefits of fully integrating women into the society.
In her second book, Melinda Gates focuses on important transitions in her life, among them leaving for college, giving birth thrice, losing a best friend to cancer, turning 60, and, of course, divorcing Bill Gates. The author doesn’t disclose much about the reasons for leaving her marriage to Bill, but media reports on Bill’s scandalous relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and an affair with a Microsoft employee are public knowledge. Apparently, the marriage was on the rocks even before the scandals, but Melinda leaves questions about Bill’s role in the divorce for him to answer.
Among Melinda’s sensible bits of advice is to ditch perfectionism and to settle for good-enough, especially in parenting.
Perfectionism, along with the attendant loss of spontaneity, drains the joy out of one’s life. After the birth of her first daughter, Melinda quit work to become a full-time mom. She recognizes her privilege in being able to make such a choice and pays homage to moms who are forced to work multiple shifts just to manage. In fact, she acknowledges that perhaps, even in the absence of dire financial need, women would be better off to continue working, settling for good-enough, rather than aiming for perfect, parenting.
After leaving Bill, Melinda focused on Pivotal Ventures, her feminist-inspired organization whose ultimate goal is expanding women’s power & influence, with an important intermediate step being the adoption of universal paid parental leave. Unable to bear “the idea that my granddaughters could grow up with less freedom than I have had,” Melinda is passionate about the role of women in society. On the surface, she isn’t political, but her actions are driven by the centrality of women’s rights in the face of recent regressive moves to deny these rights. If this isn’t political, then I don’t know what is!
2025/04/24 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] Throwback Thursday: A 1500-year-old water filtration system was discovered in 2015 under a crumbling Iranian castle. The ancient Sassanids built clay pipes & ceramic vessels so advanced, they rival modern technology. The intricate aqueduct system included sedimentation tanks, flow regulators, and even purifiers. [Top right] Cartoon of the day: Trump’s tariff tantrum, and Xi’s cool reaction. [Bottom left] Revealing infographic: Percentage of population absolutely certain God exists, from under 30% (yellow) to over 70% (blue). [Bottom center] Many Republicans agree with General Mark Milley’s assessment of Trump: They just don’t have the courage to say it aloud. [Bottom right] Increasingly, the drab sides of buildings are being adorned with imaginative works of art.
(2) Pope Francis died the day after he met US VP J. D. Vance briefly: We don’t know what he said to Vance in that meeting, but his opinion of Trump’s MAGA team is amply documented. “Francis had been as outspoken as could be without naming names, when he criticized Vance in his February letter to US bishops; but he was not just registering his rebuke of Trump and Vance’s cruel treatment of refugees and migrants; he was reacting to a broader trend of instrumentalizing religion for nationalist and authoritarian populism.”
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Holocaust Remembrance Day, mourners at the Vatican, and more: Photos of the day.
- NIH guts its Women’s Health Initiative program, a study that has produced numerous influential findings.
- Trump discovers the word “groceries.” [“The Daily Show” clip]
- Defying the US Constitution, the official Trump Web site is selling “Trump 2028” merchandise.
(4) Via a post on X, France’s President Emmanuel Macron has invited international scientists to work in France or elsewhere in Europe, where “research is a priority, innovation a culture, science a limitless horizon.”
(5) “The Search for Mars’ Oceans”: This was the title of an interesting presentation in National Air and Space Museum’s “Exploring Space” lecture series. The arid, cold planet we see today once had a wet, warm environment, with a thick atmosphere, and it was probably hospitable to life. Extreme similarities between the Mars and Earth of billions of years ago make the understanding of Mars’ history of immense interest to us. Could Mars have developed in the same way as Earth? Is Earth headed toward the same destiny as Mars, whose oceans escaped into space through the atmosphere? [72-minute video]
2025/04/22 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] Happy Earth Day! I am a proud resident of Santa Barbara, California, where the Earth Day tradition began in 1970. [Right] Political prisoner #VrisheMoradi, sending a message of hope from Tehran’s Evin Prison: “We intend to knead this life with liberty. We insist on putting the crown of freedom on the head of this difficult life. We experienced a beautiful oneness over the last couple of years, a unity that we built together” (her original message, in Persian).
(2) New Yorker cartoon caption of the day: “You do realize that just because you stopped watching the news doesn’t mean it stopped happening.”
(3) Trump and his cronies cite $billions of revenue from tariffs: The problem is, they assume no change in consumer behavior when tariffs drive prices up. Then, they multiply the shady numbers by 10. [WaPo]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- CBS “60 Minutes” producer Bill Owens quits the long-running show over pressures from CBS execs & Trump.
- Trump: Powell’s removal cannot come soon enough. A few days later: I have no intention of firing Powell.
- What does anti-Semitism mean? BBC Persian “Pargar” program. [55-minute video]
- Facebook memory from April 22, 2017: When Santa Barbara marched for science on Earth Day.
(5) Record for the thinnest microchip broken: Developed by Fudan University researchers, the 5931-transistor microchip made from the semiconductor molybdenum disulfide is just three atoms thick. Using existing CMOS technologies with optimization of each process step through machine learning, the RV32-WUJI microchip has a RISC-V architecture that can execute standard 32-bit instructions and a complete standard cell library containing 25 types of logic units to perform basic functions.
(6) The back-story of Harvard’s “heroism”: Yes, Harvard stood up to Trump, but before it did, the school had frantically tried to cut a deal with Trump. Even now, some of Harvard’s most-influential donors are pushing it to renew talks with the White House. [NYT]
(7) When state support for science fails: “The establishment and growth of scientific communities require long-term planning, political backing, and social and economic support. In many Latin American countries, these entities have been repeatedly shaken by monetary catastrophes, political attacks, and the lack of national and regional developmental strategies that include science and technology.” Although this Science magazine editorial is about Latin America, one can easily see how the US is nearing the edge of a similar cliff.
(8) Final thought for the day: Ed Shiran’s “Azizam” (Persian for “My Darling”) goes viral among Iranian youth, who are posting photos of Persian food items and cultural artifacts alongside the many versions of the song.
2025/04/21 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Todd St. John created this image based on a source photograph by Rob Lewine: It is amazing how much detail we see in this digitized image that simply isn’t there (squint your eyes for a clearer view). [Center] Here's the official stance of Iran's Islamic regime, coming from its Supreme Leader: "Israel is a malignant cancerous tumor ... that has to be removed and eradicated." This is why Iran's current regime should never be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. Please take their explicitly-stated intentions seriously! [Right] A sobering thought for the day.
(2) Pope Francis passed away this morning at age 88: In a 2024 “60 Minutes” interview, he was asked about his views on conservatism: “[C]onservative is one who clings to something and does not want to see beyond that. It is a suicidal attitude. Because one thing is to take tradition into account, to consider situations from the past, but quite another to be closed up inside a dogmatic box.”
(3) Economics Professor Jeffery Sachs explains the unreasonable fear of trade deficits and the inane tariffs imposed to “correct” them. [The first 9:15 minutes of this 55-minute video]
(4) Backlash against the all-women Blue Origin space flight: “White billionaire men using women to showcase their technological prowess,” writes Huffington Post’s Kimberley Richards.
(5) The deepest human-made hole on Earth: The Kola Superdeep Borehole was a project in the 1970s to uncover the composition of Earth by boring deep into its crust. Driven by Cold War competition, the Soviets chose the remote north to reduce the temperatures the tools would encounter. The mission managed to go 7.6 miles into Earth’s crust.
(6) The linguistic turn: A major development in Western philosophy during the early 20th century, the linguistic turn refers to the focusing of philosophy primarily on the relations between language, language users, and the world. The result is linguistic philosophy.
The term is commonly thought to have been popularized by Richard Rorty's 1967 anthology The Linguistic Turn, in which he discusses the turn towards linguistic philosophy. According to Rorty, who later dissociated himself from linguistic philosophy and analytic philosophy generally, the phrase originated with philosopher Gustav Bergmann.
I learned about the concept from a 2-part “Pargar” program, entitled “Charkhesh-e Zabani,” on BBC Persian (Part 1,
Part 2).
Ludwig Wittgenstein believed that philosophy is in essence the exploration of language. In the beginning, language had a peripheral role as a tool for representing reality, but later it became the main focus of attention. Language isn’t just a tool for naming and talking about things and notions; it is a full participant in creating realities, leading some to declare that there is nothing but language. The structure of our universe is the same as the structure of our language. So, our language dictates the boundaries of our world.
2025/04/20 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] Which family seems happier to you? [Right] 400 Quotes of Humour, by four famous people (see the last item below).
(2) Quote of the day: "If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week." ~ Charles Darwin
(3) You don’t pick a fight with an institution that is four centuries old and has a stellar record in medical advances and scholarly contributions: Harvard’s unyielding stance against Trump’s demands has led to the administration’s backtracking and claiming that the threatening letter to Harvard was sent by mistake.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Major Canadian universities see a surge of student applications from the US.
- History of the Internet: 3-part Ars Technica series remembering people & ideas that made the Internet.
- Amirali Kamali on violin, playing “May We Meet Again,” his own composition about leaving Iran.
- Turkish painter Emin Guler [b. 1950] is known for his detailed landscapes & rural life.
(5) Trump is a creature of the media: He rose to fame by fake news stories, so his open break-up with what he calls “enemy of the people” won’t be pretty.
(6) This should do it: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared details about forthcoming strikes in Yemen in a second Signal group chat which included his wife & brother. [NYT]
(7) SpaceX is leading a bid to build a missile defense dome with startups Anduril & Palantir: Now let’s watch the selection process!
(8) Book review: Einstein, Albert, George Bernard Shaw, Groucho Marx, and Woody Allen, 400 Quotes of Humour, unabridged 1-hour audiobook, read by Brad Carty, SAGA Egmont, 2022.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The 400 quotes in this collection are labeled as “humorous,” but many of them, especially those attributed to Albert Einstein, are quite serious. Perhaps they should be called “witty.” Samples from the 100 quotes from each of the four “authors” follow.
“The Devil has put a penalty on all things we enjoy in life. Either we suffer in health, or we suffer in soul, or we get fat.” ~ Albert Einstein
“Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” ~ Groucho Marx
“There are two types of people in this world: Good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.” ~ Woody Allen
2025/04/19 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Evidence of an ancient carbon cycle on Mars is published in Science: The paper reveals that data from three of Curiosity rover's drill sites had siderite, an iron carbonate material, within sulfate-rich layers of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater, the location with the tallest stack of sediments on the planet. [Center] Panel discussion on Shahnameh (see the next item below). [Right] Three mathematicians paying a visit to Dr. Mehdi Behzad, 88, an old-time math professor at Arya-Mehr/Sharif University of Technology, specializing in graph theory (photo credit: LinkedIn post by Dr. Peyman Nasehpour).
(2) Socrates Think Tank panel discussion on Shahnameh: Held via a special Zoom session today with ~65 attendees, the panel, entitled “The Hermeneutics Cycle in Shahnameh: Symbols and Stories,” brought together the following three discussants.
- Homayoun Sahafi, a computer software engineer with a passion for Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh (Book of Kings), started the discussion. Zand-aagaahi (hermeneutics) is the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, especially of the Bible or literary texts. Shahnameh is filled with symbolism and multiple layers of meaning in an interconnected set of stories. No wonder so many researchers focus on this important book of history & philosophy, coming up with different interpretations of its symbols and stories.
- Dr. Mansoureh Sabetzadeh, instructor of Persian language & dance, noted that women have played important roles in two key pillars of the Iranian culture, viz., music and dance, which are embedded in the Persian language and literature. Of Shahnameh’s ~60,000 verses, 720 make direct references to music. Today, despite draconian restrictions and bans, more than 75% of Iran’s musicians are women. Birds, such as bolbol (nightingale) and maakian (rooster & other flightless birds), invariably symbolize joy. Other symbols include the musical instrument ney (reed), also appearing in the works of Mowlavi (Rumi), and the planet Nahid (Venus; from the same root as Anahita), which is adored as a symbol of brightness as well as a celestial musician.
- Dr. Roya (Zahra) Sa’adatifar also stressed that women play prominent roles in Shahnameh, and they are depicted as cognizant, formidable, and influential. Shahnameh uses dream sequences to tell powerful stories.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Student visas of 7 UCSB students & 3 recent graduates have been revoked by the Trump administration.
- Justice? Tesla vandalism—20 years in jail; Breaching the Capitol & beating police officers—Pardon.
- Facebook memory from April 19, 2023: Feeling silly at my niece's wedding ceremony.
- Facebook memory from April 19, 2015: A beautiful Azerbaijani folk song.
(4) Final thought for the day: US Democrats may be repeating their major election-2024 mistakes. Please leave the issue of the wrongly-deported man alone and focus on the economy.
That the deportation was unlawful because of a lack of due process is clear. The administration has admitted a mistake, which makes their refusal to bring him back puzzling. The courts have already chimed in and are pressuring the administration to undo the error. Daily mention of this case runs the risk of proving the administration right if and when evidence is presented that he was in fact a criminal, allowing Trump to say “I told you so”!
The economy is in shambles, presenting ample opportunity for evidence-based criticism. The official inflation rate is a joke (as it has always been), because it omits “volatile” food and fuel prices, which gobble up a good chunk of the budget for low-income and lower-middle-income families.
Abstract ideals, such as democracy, freedom, voting rights, and gender equality, are super-important, but they resonate only with those leading comfortable lives. Folks living paycheck-to-paycheck and worrying about not having any money for a family emergency care about a thriving economy that doesn't leave them behind.
2025/04/18 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] IEEE Spectrum cover story (see the next item below). [Center] Leftover beef kabobs and herbs turned into sandwiches with Vons French baguettes. [Right] A Sudanese paramilitary group declared its own government, stoking fears that Sudan’s civil war was pushing the country to a split.
(2) The same math that describes exploding stars is keeping Moore’s Law going: Supernova explosions are intimately tied to life on Earth because they are the birthplaces of heavy elements, such as iron in our blood and sulfur in amino acids. But there is another surprising connection to the technology needed to make computer chips, a trillion-dollar industry that would stagnate unless we create a shorter-wavelength EUV light. The process for the latter is quite similar to what happens during supernova explosions.
(3) Quote of the day: “Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.” ~ Maya Angelou
(4) Short utterances, like “huh" and “mm-hmm,” are ubiquitous: They can be critical for conversation flow and mutual understanding, but they create a unique obstacle for AI.
(5) The three eras of data-center growth: Dr. Eric Masanet, a leading expert in industrial sustainability and the Mellichamp Chair in Sustainability Science for Emerging Technologies at UCSB’s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, has spent nearly two decades studying the evolving energy dynamics of data centers. In a recent conversation, he provided key insights into the challenges and solutions surrounding data center sustainability in the age of AI. He divides data-center growth into three eras: Early growth (1990s-2010), the cloud-computing boom (2010-2018), and the AI acceleration (2018-present).
(6) Musings of a curious engineer: This blog entry is about teleportation, which means transferring matter instantaneously over long distances, perhaps by resynthesizing it at the desired destination, using a detailed atom-by-atom map of its composition and structure at the source.
We are told that teleportation has already been accomplished for a quantum state and a photon, in 1993 and 1998, respectively. If a complete human is successfully teleported (which some scientists claim is doable) and if the reconstructed version is exactly the same human, then consciousness must be purely physical.
(7) Scientists & engineers focus on improving urinals: Urinals date back to 1000 CE, when they appeared in Sri Lankan monasteries. European versions began taking hold in the 19th century.
The age-old design hasn’t changed much to prevent splash-backs. A 2019 study estimated that in the US alone, 56 million urinals splatter public bathroom floors with as much as 1 million liters of urine per day.
Urine is mostly sterile, but it has a foul odor and quickly becomes a breeding ground for bacteria, necessitating frequent cleanups, which cost money.
University of Waterloo researchers teamed up with other researchers to conduct a study, published in PNAS Nexus, to reduce splash-backs to a fraction of what’s produced from contemporary commercial urinals.
2025/04/17 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday: Islamic clerics lined up in front of the British Embassy in Tehran to seek shelter from Reza Shah’s wrath. Will history repeat itself, perhaps with a different embassy? [Center] Talangor Group talk about Mohammad Ali Foroughi (see the last item below). [Right] Throwback Thursday: The Presto Model 80 (1953) was an electric eraser of pencil & pen markings intended for draftsmen, librarians, and artists (Credit: IEEE Spectrum magazine, April 2025).
(2) College faculty & staff fight back against Trump’s idiotic higher-education policies: The Coalition for Action in Higher Education has declared April 17, 2025, the second Day of Action for Higher Education. Today, campus workers nationwide renew a vision of higher education as an autonomous public good and university workers as its most-important resource. Colleagues at campuses across the country join to say no to authoritarian attacks on Higher Education and yes to Free Higher Education Now!
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Trump plans to extend Harvard’s punishment: IRS is considering revocation of Harvard’s tax-exempt status.
- Planet K2-18b, 124 light-years away, contains a molecule that is associated only with biological activity.
- U. Tokyo scientists invented a process that mimics blood vessels to keep lab-grown meat alive & healthy.
- Quote of the day: “I am an atheist and I thank God for it.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
(4) Tonight’s Talangor Group talk: Dr. Mahmood Sabahi spoke under the title “From Politics to Literary Works: A Look at Mohammad Ali Foroughi's Life.” There were ~90 attendees.
Mohammad Ali Foroughi [1877-1942] was an influential politician and intellectual whose contributions extended through part of the late-Qajar period and both Pahlavi kings. He served in many political and diplomatic roles, including three terms as Prime Minister (plus one term as Acting PM) and stints as Minister of Finance, Minister of Foreign Affairs, & Minister of Justice.
Foroughi played outsized roles in establishing the rule of law, several academic institutions, and Institute Pasteur, an important center for medical research in Iran (I remember visiting the Institute headquarters in Tehran for childhood vaccinations).
Before discussing Foroughi’s influence and contributions, Dr. Sabahi reviewed Iran’s sociopolitical environment prior his appearance on the scene. Interestingly, Foroughi was center-stage in two important transitions in modern history of Iran: Transition from the Qajar Dynasty to the Pahlavi Dynasty and from Reza Shah’s rule to His son Mohammad Reza Shah after the former was forced by World War II Allies to abdicate and go into exile.
Foroughi wrote numerous books, including The History of Iran, The History of the Ancient Peoples of The East, A Short History of Ancient Rome, Constitutional Etiquette, A Concise Course in Physics, Far-fetched Thoughts, The Philosophy of Socrates, The Evolution of Philosophy in Europe, My Message to the Academy of Language (Farhangestan), The Rules of Oratory or The Technique of Speech-Making, and a book on Shahnameh (Book of Kings). In addition, Foroughi prepared scholarly editions of the works of Saadi, Hafez, Mowlavi (Rumi), Omar Khayyam, and Ferdowsi.
A recording of this talk will appear on Talangor Group’s YouTube Channel.
2025/04/16 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Last night's KITP community talk (see the next item below). [Center] My entry in New Yorker cartoon caption contest #941: "She's been so happy since she dumped Sam." [Right] Tonight's IEEE CCS talk (see the last item below).
(2) Last night's Cafe KITP talk: Dr. Amalia Madden, post-doctoral scholar at UCSB’s Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, discussed “Dark Matter: Discovering the Invisible Universe” at Soho Restaurant & Music Club in downtown Santa Barbara.
The matter we are familiar with (stars, planets, people) constitutes only 15% of all matter. The rest is invisible, neither emitting light nor interacting through known forces of nature. We infer dark matter’s existence only through the gravitational influence it exerts on the cosmos. The existence of dark matter was discovered over a century ago, yet understanding what it is made of and what laws of physics govern it remain among the greatest unsolved puzzles in physics. Dr. Madden explored the compelling evidence for dark matter, discussing why learning more about it is essential to uncovering the history of the Universe.
Side note: The venue was packed, so I was asked to join another solo attendee at a table for two. The gentleman was from Pasadena, passing through Santa Barbara, so he decided to dine at Soho and enjoy some music. He got a heavy-duty physics talk instead!
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- At least 34 people killed following Russian attack on Ukrainian city of Sumy during Palm Sunday services.
- Resistance: Harvard rejects Trump’s demands and is hit with $2.2 billion funding freeze.
- Some US colleges form coalitions to help each other in the face of Trump’s attack on higher education.
- Fed with news stories about the Iran-USA conflict, AI imagines a debate between Khamenei & Trump.
(4) Tonight's IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk: Dr. Donald J. Patterson (VP of AI & ML @ LedgerLink and UC Irvine Project Scientist) spoke under the title “AI as Collaborator, Subverter, and Successor: Navigating the Present and Future of Human-AI Co-Creation.”
As artificial intelligence systems increasingly take on roles traditionally held by humans, their influence on the production, transmission, and distortion of knowledge demands critical attention. This talk explored AI’s expanding role in society through three lenses drawn from recent projects: AI as an environmentally efficient content creator, AI as a vector for misinformation through compromised training sets, and AI as an autonomous educator generating its own curriculum and instructional material.
Dr. Patterson examined the trade-offs of replacing human labor with AI in creative domains, considering both carbon impact and cultural consequences. He also delved into legal & ethical risks of “data defamation,” where training set manipulation enables AI-generated misinformation at scale. Finally, he explored the implications of delegating pedagogy to AI, when machines no longer just assist teaching, but become the teachers.
Taken together, these projects offer a framework for understanding AI not merely as a tool, but as an actor shaping knowledge production. Technologists and researchers must consider how we can ensure that the systems we build serve both truth and justice in an era of increasingly autonomous machine intelligence.
2025/04/14 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] UCSB award lecture (see the next item below). [Center] Passover breakfast: Hard-boiled egg, matzo, and halegh. [Right] UCSB CS Distinguished Speaker (see the last item below).
(2) Plous Memorial Award Lecture: Dr. Michael Beyeler (Dept. of Computer Science and Psychological & Brain Sciences, UCSB) spoke at Mosher Alumni House today under the title “Learning to See Again: Building a Smarter Bionic Eyes.”
What does it mean to see with a bionic eye? While modern visual prosthetics can generate flashes of light, they don’t yet restore natural vision. What might bionic vision actually look like? Why do some users struggle to interpret what they see, while others find ways to adapt? And why do many ultimately stop using their implants? Dr. Beyeler explored the perceptual challenges of artificial vision, the barriers that limit its everyday use, and how smarter, more adaptive technology could move beyond simple flashes of light toward a bionic eye that is not just functional, but truly usable.
(3) El Salvador’s president refuses to return man who was mistakenly deported: Imagine admitting error in deporting a man and then refusing to take action to correct the error. By the way, what happened to the White House dress code, which was made into a big issue for President Zelensky?
(4) Today’s distinguished-speaker talk at UCSB: Dr. James Larus (Professor Emeritus and former Dean of the School of Computer & Communication Sciences at EPFL, and Editor-in-Chief of CACM) spoke under the title “Accelerating Accelerator Innovation.”
Computing accelerators are specialized hardware devices that perform a limited range of computations faster and more efficiently than general-purpose CPUs. The best-known accelerators are GPUs, which enable high-resolution video games as well as scientific and AI computation. Specialized accelerators are even more common in mobile devices, where energy efficiency is paramount. Designing an accelerator is complex because it requires identifying portions of a computation that should run on the accelerator and developing efficient implementations that balance performance against efficiency.
Hardware design, verification, and testing rely heavily on cycle-accurate RTL simulation. Conventional, sequential RTL simulation is a serious bottleneck. Parallel RTL simulation, where simulators run on hundreds and thousands of parallel cores, is an appealing remedy. However, existing simulators only exploit tens of cores due to the high cost of synchronization and communication.
Dr. Larus discussed two solutions. The first is Manticore, an accelerator for RTL simulation that uses static scheduling to minimize communication and synchronization overheads, making fine-grained parallelism practical. His 225-core FPGA prototype runs at 475 MHz and outperforms state-of-the-art RTL simulators. The second, Parendi, uses the Graphcore computer to run RTL simulations across 5,888 cores.
These results demonstrate that massively parallel RTL simulation is practical and effective given appropriate hardware support for fine-grain parallel computation.
2025/04/13 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Santa Barbara Pizza House on State street, where we had Persian joojeh-kabob and kashk-e bademjan as part of their pop-up Mediterranean menu today. [Center] Science magazine’s cover feature: “A citrus orchard should be a pleasant sight, dotted with luscious trees and bright fruits. However, what you will see in many orange groves in Florida today are scenes of desolation, with abandoned fields, dead trees, and weeds. A devastating, recalcitrant bacterial disease called Huanglongbing, also known as citrus greening, has taken hold.” [Right] Digital Signal Processing in VLSI (see the last item below).
(2) Neutrino is the only fundamental particle whose mass is still unknown: A new collaborative study suggests that the neutrino mass cannot exceed 0.45 eV at 90% confidence level, which implies that the mass of a neutrino is less than 1 millionth that of an electron.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- NASA offers a new analysis of the first observation, based on JWST data, of a star swallowing a planet.
- The administration’s termination of teacher-training grants is perhaps its most shortsighted action.
- Film director James Toback must pay $1.68 billion to 40 women for sexual assault spanning 40 years.
- Cannes Film Festival (May 13-24, 2025) will be headlined by films from Wes Anderson & Richard Linklater.
- When they run out of others to blame and our lives are still broken, they’ll come for us. Stop them now!
- Construction project to add 2200 beds to UCSB’s student housing approved by CA Coastal Commission.
(4) “The Wizard of Oz” comes to the 160,000-square-foot, curved, immersive screen of the Las Vegas Sphere: The 86-year-old film, shot with a 35mm camera, will be transformed by Google Cloud and Google DeepMind AI researchers to include additional resolution, extended background (containing scenery and characters not found in the original), and some sensory elements.
(5) Book review: Higgins, Richard J., Digital Signal Processing in VLSI, Prentice-Hall, 1990.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This 575-page book consists of the following 8 chapters:
- Real-world signal processing
- Sampled signals and systems
- The discrete Fourier transform and the FFT algorithm
- Digital filters
- The bridge to VLSI
- Real DSP hardware
- Software development for DSP systems
- DSP applications
The book’s VLSI content is dated, but the DSP basics in Chapters 1-4 are explained clearly and with plenty of examples & diagrams. My favorite DSP book remains Digital Signal Processing, A Computer Based Approach (McGraw-Hill, 4th edition, 2010), written by my emeritus UCSB colleague, Dr. Sanjit K. Mitra. A comprehensive on-line book, The Scientist and Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing, by Steven W. Smith, is also highly recommended (Free on-line access).
2025/04/12 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Happy Passover: Celebrated beginning tonight, this Jewish festival allows us to reflect on how our ancestors escaped slavery, when they were led out of Egypt by Moses. [Center] Dayenu: Tonight, near the end of our family’s Passover ceremony, when we used green onions as pretend whips to (gently) beat each other, as Pharaoh’s Jewish slaves were beaten in Egypt. [Right] Today's talk on the turban (see the last item below).
(2) Singapore’s PM shows us an example of a level-headed, informed, & well-spoken politician: Contrast him with our potty-mouthed president, who says world leaders “are kissing my ass” to get relief from tariffs.
(3) As the US acts like a spoiled brat & protectionist bully, China plays the adult on the world stage, discussing free trade and stable supply chains with other trading partners.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Record-breaking heat is in next week’s forecast for western United States.
- China raised tariffs on US goods to 125%, after Trump hiked tariffs on Chinese imports to 145%.
- Trump bragged about DJIA gaining ~3000 points, after it had lost ~5000 points due to his stupid tariffs!
- Turkey and Israel have begun talks to prevent conflicts between their troops in Syria.
- Some colleges are finding out about funding freezes through Elon Musk’s tweets.
- The administration is interviewing University of California faculty as part of its anti-Semitism probe.
(5) Washington Post analysis contradicts Israel’s claim that the 14 paramedics it killed and buried in a mass grave last month were moving “suspiciously.”
(6) A sobering thought: Iran’s fanatic mullahs have shown that they are serious about wanting to obliterate Israel. That’s why they must be denied access to atomic weapons.
(7) “The Turban: How it Traveled from East to West”: This was the title of a Zoom book talk by co-authors Chris Filstrup and Jane Merrill, under the auspices of Textile Museum Associates of Southern California.
A turban is a strip of cloth folded and wrapped around the head; however, this description includes multifarious forms of the garment across space and time. This talk followed the turban as it moved from the Arabian Peninsula through the Ottoman Empire to Europe and the Americas. It addressed traditional and religious uses of the turban in the realms of international trade, Renaissance art, and contemporary fashions. Turbans have moved in and out of Western culture, at times archaic and forgotten, then noticed and reinstated as major accessories. Today Sikh men are recognized by their distinctive headwraps, and the turban remains an important part of Black culture. The turban has many adaptations worldwide. The talk included slides showing a large number of examples of turbans in different styles, material, sizes, and wrappings.
2025/04/11 (Friday): Today, I offer reviews of three books, two of which bear the same title.
(1) Book review: Hertenstein, Matthew, The Tell: The Little Clues that Reveal Big Truths about Who We Are, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by David Drummond, HighBridge Audio, 2013.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Hertenstein, an Associate Professor of Psychology at DePauw University and a frequent contributor to NPR, New York Times, and other major media outlets, contends that the human brain is characterized more by its predictive power than by its problem-solving chops. Our brains have a canny ability to draw accurate conclusions based on observations of brief samples, as short as a few seconds, of others' behaviors.
He takes his title from the psychological component in the game of poker. An inexperienced player reveals clues to his/her hand by a variety of “tells.” Before deciding on a bet, an experienced player will judge how an opponent stares, the quickness with which s/he lays down cards, or his/her breathing speed. Hertenstein expands on this idea by examining, for example, physical and behavioral clues that indicate gay versus straight sexual orientation, as well as experimental confirmation of how the perceived power of faces in male Fortune 500 CEOs predicts the profitability of their companies. Further, marriage counselors who meet engaged couples can predict the likelihood of divorce with 90 percent accuracy by judging fleeting facial expressions and body language.
Based on nonverbal clues, strangers watching only 30 seconds of a video, even with the audio off, can distinguish between instructors getting a high- or low-quality end-of-term evaluation by their students. Similarly, Hertenstein looks at the experiences of soldiers in dangerous areas, who must remain alert to signs that a parked car might contain a bomb. Despite our useful ability to form accurate first impressions, the author rightly notes the importance of being open to information that contradicts as well as supports our hunches.
Paying attention to the tells doesn’t carry only immediate rewards, such as winning a hand in poker. An infant’s behavioral patterns provide valuable information about his/her personality as a grown-up or his/her potential for developing various diseases later in life. Hertenstein
(2) Book review: Griffin, Amy, The Tell: A Memoir, unabridged 8-hour audiobook, read by the author, Random House Audio, 2025.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I discovered this book when I was searching for Matthew Hertenstein’s The Tell: The Little Clues that Reveal Big Truths about Who We Are. Hertenstein’s book is about the telling signs that allow us to read people (as in the game of poker or on a first date), while Griffin’s advocates for telling others about our unpleasant experiences, without fearing judgement.
To outsiders, the runner Amy led a perfect life that took her from the dirt roads of Amarillo, Texas, through U. Virginia, where she was a student athlete, to New York City, where she married, had children, and built a thriving career. But beneath the happy veneer, Amy was running from a secret she hadn’t shared with anyone, even with herself.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, memories of being sexually abused as a 12-year-old came rushing to her. Whether or not to pursue these clues haunted her. The statue of limitation prevented her from seeking criminal charges against her abuser, and she had no evidence, but she needed closure. Perhaps she could connect with a more recent victim of the abuser and persuade her to bring charges. In the end, Amy settles for just confirming that she wasn’t delusional and abuse actually did occur.
In this brutally honest and touching memoir, Griffin questions the pursuit of perfectionism, control, and maintaining appearances that drives so many women, asking, when, in our path from girlhood to womanhood, did we learn to look outside ourselves for validation? What kind of freedom is possible if we accept the whole story and embrace who we really are? With hope and heart, the newly whole Amy points a way forward, revealing the power of radical truth-telling to deepen our connections—with others and ourselves.
(3) Book review: Pappe, Ilan, Ten Myths About Israel, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by Jonathan Todd Ross, Tantor Audio, 2024.
[My 2-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This second edition of a 2017 book bears the original preface as well as a 2014 preface that discusses the October 2023 attack on southern Israel by Hamas terrorists and Israel’s brutal response in Gaza.
The author purports to dispel ten myths about Israel created by Zionism. What he in fact does is to promote ten myths created about Israel by its enemies. Suffice it to say that he considers Hamas not a terrorist organization but a legitimate resistance movement. Formation of Israel is framed as a European colonization project, rather than as a humanitarian effort to give Jews a homeland that would protect them from continued violence and abuse. Any genealogical connection between ancient Jews who lived in the land of Israel and modern Jews is flatly denied.
It’s good to read opposing views from time to time to see if they hold an ounce of truth. My verdict in the case of this book is that they don’t.
2025/04/10 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] As the Iranian mullahs show a friendly face to the West by agreeing to negotiate, albeit with mixed messages that help them sell the idea to their people after making them chant ‘death to America’ for 4.5 decades, forced disappearances, executions, and threats of executions of dissidents continue. [Center] Meme of the day: Don’t just bandage the wounds, drive a spoke into the wheels of injustice that caused them. [Right] Did you know that the US and Italy have been allies since the time of Ancient Rome?
(2) The Great Gatsby turned 100 today: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great American novel offers a snapshot of America’s class system, racism, and misogyny in the 1920s, as well as a tale of unfulfilled dreams and crushed hopes. “His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him.” [My review on GoodReads]
(3) Maya Angelou’s autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is among ~400 books removed from Naval Academy’s library on Defense Department’s orders.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Roof collapse at a nightclub in the Dominican Republic kills at least 98. [NYT]
- Helicopter crash in NYC's Hudson River kills 6: The pilot and a family of 5 from Spain, including 3 children.
- Federal funding freeze continues for US universities, with Cornell & Northwestern joining the list. [NYT]
- US universities are borrowing billions of dollars through bonds, as research funding is withdrawn. [Forbes]
- Quote-worthy: "Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you." ~ Frank Lloyd Wright
(5) Tape storage vs. hard disks: DOGE is transferring government data from magnetic tapes to more modern storage systems. But some experts point out that with proper care, tapes can be more durable than disks, maintain data without using energy, and are less prone to hacking.
(6) World energy use increased by 4% in 2024, driven mainly by heat waves and energy-intensive data centers: A record 32% of this energy came from renewable sources.
(7) Even if the markets recover the value they lost to stupid tariff pronouncements, it will take decades to restore the world’s confidence in the United States' trustworthiness.
(8) A sobering thought: “The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed but that he cannot believe anyone else.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
2025/04/09 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The only thing missing is broiled onion! Santa Barbara Pizza House is offering this good-looking Persian dish for one day only. We plan to visit on Sunday, April 13, 2025. [Center] S&P 500 recovers its losses after Trump delays his tariffs: The vote by investors seems to be that Trump not doing what he wants to do is a good thing. [Right] UCLA wbinar on social anxiety (see the next item below).
(2) Webinar on social anxiety: Thomas E. Brown, author of Social Anxiety: Hidden Fears and Shame in Teens and Adults and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry & Neuroscience at UC Riverside’s School of Medicine, spoke under the auspices of UCLA’s Semel Institute. Elizabeth Laugeson PsyD, author of The Science of Making Friends and Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA's Semel Institute, joined Dr. Brown in conversation.
We all have some social anxiety but only half of individuals experiencing it ever seek treatment. In his new book written with a colleague, Dr. Brown explains that social anxiety can limit friendships and lead to loneliness & depression. The book offers 22 case vignettes that highlight 11 adults and 11 teens who have various types of social anxiety. Interestingly, social anxiety is usually not a stand-alone disorder but often accompanies conditions such as ADHD, depression, or autism.
(3) QBI initiative: DARPA has chosen 15 companies for the initial stage of its Quantum Benchmarking Initiative aiming to explore the feasibility of building an industrial quantum computer within a decade.
(4) Trade wars escalate: The elephant in the room is China, as many of the other dozens of countries which have approached the US for bilateral trade deals do not amount to much in the global scheme. China retaliated against US’s 34% added tariffs (atop the existing 20% tariff) with a reciprocal 34% tariff on US goods. The US is now set to implement Trump’s threat of raising the tariff on Chinese goods to 104%.
[This was posted early in the day; things have changed since then! See the next item below.]
(5) Trump advertises himself as a tough guy and the MAGA echo chamber repeats the claim: In reality, he is a weak person. He always blinks when push comes to shove. Yet he never apologizes or expresses regrets for a wrong path taken, always manufacturing an excuse for backing down & leaving it up to his minions to use his talking points to massage that excuse into something acceptable to his followers. His opponents can’t be fooled and see through him every time.
(6) Final thought for the day: “Patriotism is fundamentally a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
2025/04/08 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Where our tax money is going: Los Angeles County has agreed to pay $4 billion to settle lawsuits brought by ~7000 people who were sexually abused as children in the county’s juvenile detention & foster systems
(2) As UCSB begins the second week of spring quarter classes, challenges are piling up: The campus and university have set up various Web sites to communicate the latest developments in California’s budget, federal research funding, systemwide hiring freeze, strategic planning, cost-saving measures, and maintaining our values & principles.
(3) Quote of the day: “Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- US stocks plunge further, entering bear-market territory. [NYT]
- Europe’s challenges are threefold: Abandonment by the US, threats from Russia, & rise of far-right groups.
- Women’s Soccer World Cup: Brazil is the 2027 host. The US will host in 2031 and the UK in 2035.
- Giving birth at 100: Don’t worry, the story isn’t about a human but an endangered Galapagos tortoise.
- An Iranian mullah justifies political executions by the high cost of life imprisonment!
- The Trump family’s cash registers are ringing more than ever as the financial meltdown plays out. [NYT]
(5) A minority of the 2% Jewish minority in the US support Trump: Yet they allow him to do what he wants under the cover of protecting Jews and Israel. [Article in The Atlantic]
(6) Middle- & lower-class losses, billionaires’ gains: Right after I decided to retire at the end of 2025, my retirement savings are being decimated by Trump’s stupid tariffs, my university is prone to go bankrupt under dual budget cuts from state & federal sources, endangering my pension, and prospects for higher prices loom. I really hope Trump’s MAGA supporters face similar financial losses. Perhaps such losses will wake them up.
(7) A pair of 2000-year-old children's shoes were found in the ruins of the Roman city of Palmyra, an ancient archaeological site located in modern-day Syria.
(8) Forty-four University of California students have had their I-20 certificates revoked by the Department of Homeland Security: The Council of UC Faculty Association (CUCFA) and UC-AFT have issued a letter about student visa revocations.
2025/04/06 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Poppies, photographed along my walking path from home to Camino Real Marketplace today. [Center] UCLA talk on the Persian solar calendar (see the last item below). [Right] Three million Americans attended one of 1200 nationwide protests yesterday against Donald Trump’s and his billionaire advisor’s policies. Protests were also held in Canada, Mexico, and several European cities.
(2) On Saturday afternoon, I worked productively at a local Starbucks, while enjoying the performance of local musician David Tovar. Here’s a sample of his work.
(3) Scientific news from the April 4, 2025, issue of Science magazine:
- The number of grants handed out by NSF has fallen by 50% since Donald Trump took office.
- NIH has cancelled research grants for COVID-19 and future pandemics.
- International scientists have second thoughts about attending conferences held in the US.
- It has become clear that the HHS Secretary wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation & lies.
(4) Political thought of the day: If you lose and declare that you won, and there are enough people who believe you or pretend to believe you, then there is little your political opponents can do.
(5) UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran: Dr. Abbas Amanat (Yale U. Emeritus Prof. of History) spoke in Persian under the title “Calendar and Identity: Why Did the Persian Solar Calendar Survive for 1400 Years and Become an Important Feature of Iranian Identity?” The English version of this talk will be given tomorrow at 3:00 PM PDT.
UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series: Dr. Abbas Amanat (Yale U. Emeritus Prof. of History) spoke in Persian under the title “Calendar and Identity: Why Did the Persian Solar Calendar Survive for 1400 Years and Become an Important Feature of Iranian Identity?” The English version of this talk will be given tomorrow at 3:00 PM PDT.
Since the end of the Sasanian era, the Persian solar calendar, alongside the associated rite of Nowruz, has endured and grown to become a significant feature of Iranian, and to some extent the Persianate, cultural identity. The Persian (aka Jalali) solar calendar is one of only three surviving national calendars. All other countries use the Gregorian calendar; even Saudi Arabia has been using the Gregorian calendar as its primary calendar since 2014.
The choice of Hijrah, the journey of Prophet Mohammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina, as the starting point of the Persian solar calendar was a compromise to keep the clergy happy. Toward the end of his rule, the Shah tried to change the starting point to the rule of Cyrus the Great, but this highly unpopular change was revoked a few years later.
Dr. Amanat explored the circumstances that allowed the survival of Iran’s unique calendar and its adoption as the national calendar through an act of the parliament a century ago, in 1925.
2025/04/05 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Teleportation, often depicted in science-fiction, refers to the instantaneous transfer of objects or beings from one location to another. Timeline: 1993, teleporting a quantum state; 1998, teleporting a photon; ????, teleporting an entire human. [Center] Deltopia 2025: Revelers converged on Isla Vista, near UCSB, today to celebrate the arrival of spring. As I walked from home to Camino Real Marketplace, I encountered groups of young people, festively dressed, who were walking toward Isla Vista, having parked at some distance owing to parking restrictions on both IV and UCSB. [Right] Talk on pandemics in late modern Iran (see the last item below).
(2) Distributive vs. integrative bargaining (dividing a pie vs. deciding on how may pies to bake at what price): This analysis about Trump’s destructive negotiation style is by Prof. David Honig of Indiana University.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang, the longest-serving chancellor in UC history, awarded UC Presidential Medal.
- Spineless GOP politicians enabled Trump’s tariff fiasco: They can’t absolve themselves from responsibility.
- Trump finds tough opponents in the judiciary: Federal judges don’t roll over like coward lawmakers.
- Michael Roth, Wesleyan President, thinks colleges don’t have to roll over in the face of Trump’s demands.
- Iranian mullah: “In future, we may have to build prisons for intelligent robots.” [IranIntl.com]
(4) “Pandemics in Late Modern Iran: Sociopolitical Continuities from Cholera to COVID-19”: This was the title of today’s webinar by Dr. Amir A. Afkhami, sponsored jointly by Farhang Foundation and UCSB Iranian Studies Initiative. The talk was based on Dr. Afkhami’s 2019 book, A Modern Contagion: Imperialism and Public Health in Iran’s Age of Cholera.
Iran in the Qajar era experienced devastating outbreaks of cholera, bubonic plague, and influenza, which had significant social and economic impacts. Cholera, brought by trade routes and the movement of pilgrims, led to almost regular outbreaks in Iran throughout the nineteenth century. The bubonic plague pandemics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries struck Iran multiple times, decimating populations and straining the already fragile healthcare system. Similarly, deadly influenza pandemics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had a profound impact on the country’s demography.
Dr. Afkhami examined the biosocial complexities that triggered the recurrence of pandemics in Iran during the Qajar period and the social, economic, political, and ideological transformations that resulted. He also showed how symptomatic and pathological attributes of each pathogen played a role in ushering changes in the administrative and intellectual paradigms of public health. Finally, he explored how each pandemic contributed to Iran’s integration into the international order and shaped societal transformations that foretell the socio-political impacts of COVID-19 on Iran in the coming decades.
2025/04/04 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Today, there are 10,000+ satellites drifting through low Earth orbit, the region of space up to 2000 km from Earth’s surface. [Center] Markets plunge worldwide after Trump’s announcement of steep tariffs (NYT chart). [Right] Noah Feldman's To Be a Jew Today (see the last item below).
(2) Hidden treasure: The only surviving account of Merlin and the early years of King Arthur's court is discovered in fragments of a rare 13th-century manuscript, hidden in the binding of a 16th-century register.
(3) Book review: Feldman, Noah, To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People, unabridged 14-hour audiobook, read by the author, Recorded Books, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
At first, the phrase “Guide to God” in the subtitle put me off. What does a guide to God even mean? It turns out that the author, a Harvard law professor raised in an Orthodox household by Harvard faculty parents, means a review of Jews’ relationship with God. In this respect, Jews can be divided roughly into four groups: From traditionalists (sometimes called Orthodox Jews) at one end to atheists (bagel-and-lox Jews) at the other, with Zionists and Reconstructionists falling in between the two extremes. What unifies these diverse groups of Jews and gives them a common theological identity is the ideal of social justice, to embrace the prophetic ideal of pursuing the right and the good.
Intolerance exists among Jews, much like among other groups of individuals. "It makes me sad when, often, in a rueful, gentle, self-mockery, Jewish friends of mine say to themselves, 'I'm a bad Jew.' They aren't. You aren't. There are so many ways to be Jewish." In a PBS interview, Feldman stated why he doesn’t like the notion of a bad Jew. “You could be a bad person for doing bad things, but you can't really be a bad Jew, per se.”
As the book’s title implies, Feldman looks at Jewishness as it involves Judaism (the religion), Israel (the Jewish state), and Jews (a people). Among Feldman’s many observations is his diagnosis of the state of progressive Jewish theology and the dilemma it faces in a time of challenge to Israel and to the relationship of American Jewish identity and Israeli identity. As Feldman sees it, progressive Jews have adopted two new pillars of contemporary theology since the second half of the last century: Israel and the Holocaust. “To Progressives, the word of God as passed to Moses and the elders and the rabbis is in need of editing and renewal in the light of morality as we are given to realize and apprehend it over time.”
Following early indifference or opposition to Zionism, the progressives devoted themselves to the cause after the wars of 1967 and 1973. The first war exhibited Jewish rebirth and recovery from the annihilation of European Jewry; the second revived fears of the potential annihilation of Jews in their Middle Eastern refuge. These fears brought the Israeli flag to synagogues. Israel isn’t alone as a religion-based state. A similar solution was implemented by the British in 1947 to give Muslim-majority regions within the Indian subcontinent their own Islamic state of Pakistan.
The Holocaust’s centrality was embraced to make some partial sense out of the deaths of six million European Jews by depicting Israel as the redemptive solution to the problem of genocidal antisemitism. Hence, the proliferation of Holocaust memorials and museums around the globe.
Feldman describes how Jews today use the instructions for living contained in Hebrew scripture. The one constant he finds in the great variety of Jewish religious experience is the notion of Jews struggling with God. Jacob’s punishing night of wrestling with God (or, depending on the interpretation, with an angel) is a conversion experience that establishes a people determined to embrace and wrestle with God for eternity. The struggle may entail observing dietary laws, studying Torah, or fighting for social justice. To be a Jew is a complicated matter for sure
2025/04/03 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Former President Obama photobombs a family’s photo shoot. [Center] Socrates Think Tank panel discussion (see the next item below). [Right] Eoin Higgins's Owned (see the last item below).
(2) Wednesday night’s Socrates Think Tank panel discussion: Panelists Payam Kiani, Hooman Foroughi, and Allahyar Allahyari presented their views on “Rethinking the Nature of Matter.”
I missed the panelists’ statements and rebuttals due to other commitments, joining the Zoom session just as a lively Q&A period was starting. A 51-page book chapter entitled “Rethinking the Nature of Matter” (by Stephen Gaukroger), published by Oxford in January 2016, is a useful source for interested readers.
(3) “Engaging with the Media: Essential Skills for Successful Interviews”: This was the title of today’s AAAS webinar intended to teach scientists skills they need to interact with the media. Scientists are often wary of speaking with the media because of concerns about being misquoted, misunderstood, or otherwise contributing to misinformation. And while expert sources don’t control the final outcome of a story, there are strategies to maximize the chances that any story they help with contains accurate scientific information and context.
(4) Book review: Higgins, Eoin, Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by Ramiz Monsef, Blackstone Audio, 2025.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Silicon Valley has become a bastion of libertarians, who are increasing showing a desire to engage in politics directly, rather than through financing political campaigns. But these aren’t run-of-the-mill libertarian who hate the government. In fact, many of them are beneficiaries, directly or through companies they work for, of fat government contracts. Elon Musk is the current poster child of this new breed of techies.
Supporting and, at times, running right-wing media outlets is part of these billionaires’ modus operandi; so is attracting former liberal and left-wing commentators who flock to this alternative media ecosystem in search of cash, influence, and massive audiences. Higgins names Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald as examples of such journalists, who benefit personally from exploiting the failings of traditional journalism and social media, while helping the new plutocrats pursue their businesses and personal vendettas entirely unimpeded.
Higgins uses controversies such as the Edward Snowden intelligence case, the Twitter Files leaks, and Musk’s acquisition of Twitter/X to illustrate his points and highlight the dominance of government contracts in big tech. He also includes a few foreign intervention stories in and by the US. As these stories unfold, we realize that their public tellings are tips of giant icebergs, whose submerged parts are visible only to the well-connected and well-financed.
This vastly underreported collaboration between the new wealth and the new journalism features right-wing billionaires such as Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk who fund journalists to do their dirty work under the guise of standing up for principles of liberty and free speech. Like any other book that presents one side of a multi-sided story (here, the side of a self-identified “civil libertarian leftist”), readers should thread carefully, but I found sufficient truth in Higgins’ assertions to highly recommend his book.
2025/04/02 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] NYT charts: US federal spending by function for fiscal year 2024 and in the first 3 months in each of the last four years. [Right] Science magazine cover story: Urban wildfire are extremely dangerous, not only because of higher population density but also due to toxins, such as lead, released in the air from burning cars and structures.
(2) Today, Trump announced sweeping tariffs, with a 10% baseline rate and higher rates for certain countries and products, calling today "Liberation Day" for the US economy. Stocks plunged in after-hours trading.
(3) Liberation Day? Yes, it seems we are being liberated from Elon Musk as the de facto POTUS. Last night, he suffered a humiliating defeat in Wisconsin, after spending millions against the liberal winner of a State Supreme Court seat. And Trump has told aids that Musk will be stepping back from his White House role.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Elon Musk’s million-dollar give-aways did not buy him a State Supreme Court Justice in Wisconsin.
- Final-four match-ups in NCAA women's basketball: UCLA vs Washington, Texas vs. S. Carolina.
- Google expanded its ad revenue sources with a $20B Apple deal to become iPhone’s default search engine.
- Doris Day: “The only frightening thing about middle age is the knowledge that you will grow out of it.”
(5) Independent Persian story: Despite being at the crossroad of movement of diverse groups of people since humans emerged out of Africa, a broad-based genetic study shows genomic continuity of Iranians for at least 5000 years.
(6) Suppose Russia took over the US and Putin installed himself as POTUS. Here’s what he might do: *Install oligarchs in key positions *Ruin our thriving economy *Crash the markets *Reverse environmental laws *Destroy public health *Starve our best universities *Defund research & development *Take away consumer protections *Empty the public sector from talent *Turn our allies against us
(7) Computational Capacity of the Universe: Here’s the abstract of Seth Lloyd’s paper in Physical Review Letters, Vol. 88, 237901, 10 June 2002: “All physical systems register and process information. The laws of physics determine the amount of information that a physical system can register (number of bits) and the number of elementary logic operations that a system can perform (number of ops). The Universe is a physical system. The amount of information that the Universe can register and the number of elementary operations that it can have performed over its history are calculated. The Universe can have performed 10^120 ops on 10^90 bits (10^120 bits including gravitational degrees of freedom).”
2025/03/31 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Walking in downtown Santa Barbara, after dinner and before Chris Botti’s Saturday night concert: Posing with Ben Franklin, the window-washer, my daughter, a fountain band, and a dolphin. Award-winning trumpet player Chris Botti performed his standard jazz fare at Santa Barbara’s historic Granada Theater. One of his three special guests was songwriter/pianist/singer Peter Cincotti.
(2) Fascism & misogyny on full display: The words “woman” and “women” are among banned words in research proposals to funding agencies.
(3) Nurses rock! These two nurses didn’t run away during a recent earthquake in China. They stayed and protected the babies.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Death toll in Myanmar's 7.7-magnitude earthquake has reached 1600 & may rise further. [Washington Post]
- Auburn, Houston, Florida, & Duke are the final-four teams in NCAA men's basketball tournament.
- A gentle puzzle: What time is it? [Tweet, with image]
- Talk about weaponizing the Justice Department! Harvard joins other schools that are under federal review.
(5) Mir Seyed Ali Hamadani’s Persian poem on the necessity & wisdom of getting along with our fellow human beings, be they friends or foes. [Tweet, with the poem]
(6) UCSB Women’s Center turns 50: Five decades after its founding, the support the center provides — and the community it has cultivated — are as crucial now as they were in 1975.
(7) AI as an engineering problem: Suppose you want to build an AI system to accomplish certain tasks. Like any other engineering design problem, there will be multiple design alternatives. You need a way to compare various designs on the extent to which they accomplish the design goals. In an April 2025 CACM paper entitled “How Do You Measure AI?” Logan Kugler suggests that getting an accurate view of how good an AI system is at certain tasks is more challenging than one might think.
2025/03/28 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Persian cuisine: My daughter’s baghali-polo, served along with marinated and already-skewered lamb shish-kabobs bought from Costco & broiled at home (not shown). [Center] Meme of the day: What happened to all the cat- & dog-eaters? The price of eggs? [Right] Talangor Group talk on humor, by Hamid Shirazi (see the last item below).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- In a Nature journal poll, 75% of the 1600 responding scientists said they were considering leaving the US.
- Three outspoken fascism scholars who are Yale U. faculty members move to U. Toronto.
- Course sharing among universities could help with financial challenges facing US higher education.
- Iranian currency falls below a long-feared threshold: 1 million rials (100,000 tomans) per US dollar.
(3) Thursday night's Talangor Group talk: Speaking under the title “What Is Humor and How Is It Produced?” Hamid Shirazi also discussed sociopolitical humor in Iran. Before the main talk, Dr. Reza Sarmast made a short presentation on Nowruz and its traditions around the world. There were ~90 attendees.
In the US, stand-up comedians and comedy writers (for shows such as SNL) are responsible for producing much of the humor that we see or hear. The result is professional or “factory-produced” humor, as opposed to organic, often unattributed humor arising from daily experiences and encounters of regular society members. Stand-up comedians and comedy writers were rather rare in Iran, until fairly recently.
Mr. Shirazi presented his talk in four parts: (1) Definitions. (2) Production and dissemination of humor. (3) Sociopolitical humor in Iran. (4) The ethics of humor.
- Under definitions, Mr. Shirazi spoke of tanz (satire), hazl (lampoon), and hajv (mockery), along with their various subcategories, providing examples in each case.
- Humor often entails the elements of exaggeration and surprise. A typical western joke consists of several stages: Set-up, zero or more intermediate punchlines, and a final punchline. Dissemination can be oral (informal mouth-to-mouth or formal stage routine) or written. In the old days, poets or writers sometime produced humorous pieces. In modern times, we have comedy writers who write jokes for their own performances or for others to perform.
- Under dictatorial regimes, humor is one of the most-effective ways of fighting back against political and social oppression. Poetry and humor are two key tools used by Iranians to get through difficult times. Being allowed to tease political leaders is one of the surest signs of freedom.
- Some people do not accept any limits of what we can or cannot joke about, but traditionally we tend to consider certain subjects out of bound. We should try to laugh together, not at each other. In this regard, making fun of someone’s religion, ethnicity, race, and several other attributes is generally frowned upon.
Of course, examples always help in clarifying abstract statements, but unfortunately, I cannot include the many examples, categorizations, and checklists in this summary. Recordings of the main talk and its preceding short presentation will appear on Talangor Group’s YouTube channel.
2025/03/27 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday: Grace Hopper’s A-0 Computer paved the way for modern programming languages. [Center] Throwback Thursday: Iranian currency of 50+ years ago. The smallest denomination among the bills shown is 20 rials (worth ~28 cents in those days and 0.0022 cent today). I think there was at least one bill of smaller denomination, perhaps 10 rials, but I’m not sure. Coin denominations were 10, 5, 2, 1, and 0.5 rial. [Right] Shakespeare and Science (see the next item below).
(2) On my to-read list: In Shakespeare and Science (Oxford, 2024), Thomas M. Rutter suggests that Shakespeare’s plays and poems made detailed use of the knowledge and theories about the cosmos, the natural world, and human biology that were available to him. These range from astronomical & anatomical ideas derived from medieval scholars, Islamic philosophers, and ancient Greek & Roman authorities, through to the challenges issued to those models by more recent figures such as Copernicus and Vesalius.
(3) Thomas Friedman, on the need for Trump and Xi to get together ASAP: Not to rehash old issues such as tariffs, trade, and Taiwan, but to discuss the common threats and opportunities presented by general AI.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- In a rare anti-Hamas protest in Gaza, Palestinians say they’ve had enough war, destruction, & killing.
- “Fire Elon, Save Elmo”: Slogan of defenders of US public media, which are under the threat of defunding.
- Bay Area Persian Choir performs “Khoosheh-Chin” (“Harvest Reaper”) at Stanford Memorial Church.
(5) The Alta Dena fire came very close to Cal Tech and Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Cal Tech scientists highlight the school’s wildfire research and stress that rural fires, such as some of those breaking out in Los Angeles in January 2025, can pollute the air with lead and other toxins from burning cars and structures.
(6) Beyond call centers: US companies are on a hiring spree in India. There are already 1800 office parks built to house these hires. These aren’t “call centers” but offices for Indian professionals to carry out advanced design and engineering tasks formerly performed by Americans in the US. This trend is the white-collar counterpart to the offshoring of blue-collar jobs that has been underway for decades.
(7) Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell left Congress to make way for new leadership, although they should have done so much earlier. Chuck Schumer shouldn’t wait any longer.
(8) Final thought for the day: Some immigrants, and many other Americans whose ancestors fled or immigrated to the US just a couple of generations ago, want us to be fearful of immigrants & refugees and to join them in denying to others the compassion and generous opportunities extended to them & their families.
2025/03/25 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Know your dashes! The hyphen joins words, as in “well-behaved,” the en-dash indicates ranges or connections, as in “pages 5–12” or “the Amsterdam–London train,” and the em-dash creates a break in a sentence, functioning like parentheses or commas, as in “I’ll be there—you have my word.” The minus sign is a bit shorter than the en-dash. [Center] The clearest-ever image of Saturn’s moon, Mimas, captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. [Right] Steve Martin's Born Standing Up (see the last item below),
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Russia and Ukraine agreed to stop fighting in the Black Sea, ensuring safety of shipping in the area. [NYT]
- Social Security is breaking down: Crashed Web site, long wait times frustrate clients. [Washington Post]
- US law firms are refusing to represent Trump’s opponents following his attacks and legal actions.
- European universities go into high drive with plans to attract US academics and other researchers.
- With a 2-2 tie against Uzbekistan, Iran clinched a place in the 2026 Soccer World Cup tournament.
(3) Book review: Martin, Steve, Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life, unabridged 4-hour audiobook, read by the author, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2007. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
In this fairly short memoir, consummate writer Steve Martin chronicles his childhood, his days working at Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, and low-tier coffee shops & clubs as a comedy act, his relationships, his eventual fame, and the reason why he quit stand-up comedy altogether at the height of his fame in 1981 to pursue a film career.
The story of Martin’s early years, during which he practiced and honed his craft, is moving, revelatory, and beautifully written. Equally revealing is his disillusionment and anxiety when he started packing arenas that held thousands of people. He began thinking of himself as a white speck on the big stage, and because his comedy was so physical, he worried that the audience in the back won’t see him. With off-the-charts success came the feeling that he had lost his edge, as it became riskier to introduce new material into his popular but well-worn act. He felt he couldn’t move higher up; only sideways.
Through his spare explanations, we come to understand Martin’s love for magic, his early gags like "Happy Feet," and his trademark 3-piece white suit. Martin illuminates the sacrifice, discipline, and originality that made him an icon and informs his work to this day. His dedication to masterly and frequent performances was isolating. It took Martin decades to reconnect with his parents and sister, and he tells that story with great tenderness.
Martin also paints a portrait of his times, the heady irreverence of "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" in the late 1960s, and the transformative new voice of "Saturday Night Live" in the 1970s. Martin details his parents' deaths, and how he dealt with each of them. He also makes observations about how the world was changing around him, from the early days of the "peace and love" culture to the more challenging time that followed it, and how he used his act to work through his feelings about those times.
2025/03/24 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] An expertly-rendered bust of Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientists in history. [Center] The Persian War, by Herodotus (see the last item below). [Right] Making top-10 lists is a popular activity around the world: For any particular subject or domain, our top-10 lists tend to differ, sometimes markedly. Here is a proposed list of the top-10 greatest scientists ever. If you disagree, think about the names you’d remove from the list and those you’d add.
(2) Gossip may be good for us: To be human is to talk about other humans. We all gossip, and those of us who claim they don’t are lying. [From The New Yorker]
(3) For someone who frequently stresses the need to leave educational matters to states, Trump sure meddles quite a bit in the affairs of universities, including their internal policies, financial aid, and academic affairs.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown Fellow & son-in-law of a Hamas leader, is arrested and faces deportation.
- US Defense Secretary shared attack plans against Yemen’s Houthis in a chat group that included a reporter.
- Despite tech industry layoffs, big-data and AI roles are expanding rapidly. [IEEE Spectrum]
- Graphene biosensor tattoos: Flexible stick-on patches could monitor blood pressure, stress, and more.
- Federal funds to U. Penn are suspended because of its policy on transgender athletes. [The New Yorker]
(5) French scientists searching for methane instead found a huge deposit of natural hydrogen: Located 1.25 km below ground, this white hydrogen (compared with green and gray hydrogen) does not need industrial production and is thus a cost-effective carbon-free fuel.
(6) Goleta Valley Public Library will move to its temporary home at 6500 Hollister Ave. on April 1, while its building on North Fairview Ave. undergoes extensive repairs and renovations.
(7) Book review: Herodotus, The Persian War: From the Histories, unabridged 4-hour audiobook, read by Roy Marden, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2007.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
In this, the first prose history in European civilization, Herodotus tells the heroic tale of the Greeks' resistance to the vast invading force assembled by Xerxes, King of Persia. The narrative describes the great battles—Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis—and offers penetrating human insight and a powerful sense of epic destiny at work.
Unfortunately, the story in this book, which is retold in the feature film "300," is quite self-serving, as I learned from a history of the Persian Empire, told by Professor John W. I. Lee in his Great Courses lecture series. Lee’s account is based mostly on Persian, rather than Greek, sources, which results in quite a different tale.
2025/03/23 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Meme of the day: Don’t panic, organize! [Center] Math puzzle: The triangle ABC is divided into two regions, each with area A, as shown in the accompanying diagram, which isn’t to scale. Find the length x of DE. [Right] Interstellar dust (see the last item below).
(2) This morning, I presented a Zoom talk entitled "How Words Rule Our Lives" to a group of 1968 graduates of Tehran University's College of Engineering. This is work in progress; an expanded/refined version will be presented again soon.
(3) Modern technology in the service of dark-ages thinking: Iranian mullahs have started using drones to enforce women’s dress code.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- UC President announces a hiring freeze in light of reduced state support and uncertainties in federal funding.
- After Israel expanded its ground raids in Gaza, Hamas targeted Tel Aviv with rockets. [NYT]
- Don't complain about egg prices: Broadway theater tickets are approaching $1000!
- Trading at 95,000 tomans per US dollar, Iran’s currency plumets to an all-time low.
- Meta’s translation AI, SeamlessM4T, interprets 101 languages in real time. [IEEE Spectrum]
- Lenovo to offer the first laptop with flexible OLED display that extends by rolling. [IEEE Spectrum]
(5) It’s absurd to attack a judge on the basis of his/her party affiliation or who appointed him/her. Being a Republican does not entitle you to a Republican judge for handling your cases.
(6) Toward petabyte SSDs: AI workloads demand bigger storage drives. Several companies now offer 128 TB SSDs. [IEEE Spectrum]
(7) Persian poetry: These three verses (poet unknown) include words beginning with every letter of the Persian alphabet, in order. There are some imperfections in the poem’s structure and rhymes, as well as out-of-order appearance of a couple of letters near the end, but the poem is still nice and clever.
(8) Interstellar dust (Science magazine's cover feature): “Interstellar dust grains cause extinction (absorption and scattering) of light from background astronomical sources. The spectral shape of the extinction curve depends on the dust composition. We used low-resolution optical spectra to measure the extinction curve of 130 million stars. By inverting these data, we mapped the extinction curve parameter within the Milky Way in three dimensions and within the Magellanic Clouds in two dimensions. These maps provide improved extinction corrections for astronomical observations.”
2025/03/21 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Iran’s Supreme Leader delivers his Nowruz message with no sign of the traditional Haft-Seen spread, which one finds in virtually every home. [Center] Nowruz house cleaning in Iran. [Right] Ludovich Slimak's The Naked Neanderthal (see the last item below).
The photo on the right shows my traditional Nowruz spread known as "haft-seen."
(2) A dark day for academic freedom at American universities: To recover its federal funding, Columbia U. cedes to Trump’s demands, agreeing to overhaul its security & protest policies and its Middle Eastern Studies Department. As part of the agreement, Columbia will ban masks on campus and hire a new security force.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Fire halts operations at London's Heathrow Airport, throwing global travel into disarray.
- I wonder if the scarcity and high prices of eggs will affect the cost of plastic Easter eggs.
- A Kurdish song for Nowruz, with lyrics. [5-minute video]
- Talk about hardworking! Determined! Weaker sex? [Video]
(4) Book review: Slimak, Ludovich, The Naked Neanderthal: A New Understanding of the Human Creature, unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by John Sackville, Tantor Audio, 2024.
[Image: .jpg; sqr]
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Neanderthals were a very advanced branch of the hominin family bush, the braided stream that makes up our ancestry. They had thrusting weapons for close combat as well as throwing weapons. We have evidence of advanced burial practices, such as multiple bodies buried together. Given these facts, the prevailing notion that Neanderthals were dumb, to the extent of using the term "Neanderthal" as an insult, is puzzling.
Sharing insights from his archaeological investigations, that took him from the Arctic Circle to Mediterranean forests, Slimak, whose views are at odds with much of published archaeological research, tries to set the record straight about recent assertions that Neanderthals were our intelligent cousins, who could be visualized as wearing suits and ties, had they survived until today. They went extinct shortly after modern humans began to populate Europe, raising the possibility of a genocide event.
After emerging from Africa, modern humans moved to northern Europe fairly quickly, reaching there about 50,000 years ago. Neanderthals had resided in that area for 500,000 years and there is genetic evidence of them interbreeding with the arriving modern humans. All non-African modern humans have traces of Neanderthal DNA in them. The theory of the two human species interacting and interbreeding in southern Europe many millennia later is, however, disputed.
Neanderthals, and their interbreeding with modern humans, constitute an important turning point in our evolutionary history, which merits detailed study and deep understanding. The word "Naked" in the title refers to a model of the creature, of its physical appearance and soul, obtained from direct examination of archaeological evidence, unspoiled by preconceptions and prejudices.
2025/03/20 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Happy Nowruz and Persian New Year: Every year since 2002, I have composed a cheerful Persian poem to welcome the bliss of Nowruz and the wonders of spring.
Here is my poem for 2025 (Persian New Year 1404). Iranians have suffered for several decades under the brutal Islamic regime, yet they remain as hopeful as ever that the spell will be broken one day soon, allowing them to discard the mullahs' imposed culture of mourning, sorrow, and martyrdom in favor of Iranian cultural elements of music, poetry, arts, and year-round joyous festivals.
(2) Course review: Viskontas, Indre, 12 Essential Scientific Concepts, 24 half-hour lectures in the Great Courses series, undated.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Ask several people about the most-important scientific concept and you’re bound to get different answers. On a longer list of important scientific concepts, certain concepts, such as evolution and quantum mechanics, will no doubt appear. Others may be included or left out, depending on the length of the list.
This course discusses 12 important scientific concepts, as chosen by its instructor, a cognitive neuroscientist affiliated with the Memory and Aging Center at University of California. Some of the concepts included are, in my view, less essential than Newton’s laws, relativity, plate tectonics, and germ theory of disease. Pairs of lectures cover the following topics, which constitute a good starting point for anyone who wants to delve into the vast arena of scientific knowledge.
- The miracle and organization of life
- Evolution and its mechanisms
- DNA, heritability, epigenetics, mutations
- Visual and acoustic perceptions
- Our changing brain, plasticity, brain training
- Magnetism, electricity, fields, circuits
- Thermodynamics and metabolism
- Fluid mechanics and propulsion in fluids
- The Big Bang and the four forces of nature
- The elements, particles, waves
- Quanta, uncertainty, strings, multiverse
- Emergence, complexity, order out of chaos
The first 10 lectures and the last two are of higher quality, given that their subject matters align better with the instructor’s areas of expertise. However, one learns quite a bit from every lecture. The titles and brief summaries of the 24 lectures can be found on this Web page.
2025/03/19 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Cartoon of the day: Putin’s dream has come true. [Top center] IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk on cryo-EM (see the next item below). [Top right & Bottom row] Memes of the day.
(2) Tonight’s IEEE Central Coast Section talk: Dr. Niels Volkmann (UCSB, ECE) spoke under the title "From Pixels to Life: Decoding Cellular Worlds with Cryogenic Electron Microscope.”
Cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) is a groundbreaking imaging technique that unveils cellular landscapes at the resolution of their molecular building blocks. Dr. Volkmann introduced the core principles of cryo-EM and highlighted the vital role of signal processing and computational methods in transforming raw data into a deeper understanding of the machinery that drives life.
(3) [Cartoon caption of the day] Surgeon to relative outside the operating room: “I’m sorry, we did everything we could before Elon cut our funding.”
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Chinese electric-car maker BYD says new fast-charging system could be as quick as filling up.
- Touraj Daryaee named EIC of Encyclopedia Iranica, a momentous project started by Ehsan Yarshater.
- Anosognosia (lack of insight about one’s mental illness): A helpful fact sheet.
- Cooking over the last few days: Pizzas, with flatbread & ready-made crusts, broiled vegetables & beef liver.
(5) On the universe growing at an accelerating rate: If nothing changes, the universe will probably become cold, dark and inhospitable in many billions of years. But it appears that cosmic acceleration is weakening. That could mean the universe may stabilize, or even start to contract. Not a more pleasant ending, I think!
(6) Elon Musk set to get access to top-secret plans for potential war with China: Let’s assume giving the highest security clearance to Musk is no problem. Ditto for conflict of interest, given SpaceX’s and StarLnk’s billions of dollars in military contracts. How is this info relevant to Musk’s cost-cutting mission? Will he be redesigning the war plans to cost less? [Update of Friday 2025/03/21: Fortunately, the planned briefing was scrapped under intense pressure arising from media reports.]
(7) IranWire.com: The UN Fact-Finding Mission to Iran has documented gross human-rights violations in its 2-year investigation into the Islamic government’s response to nationwide protests. The Mission presented 38,000 pieces of evidence and conducted 285 interviews.
(8) Final thought for the day: Firing thousands of employees and closing entire divisions to save money is like taking the engine out of your car to save gas.
2025/03/18 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Happy Chaharshanbeh Suri (see the next item below). [Center] New Yorker cartoon of the day: "We’ll have to stop research now that Neanderthals are back in charge." [Right] Webinar on falsehoods, mistrust, misinformation, and disinformation (see the last item below).
(2) Chaharshanbeh Suri (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).
(3) "False: How Mistrust, Disinformation, and Motivated Reasoning Make Us Believe Things that Aren't True": This was the title of today’s UCLA Semel Institute webinar by Joe Pierre, MD, based on the speaker’s book bearing the same title. He was joined in discussion by Dr. Alaina Burns, who said she had been mentored by Dr. Pierre.
Delusions, or bizarre beliefs, are viewed as psychiatric disorders and are thus treated by psychiatrists. There are, however, false beliefs that are not rooted in psychological disorders but derive from hearing a false statement from someone or from a group. In the age of Internet, "I saw it on YouTube" is a common refrain when confronting someone about a false belief. Some 70% of the US population believes in at least one conspiracy theory.
Microchips in our vaccines, flat Earth, stolen elections, climate change denial―in the face of a bewildering range of misbeliefs that stem from mistrust of informational sources, exposure to misinformation and disinformation, and partisan polarization, it's easy to dismiss those who disagree with us as "delusional", "psychotic", or merely "ignorant." What can we do to protect ourselves in this post-truth world?
Drawing on decades of experience as a psychiatrist and clinical professor, Dr. Pierre invited listeners to journey with him through the normal quirks of brain functioning―such as "heuristics", cognitive biases, motivated reasoning, cognitive dissonance, and bullshit receptivity―that create the cognitive vulnerabilities to false belief innate within us all. With a cross-disciplinary approach, the talk illuminated the psychology of false belief that lies at the root of contemporary media mistrust, science denialism, and political polarization, and highlighted that deficits of intelligence and mental health are usually not to blame.
With a refreshingly unbiased lens, Dr. Pierre suggested an antidote to false beliefs and made the case for softening our convictions, viewing our ideological opponents with compassion, and mending the rifts in our relationships as individuals and societies.
2025/03/16 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Elon Musk filmed a Tesla commercial, featuring POTUS, in front of the White House: Way to cut the waste of taxpayers’ money!
(2) While claiming widespread fraud, Elon Musk is eying Social Security for drastic cuts: The real fraud and waste figure is less than 1% of the agency’s budget, so they can be surgically removed without altering the flow of payments, which, by the way, aren’t entitlements, but return on investment for those who have paid into the SS Trust Fund.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- China to build a mile-long spaceship that requires multiple launches and assembly in space. [From 2021]
- What Stalin, Mao, & Khomeini couldn’t do collectively, Trump did single-handedly: Voice of America is dead.
- [Cartoon caption of the day] At the theater box office: "One senior, and one refuses to accept he's a senior."
- Facebook memory from Mar. 15, 2018: Same situation this year. Still working on my new Nowruz poem.
(4) UCSB Faculty Association has asked the faculty to hold a one-hour gathering in front of Davidson Library to protest Trump administration's full assault on higher education and academic freedom: March 19 at noon.
(5) Intersection that needs no traffic light: Left turn is replaced by a right turn followed by a U-turn; Straight ahead is replaced by two right turns and a U-turn.
(6) "Beijing+30: Addressing 21st Century Challenges to Gender Equality": This was the title of a 3-hour conference, livestreamed on-line and held under the auspices of Georgetown Institute for Women Peace and Security, with the aim of reviewing the current state of women’s rights.
Thirty years ago, world leaders and women’s rights advocates came together at the 1995 UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, where 189 nations adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action—the most ambitious global agenda for gender equality in history—affirming that women’s rights are human rights. This seemingly obvious statement, which was not recognized at the time, made s great deal of difference in advancing women’s rights.
Today, new and persistent challenges threaten gender equality worldwide. From the rise of technology-facilitated gender-based violence to the disproportionate effects of climate change on women, and the backsliding of democracy and human rights, hard-won gains remain at risk.
The multiple panel discussions of this event highlighted the transformative impact of the Beijing Conference by featuring young activists at the forefront of the women’s movement, and offered lessons from world leaders on how to move forward in a time of regression on gender equality.
2025/03/14 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Meme of the day: Nikita Khrushchev is smiling in his grave. [Center] Nearly two months after Trump’s 2025 inauguration, the stock market disagrees that we are headed toward greatness. [Right] Last Sunday’s brunch, prepared at home.
(2) Breakthrough in Syria: Syria’s transitional government has signed a deal with a US-backed Kurdish-led militia to consolidate northeastern Syria under central government control, including border crossings with Iraq and Turkey, airports, prisons, and vital oil and gas fields
(3) Cost-cutting idea for Elon Musk: I think 435 Representatives and 100 Senators are way too many. Half of them can be dismissed while maintaining the same gridlock in Washington.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Today is pi day (3/14): We will be celebrating with pizza pies.
- Elon Musk shares the claim that Stalin & Hitler didn’t murder millions: Their public-sector employees did.
- A total lunar eclipse began at 8:57 PM PDT last night, with totality starting at 11:26 PM PDT.
- US liberals lost badly, but Trump's presidency is helping liberals in other countries.
- Colleges and research labs across the US are laying off staff in the face of federal funding uncertainties.
- Welcoming Nowruz at the township of Darreh-Deraz, Iran’s Kermanshah Province.
(5) Engineers turn skin cells directly into neurons: Skipping the traditional step of using stem cells may lead to new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.
(6) Meta insider's expose: Meta developed a China-specific censorship tool in 2015 to enter its market, according to a whistleblower complaint filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
(7) Australian man lived for 105 days with a titanium heart before receiving a donor heart transplant: Five patients in the US had previously been implanted with BiVACOR's Total Artificial Heart, but this man is the first to be discharged from the hospital with the device and has the longest survival period between implantation and transplantation.
(8) [Learning from history] Annexing Canada isn’t a new idea: More than a century ago, then-Representative William McKinley pursued an aggressive tariff strategy that sought to protect American industry and reduce reliance on foreign imports. The McKinley Tariff Act of 1890 raised import duties to an average of 50%, one of the highest levels in US history. At the time, some Republicans dreamed of annexing Canada, believing that the economic pressure would push Canadians to seek statehood. Instead, the tariffs rallied Canadian nationalists against what they saw as economic coercion. The country deepened its ties with the British Empire, reinforcing the very trade barriers the US sought to disrupt.
2025/03/11 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzle: Find X in this diagram featuring a square and its rotated version. [Center] UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran (see the last item below). [Right] Math puzzle: Find X.
(2) Astronomers discover 128 new moons orbiting Saturn, which now has 274 moons, almost twice as many as all the other planets in the solar system combined.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- More than 1000 people are believed to have died in restart of civil war in Syria.
- Security researchers uncover backdoor in the Chinese-made ESP32 microchip that can be used for attacks.
- Word puzzle: Which job title contains three consecutive pairs of double letters?
- Word puzzle: Rearrange the letters in MODEST FELON to form two words that are each other’s opposites.
(4) UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran: Yesterday’s installment was a lecture in English by U. Chicago Law School doctoral candidate Pegah Banihashemi, who spoke under the title "Women’s Rights and the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran." The lecture’s Persian version was delivered on Sunday.
The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, ratified after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, stands as the country’s foundational legal framework, requiring all subsequent laws to align with its principles. The revolution itself was propelled by widespread calls for social and political reform, with significant factions advocating for democracy, human rights, and gender equality. Iranian women played a prominent role in this movement, underscoring the aspirations for a more inclusive and equitable society.
Iran’s Islamic constitution is oxymoronic. In some articles, it pays lip service to free elections, women’s rights, and minority rights, after Western constitutions. It introduces the qualifier "within sharia law" in other articles, effectively nullifying the said freedoms. This duality emerged from the influence of conservative religious factions, who, after helping to overthrow the monarchy, swiftly consolidated power after the revolution.
In this talk, Ms. Banihashemi examined the provisions within Iran’s constitution that pertain to women’s rights, focusing on how these provisions intersect with religious and secular legal systems. She also explored the real-world impact on women’s personal and professional lives, highlighting the challenges of extreme gender-based oppression under the current system. Finally, she discussed pathways for reform and envisioned how future constitutional efforts can avoid the missteps that have perpetuated inequality for 46 years.
In the Q&A period, I asked: "What's the point of studying Iran’s constitution, when the country's leaders and officials do not even follow what they put in it. The constitution was in effect a document to present to the outside world, with no intention of following what it says about free elections, women's rights, minority rights, and so on. I think serious studies of Iran's constitution give it a credibility it doesn't deserve." The speaker’s answer that we need to study and understand the constitution in preparation for a secular constitution that will be put in place post-Islamic-Republic did not quite satisfy me.
2025/03/10 (Monday): Today, I offer reviews of three books on diverse topics.
(1) Book review: Morelos-Zaragoza, Robert H., The Art of Error Correcting Coding, Wiley, 2nd ed., 2006.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
What sets this book apart from many other books on error codes is the inclusion of C and Matlab programs for encoding and decoding on a companion web site. There are end-of-chapter problems, whose solutions are available in an instructors’ manual.
The material is presented in 9 chapters averaging 26 pages each. [Detailed table of contents]
- Introduction
- Hamming, Golay and Reed-Muller codes
- Binary cyclic codes and BCH codes
- Nonbinary BCH codes: Reed-Solomon codes
- Binary convolutional codes
- Modifying and combining codes
- Soft-decision decoding
- Iteratively decodable codes
- Combining codes and digital modulation
(2) Book review: Shlian, Deborah M., Lessons Learned: Stories from Women Leaders in STEM, American Association for Physician Leadership, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Experience and scholarly research tell us that role models do matter. Stories abound about how this or that underrepresented minority got into and excelled in an endeavor, when mentored by, or exposed to, a successful person from the same social/ethnic group. This is why female students thrive in academic disciplines with a critical mass of women faculty members. The book under review will no doubt inspire many women and girls to reach for their goals.
The 31 women who share their personal career journeys in this book, including the barriers and challenges they faced along the way, are leaders in a variety of STEM disciplines and come from many different sectors. They represent academia, industry, and government institutions such as FDA and NIH. They are intentionally a diverse group not only by areas of STEM, but also by age (near the end of their careers, mid-career, and just beginning), by geography (from the US East, to Midwest, to West), and by ethnicity (Native American, Latina, Hispanic, African-American, Asian, and Caucasian).
Of course, diversity wasn’t the only criterion for inclusion. The book’s contributors represent a who’s-who of successful women contributors to, and leaders in, STEM disciplines.
(3) Book review: Piller, Charles, Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer’s, Atria/One Signal Publishers, 2025.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Investigative journalist Charles Piller details how fraud may have misdirected Alzheimer’s researchers for decades, keeping them focused on the “amyloid hypothesis,” which attributes Alzheimer’s to amyloid-beta protein clumps in the brain. Despite numerous drugs failing to improve cognition, this hypothesis persisted, bolstered by falsified data in key studies.
In late 2021, neuroscientist Matthew S. Schrag identified manipulated images in critical papers, including a 2006 study from the University of Minnesota, which was later retracted. Piller suggests the scientific community’s groupthink and universities’ reluctance to address misconduct are contributing factors to this research misdirection.
I hope more books emerge in future about similar misconduct in other scientific disciplines, where doctoring of data and other research fraud are rampant. We need to restore public trust in science, which is already suffering from attacks by power-hungry demagogues and profit-driven snake-oil salesmen.
2025/03/09 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Right] Last night's UCSB Middle East Ensemble winter concert (see the next item below). [Center] A program for International Women's Day (see item 3 below).
(2) Last night’s enjoyable concert by UCSB Middle East Ensemble: Held on campus, at Lotte Lehman Concert Hall, the 3-hour event featured a set of Persian songs and a finale dance to welcome the arrival of spring and Nowruz. A traditional Haft-Seen spread, a staple of Nowruz, was set up at the entrance to the concert venue. [Sample videos of the Persian pieces: With vocals; Instrumental]
(3) Voices of Women for Change (Web site) celebrates Int'l Women’s Day: The program included a lecture by Dr. Haideh Moghissi ("Sexual Slavery and Resisting a Misogynistic Regime through Civil Disobedience") and award of "Dance of Freedom" figurines to the following four influential Iranian women in diaspora.
- Mojdeh Shamsaie, theater & cinema actor
- Parvin Ardalan, women’s-rights activist
- Sahar Dehghan, dancer & choreographer
- Mahsa Vahdat, musician and singer
A recording of the program will be made available shortly.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Mourning the loss of one hour, on this beautiful SoCal Sunday afternoon.
- Trump says that the press is the enemy: J. D. Vance considers universities the enemy. [31-minute speech]
- David Brooks on How the Elite Rigged Society and Why It’s Falling Apart [14-minute speech]
- Several audio illusions that help us understand how our sense of hearing works. [Veritasium video]
(5) Program for International Women’s Day 2025: Collective Action of Independent Iranian Women held a series of panels on Saturday morning. The program was streamed on YouTube and Facebook.
The year 2025 marks 30 years since the highly influential Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, which declared that women’s rights are human rights.
Discussion topics included how fascism disproportionately affects women, the importance of connecting the women’s movement with other movements against war & fascism, and from Beijing to today.
A recording of the program will be made available shortly.
(6) Long live the brave women of Iran: A woman who was punished with 74 lashes for not wearing the compulsory hijab tells the story of going to court and being flogged in the courthouse’s basement. Shame on misogynistic stone-age mullahs! #WomanLifeFreedom #InternationalWomensDay
(7) Our illiterate president has complained about money spent on transgender surgery on mice: The funding he's talking about is for transgenic, not transgender, research. Transgenic refers to an organism or cell whose genome has been altered by the introduction of one or more foreign DNA sequences from another species. It's a path that holds much promise for curing a variety of stubborn diseases in humans and other species.
(8) Trump is playing games with tariffs, to the detriment of US economy: As soon as Mexican president cozied up to him and stroked his ego, he turned off the tariffs put in place just 2 days earlier. His "beautiful" tariffs do not derive from economic principles but are rather based on personal vendettas. Where are his economic advisers to tell him that you don’t make economic policy every week. Businesses and trading partners need stability to engage in production and commerce.
2025/03/08 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] Happy International Women's Day: On this occasion, let me reshare a Persian poem of mine from March 2019. It celebrates both Women’s Day and Nowruz. The initial letters of the poem’s first half-verses spell "Nowruz" in Persian and these half-verses talk about the wonders of Nowruz and spring. The second half-verses, which extol on gender equality, justice, and respect, begin with letters that spell "Women’s Day" in Persian. [Right] Talk on ancient women philosophers (see the last item below).
(3) You can’t hide data and facts in the age of the Internet: Software engineers Jeremy Herzog and Rajan Desai have republished an interactive map detailing the impact of climate change on the risks of hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and other hazards across the US that was removed from the US Federal Emergency Management Agency's website. Herzog and Desai took screenshots of the site and downloaded the map's associated data before it was taken down. The map, rebuilt from scratch, reappeared on a GitHub-hosted webpage with improved functionality.
(4) To welcome International Women’s Day, Iranian mullahs punish singer #MehdiYarrahi with 74 lashes for singing and posting on Instagram the song "Take off Your Scarf."
(5) Wednesday night’s Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Minoo Varzegar (Rutgers U.) spoke under the title "Women Philosophers of Ancient Greece and Egypt." There were 134 attendees.
Dr. Varzegar then defined the notions of philosophy (the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence) and philosopher (a person engaged or learned in philosophy, especially as an academic discipline).
Virtually no written work has survived from ancient women philosophers, because their books were frequently burned. As is still common in certain societies, scholarly women were often dismissed as whores. Philosophy is a predominantly male, white discipline, more so even than math. Contribution of women philosophers, ancient and contemporary, weren’t acknowledged until fairly recently.
Dr. Varzegar reviewed the names and accomplishments of several pioneering women philosophers.
- Themistoclea (6th century BCE) was Pythagoras’ teacher while a priestess at Delphi.
- Theano (6th century BCE), Pythagorean philosopher, possibly the wife or student of Pythagoras.
- Damo (6th century BCE), a Pythagorean philosopher, perhaps the daughter of Pythagoras.
- Aspasia (5th century BCE), influential scholar and philosopher in Athenian culture.
- Arete of Cyrene (4th century BC), a Cyrenaic philosopher who wrote 40 books.
- Diotima of Mantinea (ca. 440 BCE), a Greek priestess and philosopher.
- Hipparchia of Maroneia (ca. 300 BCE), famous for her marriage to Crates the Cynic.
- Leontion, Epicurean philosopher from Ancient Greece.
- Aesara of Lucania (400-300 BCE), Pythagorean philosopher who may have written On Human Nature.
- Sosipatra (4th century CE), a respected teacher in the Neoplatonic tradition, interpreting difficult texts.
- Hypatia of Alexandria (ca. 350-415 CE), a Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician.
2025/03/07 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A large group of researchers held a protest on the UCSB campus today against funding cuts by the federal government. [Center] Photo with Storkie (representing UCSB’s Storke Tower) during today’s Staff Appreciation event on campus. [Right] Today's Distinguished Lecture (see the last item below).
(2) US General Services Administration's Unit 18F has been defunded: The unit, which developed Login.gov and other public-facing IT services, was tasked with helping government agencies acquire and build technology, enhance user experience, and ensure services are accessible.
(3) Flight of scientific talent from the US: This article is in German, but I have described the gist of it, based on a Persian translation supplied by a friend. Europeans are observing the developments in the US with great interest. They plan to take advantage of the sudden availability of scientific talent by attracting fired or defunded US scientists, an eery repetition of how German scientists were absorbed by the West nearly a century ago. Ironically, many of these now-unwelcome scientists were recruited by the US from abroad at great cost and effort. Some of these established scientists are now worrying about making their mortgage payments, so they will be quite receptive of lucrative job offers.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Trump slashes $400 million of funding from Columbia University over antisemitism concerns.
- A woolly mouse constitutes a first step in resurrecting the woolly mammoth and other extinct species.
- Marco Rubio is furious with Elon Musk for interfering in agencies under State Department control.
- Trump critics are muzzling themselves for fear of retribution against their families and businesses.
(5) Musk seems to be losing Trump’s unconditional support: Elon Musk berated a pair of Donald Trump's cabinet members in a tense White House meeting that ended with the president assuring the public that his next phase for cutting the federal workforce would be more methodically carried out.
(6) Eight years after Obama left office, the birthers are still at it: X user "Tucker Carlson News" claims to have "explosive" evidence of a fraudulent birth certificate.
(9) [An event that coincidentally occurred the day before International Women's Day] “Novel devices for emerging applications through Materials innovations”: This was the title of today’s Distinguished Lecture at UCSB by Professor Elaheh Ahmadi (UCLA). Dr. Ahmadi, a true rising star who has won virtually all major awards for young faculty, began by highlighting the need for ever-increasing data bandwidth and reliability, as we move into the era of the Internet of Things and autonomous electric vehicles, while striving to curtail our energy use in light of AI expansion and climate change.
Dr. Ahmadi’s research focus is to address these challenges by exploring (ultra)wide bandgap materials and devices through a materials/device co-design approach. She presented her group’s recent research accomplishments in two main sections: (i) Progress in advancing N-polar GaN HEMTs and (ii) Materials innovation aimed at addressing key challenges in ultra-wide bandgap materials.
2025/03/06 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Responses of tropical forests to climate change: Tropical land regions are experiencing rapid climate change, with some scenarios for the tropical Americas projecting temperature increases of ∼4C and precipitation reductions of ∼20% by 2100. This would expose current species assemblages to climates that they have never experienced before. Community responses to climate change will thus likely depend on underlying mechanisms and geographical context. In the face of threats from climate change, it is both critical and urgent to understand the ability of these complex systems to survive by adapting to change. [Center] New Yorker cartoon of the day: Coyote tries to punish Roadrunner with tariffs. [Right] Guy Deutscher's Through the Language Glass (see the last item below).
(2) Let's make this go viral: The two lowest presidential approval ratings in our lifetimes after one month in office belong to Trump 2025 and Trump 2017.
(3) Book review: Deutscher, Guy, Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages, Metropolitan Books, 2010.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
It is by now well-established that we think through language. Our thoughts are limited where language is limited in its expressive power, and thinking is facilitated where the language is rich in concepts and constructs. As beautifully argued by Stephen Pinker in The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language and also in Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language, our linguistic ability is based on a set of rules, or a mental grammar, and a large collection of labels or words. Deutscher’s focus is on words, pretty much ignoring grammar or rules.
The prologue, “Language, Culture, and Thought,” provides examples of words in one language that have no equivalent in another language. French and German have no equivalent for the English “mind.” Conversely, English has no word that captures the range of meanings for the French “esprit.” So, concepts like mind and esprit aren’t natural in the way that rose or bird are; otherwise, they would have had equivalent words in all languages. As another example, the way languages confer femininity or masculinity to objects, notions, or words can lead to challenges in translation from one language to another.
Speakers of certain languages do not give directions based on our notions of north, south, east, and west. Instead, their coordinate system is based on their bodies: Font & back, left & right. The notions of “I” and “we” seem quite natural in English, so we might be forgiven to think that they are universal. Yet, Ziftish speakers have three different pronouns instead, which mean “me & you,” “me & you & someone else,” and “me & someone else, but not you.” There are few things that are more physical or more familiar to us than our body parts, but, in some languages, such as Hebrew, arm and hand are not considered two different body parts and thus do not have different names. Similarly, fingers are sometimes not considered different from hand or even arm.
Deutscher focuses in particular on the notion of color. Concepts like blue or yellow, that we tend to take for granted, can be completely different or even nonexistent in other languages. For example, Homer’s use of “wine-dark sea” raises the suspicion that the Greek had no word for blue. William Ewart Gladstone published in 1849 a 3-volume work on the poet of The Iliad and The Odyssey, ending it with a chapter on Homer's perception and use of color. Do some cultures see in black-and-white? Does not having words for colors imply color-blindness or does it stem from local cultural priorities?
We can ask many other questions. Where is the boundary between yellow and green? Is the boundary set in the biology of the eyes and brain or is it a cultural convention? Deutscher presents a rich set of ideas in two parts: “The Language Mirror” (5 chapters; Naming the rainbow; A long-wave herring; The rude populations inhabiting foreign lands; Those who said our things before us; Plato and the Macedonian swineherd) and “The Language Lens” (4 chapters; Crying Whorf; Where the sun doesn’t rise in the east; Sex and syntax; Russian blues). The book begins with a prologue (“Language, Culture, and Thought”). An epilogue (“Forgive Us Our Ignorances”) and an appendix (“Color: In the Eye of the Beholder”) conclude the book.
This is a book written in beautiful English by an expert in near-Eastern languages, whose mother tongue is Hebrew. He knows his way around languages and can speak confidently on how language impacts our thoughts and communications.
2025/03/05 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) ACM names Andrew G. Barto and Richard S. Sutton as the recipients of the 2024 ACM Turing Award: The duo was honored for developing the conceptual and algorithmic foundations of reinforcement learning. In a series of papers beginning in the 1980s, Barto and Sutton introduced the main ideas, constructed the mathematical foundations, and developed important algorithms for reinforcement learning—one of the most important approaches for creating intelligent systems.
(2) Polish Cold-War hero Lech Walesa writes to Trump, expressing horror that how he and VP Vance treated President Zelensky resembled "interrogations by the Security Service ... in communist courts." The Nobel Peace Prize-winner posted on Facebook the text of his letter, which was signed by 39 Polish former political prisoners.
(3) In downtown Washington, figure skaters paid tribute to the 67 people who died in a plane crash above the Potomac River. Many of the victims were young skaters.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The Trump Administration has halted online applications for a number of federal student loan plans.
- Canada’s musical response to Trump’s tariffs: “We Will Survive”
- Facebook memory from Mar. 5, 2023: For Women’s History Month & the upcoming Int'l Women’s Day.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 5, 2021: Growing our knowledge's area expands our ignorance's perimeter.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 5, 2020: A beautiful verse from Mowlavi (Rumi).
(5) The Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation issued a statement condemning the termination of thousands of employees at federal science agencies: CASC, a nonprofit representing over 105 member institutions, believes these drastic changes will limit our ability to support innovation and discovery, with far-reaching consequences. The organization called on policymakers to recognize the indispensable role of federal scientists and to ensure that research agencies remain fully staffed and adequately supported.
(6) Firefly Aerospace’s robotic Blue Ghost vehicle became the second privately-built spacecraft to successfully land on the surface of the Moon: This places Firefly Aerospace in an elite class for entities that have managed to land a vehicle on the moon in the 21st century. Only China has successfully landed a vehicle, while other attempts, including those by India, Russia, an Israeli non-profit, and a Japanese company, all led to crash landings onto the Moon’s surface.
(7) Skype goes the way of AOL: Founded in 2003 by engineers in Estonia, Skype was a pioneer in making telephone calls through the Internet rather than landlines. It will be replaced by Microsoft Teams.
(8) Senator Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., responds to President Trump's address to Congress, suggesting that President Ronald Reagan — whose “peace through strength” mantra Trump has adopted — would be appalled by his approach to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
(9) Trump’s boasting is undercut by his poll numbers: He has the second-lowest favorability rating of any president in our lifetimes at this point in a term (beaten only by himself, in 2017).
2025/03/04 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] President Zelensky shows off hit ‘suit’ to bone-spurs Donny, who demanded that he wear a suit. [Center] Benefits and harms of eating a banana at different stages of ripeness. [Right] Russia’s success in bringing half of America to its side
(2) Chemist and peace advocate: Double Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling is the only person to have received two unshared Nobel Prizes.
Working in the 1930s, Pauling was among the pioneers who used quantum mechanics to understand and describe chemical bonding. He published the structure of the alpha helix, investigated sickle cell anemia as the first molecular disease, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954.
After the bombing of Hiroshima, Pauling turned his attention to a different cause: peace. He campaigned vehemently against nuclear weapons and spearheaded a petition to ban nuclear testing. His efforts led to a second prize – the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize "for his fight against the nuclear arms race between East and West."
(3) The sustainability gap for computing: An article by Lieven Eekhout in the March 2025 issue of CACM, with the following four take-aways.
- Computing is responsible for a significant and growing fraction of the world’s global carbon footprint.
- The status quo, in which we keep per-device carbon footprint constant, would lead to a 5.4x sustainability gap for computing relative to the Paris Agreement within a decade.
- Meeting the Paris Agreement for computing requires reducing the per-device carbon footprint by 15.5% per year under current population and affluence growth curves.
- Based on a select number of published carbon footprint reports, it appears that while vendors indeed reduce the per-device carbon footprint, it does not seem to be enough to close the gap.
(4) Why Governor Newsom vetoed SB 1047, an EU-like California AI bill: In explaining his veto, Newsom pointed out that California is home to 32 of the world’s leading AI companies. He worried that this law would harm innovation in California’s AI industries. Regulation should, he believes, be based on empirical evidence and science.
The sponsors of SB 1047 seem to have carefully listened to and heeded warnings of some prominent computer scientists who are deeply and sincerely worried about AI systems causing critically serious harms to humankind. However, there is no consensus among computer scientists about AI public safety risks. Concerns that advanced AI systems, such as HAL in "2001: A Space Odyssey," will take over and humans will not be able to stop them because their developers failed to install kill switches seem implausible.
Legislation to regulate AI technologies should be based on empirical evidence of actual or imminent harms, not conjecture. In any event, regulation of AI systems that pose risks of national security harms would optimally be done at the national, not state, level. But the Trump Administration is less likely than the Biden Administration to focus on systemic risks of AI, so maybe the state of California should lead the way in formulating a regulatory regime to address these risks. [Quoted from a CACM article by Pamela Samuelson, March 2025]
2025/03/03 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Right] Memes of the day: Government of the 0.1%, by the 0.1%, for the 0.1%. [Center] Jimmy Carter's A Full Life (see the last item below).
(2) Universities are lowering their intake of PhD students in view of NIH’s 15% cap on indirect costs on grants, which significantly reduces campus income from research grants.
(3) Tesla moves to launch free self-driving taxi service in California as part of its strategy to claim a hold on the self-driving auto market.
(4) Little Marco Rubio has become even littler: After years of passionate speeches about the evil of Putin’s Russia and its aggression against Ukraine, he is trying to save his cabinet position by falling in line with Trump’s attacks on Ukraine, insulting Zelensky, and praising Putin.
(5) Book review: Carter, Jimmy, A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety, unabridged 8-hour audiobook, read by the author, Simon & Schuster, 2016. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Carter was the 39th US President, serving from 1977 to 1981. In 1982, he and his wife founded The Carter Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of people around the world. Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, and he was the author of 32 books, all of them best-sellers. He died in 2024 at age 100.
As the subtitle implies, Carter wrote this book to reflect on his life when he turned 90. He starts the book with his childhood and early life in Georgia’s countryside. He then covers his early political career, including his service in the Georgia Senate and his run for the governor's office. The book also provides an in-depth look at Carter's presidency and the two categories of problems he faced during his time in the White House: "Issues Mostly Resolved" (Chapter 6) and "Problems Still Pending" (Chapter 7). The first group includes Rhodesia, the B-1 bomber, the rescue of New York City & Chrysler, and the end of the Cold War. He also touches on the significant SALT II Treaty. Among the issues that remain unresolved, Carter highlights illicit drugs, special interests, the potential for nuclear war, and intelligence agencies.
Upon returning to Georgia after his term as POTUS, Carter discovered that his farming business had accumulated significant debt while it was in blind trust. He did manage to save his business and keep his home. He speaks about Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton objectively but does not fully absolve them for their actions. The book continues to Carter's post-presidential life, including his work with The Carter Center, his efforts to promote peace & health, and his pastimes: painting, fishing and woodwork.
Despite some criticism for its lack of depth in certain areas, the book has been commended for its historical significance and its contributions to the understanding of modern American politics; a fitting tribute to Jimmy Carter's life and legacy. Carter wrote just one more book after this one, Faith: A Journey for All (2018).
2025/03/02 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Anomalies in human organ donations: There are strict rules about who gets an organ that becomes available. The sickest patients are generally at the head of the queue. In recent years, the out-of-sequence allocation rate has been rising. It is argued that sometimes allocating out of sequence (to someone nearby, a better fit, or ready to accept the organ) prevents the organ from going bad and thus discarded. But given that the discard rate has not shown any improvement, the explanation appears bogus. [Center & Right] Two informative charts from Dr. Reza Toossi’s Talangor Group presentation on "Energy and Civilization": The dominant source of energy went from wood, to coal, to oil, to natural gas, and will soon shift to renewables and nuclear. Natural gas will be around for a while, given its unique feature that gas power plants can be turned on fairly quickly during periods of peak demand. Great empires have come and gone. Is it time for the United States to pass on the proverbial baton?
(2) The 2025 Academy Awards: Sean Baker's comedy-drama “Anora” won for best picture, best directing, best-actress (Mikey Madison), and 2 other Oscars for writing and editing.
The architectural epic “The Brutalist” grabbed a trio of top awards, including best actor for Adrien Brody and best cinematography.
Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldana took home trophies in the supporting acting categories, while the blockbusters “Wicked” and “Dune: Part Two” each won a pair of Oscars.
The Israeli and Palestinian filmmaking team behind best feature documentary “No Other Land” delivered a united call to action.
Landing in Los Angeles only a few hours earlier due to visa delays, Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi from Iran accepted an Oscar for their short animated film “In the Shadow of the Cypress.”
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Iranian animated short film "In the Shadow of the Cypress" wins an Academy Award tonight.
- Utah Senator Mike Lee endorses Elon Musk’s suggestion that the US should leave NATO and UN.
- Corporations build underground nuclear-resistant data bunkers to protect their most-valuable assets.
- ACM Proposes measures to combat tech-facilitated partner violence, human trafficking, and child abuse.
- Borowitz Report (humor): Musk puts Trump in charge of DOZE, Department of Zero Efficiency.
- Beautiful voice: Iranian woman has been summoned to court for committing indecent acts by singing.
(4) Final thought for the day: "Our world hangs like a magnificent jewel in the vastness of space. Every one of us is a part of that jewel. A facet of that jewel. And in the perspective of infinity, our differences are infinitesimal." ~ Fred "Mister" Rogers
2025/03/01 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A salute to women at the beginning of women’s history month: Looking forward to many important and interesting events on or around March 8, Int'l Women’s Day. [Center] Trump’s betrayal of MAGA: The GOP tax plan will raise taxes on everyone earning less than 360,000 per year. Those who earn more, will get tax cuts. [Right] Elon Musk is everywhere, lurking behind others and pulling their strings.
(2) Have we become numb to conflicts of interest? Elon Musk in considering budget cuts at FAA, as FAA is moving toward modernizing its systems with Musk’s Starlink network.
(3) Education Statistics Commissioner, a 30-year veteran praised for expertise & integrity, placed on leave by the Trump administration: When you are bent on breaking laws, data and stats are your enemies.
(4) The US President and VP Vance insult Zelensky and scream at him in the Oval Office: A shameful day in American history, when we abandoned allies fighting for their survival and took the side of a dictatorial aggressor. Later, President Zelensky, a former comedian, appeared on Fox News and broke his silence on being ambushed in the Oval Office by our thuggish President and VP.
(5) In 2024, India, Myanmar, Pakistan, & Russia were responsible for 70% of the 296 governmet-imposed Internet shutdowns. [Digital civil rights nonprofit Access Now]
(6) North Korean state-sponsored hackers have stolen $1.5 billion from the cryptocurrency exchange Bybit in the biggest crypto heist reported so far.
(7) Virtual reality for your mouth: Would you like to taste a food item or a sauce before buying it on-line? Scientists say they have come up with a device to make remote food sampling possible.
(8) Khamenei openly endorses his son Mojtaba to replace him: A poster seen in Tehran reads, “Only Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei can end connections with, and dependence on, the West and global arrogance.”
(9) Last night’s parade of the planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune appeared aligned. Look up just after sunset, keeping away from city lights.
2025/02/27 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Top US metro areas for STEM professionals. [Center] Not many people realize that Africa is huge: Here’s how the continent’s 30.4 million km^2 size compares with four of the world's largest countries. [Right] Talk on energy and civilization (see the last item below).
(2) Gene Hackman dead at 95: The two-time Oscar winner was hailed for his deceptively subtle, intense performances in films like “The French Connection” and “Unforgiven.” Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakaw, apparently committed suicide.
(3) Republicans pay lip service to the sanctity of US Constitutions's First Amendment: But they and their Dear Leader are the most-egregious violators of free-speech rights.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Problems won’t go away if you hide the data: Farmers sue USDA after it deletes climate-change data.
- Extremist Christianity won't survive Trump, much like extremist Islam’s death in Iran because of Khamenei.
- A sad moment in American history: Bernie Sanders, on Donald Trump cozying up to Vladimir Putin.
- Canadian coffee shops are serving Canadianos instead of Americanos, to protest against Trump.
(5) Tonight’s Talangor Group talk: Dr. Reza Toossi (university professor) spoke under the title "Energy and Civilization." Before the main talk, yours truly gave a short presentation on "The Tyranny of Words." I will post a separate summary of my presentation, which I am developing into a full presentation.
Recording of my brief talk: 28-minute video, in Persian
Dr. Toossi began by listing all the energy forms that have been dominant over the ages: Food, wood, animal labor, water, wind, peat, coal, fossil fuels, uranium, modern renewables (solar, wind, water, biomass, geothermal). He then enumerated the four basic requirements for technological advances
- Availability of resources, particularly resources whose recovery is economical.
- Division of labor, from hunter-gatherers, through assembly lines and specialization, to supply chains and international trade.
- Evolution of tools—Darwin’s theory applied to the mechanical kingdom.
- Technology transfer, through trading, communication, migration, imperialism, espionage, or tech purchases.
then presented a segment about the Iranian contributions to the above: Animation (3200 BCE), qanats or water-supply systems (1000 BCE), human rights (500 BCE), Royal Road by the Achaemenid Persians for communication and trade, yakhchal or refrigeration technology (400 BCE), Partian battery (224-650 CE), windmill (7th century CE).
Next, Dr. Toossi outlined a series of developments that were instrumental in the advancement of civilization. These included the discovery of fire, heating systems (the Persian korsi and similar systems in other cultures), metallurgy, bipeds vs. quarrupeds, walking vs. running, speed vs. endurance, force and power amplification (levers and such), role of lubricants, photosynthesis, farming (from early subsistence-based forms to advanced agriculture utilizing science and technology), irrigation systems, water mills, Roman aquaducts and Persian qanats, windmills (the 7th-century vertical mills of Khorasan to horizontal ones in Holland), electricity (initially used only for lighting, then expanding to other uses), heat-to-work and work-to-electricity converters, power delivery, petroleum and natural gas, renewables.
Dr. Toossi introduced Kardashev’s scale for civilization, (log P)/10, that defines the level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy P, in megawatts, it is capable of harnessing and using. According to this definition, we are now in a type-0.73 civilization. The measure was proposed by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964 and was later adapted by Carl Sagan to also include information usage.
Recording of the main talk: 163-minute video, in Persian
2025/02/26 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Elon Musk’s companies have received billions from the government in contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits. [Center] Sixty-plus political prisoners in Iran who are awaiting execution: Let’s not forget their names. [Right] Talk on the book Ardeshir Nameh (see the last item below).
(2) Former French surgeon Joel Le Scouarnec is on trial over accusations of sexually assaulting nearly 300 patients, mostly minors, in the country's largest child sex abuse case on record.
(3) How software bugs led to one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history: Fujitsu’s Horizon point-of-sale accounting software had trouble with arithmetic due to flaws dating back to its development. Innocent branch managers paid a huge price. The convictions resulted in prison for some of the managers and financial ruin for many held responsible for the missing funds. Those that were not prosecuted were typically fired, resulting in wrecked lives, including four suicides.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Entities linked to Hamas, Hezbollah, & Al-Qaeda received $122 M from USAID’s foreign aid program.
- A child in West Texas has died of measles, the first US death from the contagious disease in a decade.
- Our borders are closed to refugees, but rich people can obtain a “gold card” visa for a $5 million fee.
- Darya Dadvar performs with the Paris-based Bahar Choir and shares some facts about her life.
(5) Tonight’s Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Amir-Ali Fallahian (researcher of the history and culture of Iranian Jews) and Bijan Khalili (CEO of Ketab Corp.) talked about the book Ardeshir Nameh.
Jews have lived on the Iranian Plateau for 2700 years, some two centuries before the age of great kings, so they have been witnesses to the entire Persian history. When Cyrus the great rescued Jews from Babylon, a group of them went to the Isfahan region and picked a spot resembling Judea to settle down.
Beginning with the rule of the Ilkhanid in central Persia, several Jewish writers and poets produced books in the Persian language that were transcribed in the Hebrew alphabet. I have previously read and reviewed two books by Dr. Nahid Pirnazar on the literary and cultural contributions of Iranian Jews during the periods cited above.
Judeo-Persian Writings: A Manifestation of Intellectual and Literary Life, Routledge, 2022.
Ketab-e Anusi: The Life of Persian Jews in the Safavid Era, in Persian, Iran Namag Books, 2021.
Ardeshir Nameh, a 6000-verse masnavi, is the work of Shahin Shirazi who composed it in the 8th century of the Islamic calendar (14th century CE). Its protagonists are Ardeshir (Achashverosh in Hebrew, Xerxes in Greek) and Esther (with the real name Hadassah), a Jewish girl from the city of Shush. Composed based on the book of Esther in the Hebrew Bible or Torah, the book has a lengthy introduction in praise of God, Moses, his brother Aaron (Harun), and the ruler at the time, Abu Sa’id Ilkhani, followed by 5 sections.
Section 1: Lineage of Persian kings, that is, predecessors of Ardeshir, as well as a number of Persian heroes, such as Lohrasb, Garshasb, Zaal, and Rostam, much of it modeled after Shahnameh.
Section 2: The story of Esther and the love between her and Ardeshir, which leads to Esther becoming the queen and being in a position to save the Persian Jews from the danger of genocide.
Section 3: Unrelated to the story of Esther, this fairly long section tells the story of love between Shiruyeh, Ardeshir’s son, and Mehrzad, a Chinese princess, whom Shiruyeh has seen during a hunting trip.
Section 4: Aftermaths of events described in Section 2, including the deep love between Ardeshir and Esther, plots to eliminate the Jews, efforts by Esther and Mordechai to save the Jews, and the eventual execution of Haman and his sons.
Section 5: The story of Cyrus the Great, who, as told by myths, was a son of Ardeshir and Esther, praising Cyrus’s piety but leaving the story unfinished, to be completed in a later book, Ezra Nameh.
2025/02/25 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] TVs in government offices have been hacked to show an AI-generated image of Donald kissing Elon’s feet, with the caption “Long live the real king.” [Center] Math puzzle: What is the area of the quadrangle ABCD? [Right] Steven Pinker's Words and Rules (see the last item below).
(2) Roberta Flack dead at 88: She was best known for back-to-back Grammy-winning songs “Killing Me Softly” and “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” RIP.
(3) Microsoft says its Majorana 1 chip demonstrates quantum computing is only years away: The chip is based on a subatomic particle known as Majorana fermion, which is difficult to find and control but makes the chip less prone to errors than competing chips.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Michael Wolf in his new book: Ivanka & Jared refused to sign memo saying Trump was not anti-Semitic.
- Well-done musical tribute to Trump and Musk: “Two Babies in the White House” [3-minute video]
- Embarrassing: US votes with 16 other countries against UN resolution condemning Russia for Ukraine war.
(5) Book review: Pinker, Steven, Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language, HarperCollins, 1999.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book has a great deal of overlap with Pinker’s The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, which I have previously reviewed on GoodReads:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7345469719
Pinker, considered the world’s leading expert on language and the mind, has created yet another masterpiece that explains our language instinct and how the brain is fitted, through evolution, with mechanisms to understand and produce linguistic constructs. A toddler is far better equipped to talk than to comprehend how various things work in our world. S/he uses a mental grammar—the rules—along with words known to him/her from an enormous collection of words, that is, symbols for objects and ideas. The said toddler is capable of using word-formation rules to invent new words, such as "breaked" and "holded," that s/he could not have parroted from someone else.
Boundless combinations can be created by using a relatively small set of rules and a vast collection of words or symbols. These combinations can be used for communicating with our fellow humans or to create wordplays and poetry. A handful of rules suffice for creating a complete toy grammar. We can recognize a spoken or written word in a small fraction of a second, and we are just as quick in finding a word to name an object.
Pinker devotes much space to the discussion of irregular forms, especially those related to the English past tense. One observation is that irregular forms were originally regular but changed over a long period of time due to errors and distortions in their transmission or to simplify their pronunciation. Newer additions to a language almost always take regular forms and people tend to use regular forms for notions that are unfamiliar or have not been used for a long time.
Pinker presents his ideas in 10 chapters: The infinite library; Dissection by Linguistics; Broken telephone; In single combat; Word nerds; Of mice and men; Kids say the darnedest things; The horrors of the German language; The black box; A digital mind in an analog world.
One common criticism of this book, and some of Pinker’s other works addressed to a general audience, is that he does not give other viewpoints much weight, leaving the reader with the impression that his theories are generally accepted and noncontroversial. This is far from being the case for language-acquisition ability, where competing theories are still being hotly debated.
2025/02/24 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Long live brave Kurdish women: Charged with made-up crimes, these women are on death row in Iran for activism and social work. #PakhshanAzizi, #SharifehMohammadi, #VarishehMoradi, #NoToExecutions [Center] We Americans once honored scientists, instead of threatening to defund, fire, or kill them. Imagine that! [Right] Russia, which felt very isolated in the world, is delighted to have Trump on its side.
(2) The US will no doubt lose scientists to other countries over the next few years: During the first Trump term, quite a few climate scientists were absorbed by Canada, France, and other countries due to actions by Trump and other climate-change deniers. The exodus may be more extensive this time, given significant budget cuts and other obstacles placed on the path of leading-edge research.
(3) White House retaliations continue: The firing of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was due to Trump being upset about a video the chairman made in 2020 about George Floyd’s killing. [NYT]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Today is the third anniversary of the Ukraine war: World leaders flock to Kyiv in show of support.
- Rookie US diplomats are giving concessions to Russia, without demanding anything in return.
- Ukraine will likely be the breaking point between Trump & several Republican Senators who despise Putin.
- Donald Trump’s demand for a share of Ukraine’s minerals & other resources is seen as victim extortion.
(5) Censorship in video games (from New York Times):
Marvel Rivals is one of the biggest video games in the world. Since its launch in December, more than 40 million people have signed up to fight one another as comic book heroes like Iron Man and Wolverine.
But when players used the game’s text chat to talk with teammates and opponents, they noticed something: Certain phrases, including “free Hong Kong” and “Tiananmen Square,” were not allowed video games in the world. Since its launch in December, more than 40 million people have signed up to fight one another as comic book heroes like Iron Man and Wolverine.
While Marvel Rivals is based on an iconic American franchise, it was developed by a Chinese company, NetEase Games. It has become the latest example of Chinese censorship creeping into media that Americans consume.
You can’t type “free Tibet,” “free Xinjiang,” “Uyghur camps,” “Taiwan is a country” or “1989” (the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre) in the chat. You can type “America is a dictatorship” but not “China is a dictatorship.” Even memes aren’t spared. “Winnie the Pooh” is banned, because people have compared China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to the cartoon bear.
The restrictions are largely confined to China-related topics. You can type “free Palestine,” “free Kashmir” and “free Crimea.”
2025/02/23 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Family of 3, with 4 Nobel Prizes: Marie Curie, physics & chemistry; Pierre Curie, physics; their daughter Irene Joliot-Curie, chemistry. [Center] The beauty of math: The numbers 1 through 32, appearing around this circle without repetition, are arranged in such a way that the sum of any two adjacent numbers is a perfect square. [Right] Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct (see the last item below).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- IRS fires 6700 employees: More than 5000 worked for teams that handle auditing and collections. [NYT]
- Let’s make Ukraine the last target of invasion for Russia. [Meme on X]
- A Jewish lawyer who was taunted by Elon Musk responds: A long response, but worth reading.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 22, 2016: Executions for treason by Saudi Arabia, ISIS, and Iran.
(3) Book review: Pinker, Steven, The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, Harper Perennial, 2nd ed., 2007. [My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book, by Steven Pinker, considered the world’s leading expert on language and the mind, has become a classic. Pinker lucidly explains how language works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. The book has won multiple prizes from professional societies. The second edition incorporates the advances made in the science of language since the book’s first publication in 1994.
Pinker maintains that language is an instinct wired into our brains by evolution. He deals sympathetically with Noam Chomsky's claim that all human language shows evidence of a universal grammar, but dissents from Chomsky's skepticism that evolutionary theory can explain the human language instinct. Pinker’s theory is part of a new model of the human mind as a collection of instincts adapted to solving evolutionarily significant problems, not as a general-purpose computer.
The cognitive science discipline, born in the 1970s, combines tools from psychology, computer science, linguistics, philosophy, and neurobiology to explain the workings of human intelligence. As early as 1871, Darwin himself conceived of language as a kind of instinct. Noam Chomsky, one of the major contributors to the advancement of cognitive science, has asserted that language cannot be a repertoire of responses. The brain must contain a recipe or program—some sort of mental grammar—that allows us to build an unlimited set of sentences, most of which are uttered or written for the very first time. The mental grammar is augmented by an enormous list of words, that is, symbols for objects and ideas. There are some rules for forming new words, but most of them, such as the symbol "dog," are chosen rather arbitrarily.
Over the past five decades, the science of language has seen spectacular advances. We now know that language pervades thought, with different languages causing their speakers to construe reality in different ways. Language isn’t a cultural artifact that we learn but a distinct piece of the biological makeup of our brains. Our brains are equipped with the language instinct in the same way that spider brains include the ability to spin webs. We know that humans have grammar genes and that the faculty for language resides exclusively in the left hemisphere of the brain.
The book consists of 13 chapters, followed by notes, references, glossary, and more: An instinct to acquire an art; Chatterboxes; Mentalese; How language works; Words, words, words; The sounds of silence; Talking heads; The Tower of Babel; Baby born talking—describes heaven; Language organs and grammar genes; The Big Bang; The language mavens; Mind design
2025/02/21 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Asteroid impact risk: According to NASA, the chance that city-destroying asteroid 2024 YR4 will hit Earth in 2032 has risen to 3.1%. This is the highest risk assessment ever for an asteroid. [Center] The historic SS United States: The largest US passenger ship will become world’s largest artificial reef off Florida's Gulf Coast. [Right] An experience with phishing: Up close and personal.
(2) Dead people don't receive Social Security: SSA does not rely on family members to report a death but requires funeral homes to submit the form SSA-721.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Mass firings decimate US science agencies: Actions challenged by dismissed scientists and lawsuits.
- Post-Ipsos Poll: 57% of Americans say Trump has exceeded his authority since taking office.
- Some US federal employees who took Trump's deal to resign now and get paid till September were fired.
- Argentina’s president faces impeachment over crypto scam, similar to Trump’s & Melania’s meme coins.
(4) There’s a whole lotta phishing going on: Thanks to departmental and UCSB IT support teams, I have finally recovered from yesterday’s nasty cyber-attack.
I received an e-mail message suggesting that one of my students is seriously ill and is being treated by Student Health Services, after returning from an international trip; additional information is confidential and can be found on a secure Web site. I naturally got worried about the unnamed student, myself, and my other students, so I clicked on the link, and, bingo, the attacker got access to my credentials and I was locked out of my campus e-mail account.
Later, I learned, through alerts from campus staff, that a request to change my direct-deposit information had been submitted. To make a long story short, I changed my account passwords, some account security questions, contacted the campus payroll office, and had my computer scanned for malware.
And this happened to someone who is computer-savvy, has taken multiple cyber-security training courses, and regularly posts on social media about the dangers lurking on-line. The phishing e-mail message looked very real, but it had all the signs of being fraudulent, had I paid closer attention. In fact, Gmail had marked it as suspicious. Yet, it succeeded in deceiving me by appealing to my emotions.
Please take cyber-security guidelines seriously!
2025/02/20 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday: "Don't you just love it when your insufferable boss comes to the photo op, insists on sitting at the lab bench, and pretends he helped? These three men won the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of the transistor. Bardeen is giving some wicked side-eye here" (from a LinkedIn post by Kent Lundberg). [Center] New Yorker cartoon strip of the day: Directions for unelected civilians trying to take over the US government. [Right] Power over Ethernet (see the last item below).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Trump has blood on his hands: His demonization of DEI hires is responsible for this fire captain's murder.
- Today marks the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima, when US Marines took over the island.
- Bone-spurs Trump and war-hero Zelensky exchange barbs over Ukraine war.
- If you can bankrupt a casino, destroying other entities on whose services we rely is an easy matter.
(3) Last night’s IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk: Dilian Reyes and Eric Horsma (Analog Devices, Santa Barbara) spoke under the title "A Brief History of IEEE Power over Ethernet."
Since the early 20th century engineers have sought to deliver both power and data with the same cables. This trend continued into the computer age with high data rates and power hungry but sensitive equipment. In 2003, Power over Ethernet (PoE) was standardized with the IEEE 802.3af working group. Additional working groups have since increased sourced power to 90W with up to 10G data rates and expanded into Single-pair Power over Ethernet (SPoE).
Analog Devices has been involved with these standards from the very beginning and was first-to-market for IEEE 802.3bt and IEEE 802.3cg solutions. The speakers reviewed PoE as a technology, highlighting market trends and Analog Devices’ participation with the standards.
2025/02/18 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Leaked preview of next year’s Super Bowl halftime show. [Center] Using exoskeletons in tourism: A towering 5000 feet high, with more than 7000 steps, Mount Tai, in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong, is known for turning legs to jelly. On Jan. 29, the first day of Chinese New Year, 10 AI-powered exoskeletons debuted at Mount Tai, attracting over 200 users for a fee of 60-89 yuan ($8-11) during a week-long trial. [Right] Lakoff's and Johnson's Metaphors We Live By (see the last item below).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- They always deny it when asked, but parents often do have a favorite child, a new study reveals.
- The ubiquitous, yet virtually unknown, font: Here are 600 photos of Gorton's use just in Manhattan.
- Mozart, like you haven’t heard before: Whistler extraordinaire. [1-minute video]
- Facebook memory from Feb. 18, 2023: Misogyny, the royal and clerical kinds.
(3) Book review: Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago Press, 2nd ed., 2003.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
We rely on metaphors extensively, because they allow us to use what we know about our physical and social experiences to understand many other subjects. This is the sense in which we live by metaphors, even though we don’t always recognize that we are using them. Many examples of metaphors are cited in the book. Early on, we encounter "time is money," as used in contemporary English. There are many statements where financial terms are used in connection with time. For example, spending time, investing time in a project, living on borrowed time, and budgeting one’s time.
Another apt example is comprehension of an aspect of arguing in terms of battle, viz., attacking our opponent’s position or defending our own. Orientational metaphors give concepts spatial orientations. For example, happy is up and sad is down. Hence, I feel up today or I am feeling down. Of the same ilk are high spirits or the spirit sinking. Ditto for having a lofty position or falling in status. Most of our fundamental concepts are organized in terms of one of more spatialization metaphors.
Personification metaphors allow us to understand a wide variety of experiences with nonhuman entities in terms of human characteristics or behavior. Examples include a theory explaining something, an experiment giving birth to something, cancer catching up with someone, or inflation eating someone’s pay raise. Lakoff & Johnson discuss many other categories of metaphors and provide numerous examples.
Summarizing, "Metaphors may create realities for us, especially social realities. A metaphor may thus be a guide for future action." For example, faced with an energy crisis, President Carter declared "the moral equivalent of war." The war metaphor generated a network of entailments such as enemy, threat to national security, and gathering intelligence, constituting what later became known as the HARD energy path. By contrast, the SOFT energy path focuses on energy supplies that are flexible, renewable, and not needing military defense or geopolitical control.
The metaphor, or, more generally, the language you use to describe a person focuses attention on some aspect of that person, in effect downplaying his/her other attributes. A sexy blonde may be the same person as a renowned cellist, a Marxist, or a lesbian. So, even when we make a true statement, we may mislead, intentionally or unintentionally. So, assessing the truth of a statement requires that we set a context or conceptual system. And the assessment method remains the same, whether or not the statement involves a metaphor. In a way, objectivism is a myth.
The now-classic 1980 book has been updated by discussing in a new afterword how the theory of metaphors has developed within the cognitive sciences to become central to our thought process and linguistic expression. Abstract concepts are incomplete without metaphors. For example, love isn’t love without the metaphors of magic, attraction, madness, union, and nurture. There appear to be both universal metaphors and cultural variations.
Let me end my review by quoting from the new 2003 afterword. "How we think metaphorically matters. It can determine questions of war and peace, economic policy, and legal decisions, as well as the mundane choices of everyday life. There are four major historical barriers to understanding the nature of metaphorical thought and its profundity … that metaphor is a matter of words, not concepts … that metaphor is based on similarity … that all concepts are literal and that none can be metaphorical … that rational thought is in no way shaped by the nature of our brains and bodies."
2025/02/17 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Happy US Presidents’ Day: There’s a difference between a president who acts out of good will but makes occasional mistakes and one who is driven only by self-interest and enrichment of his cronies. Cheers to all decent, courageous, and ethical public servants! [Center] My Persian couplet in honor of my late aunt Makhmal (see the next item below). [Right] Happy Persian Day of Love & Mother Earth: Sepandarmazgan, or Esfandegan, is an ancient Persian festival honoring women and dedicated to Spenta Armaiti, a divine entity in Zoroastrianism associated with Earth. Celebrated around late February and early March, it is marked by a feast and gift exchange between men and women. Since the 2000s, a desire to counteract the Western import of Valentine's Day has led to a renewed push to celebrate the holiday.
(2) We lost aunt Makhmal, or doda Edna, my mom’s younger sister who looked like her twin: She was born and raised in Saqqez, Iran’s Kurdistan Province, emigrating to Israel shortly after that country was formed in 1948. The initial years in Israel were tough, but she and other members of my mom’s family persevered to settle down, help build their new homeland, raise their children, and, eventually, prosper.
When I was 10, my family spent a year in Jerusalem, while my dad underwent training in Paris as part of his job with Iran’s National Railroad Organization. During that stay, I got to know aunt Makhmal, my other aunt, three uncles, and an assortment of cousins quite well. Later, I had three other visits to Israel and was about to embark on a fourth, when October 7th happened.
Recently, I made another trip reservation for next summer to see her and what’s left of my maternal family in Israel. Alas, I won’t see her kind face again and won’t be able to tell her up-close how much I love her. May she rest in peace and may her memory enrich our existence & guide us through life’s ups and downs.
(3) The language gene: Mice without any copy of the NOVA1 gene all die shortly after birth but those engineered with a mutated version produce more-complex sounds. The change was most notable in male-female mating vocalizations.
2025/02/16 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Right] At Ventura's Marina Park, today. [Center] Patrick Lencioni's The 6 Types of Working Genius (see the last item below).
(2)
(3) Trump’s strategy is to overwhelm the public with a tsunami of illegal orders, so that no one of them gets the due scrutiny: @ezraklein argues that if you look closely at the first two weeks of Donald Trump’s second term, you’ll see something very different from what he wants you to see. The key is to disbelieve him.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- US deportations: A number of Iranian asylum-seekers have been deported to Panama.
- Research universities, drivers of leading-edge science & technology, face a new era of financial hardships.
- How to fight populism: Michael Sandel on renewing the dignity of work. [50-minute video]
- The man who built America: The legacy of Alexander Hamilton. [66-minute Bplus podcast, in Persian]
- Bilingual people may make different choices based on the language they’re thinking in.
(5) Last night, NBC ran the very first episode of “Saturday Night Live” from 1975, ahead of today’s 3-hour 50th anniversary special. It was quite funny!
(6) Book review: Lencioni, Patrick, The 6 Types of Working Genius: A Better Way to Understand Your Gifts, Your Frustrations, and Your Team, unabridged 4-hour audiobook, read by Ray Porter, Recorded Books, 2022.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Lencioni presents his ideas in the framework of the fable of Bull Brooks, an entrepreneur, husband, and father who sets out to solve his own frustrations at work and stumbles upon a new way of thinking that changes the way he sees his work, his team, and even his marriage. According to Lencioni, “each of us have a couple geniuses, a couple competencies, and a couple frustrations.” We are happiest and most-productive when we work in the areas of our geniuses. Competencies, are those things that we can do, but neither energize us nor cause us grief. Frustrations are dreadful and drain our energy.
Lencioni’s model distinguishes six types of geniuses or gifts in individuals: Wonder, Invention, Discernment, Galvanizing, Enablement, and Tenacity. Brief one-line descriptions of the six gifts follow.
Wonder—Pondering the possibility of greater potential & opportunity
Invention—Creating original and novel ideas and solutions
Discernment—Intuitively and instinctively evaluating ideas or situations
Galvanizing—Rallying, inspiring, and organizing others to take action
Enablement—Providing encouragement & assistance for an idea or project
Tenacity—Pushing projects or tasks to completion to achieve results
A work team should contain people from all six categories to be successful. The model gives teams a simple and practical framework for tapping into one another’s natural gifts, which increases productivity and reduces unnecessary judgment.
2025/02/15 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Trump is doing what he said Republicans should not allow Obama to do, plus a great deal more. [Center] New Yorker cartoon of the day: Billionaire narcissists in the White House pretending to be family men. [Right] Stuart Chase's The Tyranny of Words (see the next item below).
(2) Book review: Chase, Stuart, The Tyranny of Words, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1938, 2nd ed. 1966.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Each time I read a philosophical treatise, I become exasperated, because I see attempts at presenting precise arguments, not in a precise language designed for the purpose, but in an inherently ambiguous natural language. I felt validated by Stuart Chase’s book upon hitting this passage: "Another matter which distressed me was that I found it almost impossible to read philosophy. The great words went round and round in my head until I became dizzy. Sometimes they made pleasant music, but I could rarely effect passage between them and the real world of experience." Now, if language can lead us astray in the haughty field of philosophy, you can imagine the dangers of miscommunication in daily human interactions, political discourse, and other domains.
Chase’s main message to the reader is that we should all use transparent, concrete, precise language to improve human communication. Chase was a social theorist and writer who despised imprecision in our linguistic interactions, thereby condemning the overuse of abstract words and urging the use of words that make their ideas accurate, complete, and readily understood. In support of his main point, Chase makes four observations about the dangers hidden in words and languages:
- Languages are fundamentally ambiguous
- We often confuse symbols with reality
- Language is a tool for control
- Interpreting words requires critical thinking
Regarding ambiguity, Chase warns us that words such as ‘freedom,’ ‘justice,’ ‘democracy,’ and ‘reform’ have no precise meanings. Words that refer to concrete objects, such as ‘dog’ or ‘chair,’ are the least problematic. Intermediate between concrete and abstract words are those that refer to clusters of objects, such as ‘consumers’ or ‘the white race.’ On the importance of critical thinking, he urges us to assess whether words are used to reveal the truth or to hide it. Chase posits that we need a science of human communication, built on the same principles as those of other sciences (experimentation & validation) and tasked with creating better linguistic tools.
Chase also offers a few practical suggestions:
- Connect words to physical reality and/or measurable concepts
- Focus on what words represent. Too much reliance on abstract notions such as love and freedom is harmful
- Ask questions, especially when words appear to cause excitement or stir emotions
- Familiarize yourself with logic and critical thinking to avoid linguistic traps
In a wonderful appendix, Chase provides examples of obscure texts and invites the reader to try to make sense of them by identifying abstractions and referents, if any, and deducing whether the speaker knows what he is talking about. I used this method of teaching by bad examples when I taught technical writing many years ago. In the following, I provide snippets of some of the 22 examples cited by Chase.
Exhibit 2, by Henry Ford: Monopoly, we now know, is impossible, for the reason that a monopoly based on anything but service is self-destructive.
Exhibit 3, by Adam Smith: Labor, therefore, it appears evidently, is the only universal as well as the only accurate measure of value, or the only standard by which we can compare the values of different commodities at all times, and at all places.
Exhibit 5, by E. Colman: Without an understanding of regularity from the standpoint of dialectical materialism, physics and biology cannot steer a way through the Scylla of mechanistic fatalism and the Charybdis of indeterminism.
Exhibit 7, by Bernhard Rust: Those democrats who come here and shake their heads because we march so much need to be told something: They will reap from their democratic idea of liberty the destruction of their liberty.
Exhibit 12, by Waldo Frank: America … is a multiverse craving to become One … Each of Hart Crane’s lyrics is a diapason between the two integers of a continuous whole.
Exhibit 14, by Will Durant: This then is the final triumph of thought—that it disintegrates all societies, and at last destroys the thinker himself. Perhaps the invention of thought was one of the cardinal errors of mankind.
Exhibit 19, by Robert Maynard Hutchins: Education implies teaching. Teaching implies knowledge. Knowledge is truth. The truth is everywhere the same. Hence education should be everywhere the same.
The book is structured into a large number of chapters with the following titles:
A writer in search of his words;
A look around the modern world;
Inside and outside;
Cats and babies;
Primitive peoples;
Pioneers—I;
Pioneers—II;
Meaning for scientists;
The language of mathematics;
Interpreting the environments;
The semantic discipline;
Promenade with the philosophers;
Turn with the logicians;
To the right with the economists;
To the left with the economists;
Swing your partners with the economists;
Round and round with the judges;
Stroll with the statesmen;
On facing the world outside;
Appendix: Horrible examples
2025/02/14 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] Wishing you all the best on this Valentine’s Day. May every moment of your life be filled with love & peace. [Right] Valentine’s Day math puzzle: What is the area of this heart, which is formed by two semi-circles joined by a square?
(2) Talk about Trump serving a third presidential term is getting serious: Trump himself talks about it often, although he pretends he’s joking. Several other Republicans have also floated the idea. The 22nd Amendment has made it quite clear: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.” But the Constitution hasn’t deterred Trump before.
(3) Principled stance: Resignation letter of Assistant US Attorney Hagan Scotten, who deems the order to drop the indictment against former NYC Mayor Eric Adams unlawful.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- WSJ has predicted that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be the first Trump pick to leave the cabinet.
- European start-up plans a reusable space cargo ship to compete with SpaceX Dragon.
- A new report, "The AI Safety Index," gives mostly D and F grades to leading AI companies.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 14, 2016: Valentine’s Day snacks.
(5) National Air and Space Museum’s Exploring Space Lecture Series, "Water, Water, Everywhere": Four Wed. lectures, presented in-person and over the Museum’s YouTube channel. Free with registration.
- March 19, 2025: Oceans Across the Universe; Presented by Dr. Julie Castillo-Rogez, JPL; Oceans in the outer solar system, what they are made of, and how we plan to explore them with ongoing and future missions.
April 23, 2025: The Search for Mars' Oceans; Presented by Drs. Gina DiBraccio & Charles Malespin, NASA Goddard; Scientists believe Mars' ocean escaped into space through the atmosphere. Hear about the search for water on the Red Planet.
May 28, 2025: Did Venus Ever Have Oceans? Presented by Dr. Rita Parai, Washington University of St. Louis; There is much debate over the status of Earth’s twin as a watery world: If Venus had oceans, where did all that water go?
- June 18, 2025: The Origin of Earth's Oceans; Presented by Dr. Kathy Mandt, NASA Goddard; Seventy-one percent of Earth’s surface is covered in oceans. Where does Earth's ocean water came from and how we know.
2025/02/13 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Distribution of US federal workers among different agencies: It seems Elon Musk has begun looking for waste in the smallest, least consequential agencies. [Center] Meme: Dan Rather, on why he vehemently opposes Trump. [Right] Talk on sustained democratic development (see the last item below).
(2) SNL turns 50: “Saturday Night Live" celebrates its 50th anniversary on Sunday 2/16 (8:00 PM ET, NBC) with a 3-hour special featuring former cast members, hosts, and major musical guests. In its normal 11:30 PM ET slot on Saturday 2/15, viewers are treated to a rerun of the 1975 debut episode.
(3) Its’s time we take memory safety vulnerabilities seriously: Several decades after the computing community recognized the need for trusted systems, roughly 2/3 of viruses and other malware in every major open-source and proprietary software, including Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS, continue to spread by taking advantage of memory safety vulnerabilities.
Many of the problems originate from an existing C/C++ code corpus comprising of multi-billion lines of code that may be impossible to replace in its entirety. Attackers can readily advance to arbitrary code execution through a multi-step process that begins with memory safety vulnerabilities.
Twenty-one co-authors from academia and industry, with expertise in memory safety research, deployment, and policy, argue that standardization is an essential next step to achieving universal, strong memory safety.
(4) DOGE hit with lawsuit over data breach: The Electronic Privacy Information Center is suing the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency and other federal agencies over what it calls “the largest and most consequential data breach in US history.” The suit also targets the US Office of Personnel Management and Treasury Department and their leadership, alleging they administered systems containing vast quantities of sensitive personal information while failing to comply with the Federal Information Security Modernization Act, and that they violated the Privacy Act by disclosing that data.
(5) Tonight’s Talangor Group talk: Dr. Kourosh Parsa (technologist & political activist) spoke under the title "Sustained Democratic Development: Why Nations Fail?"
I generally do not attend political talks, because they tend to be unfocused and wishy-washy. I made an exception tonight, because I had not previously heard a talk by Dr. Parsa. I am so sorry to be negative, but I find it impossible to identify the main points of this talk, a discussion of development, with no charts or other visual aids. This 44-minute interview contains some of the speaker’s views on sustained development.
2025/02/12 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Elon Musk has availed himself of gender-affirming care. [Center] The Thatcher Effect: Distortions are less noticeable in upside-down images. [Right] Talk on AI (see the last item below).
(2) The Congress is missing in action, as Trump violates the Constitution and other US laws: Are we heeded for a constitutional showdown between executive and judicial branches?
(3) One option being floated to help pay for the extension of Trump’s tax cuts for the super-rich and corporations is the repeal of the ‘Head of Household’ filing status, a provision that helps single parents.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Get ready for art, as dispensed by Donald Trump, the new chair of the Kennedy Center.
- The US abandons Ukraine by agreeing to Russian territorial claims in the lead-up to peace talks.
- Setback for efforts to make AI safe & inclusive: US & UK refuse to sign Paris Summit on AI's declaration.
- Bernie Sanders delivers diatribe, accusing Trump & Musk of creating an oligarchy. [20-minute video]
(5) The nature-versus-nurture debate in mental illness: Not only both genetics and environment play a role in mental illness, but the two interact in ways that make it impossible to assess the impact of each separately.
[Good general introduction, 13-minute video]
[Specific estimates of heritability, 8-minute video]
(6) NASA’s self-healing Radiation Tolerant Computer (RadPC), survived a trip through the radiating Van Allen belts: RadPC, which entered space on January 15 on a lunar mission, features four RISC-V processors, a microcontroller, 2 KB of data memory, field-programmable gate arrays, and 3 dosimeters to measure radiation. The computer can identify faults caused by a radiation strike and repair the damage in the background.
(7) Tonight’s Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Mohsen Attaran (professor emeritus of operations management, information, and technology) spoke under the title "Is AI Really Intelligent? A Comparison Between Human and Machine Intelligence."
Dr. Attaran began by reviewing the physical structure of the brain and how it has evolved to support learning and thinking. He then discussed the history of, and advances in, artificial intelligence, focusing on benefits that it can provide to multiple domains of human endeavor, from medical diagnosis & drug discovery to optimization of various systems & interactions. He ended with the conclusion that as useful as modern AI-based systems are, they are incapable of thinking in the same way as humans.
An extensive Q&A session followed, which examined AI in the context of algorithmic thinking and consciousness. I had to leave early due to other commitments, so I missed a good part of the discussion.
2025/02/11 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Right] Changes in reading and math performance for US states, 2019-2024 (NYT charts): In reading, Louisiana did best, gaining 0.3 grade level; Maine did worst, losing a full grade level. In math, Alabama did best, improving by 0.1 grade level; Virginia did worst, deteriorating by 0.9 grade level. [Right] High-voltage transformers, essential parts of the electric grid, are in short supply: Engineers are getting creative to keep power projects on track. "The world’s power systems are not accustomed to such upheaval. … Because longstanding technologies like the transformer change so slowly, utilities spend very little—perhaps 0.1 percent of their budgets—on R&D. But they must prepare for a sea change."
(2) The Republicans still think of themselves as the opposition party, not the responsible ruling party.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem: "Well, we can’t trust the government anymore."
Journalist Dana Bash: "You are the government."
(3) Part of a longer piece by Nate White, about why the British hate Trump: "He has never said anything dry, witty, or even remotely funny ... He doesn't even seem to understand what a joke is -- his idea of a joke is a coarse comment, an uneducated insult, a temporary cruelty. Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and never laughs; he only triumphs or ridicules."
(4) America is emulating the Islamic Republic of Iran: Anti-women laws & regulations and attacks on news media aside, former presidents & government officials are being stripped of their security clearance and barred from entering federal buildings. Iranian former presidents and many other officials are personae non gratae, having been barred from public speaking, appearing on radio & TV, and writing in newspapers. In democracies, former officials are viewed as sources of advice and wisdom. In autocracies, they are blamed and sidelined.
(5) The spy satellite that helped win the Cold War: By revolutionizing electronic eavesdropping, the Parcae Project neutralized Soviet Union’s emerging advantage in nuclear-powered guided-missile battle cruisers, which threatened to tilt the perilous equilibrium of mutual assured destruction (MAD) in the wrong direction.
(6) Statement by Association for Computing Machinery: ACM is aware that many in our community are concerned about potential negative effects of recent Executive Orders by the new US Administration on our work in both the US and globally. This includes concerns about possible consequences for ACM publishing, conferences, education, and practitioner efforts, as well as concerns about possible harms to our work on inclusion for a strong and diverse technology workforce. ... ACM’s commitment to its mission, guided by its core values, is unchanged. We will work with members of the community to understand how new Executive Orders may affect their work as it relates to scientific, educational, and community development efforts.
2025/02/10 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Rashid Rahnama, a graphic artist from Melbourne, Australia, wins Farhang Foundation’s 2025 Nowruz Banner Design Competition. [Center] The Time magazine cover that may help end Donald Trump’s love for Elon Musk. [Right] Fumio Sasaki's Goodbye Things (see the last item below).
(2) Let’s not forget the Los Angeles fire victims: The fires are gone, but victims are struggling financially and emotionally. Many of them cannot rebuild, because they were uninsured or underinsured. Even those who choose, and can afford, to rebuild will forever be haunted by their memories of the destructive flames and may never feel safe again. It’s so easy to be distracted from their plight by ongoing political fights and the daily barrage of vitriol & executive orders emerging from the White House. Please keep all hurting Americans in mind as you go about your daily routines.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Trump’s devastating cuts to NIH grants put on temporary hold by federal judge. [Nature]
- Turning Gaza into Middle East’s Riviera isn’t Trump’s idea: It was given to him by a DC econ professor.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 10, 2015: “Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer to shape it.”
- Facebook memory from Feb. 10, 2014: “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” ~ Confucius
(4) Book review: Sasaki, Fumio (translated by Eriko Sugita), Goodbye Things: The New Japanese Minimalism, unabridged 5-hour audiobook, read by Keith Szarabajka, Blackstone Audio, 2017.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Marie Kondo’s decade-old book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, achieved sensational success and earned her many followers.
In my 3-star review of Kondo’s book on GoodReads, I wrote: "I read this book about half-way through, before becoming frustrated with its arbitrary rules and over-generalizations. Most everyone knows that clutter takes a toll on our peace of mind and productivity, but each of us has a slightly different way of dealing with the problem."
Those who loved Kondo’s book will also appreciate the extreme minimalist pitch of Sasaki, who is less arbitrary and makes allowance for individual tastes and preferences.
Sasaki is a regular guy, not an organizing expert, who one day became fed up with constantly comparing himself to others who had more or better stuff, thus deciding to say goodbye to everything he didn’t absolutely need. By doing so, he gained true freedom and a real sense of gratitude for everything around him. Sasaki tells us that we can live comfortably in a fairly small apartment, if we make public spaces part of our floorplan; go out to restaurants, parks, libraries, concerts, and more.
Among the things he discarded was his entire collection of books, which he had kept in case he wanted to reread them, or unread books he had stowed away in the hopes of one day reading them. He also tells us not to store items such as paper towels or toilet paper. Just have one for daily use and one as a replacement, buying a new one when the current one runs out.
The only place I disagree with Sasaki is on books. I have built an extensive collection of books which I recently organized by buying some nice bookcases. Being around these physical books in my library room gives me a pleasure that I don’t get from e-books and audiobooks, which constitute the bulk of my reading these days.
2025/02/09 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] An overdue decision: Trump orders the US Treasury to stop minting pennies. [Center] Cartoon of the day: Elon Musk checking out a team huddle at Super Bowl 59. [Right] Pizza bites and other snacks for a one-sided Super Bowl: Eagles over Chiefs, 40-22; unimpressive halftime show.
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Stephen Fry & Richard Dawkins in conversation: Science, religion, politics, and more. [55-minute video]
- The cost of a single pistachio nut in the Iran of 2025: 1.5 g @ 700,000 tomans/kg ~ 1000 tomans
(3) Yesterday’s lecture by Sir Niall Ferguson (historian, visionary, author of 16 books, and Emmy-Award-winning director): Speaking at Santa Barbara’s Granada Theater under the title "Why We Study History: Standing at the Crossroads of Past, Present and Future," Ferguson discussed world’s current problems in the context of contemporary history, before sitting down for a conversation with UCSB historian Dr. Harold Marcuse, who asked his own as well as audience’s questions.
The gist of Ferguson’s message was that we are moving into the early stages of Cold War II, which bears many similarities to Cold War I. China, a much more formidable opponent, has taken the place of the Soviet Union, so this new cold war will be much more dangerous than the first one. China has 80% of the US GDP, whereas the soviet Union’s GDP never exceeded 44% of ours. China is also a manufacturing superpower, beating the US by a factor of about 2.
Here are a few other similarities. Ukraine is today’s Korea, except that we have failed to support it adequately, spending less money on it than we did on the liberation of Kuwait. The small island of Taiwan may constitute the most-dangerous element of Cold War II, much like the role Cuba played in Cold War I.
OPEC was quite influential in Cold War I, but it is now significantly weakened by Israel’s victories in simultaneous wars against Iran and its proxies. Climate change has also degraded the Middle East’s influence. Iran will remain weak, whether or not its Islamic regime is toppled. Three key players in this equation, China, Russia, and Iran are marred by the lack of succession plans; North Korea is our only adversary with succession plans already in place.
Ferguson cited what has come to be known as Ferguson’s Law: Any great power that spends more on debt service (interest payments on the national debt) than on defense will not stay great for very long. The US is already at this crossover point, with its debt and military spending at 3.1% and 3.0% of its GDP, respectively, while moving in the direction of even greater debt and possibly lower military spending. Even modest increases in military spending may not counteract Ferguson’s Law.
According to Ferguson, to understand and learn from history, you have to be non-partisan. You should look beyond memes, social-media posts, and pay attention to actions, not words.
2025/02/08 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Crispy rice, made Japanese-style by frying leftover rice, served with Persian gheimeh stew. Your place was empty. [Center] Frozen waterfall in the Alps, Italy: Note human for scale. [Right] Political humor: Part of Trump’s plans for development on Palestinian lands.
(2) Quote of the day: "There is no refutation of Darwinian evolution in existence. If a refutation ever were to come about, it would come from a scientist, and not an idiot." ~ Richard Dawkins
(3) Trump, 2025: Who the hell made these deals with Canada, they’re so bad? Trump, 2018: They say [my replacement for NAFTA] is the best trade deal ever made.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- NSF reviews grants for compliance with Trump’s orders, plans mass layoffs in anticipation of budget cuts.
- How fitting! Here’s some info about the woman who will lead the White House Faith Office.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 8, 2022: On the need to remove “gheirat” and “namoos” from our vocabulary.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 8, 2019: A silver lining to the cloud of Trump’s presidency.
(5) Safety data for AI-based systems should be open-source: “This work makes the argument for elevating ‘safety data’ as a class of obliged-to-share open data among intelligent system vendors so developers of digital systems can produce safer systems without independently producing repeated harms.”
(6) Advanced farming: Sensors, robots, aerial imaging, GPS, and cutting-edge information technology are transforming agriculture before our eyes. The result? Higher yields, less waste, and greater efficiency!
- GPS-guided tractors moving with super precision
- Robots automating tasks, from planting to harvesting
- Drones capturing real-time data to optimize crops
- Smart sensors tracking soil and weather conditions
2025/02/07 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Arctic temperatures just spiked 20°C (68°F) above average, threatening massive melting of ice. [Center] Oligarchy is only one part of our problem in the US: Racism is another part. Racist oligarchy is the biggest threat. Marko Elez, a 25-year-old White Supremacist on Elon Musk’s DOGE team, was forced to resign after his social-media posts were exposed. [Right] Book review (see the last item below).
(2) When the only thing you know is real-estate development, every domestic and international problem seems like it can be solved through real-estate development.
(3) Attack on news media continues: Following a $10 billion lawsuit alleging election interference, Trump calls for the termination of “60 Minutes” (a long-established and reputable fixture of US journalism), dismissal of its staff, and revocation of CBS’s broadcasting license.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- US aviation safety system is overdue for an overhaul: The staffing level must also be restored.
- NASA’s powerful moon-mining robot could dig 10,000 kg of soil in a single lunar day.
- US colleges and universities are preparing for ICE raids on campus.
- U. California launches Web site to inform students & staff of rapidly-changing federal regulations.
- Trump announces plans to gut the Kennedy Center board and appoint himself chairman.
(5) Book review: Coffey, Jan and May McGoldrick, When the Mirror Cracks: A Novel (in Persian, Aangaah keh Ayeneh Tarak Mi-Khorad), M & M Books, 2021. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This psychological thriller is the work of prolific husband and wife author team, Jim and Nikoo McGoldrick, using the pen name Jan Coffey. The novel is rich with tales of bonding between women, the sacrifices they make, and how they navigate the worlds of motherhood and daughterhood.
To distance herself from a personal tragedy in California and to execute the sale of a gaming company in which she is a junior partner, Christina leaves for the exotic sights and sounds of Istanbul, where she finds herself stalked by a young Kurdish refugee with a newborn daughter and threatened by a driver who seems to know too much about her. She feels that tragedy may strike again if she does not unravel family secrets and correct old injustices.
The wonderful writing is exemplified by this paragraph that begins the prologue: "You’ll never leave. Death awaits you here. Believe me, faith is dogging your every step. It is the wavering reflection on the tile in front of you. It is the shadow on the pillar that you pass. If you listen, you will hear it breathing behind you. Your gaze passes over me but you no longer recognize me. I am the one whose life you threw away."
The reader’s task is complicated by the story unfolding in two different time frames some 30 years apart, but persistence pays off when the storylines merge at the end.
2025/02/06 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] Throwback Thursday: Inauguration of direct Iran Air flights from Tehran, Shiraz, & Abadan to New York City, 1975, and Ford model T, 1910s. [Right] Amazing fact: The tiny Bangladesh has 22 million more people than the continent-size Russia. Yet, Russia thinks it needs more territory.
(2) Eggs are in short supply with high prices due to chickens being killed to prevent the spread of disease: But, chicken wings aren’t in short supply. How come?
(3) The mother of all conflicts of interest: Elon Musk has not divested from his companies, which hold billions of dollars in contracts with the US government and are regulated by US government agencies.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Shell-shocked authorities are scrambling to crack a 100,000-egg heist in Pennsylvania.
- China’s DeepSeek chatbot is linked to the country’s state telecom: Another TikTok problem? [AP]
- Japanese tah-dig (crispy rice), made from leftover rice. [Reel]
- Trump’s trade war strategy: Try to look tough. Fold. Repeat.
[Facebook post, with image]
(5) Some Arab-Americans parted ways with the Democratic party over the Gaza war: I wonder what they now think of Trump’s proposal to deport all Gazans and turn the strip into a tourist destination?
(6) Advances in making artificial blood: Not the gooey red stuff used in movies, but a real functional substitute that clots and carries oxygen, just like the real thing.
(7) The mother of all conflicts of interest: Elon Musk has not divested from his companies, which hold billions of dollars in contracts with the US government and are regulated by US government agencies.
(8) An introduction to the field of service-oriented computing, including the concept of micro-services: “Since service-oriented computing was introduced as a major topic in the industry and the research community, 20 years have passed. Today, service orientation has become a commodity in many areas. This has also changed the foci of the research community by a very large degree. In this article, we analyze the current state of the research in the field and give an outlook on future research topics.”
(9) Final thought for the day: "When you hate, the only person who is suffering is you, because most of the people you hate don’t know it and the rest don’t care." ~ Medgar Evers
2025/02/05 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Massacre of Jews in Poland (see the next item below). [Center] Share of imports to the US from different countries: More than 40% come from Mexico, China, and Canada. So, if Trump’s tariffs go into effect, the US economy will suffer greatly. No wonder the markets reacted so strongly, before Trump caved in and delayed their imposition. [Right] Math puzzle: Find the distance x between tangent points.
(2) The Poles have created a sanitized version of their World War II history, in which they appear as victims or heroes: The massacre of Holocaust survivors in a Polish small town six months after the end of WW II has been erased from this sanitized history. “Among Neighbors,” a film being shown at Santa Barbara International Film Festival, sets the record straight.
(3) More than 200 earthquakes have rattled the Greek island of Santorini since Friday: Tremors have occurred every few minutes, reaching a magnitude of up to 4.9. Experts say the quakes are not linked to Santorini's dormant volcano but to tectonic plate movements and could signal a larger impending event.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Don’t give up on the truth: Striking out against injustice is always right; it always matters.
- The battle of princes over leading Iran: Reza, the Shan's son, vs. Mojtaba, the Supreme Leader’s son.
- The 2025 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering was bestowed upon seven AI pioneers.
- New York Times reporters find 8000 Web pages have gone missing from over 150 US government sites.
(5) Autocracy is contagious: It seems to have been transmitted from US national politics to University of California affairs.
A number of administrative and financial systems are slated to be centralized under the UC President’s office. Centralization has its merits, of course, but it is also known to have some drawbacks. There has been inadequate consultation with the campuses and the systemwide faculty on this process.
There is also an effort underway to change the quarter system, currently in use at 7 UC campuses, to the semester system, now in place at UC Berkeley and UC Merced. Establishing a common academic calendar, with the same semester start & end dates, academic deadlines, and holidays is a positive step, but it isn’t something that should be dictated from above.
Significant academic planning is needed to pull this off, and under normal conditions, faculty would be asked to get involved and to provide input to the planners. For example, conversion of a 3-quarter course sequence to a 2-semester sequence is no easy feat, particularly if it entails laboratory facilities. As another example, a stand-alone 4-unit course will likely require only 3 hours per week under a semester system, with impacts on classroom scheduling, faculty teaching loads, and TA assignments.
Whether or not they are asked, faculty do plan to get involved, beginning with a just-called UC Assembly Special Meeting on February 13, 2025.
2025/02/03 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzle: In this diagram with two squares and a circle that is tangent to both, find the radius of the circle. [Center] Aerial view of a section of Grand Canyon in Arizona. [Right] Piran Farhoodi's For All of Us (see the last item below).
(2) A large Bitcoin farm is discovered in Tehran: A major question is how the farm, which consumes about 4% of the country’s electricity production, had been operating undetected for years.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Thousands rallied in Los Angeles yesterday, shutting down US 101 to protest Trump’s immigration policies.
- The 2025 Grammy Awards: Complete list of nominees and winners.
- Trump and Musk shut down USAID, a foreign aid agency which had been largely independent for decades.
- Somewhere in Russia, Putin is smiling tonight, as he watches the North American economic war.
(4) Book review: Farhoodi, Piran, For All of Us (in Persian, Bara-ye Hameh-ye Ma), Quip Publishing, 2022.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
"Like thousands of other Iranians, I was swept up by political and social waves of the 1980s. Unlike many of my friends, I was lucky to get out alive and to find a quiet, normal life somewhere in the world. But the wounds of those troubled days did not let go of me. All these years, the innocent eyes of the children and young adults who suffered the worst fates because they could not remain indifferent have haunted me. I sometimes think that the hand of fate spared me so that I can tell the tale of my innocent friends. This is the story of Iran's darkest days, an elegy for humanity and an eyewitness account for future generations."
Thus begins Farhoodi's account of the extrajudicial killings of political prisoners in the Iran of the late 1980s. He was only 18 when the killings happened, trapping him in a dark game that had no rules. The stories told by Farhoodi are real, although he has changed some of the names, merged multiple characters, or split some characters for protection and dramatic effect.
Throughout the book, we read the stories of young people, many of them children, who were under the spell of this or that ideology. Those who, influenced by Khomeini’s black-or-white depiction of foes and friends and Shariati’s formulation of antiquated thoughts as progressive and a kind of Islamic Renaissance, were convinced they were on the path of truth and considered killing the non-believers a service to them and to God, because there was no other way to save their souls. Others continued to fight and were killed in street fights or arrested, tortured, jailed, and/or put in front of firing squads, with their clothes and other belongings placed in bags that were thrown to their parents who came to inquire about their fates.
Yet another category consisted of those who were scared stiff by the prospects of jail and torture, or by actual jail and torture, became repentant (tawab, in Arabic/Persian) and cooperated with the regime. In return for giving up their fellow dissidents and preaching to prisoners in order to convert them, the repentant youth were allowed to live and even enjoyed a few perks. These repentant agents weren’t fully trusted and some of them eventually faced firing squads.
A few of those marked for death were lucky enough to earn the trust of their tormentors and were set free, subject to constant surveillance. Some of them escaped through illegal border crossings and lived sorry lives as refugees in Europe under the double threat of spies/assassins scouring Europe for opponents of the Islamist regime and the local population forever suspicious of dark-haired Middle-Easterners living among them.
This is the story of Islamic Iran’s darkest chapter, a darkness that would remain unmatched in later years, when the Islamic regime used its formidable security forces and plainclothes goons to crush dissent before it could escalate into organized resistance. Arbitrary detentions, long prison terms, and executions, in prisons or via terror squads, did continue, but the regime found it unnecessary to apply them on as large a scale as in the revolutionary government’s first couple of decades.
To this date, no regime official has owned up to the horrific extrajudicial and terror killings of the late 1980s and none of the people who joined the regime in subsequent decades has admitted to knowing about those killings or has justified his collaboration with the brutal government that killed anyone who even slightly threatened its authority.
2025/02/02 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Latinos for Trump get what they asked for. [Center] An amazing underground city in Turkey (see the next item below). [Right] Prisons and prisoners in modern Iran (see the last item below).
(2) Kaymakli Underground City: Located in Turkey’s Cappadocia region, this ancient subterranean settlement is one of the largest and most-fascinating in the world. Originally built by the Phrygians in the 8th-7th centuries BC, the city was later expanded by the Byzantine Empire as a defense mechanism during periods of conflict. This extensive underground complex showcases ancient architectural ingenuity and strategic foresight.
(3) "Prisons and Prisoners in Modern Iran": This was the topic of a fascinating Zoom presentation by Dr. Golnar Nikpour (Dartmouth College), under the auspices of UCSB’s Iranian Studies Initiative and Farhang Foundation. The talk was based on Dr. Nikpour’s 2024 book, The Incarcerated Modern: Prisons and Public Life in Iran.
Even to those who are marginally familiar with today’s Iran, the Islamic regime brings to mind extensive surveillance, arbitrary arrests, torture, and executions, as well as the notorious Evin Prison. Political imprisonment and torture also existed in the pre-revolutionary Iran, but the Islamist government has taken these to new heights.
Iran’s prison system is a fairly recent creation, dating back to the turn of the 20th century. Even by the mid-1920s, there were only a few hundred prisoners held by the newly centralizing government under the Qajars [1789-1925]. Today, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, there are at least a quarter of a million detainees. Current carceral practices (which include not just prisons but also the accompanying systems of policing and surveillance) touch the lives of all Iranians, not just those of the politically engaged.
Centralization of the legal system was enacted in the Pahlavi era [1925-1979] and with it, the number of prisoners expanded from hundreds to tens of thousands. During Mohammad Reza Shah’s later years, international human rights organizations became involved in defending political prisoners and condemning torture. The Shah initiated programs for job training and education among non-political prisoners, which continued under the Islamic regime [1979-present]. These programs were parts of the attempt to depict prisons as places of rehabilitation, rather than sites for punishing criminals.
Prisons, sometimes called ‘cathedrals of modernity,’ have been expanding worldwide. The Iranian public, whose day-to-day existence has been affected by the Islamic regime’s carceral practices, has developed a number of coping mechanisms. Writing prison memoirs, novels, and poetry are some of the tools used. Among other mechanisms for coping, political art, satire, and information campaigns are worth mentioning.
By analyzing the multilingual and multi-genre archives of prisons in Iran, Dr. Nikpour explored the historical interplay between the concrete space of Iranian prisons and the role of prisons in producing new public cultures and political languages in the 20th and now into the 21st century.
2025/02/01 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Celebrating my 78th birthday with the family, the birthday cards and gifts I received, and the discovery that 78 can be written as the sum of 4 different squares in 3 different ways.
(2) Musings of a curious engineer: With electric propulsion, automobiles will be changing shapes and looks. Thus far, nearly all electric-car models have maintained the looks of older internal combustion engine (ICE) cars, so that until you see the car’s name or logo, it is difficult to recognize electric cars. Even the charging port resembles the gas tank access outlet. This conservatism in maintaining the old look could be the result of not wanting to scare-off customers, who are already nervous about many issues such as driving range, availability of charging stations, and the high cost of batteries if they need to be replaced. But if you pay closer attention, you will see changes in the making. Gone are front grilles that allow cool air in to prevent overheating.
(3) Quote of the day: "I have the distinction of being the only chemistry laureate who failed the topic in high school!" ~ Tomas Lindahl, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- President Trump’s tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada, and China are set to go into effect today.
- For the first time since 1978, all best-actress Oscar nominees have appeared in best-picture nominees.
- U. California leaders express concerns over Trump’s temporary halt on federal research grant reviews.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 1, 2020: Today is the start of Black History Month.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 1, 2020: Today is World Hijab Day, not the forced kind.
(5) Trump’s new Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy’s resume includes roles on three different TV reality shows: He sure got a dose of reality when on his second day on the job, he had to deal with the DC mid-air collision that killed 67.
(6) “Math in the Age of AI”: This was the theme of Joint Mathematics Meetings, held in Seattle Jan. 8-11, drawing 5,444 mathematicians. Yann LeCun, Meta's chief AI scientist and an ACM Turing Award laureate, delivered a keynote in which he discussed the current state of machine learning. LeCun also suggested a "large-scale world model" as an alternative to generative large language models, noting that it "can reason and plan because it has a mental model of the world that predicts consequences of its action."
(7) Final thought for the day: As I get ready to retire at the end of a day of celebrating my birthday with the family and being showered with love & gifts, I would like to thank everyone who honored me by sending birthday wishes and other messages of caring. [1-minute video]
2025/01/31 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Moon craters named after Space Shuttle Challenger crew, who died 39 years ago. [Center] We're all made of stardust. [Right] Salman Khan's Brave New Words (see the last item below).
(2) Calendar anomaly: February 1 (tomorrow) is my official birthday according to the Gregorian calendar. The equivalent date of Bahman 12 on the Persian calendar is today. This anomaly occurs every few years due to the different handlings of leap years on the two calendar systems. It allows me to celebrate my birthday twice!
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Meta pays $25M to Trump for closing his Facebook account over spreading election disinformation.
- Adding Trump to Mount Rushmore comes up again: A Republican lawmaker is introducing a bill.
- Trump tax cuts will again favor the rich, penalizing single parents, scholarship students, & homeowners.
- Members of EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and Science Advisory Board have been dismissed.
(4) Book review: Khan, Salman, Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and Why That's a Good Thing), unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by the author, Penguin Audio, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Salman Khan is the founder of Khan Academy, an on-line treasure of course material and tutorials on many topics. In this book, Khan explains how AI and GPT technology will transform learning, offering a roadmap for teachers, parents, and students to navigate this exciting, and occasionally intimidating, new world.
Khan explains how he and his Khan Academy co-workers negotiated access to GPT-4 before it was released to the public in order to roll out compelling educational applications at the same time as GPT-4's release. While acknowledging imperfections and potential problems, Khan wants parents and teachers to embrace AI and adapt to it, so that every student can complement the work they're already doing in new and creative ways, to personalize learning, adapt assessments, and support success in the classroom.
Not limiting himself to pushing the benefits of technology, Khan also delves into ethical and social implications of AI and GPT, offering thoughtful insights into how we can use these tools to build a more accessible system of education for students around the world. Among other topics, he touches upon the possibility of cheating, maintaining a place for parents in their children's education, and dangers of unfettered data collection. The need for transparency is also discussed.
Here's the list of 9 parts and 32 chapters in the book.
Introduction: Let's write a new story together
Part I: Rise of the AI Tutor; Throwing away the bottle; How to teach everything to everyone
Part II: Giving Voice to the Social Sciences; Why students write; The future of reading comprehension, where literature comes alive; AI and creativity; Conversing with history
Part III: Empowering the Next Innovators; Using science to study science; 1 + 1 = closing the math gap; Accessing courses that students otherwise would not; The most important subject-matter domain to master
Part IV: Better Together; Bolstering collaborative learning; AI meets student mental health coaching; The place for parents in AI- based education; Increasing points of connection between parents and their kids
Part V: Keeping Kids Safe; Delivering the facts: The state of bias and misinformation; What about data collection? AI and the gift of transparency; AI as 'guardian angel'
Part VI: Teaching in the Age of AI; How AI will supercharge teachers and teaching; Dawn of the AI teaching assistant; Helping build alternative education models; Fixing cheating in college
Part VII: The Global Classroom; The global classroom; economics of AI in education
Part VIII: AI, Assessments, and Admissions; The future of K-12 assessments; The AI of college admissions
Part IX: Work and What Comes Next; Employment in the AI World; How to prepare kids to thrive in the AI-future workplace; Matchmaking between job seekers and employers; Where this leaves us and where it will take us: A call for educated bravery
2025/01/30 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday: Ford model T, 1910s. [Center] All 60 passengers and 4 crew members on board the American Airlines plane and the 3 on the military chopper are assumed dead after a mid-air collision in Washington DC. [Right] Adding Trump to Mount Rushmore comes up again.
(2) Trump, on last night’s mid-air collision that killed 67: After some scripted comforting words to the victims’ families and the nation, POTUS shamelessly tried to put the blame for the incident on FAA’s DEI programs and on former Democratic administrations.
(3) Trumpian doublespeak: An executive order on “restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship” is less about restoring free speech than about giving free rein to disinformation on social media. Other administration actions ban words including “gender” and “inclusion” in federal documents and declare the very real book-banning crisis a “hoax.”
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Let’s hope we all stay alive for the next four years and don’t perish in an economic crash or a foolish war.
- How fitting! The lunar new year is the year of the snake. And we have a snake-oil salesman in the WH.
- Jim Acosta, as he leaves CNN: “It’s never a good time to bow down to a tyrant.”
- You mullahs criticize Israel? You have done all of things that you accuse Israel of doing.
- Persian piano recital: Selected works of Javad Maroufi and Anoushirvan Rohani.
- Persian pop music: The oldie song “Niloofar,” played on piano and percussion. Enjoy!
(5) Trump's attack on DEI is a distraction: He diverts our attention to a relatively powerless/harmless program, as he guts consequential programs, fires federal employees, and changes the tax code to benefit the rich.
(6) University of California has begun a concerted effort to move all of its 9 general campuses to operate under a common semester-based academic calendar. Seven of the nine UC general campuses operate under quarter systems, Berkeley and Merced being the only exceptions. A workgroup has been formed, whose charge, as well as benefits of semesters over quarters and a common UC calendar over each campus setting its own, are addressed in this document.
(7) In the age of hundreds of TV channels, thousands of newspapers/magazines, and omnipresent social media platforms, it is extremely difficult to deny all the damaging statements you have made in the past, as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., discovered during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
(8) SpaceX & Vast Space invite research proposals for experiments to be conducted aboard the Haven-1 space station, set to launch in August: The companies are focusing on biological and physiological experiments in microgravity and autonomously executable research payloads. Heaven-1 will be the first commercial space station, providing a new platform for space research as the ISS nears retirement.
2025/01/29 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Trump doesn’t like DEI programs, but he chose the names of his oldest children so that their initials spell DEI. [Center] Researchers reconstruct the face of a warrior whose remains were found in a mass grave from a historic 1361 battlefield. [Right] Socrates Think Tank talk (see the last item below).
(2) Senator Mitch McConnell is no John McCain: He was one of three Republican senators who voted against the confirmation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, but he did so when it became clear that Hegseth would be confirmed. Remember that McConnell endorsed Trump as GOP’s presidential candidate after saying that Trump was practically and morally responsible for the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol and calling him a despicable man, a narcissist, stupid, and ill-tempered.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- MAGA has gone mum on high egg prices, something they mentioned daily before the election.
- US Department of Justice fires officials who worked on Jack Smith’s Trump investigation.
- Texas and North Dakota introduce bills to ban faculty tenure.
- Trump halts federal funding and grant programs: NSF has stopped reviewing research proposals.
- Trump doesn’t just deport people from the US: He also wants to deport Gazans to Jordan and Egypt!
- Teams are set for Super Bowl 59 (Feb. 9, 6:30 PM ET, on Fox). Kansas City Chiefs vs. Philadelphia Eagles.
(4) Tonight’s Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Mohammad Bagheri, expert in critical thinking, spoke under the title "Martin Heidegger’s Influence on Iranian Intellectuals." There were ~125 attendees.
Martin Heidegger [1889-1976] was a German philosopher best known for contributions to phenomenology (a philosophy which favors the primacy of experience), hermeneutics (the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation), and existentialism (a philosophy emphasizing the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent). Heidegger’s work covers a wide range of topics including ontology, technology, art, metaphysics, humanism, language and history of philosophy.
Heidegger recognized two types of thinking: Calculative and meditative. He complained that Westerners, from the time of Aristotle to Enlightenment, favored calculative thinking (tafakkor-e estedlali), which led to advances in science and technology, essentially ignoring meditative thinking (tafakkor-e shohudi), the native thought process which is required for examining our existence and our role in the universe. Along the same lines, Heidegger distinguished between natural language, used for our day-to-day communications, and the language of poetry, which we use to express deeper thoughts.
Beginning with Ahmad Fardid [1910-1994], Iranian intellectuals mischaracterized and misinterpreted Heidegger’s views and formulated them as a kind of return to self, which led to the perjorative term "Westoxification" and a declaration of war on Western values. Both Fardid, and Jalal Al-Ahmad [1923-1969], who adopted the notion of Westoxification and developed it into a book, brought religious elements into their philosophies, thus deviating from secularism, which was one of pillars of Enlightenment. So, Iranian intellectuals took Heidegger’s criticisms of modernity and turned them into a war with modernity.
These and other Iranian thinkers essentially validated the theory that intellectuals often fall for extremist ideologies; Heidegger himself was a Nazi sympathizer. According to Dr. Bagheri, two main factors led to the abuse of Heidegger’s ideas in Iran’s intellectual scene: Reckless minds (as discussed in the book The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics, by Mark Lilla, 2016) and lack of deep familiarity with Western languages, which led to inappropriate and misleading translations of Western thought.
2025/01/27 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzle: Find the area S of the outer right triangle with two squares inside it. [Center] Tom O’Neill's Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties (see the last item below). [Right] Math puzzle: Find the area A of the square inside the triangle.
(2) Illinois Democratic Governor J. B. Pritzker vows to stand in the way if federal authorities try to break state law while carrying out Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy.
(3) Is DeepSeek China’s giant step forward in AI or a political bluff? A Chinese start-up’s announcement that it has overcome the effect of US sanctions, by using commercially available chips to develop a lightweight AI model that competes favorably with those offered by major tech firms in the US, sent stocks tumbling, with NVIDIA stock losing 17% of its value. This is a development worth watching in the coming days.
(4) Book review: O’Neill, Tom (with Dan Piepenbring), Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, unabridged 16-hour audiobook, read by Kevin Stillwell, Little, Brown & Company, 2019.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
In 1999, the film magazine Premiere gave entertainment reporter Tom O'Neill a 3-month assignment to write about how the Tate-LaBianca murders, committed by the Manson Family 30 years earlier, changed Hollywood. That assignment led to 20 years of research that produced this book and much accompanying trouble for O'Neill, as well as the Quentin Tarantino movie, "Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood."
The book’s thesis is that the Helter Skelter (disorderly, confused action) theory of the lead prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, who later wrote a lucrative 1974 book by the same title, does not hold water. Bugliosi retaliates by threatening to sue the virtually penniless O’Neill for $100 million and smearing him as a gay pedophile. The book's title is a reference to a covert CIA program, Operation CHAOS, which spied on US citizens.
Over two grim nights in 1969 Los Angeles, the young followers of hippy messiah Charles Manson, his so-called family, murdered seven people, including the actress Sharon Tate, then eight months pregnant. The book questions the official narrative of the case, that Manson hated blacks and wanted to make it look as though the murderers were black revolutionaries. The victims’ blood used to write "pigs," a popular slang term for cops at that time, on the walls of both houses appeared to support this narrative.
In the course of his long investigation, O’Neill came to believe that FBI agents colluded with the district attorney, presumably because the FBI Director at the time, J. Edgar Hoover, saw Manson and his gaggle of sex slaves as countercultural brutes who deserved to be exterminated. O’Neill even manages to imagine a link between the gruesome 1969 murders and the assassination of JFK and the ensuing cover-up.
Based on interviewing more than 500 witnesses, reporters, and cops in the course of his meticulous research, O’Neill suggests that drug dealers who knew Manson may have hired him to initiate “a vengeful massacre” on Sharon Tate and the other victims. O’Neill points to the inexplicable leniency shown Manson and Susan Atkins before the murders by their parole officers, when they suffered no consequences for breaking the terms of their parole. In addition, O’Neill posits that Manson might have been one of the subjects of CIA’s LSD/hallucinogens experiments.
2025/01/26 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Iran's Islamist officials lie (see the next item below). [Center] Two math puzzles: Determining the number of unit-cubes in an object with the given front, side, & top projections, and a simple true/false question. [Right] We had hail in Goleta this morning: This photo was taken an hour later.
(2) Khamenei’s Whitewasher-in-Chief: Iran’s former FM and current presidential advisor Javad Zarif is back in the West, giving speeches and interviews to convince everyone that all is calm in Iran and that Iranians are a happy bunch. "Hijab law isn’t being enforced," he says, ignoring videos and pictorial reports showing the exact opposite. Of course, he says nothing about why there should be a law, if it isn’t enforced. "Hijab is an Iranian tradition and most women choose it freely," he claims. Two lies in one sentence. It isn’t a tradition, and most women, including many of those who choose to wear the hijab, are against making it compulsory. "Minorities and women are treated fairly; look, we have four female cabinet members!" A lie uttered on the same day that news broke about a large group of Baha’i women starting to serve their 5-year jail sentences.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Some Republicans are already talking about allowing Trump to run for a third term.
- An international team of researchers has pinpointed 36 genes linked to bipolar disorder.
- UCSB purchases multiple properties in downtown Santa Barbara as part of its expansion plan in the city.
- Math puzzle: If F(n), the nth Fibonacci number, is prime, then n is prime or it is 4.
- Being all thumbs is no fun, but having an extra thumb might help. [4-minute video]
- Facebook memory from Jan. 25, 2020: Each engineer has a different opinion.
- Facebook memory from Jan. 25, 2014: Sturgeon’s Law: “Ninety percent of everything is crap.”
(4) Renamings: US Interior Department has announced that Gulf of Mexico is now Gulf of America. I am waiting for international reactions, which can't be positive. Alaska's Mt. Denali has been renamed Mt. McKinley, despite objections from Alaska's senators. MAGA folk are thrilled by these actions. Meanwhile, talk of inflation and high prices has ceased, even though eggs are still way too expensive and other prices are still high. And tariffs are suddenly not a high priority.
(5) Equation of the day: 1 Israeli soldier = 50 Hamas fighters.
This could be a statement about their fighting effectiveness, but I am using it in the context of the worth of a human life. There is much talk by Palestinians about being considered second-class citizens. The 50/1 ratio is actually based on the Palestinians’ view of themselves. In the latest hostage release deal, Hamas insisted on the release of 200 Palestinian prisoners in return for freeing 4 Israeli soldiers.
(6) The Ames optical illusion: We are so used to seeing rectangular shapes (rooms, doors, windows) that we perceive a trapezoid as a tilted rectangle.
2025/01/24 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Optical illusion: The square at the center is completely stationary, yet it definitely appears to move. [Center] Paul Lockhart's Measurement (see the last item below). [Right] IranWire cartoon of the day: Khamenei thinks of himself as a chess master, but he doesn’t see the entire chessboard.
(2) Here comes another "nasty" woman: Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, asked for compassion toward immigrants and members of the LGBTQ community in her sermon, where Trump was in attendance. Trump has asked for an apology, calling her "nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart."
(3) Book review: Lockhart, Paul, Measurement, unabridged 9-hour audiobook, read by Kyle Tait, Tantor Audio, 2019. [My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
In a previous book, A Mathematician’s Lament, expanded from a 25-page essay by the same title, Lockhart criticized the way we teach math, suggesting that math should be taught like art, without hand-holding or using hints/solutions. "If you paint a picture from your heart, there is no ‘answer painting’ on the back of the canvas. If you are working on a problem and you are stuck or in pain, then welcome to the club. We mathematicians don’t know how to solve our problems either." His ideas proved quite controversial, facing the criticism that it’s easy to pronounce what’s wrong.
This book, which reads like a love letter to mathematics, explains how math should be done. Geometry is fundamentally about ‘practical’ measurement, not ‘practical’ in the sense of measuring the area of a garden plot or the height of a building with some end goal in the imperfect physical world, but measuring to establish relationships between the parameters of an abstract shape or between different abstract shapes.
With conversational English and ample use of line drawings that help the reader follow his reasoning, Lockhart makes complex ideas about shape and motion intuitive and graspable, and offers a solution to math phobia by introducing us to math as an artful way of thinking and living. Math is our creation and it is affected by our features and scale. If we humans were as small as an atom or as large as a galaxy, a different kind of math may have emerged.
Each of the 60 short chapters, divided equally between Part One and Part Two, reveals eye-opening beauties in geometric shapes and their relation to analytical expressions and differential equations.
Part One, “Size and Shape,” is about the geometry we study in high school, that is, things like polygons, circles, and 3D forms. In this part, Lockhart investigates abstract geometrical figures, symmetrical tilings, angle measurement, scaling & proportion, length, area, volume, trigonometry, conic sections, and projective geometry. In one example, Lockhart cleverly derives the volume formula for a special kind of pyramid and then uses previously-discussed ideas about deforming shapes to show how to generalize the formula to all pyramids.
Part Two, “Time and Space,” moves, gently, into calculus to reveal its enormous power. Along the way, we learn how multiplication signs, exponents, and other sometimes off-putting mathematical symbols make reasoning easier. In this part, Lockhart discusses mathematical motion, coordinate systems, dimension, vector representation, and mechanical relativity. The part ends with some final words of encouragement to the reader.
In this 3-minute video, Lockhart describes an example of beautiful, and unexpected, math results one encounters in his book.
2025/01/23 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Confluence: The phenomenon of two rivers converging without blending waters. This can happen due to differences in water density arising from factors such as temperature and salinity. [Center] IEEE CCS tech talk on logical fallacies (see the last item below). [Right] A bilingual thought for the day: Palace or stable? It depends on the occupants.
(2) Oscars nominations: “Emilia Perez” leads the way with 13 nominations. “The Brutalist” and “Wicked” secure 10 each. Acting nominees include Demi Moore, Cynthia Erivo, Adrien Brody and Timothee Chalamet.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- OpenAI & SoftBank will lead the $500 billion Stargate project to develop AI infrastructure in the US.
- A new fire in SoCal: The Hughes Fire is burning the equivalent of a football field every 2-3 seconds.
- Trump issues full pardons for 1500 January 6 rioters, including two serving long prison terms. [The Atlantic]
- Fareed Zakaria again gives Iran's Javad Zarif a platform to spread his shameless lies via CNN.
- Facebook memory from Jan. 23, 2022: Calligraphic rendering of a verse from Hafez.
- Facebook memory from Jan. 23, 2020: Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.
(4) Is the love affair between Donald Trump and Elon Musk ending? Musk bashes Trump’s new Stargate AI initiative with OpenAI and Oracle. In an escalating war of words on X (Twitter) between Sam Altman and Elon Musk, the latter characterized the deal as "fake" and Altman as "a swindler."
(5) Last night’s IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk: Dan Bezzant (Section Manager of EE Hardware Engineering at Raytheon) spoke under the title "Logical Fallacies and Suboptimal Technical Decisions" at the monthly event’s usual venue, Goleta Rusty’s on Calle Real. I attended virtually via WebEx.
Due to their appearance of correctness, logical fallacies often mislead analysts during technical problem analysis, leading to erroneous conclusions and prolonged issue resolution times. Mr. Bezzant provided an overview of logical fallacies that frequently arise in technical problem analysis and how they can obscure a problem’s root cause. By identifying these fallacies and employing strategies to mitigate their influence, those tasked with technical problem analysis can improve product reliability, adherence to schedules, cost efficiency, and organizational reputation. Key fallacies discussed included False Cause/Correlation, the Fallacy Fallacy, Ad Hominem, Personal Incredulity, Red Herring, Burden of Proof, Gambler’s Fallacy, Bandwagon or (appeal to popular belief), Appeal to Authority, Genetic, Black or White (false dilemma), Appeal to Tradition, and Appeal to Ignorance (ad ignorantiam). Through real-world scenarios and practical tips, the presentation emphasized the importance of grounding technical problem analyses in sound logic and evidence to avoid common pitfalls and achieve effective solutions.
At the end of the talk, the speaker provided several sources for further study, including a Web page entitled "Thou Shalt not Commit Logical Fallacies" and a 146-item master list of logical fallacies (Wikipedia also has a list of fallacies).
2025/01/21 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Cover feature of IEEE Spectrum magazine, Jan. 2025 (see the next item below). [Center] Math puzzle: Prove that the length x of the blue line segment on the tangent equals the sum R + r of the two radii. [Right] Paul Lockhart's A Mathematician’s Lament (see the last item below).
(2) The January 2025 issue of IEEE Spectrum magazine highlights 10 ideas that will flourish in 2025. Article titles in the special cover feature include:
- Startups begin geo-engineering the sea
- The rise of RISC-V laptops
- China’s thorium nuclear-power play
- Reversible computing escapes the lab
- NATO maps out orbital Internet reroute
- Plug-in hybrids get a reboot
- The US will start manufacturing advanced chips
- Making humans aquatic again
- Inside an American rare earth boomtown
- AI is coming to Bollywood
(3) Book review: Lockhart, Paul, A Mathematician’s Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Forms, Bellevue Literary Press, 2009.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
In this book, which was expanded from a 25-page 2002 essay by the same title, Lockhart maintains that the American system of math education is broken, suggesting that math should be taught like art, without hand-holding or using hints/solutions. "If you paint a picture from your heart, there is no ‘answer painting’ on the back of the canvas. If you are working on a problem and you are stuck or in pain, then welcome to the club. We mathematicians don’t know how to solve our problems either."
His ideas proved quite controversial, facing the criticism that it’s easy to pronounce what’s wrong. In a subsequent book, Measurement, which reads like a love letter to mathematics, Lockhart explains in great detail how math should be done. Geometry, for example, is fundamentally about ‘practical’ measurement, not ‘practical’ in the sense of measuring the area of a garden plot or the height of a building, with some end goal in the imperfect physical world, but measuring to establish relationships between the parameters of an abstract shape or between different abstract shapes.
Despite numerous suggestions for fixing the curricula and teaching methods in our system of math education, we have not been able to make much progress in this regard. We often compare the math skills of American students to those of Indian or Japanese students, who earn higher scores in standardized math tests, but their systems are also broken, for different reasons. Indian students are quite good in recognizing patterns in specific kinds of math problems that appear in entrance exams. They are not really taught math, but a specific pattern-recognition skill that comes from hundreds of hours of practice.
Lockhart’s view of math as an art is presented in the two parts of this book, entitled "Lamentation" and "Exultation," taking up ~50 and ~30 pages, respectively. Headings in Part I include "Mathematics and culture," "Mathematics in school," "The mathematics curriculum," and "High school geometry: instrument of the devil." Lockhart begins Part II thus: "[M]athematics education continues, and only grows more indefensibly asinine and corrupt with each passing year. But I don’t really want to talk about that anymore. I’m tired of complaining. ... So what I’d rather do is tell you more about what math really is and why I love it so much." And he proceeds to do just that, beautifully and convincingly.
2025/01/20 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Happy MLK Day: Today, we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the man who dreamt that everyone will be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin, who advocated for showing love in response to hate, who asked that we move forward at whatever speed we can, who compelled us not to passively accept evil, because doing so is no different than cooperating with it.
(2) January 20 in recent history:
1930, Astronaut Buzz Aldrin is born;
1981, Iran hostage crisis ends after 444 days;
1986, MLK Day is observed for the first time;
1993, Actress Audrey Hepburn dies;
2009, Obama becomes first Black US president.
(3) CNN settles defamation suit after being ordered to pay $5M in damages for defaming a US Navy veteran, accusing him of charging excessive fees and implying he was part of a black market to evacuate Afghans.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Can we survive the next four years? Countdown to the next inauguration day.
- As risk of extreme winds returns to SoCal, Palisades & Eaton fires are ~50% & ~75% contained.
- Apple suspends AI-powered news feature over inaccurate summaries of headlines & stories.
- Walgreens sued by DoJ for knowingly filling millions of unlawful opioid prescriptions.
- $TRUMP cryptocurrency passes $11B market capitalization in two days, with fully diluted value near $60B.
- TikTok briefly goes dark, then returns when Trump signals he will sign 90-day extension on its ban.
- Facebook memory from Jan. 29, 2018: Women’s rally & march in Santa Barbara, CA.
- Facebook memory from Jan. 20, 2017: Avicenna, on men without & with religion.
(5) Azerbaijan plans an energy corridor from the Caspian Sea to Europe, going across the Black Sea: The link will supply Romania, Hungary, and points beyond with clean electricity from the Caucasus. [Tweet, with map]
2025/01/18 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Biden says the Equal Rights Amendment should be considered ratified, but does not force certification. [Center] Effect of sea-level drop (see the next item below). [Right] Polar vortex brings extreme, below-normal cold temperatures to much of the US, including the deep South.
(2) Atlantis: If sea level drops by 1300 meters (~4000 ft), to the level they were after the last Ice Age, much new land will appear, including an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where Plato believed Atlantis was located. With a 2000-meter drop, we will see major changes, including the disappearance of Red Sea, conversion of Gulf of Mexico & the Mediterranean Sea to a bunch of lakes, and connection of the world’s entire landmass into one continent.
In this video, you can see a simulation of the effect of sea level rise, followed by results of sea level drop.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- SCOTUS upholds the law banning TikTok: However, Biden will not enforce the law, leaving it to Trump.
- It’s no one’s fault: The clock is broken. Rain is 2+ months overdue & Santa Ana winds are 2 months late.
- Assassinations in Tehran: Supreme Court judges Mohammad Moghiseh & Ali Razini killed in a firefight.
- A wonderful couplet from the Persian poet Abu Sa’id Abul-Khayr. [Tweet, with the Persian poem]
- Facebook memory from Jan. 18, 2022: The double threat of anonymity and disinformation.
(4) US tech salaries rise: Skills with biggest salary increases in 2024 include natural language processing, with an average salary gain of 21%, followed by AWS CodeWhisperer (16%), Amazon Redshift (15%), BigQuery (15%), COBOL (15%), Ruby (13%), AI (12%), Blockchain (12%), Oracle eBusiness (12%), and application delivery (11%). Survey results show a nearly 18% premium for AI skills versus other tech roles.
(5) Schrodinger's Cat with 7 lives: In a quantum computing breakthrough, researchers at Australia's University of New South Wales have used the nuclear spin of an antimony atom to encode data. Because an antimony atom can store eight different values (0, 1, and six others in between), a single error would not be enough to interfere with the quantum encoding and flip a 0 to a 1. Using the metaphor of Schrodinger's cat, UNSW's Xi Yu explained that in their method the metaphorical Schrodinger's cat has seven lives; it would take seven consecutive errors to turn a 0 into a 1.
(6) Math puzzle: Show that if you connect the midpoints of the sides of an arbitrary quadrangle to form another quadrangle, the latter quadrangle is always a parallelogram.
2025/01/17 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] On firefighting in Los Angeles (see the next item below). [Center] Michael Lewis's Going Infinite (see the last item below). [Right] Finally, an affordable Apple Watch!
(2) Hats off to firefighters for their valiant efforts during Los Angeles fires: This includes LAFD crew, other regional fire departments, firefighters from Mexico & Canada, incarcerated firefighters, and citizen volunteers. While the city isn’t perfect or guilt-free, experts have described the fires as “unstoppable” and fire hydrants as not designed to provide water for thousands of structure fires raging at once. When fire engulfs one structure or a handful of adjacent ones, we typically see 3-8 fire trucks at the scene. This does not scale up to entire neighborhoods burning at once.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Average temperature for 2024 the highest in more than 100,000 years. [Science magazine, Jan. 17, 2025]
- AI-designed miniproteins make antivenoms cheaper & more effective. [Science magazine, Jan. 17, 2025]
- New meaning of DEI hire: Donald Expects It.
- Arabic music: Ya Rayah, performed by Rachid Taha & Catherine Ringer. [4-minute video]
(4) Book review: Lewis, Michael, Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, W. W. Norton & Company, 2023. [My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book is about Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced chairman of FTX, the defunct cryptocurrency exchange company. If that’s all it was, I probably wouldn’t read it, because I have already been saturated with news stories on Bankman-Fried. The real story here is how Bankman-Fried fooled Lewis, an experienced reporter, into believing that all was hunky-dory at FTX and kept him convinced, all the way to the end, that Bankman-Fried was in the crypto business for altruistic reasons, not to enrich himself.
Many critics have panned Lewis for fawning over his subject and shadowing him uncritically. Lewis still maintains that in October 2002, there were no signs that anything was amiss at FTX, whereas in an April 2022 interview, Bankman-Fried all but admitted that the cryptocurrency industry was essentially a Ponzi scheme. Lewis occupied a front-row seat at the FTX saga from which he apparently couldn’t see anything. I, for one, have lost much of my respect for Lewis because of this book.
I am also interested in the deeper story, not covered in this book, about the viability of crypto as a replacement for regular currency. Crypto’s claim to fame is its distributed control and invulnerability to government control. With the latter claim shattered, little trust remains. The distributed control is a double-edged sword in that when investors are devastated by losses, they will be holding the bag with no prospects of help or legal action to recover their losses.
The book’s Chapter 11, "Truth Serum," tells the story of FTX’s bankruptcy proceedings. Once Bankman-Fried signed the bankruptcy papers, John Ray was appointed as the firm’s new CEO, with the mission to find as much of the missing money as he could and return that money to the creditors. Later, helping the US prosecutors make their case against Bankman-Fried was added to his mission. Six days into his new job, Ray’s report to the US Bankruptcy Court stated: "Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information."
2025/01/16 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The January 17, 2025, issue of Science magazine contains a fascinating article about the global increase in the occurrence and impact of multiyear droughts. [Center] Deeply-engrained misogyny: This official site of Iran’s government congratulates the country’s doctors on the occasion of Men’s Day, as if all Iranian doctors are men! [Right] Talangor Group talk on game theory (see the last item below).
(2) Green supercomputing: Since 1993, the Top500 Web site has kept track of the world’s most-powerful supercomputers, the largest of which, as of November 2024, consists of more than 11 million processor cores and has a performance in excess of 1.7 Exaflops. It consumes a whopping 30 MW of power. Another Web site, Green500, inaugurated 15 years ago, keeps track not of highest-performing supercomputers but of those that perform the most computations per Watt. At the top of this second list is a 4.5 Petaflops supercomputer that achieves an impressive 72.7 Gigaflops per Watt.
(3) The media are making a big deal of Michelle Obama planning to skip Trump’s inauguration, without even mentioning that Trump skipped Biden’s 4 years ago.
(4) Tonight’s Talangor Group talk: Dr. Forouza Pourkay (retired professor of engineering management) spoke under the title "Game Theory, Decision Making, and Applications." Before the main talk, Sara Mirzaei made a brief presentation on empowering the youth who will build Iran’s future. There were ~65 attendees.
Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions. It has applications in many fields of social science, and is used extensively in economics, logic, systems science, and computer science. Initially, game theory addressed two-person zero-sum games, in which a participant's gains or losses are exactly balanced by the losses and gains of the other participant. In the 1950s, it was extended to the study of non-zero-sum games, and was eventually applied to a wide range of behavioral relations. It is now an umbrella term for the science of rational decision making in humans, animals, and computers. [From Wikipedia]
Each game involves three elements: Players, actions (perhaps performed according to a strategy), and payout. The assumption is that the players are rational and engage in the game in such a way as to maximize their reward or payout. Rationality may not hold in practice, as a variety of other factors, such as emotions, can play a role. Dr. Pourkay covered the basics of game theory, while providing several examples of hypothetical games as well as real-world games played by political actors. He touched upon a prominent example known as "prisoner’s dilemma," in which two members of a crime team are interrogated separately, being offered lax or severe punishments depending on whether or not they cooperate by providing evidence against their partner and whether or not the partner cooperates.
This 27-minute video contains a nice introduction to game theory that in many ways complements Dr. Pourkay’s presentation.
2025/01/15 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] On helping the fire victims of Greater Los Angeles (see the next item below). [Top center] Gender equity has a long way to go: We have made much progress in winning this right or that right for women, but the fight is nowhere near over. [Top right] Concert for LA fire victims. [Bottom row] Lab set-up for the circuits course ECE 10A I am teaching this quarter. Shown are the lab room with 20 workstations, close-up of the equipment on one of the workstations, and the instructor wearing his Ohm’s-Law T-shirt.
(2) Feeling helpless for Los Angeles fire victims: I have been restless since multiple wildfires started in the Los Angeles area last week. I searched for trustworthy organizations through which I can send financial support (a partial list appears at the end of this post). But, somehow, sending only money does not feel like I have done enough. I would have liked to drive down to LA and volunteer in one of the evacuation centers, to help and comfort the victims up close, but my physical health and daily teaching schedule do not allow me to do that. Hence, my feeling of guilt and discomfort. This isn’t a disaster to end within days or even weeks. Victims need long-term support to resettle or rebuild, as they face the prospects of delays in insurance claims, probable price-gouging by sellers of building material, the onslaught of scammers, and lack of care and cooperation from federal officials, who are using the misfortune fallen upon Los Angeles residents for personal and political gain.
NBC News has announced that it has vetted the following charities:
California Community Foundation,
California Fire Foundation,
LA Fire Department Foundation,
Pasadena Humane Society,
Ventura County Community Foundation,
American Red Cross of Greater Los Angeles,
Center for Disaster Philanthropy,
Direct Relief,
World Central Kitchen.
(3) Hana Kamkar explains how in Iran’s TV and movie productions, women’s bodies are wrapped in elastic material to make their curves less noticeable. #WomanLifeFreedom
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- A $30 million campaign to free social media from billionaire control is now underway.
- Paul Lockhart talks about the world of mathematical reality. [3-minute video]
- If you connect the midpoints of the sides of any quadrangle, the resulting quadrangle is a parallelogram.
- Fear of appearing selfish or mean is the #1 obstacle to setting healthy boundaries in a relationship.
(5) Final thought for the day: When the Titanic sank, no one’s priority was to ostracize its designers or punish its crew. Efforts in the aftermath of the disaster were focused on saving lives and searching for the missing. Investigations and ship-design engineering updates came later. Much sensitivity is needed in communicating with survivors of a disaster, who have already suffered great losses. Please shut your mouths if you can’t say anything compassionate, positive, helpful, or comforting.
2025/01/14 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Cover feature of IEEE Micro magazine on warehouse-scale computing (see the next item below). [Center] US child vaccinations have gone down further, after a sharp decline during COVID years. [Right] Julian Togelius's Artificial General Intelligence (see the last item below).
(2) Warehouse-scale computing: When Google was founded in 1998, it was already clear that successful Web search would require enormous computing power. No wonder Google has emerged as a leader in warehouse-scale computing. The following review article was written by two prominent Google researchers.
Parthasarathy Ranganathan and Urs Holzle, "Twenty-Five Years of Warehouse-Scale Computing."
(3) Winning the US presidency saved Donald Trump from near-certain criminal conviction in the Jan. 6 case: Vol. 1 of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report, released today, states that the admissible evidence against Trump in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection "was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial." A federal court has blocked for now the release of Vol. 2 that details Smith’s separate investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and obstruction of government efforts to retrieve them.
(4) Book review: Togelius, Julian, Artificial General Intelligence, The MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series, unabridged 4-hour audiobook, read by Steve Marvel, Ascent Audio, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
We are surrounded by Artificial intelligence. Knowingly or unknowingly, we use AI on a daily basis. Most AI is narrowly-focused and has highly-specific functionality, such as spell-checking or GO-playing. A spell-checking app cannot do math and a GO-playing program cannot play Tetris. Human intelligence is somehow more general, because we can solve a variety of tasks, including those we have never encountered before. Developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the holy grail of today’s AI Research.
According to NYU’s Professor Togelius, even human intelligence isn’t really general. We have developed an ad-hoc collection of analysis and decision-making skills through evolution. Therefore, even if we replicated human intelligence in a robot, it’s unclear that everyone would agree that the robot possessed AGI. We’ve had AI systems that are superhuman in some sense for more than half a century. To take the next step toward AGI, we need to develop a clear definition of what we are trying to achieve. We should look at definitions from the perspectives of psychology, ethology, and computer science.
Theoretically, an evolutionary method may be successful in developing AGI, but it will probably take too long. There are two promising families of technical approaches to developing AGI: Foundation models through self-supervised learning and open-ended learning in virtual environments. The designation self-supervised means that learning occurs without someone first going through massive amounts of data and labeling them. As for learning in virtual environments, the transition from a simulated world to the real world, where you may not be able to try things multiple times, is non-trivial.
In Chapters 9-11, Togelius investigates the potential of artificial general intelligence beyond the strictly technical aspects. Among the questions discussed are whether such general AI would be conscious, whether it would pose a risk to humanity, and how it might alter society.
2025/01/13 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Focus on machine learning (see the next item below). [Center] Architects turn drab apartment buildings into works of art. [Right] A piece of our immense universe (see the last item below).
(2) IEEE's Computing Edge magazine's January 2025 cover feature is on machine learning. The feature includes an editorial and two articles.
Editor's note, Machine Learning: Weighing the Risks and the Rewards
Ozkaya, Ipek, Appl'n of Large Language Models to Software Eng. Tasks: Opportunities, Risks, & Implications
Meuser, Tobias et al., Revisiting Edge AI: Opportunities and Challenges
(3) This 2-minute video should help with Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush's amnesia about the damage he did to Iranian universities: In it, he explicitly states that his mission at the Cultural Revolution Council was the Islamization of Iranian universities from top to bottom, including the curricula, faculty members, and students.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Reversible computing comes of age: Startup plans the first chip based on this power-saving scheme
- Give a man a program and you frustrate him for a day. Teach him to program and you frustrate him for life.
- Eric Hoffer: “Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness.”
- Erich Fromm, on creativity: “Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.”
(5) "Leadership and Entrepreneurial Choices: Understanding the Motivational Dynamics of Women Entrepreneurs in Iran" by Marcus Goncalves, Sadaf Sartipi, & Ghazale Asadi Damavandi. [New publication]
(6) Mental illness and homelessness: We often hear that mental illness is the primary cause of homelessness. Not even close! Mental illness isn’t even among the top-3 causes. Only 16% of the homeless suffer from chronic/severe mental illness. Unavailability of affordable housing and healthcare are more important causes. Surprisingly, 53% of people living in homeless shelters and 40% of unsheltered people are employed, though they are often underemployed. Life expectancy among the homeless is 42-52 years, so there aren’t very many homeless seniors.
(7) Quote of the day: “Demanding that women should cover themselves to keep men from sinning is like saying that the sun should stop shining to prevent our ice creams from melting.” ~ Simin Daneshvar
(8) Laniakea Supercluster: A remarkable region of our universe encompassing an enormous network of galaxies interconnected by gravity. The name "Laniakea" translates to immense heaven in Hawaiian reflecting the vastness of this structure. It extends over 520 million light-years and has a total mass of around 10^17 times the mass of our Sun. The Milky Way's location within this supercluster emphasizes how our galaxy is just a tiny part of a much larger cosmic web. Our Sun, a relatively average star, is one of the billions within the Milky Way and the galaxy itself is just one among the tens of thousands in Laniakea. This discovery has significantly enhanced our understanding of cosmic structures, showing how galaxies are not isolated but are part of interconnected systems influenced by gravitational flows. The Milky Way resides near the edge of Laniakea, bound by gravitational forces to other galaxies and superclusters like the Shapley Supercluster and the Great Attractor. [Credit: Michael is unbreakable]
2025/01/12 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A rare display of unity: Five former US presidents at the funeral for President Jimmy Carter. [Center] Lecture about transition to democracy in Iran (see the last item below). [Right] Ingenious: A Biography of Benjamin Franklin, Scientist (see the last item below).
(2) Today's event in the UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran: Dr. Hadi Zamani spoke under the title "A Comparative Analysis and Proposition on the Process of Transition to Democracy in Iran.
Speaker’s summary: Over the past few decades, democratic movements in many countries have successfully overthrown autocratic regimes and established democratic governments. In some cases, these transformations occurred suddenly, driven by dramatic mass uprisings and nonviolent civil resistance, as seen in the Philippines in 1986, Czechoslovakia in 1989, Serbia in 2000, and Tunisia in 2011. In other instances, such as Portugal and Romania, the initial change was marked by sudden and violent revolutions, followed by a more gradual and peaceful transition to stable democracy. However, in most cases, democratic change has been achieved through a more gradual and incremental process, as exemplified by Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, Taiwan, Hungary, Chile, Croatia, Uruguay, Ghana, Guyana, Kenya, and others. While it is impossible to predict with certainty when and how democracy will emerge in Iran, the experiences of other nations offer valuable lessons. Additionally, Iran’s unique structural and historical characteristics play a crucial role in understanding its potential pathways. This talk explored the issues above, providing a comparative analysis of the possible trajectories for Iran, their defining characteristics, and the challenges they may present.
(3) Book review: Munson, Richard, Ingenious: A Biography of Benjamin Franklin, Scientist, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by Keith Brown, Tantor Media, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Benjamin Franklin is usually portrayed as a diplomat/statesman who happened to engage in some practical scientific experiments. This biography places Franklin’s science at center stage—this, the author asserts, was how Franklin fundamentally viewed himself—and was the identity from which all else in his complex character derived. Franklin’s well-known practical inventions, such as the lightning rod, were not merely the products of playful or quirky tinkering. Rather, they were informed by serious underlying scientific thought. Franklin’s science played a big part in giving him access to the French court, where he helped advance the American cause in the Revolutionary War.
His contributions to science aside, Franklin had diverse interests and took pride in a job well done. When he worked as a printer, he cherished the identity. If I were to discuss all domains to which Franklin made significant scientific contributions my review would become almost as long as the book itself. The list includes heating, cooling, refrigeration, bifocal glasses, urinary catheter, high-quality print fonts, and much more. Franklin was a master of promoting his ideas, with his expertise as a printer/publisher coming quite handy. He had a vast network of acquaintances as well as experience as a postmaster, which helped him connect easily and widely.
Other scholars have argued along these lines before. More than 80 years ago, the pioneering historian of science I. Bernard Cohen promoted Franklin’s scientific prowess in his critical edition of Franklin’s own “Experiments and Observations on Electricity.” A 1990 collection of essays, “Benjamin Franklin’s Science,” also did the same.
Munson is particularly ticked off by the trivialization of Franklin’s kite-flying experiment. Franklin’s work on the fundamental properties of electricity, which went far beyond the famous demonstration of the electric nature of lightning, earned him the British Royal Society’s highest honor in 1753. Three years later he was elected to the society by an unprecedented unanimous vote. He was praised by prominent natural philosophers of his day, as well as by physicists a century and more later.
2025/01/11 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] IranWire cartoon of the day: Women political activists and even aid workers are executed by Iran’s 1979 Islamic regime. [Top center] Talk on storage technologies for renewable energy (see the last item below). [Top right] Iranians love George Orwell’s Animal Farm: They view the book as an allegory for Iran’s Islamic Revolution. This best-selling foreign novel has been translated into Persian 164 times. [Bottom left] A gentler math puzzle: What is the sum of the four angles alpha, beta, theta, and omega? [Bottom center] Optical illusion: The blue strips are actually parallel to each other. [Bottom right] Math puzzle: What is the ratio of the red area to the green area?
(2) [Arguments in the TikTok case, abridged from New York Times]
Against banning: Some 170 million Americans use the app. They entertain themselves, communicate with friends, follow the news, go shopping and operate businesses. Congress has failed to show that China uses TikTok to manipulate Americans; the law is instead based on the worry that China might one day do so. The law’s effect is to substitute definite manipulation by our own government for feared manipulation by China.
For banning: China’s recent actions and future ambitions are troubling. It treats companies as extensions of the state. If executives disobey orders, they can be fired or sent to prison. Videos on some subjects, including Taiwan & Tibet, are hard to find on TikTok. The same is true of pro-Ukraine & pro-Israel videos. These patterns suggest that TikTok suppresses material that the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t like. Limits on foreign ownership have been a part of US policy for more than a century.
(3) Talk on energy storage technologies: In the evening of Wednesday, January 8, 2025, yours truly presented a lecture on energy storage technologies at a Zoom meeting of Socrates Think Tank.
Renewable energy is gradually becoming cost-competitive, as we invest more in developing new production and storage technologies. The storage part is critical and needs significantly more effort. Production levels of renewable energy, solar and wind in particular, tend to be variable. Such supply variations, combined with natural variations in demand, give rise to the need for storing energy, in much the same way that we store grains in silos to smooth out the variations in when & where they are produced and when & where they are needed. In the case of grains, even year-to-year variations due to weather, pests, and natural disasters can be tolerated with sufficient storage capacity.
There is no reason why similar smoothing methods cannot be used for energy. The fact that we have not been investing more in developing energy-storage technologies is a direct result of the “low cost” of energy derived from oil, gas, & coal and the exorbitantly-funded campaign by the fossil-fuel industry to brand renewable energy as “expensive.” However, most cost comparisons are unfair, because they ignore environmental and other indirect costs. Mitigating the effects of harmful emissions from burning fossil fuels is rather expensive, a figure we should include in their life-cycle cost. If we do so, the so-called “green premium” will vanish or even become negative.
[PDF slides]
2025/01/10 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Three political prisoners are in danger of execution in Iran after losing their final appeal. [Top center] Mahvash Sabet, an Iranian Baha’i, has been returned to prison following open-heart surgery. [Top right] Greenland is preparing for an invasion by the US armed forces. [Bottom left] Facebook memory from Jan. 10, 2018: View of the US 101, the day after the devastating Montecito mudflow, killing 23. [Bottom center] And an example of devastation in Pacific Palisades 7 years later. [Bottom right] Washington Post maps of the five major fires raging in Los Angeles: Arson is suspected and a few people are in custody.
(2) [On Los Angeles fires] Joe Biden: The federal government will cover the entire cost of protecting lives & property for the next 6 months. Donald Trump: It’s Newsom’s fault.
(3) Wildfires in the Los Angeles area have led colleges to cancel events and classes, close campuses, or provide shelter. Santa Monica College, Pasadena City College, Ventura College, and Glendale Community College closed through the week. California Institute of Technology and Occidental College shut down on Wednesday and Thursday. Although most students are on winter break, the fires’ proximity has prompted close monitoring. Pepperdine University closed its Malibu campus to facilitate emergency response, with the Palisades fire consuming more than 15,000 acres but not threatening the university. The University of Southern California canceled its spring event, while UCLA moved classes online due to anticipated poor air quality. UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk said, “While there remains no immediate fire danger to our campus, it is likely that the air quality in Westwood will worsen.” California State University, Los Angeles also moved classes online.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- An insult to Kamala Harris: Biden claims that he would've defeated Trump if he’d stayed in the race.
- It’s quite fishy that Meta ended its fact-checking program a couple of weeks before Trump’s inauguration.
- Iranian school girls stand up to the morality police for harassing the hijabless among them.
- Hossein Mousavian supported Khomeini’s death fatwa against Salman Rushdie: Fire him from Princeton!
(5) President of Mexico to Trump, in response to his suggestion that Gulf of Mexico be renamed Gulf of America: How about changing the name of United States to Mexicana?
(6) Gender balance in computer science & engineering has improved at elite US universities but worsened at less selective schools: Analysis of 34 million degrees from 2002 to 2022 revealed that at institutions with high average math SAT scores, the gender gap narrowed, with men earning degrees at 1.5 times the rate of women in 2022, down from 2.2 in 2002. However, at less selective schools, the gap widened significantly, with men earning degrees at 7.1 times the rate of women.
2025/01/09 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday: Iranian 1951 third-class train ticket, 14.5 rials (~$0.20). [Center] Math oddity: The percentage of the total area that is shaded is 5^2, 4^2, and 3^2. [Right] This is what North America looked like 77 million years ago: During the Late Cretaceous period, a shallow inland sea split the continent into two landmasses (Laramidia in the west and Appalachia in the east).
(2) Work in neurotechnology earns UCSB’s 2024-2025 Plous award: Michael Beyeler’s work sits at the intersection of neuroscience, computer science, engineering, and psychology, where he is advancing sight-recovery technologies, including retinal and cortical implants often dubbed “bionic eyes.” As the leader of UCSB’s Bionic Vision Lab, Beyeler and his team are enhancing artificial vision systems while deepening the theoretical understanding of how the brain processes visual information.
(3) From a tweet by Jay Kuo: You would think with all his legal victories and political triumph, Trump would be a happy camper. But judging from his online rants, he is still fuming mad at our legal system and has earned little personal peace from any of this.
While he likely won’t ever see the inside of a prison cell, the battle has shifted to how history will record Donald Trump. And our legal system still manages to send him into online fits of rage.
Specifically, Trump faces a judge in Manhattan who has refused to postpone his sentencing date of January 10 and a special prosecutor who, though forced to close his cases against Trump, has penned a two-volume report that might soon get released to the public.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Wildfires in the Los Angeles area are spreading unchecked, with devastating losses.
- In a message to customers, SoCal Edison warns about the likelihood of weather-related power outages.
- Meta announces the end of fact-checking on Facebook: Guess who is delighted about this?
- Performance of a Persian golden oldie by eighty-something pianist (Rohani) and singer (Aref).
(5) A Swiss citizen committed suicide in a prison, in Semnan, Iran: It's not clear why European governments continue to appease Iran’s terrorist, hostage-taking Islamic regime.
(6) Funny politics in Iran: For many years, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani was ridiculed and sidelined. Even after his death, his family was cursed & harassed. Now, suddenly, the crumbling Islamic regime is hailing him as a national hero, as it observes the anniversary of his passing.
(7) Final thought for the day: As I go to bed tonight, with all my loved ones safe and my house intact, my heart is with the people of Los Angeles, who are suffering from the worst disaster in the city’s history. A few family members lost their houses, but fortunately they are all safe. Getting through the losses and rebuilding will take time and effort, but we are all ready to help in whatever way we can. <3
2025/01/08 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzle: Shown are three circles inside right triangles. Find the area of the rectangle. [Center] Merlin’s Tour of the Universe (see the last item below). [Right] Math puzzle: Find x.
(2) President Biden honors 14 researchers with the National Medal of Science. Additionally, 9 individuals and 2 companies received the National Medal of Technology.
(3) Quote of the day: “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” ~ John F. Kennedy
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Today is the 5th anniversary of the downing of Ukraine Airlines Flight PS752 by Iran’s IRGC, killing 176.
- Fire forces thousands to evacuate Pacific Palisades in the Los Angeles area.
- Former terrorists, who wear academic regalia in the US, help ensure the survival of Iran’s Islamic regime.
- We often use oligarchy to describe Russia’s political system, but oligarchy is headquartered in the US.
(5) Vaclav Hovel, on fighting tyranny: You don't have to march on the streets and risk the consequences. Just decide that you won't participate in any activity based on lies. Serve the truth and the regime of lies will collapse on its own.
(6) Book review: DeGrasse Tyson, Neil, Merlin’s Tour of the Universe, A Traveler’s Guide to Blue Moons and Black Holes, Mars, Stars, & Everything Far, unabridged 4-hour audiobook, read by the author and others, Revised and updated for the 21st century, Blackstone Publishing, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Born 5 billion years ago on the planet Omniscia in the Andromeda Galaxy, Merlin is a fictional timeless character who observed firsthand everything that happened on Earth for its entire history. He visits Earth to clarify the details of phenomena such as gravity, light, space, and time, and travels to distant stars and galaxies to describe what makes them tick, rotate, explode, and collapse. The format is that of "Dear Merlin" questions, asked by the general public, with answers provided and read by the author. The Qs&As are adapted from a column published in StarDate, a magazine for space and astronomy enthusiasts.
The book’s 13 chapters contain questions about: 1. Earth; 2. Moon; 3. Planets; 4. Asteroids, comets, and Meteors; 5. Sun; 6. Stargazer; 7. Gravity; 8. Stars; 9. Light and telescopes; 10. Galaxies; 11. Time, space, and sense of where you are; 12. Black holes, quasars, and the universe; 13. Life, here and there.
The answers are scientifically accurate and are presented with humor and an occasional verse.
2025/01/06 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] January 6 will live in infamy (see the next item below). [Center] Math puzzle: What fraction of the outer square’s area is the area of the blue equilateral triangle? [Right] The 150-km-wide crater created by the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago.
(2) Fourth anniversary of the January 6 insurrection: As I head back to class following the 2024-2025 holiday break, I’d like to acknowledge the events of January 6, 2021, when the Capitol Police courageously defended Senators, Representatives, and others working in the US Congress from a mob unleashed by Donald Trump. Many of those who were protected on that fateful day turned on their protectors, siding with the Insurrectionist-in-Chief and blaming the police for using excessive force. Now, the said insurrection leader is about to resume power as US President, having pledged to pardon members of the mob and prosecute those who investigated the insurrection or testified in the various legal or civil proceedings.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Kamala Harris presides over the congressional certification of the election she lost to Donald Trump.
- Tuna fish weighing as much as a grizzly bear sells for $1.3 million in Japan.
- A witty verse from the great Persian poet Sa’eb Tabrizi. [The verse and its English translation]
(4) "Language and Thought": This was the title of Sunday's Zoom lecture by Dr. Mohammad Bagheri, under the auspices of UCLA Salamat Group.
We tend to think of language as a tool for communication. Yet, it is arguably the case that language is primarily a tool for thinking. Primitive languages, with limited vocabulary and structures severely limit one's thought. There is also the element of culture that sits between language and thought.
Concerning the connection between language and thought, there are two camps. One camp (which includes Lev Vygotsky and Ludwig Wittgenstein) considers thought impossible without language. The opposing camp (which includes Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky) views language as facilitating thinking but isn't necessary for it, citing the ability of a baby to think even before s/he acquires any language skills.
Dr. Bagheri belongs to the first camp, believing that our thoughts are influenced, and at times limited, by the language in which we think. A bilingual person, depending on how s/he has acquired the second language, may be able to think in the new language or be a thinker in the first language who constantly translates from the second language to first one.
Multiple recorded lectures on the topic are available on Dr. Bagheri's YouTube channel.
2025/01/05 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A downsizing project (see the next item below). [Center] Bob Woodward's War (see the last item below). [Right] My grand-nephew Aiden turned 2 yesterday: Happy birthday!
(2) A project we completed over the holidays: Swapping bedrooms with my older son. It involved significant downsizing on my part. I gave away loads of clothes, perhaps 70% of everything, including many items I had not worn for years. It’s funny how we keep clothes and other items, hoping they will become useful again, only to discard them years later. Take it from me: There is much joy in downsizing!
(3) Book review: Woodward, Bob, War, Simon & Schuster, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This counts as Bob Woodward’s fourth book on Donald Trump, after Fear, Rage, and Peril, not counting a compilation of interview audio clips, The Trump Tapes, although the focus here is mostly on the ongoing wars, a behind-the-curve octogenarian president currently in the White House, and the threats from another octogenarian president and his minions. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine occupies about half of the book’s 77 chapters, with the rest discussing the Middle East conflicts and the internal US battle for the presidency.
Woodward reveals one secret to his stamina in a personal note: A knowledgeable and hard-working assistant, Claire McMullen, who really owns much of this book. Like other Woodward books, this one too is filled with minute details, making the narrative boring at times, but this oversharing does not detract from the historical significance of his reporting.
Woodward takes us back to a 1989 interview with Trump, then 42, conducted by him and Carl Bernstein the day after they chatted with him at a private dinner party in New York City. The interview was never published and got lost among Woodward’s massive collection of records. Then, it was found in 2023 and deemed interesting enough to form this book’s prologue. The 35-year-old snapshot, though primarily about Trump’s real-estate business, clearly reveals Trumpism in the making. We learn from the interview that Trump ignores three groups of people, inspectors, the Mob, and unions, because folding to them will make them come back for more. He describes himself as adapting to the people he is dealing with, characterizing himself as "killer, candy, or both."
When the top Republican Kevin McCarthy, who only days earlier had criticized Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection and his failure to stop it, went to Mar-a-Lago on January 28, 2020, he cemented Trump’s role as the GOP leader. Nearly all the other Republicans soon fell in line, leaving only isolated voices that were drowned by MAGA screams. There were whispers of private misgivings about Trump, but a bully who craves public adoration is not deterred by cowardly criticism behind closed doors.
It is in the description of the lead-up to the Ukraine invasion and the waging of wars by Israel on multiple fronts against Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis that the boring details I alluded to earlier emerge. We learn that Biden and his envoys were persuasive enough to have Putin delay his long-planned invasion, but ended up powerless to stop it. Biden frequently lost his patience with Netanyahu and routinely used the F-word about him.
After enjoying Bob Woodward’s four straight best-sellers about Trump, I look forward to reading his next volume about Trump’s second term as US President.
2025/01/03 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Airborne colony (see the next item below). [Center] There is no absolute physical limit on the length, width, or height of a passenger plane: Economics and safety concerns dictate some practical limits, though. Relevant factors include runway length & strength, passenger entry/exit access, airport terminal facilities, boarding time, and evacuation time. [Right] The ocean planet: Known as GJ 1214B, this planet is covered entirely with pure water and has no rocky surface. It lies ~40 light years away and has a radius of about 10,000 miles (~1.25x that of Earth).
(2) Airborne town, on Cloud Nine: Cloud Nine is the name Buckminster Fuller gave to his proposed airborne habitats created from giant geodesic spheres, which might be made to levitate by slightly heating the air inside above the ambient temperature. A mile-wide geodesic sphere has a mass that is negligible compared to the mass of the air trapped inside it, so if the air inside were heated by even 1 degree relative to the sphere's surroundings, the sphere could become airborne, lifting with it the considerable mass of a mini-city or town.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Google, Harvard, and more are offering free AI courses (no payment required).
- Facebook memory from Jan. 3, 2021: Islamic Republic of Iran’s misogynistic culture.
- Facebook memory from Jan. 3, 2018: Iranian women have been protesting hijab laws for many years.
(4) Free access to papers & data from US federally-funded research: Two years after President Biden’s administration called for immediate free access to journal articles produced from federally-funded research, NIH and DOE have released their final compliance plans. Other US agencies will do so soon. Nine percent of worldwide published papers have US-funded authors. Universities are worried about logistics and costs of this openness, and many publishers are dismayed. [From Science magazine, Jan. 3, 2025]
2025/01/01 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A very happy new year to you and your loved ones: Let us resolve to work hard in this new year to help bring about peace, justice, and equality to our troubled world. [Center] Wow! Sixteen years of Facebook friendship with two of my children, a sister, and a niece. [Right] Narges Mohammadi, Iran’s Nobel-Prize-winning political dissident, on the cover of Elle magazine: “I will never give up the fight.”
(2) My new year 2025 puzzle: Every year, as a new year number emerges, I try to form the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ... by putting math symbols (including parentheses) between its digits. In the case of 2025, I have been able to do this for numbers up to 35. The first five appear below as hints and the rest are left to you!
0 = 2 * 0 * 25; 1 = –2 + 0 – 2 + 5; 2 = 2 + 0 * 25; 3 = 2 * 0 – 2 + 5; 4 = –(2 + 0) / 2 + 5
(3) Russia’s gas & oil supply to Europe halted: Ukraine refuses to renew a transit deal which had allowed Russian oil & gas to cross its territory to serve Europe. [Washington Post]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- At least 15 killed and dozens injured in ISIS-inspired mass murder in New Orleans using a truck.
- Yet one more property of the new year: 2025 = 1^3 + 2^3 + 3^3 + 4^3 + 5^3 + 6^3 + 7^3 + 8^3 + 9^3
- ThePianoBoys, the talented duo from Santa Barbara, are all grown up now: Here's their New Year's concert.
(5) Many politicians and other individuals have indicated that they won't attend Trump's inauguration: They cite various reasons, including being potential targets of prosecution by Trump, the prospects of their January 6th attackers being pardoned, and being people of color who'd rather celebrate MLK Day elsewhere.
(6) America’s small-scale experiment with direct democracy: Citizens' assemblies are to politics what juries are to the legal system. A randomly-drawn assembly would allow a governing body that truly mirrors our society, as opposed to the current system in which elected representatives are predominantly educated and wealthy individuals.
Blog Entries for 2024
2024/12/31 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top row] My reading stats for 2024, and cover images of some of the books: Surpassing 100 books for the fourth year in a row. I will try to make it five years in 2025. Before 2017, I did not record my books on GoodReads. Having cleared my backlog of reviews to the end of 2024, from now on, I will post reviews in real time, at the rate I read books (~2 per week). [Bottom left] Assuming no glue is applied, can this be a real photo? [Bottom center] Two one-term US presidents, 39 & 46, with significant legacies that will be etched in history. [Bottom right] Our Sunday breakfast: Your place was empty.
(2) Remember this fact the next time Republicans talk about effective governance: Every government shutdown in the last 30 years occurred when the GOP had control of the House.
(3) Reacting to undersea cable-cutting: NATO has launched a project in response to recent disruptions to undersea Internet data traffic. The goal of the HEIST project is to ensure that when underwater data cables are damaged, operators will know their precise locations in order to mitigate disruptions. The project also aims to expand the number of pathways for data to travel. In particular, HEIST will investigate ways to divert high-priority traffic to satellites in orbit. [From IEEE Spectrum magazine, Dec. 2024]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The cherry-red artificial food coloring may soon be banned: California has already moved to ban it.
- Cover image of The Economist: The World Ahead 2025. [Tweet, with image]
- Please don’t bring this iron lung back by not vaccinating. Thank you! [Tweet, with photo]
- Neat fact about the coming new year: 2025 = (20 + 25)^2
- We had fesenjoon stew last night: I used Sadaf stew in a jar, adding beef and some pomegranate paste.
(5) Elon Musk asks X users to post positive, beautiful, or informative content: Users quickly remind Musk of his own less-than-positive posts and his welcoming of previously-banned hatemongers back onto the service.
(6) Final thought for the day, month, & year: Over the past few days, I worked hard to clear my e-mail in-box for a clean start in 2025. In the final hours of 2024, each time I cleared the in-box, a new donation request or sales pitch would arrive, urging me to take advantage of some year-end opportunity. As I go to bed, I've managed to keep the in-box clear, knowing full well that I'll face dozens of messages early tomorrow morning.
2024/12/29 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] One of the nature's wonders (see the next item below). [Center] A wintery Persian breakfast. [Right] Inspirational Women in Academia (see the last item below).
(2) The Mariana Trench is located in the western Pacific Ocean, east of the Philippines and south of Japan: Its deepest point, the Challenger Deep, lies approximately 11 km below sea level. The Trench was formed by the subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the Mariana Plate and is part of the geologically active Ring of Fire. Due to its extreme depth and immense pressure, it remains one of the least-explored places in the world.
(3) Former US President Jimmy Carter dead at 100: He was reviled by most royalist Iranians, because they considered him responsible for the downfall of the Shah. Meanwhile, his successor Ronald Reagan was loved, despite having negotiated with the mullahs to make sure that the US hostages were not released before he took over as president.
(4) Book review: Kucirkova, Natalia and Loleta Fahad, Inspirational Women in Academia: Supporting Careers and Improving Minority Representation, Routledge, 2022. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Natalia Kucirkova (U. Stavanger, Norway, and The Open University, UK) and Loleta Fahad (University College London) bring together their lived experiences working within symbiotic areas of academia, amplifying the voices of academic women and celebrating the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10: Reducing inequalities within and among countries.
Working day and night has become entrenched in the academic culture, so that a woman who isn’t working at all times comes to think of herself as a failure. Then, there are discrimination and other setbacks, matters that each woman handles in her own way. The authors found a sample of inspirational women, which is in no way complete, and made an effort to tell their success stories and how they handled inequities and other roadblocks.
At the beginning of Chapter 2, the authors quote Anne-Marie Slaughter, who urged women not to make the same mistake as earlier generations of feminists who tried to find a place for themselves in male-dominated domains by acting and talking like men. The authors agree with slaughter’s advice that it is the discriminatory rules and practices that must change, not women navigating them. The COVID-19 pandemic was instrumental in raising awareness about a gendered academia that saw women’s academic workload increase alongside their domestic responsibilities, creating a 2-year gap in their advancement prospects.
Another manifestation of a gendered academia is men talking only to men about important subjects, giving them a distinct advantage in the informational hierarchy. Similarly, male-oriented social gatherings such as beer parties allow men to network and exchange ideas, putting women at a disadvantage. Even bathroom urinals serve a networking function not available to women.
You can see the book’s detailed table of contents (outline, actually) and read its first 1.5 chapters on Google Books.
2024/12/28 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] An award-worthy Iranian film (see the next item below). [Center] In Iceland, the spectacular Mid-Atlantic Ridge reaches above sea level, creating an impressive landscape of volcanoes, towering rocks, geysers, and geothermal springs. [Right] Santa Clause visited Iran on Christmas Eve to pay tribute to the victims of the #WomanLifeFreedom movement.
(2) Movie on screen at Santa Barbara’s Riviera Theater: I watched Mohammad Rasoulof’s "The Seed of the Sacred Fig," an acclaimed thriller shot in secret on location in Iran, followed by the escape of the producer/director to the West. It portrays the life of a family of four, with the father being a government investigator who helps sentence political dissidents to long prison terms or death and craves a promotion to judgeship. The mother is apprehensive about her husband’s line of work, but she does not want to hurt his career. The couple’s two daughters do not care for a pious lifestyle or a religious government and are bothered by their friends being arrested or seriously injured during street protests. The internal family tension, when mixed with an escalating social unrest, eventually builds up to dangerous levels, placing the prosecutor father in mortal conflict with his family. Like most Iranian productions, the movie is too long (167 minutes) for its content/message. Repetitive and slow-moving scenes, and an extended chase scene at the end, could have been shortened with no harm. Otherwise, the screenplay, acting, and actual footage of brutally-suppressed street protests are quite effective.
(3) Google develops new quantum AI chip at its Goleta campus, located near UCSB: The chip, called Willow, features advanced quantum error correction at incredible speeds.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Five decades of election results in Al-Assad family’s Syria. [Tweet, with data]
- Putin apologizes to Azerbaijan over the downing of its passenger plane flying in Russian airspace.
- An essay by Majid Jalise on Iran’s backwardness in digitizing its cultural and literary heritage.
- Like last year, I have set out to clear my e-mail in-box by New Year’s Eve. Wish me luck.
(5) In case you were wondering why the Iranian regime would take an Italian journalist hostage: Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi, a key IRGC figure, was arrested in Milan at the request of the US.
(6) Google’s top 2024 search terms for the US: The No. 1 search term overall was “election,” followed by “Donald Trump,” “Connections,” “New York Yankees,” and “Kamala Harris.”
2024/12/26 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Image from an exquisite collection of mazes and mandalas by @MaxxxDoubt. [Center] Africa is bigger than you think. [Right] Steven Pearlstein's Moral Capitalism (see the last item below).
(2) "A Complete Unknown": This is the title of a new Bob Dylan biopic screening in theaters this week. In this James Mangold film, which I saw on Wednesday, Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan actually sings and plays all the songs. The film is very well-done, both musically and cinematically. It features a lot of Dylan’s music and the music of some of his contemporaries, including Joan Baez and Johnny Cash. [Trailer]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Syria is reportedly filing a $300 billion lawsuit against Iran for damages it caused to the country.
- Russia’s air-defense system emerges as a suspect in a Kazakhstan plane crash that killed 38.
- The hidden figure behind GPS: Gladys West did the math that changed global navigation.
- Hydrodynamic levitation: How a ball stays in equilibrium over a water jet.
- Persian poetry recitation: Javad Almasi’s beautiful love poem, recited by Jaleh Olov.
- Puzzle-solving by ants: They figure out how to move an object through tight spaces.
(4) Book review: Pearlstein, Steven, Moral Capitalism: Why Fairness Won't Make Us Poor, St. Martin's Griffin; Reprint edition, 2020.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Steven Pearlstein argues that our 30-year experiment in "markets know best" economy has undermined core values required to make capitalism and democracy work. He asserts that we are missing a key tenet of Adam Smith’s wealth of nations: Without trust and social capital, democratic capitalism cannot survive.
The recent decades’ prevailing mantras of "greed is good," "maximize shareholder value," "only fools pay taxes," and "trickle-down economy" have set back the American economy, benefitting only the super-rich, while around the world market capitalism has lifted more than a billion people out of poverty. The misguided mantras have been used as justification for squeezing workers, cheating customers, and leaving communities in the lurch.
As the French economist Thomas Pikettty has argued, steady economic growth outpaced the rate of return on capital during capitalism’s post-World-War-II golden era, thereby delivering rising prosperity to millions and masking the ill effects of unfettered capitalism. Widening gaps in income and wealth were the predictable results, which we are left to deal with. Unfortunately, capitalism is not swayed by moral arguments and we need deliberate action to wipe out inequities.
Pearlstein lays out bold steps we can take as a country: A guaranteed minimum income paired with universal national service, tax incentives for companies to share profits with workers, ending class segregation in public education, and restoring competition to markets. He provides a path forward that will create the shared prosperity that will sustain capitalism over the long term.
2024/12/25 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] Merry Christmas & Happy Hnukkah: May Peace on Earth & victory of light over darkness materialize soon. [Top right] A beautiful nature shot. [Bottom left] Self-designing software (see the next item below). [Bottom center] Signs advising that hijab laws should be followed are ignored by Iranian women. [Bottom right] The Equal Rights Amendment (see the last item below).
(2) Cover feature of CACM on self-designing software: "Exploring ways to include a software system as an active member of its own design team, able to reason about its own design and to synthesize better variants of its own building blocks as it encounters different deployment conditions." The article’s key insights include the ability to hot-swap code at runtime, allowing software to change its design to optimally match its environment, and deriving higher-performance version of a piece of code by capturing and analyzing function-call sequences.
(3) Heliophysics takes a giant step: Yesterday, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, launched in 2018, moved closer to the sun than any human-made object. Launched in 2018, the probe is designed to study solar winds, which influence communications and power grids on Earth, by flying within 3.8 million miles of the sun’s surface at a speed of 430,000 mph. Its carbon-composite heat shield can withstand temperatures up to 980C.
(4) Cartoon caption of the day: One alien to another, as they look over Planet Earth from their spaceship: "They’re fighting over which religion is the most peaceful!"
(5) Intel’s fall from grace (CACM, Jan. 2025): "In Aug. 2000, Intel briefly had a market value of $509 billion (more than $930 billion in 2024 dollars). It was the most valuable public company and the “platform leader” in the personal computer industry along with Microsoft. At the start of Dec. 2024, Intel’s value stood at $104 billion (after falling under $100 billion), far below Microsoft ($3.1 trillion) and Apple ($3.6 trillion). Nvidia ($3.4 trillion) became the new leader in semiconductors, rivaling Apple in market value. Intel also had fallen behind longtime rival AMD ($222 billion), Broadcom ($176 billion), Qualcomm ($174 billion), and ARM ($141 billion). Then we have Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., known as TSMC, valued at $958 billion."
(6) The Equal Rights Amendment may still be alive: Even though women were given the right to vote and an Equal Protection Clause was adopted in the 14th Amendment, the equality of men and women has never been explicitly acknowledged in the US Constitution or its Amendments. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), first proposed in 1923, is an amendment to the United States Constitution that guarantees equality of rights under the law for all persons regardless of sex. As of January 27, 2020, the ERA had satisfied the requirements of Article V of the Constitution for ratification (passage by 2/3 of each house of Congress and approval by 3/4 of the states). However, a technicality, a deadline set when the amendment first passed the Congress, is preventing its adoption. Some scholars believe that the deadline is meaningless or unconstitutional, because nowhere in the Constitution is any deadline mentioned for ratifying amendments. Democrats are urging Biden to pick up the phone and call the Archivists of the United States, urging her to enter the ERA in the books. This may result in legal challenges, but those can be dealt with, given that Repulicans likely won’t want to be seen as opposing equal rights for women.
2024/12/24 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] CACM cover story (see the next item below). [Center] Math puzzle: Find the side length x of the equilateral triangle. [Right] Victoria Hay's Slave Labor (see the last item below).
(2) Self-designing software: "Exploring ways to include a software system as an active member of its own design team, able to reason about its own design and to synthesize better variants of its own building blocks as it encounters different deployment conditions." The article’s key insights include the ability to hot-swap code at runtime, allowing software to change its design to optimally match its environment, and deriving higher-performance version of a piece of code by capturing and analyzing short traces of function-call sequences.
(3) Who owns AI’s output? Countries are scrambling to effectively legislate and regulate the ownership and usage of AI-produced works and ideas. A central question is whether AI’s output can be copyrighted. In the US, work produced solely by AI cannot be protected through copyright, but the verdict isn’t so clear for joint AI-human work. A related question is limits on the use of copyrighted material to train AI models. It is a complex domain full of intellectual and legal questions.
(4) Book review: Hay, Victoria, Slave Labor: The New Story of American Higher Education, 2014.
[My 4-star review of this book GoodReads]
[Note: For some reason, the book under review cannot be found via on-line search. It could be because it has been withdrawn due to some problems with its contents or lawsuits from the institutions named by the author.]
It is difficult for me to write this review, given that I am a faculty member at an elite research university which is guilty of some of the practices critized in this book. The author shares her experiences as an adjunct faculty member, temporary teaching staff that do not enjoy the benefits of tenure and are often forced to carry unreasonably high teaching loads to make ends meet. She calculated that accounting for the unpaid hours of lesson prep, grading homeworks/exams, and outside-of-class tasks like conferences with students and staff, her high educational level paid less per hour than minimum wage.
Hay explains the short- and long-term effects of replacing professors with part-timers and chronicles one adjunct's semester in America's largest community college district. I should mention that adjunct faculty aren’t universally unhappy. Some enjoy their work and have written rebuttals to the assertions made in this book. They point out that working as an adjunct faculty is a deliberate choice and comes with many rewards that make the low pay acceptable.
The trend of doing away with full-time professors and hiring contract adjuncts for a tiny fraction of the cost is spinning out of control. As tuition and other college costs continue to rise, students are left paying more and more for less and less in terms of quality teaching, advising, and other academic services. According to Hay, some 80% of college instructors aren’t professors at all, but underpaid, often underqualified, adjuncts. Adjunct faculty are essentially gig workers who enjoy no support infrastructure (e.g., no TAs or grading help), no benefits, and no representation.
Another aspect of slave labor at universities and colleges, not addressed by this book, is that of graduate students, whose working conditions are sometimes compared to sweat shops. Because graduate students are being trained to pursue prestigious high-paying careers, they often do not complain, assuming that the low pay and difficult working conditions in grad school will be more than made up for in future. There is, however, mounting evidence that the high-paying careers may not materialize and, upon graduation, they may end up working as adjunct faculty.
Some of these dilemmas are discussed in the book Is a PhD for Me? whose publisher’s blurb states: "The experience can be formative, uplifting, fulfilling, and inspiring. It is also often intense, frustrating, demoralizing and at times even infuriating." Among the latter book’s recommendations, we find: "Never assume you’ll be able to get a job in university or community-college teaching. To the contrary: assume that at best you’ll spend several years as a grossly underpaid part-time adjunct, that you’ll be outlandishly lucky to nail a full-time position, and if you do, it probably will be in Podunk, South Dakota."
2024/12/23 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzles: Find the area of the brown triangle within the regular hexagon. [Center] Recurring headlines in the 45-year history of the Islamic Republic of Iran. [Right] France Winddance Twine's Geek Girls (see the last item below).
(2) An award-worthy Iranian film: “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” is now showing at Santa Barbara’s Riviera Theater, through Thursday, 12/26, with show times at 12:30, 4:00, and 7:30 PM. It is short-listed for a foreign-film Academy Award. The director has fled Iran, after filming it in secret.
(3) Who are some economists who support Trump’s tax plan? Lots of economists. Really great economists. Some of the best economists on the planet. They love it. Love it. They’re constantly saying, “oh Mr. President you understand the economy so well! You should have been an economist!” That’s what they say. Did you know that? A lot of people don’t know that. But I have a list of those economists and it’s a very long list. A list with some amazing names. You will be shocked when you see those names. And we’ll be releasing that list in two weeks. [From Quora Digest]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Maybe Trump was right. Immigrants do take Americans' jobs away. Look no further than President Musk!
- Vice President Trump: Nickname given to Trump in view of Elon Musk having taken over the presidency.
- Largest nth power that has n digits in its decimal representation: 9^21 = 109,418,989,131,512,359,209
- How pizza was named (humor): A pie of radius z and thickness a has volume pi(z^2)a = pizza.
(5) Book review: Twine, France Winddance, Geek Girls: Inequality and Opportunity in Silicon Valley, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by Machelle Williams, Tantor Audio, 2022.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The book’s author, France Winddance Twine, is my UCSB colleague in the Sociology Department. She describes her research as spanning “Gender, Inequality, Intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, Feminist Science and Technology Studies, Sociology of Race, Racism & Anti-Racism, Work and Organizations, Visual Sociology.”
Being a computer “geek” is still perceived to be a masculine occupation. This is why the high-tech industry is dominated by men. Ironically, in the early years of digital computing, many women participated and flourished in the fields of programming and hardware maintenance. Then, the tasks were elevated from clerical to high-paying and technical, and the men rushed in to take over. I have written about the status of women in technology in a conference paper entitled "Women in Science and Engineering: A Tale of Two Countries."
Over the past decade, the growing number of employment discrimination lawsuits has called attention to tech world’s persistent pattern of gender discrimination. To the average observer, reasons for discriminatory policies in the tech world is veiled in secrecy. Twine lifts this veil to provide firsthand accounts of inequality and opportunity in the tech ecosystem. She collected data for her study from about 100 interviews with male and female technology workers of diverse racial, ethnic, and educational backgrounds who are currently employed at tech firms such as Apple, Facebook, Google, and Twitter, and at various start-ups in the San Francisco Bay area.
Twine shows how the tech industry remains rigged against women, and especially Black, Latinx, and Native American women from working-class backgrounds. Problem areas span the entirety of the recruiting, hiring, training, mentoring, and promotion processes. Much of hiring occurs through connection to those already employed, creating a barrier to entry that amounts to segregation by academic prestige hierarchies. Those belonging to the dominant ethnic group in the industry reap the benefits and prosper, with others left out and even actively pushed out, regardless of their knowledge and skill levels.
The rhetoric of diversity and opposition to discrimination in the workplace is embraced by tech firms, mainly because it’s good PR, but hiring practices that reinforce the statue quo tell a different story. Twine offers suggestions on how the tech industry can address ongoing racial and gender disparities, create more transparency, and empower women from underrepresented groups, who are currently denied opportunities.
2024/12/22 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Santa Barbara public library: When I visited the library last Friday, I was pleasantly surprised by the beautifully redone entry plaza and the renovated historic door, not used as a real door, because it’s a valuable historic artifact. [Center] Saturday evening at Toranj Restaurant, Westwood, Los Angeles, four college buddies had a mini-reunion. [Right] Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (see the last item below).
(2) Islamic Mothers’ Day: Iranian mullahs celebrate Mothers’ Day on the 20th of Jumada al-Thani (which, in 2024, falls on Sunday, December 22). This is the birth anniversary of Fatima, the daughter of prophet Muhammad, according to the Islamic calendar.
Mother's Day was first established in Iran in 1960 during the Pahlavi era. It was celebrated on December 16, commemorating the establishment of the Institute for Women Protection.
I, for one, do not want to celebrate an Arab woman’s birthday when there are so many accomplished and brave Iranian women to honor. Let’s stick to the unifying international version on the second Sunday of May. In 2025, Mothers’ Day will be on May 11.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Nobel Laureates discuss the significance of the 2024 prizes in natural sciences and economics.
- Elon Musk’s younger brother, Kimbal, who is revolutionizing the food industry, may be richer than him.
- Facebook memory from Dec. 22, 2019: Selected verses from a Mowlavi (Rumi) poem.
- Facebook memory from Dec. 22, 2014: Khamenei, on women’s equal participation in society.
(4) Book review: Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, U. Chicago Press, 1962; 2nd enlarged ed., 1970; 50th anniversary ed., 2012.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This historically-significant book pulls you in from its very first sentence: "History, if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed." Later in his career, physicist Thomas Kuhn [1922-1996] studied the history and philosophy of science. His main argument in this book, his second, is that scientific activity unfolds according to a repeating pattern, which we can discern by studying its history.
An avid follower of the works of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget about the stages of cognitive development in children, Kuhn saw similar developmental stages in the sciences: Maturation through forming a paradigm, guiding principles on which most members of the pertinent community agree, followed by a period of "normal science," during which researchers articulate what the paradigm might imply for specific situations. As more work is done, anomalies that cannot be assimilated to the paradigm arise and accumulate, leading to a state of crisis, which can be resolved only with a revolution. The revolution gives birth to a new paradigm that can address the anomalies. And the cycle repeats.
A radical thrust of Kuhn's analysis is that science does not move continuously toward a truer representation of the world, but simply moves away from previous representations, in the process discarding whole sets of irrelevant questions and answers. In the closing pages of his original edition, Kuhn used Darwinian natural selection as a metaphor: Scientific knowledge does change over time, but it does not necessarily march towards an ultimate goal.
The chapter titles, listed below from the book's 50th anniversary edition, provide a good picture of the framework and coverage.
- Introductory essay by Ian Hacking
- Introduction: A role for history
- The route to normal science
- The nature of normal science
- Normal science as puzzle solving
- The priority of paradigms
- Anomaly and the emergence of scientific discoveries
- Crisis and the emergence of scientific theories
- The response to crisis
- The nature and necessity of scientific revolutions
- Revolutions and changes of world view
- The invisibility of revolutions
- Progress through revolutions
- Postscript—1969
2024/12/21 (Saturday): Offering 3 book reviews to help clear my backlog of reviews before 2025.
(1) Book review: Hessel, Shalva, Passion Undercover in Tehran: One Woman's True Story of Espionage, Passion and Deception in the Heart of Iran, unabridged 14-hour audiobook, read by Lauren Garvin, eBookPro, 2024. [My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book is one of a burgeoning collection of books about Israeli undercover operations and espionage in Iran, with a few such books already turned into movies or TV series. The Israeli penetration in the upper echelons of Iranian government is so extensive that a number of officials have been dismissed, having been accused of acting as Israeli spies or inadvertently influenced by spy networks.
The story’s protagonist, Sally, an undercover Israeli agent posing as a businesswoman and tasked with infiltrating the highest levels of the Iranian government, rises in the ranks to gain the trust of some of the world’s notorious terrorists. She did not choose the life of covert espionage; it was forced upon her when she discovered her husband, pretending to be a simple embassy attache, was, in fact, a top-secret spy for the Israeli Mossad.
The story begins with Sally and her husband boarding a plane en route to a secret mission. The mission is cancelled due to some complications, landing the couple in Athens, where they are nearly compromised. Sally undergoes extensive training in preparation for her next major assignment, eventually traveling to Iran after a stay in Qatar.
The part of the narrative about Sally’s mission in Tehran, which took only a few weeks and had to be terminated when an IRGC Colonel began showing romantic interest in the pretend businesswoman, is a small part of the book, but, hey, spy stories about Iran sell; hence, the title. The bulk of this autobiographical book is based on events in Israel, Europe, and the US.
Regardless of how she got into the spying line of work, Sally’s loyalty to her country never wavers, even when she realizes she may be in over her head in this complicated world of politics, corruption, and suspicion. The book’s plot is based on a true story of a woman-turned-spy whose life takes a sharp turn in the wake of tragedy. We see the portrait of a strong woman forging her own destiny amid secret missions, passionate romantic encounters, and non-stop danger.
The narrative ends with the author revealing that the book’s end is not the end of the story. Her life’s story which began with a previous book, Married to the Mossad, will likely continue in forthcoming books.
(2) Book review: Zarrinkoub, Abdolhossein, Two Centuries of Silence (Do Qarn Sokut), 1951, 2nd ed. 1957. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
[This review is based on the original Persian edition of the book, 1951; 2nd ed. 1957.]
Zarrinkoub, a prominent scholar of Iran's culture, history, and literature, presents an account of the events and circumstances of the first two centuries of the Iranian history following the Arab conquest of Iran in the 7th century AD until the rise of the Tahirid Dynasty, a Muslim dynasty of native Iranian origin.
Zarrinkoub begins with an intriguing question that has puzzled many: How was a world civilization with significant achievements in art and architecture, religion and law, agriculture and engineering, and civil and military organization, overthrown by a nomadic people with limited literacy and few accomplishments? Zarrinkoub discusses how the Arab/Islamic conquest was followed by nearly 200 years of social, cultural, and political silence of native Persians, allowing the Arabs to exert an outsize influence on the Persian language and culture and fully replacing Zoroastrianism with Islam. Rather then openly opposing the Arabs, Persians took their identity underground, until conditions became ripe for the flourishing of the Persian language and culture.
In the preface to the second-edition of his book, published in 1957, Zarrinkoub sounds contrite: “I picked up my pen and crossed out what was dubious, dark, and incorrect in the first edition. Many such instances were occasions that in the past—either due to immaturity or by prejudice—I had been unable to rightly acknowledge the faults, inequities, and defeats of Iran. ... Now, did I do my duty properly in this revision? I do not know, and I am still of the opinion that the moment a history writer chooses a topic, he has strayed from neutrality."
The book became embroiled in an on-going dispute between those wishing to restore “pure” Islam in Iran and secularists who want to lessen the authority and power of the clergy. Many in the latter group have shaped a fashion of proclaiming Persian nationality with Zoroastrian imagery. Zarrinkoub’s revisionist history did not officially gain a certificate of publication until 1999, when the Iranian publisher (Sokhan) included in a preface excerpts from a book that refutes Zarrinkoub (“Khadamat-e Motaqabel-e Iran va Islam,” or “The Reciprocal Services of Islam and Iran”). The author of the refutation, the noted religious scholar Morteza Motahhari, asks: How could Zarrinkoub call the period silent? After all, the Persians did gain a powerful new language, full of poetry, the medium of the clear and simple message God gave His Prophet. Rather than an age of silence it was a time of awakening to the sound of God’s very voice.
There are two English translations of this book: Avid Kamgar’s 2016 version (Oughten House Publications) and Paul Sprachman’s 2017 edition, which includes an extensive introductory essay, elaborating on how Zarrinkoub was compelled to change his views on Iranian history after the 1979 Revolution.
(3) Book review: Van Reybrouck, David, Against Elections: The Case for Democracy, Random House, 2016.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Conducting free and fair elections to pick our representatives & leaders is the current gold standard for democratic government. Unfortunately, these representatives & leaders come from a relatively small group of citizens (predominantly, highly-educated and wealthy), thus making the government not quite “by the people.”
Sortition-based democracy gives the reigns of power to a randomly-chosen group of citizens, typically serving for only one year. This kind of selection is what we do for juries, which, according to Alexis de Tocqueville, is the most enviable part of American system of government. One may worry about non-specialists making important governmental decisions, but the jury will have specialists and lobbyists at its disposal to help it see the various viewpoints.
This 10-minute video describes the basics of sortition-based democracy.
The book’s table of contents follows.
Introduction: The Crisis of Democracy (by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan)
I Symptoms
- Enthusiasm and mistrust: The paradox of democracy
- Crisis of legitimacy: Support is crumbling
- Crisis of efficiency: Declining vigour
II Diagnoses
- It's the fault of politicians: The diagnosis of populism
- It's the fault of democracy: The diagnosis of the technocracy
- It's the fault of representative democracy: The diagnosis of direct democracy
- It's the fault of electoral-representative democracy: A new diagnosis
III Pathogenesis
- A democratic procedure: Drawing lots (antiquity and Renaissance)
- An aristocratic procedure: Elections (18th century)
- The democratisation of elections: A bogus process (19th & 20th centuries)
IV Remedies
- The revival of sortition: Deliberative democracy (late 20th century)
- Democratic innovation in practice: An international quest (2004-2013)
- Democratic innovation in the future: Allotted assemblies
- Blueprint for a democracy based on sortition
- Timely appeal for a bi-representative system
Conclusion
2024/12/20 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Happy Yalda night (see the last item below). [Center] Our family's Yalda Night celebration: Hope the dawn’s light at the end of this longest night of the year raises hopes of the disappearance of the forces of darkness in the US, Iran, and the rest of the world. [Right] UC Santa Barbara has become a major hub for quantum technology research, in part due to a 2019 major research grant to establish the nation’s first quantum foundry.
(2) Why probability probably doesn’t exist, but it is useful to act like it does: In an essay just published in the journal Nature, David Spiegelhalter maintains that one source of our difficulties with the notion of probability is that we use it in two distinct ways: As the likelihood of an event and as the extent of our ignorance. For example, if a friend tosses a coin and asks you for the chance of it landing tails, with the assumption that he is using a regular fair coin, you might answer fifty-fifty. Then, when the coin lands, your friend covers it and asks you about your probability that it landed tails. There is no randomness in this second question, as the coin has already landed. Your probability in this second context measures the extent of your ignorance about the state of the coin. Notice the use of "your probability" rather than "the probability." I have previously read and reviewed on GoodReads the book Bernoulli’s Fallacy, which contains a much more extensive discussion of these ideas.
(3) EV energy use estimate: The average US vehicle is driven 15,000 miles per year. A typical EV uses 0.3 kWh per mile and the average price of electricity is $0.15/kWh.
(15,000/12) x 0.3 x $0.15 = $56/month.
For comparison, the average ICE gets 25 mpg and gasoline is averaging $3.27/gallon currently. That gives $163/month, or almost three times as much.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Iranian cities turn into gas chambers: Air pollution is now worst in the world.
- Hackers stole $2.2 billion from cryptocurrency platforms this year, 61% of it attributed to North Koreans.
- The dawn of a new Gilded Age: Wealth is replacing expertise and experience.
- IranWire has a long-running series on influential Iranian women: Highly recommended.
(5) A billionaire immigrant, whose tech companies rely on skilled immigrant workers, and another billionaire with immigrant current and ex-wives, are anti-immigration.
(6) When was the last time you heard any good news from Congress? Averting government shutdown, triggered by an unelected person who pulls Trump’s strings, doesn’t count.
(7) The White House honors Hector D. Abruna (Cornell U.), Paul Alivisatos (U. Chicago), and John H. Nuckolls (LLNL) with the Enrico Fermi Presidential Award. This prestigious award, established in 1956, recognizes significant contributions to science and technology.
(8) The Persian festival of Yalda: The [Winter Solstice] festival is celebrated in Iran and the regions of greater Iran, including Azerbaijan, Iraqi Kurdistan, Balochi areas, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The longest and darkest night of the year is a time when friends and family gather together to eat, drink and read poetry (especially Hafez and Shahnameh) until well after midnight. Fruits and nuts are eaten and pomegranates and watermelons are particularly significant. The red color in these fruits symbolizes the crimson hues of dawn and the glow of life. The poems of Divan-e Hafez, which can be found in the bookcases of most Iranian families, are read or recited on various occasions such as this festival and Nowruz. [Description from Wikipedia]
2024/12/19 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] One of my “VOTE” T-shirts that help me convey the importance of voting to my students and others. [Center] Cartoon of the day: Breathing problems make Santa regret giving coal to naughty kids. [Right] Jean-Paul Sartre's autobiography, The Words (see the last item below).
(2) Blame Joe for Kamala’s loss: This verdict may seem too harsh for a fundamentally decent man, but had Biden honored his promise to be a one-term transition president, Harris would have had a longer runway to rebrand herself and to gain trust by going through a rigorous primary process.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Biden’s approval rating continues to tank and with it the political fortunes of many Democrats.
- Among US adults, some 40% of cigarettes are smoked by people with behavioral health conditions.
- Science contradicts the rule "I before E except after C."
- In the last century, Roger Penrose is second only to Einstein in deepening our understanding of gravity.
(4) Book review: Sartre, Jean-Paul (translated by B. Frechtman), Let Mots (The Words), George Braziller, 1964.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Ever since he was a child, Jean-Paul Sartre [1905-1980] was fascinated with writing. He would settle down at his writing desk, without doing anything, just so that everyone nearby could marvel at him and his love for writing. Later, Sartre's natural fascination with writing developed into something much more profound because of his grandfather's reaction to this behavior. He let the young Sartre know that the life of a writer was incredibly difficult, deepening Sartre's resolve to truly dedicate himself to writing. A conversation with the Holy Ghost in a vision led him to the belief that he had been chosen and that he had no choice but to accept his literary vocation.
Beginning with his earliest memories at age 4, Sartre describes his rather protected life as a child. At school, he discovered the joys of friendship and began relating to children his own age, rather than being surrounded by the adults that had been his companions up to that point.
Existentialism was the philosophy that defined all of Sartre's literary output. He defined this philosophy after the end of World War II and watched it become quite fashionable. Sartre believed that individuals construct their own identities by their actions and that there is no such thing as an essence that predetermines a person's character. Existentialism permeates Sartre's literary work, given his belief that producing a work of literature is an action and a way for the writer to engage with the surrounding world. The author is responsible for the subject addressed, the target audience chosen, and the written content.
This autobiography allowed Sartre to throw away his mask, admit to being born into a middle-class family, and denounce the pretenses he indulged in. This level of honesty, that is, speaking openly about pretenses and facades, demanded that the autobiography be his last work, so Sartre never published any literary work afterwards. It is also quite interesting that Sartre ended his autobiography's narrative at the age 11, when he began secondary school.
Sartre's other works include:
Nausea (novel, 1938);
Being and Nothingness (1943);
No Exit (play, 1944);
The Age of Reason (1945);
Existentialism and Humanism (1946);
Anti-Semite and Jew (1946);
What Is Literature? (1947);
Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960).
2024/12/18 (Wednesday): Offering 3 book reviews to help clear my backlog of reviews before 2025.
(1) Book review: Hand, David J., Measurement: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford U. Press, 2016.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Let me begin my review of this wonderful book in Oxford’s "Very Short Introduction" series by presenting the book’s table of contents:
1. A brief history
2. What is measurement?
3. Measurement in the physical sciences and engineering
4. Measurement in the life sciences, medicine, and health
5. Measurement in the behavioral sciences
6. Measurement in the social sciences, economics, business, and public policy
7. Measurement and understanding
The history of measurement goes as far back as human history. Early units of measurement were not precise, given that they were based on human anatomy or physical distances that assumed the Earth to be a perfect sphere. Units were different in different communities and even had different names. Herbert Arthur Klein remarked that "a given unit of length recognised in Paris, for example, was about 4 percent longer than that in Bordeaux, 2 percent longer than that in Marseilles, and 2 percent shorter than that in Lille." Writing in 1850, J. H. Alexander mentioned 110 separate values for the ell in Europe. For a long time, there was no standard unit for volume, say, with the volumes of coal, grain, and wine measured differently. Advocating for standard units of measurement, the French philosopher and mathematician Condorcet wrote: "The uniformity of weights and measures cannot displease anyone but those lawyers who fear a diminution in the number of trials, and those merchants who fear anything that renders the operations of commerce easy and simple."
A proposal for a unified system of physical measurements was made by Gabril Mouton, who, in 1670, suggested that France's many different units should be replaced by a decimal system, with increasing units being defined in multiples of ten. It took 100 years before such a system was adopted for some French units and much longer before the system was adopted more widely around the world. SI units were introduced at the 11th General Conference for Weights and Measures in 1960.
As an engineer/scientist, I am quite familiar with SI units used in physical sciences (Chapter 3), although I was unaware of the long preceding history. More interesting for me were ideas in Chapters 4-6 about measurements in life sciences (e.g., medical tests), behavioral sciences (e.g., rating intelligence), and social sciences (e.g., economic indicators). The final Chapter 7, "Measurement and understanding," introduces us to the notions of inaccuracy and bias. The former is handled by error bounds and the latter by calibration.
(2) Book review: Schaake, Marietje, The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley, Princeton University Press, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Under the cover of “innovation,” protecting proprietary technology, and “free” services, big tech is amassing so much power that it is routinely surveilling us for economic gains, successfully evades regulation, and takes over certain governmental functions. The same facial-recognition technology supplied to law-enforcement agencies is used by the big-tech providers for their own commercial surveillance and ad-targeting to you and your on-line friends. Digital surveillance tools are sold to anyone who can afford them, which includes autocrats in many countries.
Marietje Schaake, a Dutch politician who served as Member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands and is now international director of policy at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center, offers a behind-the-scenes account of how technology companies crept into nearly every corner of our lives and our governments, draining our wallets and depriving us of a private and dignified life, with unsurveilled leisure time. She takes us beyond the headlines to high-stakes meetings with human rights defenders, business leaders, computer scientists, and politicians to show how technologies, including social media and artificial intelligence, have gone from being heralded as utopian to undermining the pillars of our democratic institutions.
Reversing this existential power imbalance and preventing the unchecked power of companies from destabilizing governance requires innovative solutions to empower elected officials and citizens alike. Democratic leaders can and must resist the influence of corporate lobbying and reinvent themselves as dynamic, flexible guardians of our digital world.
(3) Book review: Catling, David C., Astrobiology: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford U. Press, 2013.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This volume is another wonderful addition to hundreds of titles in Oxford's "Very Short Introduction" series, my go-to source for learning about new topics and to brush up, or bring myself up-to-date, on already studied topics.
The question of whether we are alone in the universe has occupied us humans for a very long time. The ancient Greeks had a haunch that Earth wasn't the only cradle for life, but lacked the technology to test their beliefs. The near-simultaneous discoveries of bacterial remains in a Martian meteorite and the first planets orbiting other stars brought the question of the existence of life beyond our planet to the scientific forefront.
Now, the new field of Astrobiology harnesses the required technological and scientific capability to seriously address this ancient and fundamental question. The prefix "astro" means "related to outer space," so astrobiology is the study of life in the universe. This precious little book (pocket size, 142 pages) covers the basics of astrobiology in eight chapters averaging 16 pages each.
1. What is astrobiology?
2. From stardust to planets, the abodes for life
3. Origins of life and environment
4. From slime to the subline
5. Life: a genome's way of making more and fitter genomes
6. Life in the Solar System
7. Far-off worlds, distant suns
8. Controversies and prospects
I end my review by quoting the book's final paragraph (p. 129): "When astrobiology came to fore as a discipline in the 1990s, some questioned its future and wondered if it might be a fad that fades, perhaps because of disappointment in not quickly finding extraterrestrial life or a failure to answer questions about life's origin. However, the discovery of Earth-sized exoplanets in habitable zones will ensure that the possibility of life elsewhere becomes more relevant than ever. Astrobiology is here to stay."
2024/12/17 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Over the past week, Iran’s Islamic regime has sentenced 14 Baha’i women to a total of 73 years in prison. [Right] On Taiwan’s national identity: This chart shows how the Taiwanese view themselves. The chart extends only to 2018, but I have added the results from a 2023 Pew Research Center survey on its right margin, indicating that 2/3 consider themselves primarily Taiwanese, 28% view themselves as both Taiwanese and Chinese, and only 3% consider themselves primarily Chinese. Interestingly, women are more likely to view themselves as primarily Taiwanese.
(2) SpaceX restricts Elon Musk’s access to sensitive national security programs due to concerns about his contacts with foreign nationals and drug use. [Wall Street Journal]
(3) Patriarchy rears its ugly head again: Many Iranians of all political persuasions, even some women, refer to #ParastooAhmadi with terms implying that she was naked during her virtual concert, whereas she was wearing a top that would be considered normal almost anywhere in the civilized world. So the curtailment of Iranian women’s social and professional lives isn’t merely a religious verdict, but a social construct deeply rooted in a patriarchal culture. #WomanLifeFreedom
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Ukraine assassinates Gen. Igor Kirillov, chief of Russia’s radioactive, chemical & biological warfare. [NYT]
- Turkey’s foreign minister warns Ayatollah Khamenei to heed the lessons of Bashar Assad’s fate.
- A Syrian man pretending to be a freed prisoner was actually an intelligence officer and possibly a torturer.
- Donald Trump had his first press conference since winning the election: Let the fact-checking begin!
- Rules of Thumb for Writing Research Papers: Table in a 2002 article by Tomislav Hengi & Michael Gould.
- The popular "Happy Birthday" song played in the styles of famous classical composers.
(5) Double-ballot voting: I learned from the research papers of my students in the graduate seminar ECE 594BB that Germany, South Korea, and Taiwan, to name three countries, use a voting system with two ballots. One ballot pertains to the election of a single member from the voter’s local district, as we do in the US. The second ballot allows a voter to vote for a party, with the parties then getting seats in a proportional allocation scheme. A certain fraction of representatives are chosen based on the first ballot and the remainder based on the second ballot. Single-member districts tend to reward large, powerful parties, so the second ballot is a way of giving smaller parties a chance to gain some representation. Ironically, two of the three countries named above experienced serious governance problems over the recent weeks.
(6) Tarrifs imposed on one country will quickly move that country’s exporters to nearby countries, as has happened between China and Vietnam, which is booming with export business. Vietnam is now third in exports to the US, after China and Mexico. [NYT]
2024/12/16 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Persian cuisine: I have a small 2.5-cup rice cooker which can make tah-dig (crispy rice, at the bottom of the pot). Today, I decided to put just one cup of rice in it to get pure crispy rice, with no regular rice. It worked great, and we had it a-la Persian restaurant appetizers with some leftover stews. [Center] Math puzzle: A square is divided into 4 regions of area 9. What is the length of the blue line segment? [Right] The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Essentials (see the last item below).
(2) Gorilla glass: Steve Jobs’ insistence on having a glass rather than plastic screen for the original iPhone led Corning to develop a type of glass that has been used on electronic gadgets and computer screens ever since. From the viewpoint of its widespread use and impact on our lives, gorilla glass is perhaps the most-important material ever made. [22-minute video]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The shooter at a Christian school in Wisconsin was a 15-year-old girl. [Washington Post]
- A tour of Bashar Assad’s palace in Syria: His country was bankrupt, but he lived in the lap of luxury.
- “Nefrin”: Artoush performs his hit from 60 years ago, at age 80. Still sounds great!
- I am now officially done with the fall quarter, having submitted my course grades today.
(4) Book review: Reichenberg, Lourie W., DSM-5 Essentials: The Savvy Clinician's Guide to the Changes in Criteria, Wiley, 2014.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is the handbook used by healthcare professionals in the US and much of the world as the authoritative guide to the diagnosis of mental disorders. DSM contains descriptions, symptoms and other criteria for diagnosing mental disorders. A new edition of DSM is typically issued every 10-15 years, with DSM-5 superseding DSM-IV in 2013. Given significant advances in mental healthcare over the past decade, the 6th edition should appear very soon.
The book under review is intended to facilitate the transition from DSM-IV to DSM-5 by presenting, in an organized and concise manner, the changes from the old to the new edition, to provide background material and limited treatment recommendations for the new disorders making their debut in DSM-5, and to relate the topics and diagnoses to the codes in ICD-9 and ICD-10 (International Classification of Disorders). The book should thus be viewed as a supplement to DSM-5, rather than its "Cliff Notes" version.
This isn't a book that one would read from cover to cover. The best approach to the perusal of such a handbook is to absorb the overall structure, make note of chapters and sections, and develop a big-picture of its contents. Here are the 20 chapter titles as an aid to visualizing the book's structure and scope. For chapter titles that were unfamiliar to me, I have provided a brief description in parentheses.
1. Neurodevelopmental Disorders
2. Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders
3. Bipolar and Related Disorders
4. Depressive Disorders
5. Anxiety Disorders
6. Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders
7. Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders
8. Dissociative Disorders (marked by depersonalization, derealization, amnesia, and other dissociative symptoms, which are shared with Chapter 7 disorders)
9. Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders (characterized by thoughts, feelings, and behaviors related to somatic symptoms)
10. Feeding and Eating Disorders
11. Elimination Disorders (fecal and urinary incontinence)
12. Sleep-Wake Disorders
13. Sexual Dysfunctions
14. Gender Dysphoria (marked incongruence between experienced or expressed gender and the one assigned at birth)
15. Disruptive, Impulse-Control, and Conduct Disorders
16. Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders
17. Neurocognitive Disorders
18. Personality Disorders
19. Medication-Induced Movement Disorders and Other Adverse Effects of Medication
20. Other Condition that May Be a Focus of Clinical Attention
2024/12/14 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] A pioneer and a modern embodiment of Iranian women singers, representing talent and courage. #WomanLifeFreedom [Top center] Math puzzle: Find the side length a of the square. Please note that the diagram isn’t to scale. [Top right] A group of 113 poets, including Pulitzer winners, best sellers and poet laureates, took inspiration from Swift’s music: They each picked one of her tracks and wrote an original poem in response for the collection “Invisible Strings.” [Middle & Bottom rows] Today's visit to Ronald Reagan Presidential Library to see the Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit (see the next item below).
(2) Visiting the Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library: Besides the scrolls and accompanying narratives, which I photographed in two batches of four, there were many artifacts and historical documents on display. At the regular part of the Museum, we got to see Air Force 1, Marine 1, a presidential motorcade, a replica of the Oval Office, a hologram presentation by Reagan, and many memoribilia from Reagan's terms as Governor or California and as US President.
(3) Science magazine picks the breakthroughs of the year for 2024: The following articles appear in a special section of the December 13, 2024, issue.
- Mantle waves sculpt the continents
- Multicellularity came early for ancient eukaryotes
- A new type of magnetism emerges
- Starship sticks the landing
- Organelle discovery adds an evolutionary twist
- RNA-based pesticides enter the field
- JWST probes the cosmic dawn
- Ancient DNA reveals family ties
- Unleashing immune cells on autoimmune disease
(4) Texas wants professors to have no role in devising curricula: Of course! A state panel can do a much better job than subject-area experts. And for movies, producers and directors have too much power. Let’s have a state panel to decide on movie contents.
2024/12/13 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] My updated Web page for ECE 1A/AL (Foundations of Analog and Digital Circuits & Systems), winter 2025: The page contains a wealth of information for those interested, including lecture slides, lab descriptions, homework/exam samples, and more. [Right] My updated Web page for ECE 254B (Advanced Computer Architecture: Parallel Processing), winter 2025: The page contains a wealth of information for those interested, including lecture slides, lecture videos, and more.
(2) The two cultures meet again: In an influential public lecture delivered at U. Cambridge in 1959, British chemist and novelist C. P. Snow lamented what he perceived as a breakdown in communication between “the two cultures” of modern society, the sciences and the humanities, arguing that the resulting divide imperiled civilization’s progress. The latest attempt to heed this warning and heal the divide began this fall in Southern California, where more than 70 exhibitions probe terrain where “Art & Science Collide.” Organized by PST ART (previously Pacific Standard Time) and presented by Getty, the initiative includes offerings that explore everything from environmental justice to human-robot dynamics to remote sensing and surveillance.
(3) United Healthcare exec’s shooting heightens the debate over ghost guns (news headline): I hate to break it to you, but ghost guns or other types of guns aren’t the problem. The blame rests entirely on the American gun culture and its Wild-West vigilante mindset. This culture and mindset won’t go away by banning one gun type.
(4) A new vulnerability discovered: A security flaw in AMD computer processors identified by researchers at UK's U. Birmingham, Belgium's KU Leuven, and Germany's U. Luebeck allowed the bypassing of AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization technology, which safeguards data stored in shared cloud environments. The researchers used rogue memory modules, known as BadRAM, to trick the CPU into addressing non-existent memory regions, allowing CPU memory protections to be bypassed.
(5) Addressing interconnect challenges for enhanced computing performance: The continued shrinking of integrated circuits is shifting the limits of performance from the transistors themselves to the interconnections between them. Interconnect RC delay has emerged as a bottleneck for device performance. The search for new interconnect materials with low resistivity upon scaling and compatibility with the current CMOS fabrication process is urgent to slow the accelerating pace of RC delay in future electronics.
2024/12/12 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday: On the beach, in the pre-Islamic-Revolution Iran. [Top center] The wonderous glass-winged butterfly. [Top right] Yuval Noah Harari's Nexus (see the last item below). [Bottom row] Find the exact value of x (first two puzzles) and the radius of the smaller circle (the last puzzle).
(2) Iran’s delusional dictator is losing it: In a speech, Khamenei threatened the media to not cover negative stories (about Syria) that frighten and dishearten people. Doing so is a crime and will be confronted as such.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Facebook memory from Dec. 11, 2020: On decluttering your e-mail inbox.
- Facebook memory from Dec. 11, 2015: Electronic menorah assembled from a kit.
- Facebook memory from Dec. 12, 2013: Embarrassing things we all do, and why.
(4) Book review: Harari, Yuval Noah, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, unabridged 17-hour audiobook, read by Vidish Athavale, Random House Audio, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book stands head and shoulder above other books on the AI explosion in terms of accessibility and breadth. Historian Yuval Noah Harari, author of the highly-successful Sapiens and Homo Deus, tells us that we humans are in an existential crisis, despite our seemingly enormous accumulated power, our supposedly high intelligence, and a wealth of mind-boggling discoveries. Aspects of this crisis include an impending ecological collapse, a tsunami of misinformation, and the real possibility that a new AI-backed information network will annihilate us.
Harari’s focus in this book is on the central role of information networks in human societies, taking us from the Stone Age through the Bible, early modern witch-hunts, Stalinism, Nazism, to the recent resurgence of populism. Exploring how different societies and political systems have wielded information to achieve their goals, for good and ill, Harari asks us to consider the complex relationship between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power. He tells us that information is not the raw material of truth, nor is it a mere weapon. There is a hopeful middle ground between these extremes.
Information is often wrong, and more information does not necessarily improve matters. “What information does is to create new realities by tying together disparate things. … [We must realize that] errors, lies, fantasies, and fictions are information, too.” It is, therefore, essential that institutions contain self-correcting mechanisms. The US Constitution allows amendments to fix problems, whereas a holy book is deemed an infallible basis for maintaining an eternal order. The tension between truth-seeking and maintenance of order has existed throughout the human history.
According to Harari, democracy isn’t synonymous with majority rule, rather it guarantees everyone liberties that even the majority cannot take away, a notion that seems to have fallen out of favor in today’s world. Democracy is a system of government with distributed decision-making and self-correction mechanisms. Dictatorships are centralized and lack self-correction. Often a dictator rises to power through a democratic process but then systematically eliminates the self-correction mechanisms, until nothing is left to detect and point out errors.
Adding to our already enormous challenges is the ascendance of AI and emerging non-carbon life forms. Silicon-based networks are unlike the printing press, the radio, and other inventions, because they can make decisions and create ideas by themselves. AI’s ability to gather and analyze massive amounts of information and engage in total surveillance “will not necessarily be either bad or good. All we know for sure is that it will be alien and it will be fallible.”
2024/12/11 (Wednesday): Offering 3 book reviews to help clear my backlog of reviews before 2025.
(1) Book review: Cooper, William and Michael McKinley, A Quiet Life, Arcade, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Michael Housen and Pam, a beautiful woman born in Los Angeles to Iranian parents, are living a quiet life, full of love and mutual admiration, a calm that turns into turmoil on the first page of the novel. The entire story unfolds over a period of two months, June 20 to August 21, during the tenure of the Trump-like 48th US President.
The narrative begins on the wee hours of one morning, when sleepless Michael is fighting the urge to take some of his wife’s sleeping pills, eventually resisting the temptation, because the prospects of being sedated the next day, perhaps the most important day of his life, didn’t appeal to him. He had just learned that his company’s computer system had been hacked, with national security consequences, and he was being investigated as a suspect, given that the unauthorized access had been gained through his computer, after he was fooled by a malicious e-mail. From there, the Iranian cyber-army had hacked a large collection of connected sites, including that of the US Treasury Department, a customer of his company’s security services.
Following cyber-attacks on the US electricity grid, Iran had conducted a major terror-bombing campaign in multiple American cities, as an aerial raid was being waged on Tehran and other Iranian cities by the US and Israel. The unwitting click that started the entire process and gave a belligerent President Davis a pretext for war against Iran turned Michael and Pam into enemies of the state and landed them in private prisons owned by the multibillionaire president. The couple eventually found a set of extraordinary partners that helped them clear their names and stop the global conflict.
The novel is a page-turner. Readers with knowledge of computer systems, cybersecurity in particular, will find it particularly appealing, although it can also form compelling reading for novices being instructed about cybersecurity.
(2) Book review: Levitsky, Steven and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die, unabridged 8-hour audiobook, read by Fred Sanders, Random House Audio, 2018.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book was written and published during Donald Trump's 2017-2020 presidency. With a second Trump presidency looming, it is necessary for us to go back and heed the warning signs that the authors, both Harvard political scientists, have raised.
The authors contend that military coups and revolutions, which used to be the main routes for dictators coming to power, are no longer prevalent. Today’s dictators assume power with support from voters and then attack the institutions that helped them take charge. The book includes case studies from many different countries, including the US, which is the primary subject of the second half of the book, with a few references to other countries for comparison.
Before dying, democracies get sick by the erosion of mutual toleration and respect among political opponents. Donald Trump’s presidency raised a question that we never thought we’d be asking: Is our democracy in danger? The authors, who have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, maintain that modern dictators kill democracy by a slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and by eroding long-standing political norms. The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one.
The last chapter, “saving democracy,” offers a pledge among several recommendations to save democracy: "We must be humble and bold. We must learn from other countries to see the warning signs. We must be aware of the fateful missteps that have wrecked other democracies. We must see how citizens have risen to meet the great democratic crisis of the past."
(3) Book review: Sarbakhshian, Hassan, Lior B. Sternfeld and Parvaneh Vahidmanesh, Jews of Iran: A Photographic Chronicle, Penn State U. Press, 2022.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This fairly short book consists of an introduction providing an overview of “Iranian Jews in the Twenty-First Century,” two sections containing photos and narratives on “Business and Everyday Life” and “Religious Life and Rituals,” and a concluding chapter.
The introduction contains notes written separately by two of the authors.
Lior Sternfeld tells us that Jews have lived in Iran since the Babylonian exile some 2700 years ago. Over the centuries, Jews were integrated into Iran’s Muslim-majority population and had fairly good social standing. The 1979 Islamic Revolution changed everything. Movies and books portray Iranian Jews as being trapped, with no way out. The revolutionaries’ promise of making Jews and other minorities full-fledged citizens never materialized. In fact, restrictions on the Jewish population drove them toward greater loyalty to Israel and to Zionist aspirations. Institutions and schools, that had been established by Iranian Jews before the Revolution to improve their social mobility, gradually disappeared.
Parvaneh Vahidmanesh tells us that few Jews remain in her city, Tabriz. There were an estimated 100,000 Jews in Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and the country had friendly relations with Israel, which maintained an embassy on Kakh Avenue in Tehran. The building was confiscated and given to Palestinians shortly after the Revolution. Holocaust deniers within the government and the designation of the last Friday of Ramadan as Quds Day, when marchers chant anti-Israeli slogans and burn the Israeli flag, made life more difficult for Iranian Jews, although they maintained some semblance of normal life, as evident from the pictorials.
2024/12/10 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] US deportations per year under the last four administrations. [Center] Happy International Human Rights Day!
[Right] Energy consumption of data centers compared with that of US states and world countries/regions.
(2) Multiple Lebanese leaders have been assassinated over the years on orders from Syria and/or Iran: Perhaps Lebanon can now experience a peaceful existence.
(3) The Mufti (Islamic leader) of Jerusalem during 1921-1937 was Haj Amin Hosseini: A staunch anti-Semite, he was in agreement with Hitler’s Final Solution, a codeword for the annihilation of Jews.
(4) Quote of the day: “Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.” ~ Aldous Huxley, British author [1894-1963]
(5) Why did Bashar al-Assad’s regime fall? The social and traditional media are full of "experts" explaining what happened; except that none of these so-called experts had said a word about the possibility of Assad’s regime collapsing before it actually did. As they say, hindsight is 20/20.
(6) Iranian mullahs are gloating in the aftermath of Assad’s fall. Some claim that he rejected Iran’s offer of help to eliminate the rebels. Others are praising the Supreme Leader’s "brilliant maneuver" of abandoning Syria to teach enemies a lesson about the importance of Iran’s role in the region.
(7) Parastoo is a singer who is not allowed to sing for her fellow-Iranians because she is a woman, so she arranged this virtual concert. [28-minute video]
(8) True or false? Under some circumstances, hot water freezes faster than cold water: This super-strange statement is actually true. In 1963, a Tanzanian schoolboy Erasto Bartholomeo Mpemba was doing a simple school physics experiment and discovered that hot water freezes faster than cold water. After much ridicule, he eventually met and convinced physicist Dr. Denis Osborne that his experiments were repeatable and together they wrote a paper about what came to be known as the “Mpemba Effect.” Even though the phenomenon has been confirmed, the actual reason is far from clear and there are at least ten competing explanations for it.
E. B. Mpemba and D. G. Osborne, “Cool?” Physics Education, Volume 4, Issue 3, 1969, pp. 172-175. [PDF]
2024/12/09 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] One reason people feel helpless in their fight against health insurance companies: Denial of service translates into fat checks for healthcare CEOs. [Top center] The next time Republicans talk about fiscal conservatism and controlling budget deficits, show them this ABC News chart: The slope of this curve represents budget deficits. It was low until 2000 under presidents from both parties, and it shot up under the last four presidents, two from each party. [Top right] Shameless: Trump reaches out to Dr. Jill Biden, a member of “the Biden Crime Family” which he plans to prosecute, during the Notre Dame de Paris reopening ceremony. [Bottom left] Saturday’s magical blue skies at Santa Barbara Harbor’s breakwater. [Bottom center] This plaque at the end of Santa Barbara Harbor’s breakwater commemorates the 34 souls who perished on board the diving boat MV Conception, as a fire engulfed them and escape became impossible due to a lack of safety provisions. [Bottom right] Jessi Gold's How Do You Feel? (see the last item below)
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Horror stories emerge from Bashar al-Assad's prisons: Rescuers dig deep to get to the torture chambers.
- Golden Globes 2025 nominations announced: Viola Davis to be honored with a Cecil B. DeMille Award.
- Jon Batiste finds the Blues in Beethoven. [43-minute podcast]
(3) Book review: Gold, Jessi, How Do You Feel? One Doctor's Search for Humanity in Medicine, unabridged 8-hour audiobook, read by Keylor Leigh, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I was lucky to attend a UCLA Semel Institute book talk by Dr. Gold on October, 17, 2024, and have incorporated my notes from that session in my review. This thought-provoking memoir, whose chapters alternate between patient stories and the doctor's reflections, follows a psychiatrist and four of her patients as they deal with mental and physical tolls of caring for others.
By weaving research with deeply personal stories and raw emotions, Dr. Gold demonstrates the remarkable capacity of us humans for connecting, learning, and growing. She reminds us that when caring for others, we should not forget to care for ourselves.
Dr. Gold began to examine healthcare systems through the eyes of some of her patients working in the healthcare industry. In discussing burnout, perfectionism, empathy, and the emotional burden of their lines of work, and through her own personal therapy sessions, Dr. Gold recognizes that she is not alone in struggling to maintain her humanity, in a field that she chose because of its humanity in the first place.
Healthcare professionals are trained not to disclose too much information about themselves, so it's refreshing to read about Dr. Gold's experiences and personal challenges. The lack of personal connection is worse in other fields of medicine, but it is quite noticeable in psychiatry as well.
Mental healthcare workers feel disempowered because decisions are made by outside factors such as insurance or cost. Empowering mental healthcare workers will go a long way toward improving diagnoses and outcomes. Like other healthcare workers, mental healthcare professionals spend an inordinate amount of time filling out poorly designed forms, which take away time from keeping up-to-date in their field of expertise and giving personal attention to their patients.
The American healthcare system, including mental healthcare, is in urgent need of reforms, and advocates such as Dr. Gold play a big role in bringing about change.
2024/12/08 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Walking on the breakwater at Santa Barbara Harbor, under Saturday's magical blue skies. [Center] Saturday, at Santa Barbara Maritime Museum: I will likely go back for a second visit, because I had to leave early today due to a personal issue. [Right] The mullahs’ Kereshmeh dance for Trump: In Kereshmeh-style Persian dance, women dancers alternately invite and push away the male observer. The mullahs are doing the same with Trump. One day they order a government official to talk of negotiations and economic ties. The next day they send one of the generals to the microphone to talk of their atomic capabilities and unyielding stance against the Great Satan.
(2) US higher education institutions excel at interdisciplinary research: According to the Times Higher Education Interdisciplinary Science Rankings 2025, US dominates the top-10 list (MIT, Stanford, Cal Tech, Duke, U. Minnesota, UCSB, and U. Michigan) and has 16 institutions in the top-100.
(3) Democracy is not over: A reassuring piece in The Atlantic about Trump’s band of opportunists and kooks (led by the VP-elect, a person who once compared Trump to Hitler) eventually failing against institutional safeguards and the rule of law.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Notre Dame Cathedral is set to reopen to the public on Sunday, after a five-year labor of love to restore it.
- Instead of arms and warplanes, the Swiss built hundreds of bunkers to protect themselves.
- Veritasium (4-minute video): Why facts don’t matter anymore.
- A love verse from the great Persian poet Sa’adi. [Tweet, with the Persian verse]
(5) Mexico's Silicon Valley: Known as El Centro de Tecnologia de Semiconductores, the Center's early years, 1981-2001, are reviewed in the April-June 2024 issue of IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.
(6) The Mufti (Islamic leader) of Jerusalem during 1921-1937 was Haj Amin Hosseini: a staunch anti-Semite, he was in agreement with Hitler’s Final Solution, a codeword for the annihilation of Jews.
(7) We keep on learning from Therac-25 Accidents: "A medical physicist describes events around an accident in which a radiation therapy machine killed two patients due to software bugs, a poor quality user interface, an obscure error message, and the machine's failure to shut itself down permanently after noting that something was very wrong." Therac-25's poor engineering design is one the case studies I cover in my UCSB graduate-level course ECE 257A, Fault-Tolerant Computing.
2024/12/06 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] IranWire cartoon of the day: Iran’s just-passed medieval hijab law subjugates women (see also the next item below). [Center] A gentle math problem: Simplify. [Right] A 1000-page textbook on electronic circuits (see the last item below).
(2) The Iranian mullahs enact a medieval law on hijab: The law faces stern opposition from women and human-rights groups. In a December 1 joint statement, activists Nasrin Sotoudeh & Sedigheh Vasmaghi called for the repeal of this shameful law before people take matters into their own hands. The law is widely viewed as a show of force by the Islamic government in light of humiliating defeats on the international scene.
(3) Several Russian state TV figures have praised Donald Trump's Cabinet picks, one TV host gleefully asserting that Trump’s picks will dismantle America.
(4) Iran's Sarrafan Family: The story of a $200 million rice fraud and how one powerful family exploited Iran’s banking, trade, and legal systems for decades, leaving a trail of victims from Lahore in Pakistan to New Delhi in India.
(5) Syrian rebel leader speaks to CNN: “We will form an Islamic government in which minorities are protected,” words that Iranians remember hearing 45 years ago and that make them cringe!
(6) One of my pet peeves, 1000-page textbooks: When I set out to write my graduate-level textbooks on parallel processing and computer arithmetic more than two decades ago, one of my goals was to break the curse of 1000-page textbooks, which were quite bulky and nearly impossible to carry in students' backpacks. You can't say everything there is to say in a field of science or engineering even in 1000 pages, so the goal should be to focus on essential ideas and to leave certain details to other sources. I set my limit at 500 pages and managed to finish both books within the 500-page limit.
Tonight, I am looking at the textbook for the electronic circuits course I'll be teaching next quarter. The book serves a sequence of three UCSB courses, ECE 10A/B/C, but still, 1000 pages is too much in my opinion. I can hardly lift the super-heavy tome. If I were to write an electronic circuits book, I'd limit it to about 300 pages. All the important ideas can be conveyed in 300 pages, and there is no shortage of on-line documents and videos to help fill the gaps. Alas, I am about to retire and don't want to take on another book project!
2024/12/05 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Photograph of all the workers who helped restore the Notre Dame Cathedral after its devastating fire. [Center] The current status of Syria: Assad forces control central and southern Syria. The rebel forces, who were previously confined to a small region in the northwest, have moved eastward and southward to take over the two major cities of Aleppo and Hama. They are still on the move. [Right] Book talk about Isfahan as an early modern city (see the next item below).
(2) "Isfahan: Architecture and Urban Experience in Early Modern Iran—A Daylong Journey in Safavid Isfahan": This was the title of today's interesting book talk by Farshid Emami of Rice University.
"A vibrant urban settlement from medieval times and the royal seat of the Safavid dynasty, the city of Isfahan emerged as a great metropolis during the seventeenth century. Using key sources, this book reconstructs the spaces and senses of this dynamic city."
"Focusing on nuances of urban experience, Farshid Emami expands our understanding of Isfahan in a global context. He takes the reader on an evocative journey through the city’s markets, promenades, and coffeehouses, bringing to life the social landscapes that animated the lives of urban dwellers and shaped their perceptions of themselves and the world. In doing so, Emami reveals seventeenth-century Isfahan as more than a cluster of beautiful monuments and gardens. It was a cosmopolitan city, where senses and materials, nature and artifice, and ritual and sociability acted in unison, engendering urban experiences that became paramount across the globe during the early modern period."
"Drawing extensively on Persian literary and visual sources, including the 'Guide for Strolling in Isfahan,' this book casts new light on the history of a major Eurasian city and opens up new possibilities for cross-cultural studies of urban experience in the early modern period."
(3) Bernie Sanders: It's time to take on the greed of the food and beverage industry to curb the rise in type-2 diabetes and the related obesity epidemic. Putting warning labels in front (not back) of food packaging is part of the proposed solution.
(4) The very first virtual meeting was in 1916, a century before Zoom took over our lives: At 8:30 PM on 16 May 1916, John J. Carty banged his gavel at the Engineering Societies Building in New York City to call to order a meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. This was no ordinary gathering.
The AIEE had decided to conduct a live national meeting connecting more than 5,000 attendees in eight cities across four time zones. Telephone lines linked auditoriums from coast to coast.
AIEE members and guests in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco had telephone receivers at their seats so they could listen in.
The AIEE, a predecessor to the IEEE, orchestrated this event to commemorate recent achievements in communications, transportation, light, and power. The meeting was a triumph of engineering, covered in newspapers in many of the host cities.
2024/12/04 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Venn diagram of Trump top-level appointees shows three groups: Those with ties to Project 2025 or the America First Policy Institute; Fox News hosts and contributors; Those who held events at Mar-a-Lago. [Center] My December 5, 2024, IEEE Central Coast Section talk, entitled “The Science and Engineering Behind Democratic Elections,” will be held with the section's holiday banquet at Mulligan's cafe, Santa Barbara Golf Club. [Right] Are wealthy Americans cheating on estate taxes? Since 2000, the wealth of the richest Americans has quadrupled. Yet estate tax receipts have not gone up, according to New York Times.
(2) I just finished the 6-week Iran Academia course on "Gender and Budgeting": The course was successful in impressing upon me the importance of putting your money where your mouth is when it comes to advancing gender equity goals. Gender-aware public policy decisions in general, and budgeting in particular, play a big role in achieving desired equity outcomes.
On the negative side, the course, consisting of reading material and lectures, was rather dry, as it lacked any aids, such as charts, trend lines, and concrete examples. The reading material in Persian were difficult to follow because they bore signs of being literal translations from English.
I hope the future editions of this course are improved to make it more useful as a general source of knowledge in the domain of gender equity.
(3) Microsoft founder Paul Allen’s impressive collection of historic tech gadgets and other memorabilia, formerly kept at a Seattle museum, were put on the auction block.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Australia’s law to ban social-media use for children under 16 passes with broad support.
- Is the Assad regime doomed? Iran begins to evacuate military officials and personnel from Syria. [NYT]
- How a digital twin became the blueprint for restoring Notre-Dame de Paris.
- Photos of Sepehr and me, shot last Friday on Santa Barbara’s East Beach by my brother-in-law Armin.
(5) Free instruction for people with a loved one facing mental illness: Classes described in this flyer, plus a class in Spanish (SB, 1/6-2/24, Mondays, 6:00-8:30 PM) are held in the Santa Barbara and Santa Maria areas, but NAMI has affiliates elsewhere, including throughout the greater Los Angeles area.
(6) Martial law in South Korea: President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law late Tuesday, vowing to eliminate “anti-state” forces as he struggles against an opposition that controls the country’s parliament and that he accuses of sympathizing with communist North Korea. Less than three hours later, parliament voted to lift the declaration, with National Assembly Speaker Woo Won Shik declaring that the martial law was “invalid” and that lawmakers “will protect democracy with the people.”
2024/12/01 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Saturday night's Bee Gees tribute band concert at Santa Barbara’s Granada Theater: The SF-based band played a large collection of Bee Gees songs, with skill and high energy (video 1; video 2; on YouTube). [Center] Math puzzle: Find the length of the red line segment as a function of R and r. [Right] More photos from November 30, 2024, at the Santa Barbara Cemetery.
(2) Give me a break! Yes, I dislike the fact that Biden pardoned his own son, but where was the outrage when Trump pardoned a family member and several of his partners in crime?
(3) GGM’s magical realism on screen: For decades, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Nobel-Prize-winning novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, a masterpiece of magical realism, was avoided by filmmakers. Netflix’s 16-episode adaptation was shot on location in Marquez’s native Colombia with the backing of his family.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- UN talks on limiting plastics pollution by curbing production collapse.
- Cucumbers grown in Mexico & distributed by SunFed Produce have been recalled after tens of people got sick.
- The Fermi Paradox (about alien life) and several other mind-boggling paradoxes in our universe.
- Share of all-cash home-buyers hits 33%, making the market even tougher for first-time buyers. [Tweet]
- Smithsonian Magazine: Engineers choose the ten best STEM toys to gift in 2024.
- All about Syria: Who leads Assad's opposition and where was he until now? [20-minute podcast, in Persian]
(5) Oxford University Press’s word of the year is “brain rot,” a phrase commonly used on social media to describe the deterioration of a person’s mental state brought on by overconsumption of trivial online content.
(6) Beyond representative democracy: Conducting free and fair elections to pick our representatives & leaders is the current gold standard for democratic government. Unfortunately, these representatives & leaders come from a relatively small group of citizens (predominantly, highly-educated and wealthy).
Sortition-based democracy gives the reigns of power to a randomly-chosen group of citizens, typically serving for only one year. This kind of selection is what we do for juries, which, according to Alexis de Tocqueville, is the most enviable part of the American system. One may worry about non-specialists making important governmental decisions, but the jury will have specialists and lobbyists at its disposal to help it see the various viewpoints. This 10-minute video describes the basics of sortition-based democracy.
2024/11/29 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] My complete extended family at Santa Barbara Cemetery and on East Beach (see the last item below). [Center] Sunset at Santa Barbara's East Beach. [Right] The December 2024 special issue of IEEE Computer magazine focuses on computing for agricultural and urban environments: The included articles discuss drone technologies, artificial intelligence, and computer vision in domains such as real-time insect detection, attacks against city-scale drone deployments, and transformative intersections.
(2) Black Friday: A day when Americans trample others to get to on-sale items, exactly one day after giving thanks for all the things they have.
(3) Aleppo falls to Syrian rebels: This is hardly a cause for joy. The so-called "rebels" are as bad for the people as Assad, the butcher of Syria. Assad's forces are preparing for a counter-offensive, which will lead to more death and destruction.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The Saudis are pushing to block the signing of a global plastics treaty.
- Counteracting disinformation: PEN America’s interviews with reporters from NYT and Texas Tribune.
- An abundance of talent: Liber Tango, as you have never heard it before.
(5) Today, our entire family of 19 gathered at Santa Barbara Cemetery to pay respects to my mom's memory, two years after her passing:
I read the Persian version of the following letter at her tomb. Later in the day, we dined at an East Beach restaurant.
Dearest mom: On this Friday after Thanksgiving Day 2024, all of your family members, that is, four children, seven grandchildren, four sons-in-law, one daughter-in-law, and three great-grandchildren, have gathered on your tomb to express our love and pay respects to a precious mother and loving grandmother & great-grandmother.
Your place was so empty at yesterday's family celebration of Thanksgiving. Your 94-year presence in the family is one of the items we are thankful for. You loved the Thanksgiving holiday, because it brought your entire family, some coming annually from distant cities, to Southern California, to be around you and to celebrate with you. One of your final worries in November 2022 was that you might not make it to Thanksgiving and also not get to see Yalda's son. This is, unfortunately, what happened, as you joined our beloved father in your final resting place 10 days before Thanksgiving and a couple of months before Aiden was born.
Here is our message to you: We adore you and we remember you fondly. Whenever we do something without you that we used to do together, it brings back your sweet memories. Frequent, large parties that you hosted in order to bring the family together and to nourish the family bonds made us more hopeful and strengthened our resolve. Thinking of you still accomplishes the same end.
Your anniversary of passing coinciding with Thanksgiving gives us an opportunity to honor you and to send blessings to your soul in our annual gatherings. I hope knowing that your family members are inseparable and thankful for your love would allow you to stop worrying about your absence on Thanksgiving Day and to rest in eternal peace.
Your memory is always with us. May your soul be blessed. Your son, Behrooz
2024/11/28 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Happy Thanksgiving Day! I realize that times are tough for Americans and even tougher for many people around the world. Yet giving thanks for the love, friendships, shelter, and food that we enjoy is a prerequisite for happiness and avoidance of the sins of glut & envy.
[Center] Throwback Thursday: In 1939, FDR moved up the Thanksgiving Day by a week to stimulate holiday shopping & boost the economy. Retailers were pleased but many others didn’t like the break with tradition or were ambivalent. In 1941, Congress standardized the date for the whole country. Roosevelt folded & signed the change into law. [Right] CACM cover image, December 2024 (see the next item below).
(2) Responsible deployment of AI systems: The EU AI Act passed by the European Parliament will now be implemented in 27 member states of the EU. It is the first major law aimed at regulating AI across sectors, with a focus on risk management, transparency, ethical governance, and human oversight. AI systems categorized as high risk will be subject to stringent regulations to ensure they do not compromise human rights or safety.
(3) Several universities, including U. Mass Amherst, MIT, and Wesleyan U., have encouraged their international students and employees to come back from the winter holiday break ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
(4) TikTok's CEO summoned to EU Parliament: EU lawmakers have questions about the platform's role in Sunday's Romanian presidential election. The first-round victory of the ultranationalist and pro-Russian Calin Georgescu has triggered concerns over how a TikTok campaign managed to propel the relatively unknown candidate to a win using thousands of fake accounts. [Politico]
(5) Pigeon-inspired flying robot: David Lentink at U. Groningen & colleagues have solved the mystery of how birds fly without the vertical tail fins on which human-designed aircraft rely. The researchers programmed a computer to control the nine servomotors in Pigeonbot II to steer it using propellers on each wing, but also to automatically twist and fan the tail to create the stability that would normally come from a vertical fin.
(6) Tom Nichols, writing in The Atlantic: “Paradoxically, however, Trump’s reckless venality is a reason for hope. Trump has the soul of a fascist but the mind of a disordered child. He will likely be surrounded by terrible but incompetent people. All of them can be beaten: in court, in Congress, in statehouses around the nation, and in the public arena. America is a federal republic, and the states—at least those in the union that will still care about democracy—have ways to protect their citizens from a rogue president. Nothing is inevitable, and democracy will not fall overnight.”
2024/11/26 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A few Facebook memories from November 26 of years past. [Center] Math puzzle: If the smaller circle has the same area as the rectangle, what is the ratio R/r of the two radii? [Right] Science deniers love their high-speed Internet, which they use to spread lies on social media.
(2) Israel-Hezbollah cease fire to take effect tomorrow: Some media stories report on an Israel-Lebanon truce, but Israel was never at war with Lebanon.
(3) Eight authentic Dead Sea Scrolls and over 200 artifacts from the Second Temple period will be on display at the Ronald Reagan Presidential library until September 2, 2025.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Khamenei says that an arrest warrant for Netanyahu isn't enough: He must be executed.
- What a coincidence: In 2025, presidential inauguration falls on MLK Day.
- UCSB Police seeks access to pro-Palestinian Instagram accounts to unmask Girvetz Hall vandals.
- An article about violence against women and the origins of Nov. 25 being set to recognize and fight it.
- American colleges and universities’ R&D spending topped $108.8 billion in fiscal year 2023. [Forbes]
- Persian music, performed by a mother-daughter team. [Reel]
(5) Coverage of weight-loss drugs by Medicare & Medicaid is a positive development: However, unless major discounts are negotiated with their manufacturers, healthcare costs will skyrocket, leading to significant premium increases for seniors.
(6) PEN America discussion held on Nov. 15, Day of the Imprisoned Writer: Language and the imagination that fuels it open up new worlds for those living under repressive regimes. This is why, all too often, those in power target the writers whose lives are built out of the very language governments seek to control.
(7) Microarchitectural weird machines: Writing in the Dec. 2024 issue of CACM, Thomas Benjamin et al. show how certain observable microarchitectural properties, that are not available to the architecture-level programmer, can be used to run a weird machine underneath and in parallel with the main machine. For example, whether a piece of data is in the data cache affects the data access speed, thus defining a binary variable in the weird machine. Such weird machines can run fairly sophisticated programs, which are usable in both offensive and defensive adversarial scenarios in future.
2024/11/25 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] November 25 is International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women: Observed since 1981, the date was selected to honor the Mirabal sisters, three activists from the Dominican Republic who were brutally murdered in 1960 by order of the country's ruler, Rafael Trujillo (1930-1961). [Center] One thing we learned from the 2024 election is that good intentions and compassionate programs aren’t enough: The plans have to be packaged in easily understandable pitches targeted at different demographics. Young men, older women, and Latino men weren’t adequately targeted by the Harris campaign. [Right] Humor: The revenge of bananas.
(2) A lurid case of violence against women: As we mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the trial of a French man who allowed and even encouraged many strangers to rape his wife, while she was drugged and rendered unconscious, is coming to a close. Prosecutors are asking for the maximum 20-year sentence for the victim’s ex-husband, a slap on the wrist in my humble opinion. Punishments sought for the other men involved are as yet unclear.
(3) ACM Gordon Bell Prize, 2024: The honor went to an 8-member team drawn from Australian and US institutions for the project, “Breaking the Million-Electron and 1 EFLOP/s Barriers: Biomolecular-Scale Ab Initio Molecular Dynamics Using MP2 Potentials.” Using a new technique, the team achieved a record-breaking performance in simulating more than a million electrons for a computational chemistry application, and scaled their algorithm to an EFLOP/s.
(4) ETH Zurich has tightened its admissions criteria for master’s and PhD programs in certain science and technology fields to comply with Swiss laws aimed at countering international espionage. The new policy is aimed at students applying to fields that can have military applications, including information technology, engineering, and AI.
(5) Israeli-led consortium publishes cell atlas of the human body: The first draft of the Human Cell Atlas, a comprehensive database of human cells, has been published. The project, launched in 2016, aims to create comprehensive reference maps of all human cells as a basis for understanding human health and for diagnosing, monitoring, and treating disease.
(6) There's no reason to avoid seed oils and plenty of reasons to eat them: Another pseudoscientific war being waged on social media is about seed oils. RFK Jr., the soon-to-be cabinet member in charge of our health, wants to remove certain seed oils from our diets, and fluoride from our drinking water. Scientific studies are against his views in both domains, but hey, who cares about the views of elite, highly-educated scientists when supplements-peddling charlatans say otherwise?
2024/11/24 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Middle Eastern music (see the next item below). [Center] Amazing math: This formula yields the correct decimal digits of pi to over 42 billion digits, but produces incorrect values once we reach 43 billion digits. [Right] IKEA has smarter cabinets than Trump!
(2) Saturday night’s UCSB Middle East Ensemble Concert: The Ensemble presented a suite of traditional Arab instrumental music, a song by the Arab superstar Umm Kulthum (Alexis Story Crawshaw, solo vocal), a Tunisian song, two Armenian songs, and a 10th-century Hebrew song from Yemen.
As always, Alexandra King brought dancers to perform Egyptian, Lebanese, Persian, and Turkish dances (with vocal solos by Javid John Mosadeghi and Dylan Rodgers). Additionally, there were two sets of extended solo dances by Genavieve and Zia.
[Full program, with song lyrics]
[A dance from the Lebanon/Syria region]
[Persian Kereshmeh dance]
[An Israeli song]
[An Armenian song, whose melody bears a strong resemblance to the Persian oldie “Ki-ye Ki-ye Dar Mi-Zaneh”]
[A stick-dance from Northern Egypt]
(3) Why Persian Jews became musicians in large numbers: The Dardashtis tell their grandfather's story at refugee commemoration in London.
(4) We have heard enough of your monologues: Brave student invites officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran to a dialogue/debate. [Tweet, with video]
(5) The American Dental Association supports community water fluoridation as a safe and effective way to prevent tooth decay: Brace for yet another fight between science and Trumpism.
(6) Friday's ECE Distinguished Lecture at UCSB: Dr. Nikhil Shukla (U. Virginia) spoke under the title "Analog vs. Digital Computing: Revisiting the Old to Innovate the New."
In the 1930s, analog computing was the only game in town. The emergence of more-flexible, higher-precision digital computers in the 1940s quickly put an end to the reign of analog computers, which were relegated to certain niche applications. More recently, the slowing down of Moore's Law, one of the primary drivers of digital computing, has forced us to look for alternatives (neuromorphic, optical, probabilistic, quantum) and to reexamine old technologies (analog) to see if they can offer solutions to tough computational problems by themselves or in combination with current digital methods.
Non-von Neumann analog computing platforms capable of harnessing the physics of natural systems offer a promising paradigm. In his presentation, Dr. Shukla addressed the opportunities as well as the challenges of this computing paradigm. Against this backdrop, he described some of his lab’s recent experimental and theoretical results on implementing oscillator-based dynamical systems. Specifically, he presented the design and implementation of oscillator Ising machines (and their extensions) to solve hard combinatorial optimization problems.
Dr. Shukla concluded by discussing his lab’s ongoing efforts to leverage oscillator dynamics in other computing paradigms, such as probabilistic computing and identified some crucial performance metrics that would need to be achieved for such systems to become competitive computing platforms in the future.
2024/11/22 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Math puzzle: Find the length L. [Top center] Baha’i women in the city of Khoi, Iran, nearly a century ago: Iranian Islamist rulers continue to harass and imprison Baha’is with a variety of fictitious charges. [Top right] Math puzzle: Find the fraction of the rectangle’s area that is shaded. [Bottom row] My new UCSB office in Ellison Hall is fully set up now and I look forward to using it.
(2) New supercomputer champ: LLNL’s El Capitan dethrones Frontier as the world's fastest supercomputer. In a recent test, El Capitan achieved 1.742 exaFLOPs of performance.
(3) The first IBM Quantum System One is online: Housed at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, the 127-qubit system provides researchers, students, and organizations dedicated access to a utility-scale quantum computer that will help solve problems in chemistry, physics, materials, and other fields.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Much of the US West Coast is under threat by an atmospheric river and a bomb cyclone.
- US proposes break-up of Google via the sale of its popular Chrome browser to fix
- US Secretary of Education: From 45’s Betsy DeVos to 47’s former WWE CEO Linda McMahon.
- The Nile is Egypt’s lifeblood and the government is willing to protect its waters by any means, even war.
- What is art? This age-old question came to the forefront again with the sale of a taped banana for $6.2M.
(5) Key Project 2025 figure to join Trump’s cabinet: Russell Vought, who would lead the Office of Management and Budget, has spent years building plans to rework the American structure of government in ways that would enhance presidential power. [NYT]
(6) Several Republican senators have stood by Hegseth despite sexual misconduct allegations, noting that no charges were filed: So, if filing of charges is a determining factor, how do you justify your support for Trump?
(7) Does a long freight train need more power than a Boeing plane? Not even close! A Boeing 747–400 with four engines at cruise is generating a little over 95,000 horsepower. To pull a mile-long freight train with a weight of ~15,000 tons on flat territory two engines, each with 4300 horsepowers, will do.
2024/11/20 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Happy World Children’s Day: Every day, children are being let down by members of the clergy, athletic coaches, tech execs, and politicians. On this day, we reiterate our stance that “enough is enough”! see also the next item below. [Top center] IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk on graph signal processing (see the next to the last item below). [Top right] Love and compassion are prerequisites for greatness. [Bottom row] UCSB IEE's Emerging Technologies Review (see the last item below).
(2) On the occasion of World Children’s Day: Republicans pretend to be protectors of families and children, to the extent that they make up fictitious child-trafficking rings run by Democrats from the basement of a specific pizza parlor, a joint that happens to have no basement. Now, faced with real child-trafficking and sex with underage girls by their own politicians, suddenly the GOP isn’t as interested in protecting children.
(3) A Facebook post from Nov. 20, 2020, which is still worth sharing: The story of a Syrian man living in Germany, with two wives and 7 kids, in a 5-room apartment provided by the government. The man, who neither speaks German nor works, plans to go back to Syria to marry a third wife.
(4) Tonight’s IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk: Graph Signal Processing is, as its name implies, signal processing applied on graphs. Classical signal processing is done on signals that are ordered along some axis. For example, if we take the alternating current waveform, it can be represented as a periodic curve along the x axis. Dr. Gareth W. Peters (UCSB) presented a review of core ideas on graph signal reconstruction and regression on a single graph and on graph product tensor-valued data settings. The talk was based on the following published work.
E. Antonian, G. W. Peters, and M. Chantler, "Bayesian reconstruction of Cartesian product graph signals with general patterns of missing data," J. Franklin Institute, Vol. 361, No. 9, 2024.
(5) Emerging Technologies Review 2024: Under the auspices of Institute for Energy Efficiency, an all-day workshop on climate risk and smart food systems was held today at UCSB’s Henley Hall, titled “Managing Water Security and Energy Transition from Farm to Market.
Four agricultural industry execs discussed the challenges of meeting mandates and guidelines on the road to decarbonization, given the unpredictable nature of the ag business and impacts of long-term droughts and climate change. [Program]Lwine from a local winery and fruit samples (along with a letter) from the local Abbott Ranch.
Lunch featured wine from a local winery and fruit samples (along with a letter) from the local Abbott Ranch. A poster session followed. I could not attend any other afternoon session due to teaching commitments.
2024/11/19 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzle: Find the area of the quadrangle. [Center] Firearms are now the leading cause of death for our children: Thoughts and prayers won’t bring the rate down. We have to act. [Right] Cartoon of the day: Trump advisors in training.
(2) Elon Musk proposes $2 trillion cuts to the $6.75 trillion federal budget: He warns that there will be some “temporary” hardships. Not to him, of course! The world’s richest man will get his tax cuts and fat contracts.
(3) Republican false-flag efforts, funded by Elon Musk and his friends, were designed to turn off Harris voters: Muslims in Michigan began seeing pro-Israel ads this fall praising Vice President Kamala Harris for marrying a Jewish man and backing the Jewish state. Jews in Pennsylvania, meanwhile, saw ads from the same group with the opposite message: Harris wanted to stop US arms shipments to Israel. [Washington Post]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- One dead, 15 hospitalized in cases linked to organic carrots sold by stores such as Wegmans & Trader Joe’s.
- Gunmen attacked and looted about 100 trucks carrying desperately needed supplies into Gaza.
- Trump picks wrestling executive Linda McMahon as education secretary: Where is Hulk Hogan?
- Nazis paraded in Columbus, Ohio, confidently and with little reaction from the police.
- Small bundles of paper that can be turned into beautiful flowers with some skill and patience.
- The Daily Show’s take on why the Democrats lost and on Trump cabinet nominations. [35-minute video]
(5) Russia postpones three scientific megaprojects: Plans for building or improving major research facilities where Russian scientists can probe the structure of molecules and materials have hit a significant snag. Officials announced late last month that they have postponed efforts to build a new synchrotron light source, modernize an existing light source, and expand a neutron research center. [From Science magazine]
(6) Latinas, constituting 12% of registered female voters, have been missing from election analyses: They voted for Kamala Harris in a 3-to-2 ratio.
(7) The 2024 presidential election wasn’t about culture: It was about gender. According to a NYT/Siena-College battleground poll from August, men from every age cohort were more likely to support Trump, while women in every age cohort were more likely to support Harris. In that poll, the biggest gap was among the youngest cohort — 53 percent of men ages 18-29 planned to support Trump, compared to just 29 percent of women. Even among Latinos/Latinas, men preferred Trump while women went for Harris. [ABC News & LA Times]
2024/11/18 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Masoumeh Ebtekar, one of the 1979 hostage takers at the American Embassy in Tehran, has had a change of heart: She urges the mullahs to negotiate with Trump in order to improve the situation in the region & the world. Perhaps one reason is that her children live abroad. [Center] The coffer illusion: There are 16 circles in this image which are hard to find at first, but once you see them, they stay with you. [Right] Amor Towles' A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel (see the last item below).
(2) Republicans have had a change of heart since Donald Trump’s victory: They now think that the US elections are secure and that the economy is doing great (consumer confidence among the Republicans is up).
(3) Bad news for US science: “The campaign promises that propelled Republican President-elect Donald Trump to a decisive victory last week over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, including huge tax cuts and tough anti-immigration measures, threaten collateral damage to the US research enterprise, science advocates say. They foresee less money for basic research and a restricted flow of foreign scientists into the country. They also expect the new administration to ignore the scientific consensus on numerous topics, including climate change and public health.” [From a Science magazine analysis, Nov. 15, 2024]
(4) Book review: Towles, Amor, A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel, unabridged 18-hour audiobook, read by Nicholas Guy Smith, Penguin Audio, 2016.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I hesitated to read this book, despite its glowing reviews, because I was put off by its title, heralding the story of a man of privilege, who was bred to consider work below his dignity and expecting his every whim attended to, in a country which isn't very popular right now. Bill Gates helps those of us who are put off by the novel's title when he deems the novel "an amazing story because it manages to be a little bit of everything. There’s fantastical romance, politics, espionage, parenthood, and poetry. The book is technically historical fiction, but you’d be just as accurate calling it a thriller or a love story. Even if Russia isn’t on your must-visit list, I think everyone can enjoy Towles’s trip to Moscow."
Count Alexander Rostov, a wealthy man living in Moscow's Metropol Hotel, is sentenced by the new Communist regime to a life of exile within the hotel, except that he is moved from his luxurious suite to a cramped attic room, where he ends up living for decades. He witnesses the unfolding of the Bolshevik Revolution and regime from his vantage point. He makes the best of his limited life, combatting depression and suicidal thoughts by developing relationships, becoming a father, and starting a career as a waiter. That such a story ends up being a page-turner is testament to Amor Towles' skill in developing characters, creating tense situations, and mixing the realistic elements of his story with a good dose of observations about the human condition.
Perhaps the following observation can be used to sum up the novel: "What can a first impression tell us about anyone? Why, no more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven, or a brushstroke about Botticelli. By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only consideration, but 're-consideration'—and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour."
2024/11/17 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] Fall colors with mirror symmetry and winter colors waiting to move in. [Right] Patric Gagne's Sociopath: A Memoir (see the last item below).
(2) Today's celebration of the life of Miye Tachihara Ota [1918-2024] at Pepe’s Mexican Restaurant in Goleta: A large number of family members and friends paid respects to the matriarch of the Ota family, who recently passed away at 106.
(3) We seem to be falling into the same trap that Trump set for us during 2017-2020: He throws so many shiny objects in the air that our reaction to each and every one of them leaves us exhausted and ineffective. Let us slow down and make sure that we don’t miss any important shiny object by focusing on decoys.
(4) Book review: Gagne, Patric, Sociopath: A Memoir, Simon & Schuster, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I was fortunate to be able to attend a Semel Institute (UCLA) talk by the author on September 25, 2024. The talk’s flyer described the author thus: “Patric Gagne, PhD, is a passionate mother and wife, an engaging therapist, a charming and well-liked friend, member of a country club who throws parties, lives in a nice house, is a writer, cook, she votes and makes people laugh. She has a dog and a cat and waits in carpool lines next to other women with dogs and cats. On the surface, she resembles almost every other average American woman, a happy mommy, a loving partner. Patric Gagne is also a sociopath.”
This inspiring story of the author’s struggle to understand and come to terms with her own sociopathy teaches us about the oft-misunderstood mental disorder. As the author embarked on a journey to change her fate and build a life full of love and hope, she realized, even before attending kindergarten, that others were uncomfortable around her. She didn’t understand why people reacted to her the way they did.
It wasn’t until she went to college that she developed an understanding of her sociopathic condition. The disorder had been known for a century, but mental health professionals paid little attention to it. Inexplicably, she was told that there was no treatment for her condition, which led to her being haunted by sociopaths in pop culture, monstrous madmen and evil villains.
Reconnecting with an old flame made the author realize that perhaps she isn’t a monster, given her ability to love. Her sweetheart and some curious characters she met along the way helped her embark on a mission to prove that the millions of Americans who share her diagnosis aren’t all monsters either.
2024/11/15 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Statues from 2500 years ago: In 1972, while snorkeling off the coast of Monasterace near Riace, Stefano Mariottini spotted what appeared to be a human hand protruding from the sand. Assuming it was a corpse, he called the police. To his astonishment, the discovery turned out to be two ancient Greek bronze statues known as the "Warriors from Riace.” [Center] New Yorker cartoon of the day: The new administration is being shaped. [Right] Andrew Sean Greer's Less: A Novel (see the last item below).
(2) Mike Pence is against Robert F. Kennedy Jr. becoming secretary of Health and Human Services: When I read the headline, I thought Pence is redeeming himself, until I noticed that he cited Kennedy’s support for abortion rights, not his anti-science views and promotion of conspiracy theories.
(3) Ugliness next to a historical monument: A high-rise building may be erected next to the beautiful, historic Santa Barbara Mission.
(4) Shiny objects: We seem to be falling into the same trap Trump set for us during 2017-2020. He throws so many shiny objects in the air that our reaction to each and every one of them leaves us exhausted and ineffective. Let us slow down and make sure that we don’t miss any important shiny object by focusing on unimportant ones.
(5) Book review: Greer, Andrew Sean, Less: A Novel, Little, Brown and Company, 2017.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The novel begins: "From where I sit, the story of Arthur Less is not so bad. Look at him: seated primly on the hotel lobby's plush round sofa, blue suit and white shirt, legs knee-crossed to that one polished loafer hangs free of its heel." This is our introduction to the slim homosexual protagonist, a novelist, who is mistaken for a woman.
As Arthur Less approaches 50, nothing is going well for him. His first book was a moderate success, garnering a review from a big-name critic. “But every author can taste the poison another has slipped into the punch.” Less checks with his lover, an older poet, to find out what the critic meant by calling him “a magniloquent spoony.” He didn't like the reply: "He's just calling you a faggot."
Out of desperation, Less starts accepting gigs that no self-respecting author would entertain. These gigs take him to Mexico, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, and other places, where he participates in reading books, conducting creative writing workshops, and accepting awards no one had heard of. Less is stunned to find that one of these awards is judged and given out by a group of high-school students.
The reader, who may have begun indifferent to Less's struggles, will likely begin cheering him on, as his adventures around the world unfold. This alternately funny and wise book won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
2024/11/14 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday: Grace Hopper’s A-0 compiler paved the way for modern programming languages. [Top center] Throwback Thursday: Old-style mortadella sandwiches and a Canada Dry drink, from pre-Revolution Iran. [Top right] The Kelpies: A pair of steel horse-heads between the Scottish towns of Falkirk and Grangemouth. Each head is 30 meters (~100 ft) high. [Bottom left] Things can change a lot over 1000 years. [Bottom center] The circus is back in town (The Atlantic cover image). [Bottom right] President Biden welcomes President-Elect Trump to the White House as a gesture toward peaceful and orderly transition, a courtesy Trump did not show to his successor. He was also a no-show at Biden’s inauguration.
(2) Infowars to become a satirical news site: The Onion, which has bought Alex Jones’s Infowars out of bankruptcy, plans to turn it into a parody of itself, mocking weird internet personalities who peddle conspiracy theories and health supplements. [NYT]
(3) A silly AI error: Content emanating from Coulsdon, England, was censored by Facebook's algorithms, apparently because of the letters “lsd” in the town's name.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Elon Musk has reportedly met with Islamic Republic's Ambassador to the United Nations.
- After months of behind-the-scenes testing, Waymo robotaxis have become available in Los Angeles.
- US Christian Nationalists won't stop at a total abortion ban. They want the 19th amendment repealed. [NPR]
- The Beatles’ unfinished song, “Now and Then,” completed with AI assist & nominated for a Grammy.
(5) Learning surgery from how-to videos: An AI model developed by Johns Hopkins U. researchers enables robots to perform complex surgeries after watching how-to videos. The imitation learning model was trained on a vast amount of footage captured by wrist-mounted cameras on da Vinci Surgical System robots.
(6) “America’s Trust in Science: What’s Changed, What’s Next?”: This was the title of today’s AAAS panel discussion, featuring a breakdown of Pew’s 2024 trust-in-science survey results, released this morning. There is some moderately good news. The public trust in science, which dropped by 14 points during the COVID years, exhibits an uptick of 3-5 points. My haunch is that the previous drop wasn’t entirely due to COVID and that Trump administration’s rhetoric and policies played big parts in it. A major uptick in high-profile research misconduct and retractions didn’t help our cause. We have to brace for more of the same over the next four years, while trying to increase the effectiveness of our public interface.
2024/11/12 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] On Moday, I traveled to Los Angeles to visit my aunt Victoria, the wife of my late uncle Younes and a close friend of my mom. [Right] These two T-shirts of mine, and others about freedom and women’s rights, are even more necessary in 2025 than before. [Right] The myth that Elon Musk founded Tesla persists: He was actually an early investor who subsequently pushed out the original founders.
(2) The way things are going, everyone who has ever set foot in Mar-a-Lago, including the staff, will be getting a cabinet or ambassadorial position.
(3) Thoughts and Prayers: Let’s ban guns and when people are upset about it, we’ll just send them thoughts and prayers. If these words are good enough for those who have lost family members, they are more than good enough for those who have lost their guns.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The Iranian mullahs’ $2.3 billion ballistic-missile attack on Israel accelerated their regime's bankruptcy.
- I guess Donald Trump was right after all: The 2024 election was rigged!
- GOP’s game plan: Pass a giant tax cut for the rich; blame the resulting deficit on Social Security & Medicare.
- May God help us: Elon Musk & Vivek Ramaswamy will be in charge of making our government more efficient.
- Facebook memory from Nov. 12, 2011: Photo from my college days (late 1960s).
(5) I just finished the third week of a 6-week Iran Academia on-line course on "Gender and Budgeting": We read daily about gender equity and well-intentioned efforts to end discriminatory practices. In reality, such efforts are doomed to failure if not supported by an appropriate level of financial resources. For example, equity in healthcare cannot be achieved when there is a significant gap in the budgets allocated to male and female health programs. This is an instance of putting your money where your mouth is. Gender-aware public policy decisions in general, and budgeting specifically, play a big role in achieving desired equity outcomes. How we allocate budgets is a reflection of our priorities.
(6) A data point on electric cars: An EV owner responded to a Quora question about the electric bill for charging. Increase in electric bill, $60. Savings in gas costs, $500.
(7) Here’s another interesting data point from Quora: The first astronauts to land on Mars will have to stay there for 12-18 months, waiting for Earth & Mars to realign.
2024/11/10 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] We have power, even without the presidency or control of the Congress. [Center] The myth that Elon Musk founded Tesla persists: He was actually an early investor who subsequently pushed out the original founders. [Right] Alexei Navalny's Patriot: A Memoir (see the last item below).
(2) Quote of the day: "When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it—always." ~ Mahatma Gandhi
(3) US elections in the classroom: The final slide in my lecture of 2024/11/06 for the UCSB graduate seminar ECE 594BB, “Mathematical, Algorithmic, and Engineering Aspects of Democratic Elections.”
(4) Book review: Navalny, Alexei, Patriot: A Memoir, unabridged 17-hour audiobook, read by Matthew Goode, Random House Audio, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This memoir of Alexei Navalny, a Russian dissident who survived an attempted poisoning by his government and eventually died in an arctic penal colony under mysterious circumstances, was compiled by his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, based on notes smuggled out of prison.
Navalny knew that he would be killed. After all, few of Vladimir Putin's critics have lived to tell their stories. Yet, he was relentless in exposing corruption, mocking the naked czar, and asking how it was possible for people's servants to acquire half-million-dollar watches and secret waterfront palaces.
When the Russian state began piling up ridiculous charges, such as rehabilitating Nazism, against him, even as he was already confined to prison, he had to laugh. “Rarely has an inmate in solitary confinement for more than a year had such a vibrant social and political life,” he wrote in his diary. When a hunger strike caused his weight to drop to his 8th-grade level, he lamented, “I still don’t have a six-pack.”
The son of a Soviet army officer, Navalny spent many of his childhood summers in the early 1980s with his grandmother in a small Ukrainian village near Chernobyl, charged with taking care of grandma’s immense cow. After Putin's ascent to power, Navalny cozied up to the far-right opposition and made numerous racist and xenophobic remarks. He later apologized for many of these remarks, although it's not clear whether he had a genuine change of heart or was just playing the anti-racism and pro-LBGTQ cards to make himself more palatable to an international audience.
The narrative is long-winded and includes a lot of detail that the reader may not care about. Nevertheless, the mere fact that Navalny remembers so much detail in spite of his highly restrictive environment is admirable. He seemingly kept a robust memory and a sharp wit under very difficult circumstances.
Navalny writes, clairvoyantly, that “if they do finally whack me, the book will be my memorial.” In February 2024, after three years in confinement, Navalny, 47, collapsed and died in his remote penal colony. This book is indeed his memorial.
2024/11/08 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Anti-American and anti-Israeli banners and murals, including some bearing Hebrew texts, are all over the place in Iran. [Center] On tariffs (see the last item below). [Right] World's first rice-cooker, introduced by Toshiba in 1955 (see the next item below).
(2) The invention loved by Iranians, and its unlikely inventor: Fumiko Minami, who helped her husband in his small factory of electric water-heaters, spent 5 years perfecting the idea of a rice-cooker. She discovered that the key to automating the rice-cooking process was to turn off the cooker after exactly 20 minutes of boiling. Toshiba engineers eventually landed on the idea of a bimetallic switch, which they used in the world’s first automatic rice-cooker, the ER-4, introduced in December 1955. [From IEEE Spectrum magazine, Nov. 2024]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Professors’ stature & their input into the administrative processes (shared governance) are diminishing.
- A tale of survival in exile: Journalist/Author Homa Sarshar talks about her life. (In Persian)
- Khalil Gibran: “Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost.”
- Facebook memory from Nov. 8, 2023: On bothsidesism and whataboutism.
(4) “Inconceivable Iran: To Reproduce or not to Reproduce?”: This was the title of a talk by social anthropologist Soraya Tremayne (Oxford), based on her book of the same title. The talk was sponsored by UCSB’s Iranian Studies Initiative and Farhang Foundation. [The talk's recording]
“Over the past two decades, scholarship on Iran has often claimed that modernization and globalization have transformed the country’s cultural institutions. This volume, however, argues that Iranian cultural norms, particularly surrounding reproduction, persist in essence despite such changes. Through four decades of ethnographic research, the author explores how reproductive practices in Iran are shaped by enduring values intertwined with modernity, judicial rulings, new reproductive technologies, and state policies. The findings suggest that Iranian reproductive values remain strong across generations, and recent declines in population growth reflect not a loss of these values, but a demand for autonomy in reproductive decisions. Challenging studies that label Iranian youth as ‘confused,’ this book suggests that perceived contradictions are strategies for balancing tradition with modernity without disrupting social order.”
(5) A mini-tutorial on tariffs: I heard that Google searches on tariffs are trending up, a sign that many US voters didn’t know what they were voting for. So, I decided to help.
A tariff is a tax imposed by a government on goods or services that are imported from another country.
Tariffs are a type of trade barrier that can raise prices, reduce availability of goods & services, and create an economic burden. Governments typically impose tariffs for protection or revenue purposes.
The most common types of tariffs are ad valorem (a fixed percentage of the value of the imports) and specific (a fixed amount charged on each unit of an imported good).
Tariffs have been used for centuries, but their importance as a source of government revenue has been steadily declining.
2024/11/07 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] Throwback Thursday: Tehran, Hafez Avenue, 1960, and Grace Hopper, whose A-0 compiler paved the way for modern programming languages. [Right] Today's UCLA Semel Institute talk on eating disorders (see the last item below).
(2) Was Jill Stein a spoiler candidate? She was in Dearborn, MI, drawing 18% of the Arab-majority city's vote, to Trump's 42% & Harris's 36%.
(3) Iranian plot to kill Trump uncovered: The man tasked with the plot to kill Trump is Farhad Shakeri, who is believed to reside in Iran. Two other men from New York were arrested in the case. [NYT]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Mountain Fire: A fierce, rapidly-spreading fire has already burned many in California’s Ventura County.
- Forty-three monkeys are on the loose in South Carolina after escaping a research facility. [Washington Post]
- The national security nightmare begins: Trump puts Elon Musk on the phone, as he talks to Zelensky.
(5) CEO of AAAS, in the aftermath of US election: “Now is the time for the scientific enterprise to get out of our defensive crouch and become once again the energetic protagonists of our own story. We must present a vision for what the US science and technology enterprise can be for the country and what it will take to continue among the global vanguard. We have to work even harder for scientific excellence and integrity in all we do. We will speak up for policies informed by evidence and good science—and push back when they are not.”
(6) A sobering thought: “America has now twice elected him as its President … it is a disastrous revelation about what the United States really is, as opposed to the country that so many hoped that it could be.” ~ Susan B. Glasser, writing in The New Yorker
(7) "What's Eating Us? Women, Food, and the Epidemic of Body Anxiety": This was the title of today's conversation between Emmy-award winning journalist, Cole Kazdin, author of 'What's Eating Us? Women Food, and the Epidemic of Body Anxiety' and George M. Slavich, UCLA Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences.
In her critically-acclaimed book, Ms. Kazdin blends personal narrative and investigative reporting to reveal that disordered eating is an epidemic crisis killing millions of women. Cole Kazdin was one such woman, and she set out to discover why her own full recovery from an eating disorder felt so impossible.
Interviewing women across the country as well as the world’s top researchers, she discovered that most people with eating disorders never receive treatment––the fact that she had, made her one of the lucky ones.
Kazdin takes looks at the diet industry and research community, exposing the flawed systems that claim to be helping us, and revealing disordered eating for the crisis that it is: a mental illness with the second highest mortality rate (after opioid-related deaths) that no one wants to talk about.
Along the way, she identifies new treatments not yet available to the general public, grass roots movements to correct racial disparities in care, and strategies for navigating true health while still living in a dysfunctional world.
2024/11/06 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A rainbow is essentially full-circle, but we only see its upper half from our usual ground-level vantage point.
[Center] Math puzzle: Find the area of the square ABCD, given that its three colored parts are equal in area. [Right] Places where Roman coins have been found: Mostly Western Europe, but also North Africa, the Levant, the Caucasus, and Southern India.
(2) Moshe Vardi considers himself a member of the theoretical computer science (TCS) community, not a mathematician: Yes, TCS uses a lot of math, but so does theoretical physics. The latter uses math to explain and predict the real world and not for internal esthetics, which John von Neumann viewed as a grave danger even for math. TCS similarly aims to explain and predict real-life computing. The important problem of satisfiability (SAT) was proven to be NP-complete, meaning that its solution takes exponential time in the worst case. But in real-life computing, we have wonderful SAT-solvers whose effectiveness cannot be explained by the elegant NP-completeness theory. [For more details, read Vardi’s column, entitled “What Is Theoretical Computer Science?”, in the November 2024 issue of CACM.]
(3) Congrats to MAGA folk for electing a corrupt, criminal, racist, misogynistic man to the highest office. We’ll survive this choice and will be ready to accept your apologies in four years.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- High-IQ Kamala Harris concedes her election loss in a phone call to low-IQ Donald Trump.
- Kamala Harris: “While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign.”
- We were hoping to swear in the first-ever woman President. Instead, we'll get the first-ever felon President.
(5) Who is to blame? Following a few friends, I too have decided that I blame Trump less for his vile manners and pursuit of absolute power than his enablers among the Republican establishment. Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and Ted Cruz come to mind as Republicans who sold their souls to gain a sliver of power and the privilege of being insulted by their master.
(6) Kamala Harris’ message to her supporters in the face of big-money prevailing over an agenda to help the working class and the middle class:
My heart is full. Full of gratitude for the trust that you have placed in me, full of love for our country, and full of resolve.
I know you gave so much of yourselves to this fight. And I am so grateful to you.
The outcome of this election is not what we wanted. And it is not what we fought for. But the light of America’s promise will always burn bright – as long as we never give up and keep fighting.
While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign.
The fight for the ideals that reflect America at its best: Freedom, opportunity, fairness, and dignity. That is a fight I will never give up.
I will never give up the fight for a future where every American can pursue their dreams. Where the women of America have the freedom to make decisions about their own bodies. The fight to protect our students and our streets from gun violence. The fight for our democracy.
Because the fight for our country is always worth it. And we cannot give up now.
This is not the time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves.
You can and will make a difference. [Kamala Harris, November 6, 2024]
2024/11/05 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Advice from someone who has already voted to those who will be voting by tomorrow. [Top center] Amazing patterns in math: See if you can explain them. [Top right] Brian Tyler Cohen's Shameless (see the last item below). [Bottom left & right] Math puzzles: The radius of the large circle is to be determined in each case. [Bottom center] The mullahs’ regime executes a Jewish Iranian man.
(2) Book review: Cohen, Brian Tyler, Shameless: Republicans' Deliberate Dysfunction and the Battle to Preserve Democracy, unabridged 5-hour audiobook, read by the author, Harper Audio, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I watch progressive political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen's on-line videos and read his written analyses on a regular basis, so when his debut book was published, it became a must-read for me.
In this fairly short book, Cohen observes that the Party of Lincoln has been hijacked by "a burgeoning extremist faction for whom compromise is unacceptable and chaos is the goal." The situation has entered a downward spiral, with citizens becoming dangerously numb to it. The authoritarian tendencies of today's Republicans constitute an assault on democracy and go against common sense and decency, hence the title "Shameless."
Cohen draws on conversations with historians, constitutional scholars, former senators, attorneys, and members of the Biden administration to conclude that the GOP dysfunction comes from a perverse desire to break, rather than reform, a bloated government system that is too large to function well.
Before Trump became the party's center of gravity for racism, misogyny, and anti-everything narcissism, and just after Obama’s ascendance to the presidency, Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell, and other Republicans were working on a strategy built on opposition for partisan gain. When Donald Trump appeared on the scene, they transformed him into the GOP standard-bearer who gave them license to "openly court white supremacists and neo-Nazis, who now march proudly down our streets."
Despite today's dismal political landscape, Cohen still believes in our ability to salvage the situation, if we don't fall into the helplessness trap and recognize the power of our own agency. It does not suffice that we become active and participate in democracy. We must also actively persuade those who have lost faith, and who constitute the margins on which modern "elections are won or lost," to participate as well.
As I write this review, we have four days left to the 2024 US presidential election. All indications are that the election will be very close, raising the fear that the Republicans’ shamelessness will be rewarded with the presidency of Donald Trump and, perhaps, control over the US Senate. If we dodge this bullet, it will be in no small part due to efforts of commentators like Brian Tyler Cohen.
2024/11/04 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Women are taking their fate into their own hands: They reject the “protection” offered by a sexual predator and self-avowed genitals-grabber. [Top center] The final NYT/Siena-College Poll bears some good news for Kamala Harris in the 7 battleground states. [Top right] Brave Iranian woman student, who was harassed, insulted, and roughed up by her university’s Basij for her “improper” hijab, strips down to her underwear and walks in protest. She was, of course, arrested and sent to a mental institution. [Bottom row] The social media are abuzz with awe & respect, and support in the form of art and action, for the Iranian woman student, Ahou Daryaei, who stripped down to her underwear after being harassed, insulted, and roughed up by Basij forces on campus.
(2) You may be disappointed that the US presidential race is effectively tied:
But remember that a tie between a woman who began running less than 4 months ago and a man who has been in continuous campaign mode for more than 9 years is an amazing result.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Kamala Harris meets her impersonator, Maya Rudolph, on "Saturday Night Live."
- The possibly week-long presidential gender-reveal party begins tomorow night. Let’s hope it’s a girl!
- My talk in Persian about energy storage technologies: The first 52 minutes of this YouTube video.
(4) Trump/Musk team: Isn’t it interesting that two men who, between them, have had 17 children by 6 different women are preaching about traditional families?
(5) South Korea’s Ambassador to Iran sings an old Persian song, made famous by Delkash, to mark 62 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
(6) Final thought for the day: Those who use the Bible to justify their White-Supremacist views should be reminded that there are no White people in the entire Holy Book.
2024/11/03 (Sunday): Today, I offer reviews of two science titles and a Nobel Laureate's novel.
(1) Book review: Pierrehumbert, Raymond T., Planetary Systems: A Very Short Introduction, unabridged 4-hour audiobook, read by Mike Cooper, Tantor Audio, 2022. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
It wasn’t long ago that we knew only of the Solar System as the only example of a planetary system, that is, a star and the bodies orbiting it. Now, thanks to a new generation of powerful telescopes, not only do we know many thousands of planetary systems, but we have observed planetary systems as they were being born.
This book, from Oxford’s wonderful “Very Short Introduction” series composed of hundreds of titles, explores our newfound information and ongoing research in this exciting frontier. Pierrehumbert, a professor of physics at Oxford University, takes us on a grand tour, from the Big Bang to trillions of years into the future, when the universe will be a dilute soup of dim galaxies, populated mostly by red dwarf stars.
Pierrehumbert also explains how the elements that make up life are forged in the interiors of dying stars, later making their way into rocky planets. He also covers the vast array of newly-discovered planets within star systems other than our own, and explains the factors that determine their climates. Finally, he reveals what determines the life-span of planetary systems and what happens to them as they die.
(2) Book review: Kang, Han (translated by Deborah Smith), The Vegetarian, unabridged 5-hour audiobook, read by Deborah Smith, Janet Song, and Stephen Park, Random House Audio, 2016.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I decided to peruse this book when Han Kang was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize for Literature, "for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life."
The novel's protagonist, Yeong-hye, is completely unremarkable in every way, according to her husband, Mr. Cheong, whose narrative opens the story. Chapters are written from the viewpoints of Yeong-hye, her husband, and various other individuals. This ordinary, somewhat boring, life comes to a screeching halt, when Yeong-hye decides to throw out all the meat in her house and become a vegetarian.
Mr. Cheong's demand for an explanation goes unmet, when Yeong-hye just says that she had a dream. Though unknown to her husband, the dream was dark, bloody, and violent.
Yeong-hye's married life soon falls apart, as do her physical and mental health. It is unclear whether she has a predisposition to illnesses that were triggered by malnutrition or that the author implies that there is something wrong with being a vegetarian.
Mr. Cheong is highly frustrated by his ordinary life going up in smoke, his wife not wanting sex anymore, and her not being presentable to his colleagues, especially since she stopped wearing a bra. Things go downhill quickly for Yeong-hye, her husband, and the rest of the family, with Yeong-hye eventually committed to a mental institution.
This remarkable novel covers a society’s most-inflexible structures, as we watch them fail one by one. It portrays the frictions between passion and detachment, between feeding and denying desires. With impassive or violent reactions to those desires, they are bound to break out somehow, with super-ugly results.
(3) Book review: Maslin, Mark, Climate Change: A Very Short Introduction, unabridged 5-hour audiobook, read by Gareth Richards, Tantor Audio, 4th ed., 2021. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Over the last couple of decades, global awareness of climate change has grown very rapidly, thanks in part to the efforts of youth activists such as Greta Thunberg, groups such as Extinction Rebellion, IPCC's high-impact reports, numerous documentaries, and declarations from world governments that we are in a climate emergency.
Awareness of climate change and its possible catastrophic impacts continues to grow, although there are also serious efforts, funded by interest groups such as the fossil fuel industry, to dismiss the problem as overblown or even a hoax. Incontrovertible scientific evidence points to a forthcoming crisis of our own making, forcing us to examine the entire basis of modern society and humans’ relationship with other species and the entire planet.
As politicians, supported by interest groups and organizations with deep pockets, argue against the seriousness of climate change, Maslin tells us that climate change is not a problem for the distant future: It is already happening! He also discusses the geopolitics of climate change and the win-win solutions we can employ to avoid its very worst effects. Throughout, he demonstrates how the scope of the problem demands that we develop new modes of thinking at individual, corporate, and government levels to collectively tackle this do-or-die challenge.
2024/11/01 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] My Halloween set-up on Thursday 10/31. [Center] I have fulfilled my GoodReads reading challenge for 2024 a couple of months ahead of schedule. [Right] Many churches have become politicized: Their tax-exempt status must be revoked.
(2) There are only two reasons a woman might not have children: Either she can’t, or she doesn’t want to. In either case, it’s none of your business.
(3) UCSB announces its selected book for “UCSB Reads 2025” program, now in its 19th year: The Book of Delights: Essays (2019), by Ross Gay, has had a good reception and became a best-seller, but I was underwhelmed by it. Here’s my 3-star review of the book on GoodReads.
(4) Homa Sarshar: “Solutions to Iran’s problems & the country’s future leaders are all inside Iran. No one can prescribe solutions from 1000s of kilometers away. While there are sincere, decent people among the overseas opposition, most act with the intention to line their pockets.” [Tweet, with video]
(5) Iranians who support Trump because they believe he will topple the mullahs’ regime must be disappointed: He says he will negotiate with the Islamic Republic of Iran and isn’t looking for regime change. [Meme]
(6) An Iranian lioness: A hijab-less Iranian woman is harassed by a soldier in uniform, riding a motorcycle. She takes the matter into her own hands, teaching the harasser a lesson, as men just look on without helping.
(7) Final thought for the day: Cold Play in its Buenos Aires concert collaborates with Golshifteh Farahani to perform Sherwin Hajipour’s “Baraa-ye,” the Grammy-winning song which has become an anthem for the #WomanLifeFreedom movement.
2024/10/31 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday: This Great-Depression-era teardrop camper was lightweight and thus could be easily towed by any vehicle. It slept two and featured an external galley kitchen. The design fell out of favor in the 1960s, only to be rediscovered in the 1990s. [Top center] Closing arguments by Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. [Top right] Throwback Thursday: The magnificent Art-Deco City Hall of Buffalo, NY. [Bottom left & center] My new UCSB office in Ellison Hall is taking shape: Only a couple of super-heavy 5-drawer file cabinets remain to be pushed into place. [Bottom right] Tonight's Talangor Group talk on contradictions of democratic rule (see the last item below).
(2) Scarier than a Halloween ghost: RFK Jr. is said to have been offered a healthcare-related cabinet position in DJT's next administration.
(3) Tonight’s Talangor Group meeting: Dr. Ali Akbar Mahdi (Professor of Sociology, Cal State U. Northridge) spoke in Persian under the title "Contradictions of Democratic Rule." Before the main talk, Dr. Nayereh Tohidi made a brief presentation on Iran Academia, a free on-line university, and encouraged contributions to its endowment fund.
Dr. Mahdi began by presenting a brief history of democracy, from ancient Greece to now. Democracy can be defined as rule of the people, regardless of whether it is implemented in a republic, a constitutional monarchy, or some other form of government. Democracy can be participatory, representative, or deliberative. At the scale of modern nations, representative democracy is the most practical. While democracy is the rule of majority, it also respects minority rights.
Dr. Mahdi then discussed a number of contradictions or dilemmas faced by democratic rule.
- Freedom of economic activity vs. efficiency
- Equality vs. wide range of abilities
- Freedom of speech vs. national security
- Representatives’ self-interest vs. people’s will
Next, taking ideas from the book How Democracies Die (by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, 2018), Dr. Mahdi enumerated a number of dangers lurking behind every democracy. These include populism, dealing with the opposition as threats to national security (the enemy within), questioning democratic laws, casting doubt on the legitimacy of elections or political opponents, resorting to violence, and curtailing civil liberties.
Other problems we face in the US include ineffective parties with inadequate screening of candidates and the undue influence of money throughout the election process. Big news corporations, with many other economic interests that can be threatened by criticizing politicians or political candidates, are also part of the problem.
During the Q&A session, I shared a definition of democracy from Yuval Noah Harari’s new book, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. Democracy is a system of government with distributed decision-making and self-correction mechanisms. Dictatorships are centralized and lack self-correction. Often a dictator rises to power through a democratic process but then systematically eliminates the self-correction mechanisms, until nothing is left to detect and point out errors.
2024/10/30 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Iranian mullahs raise the white flag after the destruction of their entire Russian-supplied air defense system by Israel. Ali Akbar Velayati, a close Khamenei adviser, states in an interview that Iran is ready to resume talks and establish relations with the West. [Center] Persian calligraphic art with the theme of “eshgh” (“love”). [Right] Underground parking and other amenities at the Sydney Opera House.
(2) Billionaire owners of major newspapers and other media outlet dare not offend the big orange bully: They withhold previously-planned endorsement of Kamala Harris. In their various businesses, these billionaires benefit from government largesse and fat contracts. Therefore, given Trump's threats to retaliate against those who do not show loyalty to him, these owners put their financial interests over their patriotic duty.
(3) I can't believe that CNN is still both-siding every election story by including Trumpian talking heads: There is only one side; the side of decency, respect, honesty, and tolerance.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Verified satellite images of the damage inflicted by Israel's aerial attack on Iran's military facilities.
- Flash floods in Spain kill ~100, as they carry debris of houses and cars. [NYT]
- Irvine, CA, is considering a sister-city pact with Gaza City, which is run by a terrorist organization.
- Persian and Kurdish names for a number of plants that grow in western Iran.
- Quote of the day: “Mr. Bezos: Journalists must be truthful, not neutral.” ~ Christiane Amanpour
(5) The “grate cheese robbery”: Nearly 1000 wheels of artisanal cheddars — worth more than $389,000 — were reported stolen from a London-based company this month. [WaPo]
(6) Blame AI for your rising electricity bills: Tech giants are building new data centers to compete in the AI domain, leading to a rise in demand for electricity.
(7) Definition of democracy, from Yuval Noah Harari’s new book, Nexus (my review forthcoming): Democracy is a system of government with distributed decision-making and self-correction mechanisms. Dictatorships are centralized and not self-correcting. Often a dictator rises to power through a democratic process but then systematically eliminates the self-correction mechanisms, until nothing is left to detect and point out errors.
2024/10/27 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Cover feature of Science magazine (see the next item below). [Center] AutoFlight's eVTOL concept aircraft (see the item 3 below). [Right] Not the most-important data in today's troubled world, but here it is anyway: Average number of weekly bowel movements in Europe, by country.
(2) Fast fires: The cover feature of Science magazine, issue of Oct. 25, 2024, examines the reasons for greater destructiveness and rapid spreading of recent fires in the US. "The most destructive and deadly wildfires in US history were also fast. Using satellite data, we analyzed the daily growth rates of more than 60,000 fires from 2001 to 2020 across the contiguous US. Nearly half of the ecoregions experienced destructive fast fires that grew more than 1620 hectares in 1 day. These fires accounted for 78% of structures destroyed and 61% of suppression costs ($18.9 billion)."
(3) Vertical take-off and landing (VTOL): VTOL is slated to be one of the key technologies of the future, both for aircraft and for urban vehicles such as air taxis. Electric VTOL (eVTOL) has already been successfully deployed in fully-electric aircraft for short-range travel. As battery densities grow, higher-capacity batteries can be incorporated into light-weight aircraft, extending their range and safety. Get ready for traffic jams in the air!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Donald Trump has a 15-point lead among male voters: Now you know who to blame if he wins.
- It's Gates vs. Musk: Bill Gates says privately he donated $50 million to Kamala Harris campaign.
- Factory that produced 60% of IV fluids used in the US shut down due to NC floods, causing severe shortage.
- Iran's Islamist regime has executed another foreign hostage, the kidnapped and tortured Jamshid Sharmahd.
(5) Breaking news about a long-dead composer: An unknown waltz by Chopin, written nearly 200 years ago, has been discovered in the vault of the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. It was unearthed in a collection of memorabilia, alongside postcards signed by Picasso and letters from Brahms and Tchaikovsky.
(6) My thoughts for after November 5, 2024: I am rooting for Kamala Harris and have been contributing to her campaign in multiple rounds. However, I am genuinely scared for our future, regardless of the outcome.
Why I am scared of a Trump win is obvious: Paying lip service to the needs of the working class, while further enriching the super-rich; Weakening the rule of law; Putting in positions of power know-nothing individuals, based only on their loyalty; Tarnishing the US image around the word, so that it can no longer deter territorial aggression or act as a force for good.
My reasons for fearing a Harris presidency are less obvious. The prospects of Civil War II are quite real. Even in the absence of a full-blown national war, we may experience local conflicts, as well as violent attacks on politicians, civil servants, racial minorities, and religious minorities. In short, I am concerned about pent-up rage when the grand MAGA promises go the way of Trump Charity or Trump University, to name just two of his countless scams.
2024/10/26 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Forget about immigration policy, tariffs, who gets a tax cut, judge appointments, and other policy differences for a minute: Which of these two faces do you want to see splattered over your TV screens and newspaper front pages over the next four years? Do you want to be shown a fist or a smile? [Right] Curtis Sittenfeld's Romantic Comedy: A Novel (see the last item below)
(2) Israel retaliates against the mullahs' regime: Scores of Israeli jets conduct three waves of strikes before dawn on Saturday against missile factories and other sites inside Iran. Iran claims limited damage and releases the names of two soldiers killed at a military facility.
(3) Apology was overdue: President Biden apologizes to Native Americans for the forced removal of their children from their homes and enrolling them at special Indian boarding schools to erase their language and culture. Nearly 1000 of the children died of disease and malnutrition at these schools.
(4) Discovering lost Silk-Road cities: Michael Franchetti of Washington U. of St. Louis and Farhod Maksudov of Uzbekistan's National Center of Archaeology used drone-based LiDAR to identify the remains of two medieval cities along the ancient Silk Road in the mountains of southeastern Uzbekistan. The high-resolution LiDAR images show homes, plazas, fortifications, and roads in detail, shedding new light on urban life in the remote mountains of Central Asia between the 6th and 11th centuries.
(5) Book review: Sittenfeld, Curtis, Romantic Comedy: A Novel, unabridged 9-hour audiobook, read by Kristen Sieh, Random House Audio, 2023.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The protagonist of this novel, Sally Milz, is a sketch writer for "The Night Owls," a late-night live Saturday TV show a la "Saturday Night Live." Having abandoned the pursuit of love in favor of a fulfilling career and an occasional fling, she is nevertheless envious of average-looking or even dorky men, such as her co-worker Danny, who date stunningly beautiful and highly accomplished women, wondering why the reverse never happens. Sally channels her annoyance into a comedy sketch called the "Danny Horst Rule," poking fun at this asymmetry.
When charismatic pop star Noah Brewster, the show's guest host for a week, enters Sally's life and sparks fly between them, she wonders whether life is imitating rom-com storylines; or is she imagining something that's too good to be true? Sally and Noah hit it off and develop a long, loving relationship, after sally drives 1500 miles for their first romantic meeting, which she calls a "booty call."
The novel, written in the form of a diary covering 5 years, consists of three chapters, with a shorter Chapter 2, titled "July 2020," sandwiched between much longer Chapters 1 and 3, "April 2018" and "August 2020." The Prologue covers "February 2018" and the Epilogue, "April 2023." I found the first half of the novel better-written and more absorbing.
2024/10/25 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] My wooden back-patio fence was partially removed for replacement, due to extensive termite and dry-rot damage. The front-patio fence needs only minor repairs. [Center] Results of Thursday night's food prep: Egg salad, salad from a Costco kit, and pasta with turkey sauce. [Right] Vaclav Smil's Invention and Innovation (see the last item below).
(2) Media reports indicate that Arab-Americans are frustrated with Biden administration's Israel policy, so they may vote for Trump: Try to figure this one out!
(3) Iranian women against a brutal, misogynistic, Islamist regime: Atefeh Na'ami, 37, a kind-hearted activist, was found dead in her own home. Atefeh was covered with bruises, and a hose pipe connected to the building’s heating shoved down her throat. Iranian authorities have claimed it was a suicide, but not before the original investigator was taken off her case after saying it was murder. Atefeh was a vocal supporter of the #WomanLifeFreedom movement. She joined street marches sans her hijab and chanted slogans from her balcony in the evenings. [Source: IranWire] [Tweet, with photos]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- This debate between Jews belonging to Republican and Democratic parties should be interesting. [Flyer]
- Two Iranian women were killed by men whose marriage proposals they had rejected. [Source: IranWire]
- Two companies will pay $102 million to settle the Baltimore bridge collapse lawsuit. [NYT]
- Yummy fish recipe with pomegranate sauce, prepared in an outdoors setting (don't try this at home)!
(5) Book review: Smil, Vaclav, Invention and Innovation: A Brief History of Hype and Failure, unabridged 8-hour audiobook, read by Tim Fannon, Recorded Books, 2023. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Smil, who has written more than 40 books on scientific subjects and global matters, begins by discussing a number of inventions that were hailed as important breakthroughs but produced disastrous environmental consequences: Leaded gasoline, DDT insecticide, and Chlorofluorocarbons.
Smil then moves on to a few inventions that were supposed to change the world but did not live up to the hype. These include airships (which may be making a comeback now), nuclear power, supersonic passenger planes, and magnetic-levitation trains.
He next tackles ideas that, aided by the media looking for easy, attention-grabbing headlines, generated much excitement but failed to develop into useful technologies. Examples include nuclear fusion, high-speed travel in vacuum (hyperloop), and nitrogen-fixing cereal crops.
Smil expresses doubt that, even if successfully deployed, supersonic air travel or land travel in the cramped space of a hyperloop train would markedly improve our lives. Life-changing discoveries of the future pertain to the less-glamorous water-treatment processes and improvements in agricultural yields.
2024/10/24 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] Throwback Thursday: A famous strudels/donuts joint on Tehran's Naderi Ave. and Iranian women pilot trainees, both dating back to ~50 years ago. [Top right] This mural in Tehran's Palestine Square declares in Hebrew: "No hostage will be freed!" [Bottom left] This week is International Open Access Week: University of California and other organizations are holding events to celebrate the positive impact of open-access publishing on broader dissemination of research discoveries. [Bottom center] Today's beautiful sunrise, captured from my bedroom window. [Bottom right] Beauties in mathematics and Persian calligraphic art.
(2) Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, achieves another distinction: Of the top 100 performers in the National University Entrance Exam, 93 choose to attend SUT, with a whopping 71 selecting the computer engineering major. The EE major attracted 16 of these top students. [From a posting by Bardia Safaei]
(3) Daron Acemoglu and 22 other Nobel Laureates in Economics signed a letter endorsing Kamala Harris for President. "We believe Harris's policies will result in a stronger economic performance, with economic growth that is more robust, more sustainable, and more equitable."
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Thousands of North Korean soldiers are in Russia to help with the Ukraine War. [NYT]
- Iran's new President has been unable to reconcile his promises with the goals & policies of IRGC.
- Greece confronts new internal Islamist threat: The Dawat-e-Islami Organization.
- Already widespread, and likely growing, outbreak of e-coli linked to McDonald's Big Mac burgers.
(5) Meme of the day: How sad it must be, believing that scientists, scholars, historians, economists, and journalists have devoted their entire lives to deceiving you, while a reality television star, with decades of fraud and exhaustively documented lying, is your only beacon of truth and honesty.
(6) Luke Durant, a 36-year-old programmer from Alabama, has discovered M136279841, the largest known prime number, which has 41 million decimal digits.
(7) Longer crosswalks blamed for higher pedestrian fatalities: From 2010 to 2021, the number of pedestrians killed in US traffic collisions rose 77% while the number killed in Europe declined 20% for the decade. An NYU study examined the relationship between a city’s crosswalk length and its rate of pedestrian collisions. The study found the average crossing distance in Paris to be 26 feet vs. 43 feet in San Francisco & 58 feet in Irvine.
2024/10/22 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] On 7-segment display turning into a 6-segment display (see the next item below). [Top center] Someone suggested that every American should try to visit these 34 places: I have done 18 of them and will be satisfied if I get to 25. [Top right] Here's a tough puzzle for Sudoku fans. [Bottom left] Sloppy math used to prove 4 = 5: See if you can spot the error. [Bottom center] IranWire cartoon of the day: Khamenei's ship is sinking. [Bottom right] Donald Trump insists that he has nothing to do with Project 2025. Judge for yourself. Here is the list of Project 2025's authors and their roles in the first Trump administration.
(2) Musings of a curious engineer: Shortly after midnight, I noticed that one segment in the 7-segment display of my bedside clock had gone dark. The failure affected the representations of most digits, that is, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, and 9. The digits 1, 2, 4, 7 remained recognizable, but 0 resembled 6, both 3 & 9 looked like 5, and 8 turned into 6. Given that the faulty segment is in the rightmost or least-significant position, I may be able to live with this clock for some time, but I sense that other segments may start failing soon.
(3) Hope you enjoyed your 60th birthday, Madame Vice President! Your opponent is nearly two decades older. Use your youthful energy to defeat him.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- US charges Iranian Revolutionary Guards senior official in a plot to assassinate activist Masih Alinejad.
- Who is the only US President who refers to "Persian Gulf" as "Arabian Gulf"?
- Yes, Gazans are suffering: But remember their celebrations after October 7, 2023, and September 11, 2001.
- I guess it's hard to separate church from state when you can't even separate fact from fiction.
(5) AAAS webinar on the upcoming US elections: A panel set up by the American Association for the Advancement of Science took up the subject of "2024 US Elections and Its Potential Impact on Science Funding." The panelists discussed the ways in which AAAS engages with the media and government agencies on science policy and helps scientists connect with local and national media in their areas of expertise. AAAS has launched press packages based on the contents of the Science family of journals in order to spread correct scientific information, thereby battling misinformation and disinformation. Science and technology issues on AAAS’s radar include CHIPS & science funding, research security, AI everywhere, NIH modernization, scientific misconduct & AI tools, and distrust of scientific information & data. Attending local events and engaging with the local media are very important, as the latter are the most trusted information sources these days.
2024/10/20 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] After an orange boor and a senile man, it would be nice to see a glamorous President in the White House. [Center] Photos from Ventura Harbor Village, where our family dined today to celebrate my niece's birthday. [Right] Science policy in the next US administration (see the next item below).
(2) What the next US election could mean for scientific research: An enormous amount is riding on the upcoming US elections in terms of social and economic programs. But scientists and technologists are also anxious about the outcome. The stakes for science are indeed quite high. Unfortunately, neither candidate talks about science policy. Harris's priorities on climate change and renewable energy will bring benefits to the scientific community. Trump's focus on staying ahead of China could mean robust support for AI and cybersecurity research.
(3) Use additions instead of multiplications to save 95% of the energy consumed by AI applications: Floating-point matrix multiplications account for much of the computational workload in machine learning. Given that machine learning does not need high-precision computation of the kind performed by standard microprocessors and GPUs, many proposals have emerged for low-precision or approximate multiplication to mitigate the high energy cost of AI applications. In a recent paper, Hongyin Luo and Wei Sun of BitEnergy AI, Inc., suggest that 8-bit floating-point multiplication can be approximated by integer addition, which uses at least an order-of-magnitude less energy. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2410.00907
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Documents pertaining to a possible Israeli attack on Iran leaked.
- SNL's "Weekend Update" contrasts the styles of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates.
- History of Jews, Jerusalem, and Palestine. [71-minute part 1] [102-minute part 2]
- A short Persian poem using words whose initials are all the letters of the alphabet, in order. [Video]
(5) Final thought for the day: According to media reports, many Americans say that they will leave the country if their candidate loses the presidential election. This is so un-American! they should stay and fight to push the "wrong" president out of office in 2028 or perhaps earlier.
2024/10/18 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzle: Given 2 circles & a rectangle of area 243 cm^2 as shown, find R. [Center] Today, I got rid of a large batch of stencils (Persian/Arabic letters in different font sizes and some decorative borders), which I used before the availability of word processors to make brochures and compose Persian text. The text on my father's tombstone was composed in this way. [Right] Math puzzle: Find the ratio R/r of the two radii in this diagram with a square and two circles.
(2) A mass-terror plot foiled: Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, a Pakistani national on a Canadian student visa, was arrested for planning a mass attack in New York. [NYT]
(3) China assumes leadership role in setting tech standards: China has been increasingly assertive in the technology standard-setting process. Last month for example, the International Telecommunication Union approved three new technical standards that will be embedded in sixth-generation (6G) mobile technology, all developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China Telecom. Unlike the West, which has tended to defer to private companies and industry associations in the standard-setting process, China's approach is led by its government. [The Economist]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Yahya Sinwar, the new leader of Hamas and mastermind of the October 7 massacre, is confirmed dead.
- DNA evidence shows that Yahya Sinwar was involved in the execution-style killings of six hostages.
- Archdiocese of Los Angeles agrees to pay $880 million to settle sex abuse claims. [NYT]
- All of Cuba is plunged into darkness by a nationwide power outage. [NYT]
(5) Latinos are the largest target of election misinformation & disinformation: Claims such as Harris being a communist (scary to Cuban-Americans), the election having been cancelled, and illegal aliens being allowed to vote are making the rounds on social media.
(6) A team from United Kingdom's University College London demonstrated wireless data transfer at speeds of nearly 1 terabits per second, over five times the previous wireless transmission world record.
(7) Responsible Machine Learning Summit, 2024: This all-day event, with a focus on "AI and Materials," was held at UCSB today.
In the opening keynote address, Eric Toberer (Colorado School of Mines) spoke about his own work and an alliance of more than a dozen institutions collaborating on emerging AI applications at the boundary of physics and material science.
The keynote talk was followed by a panel discussion, "Integrating AI into Material Discovery and Design." For the full program, see the Summit's Web page.
2024/10/17 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Socrates Think Tank talk on lab-grown diamond (see the next item below). [Center] Recent addition to a NYC subway sign. [Right] Talangor Group talk about instability in the Middle East (see the last item below).
(2) Last night's Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Reza Abbaschian (Distinguished Professor of Sustainability, UC Riverside) spoke under the title "High-Pressure, High-Temperature Growth of Jewelry Diamonds." There were ~100 attendees.
I was disappointed that the talk began with a mention of Marilyn Monroe's "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend," what in this day and age is construed as a sexist remark.
There are two ways of producing lab diamonds: High-pressure, high-temperature process and chemical vapor deposition. Carbon, which is the sole ingredient in diamonds, takes several different forms.
- Carbon as graphene, which is a single layer of carbon atoms with amazing strength and electrical properties.
- Carbon as graphite, bulk material with many applications, including in building lithium-ion batteries.
- Carbon as diamond, in which each carbon atom is connected with other atoms, with no free electrons.
Mined diamond is of two types, type I (98%) and type II (rare). Mined diamond costs ~$100/carat wholesale, with retail cost being 2-3 times higher. Each carat is 200 mg. In 1955, six General Electric researchers succeeded in synthesizing diamond.
The rest of Dr. Abbaschian's talk covered his personal experiences in synthesizing diamonds, the market & applcations for lab-grown diamonds, and bringing the production machinery to U. Florida, where he worked.
(3) My older son turned 40 today. To help him celebrate, I dug up the following facts about the number 40.
Repdigit 1111 in ternary notation.
Fourth octagonal number.
Sum of the first four pentagonal numbers, 1 + 5 + 12 + 22.
40 primes are generated by n^2 + n + 41 for n = 0, 1, 2, ... , 39 (Euler).
The 40 primes above are separated by 2, 4, 6, ... , 78.
–40 is the unique temperature where the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales coincide.
"40" is the title of songs by Dave Matthews Band, Franz Ferdinand, and U2.
And, of course, we have WD-40!
(4) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Reza Alavi talked about "The Roots of Instability in the Middle East and the Nostalgia for an Islamic Empire." There were ~90 attendees.
After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the relative stability of the Middle East perished. Over time, Sunni powers have wanted to return to the caliphates of early Islam. Shi'is, on the other hand, want a powerful religious state centered on an Imam. As a result, Islamic revival movements proceeded along divergent paths.
Fundamentalist Sunni ideology emerged in India, Saudi Arabia, and in the form of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and several other countries. Saudis, and Al Qaeda that followed in their footsteps, favored activism to usurp political power. Al Qaeda had a long-term plan of disposing the existing governments and then proceeding to establish their own ideal caliphate. Both Taliban and Daesh had territorial goals from the very beginning.
Both Sunnis and Shi'is wanted to rule differently from normal political systems. They wanted the rule of God through a Caliph or an Imam as an absolute authority.
When in 1923, Turkey abolished the caliphate and built on its ruins a modern republic, Muslims blamed all of their problems on the absence of religious rule. They viewed an Islamic government as the only cure for all ills. This upheaval preceded the establishment of Israel by 25 years (1923 to 1948).
While the French accepted the demise of monarchy and didn’t look back, Muslims never got over the abolishment of the caliphate and continued to seek its return. The fact that the order imposed by an empire went away without being replaced by a democratic system with people's rights and rule of law, is a main cause of instability.
During the Cold War, both the US and the Soviet Union extended their tentacles into the Middle East, with the US establishing treaties in North Africa and Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union trying to influence Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the relative balance and superficial calm went away, leading to many governments collapsing and going into turmoil.
During the Q&A period, I contested the assertion that the demise of the Ottoman Empire was a main cause of instability in the Middle East. Instead, I suggested that the fall of the Ottomans was an effect, not a cause. Britain ruled India for more than 1.5 centuries before the Ottomans fell, and they made mischief in Afghanistan before that fall. The Brits moved their focus westward to Iran upon the discovery of oil in 1908, some 15 years before the Ottomans fell. One can conclude from this timeline that perhaps the Ottomans were pushed out rather than collapse under structural problems and internal rot.
2024/10/14 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The last nobel prize for 2024, Economic Sciences (see the next item below). [Center] Science magazine cover feature (see item 3 beleow). [Right] John Polkinghorne's Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction (see the last item below).
(2) Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, 2024: Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson were honored for their research on global inequality explaining the differences in prosperity between nations, and for their research into how institutions affect prosperity.
(3) Graphene at 20: A special section of Science magazine, Oct. 11, 2024, celebrates the 20th birthday of graphene, the atom-thin carbon sheets with surprising properties (e.g., better at carrying electricity than any metal, a superb heat conductor, and hundreds of times stronger than steel). Although some of the imagined applications, such as space elevators, have not materialized, there is no shortage of exciting applications.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Nearly 100 people are still missing in North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. [NBC News]
- November 9 wedding plans replaced by 4 funerals in the wake of Hurricane Helene. [The News & Observer]
- A Sikh activist's murder led Canada to expel several Indian diplomats, with India reciprocating. [WSJ]
- K-Mart, the store that once sold everything, everywhere, is about to close its last full-size US store.
(5) NASA sends a spacecraft to Jupiter's icy moon, Europa, a frozen "ocean world" judged to be the likeliest place in the Solar System to harbor life.
(6) Book review: Polkinghorne, John, Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction, unabridged 4-hour audiobook, read by Dennis Holland, Tantor Media, 2021.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This is yet another wonderfully-written and accessible title in Oxford's "Very Short Introduction" series. You can learn about virtually any subject from one of the hundreds of titles in the series.
The discovery in the 1920s, by Werner Heisenberg and Ervin Schrodinger, among others, that Newtonian mechanics and Maxwell's equations (classical physics) cannot explain phenomena at atomic and subatomic levels and that determinism must be abandoned in favor of a probabilistic view is hailed as perhaps the greatest scientific discovery of all time.
Such a short introduction to the immensely complex subject of quantum mechanics is barely enough to introduce and define the key terms and concepts of the field. Polkinghorne gives the reader a basic understanding of quantum theory and helps him/her decide whether a detailed study of the field from one of the many excellent books is something you want/should pursue.
Here are some suggestions for further reading, given on a Web page entitled "The 6 Best Quantum Physics Books on the Planet."
2024/10/13 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top row] Visiting Dr. Mahmood Nahvi in Arroyo Grande: Today, thanks to the generosity of Drs. Mohamad Navab of UCLA and Reza Sarmast visiting from Norway, I got to see an old colleague from Arya-Mehr/Sharif University of Technology. We drove north to Arroyo Grande, close to San Luis Obispo, and were treated to a sumptuous lunch and heavenly desserts by Dr. Nahvi and his wife Zari, as well as to an enjoyable conversation about our memories from 50 years ago. The book on electric circuits was gifted to me and autographed. [Bottom left & Center] Another book by Dr. Mahmood Nahvi. [Bottom right] Northern Lights at my neck of the woods: Photo snapped by my daughter on her iPhone and slightly edited by me.
(2) The ability to synthesize information is now more important than knowledge acquisition: "The hallmark of expertise is no longer how much you know. It's how well you synthesize. Information scarcity rewarded knowledge acquisition. Information abundance requires pattern recognition. It's not enough to connect facts. The future belongs to those who connect dots." [From Adam Grant Newsletter, Oct. 13, 2024]
(3) My course on the science and engineering behind democratic elections: Now in its third week, the UCSB graduate-level seminar being offered for the first time this fall is a wonderful learning experience for me and my students. You can find out more about the course and follow along through its Web site, which contains numerous references, problems with solutions, and PDF files of the lecture slides.
2024/10/12 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] It's easy to claim economic success if you don't have to back it up with data (WSJ chart for US GDP growth). [Center] Some humorous mathematical simplifications. [Right] US federal debt-to-GDP ratio since 1940 (see the next item below).
(2) Historical trend of the US federal debt-to-GDP ratio: The first big bump on the left was caused by World War II. The smaller bump in the middle coincides with Reagan and Bush Sr. presidencies. The final bump on the right started during Obama years and rose further during the Trump administration.
(3) In 1977, a space radio signal, known as the “Wow! signal,” was detected, and we still don't know its origin. It lasted 72 seconds and has never been heard again. [Source: Star Talk]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Kamala Harris introduces herself and her policies in this 21-minute segment on "60 Minutes."
- A Texas doctor's encounter with four Saudi princesses kept drugged and locked up for two decades.
- Adam Grant, in his newsletter: "Generosity is not just a sign of virtue—it's a mark of intelligence."
- Top-5 happiest US states in 2024, according to WalletHub: Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, Utah, Delaware.
- This is a physical demonstration of the Pythagorean Theorem, using flowing beads. [GIF]
- Republican candidate in Illinois tells his Indigenous election rival to go back where she came from!
(5) Dangers of aging water infrastructure: "In September 2023, more than 11,000 people died after torrential rainfall triggered the collapse of two dams in Libya. In May 2024, a flash flood in Mashhad, Iran, led to loss of lives because of poorly designed and malfunctioning stormwater drainage systems. Developing nations will increasingly confront similar hazards as their aging water infrastructure encounters more frequent and intense storms, population growth, and urbanization. Financial shortfalls, mismanagement, and corruption complicate efforts to upgrade infrastructure, exacerbating the dangers." [From Science magazine, issue of Oct. 11, 2024]
(6) TED talks turn 40: Using the slogan "Ideas Worth Spreading," TED, an acronym meant to convey the group’s interest in technology, entertainment, and design, launched its first conference in 1984. Today's TED is a mixed bag, covering topics from creativity & poverty to procrastination & orgasms, featuring speakers ranging from Naomi Klein & Monica Lewinsky to Bono. Perhaps the rapid expansion of TED and its many affiliated TEDx programs has led to a sacrifice in quality. I, for one, still enjoy watching an occasional TED talk, but choose the topics carefully in order to avoid exhaustion.
2024/10/11 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Nobel Peace Prize (see the next item below). [Center] Tonight, I attended an enjoyable Billy Joel tribute concert by Billy Nation at Santa Barbara's Lobero Theater. [Right] On public education (see the last item below).
(2) Nobel Peace Prize, 2024: The Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, a grass-roots movement of atomic bomb survivors, was recognized "for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again."
(3) AGs from 13 states and DC sue TikTok: The company is accused of violating consumer protection laws by designing its video-sharing app in ways that lead to compulsive use, exposing young users to mental & physical risk. [Washington Post]
(4) Young Nobel Laureates: It seems that this year's winners of Nobel Prizes in science are younger than usual. It used to be that the Prizes were awarded for work completed decades ago. But now, we see, for example, that John M. Jumper of Google DeepMind wins the Chemistry Prize at age 39, only 7 years after earning a PhD. He is, of course far from being the youngest Nobel Laureate (see this Web page). In sciences, 25-year-old Lawrence Bragg (Physics, 1915), was the youngest.
(5) Public education in a democracy: Public schools' mission is to teach children what they need to know in order to help shape a principled, thriving, and prosperous society. The fact that they have been less than successful in doing so does not give every parent the right to dictate the curriculum based on his/her personal preferences. Parents dissatisfied with the public-education curricula have options. One option is to participate in shaping the school curricula on a democratic basis, where you convince others by logical arguments not by shouting or name-calling. Another option is to use home or private schooling. Dictating what other children learn or which books they read isn't one of the options.
2024/10/10 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
day in Tehran, Iran, ca. 1976" />
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] Nobel Prizes in Chemistry & Literature (see the next two items below). [Top right] Talangor Group talk on US politics (see the last item below). [Bottom left] The onset of a broader war in the Middle East has temporarily overshadowed the struggles of Iranian women to gain their rights and to be treated with basic human dignity. Stand with women in Iran! [Bottom center] A day after the anniversary of the October 7, 2023, atrocities, keffiyehs are out in full force and pro-Hamas/Palestine protests have resumed on the UCSB campus: Protesters are peaceful for now and have not disrupted the university’s normal functions. [Bottom right] Throwback Thursday: A rainy day in Tehran, Iran, ca. 1976.
(2) Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2024: The honor went half to David Baker (U. Washington) for contributions to "computational protein design" and half to Demis Hassabis & John Jumper (Google DeepMind AI Lab), for work on "protein structure prediction." This is the second award this year that points to the central role of computation and AI.
(3) Nobel Prize in Literature, 2024: Best known for her novel The Vegetarian, South Korean author Han Kang is honored for "her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas."
(4) Tonight's Talangor Group meeting: Bijan Kian spoke under the title "History and Origins of Differences Between US Republican and Democratic Parties." Mr. Kian has a long history of involvement in business management and government service, including senior positions in the administrations of the 43rd, 44th, and 45th US Presidents.
Eisenhower entered the political scene with help from the Dulles Brothers, who were lawyers involved with negotiating Iran's oil contracts with the British. Subsequently, Iran's oil was nationalized and the Dulles Brothers essentially failed in their mission.
Mr. Kian is a member of the Republican Party, but he stressed that he will not be talking about current politics and presidential candidates. He began by pondering why a wealthy nation such as Iran has millions of people below the poverty line.
Both parties claim that they want to limit the scope of the government, but historically, the Democratic Party has been paying attention the poor and needy, priorities that tend to produce larger governments and higher taxes. Republicans favor businesses and view themselves as defenders of capitalism, with fewer regulations.
Today's Republicans do not support their party out of philosophical or even ideological convictions. They assess their own economic status, income, and purchasing power.
The extent of cooperation between the two parties has varied. Reagan had a good relationship with Democratic congressional leaders. Obama was more suspicious of the opposing party. The American political system is based on a balance of power, with a government that rules from the center. When the political pendulum swings wildly to one side, it will eventually return to its natural position in the middle.
Today, we face an American nation that is bifurcated, threatening the "United" part in United States of America. One may wonder why a Pennsylvania miner, for example, votes for a candidate whose policies would eliminate his job or otherwise hurt his economic status. Is he not aware of his self-interest or are there other factors at play?
Mr. Kian said that his primary focus is on world peace, that is, changing the current status that has been created primarily by Russia and Iran.
A lively discussion ensued, which continued even after Mr. Kian left the meeting due to time constraints.
2024/10/08 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Nobel Prize in Physics (see the next item below). [Center] Our family gathering in Ventura, California, a few days ago. [Right] Donald Trump's dream, according to MAGA postings on social media: Please kick this sick man out of politics once and for all. It's just this one election next month. He will be too old to run in 2028.
(2) Nobel Prize in Physics 2024: John Hopfield (Princeton U.) and Geoffrey Hinton (U. Toronto) are honored "for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks." The selection of computing researchers in physics is a welcome change.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Donald Trump has secretly spoken with Vladimir Putin as many as 7 times since leaving office. [NYT]
- Hurricane Milton, one of the most-powerful storms on record, will tear through Florida tomorrow.
- Facebook memory from Oct. 8, 2018: A Persian sentence with nothing but verbs.
(4) Iran uses propaganda alongside terrorism: Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi has issued a scathing indictment of the former high-level Iranian government official Seyed Hossein Mousavian, now at Princeton, and institutions that host him, because of his alleged role in assassinating Iranian dissidents.
(5) Flower Piano: For a few days last month, 12 grand pianos were placed under the trees in San Francisco's Botanical Garden, allowing players and listeners to enjoy the music in a beautiful setting.
2024/10/07 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top Left] First 2024 Nobel Prize (see the next item below). [Top center] Protest movement against executions in Iran (see the last item below). [Top right] Anniversary of the October 7 Hamas atrocities (see item 3 below). [Bottom left] Math puzzle: In this diagram with a square, a circle, and four equal semicircles, what is the ratio R/r? [Bottom center] Beauty for the eyes and beauty for the mind in one frame. [Bottom right] Math puzzle: Given four squares with areas A, B, C, D, as shown, find the ratio (A + B)/(C + D).
(2) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2024: Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were honored for the discovery of microRNA, which plays a crucial role in determining how organisms develop and function.
(3) Anniversary of the October 7 terrorist attack on southern Israel: The brutal Hamas terrorists slaughtered 1200 civilians, while joyfully posting their savagery on social media, and kidnapped ~250. As they observe this anniversary, residents of villages that were attacked are slowly returning home.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- US DOJ indicts 68 members of a Neo-Nazi, White-Supremacist group on drug and other charges.
- The Israeli media have published this chart of IRGC's command structure: Is Israel sending a signal?
- Fewer college students have the ability or focus to read even a simple book, let alone a challenging one.
- Taiwan faces a serious electricity shortage, threatening the future of 68% of the world's chip production.
(5) While still recovering from the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, Floridians are bracing for the approaching category-5 Hurricane Milton.
(6) The asteroid that hit Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was not alone: During the same era, a second smaller space rock smashed into the sea off the coast of West Africa creating a large crater.
(7) Playing the citations game: China has risen in the citations rankings because of its immense population and an unusually high number of citations to the work of Chinese scientists from within China.
(8) The pace of executions has picked up in Iran: Amid a continued post-election execution surge and increased suppression of peaceful prison protests in Iran, Norway-based Iran Human Rights NGO and 67 human rights organizations across four continents expressed their support for the ongoing "No Death Penalty Tuesdays" weekly hunger strike movement currently spanning 17 Iranian prisons. Please support this movement in the lead-up to World Day Against the Death Penalty on October 10.
2024/10/05 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Paying lip service to the rule of law while supporting a criminal who broke multiple laws and was caught for it is hypocrisy to the extreme. [Top center] "We are not going back" is a slogan embraced by Democrats and many Republicans alike. [Top right] J. D. Vance blames his mom's drug addiction on the situation at our border with Mexico: She actually fed her habit by stealing drugs from the hospital where she worked as a nurse.[Bottom left] T'is the season for scary movies. [Bottom center] American women are not going back, and we men will follow them forward. [Bottom right] Nick Otre Le Vant'a On Progress in Physics and Subjectivity Theory (see the last item below).
(2) As we approach the anniversary of October 7, five Jewish college students have been assaulted in recent days. A group of Palestine supporters plan vigils on October 7!
(3) Book review: Otre Le Vant, Nick, On Progress in Physics and Subjectivity Theory: An Amateur's Meanderings as Inspiration for Actual Physicists, self-published, 2024.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I approached this self-published book, sent to me kindly by the author, with caution. As I had suspected, trouble began early on. There is a 4 x 4 table in Chapter 1 whose rows and columns are labeled Object, Movement, Space, Time. The idea is to show that the four notions are inter-dependent. In some cases, actual theories and dates of discoveries are cited, but, at the bottom of the page, we read, "As for cell SO [Space-Object], which asserts that there can be no Space without Objects, several discoveries throughout the 20th century support this idea." The non-physicist reader is left hanging without any further details.
The book is composed of three numbered chapters, sandwiched between a preface and an afterword, ending with a glossary.
Chapter 1: Questioning Everything (pp. 1-28)
Chapter 2: Subjectivity Theory (pp. 29-89)
Chapter 3: Achieving Progress in Physics (pp. 90-302)
The entire book is written in the form of a conversation between A (Alice) and B (Bobby). This isn't unprecedented, as Galileo used the format in his 1632 Italian-language book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, comparing the Copernican system with the traditional Ptolemaic system, and Amazon is currently selling a book series, The Dialogues: Conversations about the Nature of the Universe.
We read on p. 8: "Let's take Newton's unification of gravity as an example. He realized that the force that keeps the planets in orbit is the same as the one pulling the apple to the ground. Before Newton's discovery, those two phenomena were regarded as entirely separate. While this new, unified theory is also wrong—remember, everything is wrong—it's less wrong as there is now only one wrong theory instead of two wrong theories. Making something up isn't good, but at least it's better than making two things up." With this logic, we are better off developing no theories, because then we'd have zero thing wrong!
By the way, the discussion above is reminiscent of a proposal I encountered when I was a graduate student. The suggestion was that a paper of m pages should be accepted and published only if it makes other papers of total length of at least m + 1 obsolete. The m-page paper is itself wrong and will be made obsolete by an even shorter paper in due course, thus reducing our worries about information explosion. Eventually, over many decades or centuries, we will arrive at a 1-page paper that contains the essence of all human knowledge, which is, of course, wrong!
An interesting feature of the book is a set of profiles covering the lives and work of 12 top physicists. Two-thirds of the parents of these physicists were middle-class (2 were poor; 2 were wealthy). They were equally divided between religious and non-religious. The number of their siblings was nearly uniformly distributed between 0 and 5.
Throughout, I took in the ideas with a huge grain of salt, as suggested by the author himself in a full-page graphic at the beginning of the book.
2024/10/03 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Happy Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year Festival): The new Hebrew calendar year 5785 will start tomorrow and, like all Jewish holidays, is celebrated beginning with the night before. Observance of Rosh Hashanah involves eating several kinds of fruits and vegetables. For example, honey-dipped apple represents sweetness and pomegranate signifies fruitfulness. [Top center] Throwback Thursday: How babies used to fly on airplanes. [Top right] CACM cover (see the next item below). [Bottom left] A top-heavy Earth: Nearly 7 times more people live in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere. [Bottom center] Turnout was pretty good for the 2020 US election: Let's make 2024's turnout even better! [Bottom right] Lisi Rankin's A People's History of Computing in the United States (see the last item below).
(2) Communications of the ACM cover feature for October 2024: "In between the two extreme visions of AI as a servant and AI as a sentient fighter-lover, resides an important and practical alternative: AI as a provocateur. A provocateur does not complete your report. It does not draft your email. It does not write your code. It does not generate slides. Rather, it critiques your work. Where are your arguments thin? What are your assumptions and biases? What are the alternative perspectives? Is what you are doing worth doing in the first place? Rather than optimize speed
and efficiency, a provocateur engages in discussions, offers counterarguments, and asks questions to stimulate our thinking."
(3) Book review: Rankin, Lisi, A People's History of Computing in the United States, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by Bernadette Dunne, Blackstone Audio, 2018.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Rankin's title is reminiscent of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, in which history is viewed from the eyes of ordinary citizens, as opposed to politicians, military leaders, and industrialists. Computing, too, isn't the brainchild of a handful of male heroes, but a product of a multitude of ordinary people who got involved passionately and early on.
A prevailing myth in tech circles is that Silicon Valley has been the center of all important advances in computing. Even though big tech companies have been very innovative recently, from a historical standpoint, people (students and educators), were the driving engines for key advances. For example, Dartmouth College and University of Illinois were two important innovation hubs in the 1960s and 1970s where citizens engaged in the development of computing for the public good. Communication, game-playing, and social interactions were all there.
Rankin argues that "personal computing," the ability of people to access, create, and form communities around computer resources, existed way before computing devices were marketed to the masses and that the Internet was not a prerequisite for social computing. Furthermore, she dismisses the notion of "a digital America dependent on the work of a handful of male tech geniuses." In reality, ordinary citizens participated widely in computing through the use of time-shared systems. The contrast between these involved citizens and today's predominantly consumer-minded tech users is striking.
"Geographically, innovative educational experiments were conducted in New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Illinois, locales that are not synonymous with digital culture in many people's minds. Today, "we think of public schools and college classrooms as the last stop for mature technology," but the experiments just cited were really producers of new ideas and technology that were later exploited by big tech. The programming language BASIC, developed at Dartmouth, became the language of computing citizens worldwide.
2024/10/01 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Happy IEEE Day! Today, the Institute of Electrical and Elrctronic Engineers celebrates the first time in history when engineers worldwide gathered to share their technical ideas in 1884. [Center] Five weeks from the US presidential election: National poll averages seem to have stabilized into a 3-point lead for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump, but results in battleground states remain extremely close. [Right] This homeowner speaks for many of us.
(2) Iran launches 500 missiles toward Israel: Multiple hits on Tel Aviv are reported and the Ben Gurion airport is closed. Israeli authorities say they were ready for the attack. The attack caused minimal loss of life; A Palestinian man was killed in the West Bank. There were, however, damages to buildings, infrastructure, and military facilities.[Later reports cite ~200 missiles.]
(3) Many researchers pursue STEM fields to get away from the challenges of writing: They are often surprised to find out that writing plays an important role in science and technology.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The snake of Islamist terror in the Middle East is left with a head and no body!
- While continuing to bombard Lebanon, Israel starts hitting Houthi targets in Yemen.
- Hurricane Helene's death toll surpasses 100: Recovery efforts have begun, but they will take months.
- Former President Jimmy Carter, who turns 100 today, is delighted with the Harris campaign.
- US port workers strike across the East and Gulf Coasts: Major supply-chain disruptions are expected.
- Climate scientist Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico's first female and first Jewish president, takes offices.
(5) Computing with bacteria: Researchers at India's Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics combined genetically engineered bacteria to act as biological computers for solving various problems. These "bactoneurons" were arranged in an assortment of combinations to perform 12 tasks, such as identifying prime numbers and vowels. The bacteria cultures work together as a single-layer artificial neural network, and their ability to self-replicate means they could be produced cheaply at scale.
2024/09/29 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Young mom holding her two toddlers and, years later, held by the grown sons. [Center] Some of the wonderful protest art arising from Iran's women-led #WomanLifeFreedom movement. [Right] Country music singer/songwriter and actor Kris Kristofferson dead at 88: RIP. The Rhodes Scholar, who earned a master's degree in English literature from Oxford, will be remembered for ballads like "Me and Bobby McGee" & "Help Me Make It Through the Night" and his role against Barbra Streisand in "A Star is Born."
(2) Long-time Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, 64, killed in Beirut air strike. He was in a bunker 60 feet underground when struck and killed. Iranians celebrated Nasrallah's death, remembering the time when he openly boasted that all expenses of Hezbollah are paid by Iran, adding "if Iran has money, we have money."
(3) Memory loss is both scary and natural: In 2010, James Collins wrote an essay in which he describes books that he loved, about which he remembers nothing.
(4) IEEE Computer Society elections: Grace A. Lewis, a Principal Researcher at the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute, has been elected to lead the IEEE Computer Society, as President-Elect during 2025 and as President during 2026. A good friend of mine, Dr. Ladan Tahvildari (U. Waterloo), is one of 6 members elected to 3-year terms on the Society's Board of Governors.
(5) SNL kicked off its 50th season last night: A new movie dramatizes the story of the chaotic 90 minutes before the first episode in 1975 of what would become Saturday Night Live.
(6) Yesterday's arts & crafts market in Isla Vista: With UCSB students back on campus, the market was busier than usual. My daughter participated and did good business. Unfortunately, I couldn't visit. [Image]
(7) "The Apprentice": A new film about the young Donald Trump and how despised & disbarred attorney Roy Cohen shaped him into what we see today, thus affecting the course of American history.
2024/09/27 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Quote of the day: Hannah Arendt, on constant lying designed to promote disbelief. [Center] Humor: Here's how to find Kentucky on a US map. You're welcome! [Right] Talk on Iran's protest art (see the next item below).
(2) Today's book talk: "Women, Art, Freedom: Artists and Street Politics in Iran" was the title of an insightful talk by Dr. Pamela Karimi (Cornell University). There were ~55 attendees.
Drawing on a broad spectrum of historical and theoretical sources, this new book reveals the origins and inspirations of Iran's protest art, with a focus on interconnections between the public sphere, women's bodies, and feminist viewpoints. Dr. Karimi showed photos of street dancing, art installations, and other activities as examples of protest art in Iran.
(3) Around the world in 175 days: This week is the centennial of the first flight around the world, completed by two aircraft out of four that flew together in 1924.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Canada, Germany, Holland, and Australia want to take the Taliban to International Criminal Court.
- Donald Trump and his minions believe in the rule of lies!
- Trump, embraced by the Christian Nationalists as their savior, is the polar opposite of Jesus.
- Allowing religious zealots to run the world? We have tried it before, and the result was the Dark Ages.
- "Violence of Benevolence & the Struggles for Women's Rights in Iran" (57-minute talk: Arzoo Osanloo).
- SNL will turn 50 in October 2025: A new movie offers a fictional reimagining of the show's first episode.
- A little puzzler: What temperature has the same numerical representation in Kelvin and Fahrenheit?
(5) President Pezeshkian has said that Iran wants to be in peace with the world: Yeah, but before that, try to be in peace with your country's women, artists, students, journalists, and ethnic/religious minorities.
(6) On restoring mobility after spinal cord injuries: We humans walk, run, and climb stairs without consciously thinking about the highly complex interplay of muscle activations for each step. Interestingly, stepping can be generated without any communication between the brain and the spinal cord. For those with injuries that disrupt the communication between the brain and the spinal cord, the automatic ability to step is often lost, leading to mobility impairments or even permanent paralysis. Given that stepping can occur independently of brain input, should we continue to focus on restoring communication between the brain and spinal cord or should we instead target neurons located in the spinal cord itself?
2024/09/25 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Beauty from three natural elements (sunset, clouds, birds). [Center] My graduate seminar course on mathematical and engineering aspects of voting and elections in the campus news (see the next item below). [Right] Aubrey Clayton's Bernoulli's Fallacy (see the last item below).
(2) My course in the campus news: The feature article of UCSB Current, UC Santa Barbara's official news site, is about the ECE 594BB graduate seminar I will be teaching this quarter. "I want the students to understand that our voting system is flawed and that voting is not as simple as what we might think ... It's complicated, and we should work toward removing the flaws of our election system, even in the face of mathematical proof that a perfect voting system is impossible."
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- California sues ExxonMobile for deliberately lying about plastics being recyclable.
- The quest to build a radio telescope on the Moon, pioneering mining and manufacturing in space.
- The seven types of anxiety disorders (from generalized anxiety to social anxiety). [13-minute video]
- Facebook memory from Sep. 25, 2022: Rosh Hashanah at my mom's, two months before her passing.
(4) Book review: Clayton, Aubrey, Bernoulli's Fallacy: Statistical Illogic and the Crisis of Modern Science, Columbia U. Press, 2021. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
There is a long-running feud between science and statistics with regard to the statistical methods used across experimental science. Far from being a minor academic quibble, it underlies a reproducibility crisis now threatening entire disciplines. As statistics has entered more and more aspects of our lives, the error at the root of the dispute, which stems from a misunderstanding of probability and its role in making inferences from observations, shapes important decisions in medicine, law, and public policy.
The association of a fallacy with Jacob Bernoulli [1655-1705], the founder of probability theory and a member of a family of mathematicians and scientists with numbers, theorems, and laws named after them, seems bizarre. The fallacy arises from a confusion between the probability of data given a hypothesis and the probability of a hypothesis given the data. Clayton tells us that significance testing, a widely used method, is based on Bernoulli's Fallacy and thus leads to false conclusions. In particular, he points out irreproducible results published in top social-sciences journals which have made significance testing a prerequisite for publication.
Clayton discusses the racist past of statistics (eugenics) and points out that the frequentist view of probability, used extensively in teaching the concepts, is misguided. Defining probability as "the frequency of occurrence of an event in proportion to the total number of possible events that could have occurred" and then using this definition as the sole basis for drawing inferences about the real world (e.g., deriving population parameters from sample parameters) is at the core of the fallacy. What is missing is a use of our knowledge of the world or "the prior." The latter is integrated into Bayes Theorem. The Bayesian method is still not well-understood, or is otherwise ignored, by some statisticians.
In way of conclusion, Clayton discusses “the way out” of the fallacy, which entails 5 recommendations:
- Abandon the frequentist interpretation and its associated language
- Don't fear the prior
- Data you didn't get aren't as important as hypotheses you didn't assume
- Get used to approximate answers
- Give up on objectivity; aim for validity instead
In short, the way out consists of abandoning much of conventional views in statistics, including the claim that statistical methods are objective, embracing the messiness of the world around us, and taking the Bayesian approach. An important prerequisite is to view all probability as conditional on something (background info), rather than absolute.
This 78-minute book talk by the author covers the book's key ideas.
2024/09/24 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] UCSB welcomes its class of 2028 with pre-instructional activities: Fall 2024 classes begin on Thursday, September 26. [Top center & right] Moving my office (see the next item below). [Bottom left] Iran's criminal Islamist regime tries to silence the brave mothers of those it has killed/abducted: The regime prevents these "justice seekers" from holding memorials for their loved ones and, in many cases, imprisons them or roughs them up. [Bottom center] IranWire cartoon of the day: The UN and US welcome a large delegation of representatives from Iran's criminal Islamist regime. [Bottom right] Optical illusion: This seemingly bulging figure is composed of squares and rectangles that are horizontally and vertically aligned!
(2) My UCSB office is being moved from 5155 Harold Frank Hall (the former Engineering I) to 1816 Ellison Hall: This notice board is at the entry of my soon-to-be former office. My office move provides an opportunity to get rid of decades of accumulated junk. The thousands of reprints in these two file cabinets weren't junk when I acquired them by photocopying and, in some cases, sending requests to the authors. These reprints, and hard copies of journals to which I subscribed, formed my archive of reference material before the Internet.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Chain explosions suggest that residential buildings in South Lebanon are used as ammunition depots.
- California sues ExxonMobile for deliberately lying about plastics being recyclable.
- The quest to build a powerful radio telescope on the Moon, pioneering mining and manufacturing in space.
(4) Final thought for the day: A new book by investigative reporters Russ Buettner & Susanne Craig attributes much of Donald Trump's success to a lifelong string of astounding good luck: first his inheritance, then lenient treatment by banks, then being refashioned, late in life, as a reality-TV business genius. Is there finally evidence that Trump's luck is running out?
2024/09/23 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Distribution of captures on chessboard in 300 games by strongest players. [Center] I have the very best friends and fans. [Right] Daniel Susskind's Growth (see the last item below).
(2) Coal mine explosion in Tabas, Iran, kills at least 51: Money that could have been spent on improving the mine's safety was diverted to building an extensive network of tunnels in Gaza.
(3) Pakistani-American Lina Khan, 35, is firmly in control as FTC Chair: At the Federal Trade Commission, Chair Lina Khan's mission is breaking illegal monopolies, blocking mergers that stifle competition, and protecting consumers. [13-minute video]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Escalation of war in the Middle East: The latest Israeli air strikes on Lebanon have reportedly killed 270.
- A devastating report on global threats & American weakness is issued by a bipartisan commission.
- Microsoft agrees to buy power for its data centers from a resurrected Three Mile Island nuclear plant.
- Islamist Mohammad Jafar Mahallati Scandal at Oberlin College: An Interview with Writer Roya Hakakian.
- How did an Islamist become a tenured professor at Oberlin College? [47-minute video]
- Who's smarter? She has a Juris Doctorate. He threatened to sue his schools if they released his transcripts.
(5) Shape-shifting wheels: Inspired by the surface tension of a droplet of liquid, this adjustable wheel changes shape in real-time to move over uneven surfaces and high obstacles.
(6) Book review: Susskind, Daniel, Growth: A History and a Reckoning, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by the author, Tantor Audio, 2024. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Politicians keep talking about growth and want more of it at all cost. But what exactly is growth? Susskind traces the history of growth, coming to the conclusion that it is a relatively new concept dating back to the mid-20th century. At the time, economists were thinking about the cost of war and whether a country can afford it. They came to the conclusion that the answer lied in the total size of an economy, which they did not know how to measure. After several iterations, the notion of GDP was developed, which also provided a means for quantifying growth. Since then, politicians and, to some extent the public, have become obsessed with growth, because it is intimately linked to a higher standard of living.
Growth is at the center of our politics these days. No one knows what causes it, yet politicians argue endlessly about how to get more of it and environmentalists point to its link to climate change, making us doubt whether we should have any growth at all. Susskind, a professor at King’s College, London, provides an informative study of the idea, its past, and its potential future. After enumerating the benefits and down sides of growth, Susskind comes to the conclusion that we should not ignore growth but putting it front and center in our policy-making is likely a mistake.
Quantifying growth is less than a century old. Growth itself is a phenomenon that arose after the Industrial Revolution, when the explosive rise in our standard of living began. Before then, humans lived at subsistence level for millennia, what Susskind calls “the Long Stagnation.” According to Susskind, the pursuit of useful ideas, together with new technologies inspired by those ideas, are the most-likely causes of growth.
One reason politicians are enamored with growth is that it offers an easy fix for political disagreements, because “by pursuing growth, you could sidestep many of the practical tradeoffs in political life.” When the GDP rises and everyone has more money in the bank, tolerating other problems becomes much easier. Proponents of growth sometimes snap back at degrowth advocates, who aim to save the rainforests by actually shrinking the GDP, thus: “Medieval peasants would have killed for your air fryer, so quit complaining!” These two extreme views create a growth dilemma.
A rising standard of living tends to accompany population shrinkage, leading to fewer young minds to innovate and to implement the new ideas. In fact, population growth, which has been a key component of economic growth, is already on the way out in many countries. Do we really have to go back to emphasizing population growth? In my humble opinion, advances in artificial intelligence may obviate the need for population growth as a prerequisite to economic growth.
2024/09/22 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Ingenious design: A wristwatch that uses magnetism to hold two small balls in proper places to act as the hour and minute hands. [Top center] Musings of a curious engineer: Bridge foundation in water. [Top right] Mahsa's Revolution: The second anniversary of Mahsa Amini's death while in the custody of Iran's morality police was observed throughout the world over the past week. #WomanLifeFreedom [Bottom left] Pre-Islamic Iran: Holding hands, Persepolis. [Bottom center] FedEx-delivered plaque of my Dr. Amin Lifetime Achievement Award, presented in absentia on August 31, 2024, during SUTA’s reunion event. [Bottom right] Simone De Beauvoir's The Second Sex (see the last item below).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Trump's late-night meltdown over Truth Social: Bashes Oprah Winfrey for her event with Kamala Harris.
- How Elon Musk went from an innovator & tech genius to conspiracy theorist & MAGA mouthpiece.
- Donald Trump's assertion that Jews could cost him the election raises fear of anti-Semitic reprisals.
- Senator spews hate against an Arab-American witness at a hearing about hate crimes.
(3) Book review: De Beauvoir, Simone (translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier), The Second Sex, 2010 (originally published in 1949). [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book, often described as the Bible of feminism, gets an amazing 4.6 stars on Amazon (based on 1856 ratings) and 4.2 stars on GoodReads (42K+ ratings). De Beauvoir [1908-1986], a radical French philosopher, writer, and political activist, offers an analysis of why women have always had less power than men. In 1972, de Beauvoir declared herself a feminist, after she reached the conclusion that a socialist revolution by itself would not be enough to emancipate women, as she had previously thought.
The Second Sex tackles the social status of women from the beginning of civilization to the modern day. De Beauvoir's central argument is that women have been forced to take a secondary role to men since the earliest times and that the whole human condition is viewed in male terms and is described in language that excludes women. She is frustrated by the way women are treated as legal minors, much like children, leading to women's absence from great stories of history. She presents her arguments using three frames of reference.
- Historical materialism, which addresses the influence of socioeconomics and class on shaping history.
- Existentialism, a philosophy that emphasizes personal freedom and choice in a world lacking a higher power.
- Psychoanalysis, which examines the subconscious causes of human behavior.
Aspects of de Beauvoir's analysis appear out of date in our modern society, but they caused a lot of criticism and debate in the conservative French society.
De Beauvoir's meticulously-researched book paved the way for the feminist movement. She argued that if human identity is socially constructed, as Sartre believed, then femininity is created in the same way. One is not born a woman but becomes a woman through social conditioning. Written just after World War II, The Second Sex is divided into two books.
Book 1: Facts and Myths
Book 2: Women's Life Today
De Beauvoir asserts that throughout history, women have been cast as the other, because they are viewed only in relation to men. This is dehumanizing. Cultural understandings of femininity are rooted in male fear and male desire. Women's sole purpose in society is to satisfy such male longings. Without men pursuing them, seducing them, and marrying them women have no reason to exist. De Beauvoir viewed women as being complicit in their secondary status. Women feel more solidarity with their fathers and husbands than they do with other women. She believed that without solidarity the fight for women's freedom will fail.
Up until the women's movement of the 1970s, humanities scholars who studied the condition of women in society were not taken seriously. According to De Beauvoir, women were enslaved before men were. Subsequently, the enslavement was institutionalized in the form of marriage. In one of her most interesting chapters, "The Married Woman," she offers numerous quotations from the novels and diaries of Virginia Woolf, Colette, Edith Wharton, Sophia Tolstoy and others. She also scrutinizes the manner in which various male authors, from Montaigne to Stendhal to D. H. Lawrence, have represented women in their written works, and, in many cases, how they treated their wives.
Upon its publication, The Second Sex was totally banned in Spain and was placed on the Catholic Church's list of forbidden books. Controversies also surrounded the book's English translations. The first English translation by H. M. Pershley in 1953 was criticized for various errors, misinterpretation of several of De Beauvoir's ideas, and arbitrary deletion of one-third of its contents, including the all-important chapter on marriage. The authoritative English translation by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, reviewed here, did not become available until 2009.
2024/09/20 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Math puzzle: Given that the exterior shape is a square, find the measure of the middle angle with a question mark. [Top center] Chris Funk's Drought, Flood, Fire (see the last item below). [Top right] Math puzzle: Given two squares as shown, find the length x. [Bottom row] Humorous signs.
(2) Book review: Funk, Chris, Drought, Flood, Fire: How Climate Change Contributes to Catastrophes, unabridged 8-hour audiobook, read by Trevor White, Cambridge University Press Audio, 2021.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book, by Professor Chris Funk of UCSB's Geography Department, begins with an extensive discussion of recent droughts in east Africa, events about which extensive data exist.
Since the 2015-2016 El Nino, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of extreme events. The frequency of extreme events has more than tripled since the early 1980s. The number of extremes has risen from ~200/year in 1980 to ~800/year in 2018. This book examines the extremes in the 2015-2019 time period, cataloguing their severity and explaining, in an accessible way, how climate change may have contributed to their magnitudes.
The book's 14 chapters are followed by an appendix offering resources for further reading and research. Following the introductory Chapter 1, Chapters 2-4 offer an overview of climate change and climate science, focusing on the fragility of our Earth, the Goldilocks planet. Chapters 5-12 discuss the 2015-2019 extreme heat waves and their consequences in droughts, floods, and fires, citing only some important examples. Chapters 13-14 conclude the book by painting a somewhat optimistic picture of the future.
Chapter 1. Climate Extremes, Climate Attribution, Extreme Event Attribution
Chapter 2. Welcome to an Awesome Planet: A Series of Delicate Balances Support Earth's Fragile Flame
Chapter 3. The Earth Is a Negentropic System, or "the Bright Side of Empty"
Chapter 4. Do-It-Yourself Climate Change Science
Chapter 5. Temperature Extremes – Impacts and Attribution: Shocks, Exposure, and Vulnerability
Chapter 6. Precipitation Extremes: Observations and Impacts
Chapter 7. Cyclones, and Typhoons
Chapter 8. Conceptual Models of Climate Change and Prediction, and How They Relate to Floods and Fires
Chapter 9. Climate Change Made the 2015-2016 El Nino More Extreme
Chapter 10. Bigger La Ninas and the East African Climate Paradox
Chapter 11. Fire and Drought in the Western United States
Chapter 12. Fire and Australia's Black Summer
Chapter 13. Driving toward +4 C on a Dixie Cup Planet
Chapter 14. We Can Afford to Wear a White Hat
2024/09/19 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday: Old Santa Barbara Mission and its visitors, circa 1910. [Center] Pan American Highway is the longest drivable road in the world: It passes through 14 countries and is ~30,000 miles (~48,000 km) long. [Right] Talk on Las Cumbres Observatory (see the last item below).
(2) The IRS awarded three individuals $79 million under its whistleblower program, for information that helped recover $263.7 million from a tax cheat.
(3) City of Goleta to get a full-service train station: The new station on S. La Patera will be adjacent to the existing platform, which will continue to be used until the $32 million project's completion in 2026.
(4) Today, my daughter and I visited one of our favorite spots: The annual Planned Parenthood book sale, now in its 50th year. The scale and selection is overwhelming!
(5) Academic publishing: A UCLA professor files an antitrust lawsuit against the largest academic publishers, asserting that they achieve enormous monetary gain from collectively enforcing unpaid services by authors, editors, and reviewers.
(6) The Earth will get a new mini-moon for 57 days this fall: A passing asteroid will be attracted into Earth orbit but will eventually return to its own orbit around the Sun.
(7) Kamala Harris is super-qualified: She is the only presidential candidate with experience in all three branches of government, having served as AG, Senator, and VP.
(8) Last night's IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk: Annie Kirby, Head of Engineering and Operations for the Las Cumbres Observatory. (LCO), spoke under the title "Engineering the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network."
LCO is a nonprofit corporation based in Goleta, California, dedicated to advancing worldwide understanding of the universe through science and education with its global network of fully-robotic optical telescopes. LCO began its mission in 2005 and has been operating a global network continuously since May 2014.
The network currently consists of 25 telescopes (a mix of 2.0 m, 1.0 m, and 0.4 m), located at 7 sites around the world, together serving as a single integrated observatory. The observatory is leading the future of time domain astronomy with observations that capitalize on the network's unique capabilities.
Ms. Kirby presented the history and development of LCO, with an emphasis on her team's unique and dynamic engineering accomplishments. LCO used to have its own computing equipment, but now uses AWS.
2024/09/18 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] VOTE, and persuade others to vote. [Center] My entry in the New Yorker cartoon caption contest (#914): These phishing hooks can be deadlier than barbed hooks. [Right] Math puzzle: If the two black squares are identical, find the total area of the two red squares.
(2) One small step for a violinist, one giant step for humankind: In a history-making performance, astronaut Sarah Gillis plays "Rey's Theme," a piece John Williams composed for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." Her solo violin part, recorded during the Polaris Dawn Mission and sent down to Earth via SpaceX's Starlink constellation, was synchronized with musicians on Earth. What a beautiful idea!
(3) On the invisibility of older women: "I have a big personality, and I have a certain level of professional competence, and I'm used to being taken seriously professionally. And suddenly, it's like I just vanished from the room. And I have to yell so much louder to be seen. ... I just want to walk down the street and have someone notice that I exist." [From The Atlantic]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Thousands of pagers belonging to Hezbollah militants explode simultaneously, killing 12+. injuring 100s.
- The Fed cuts interest rates by 0.5 point to stimulate the economy, now that inflation has cooled down.
- Energy efficiency: Brain-like neuromorphic device achieves massive 4.1 tera-operations / second / watt.
- Facebook bans Russian state media accounts for deceptive operations and attempts to evade detection.
- Cartoon caption of the day: "My dog ate my homework and then an immigrant ate my dog."
- Eagerly anticipating the second week of November 2024, when the US election is over!
(5) Miye Ota passed away peacefully shortly after her 106th birthday: Miye's son, Steve, who passed away in 2020, was my son's aikido sensei. This SB Independent article celebrated her 100th birthday.
(6) VP candidate J. D. Vance talks at a higher grade level than Donald Trump, but they are both made of the same stinking, racist, xenophobic cloth.
(7) Predictable exodus of academics from Florida: In a recent survey, nearly 2 out of 5 faculty members reported that since 2022, they have applied for an academic job outside Florida. Popular destinations include California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York. Governor DeSantis may want to compare notes with Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei to learn about the impact of driving away academics.
2024/09/17 (Tuesday): Today, I offer reviews of three sociopolitical books about the US, Iran, and Israel.
(1) Book review: Cooper, William, How America Works ... And Why It Doesn't: A Brief Guide to the US Political System, Gemini Books, 2024. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The material in this book is presented in two parts and 10 chapters. Part One, "How America Works," consists of the following 5 chapters: History; The Constitution; Constitutional Abominations; Constitutional Principles; Essential Traditions. The 5 chapters of Part Two, "And Why It Doesn't," are as follows: Tribalism, Social Media, and Political Structure; Political Dysfunction; Policy Failures; Threats; The Future.
America is defined not just by the US Constitution but by essential traditions which are not found in the Constitution but that are just as central to the American experiment. The two-party system is the worst of these traditions, because it contributes to tribalism, and the rule of law, which entails respect for courts and court orders, is the best. According to Mahatma Gandhi, who is quoted at the beginning of Chapter 5, "Independence means voluntary restraints and discipline, voluntary acceptance of the rule of law." Capitalism, and its attendant privacy rights, though mostly positive, must be viewed as a mixed bag.
So, why have the lofty words of the US Constitution and American traditions ceased working in the 21st century? Right at the outset of Part Two, Cooper points to three culprits: Tribalism, social media, and a malformed political structure. Humans survived on Earth because of tribalism, so cognitive bias is baked into us by evolution. The effect of tribalism is amplified by availability bias, the fact that our assessment of risk/danger is driven by available personal and collective memories, not representative data, and confirmation bias. And here is where social media comes in to fill our memories with whatever serves the tribe. Political dysfunction has created a breed of politicians that put tribal allegiance above intellectual coherence.
In the concluding Chapter 10, Cooper begins by quoting Carl Sagan, warning about the danger of America sliding back into superstition and darkness. He then asks the following fundamental question: "Is America's twenty-first-century decline merely another dip in a long arc of non-linear, yet essentially upward, progress? Or is it, rather, the first phase of a steep and irreversible decline?" Avoiding irreversible decline, Cooper suggests, requires better civic education for the American people and a heightened awareness of cognitive biases. Technology acts as a double-edged sword in that it can enable tribal tendencies and power grabs or democratize information and education.
Cooper includes two appendices: A complete reproduction of the Bill of Rights (10 amendments to the US Constitution) and statements on climate change from 18 scientific associations. Seven pages of endnotes (primarily URLs) and a sizable bibliography conclude this valuable book.
(2) Book review: Kamali, Marjan, The Lion Women of Tehran: A Novel, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by Mozhan Navabi and Nikki Massoud, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I can't think of any better setting for drama and heartbreak than the situation in Iran immediately before and just after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And multiple authors have exploited this setting, many of them taking liberties with historical facts to enhance the drama. As someone who witnessed the Revolution firsthand, I find some of the inaccuracies bothersome, as I wrote in my review of Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel, Persepolis. To be fair, Satrapi's book was autobiographical (nonfiction), whereas Kamali's is a novel (historical fiction). Kamali has previously written The Stationary Shop (2019) and Together Tea (2013).
The cover blurb describes this book as "a heartfelt, epic new novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran." The three decades are the 1950s, when the protagonist Ellie lives a privileged life until the untimely death of her father forces the family to move into a tiny home downtown; the 1960s, when the super-lonely Ellie enjoys the friendship of Homa, as they grow up and attend school together; and the 1970s, when the girls' adult friendship as they pursue diverging sociopolitical goals collides with the revolutionary turmoil in their homeland.
The "lion women" of the title is English for "shir-zanaan," which is a Persian term for fearless women. One of the joint ambitions of Ellie and Homa is to become lion women as adults. Unfortunately, the girls' intense friendship is disrupted when Ellie's mother remarries and returns, with Ellie, to a lifestyle of grand comfort. As Ellie abides by her mother's plans which put her on a path to marriage, Homa follows in her father's footsteps and pursues political activism, with aspirations to become a lawyer who crusades for women's freedom. These conflicting paths are played out to dramatic effect against a background of regime change, political persecution, women's subjugation, and devastating loss.
As is common in books about Iran at the intersection of age-old traditions and political upheaval, there are ample references to Persian food, Iranian customs, families being torn apart by emigration, and adjusting to life in a new land. The story ends in 2022, some five decades after it began. Woven into the novel's conclusion is the story of Mahsa Amini, the young Iranian women who died in police custody after she was apprehended for not wearing her headscarf properly.
(3) Book review: Senor, Dan and Saul Singer, The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by the first author, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2023. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Though this book isn't a sequel to Start Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle (2009 book by the same authors), it tells the same type of success story, this time focusing on Israel's social structure. The fact that Israelis are by and large a happy bunch that rank near the top of world happiness index, despite internal challenges and external threats, is just as surprising as a relatively young country of about 7 million people with no natural resources producing more start-up companies on a per capita basis than large, peaceful, and stable nations and regions like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and all of Europe. Whether the social miracle holds up in the wake of the October 2023 Hamas attack and the ensuing Gaza war, is something to be seen.
Israel ranks high on life expectancy and low on deaths from suicide and substance abuse. It is unique among the world's wealthy democracies in not facing aging and shrinking population. The optimism about the future that pervades the Israeli socitey is seemingly incompatible with being surrounded by hostile nations bent on destroying it. This optimism in turn prevents the levels of loneliness, teen depression, and social decline we witness in many Western democracies.
On the surface, the Israeli society is highly divided into four groups of citizens: Observant Jews, secular Jews, Orthodox Jews, and Arabs. These groups do not see eye to eye on many issues, but they are united in their love for Israel and when there is a need to defend their homeland. Trust in leadership is quite high: The same Israelis that protest against certain government policies follow official calls during a national emergency. One uniting influence is military service that tends to bridge the age and generation gaps. The sense that if they don't work together, they will perish together is a strong motivating factor.
The authors offer plenty of social success stories. I will focus on a few of them in the rest of this review. Healthcare and medical technology is a good example. During the COVID years, Israel led the world in procuring and stockpiling vaccine doses, based on an economic analysis that the cost of economic shut-down would be several times higher than the hefty premium paid for vaccines in the early days. Israeli doctors and hospitals are state of the art and their services are provided to everyone.
Another example is Israel's film/television industry. Despite the very small market for Hebrew films and shows, Israel has been producing hit films and series, often selling the rights to other countries that produce English versions. The hit TV series "Homeland," based on the Israeli series "Prisoners of War," is a good example. Another TV series that caught my eyes because of my involvement in helping families dealing with a loved one's mental illness portrays a psychologist who treats patients at his clinic five days a week and then seeks psychological treatment for himself. A similar US series would go a long way toward scaling up efforts to spread public knowledge about mental illness and confronting the stigma that comes with it.
Seven of the book's 13 chapters are about Israeli success stories of the kind discussed above, but Senor & Singer also include several chapters focusing on internal divisions in the country, including Jewish/Arab and religious/secular dichotomies. The political stalemate that led to the election of Bibi Netanyahu as the head of the coalition of conservative/nationalistic/religious parties is discussed only briefly. The authors seem to have a favorable view of Netanyahu's Judicial-reform policy.
Perhaps the authors paint an overly-rosy picture, but there are many lessons in Israel's economic and social successes. The success in social domains is built around the values of service, solidarity, and belonging. The ethos of service, instilled in Israelis by Israeli Defense Forces, deserves a good chunk of the credit. The social success story of Israel provides other countries with models of how to overcome the crises of disconnectedness and lack of purpose in modern life.
2024/09/16 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] Second anniversary of Mahsa's Revolution (see the next item below). [Right] Justice Stephen Breyer's Reading the Constitution (see the last item below).
(2) A somber day for Iran: September 16 is the second anniversary of Mahsa Zhina Amini's death while in police custody in Tehran. She had been arrested for not wearing her headscarf "properly" and had been roughed up in the van taking her to the police station. She collapsed from her injuries at the police station and later died at a hospital. Her death sparked a women-led movement under the slogan #WomanLifeFreedom that shook Iran's Islamist regime to the core, prompting it to quell the street protests with deadly force. Security guards killed hundreds and maimed, abducted, or arrested thousands of others. Iranians throughout the world will honor Mahsa and other casualties of the 2022 anti-Iranian-regime protests.
(3) On the margins of the Emmy Awards: Candice Bergen recounted at the Emmys the time her character Murphy Brown was attacked by the then-VP Dan Quayle for having a kid as a single mom. "Oh, how far we've come. Today a Republican candidate for VP would never attack a woman for having kids."
(4) It's quite simple: Someone who cheats his customers, vendors, & partners will cheat you. Someone who betrayed his wives will betray you. Someone who lies all the time, will lie to you.
(5) Book review: Breyer, Stephen, Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism, unabridged 12-hour audiobook, read by the author, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book GoodReads]
Recently-retired after serving 28 years on the US Supreme Court, Justice Stephen Breyer writes about his judicial philosophy and life on the highest court of the land. Breyer disagrees with the relatively new judicial philosophy known as textualism. Textualists believe that the proper way to interpret the Constitution and statues is through careful analysis of the text and paying attention to the language as it was understood at the time the documents were written. They dismiss the need to consider history, precedent, tradition, purposes, values, and consequences.
Breyer sides with Chief Justice John Marshall, who viewed the Constitution as a workable set of principles to be interpreted by subsequent generations. According to Breyer, the most-important element in interpreting laws is to understand the purposes of the statues as well as the consequences of deciding a case one way or another. “I will sometimes ask how a (hypothetical) ‘reasonable legislator’ would have interpreted the statute in light of its purposes.”
The writing and reading are somewhat dry, but the sample cases that Breyer uses to illustrate his points, including the Dobbs case which led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, form important milestones in the SCOTUS history. He argues that departing from settled law can lead to chaos. He is cautiously optimistic that in time, the new justices will realize the limitations of textualism and come to understand that “the ultimate object of law is to allow human beings to live peacefully and prosperously together in communities.”
2024/09/14 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The latest Dr. Seuss book (humor): They're Eating the Dogs, They're Eating the Cats. And here's a musical tribute to the new book. [Center] Elon Musk's estranged trans daughter knocks her dad for his misogynistic response to Taylor Swift's endorsement of Harris/Walz. [Right] Kapka Kassabova's Border (see the last item below).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Boar's Head indefinitely shuts down its deli meat plant in Virginia tied to a deadly listeria outbreak.
- Americans used 100 exabytes of wireless data (that's 100 trillion megabytes) in 2023.
- NASA faces an unsustainable future, according to a new joint report by multiple US national academies.
- Unemployment in the information technology sector hits 6%, similar to the end of the dot-com bubble.
- Sarah Allen's Physics Fairy Tales has three volumes thus far: Newton's Laws, Fluid Mechanics, and Light.
- Welcome to millions of Taylor Swift fans whose leader has endorsed Kamala Harris!
(3) J. D. Vance: "I don't think most Americans are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and problems of most Americans." He was talking about Taylor Swift, but ironically, the statement also applies to Donald Trump.
(4) You gotta be kidding me: The ruling mullahs control Iran's borders in both directions, for those who want to enter the country and those wanting to leave. Quite a few Iranians are banned from leaving the country and many are not welcome in other countries. Now, President Pezeshkian has the nerves to suggest that Islamic nations should remove their borders, similar to what the EU has done.
(5) Development of mass digital storage technology: An article by Tom Coughlin and Roger Hoyt in IEEE Computer magazine's Sep. 2024 issue examines the path of several mass storage technologies until 2037. NAND Flash chips are expected to offer 2-4 TB capacity by 2027, using hundreds of circuit layers. Beyond that, the picture is unclear. Hard disk drives may reach 100 TB capacity, with recording density of more than 10 TB per square inch by 2037. The corresponding numbers for magnetic tape are 1500 TB and 0.6 TB/in^2.
(6) Book review: Kassabova, Kapka, Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe, Graywolf Press, 2017.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
In this travel narrative, Kassabova mixes her exploration of the border region between Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece with narratives on the Cold War, Europe’s migration crisis, and regional geography. The border areas, which have been shaped over centuries by myths & legends, as well as by the ambitions of the Soviet and Ottoman Empires, were popular crossings into the West, because they were thought to be easier options that the Berlin Wall. In this historically-rich, conflict-strewn region, migrants from Syria and Iraq, after walking across Turkey, mingle with smugglers, treasure-hunters, and a host of other characters, all of them interacting with border guards.
Kassabova includes a number personal stories about people she encounters, such as a Pomak couple running a bustling guesthouse in a mountain village where "labyrinthine passages carved out cathedrals and entire cities inside the cliffs." The ethnic minorities in this region suffered during the communist era, as they were under constant suspicion. They learned to cope and prosper, eventually outliving their communist tormentors.
The "edge of Europe" is no longer exclusively in this area, as migration has spread throughout the continent. For the Brits, the edge is now the English Channel and for Italians it is the Mediterranean Sea, the path taken by boatloads of migrants who enter Europe, while taking immense risks by crowding into unseaworthy crafts.
2024/09/12 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] "Hypocrisy, Spinelessness, and the Triumph of Donald Trump": Article in The Atlantic: About time somebody raised these facts. [Center] Tonight's Talngor Group talk on democratic elections (see the last item below). [Right] The world's largest turtle that roamed South America 10 million years ago.
(2) Germany has had it with spies and terrorists living there under diplomatic or religious pretenses: It deports Khamanei’s representative at Hamburg Islamic Center.
(3) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Yours truly spoke under the title "The Science and Engineering of Democratic Elections." Before the main talk, Ms. Parinoush Saniee made a short presentation entitled "Iranian Women Are the Heroes of the Age of Defeat." In transition to my main topic, I shared the good news that UCSB has chosen Ms. Marzieh Gahvarband as the inaugural awardee of the Mahsa Amini Graduate Fellowship, which will support her doctoral studies. There were ~75 attendees
We tend to think of voting as conceptually simple: Isn't it just casting ballots and counting them? This is true when there are only two candidates, in which case the only possible complication is tie votes. Normally, one candidate gets more votes than the other (although not necessarily a majority of votes due to blank and invalid ballots) and is declared the winner. As soon as we have three candidates, complications arise, which have been subjects of intense studies by mathematicians, computer scientists/engineers, and economists.
Mathematician/economist Kenneth Arrow won a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics by proving an impossibility theorem for voting: That if we require the satisfaction of four axioms, all of which are quite logical and reasonable, then there does not exist a voting system that satisfies all four of them. No matter how hard we try, and how much complexity we introduce into our voting system, there are instances where it fails to reflect the will of the people in a reasonable and fair way.
I showed several examples where our commonly-used plurality voting system yielded inappropriate outcomes and pointed to two important causes: Vote splitting and spoiler candidates. I also showed several alternative voting schemes (approval voting, Borda voting, and rank-order voting) that avoid some of the difficulty, although we know from Arrow's impossibility theorem that these alternate schemes must also fail in some cases. So, there is no perfect "error-free" voting system, but we can devise systems with fewer problematic cases.
I concluded my discussion by pointing to the difficult problem of districting and an abomination known as Gerrymandering. A spirited discussion ensued about elections in general and the way they are conducted in the US, including the notion of Electoral College versus popular vote. At the end of this report, I am including three references for further study of the mathematical details of voting systems and a couple of books on US politics that I have found enlightening.
Recording of Ms. Saniee's short presentation.
Recording of my talk on democratic elections. [My PDF slides]
UCSB ECE 594BB Web page.
- Borgers, Christof, Mathematics of Social Choice: Voting, Compensation, and Division. [Review]
- Brams, Steven J. and Peter C. Fishburn, Approval Voting. [Review]
- Poundstone, William, Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (and What We Can Do About It). [Review]
- Cooper, William, How America Works, and Why It Doesn't: A Brief Guide to the US Political System. [Review]
- Lewis, Verlan, The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America. [Review]
2024/09/11 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Presidential debate body languages: Harris looked directly at Trump when she spoke or when he spewed his lies. Trump rarely looked at Harris, usually facing the moderators. he also screamed and looked angry throughout. [Center] Math puzzle: Find the radius r of the quarter-circle in terms of a and b. [Right] One assessment of last night's Harris-Trump presidential debate.
(2) A tribute to the 343 FDNY firefighters who perished at the World Trade Center, shared with love on this 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. [41-minute video]
(3) Bitterness vs. hope: In last night's presidential debate, Kamala Harris projected confidence and gave some specifics of her program, whereas Donald Trump repeated his old grievances and debunked conspiracy theories. Real-time fact-checking is tough. I hope that in the coming days, all of DJT's lies are exposed.
(4) The EU plans to launch the European digital identity (eID) by 2026, allowing citizens to use a single digital wallet app to manage finances, access services, sign contracts, and travel.
(5) Does anyone remember fax machines? I had to fax a document to an office in Canada, essentially to prove that I have left Canada so that my Canadian pension funds can be unlocked and released to a US bank. I had not faxed anything for years and when I went to use our departmental fax machine, I was told that it had been removed. A UPS store finally helped me send the fax. The office in Canada does have a Web site, but sending a PDF would have required me to set up an account. The registration process for the account asked for a lot of Canada-specific information, which I did not have. Hope I don’t need to fax anything again!
(6) Carbon footprint of food delivery services: Every time you drive to eat at a restaurant or order take-out, you emit some carbon into the atmosphere (unless you drive an EV). Using DoorDash or another delivery service has the same impact, because a DoorDash driver usually picks up one order and delivers it to one address. On-line grocery orders are somewhat better, because the store’s delivery truck may batch several orders along a route. Services like Hello Fresh have pluses and minuses. The pre-measured ingredients help reduce waste, which is good, but they do use a lot of packaging, which increase the carbon footprint. Be mindful of the environmental impact of your food delivery choices!
2024/09/09 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] The evolution of movie-theater marquees (see the last item below). [Right] The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo publishes a special issue for the anniversary of Iran's Mahsa Revolution, declaring that Iranian women won't give up.
(2) A felon wants to be the US President & apparently half the country has no problem with it: Shouldn't we remove questions about felony convictions from job, rental, and other applications?
(3) Kate the Chemist: After garnering 287,000 TikTok followers, Kate Bibendorf is hired by Notre Dame as its inaugural Professor of the Public Understanding of Science. Instead of teaching classes, she will engage with social media. The idea had been previously tried by Oxford University. [Video]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Putin sides with Turkey & Azerbaijan in their plan to build a transportation route that bypasses Iran.
- Tajikistan wants none of the signs of extremist Islam: It has banned headscarves and beards.
- The Russian government's spending on research will be cut by 25% over the next two years.
- Tonight's veggie pizzas, made on two flatbreads and two packaged pizza crusts. [Tweet, with photo]
(5) Stealing money from the Iranian people: Much has been written about the rotten-to-the-core Islamic regime in Iran, including its corruption and brutal oppression of people. The latest scheme for making money at the expense of the people is for bank officials or those with connections to the banks to get low-interest multi-million-dollar loans. For each $1 million borrowed at 4%, the borrower can make 10% per year without any effort. The 6% margin amounts to $60,000. Lending money at 4% in a country with inflation consistently in the double-digits and often in excess of 25% is a crime.
(6) Musings of a curious engineer: As I walk the streets of Santa Barbara and Goleta, I observe unusual or unexpected things, which I share with you from time to time under the "Musings" heading. Today's topic is movie-theater marquees. Not long ago, marquees were glamorous and told you not just about the film being shown, but also the director, the stars, the music composer, and, at times, displayed images of the film and its stars. Of course, this was easier before the age of multiplex theaters, with up to a dozen screens in many cases. As space became limited, only brief movie titles were included. Then, they got rid of show times, which the patrons were supposed to get from newspapers or look up on-line. A movie theater on Goleta's Fairview Ave., near where I live, has now even gotten rid of film titles! In this age of inexpensive digital screens, it baffles me that theater marquees have not been replaced with digital screens. When tastefully done (as opposed to loud, Las Vegas style), digital marquees can add to the urban experience. At any rate, the bland, ugly marquees have got to go.
2024/09/08 (Sunday): Today, I offer reviews of 5 books; The short list for UCSB Reads 2025 program.
(1) Book review: Green, John, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet, unabridged 11-hour audiobook, read by the author, Penguin Audio, 2021.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book, by the author of The Fault in Our Stars, a 2012 young-adult novel and a 2014 movie about a teenage girl who was diagnosed with cancer and her relationship with a boy she met in a support group, consists of a collection of essays that are revised/expanded from Green's successful podcast. The book includes six all-new pieces.
The Anthropocene is a fairly recent term which refers to the planet Earth at its current geological age, a period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. Whether or not we accept the view of some geologists that the Anthropocene actually began with the Industrial Revolution, we are now in it and it is incumbent upon us to do our best to understand it and try to deal with problems it brings about.
Green begins by asserting that we are in the age of reviews. We used to have book reviews and movie reviews, with their attendant star systems, but now we review and rate everything: Restaurants, hotels, travel destinations, streets, breakfast cereals, and even park benches. The book's essays, taking the form of reviews, are Green's way of sharing his thoughts about humanity's ingenuity and imperfections as Earth's caretakers. He also shares, directly for the first time, his own mental health challenges, including depression and panic attacks.
As we face our day-to-day challenges, technological marvels and certain quirky stuff that we own or like allow us to circumvent our angst and enjoy our time on Earth. Green hopes that we can discover meaning, joy, and love during our brief stay on this planet and that we can thread our way toward a world where defenseless creatures no longer face arbitrary extinction at our hands.
(2) Book review: Gay, Ross, The Book of Delights: Essays, unabridged 5-hour audiobook, read by the author, Recorded Books, 2019.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I liked the idea of this book but didn't care much for its contents. The idea is that the author decided to write each day about something delightful that happened to him, carrying on the activity from one birthday to the next. We tend to remember the awful things that happen to us from day to day, so focusing on life's delights can be life-changing.
The book consists of 102 chapters, averaging ~3 minutes each in the audio version. The author does state that he didn't write on Sundays but not why he has only 102 essays instead of the expected 312 (52 weeks times 6 days). I have listed below a dozen of the chapter titles to give my readers a sense of the contents.
Chapter 5. Hole in the head
Chapter 11. Transplanting
Chapter 21. Coffee without a saucer
Chapter 26. Airplane rituals
Chapter 30. Infinity
Chapter 37. To spread the sweetness of love
Chapter 44. Not only
Chapter 51. Annoyed no more
Chapter 63. The volunteer
Chapter 72. An abundance of public toilets
Chapter 92. Filling the frame
Chapter 99. Black bumblebees
(3) Book review: Blackhawk, Ned, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of US History, Yale University Press, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
American history has been written with a focus on Europeans and their descendants, maintaining that the United States evolved from its British settlements. From this vantage point, the US has failed to honor its founding proclamation that all are created equal. Even the name "America" honors a European, Americus Vesputius (Vespucci), its supposed discoverer, who claimed to have found "a new world."
In most accounts, America is synonymous with exploration and discovery, conquest and settlement. "Native Americans remain absent or appear as hostile or passive objects awaiting discovery and domination." Recently, scholars have begun to create a different view of our past that accounts for the dynamics of the struggle framing America's indigenous past, with Native American history being an essential part.
This book is a fine example of the more inclusive narrative. It confronts the sad fact that Indigenous peoples, African-Americans, and other non-white citizens have not been beneficiaries of the self-evident truths of equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness we proclaim as inalienable rights. For example, Native peoples were not granted US citizenship until 1924. Some 40% or Indian children were forcibly separated from their families and taken to boarding schools by 1928. Scholars now recognize African-American slaves as central to the making of America, but the same courtesy has not been extended to Native Americans. The encounters of Native Americans, who collectively spoke hundreds of languages and lived in societies ranging from family bands to vast empires, with newcomers irrevocably disrupted their lives. For example, the population of North America halved, from ~8 million to ~4 million, between 1492 and 1776. This devastating impact calls into question celebratory portraits of America's founding. We need a more honest account of the role of Native Americans in shaping the American nation and its history. Integration of Native American history into American history is thus overdue. The notion of discovery must be replaced with encounter.
The book's 12 numbered chapters are divided into two parts entitled "Indians and Empire" and "Struggles for Sovereignty," each with 6 chapters, as follows.
Introduction: Toward a New American History
Chapter 1. American Genesis: Indians and the Spanish Borderlands
Chapter 2. The Native Northeast and the Rise of British North America
Chapter 3. The Unpredictability of Violence: Iroquoia and New France to 1701
Chapter 4. The Native Inland Sea: The Struggle for the Heart of the Continent, 1701-1755
Chapter 5. Settler Uprising: The Indigenous Origins of the American Revolution
Chapter 6. Colonialism's Constitution: The Origins of Federal Indian Policy
Chapter 7. The Deluge of Settler Colonialism: Democracy and Dispossession in the Early Republic
Chapter 8. Foreign Policy Formations: California, the Pacific, and the Borderlands Origins of the Monroe Doctrine
Chapter 9. Collapse and Total War: The Indigenous West and the US Civil War
Chapter 10: Taking Children and Treaty Lands: Laws and Federal Power During the Reservation Era
Chapter 11. Indigenous Twilight and the Dawn of the Century: Native Activists and the Myth of Indian Disappearance
Chapter 12. From Termination and Self-Determination: Native American Sovereignty in the Cold War Era
(4) Book review: Ramakrishnan, Venki, Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by John Moraitis, Harper Audio, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Aging, death, and their opposites, immortality, have been discussed in many books, by physicians, physicists, sociologists, novelists, and even techies, who aspire to find the secrets of living for 200+ years or, perhaps, forever. In this book, Nobel Laureate molecular biologist Venki Ramakrishnan (Chemistry Laureate, 2009), author of The Gene Machine, offers his take on new scientific discoveries about aging, why we die, and the human race's quest for immortality.
Driven in part by the afterlife of Judeo-Christian thought and the idea of reincarnation central to many Eastern religions, we tend to dismiss the finality of death. As children, we are scared by the thought of our loved ones dying someday, but think less about it as we age, until our final years. A fundamental question is whether we have to be mortal. Can we extend our lives, perhaps indefinitely, by altering or augmenting our natural biology? Alongside these physical questions, we also have to deal with philosophical and moral questions regarding life extension.
We have been immensely successful in extending the average life expectancy, doubling it in the US from ~40 years to ~80 years over the past two centuries. But the maximum human life has stayed pretty much constant, hovering around 120 years. We know that all living things can die, but many, including tiny hydras and some jellyfish, can regenerate completely when certain parts are chopped off. Their likelihood of dying does not increase with age, so they are essentially immortal, from a biological standpoint. Among more-familiar animals, we can learn a great deal from giant tortoises and some sharks, which age extremely slowly.
Ramakrishnan offers a modestly-optimistic conclusion that super-long lifespans will happen, but not in the near future. He dismisses the heavily-promoted (to elderly billionaires) prospects of storing human bodies by cryonics methods until we have found a cure for whatever killed them. He has a more positive view of moderate life extension, demonstrated in animals, through calorie restriction and certain medicines such as rapamycin, resveratrol, metformin, and curcumin.
This is the kind of life extension assessment one would expect from a distinguished scientist with his feet firmly on the ground, as opposed to from techies and start-up founders who have to hype their methods in order to get the next round of funding.
(5) Book review: Zevin, Gabrielle, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, unabridged 14-hour audiobook, read by Jennifer Kim and Julian Cihi, Random House Audio, 2022.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Let me open my review by confessing that I did not listen to the entire audiobook, because I was not drawn by the story or the writing. A video-game designer or an avid gamer may view the novel more charitably.
Game-design enthusiasts Sam Masur and Sadie Green, who grew up together as children, meet again in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while attending Harvard and MIT, respectively, and are drawn to designing a video-game together. The game brings them fame and fortune. Sam and Sadie love each other, but they never become lovers. The tale goes on for three decades, during which the protagonists pursue their passions & ambitions and deal with life challenges, culminating in Venice Beach, California. Along the way, video games mirror life for them, except that there is no end to life in games: "It's tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It's the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win." The novel also gives the reader a crash course on the history of video games during their heydays.
2024/09/07 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Sixth National Informatics Conference, Tehran, Iran: February 26-27, 2025. [Center] Math puzzle: Find the area of the square. [Right] Anniversary of Mahsa Amini's Revolution observed in Los Angeles: Sun., Sep. 15, 2024, 1:00-4:00 PM, Westwood Blvd. & Rochester Ave. #WomanLifeFreedom
(2) School shootings are a "fact of life," according to J. D. Vance. No, they're not! They become a fact of life when you choose the gun lobby over our children.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- UN personnel investigating ISIS's mass graves for the Yazidis have been ordered to leave Iraq.
- EU, US, UK, Israel, and several other countries sign an international AI treaty.
- Iran's future: This young boy lectures in Persian on benefits of technology in general & AI in particular.
- Iranian young boy speaks in English, addressomg the 13th International Congress of Civil Engineering.
(4) Seeing is believing: This old saying must be updated for the age of AI and virtual reality. With AI & VR, you can see realistic-looking things that are made up. Pay attention, look for inconsistencies, search for the same info from a trusted source. Even before AI & VR, eyewitness testimony had come to be distrusted, because it is impacted by environmental factors, biases, and false memories. Many individuals who were initially convicted based on eyewitness testimony were sub sequently cleared by DNA evidence.
(5) Amazon at 30: All three of my children are 30+ years old, which means that Amazon did not exist when they were born or was struggling to come into existence, with the vision of becoming "The Everything Company." Each of Amazon's 175 "fulfilment centers" today is larger than the largest mega-store that you can imagine. Innovative technologies allow customer orders to be prepared and shipped in a matter of hours. The question is: What else is there for "The Everything Company" to conquer? Plenty, it seems! Just the data held by Amazon can be an invaluable source of income.
(6) Musings of a curious engineer: When are we going to phase out the US penny? It is well-known that making a 1-cent coin costs more than one penny. Merchants and their cash-paying customers are no fans of the coin. Nearly all pennies ever made sit in jars at homes and workplaces. Canada stopped minting pennies in 2012, but the existing coins continue to be accepted. Other countries have successfully ditched coins (and in some cases, bills) with tiny denominations. It's time that we ditch the penny. And while we are at it, let's be forward-looking and also get rid of the nickel.
2024/09/06 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A talk about the diffusion of print technology in the Muslim world (see the next item below). [Center] A fine specimen of Persian calligraphic art. [Right] Talangor Group talk on the Mahsa revolution (see the last item below).
(2) Yesterday's talk on the history of print technology in the Muslim world: Dr. Nile Green (UCLA) spoke under the title "Persian Printing in Comparative Context: The Place of Iran in Three Technological Diffusion Zones." Dr. Green is a historian who specializes in Islamic history of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, including that of the wider Persianate world.
Print technology was not taken up by the Muslim world until the early 19th century. Then, it moved swiftly through three regional diffusion zones.
- The Mediterranean Zone: The Ottoman's printed some books for Muslim readers in the 1700s, but it was in the 1820 Egypt that the first sustained Muslim-controlled press took hold, with its first book being an Italian-Arabic dictionary.
- The Eurasian Zone: Typography and lithography were exported to borderlands and from there to neighboring Muslim regions. St. Petersburg was a major center of print technology and, later, Tiblisi hosted many Persian publishers.
- The Indian Ocean Zone: Print technology was introduced by East India Company and missionaries. Muslim-issued typed books began appearing in Calcutta in the late 1810s. Later, maps were printed using lithographic technology.
In all three zones, typography-based printing spread first, which was followed by lithography. By 1820, lithography had spread throughout Europe, to London, Naples, Oslo, and St. Petersburg. Initially, lithography was developed to make printing of music scores and maps possible, but later, its use expanded to all printing projects with low to moderate volume.
Because of the high cost of typographic equipment and the need for imported replacement parts and technical know-how, lithography quickly dominated in the Islamic world, except in the Mediterranean Zone, were ready access to nearby technology and talent made it feasible to continue with the more demanding typographic system.
Printing arrived in Iran through the Eurasian Zone, first taking hold in Tabriz in 1817 and later spreading to Tehran and Shiraz during the 1820s. Crown Prince Abbas Mirza sent court artist Allahverdi to study lithography in Tiblisi. The first lithographic Quran was published in Tehran in 1832.
My comment: One of the success stories in adopting print technologies is how Persian and Arabic calligraphers fine-tuned the script for typographic technology, leading to highly legible and, at times, beautiful typeset text. Yet, this wasn't enough to overcome the advantages of lithography. The same process repeated when we moved to computerized printing. First, we worked hard to adapt various printer technologies to the needs of the Persian/Arabic script, an exercise that became redundant when printing essentially became the transfer of bit-maps from the screen to paper.
(3) Last night's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Ata Hoodashtian spoke under the title "Major Challenges and Results of the Mahsa Revolution." There were ~90 attendees.
In a country like the Islamic Iran, political and economic powers are under tight control of conservative clerics, so it is hard to imagine the regime's overthrow through civil disobedience and peaceful street protests. Despite the fact that the Mahsa Revolution has fizzled out after a year of intense activity and people are more cautious about marching on the streets after numerous deaths and injuries inflicted by the regime, the have been three important developments in Iran's civil society.
- Changes in the family sphere
- Advances in education
- Openings in religious dialog
Many opposition groups have come to the conclusion that street protests did not work, so pursuing a set of new approaches is called for. One example is forming coalitions between opposition groups inside and outside the country, and even with dissatisfied members of the regime's inner circles. In such a pursuit, three important questions must be answered.
Q1: What are we to do with protesters who perished, lost limbs, were blinded, or suffered PTSD from brutal attacks by security forces? Should we offer a form of group therapy to heal their wounds or those of their loved ones? They are understandably disappointed. How can we give them encouragement and inner peace? However, when we extract fighters from the streets, will we not surrender the front?
Q2: How can we return the people to the streets? The answer is that we can't. They must return on their own initiative. but we have to be ready to help out if we can when the return to the streets does happen. National leadership is needed to move ahead. Field or local leadership will help but isn't enough to bring about major changes. Economic crises are likely to lead to a new round of self-activated street protests.
Q3: Exactly what we are fighting for? For democracy? Is democracy even possible in Iran? Democratic systems are messy and in constant state of change. Leaders come and go. Laws are annulled or revised. Isn't a stable regime preferable? The latter was tried by Stalin with devastating results. The Mahsa Revolution made us ask important question. We learned that saying no to the current regime isn't enough. We have to define what we want. Human rights are now integral parts of the discussion, whereas even in the 1979 revolution, human rights did not have a central role. Similarly, demands for democracy is now part of the societal dialog.
We have to base a future democracy on three fundamental rights:
- Right to life
- Right to freedom
- Right to ownership
During the Q&A session, I asked whether Iranians can truly unite around democracy, given that the term is ill-defined. There are many forms of democratic systems in the world, including republics, monarchies, and a vast variety of parliamentary systems. If we try to specify one of these in advance, unity may be lost. If we don't specify the democratic form of government, then exactly what are we uniting over? I think unity should be formed around a small number of human rights (as listed above), which are agreeable to everyone, leaving the specification of the form of a democratic government to an elected body, which may also write a new constitution.
2024/09/04 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Sharif University of Technology Association (SUTA) held its 2024 reunion in Niagara Falls, Canada, a few days ago. The photo shows some of the participants at the last day's picnic. [Center] Cartoon of the day: Republican priorities for our kids. [Right] Killings, imprisonments, and abduction of Iranian citizens continue by the Islamic regime (see the last item below).
(2) Mass shooting at at a Georgia high school near Atlanta leaves 4 dead and at least 9 injured. Watch Republicans and NRA officials hide over the next few days, until the incident is forgotten!
(3) The inaugural awardee of UCSB's graduate fellowship established in honor of Mahsa Amini is Marzieh Gahvardband, who studied law at Zanjan University and earned an MA in Women's Studies from the University of Alabama. The fellowship will support her pursuit of a doctorate in Religious Studies at UCSB.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Amazon's self-driving taxis lack steering wheels: They get help from humans sitting 100s of miles away.
- Violence against women: Ugandan Olympics runner dies when her ex-boyfriend sets her on fire.
- The world burns 12% of its plastic waste: So, we have air pollution on top of ocean & land pollution.
- Goleta's version of the week-long heat wave: uncomfortable, but not surpassing 100, like some LA areas.
- X University, formerly known as Stanford (satire): Elon Musk acquires Stanford fpr $139 billion.
(5) Indian street food: I am obsessed with mass-produced street food, much of it under unsanitary conditions. This guy, who sells deep-fried cauliflower, covered in a secret mix of spices, is cleaner than most.
(6) Stable genius continues on the path of mental decline.
Question: What specific legislation will you commit to make child care affordable?
Trump: Well, I would do that and we're sitting down, you know, I was, somebody, we had Marco Rubio and my daughter, Ivanka ... But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I'm talking about that because the child care is, child care couldn't, you know, there's something you have to have it in this country, you have to have it ... I want to stay with child care ... So we'll take care of it. Thank you.
(7) Final thought for the day: I am officially overwhelmed. I keep reading about imprisonments, deaths under torture, extrajudicial killings, abductions, and many other ways Iran's citizens are being harassed, oppressed, and slaughtered by the brutal Islamic regime. There is no way I can share all such news stories, as they would overwhelm my readers. Besides, I don't have the resources to verify each posting to ensure authenticity. Here are a few examples. As the Persian saying goes: "You may know by a handful the whole sack."
2024/09/03 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] In this review article, Andrew Lea explains the different approaches to programming chess computers. Along the way, he explores the many historical attempts at creating a chess-playing machine and asks philosophical questions about the nature of artificial intelligence. [Center] Labor Day outing with all three kids at a Chinese restaurant. [Right] Major academic donation (see the next item below).
(2) Academic philanthropy: Dr. Nayereh Tohidi, Professor of Gender & Women's Studies, and Dr. Kazem Alamdari, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, both from California State University, Northridge, have pledged $1.5 million to support the recently established endowment of Iran Academia University.
Founded in 2012, the Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities (ISSH), aka Iran Academia, is an alternative university that aims to provide knowledge in social sciences and humanities to Iran's youth in order to overcome restrictions on access and censorship of content.
(3) PM Netanyahu, dismissing calls for Israel to make concessions to free the hostages: "These murderers executed six hostages, and we're asked to make concessions? What message does this send Hamas? It says, murder more hostages and you will get more concessions."
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- San Bernardino, California, leads in launching a hybrid hydrogen-electric zero-emission commuter train.
- Disintegration of US bridges accelerated by extreme heat & increased flooding due to climate change.
- School cop who admitted to sexually abusing at least two children gets 3 years of probation in a plea deal!
- US swing voters (18%) tend to lean more conservative than liberal. [NYT charts]
- Unlawful arrests and harassment of Iran's Baha'i minority continues.
- Kaveh Akbar's conversation about his hugely successful novel Martyr. [My review]
- Math puzzle: Divide 987654321 by 123456789. Explain the rather surprising result.
- Gina Raimondo, a pro-business Democrat, leads the US Commerce Department quietly and ably.
- Did you know that there were two Nazi concentration camps on British soil? [13-minute video]
- Dan Bricklin, creator of the VisiCalc spreadsheet app, shares his experiences in this 12-minute TEDx talk.
(5) California's Rancho Palos Verdes is slipping: For a long time, the underground landslides were so glacial—about an inch a year—it was accepted simply as a quirk of the region. Now, for some residents, it has become catastrophic. Across a span of one square mile, the pace has quickened to nearly four feet a month.
(6) Final thought for the day: Former GOP strategist Stuart Stevens predicts that Trump is facing a serious math problem, leading to his crash just before Election Day. "[In 2020,] Trump lost by 7 million votes. He needs new customers." And he's doing nothing to attract them.
2024/09/02 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Happy US Labor Day! You can't be pro-labor if you don't value hard work or are against labor unions, no matter how many times you hug the flag. "Of life's two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer's hand." ~ Khalil Gibran [Center] I am aware of Kamala Harris's shortcomings and do not exaggerate her qualifications, but right now I view her as the savior of what's left of our democratic system. No policy differences matter when the essence of America is threatened. [Right] A quarter of all International Olympiad of Informatics medalists enroll in five world universities.
(2) In a sense, the 2024 US presidential election is about what kind of masculinity we prefer: The kind on display in Kamala Harris's husband and her running mate or the kind exhibited by Trump and his running mate?
(3) Behrouz Vossoughi honored by Reza Pahlavi on the 55th anniversary of his hugely successful film "Qeysar": The trouble is that "Qeysar" normalized misogyny and glorified honor killings. According to this FB post, Islamists had a hand in the film's storyline and dialog.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Masked Palestinians try to free Palestine by destroying the lawn at McGill University!
- A high-level Islamic official & his son have made billions from illicit trading of Iranian & Russian oil.
- This isn't a S. American drug cartel: It's the Iranian police forcing a detainee in the trunk of their car.
- Venture capitalist to childless women: Your pursuit of equity & social justice has made you "miserable."
- PBS "Firing Line" special on the challenges of accurate vote-counting, particularly in the face of distrust.
- The design and workings of London's Elizabeth Tower, aka The Big Ben. [10-minute video]
(5) The big quake may be imminent: The world's greatest earthquakes, shaking both seabed & land and generating tsunamis 100+ feet high, tend to occur where one tectonic plate slips under another one. Such a fault off Japan caused the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. The US-Canada West Coast is home to such a fault, known as Cascadia. Similar zones exist off Alaska, Chile, and New Zealand, among other places. At Cascadia, big quakes are believed to come roughly every 500 years, give or take a couple hundred. The last occurred in 1700.
(6) Extreme hypocrisy: The Iranian government, which has banned and blocked Telegram for 6 years, criticizes the French government for not honoring free speech and detaining Telegram's founder!
(7) In addition to a record number of executions in Islamic Iran, deaths of detainees under torture are on the rise: Authorities admit that a young man from Lahijan was killed because his interrogators "could not control their rage"!
2024/09/01 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Iran's Islamic government and its people have different priorities & world views! [Center] Cartoon of the day: Trump at Arlington National Cemetery. [Right] Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI (see the last item below).
(2) Gen-Z-ers can't type: US Department of Education reports that from 2000 to 2019, the fraction of high-schoolers who had taken a keyboarding course dropped from 44% to 2.5%. This is in part due to fewer devices having physical keyboards.
(3) "And it's like, friends of mine that are like English professors, they say it's the most brilliant thing ... But the fake news, they say, he rambled." ~ Donald Trump defending his rambling speeches
(4) Biocomputers are now available for rent: One such computer from the Swiss tech firm FinalSpark can be accessed for a monthly fee of $500. A low-energy alternative to AI models, these biocomputers, or organoids, are comprised of human brain cells and last only about 100 days. Among the nine universities granted access to FinalSpark's biocomputers are the University of Michigan, Free University of Berlin, and Lancaster University.
(5) Book review: Kurzweil, Ray, The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by Adam Barr, Penguin Audio, 2024. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book is a sequel coming nearly two decades after Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (2005; my 4-star review). This sequel is much shorter and less compelling than the original, but it comes at a time when alarm bells are ringing louder in the wake of ChatGPT and neural implants. In the 2005 book, Kurzweil predicted that AI will surpass human-level intelligence and that human life will decouple from biology in ~25 years. His new time frame is mid-2040s. If Kurzweil's prediction is accurate, the next sequel will be titled The Singularity Is Here!
In this sequel, Kurzweil reexamines the exponential growth of technology and discusses its impact on almost every facet of human life, from reduction in poverty, crime, and war casualties to improvements in health, nutrition, education, intelligence, and political empowerment. We will soon be able to rebuild the world, atom by atom, with devices like nanobots, extend life radically beyond the current age limit of ~120, and vastly expand our intelligence by connecting our brains to the cloud, thus freeing our mental power from the space limitation of the human skull.
Kurzweil also devotes much commentary to the potential perils of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, including their adverse effects on employment and safety (e.g., of autonomous cars), and on the societal discomfort with the notion of virtually reviving deceased individuals through a combination of their data and DNA.
The employment downside is illusory, but there is an interesting psychological effect at work here. In the past, technology has benefited the society as a whole, even when a few specific members were hurt. However, those who were saved, for example, by not dying of a specific eradicated disease, are faceless (we cannot name them), those who lost their jobs because they worked on treating patients having that disease are known and their suffering is on full display.
I end my review by listing the titles of the books 8 chapters that follow an unnumbered introductory chapter.
Chapter 1: Where Are We in the Six Stages?
Chapter 2: Reinventing Intelligence
Chapter 3: Who Am I?
Chapter 4: Life Is Getting Exponentially Better
Chapter 5: The Future of Jobs—Good or Bad?
Chapter 6: The Next Thirty Years in Health and Well-Being
Chapter 7: Peril
Chapter 8: Dialogue with Cassandra
At the time of this retelling of the story of Singularity, we are facing even more-challenging doubts and questions. For example, when we say that we will outlaw warrior robots making life-and-death decisions, unless a human-being is involved in the loop, will we be satisfied with a human being whose mental faculties have been augmented with AI? Then, if the augmented part of the decision-maker's brain is orders of magnitude more intelligent than his/her original brain, isn't this an AI making the decision?
2024/08/31 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Two different kinds of beauty in one frame! [Top center] This nice-looking identity is easy to prove. [Top right] Jeremy Rifkin's The Third Industrial Revolution (see the last item below). [Bottom left] Sir Thomas Herbert (1606-1682), who traveled to Iran during the reign of Shah Abbas I, created this drawing of Persepolis ~300 years before any archaeological work began in Iran. [Bottom center] I finally organized my wall clock alphabetically! [Bottom right] The two unwritten rules of life.
(2) Nahid Taghavi, an Iranian-German hostage, turns 70 in prison: Like other hostages taken by Iran's Islamic regime, she may one day be exchanged with IRI terrorists held in other countries.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- California State Assembly passes AI safety bill, despite opposition from tech companies.
- How the Persian polymath Abu Reyhan al-Biruni computed the Earth's radius to 1% accuracy.
- Djibouti: The tiny African country with military bases from all of the world's major powers.
- For Persian-speakers: In the second half of life, we should learn from our kids, not the other way around.
(4) Book review: Rifkin, Jeremy, The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World, St. Martin's Press, 2011.
[Image: .jpg; sqr]
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/61557581] Read 2024/07/16-18
This book inspired me to look into energy storage technologies and to prepare a presentation for general audiences on the idea of a worldwide Intergrid of energy (an analog of the Internet, with energy taking the place of information). I have already given the talk to two groups and have been scheduled for two more presentations.
The Agricultural Revolution was followed by the (First) Industrial Revolution of ~1760, which led the human economy towards more widespread, efficient, and stable manufacturing processes, by replacing manual production methods with machines and mechanized factory systems. As a result, the textile industry, the first to use modern production methods, became the dominant industry in terms of employment, value of output, and capital invested.
Beginning in the late 19th century, powered by oil and other fossil fuels, the Second Industrial Revolution, aka the Technological Revolution, created a phase of rapid scientific discovery, standardization, mass production and industrialization. The Second Industrial Revolution is coming to its end, as oil prices, and, as a result, other prices, skyrocket.
Like all other numbered or ranked ideas or events, there is disagreement about the next item on the list. Some consider the emergence of the Internet and the explosive growth of worldwide communication as constituting the next phase. Rifkin views widespread use of renewable energy and its global sharing, much like the sharing of data enabled by the Internet, as constituting the Third Industrial Revolution. Imagine an "energy Internet" that allows green energy to be produced in a distributed fashion and shared over a network by hundreds of millions of people in their homes, offices, and factories, just as information is being produced and shared today.
This new economic paradigm, that is, a fundamental reordering of human relationships from hierarchical to lateral power, has already been embraced by the European Union and other nations worldwide. It will create countless businesses and new jobs, and it will impact the way we conduct commerce, govern society, educate our children, and engage in civic life.
According to Rifkin, the five pillars of the Third Industrial Revolution are:
- Shifting to renewable energy
- Turning world's buildings into micro power-plants that collect renewable energies
- Deploying hydrogen and other storage technologies to store intermittent energies
- Using Internet technology to combine power grids into an energy-sharing intergrid
- Using electric plug-in cars and fuel-cell-powered transport, linked to the intergrid
At the beginning of Chapter 5, Rifkin brings to our attention a major shift among young people, that is, the disappearance of ideological beliefs. "Young people aren't much interested in debating the fine points of capitalist or socialist ideology or the nuances of geopolitical theory. … Their politics are less about right versus left and more about centralized and authoritarian versus distributed and collaborative. This makes sense. The two generations whose sociability has been formed, in large part, by Internet communications are far more likely to divide the world into people and institutions that use top-down, enclosed, and proprietary thinking, and those that use lateral, transparent, and open thinking."
In other words, it's time that we retire Adam Smith, who enthusiastically borrowed metaphors from Newton to fashion classical economic theory. Economic activity is less similar to Newton's laws of motion than to laws of thermodynamics. Paying attention to the law of conservation of energy and entropy, which says fossil fuels once consumed cannot be reused, we have no choice but to turn to the nearly-infinite energy from the Sun and other renewable sources. It is thus alarming that very few economists have studies thermodynamics, so central to understanding energy and thus the modern world.
Here's how Rifkin ends this fascinating book: "A transformation of this scale will require a concomitant leap to biosphere consciousness. Only when we begin to think as an extended global family, that not only includes our own species but all of our fellow travelers in evolutionary sojourn on Earth, will we be able to save our common biosphere community and renew the planet for future generations."
2024/08/30 (Friday): Today, I report on three presentations from Wednesday and Thursday.
(1) An interesting talk on Iranian cinema: Psychiatrist & author Dr. Mohammad-Reza Sargolzaee spoke under the title "Midlife Crisis and the Mother Complex in Iranian Cinema." There were ~45 attendees
Dr. Sargolzaee presented examples of how individuals grappling with a mother complex, particularly during midlife, are depicted in Iranian films, focusing on three specific examples:
- "Sex and Philosophy" ("Sex va Falsafeh," 2005 drama by Mohsen Makhmalbaf)
- "Hamoon" (1989 psychological drama by Dariush Mehrjui)
- "The Crow" ("Kalagh," 1977 mystery by Bahram Beyzai).
Unfortunately, audio quality was quite poor throughout the presentation and there were video & audio problems as the speaker attempted to share clips from the three films.
(2) wednesday's Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Farideh Kioumehr-Dadsetan spoke on the "79th Anniversary of Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki: History and Current Situation of Nuclear Weapons." There were ~115 attendees.
After a brief review of the history of atomic weapons, Dr. Kioumehr recounted the horrors of atomic bomb detonations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are currently 9 nuclear nations and even though we haven't had any use of atomic bombs since World War II, there is always a chance that a crazy leader or an inadvertent mistake will lead to a disaster. A full-blown atomic conflict between the US and Russia may wipe out half of the world's population, according to some estimates.
Dr. Kioumehr enumerated some of the worldwide efforts to curtail nuclear proliferation. we have no choice but to keep up hope that logic will prevail and none of the world's nuclear powers uses its atomic bombs. modern bombs are a lot more powerful than the ones detonated in Japan and the damage they can do is significantly more devastating.
I pointed out in the Q&A period that we should not put atomic bombs and atomic energy in the same basket. Bombs are created to kill, whereas atomic energy was created to help with our expanding appetite for energy. While nuclear waste is a problem, there is a chance that engineering advances will mitigate the dangers. I also pointed to the fact that whereas there are only 9 nuclear nations, this count relates to conventional nuclear weapons created from highly-enriched material. Dirty bombs can be built by almost anyone using modern nuclear reactor fuel. These bombs do not do as much damage as conventional nukes, but in the hands of terrorists, who can deploy hundreds or even thousands of them, the danger is alarming.
(3) Thursday's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Abdi Modarressi talked under the title "Social Justice: A Look at the Views of John Rawls." There were ~95 attendees.
According to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, John Rawls [1921-2002] was an American political philosopher in the liberal tradition. His theory of justice as fairness describes a society of free citizens holding equal basic rights and cooperating within an egalitarian economic system. His theory of political liberalism explores the legitimate use of political power in a democracy, and envisions how civic unity might endure despite the diversity of worldviews that free institutions allow. His writings on the law of peoples set out a liberal foreign policy that aims to create a permanently peaceful and tolerant international order. He is best known for his influential book A Theory of Justice (1971; revised 1999).
In his philosophy, Rawls was influenced by the destruction brought about by World War II and the Vietnam War. His views on justice were shaped by the fact that wars were fought by the lower class, whereas the upper class dodged the draft.
Justice and freedom are age-old pursuits, beginning with ancient philosophers. The Enlightenment brought these notions to the forefront, creating the expectation that humans are on a continuous course to goodness. The two political philosophies of liberalism and socialism were born as a result, although both led to disastrous results, one sacrificing freedom for justice and the other prioritizing justice over freedom.
Rawls' views have faced serious criticisms. One criticism is that he did not take the effect of culture into account. The social view of justice and fairness might be quite different in India versus Japan. The strongest argument against Rawls's theory of justice is that it's entirely abstract; it doesn't say anything to people in their ordinary, everyday situations. The kind of individual who would choose the kind of social arrangement that Rawls recommends from behind a self-imposed veil of justice simply doesn't exist.
2024/08/29 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] This mural celebrating Iranian math prodigies, Abu-Rayhan al-Biruni and Maryam Mirzakhani, is in Istanbul International Airport. [Center] Iranian female athletes defect to the West in record numbers: Some are getting lucrative deals. [Right] Tuesday night's Persian-style vegetable soup, made from Sadaf veggie soup mix and TJ's chicken broth, served with barbari bread. Your place was empty.
(2) Barcodes are on their way out: Brands and retailers could replace barcodes with QR codes as early as 2027. Successful transition requires software changes across industries worldwide. Additionally, customers used to scanning barcodes at self-checkout kiosks would have to be educated on how to interact with QR codes. The goal is to use a single QR code for point-of-sale and inventory scans, as well as customer engagement.
(3) My YouTube channel: I have had my YouTube channel since 2011, but only used it in a limited way to post lecture videos for my courses, providing links to enrolled students. I have begun to organize and expand the channel for public access. In addition to course lectures already posted, I will include various other presentations, tech news items, "Musings of a Curious Engineer," and "Math + Fun!"
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- UCLA receives $120M from Alya & Gary Michelson for new Institute for Immunology & Immunotherapy.
- Chinese government hackers have gained access to US Internet providers to spy on millions of users.
- Imams in NYC mosques praise Hamas, bash "Zionist Hollywood," and call for the destruction of Israel.
- FabBrick: A French company that recycles textiles into colorful bricks for construction and decorative uses.
- Persian cuisine: Traditional chelow-kabob restaurant in Khoy, Iran.
- Mass production of Indian food: Looks yummy, but prepared under questionable sanitary conditions.
(5) Malware developer's identity leaked through another malware: According to Check Point security researchers, the suspected developer of the new Styx Stealer malware exposed his identity along with valuable intelligence about other cybercriminals. The information leak occurred when the Styx Stealer developer used a Telegram bot token provided by a customer involved in the Agent Tesla malware campaign to debug the stealer on his own computer. The leaked information included his Telegram accounts, emails, and contacts.
2024/08/28 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] An open knight's tour of an 81 x 81 chessboard: The single-line drawing looks like a 9 x 9 Latin square of 9 different motifs. Each motif is an open knight's tour of a 9 x 9 chessboard. [Center] My prized set of Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, Vols. 1-3: I've had Vols. 1 & 3 since my graduate-student days and acquired a newer edition of Vol. 2 a few years later. This latter volume has been a great source of ideas & inspiration. [Right] Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis (see the last item below).
(2) Iranian hackers targeted administration officials using WhatsApp: Meta has revealed that Iranian government hackers accused of breaching the Trump campaign with deceptive emails also used WhatsApp accounts to try to trick former Biden and Trump administration officials. The effort was discovered after users reported suspicious messages in which the hackers posed as customer support representatives from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and AOL. Meta has suspended fewer than a dozen accounts that had targeted fewer than two dozen people in the United States, Israel, Iran, and elsewhere.
(3) Book review: Satrapi, Marjane, The Complete Persepolis (Persepolis #1-4), Pantheon, 2007.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I read the pieces of this compilation at various times and wrote about them on social media as I read them. This review, being put together in mid-August 2024 contains a summary of my views on the book series.
Satrapi's Persepolis was my first experience with a graphic novel. Despite its limitations, the graphic-novel format does allow a simple-to-follow narrative through a combination of words and images, but it also creates a tendency to exaggerate or distort in order to make the graphic part compelling. Deep reflections do not produce compelling graphics.
These autobiographical books, which have been made into a feature film, trace Satrapi's life from her childhood and coming-of-age within a large and loving family in Tehran during Iran's Islamic Revolution in the late 1970s, all the way to her self-imposed exile in Europe. Along the way, she is sent to Vienna while living at a boarding house and experiences a bittersweet homecoming. Satrapi's leftist family is quite disappointed when it turns out that the revolutionary government replacing the overthrown Shah isn't into honoring personal freedoms and human rights.
Satrapi is among the growing collection of Iranian authors who have used the dramatic sociopolitical developments in the 1970s and 1980s Iran as backdrops for telling personal stories. Authors who do this in the nonfiction framework must take care to accurately portray actual events and not distort history for dramatic effect. Satrapi's book is full of distortion, in part because she wants to exonerate Iranian leftists from their responsibility in raising the mullahs to power.
As awful as the action of the religious fanatics were, certain reactions of intellectuals were hardly any better. I recall a scene in the book (p. 285 of my copy) where Satrapi has appeared for a rendezvous fully made up. A van filled with Revolutionary Guards suddenly appears, making Satrapi worried about how they might treat her because of wearing make-up. She suddenly thinks of accusing an innocent bystander of saying something indecent to her, in order to deflect attention from herself. The poor young man is taken away, as he pleads with the guards and Satrapi that he is innocent. A few panels later, Satrapi and her boyfriend have a laugh over the incident as they characterize Satrapi's survival instinct as "too cool!" What might have happened to the falsely-accused guy in the custody of Revolutionary Guards did not concern them at all.
Persepolis is an important book, given its sociopolitical themes and strong feminism content. I would have given it 3 stars were it not for these positive elements.
2024/08/27 (Tuesday): Today, I offer reviews of two books by political commentator Fareed zakaria.
(1) Book review: Zakaria, Fareed, Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present, unabridged 13-hour audiobook, read by the author, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Political commentator Fareed Zakaria sees the present era to be revolutionary, involving fundamental changes marked not necessarily by advances but by retreats into ideologies once discarded. In this regard, Donald Trump fits right in with the global trend, embracing the politics of resentment against the other, be they nonwhite newcomers or members of the urban elite. Zakaria tells us that he has worked on this project, originally entitled "Beyond Left and Right," for years, taking detours to complete other, shorter projects.
As a fine example of early liberal revolutions, the establishment of the Dutch Republic brought with it a celebration of individual rights and toleration of religious minorities, along with an entrepreneurial spirit that made Holland the wealthiest nation on the planet. Similarly, the post-Glorious-Revolution British government supported inventors, rewarded technological innovation, and introduced parliamentary rule, along with market capitalism, pushing the nation well ahead of its neighbors.
Zakaria's points are well-argued and thought-provoking. He asks, for example, why the US is the only industrial nation that never developed a socialist movement. Perhaps it was because the US never experienced feudalism as such, and its ruling class "obscured the strict lines of class conflict that fed socialism." Absent socialism, the country instead developed a liberal democracy along the lines of the old Dutch Republic, and prospered as a result.
Despite the prosperity that liberalism has brought to the US, Americans have, by and large, a negative view of the term, often equating it with leftist ideas or socialism. The US benefited over many decades from the greatest strength of liberalism, that is, freeing people from arbitrary constraints, but it is now facing liberalism's greatest weakness, "the inability to fill the void when old structures crumble."
We are now at a juncture where old structures are collapsing on every side, with no fresh solutions being advanced from the right or the left. The most-prominent messenger of change happens to be an incompetent, morally-bankrupt character who focuses on what's wrong, emphasizing grievances over rights and fixes. He advocates turning to pre-World-War-II isolationism and protectionism as a way to restore simpler times, when workers worked and masters enjoyed their leisure. Do we really have to go back to those days to realize that they weren't as perfect as they are depicted to be by the far right?
In his concluding chapter, Zakaria quotes the influential American journalist Walter Lipman, who wrote these words in 1929 about the negative impacts of the revolutions that produced modern life: "By the dissolution of their ancestral ways, men have been deprived of the sense of certainty as to why they were born, why they must work, whom they must love, what they must honor, where they may turn in sorrow and defeat." These words resonate in America's current sociopolitical landscape.
(2) Book review: Zakaria, Fareed, In Defense of a Liberal Education, unabridged 4-hour audiobook, read by the author, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2015. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The debate between skills-based education and broad liberal arts education is never-ending. Zakaria presents ample reasons for the latter approach working better, as evidenced by the success of the United States in leading the world in innovation and tech advances. Countries like China, South Korea, Japan, and even India focus on teaching skills and on selection on the basis of test scores. All of these countries do well on quantitative measures of performance on math and science topics, but they do not produce self-confident individuals who can thrive in a rapidly-changing world.
Previously, I read and reviewed David Epstein's Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, Giving it 4 stars. According to Epstein, avoiding super-specialization, or combining breadth and depth, allows you to benefit from the outsider advantage. The very top scientists participate in activities outside their areas of expertise. The higher up they are in scientific prestige, the more likely they are to have outside interests. In today's complex world, people who think broadly and embrace diverse experiences & perspectives will increasingly thrive.
Citing his own experience of growing up in India, where tests and specialization rule, Zakaria tells us that he followed his brother's example of getting a college education in the US, where education is broad-based and places great emphasis on reading and writing skills. This approach obviously worked for him, because it gave him the communications and analytic skills to become a sociopolitical commentator and successful TV host. For a while, the success formula in the US seemed to be "enroll in college, drop out, establish a tech company in your garage, rake millions."
As I write this review, the US is moving further away from broad-based liberal-arts education in favor of job skills. Proceeding in this direction would turn our highly successful universities into glorified trade schools. Many countries copied, with good results, the liberal-arts education approach of great American universities, who are now bent on copying other countries' less-successful narrow education and skills-based training.
2024/08/26 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Barcelona loves/hates tourism: The Spanish city's residents are feeling the frustrations of overtourism, including congestion, pollution, and disregard for local culture. But economically, the city remains reliant on visitors. [Top center] Persian calligraphic art. [Top right] Bearer of the Liberty Torch. [Bottom left] I've had this drawing board for at least 35 years: Its last use was probably three decades ago. Still, I can't bring myself to part with it! [Bottom center] Design revealed for Grand Stade Hassan II, to become the world's largest stadium for the 2030 World Cup in Morocco. [Bottom right] Course on practicing mindfulness (see the last item below).
(2) Honored by Dr. Amin Lifetime Achievement Award: The formal award will be presented on Saturday 8/31 at the 2024 Sharif University of Technology Association (SUTA) reunion in Niagara Falls, Canada. Since I won't be able to attend, I recorded this message (in Persian) for the attendees.
(3) The citation black market: There are growing concerns about a black market that allows scientists to purchase bogus citations to pad their Google Scholar profiles. NYU computer scientists conducted a sting operation by purchasing 50 citations for $300 and adding them to a fake Google Scholar profile they created. The researchers also proposed a citation-concentration index to identify scientists with a large number of citations from only a few sources.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Russia targets Ukraine's energy infrastructure with hundreds of missiles, causing widespread blackouts.
- Hezbollah and Israel have intensified their rocket fight near the Israel-Lebanon border.
- Israel is intensely searching for the new Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
- Donald Trump chickens out of the September 10 ABC-sponsored debate with Kamala Harris.
(5) Course review: Muesse, Prof. Mark W. (Rhodes College), Practicing Mindfulness: An Introduction to Meditation, 24 lectures in the "Great Courses" series, The Teaching Company, 2011.
[My 2-star review of this course on GoodReads]
I lost interest in this course early on, but didn't want to give up on it. So, I continued listening by sampling each of the remaining 23 lectures. So, my review isn't complete and may in fact be unfair.
My main beef is that the material is intertwined with religious notions, often in indirect or subtle ways. The main message is that mindfulness requires much resolve and effort, whereas, counterintuitively, mindlessness, our default setting, entails a great deal of thinking, judging, and worrying. Our inner voices continuously comment on and judge everything we encounter, preventing us from focusing on our experiences and other important matters.
Left alone, the human mind tends to go to one of two places: The past or the future. We seldom focus on or engage with the present. We are often not in control of our minds and can't turn off the annoying inner voices. Aspects of mindfulness include awareness, relinquishing preconceptions, morality, focusing on breathing, wisdom, compassion, embracing our flaws & physical discomforts, giving, minding our language, cooling our anger, learning to accept loss, and living in the face of death.
Titles of the 24 lectures and a brief description of each lecture can be found on this page.
I enjoyed and recommend a previous read on meditation: Sam Harris's second book on the subject, Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics: A 10% Happier How-To Book (my review).
2024/08/25 (Sunday): Today, I present reviews of four books on voting and elections. These books are among the refernce sources for my UCSB graduate seminar ECE 594BB, which I will teach during fall 2024.
(1) Book review: Brams, Steven J. and Peter C. Fishburn, Approval Voting, Birkhauser, 1983 (2nd ed. Springer 2007).
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
For 5+ decades now, I have been studying voting schemes in connection with reliable computer systems using multiple independent computation channels. More recently, I have expanded my studies to voting in sociopolitical contexts, hoping that the expanded view might offer applications and benefits to reliable computing.
Voting is quite simple when we have only two candidates, but having 3+ candidates can give rise to anomalies and improper results. Consequently, mathematicians and social scientists have been studying many different voting schemes in order to minimize such anomalies and improper results. Plurality voting, the one we use most widely, is particularly prone to undesirable effects such as vote-splitting and spoiler candidates. When combined with a second-round run-off election, problem cases subside, but they don't completely go away.
In approval voting, a voter isn't forced to just pick one candidate, his/her most-preferred, but can "approve" any number of candidates. Each approved candidate receives one vote, and the candidate with the most vote wins. Vote-splitting does not occur, because a voter may approve more than one candidate, so s/he won't be forced to choose between his/her first and second choices, say. Similarly, spoiler candidates, who have virtually no chance of being elected, won't take away votes from mainstream choices.
There is a theoretical "impossibility" result, known as Arrow's Theorem, that shows no voting scheme is perfect, in that, given any voting scheme, we can construct examples to violate one or more of the axioms of "good" voting schemes. Approval voting, the subject of this book, comes close to being an ideal voting scheme.
Chapter 1 of the book offers a wrap-up summary of the main ideas in simple, non-mathematical terms. The casual reader will be convinced by the arguments and discussions in Chapter 1 that approval voting is better than plurality voting, even when a run-off round is added to the latter. The remaining 9 chapters get quite mathematical, which may not be to some readers' liking.
To apply voting schemes in the sociopolitical context, we need practicality in addition to scientific merit. Approval voting isn't much more difficult to implement than plurality voting. Existing voting technology, perhaps with small modifications, would suffice. Plurality voting is also easily understood by voters, and is thus unlikely to cause confusion.
We have no choice but to update our laws and procedures, as we uncover their flaws and learn about doing things more logically. Approval voting appears to strike a reasonable balance between mathematical guarantees of appropriate behavior and practicality of implementation.
I will end this review with a quote from an 1816 letter of Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kerchaval: "I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times."
[P.S.: The authors state that they have changed very little in the book's second edition, aiming only to correct minor errors in the original text, in part because Brams discusses recent research on approval voting in Mathematics and Democracy: Designing Better Voting and Fair-Division Procedures, with key elements also appearing in the authors' joint journal articles.]
(2) Book review: Borgers, Christoph, Mathematics of Social Choice: Voting, Compensation, and Division, SIAM, 2020.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I was drawn to this book because of its discussion of voting methods in Part I (Chapters 1-12, pp. 1-91). The book's Part II (Chapters 13-15, pp. 93-118) covers compensation schemes and its Part III (Chapters 16-26, pp. 119-192) deals with equitable division. There are four appendices on sets, logic, mathematical induction, and solutions to selected exercises (pp. 195-242).
Let me provide a brief overview of Parts II and III, before turning to Part I. Fair division of resources is a branch of mathematical economics. When the resource isn't continuously divisible, such as a house or a car in a divorce case, the problem is to determine a fair compensation by one party to the other who gets to keep the resource. A continuously-divisible resource can be likened to a cake. If one person cuts the cake into two pieces and a second person picks his/her piece, then neither side can complain. Fair compensation or division when 3+ parties are involved is more challenging.
My interest in Part I arises from 5+ decades of studying voting schemes in connection with reliable computer systems using multiple independent computation channels. More recently, I have expanded my studies to voting in sociopolitical contexts, hoping that the expanded view might offer applications and benefits to reliable computing. Voting is quite simple when we have only two candidates, but having 3+ candidates can give rise to anomalies and improper results. Borgers succeeds in conveying the mathematical depth of voting systems and their potential anomalies.
Even though Borgers' discussion of voting systems takes up only 91 pages, the presentation is rather dense and covers a lot of ground. The key notions of Condorcet winner, election spoilers, monotonicity, irrelevant comparisons, strategic voting, ranking of candidates, and Arrow's impossibility theorems are all there, but Borgers covers many other ideas and theorems that are new to me. The large number of exercises, and solutions to a selected subset, is a plus when using the book as part of course material.
(3) Book review: Poundstone, William, Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (and What We Can Do About It), Hill and Wang, 2008. [My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book is presented in 3 parts and 17 chapters. The prologue sets the stage by considering the problem of fringe and spoiler candidates who taint elections without having a real chance of winning. "Since 2004, the gaming of the spoiler effect has burgeoned and become thoroughly bipartisan. In the 2006 elections, no fewer than five key races had Democratic money funding spoilers to hurt Republicans or vice versa. The funds not only aided ballot drives but also paid for TV, radio, and print ads the spoilers could not otherwise have afforded" [p. 22].
Part I, Chapters 1-6 (pp. 23-130), defines the problem. Chapter titles are "Game Theory," "The Big Bang," "A Short History of Vote Splitting," "The Most Evil Man in America," "Run, Ralph, Run," and "Year of the Spoiler." We learn, among other things, that in a couple of figure-skating contests, the order of the top three contenders changed once a fourth skater performed and was scored below the top three. The figure-skating world was shocked and vowed to fix the scoring system. Similar anomalies can arise in the world of elections under certain voting systems.
Part II, Chapters 7-15 (pp. 131-258), discusses the solution. Chapter titles are "Trouble in Kiribati," "The New Belfry," "Instant Runoff," "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Cycle," "Buckley and the Clones," "Bad Santa," "Last Man Standing," "Hot or Not," and "Present but Not Voting." Among other ideas, advantages of the instant-runoff system (which is quite close to another system known as single transferable vote) are described. We also learn about Donald Saari, voting research's Bad Santa, because he spoils other researchers' fun by finding flaws in their proposed voting systems. Saari was once an advocate of approval voting, but later turned against it.
Part III, Chapters 16-17 (pp. 259-283), addresses the reality. Chapter titles are "The Way Democracy Will Be" and "Blue Man Coup." Near the end of this part, the author advocates for a real-world trial of instant-runoff, range, or approval voting. We can always go back to approval voting if the experiment doesn't work, but we must give some of these methods a try. Reform requires experimentation and courage to try new things.
(4) Book review: Herrnson, Paul S., Richard G. Niemi, Michael J. Hanmer, Benjamin B. Bederson, Frederick C. Conrad, and Michael W. Traugott, Voting Technology: The Not-So-Simple Act of Casting a Ballot, Brookings Institution, 2008. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
For decades, voting technology consisted of paper ballots that were hand-counted. Then, we started using special ballot formats to enable machine-counting. In principle, with the widespread availability of the Internet and advances in digital authentication, we should be able to vote on-line, bypassing the need for voting precincts, paper ballots (or voting machines), and vote-counting gadgets, but lack of trust in the reliability and security of digital systems and concerns about access and fairness have prevented this ideal from materializing.
This book covers variations in and issues surrounding voting technology in 7 chapters and 3 appendices, as follows:
Chapter 1. The Study of Electronic Voting
Chapter 2. A New Generation of Voting Systems
Chapter 3. Voter Reaction to Electronic Voting Systems
Chapter 4. The Accuracy of Electronic Voting Systems
Chapter 5. Inequality in the Voting Booth
Chapter 6. Vote Verification Systems
Chapter 7. Toward More User-Friendly Voting and Election Systems
Appendix A. Voter Information Guides and Questionnaires
Appendix B. Characteristics of Respondents in the Field Studies
Appendix C. Regression Results for Chapters 5 and 6
As paper or on-screen ballots have grown in size and complexity, automating the process of casting ballots, tallying votes, and validating the results have become more urgent. None of these aspects is trivial in an election with millions of voters and dozens of candidates. Equally urgent is introduction of standards to engender familiarity and voter education to avoid errors and intimidation (which can hamper participation).
The voting system (plurality, run-off, rank-ordering, Borda, and so on) is a different story, but whichever system is chosen through societal consensus, adhering to the rules and executing it in a transparent and trustworthy manner is essential. Perhaps we will see reforms in voting technology within our lifetime, but widespread adoption of new technologies is always challenging.
2024/08/24 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The Venice Film Festival has become a major predictor of success during the awards season. [Center] Jennifer Lopez keeps expanding her collection of exes: Ben Affleck is the newest addition. [Right] Richard Francis's Epigentics (see the last item below).
(2) Delayed return flight: Two NASA astronauts who flew to the ISS on a Boeing Starliner and were slated to return in a couple of weeks will stay there until they can return on a SpaceX module in 2025. Starliner has developed problems that make it unsafe for crewed flight, so it will be returned without passengers.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The Kennedy name lost much of its prestige with RFK Jr.'s campaign musings and endorsement of Trump.
- The Gateway Arch in St. Louis: Its unique design and how it was built. [10-minute video]
- Humorist Hadi Khorsandi recites his poem on how the Islamic Revolution affected Iran.
- Neil deGrasse Tyson explains bolides, asteroids, meteors, and meteorites. [8-minute video]
(4) Blaming the people: The Iranian regime wants to raise gas prices, but given the deadly street protests after the last gas-price increase, it is claiming, through a social-media campaign, that people demand a price adjustment. No, they don't. People are already crushed by the high cost of living and rampant inflation.
(5) Book review: Francis, Richard C., Epigenetics: The Ultimate Mystery of Inheritance, W. W. Norton & Company, 2011.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The term "epigenetics" means "on the gene," the relatively recent discovery that stress and environmental factors can impact an individual's psychology so deeply that the resulting biological "scars" are potentially inherited by multiple generations that follow. For example, men who start to smoke before puberty increase the chance of obesity for their sons. Epigenetics is now believed to hold the key to understanding not just obesity, but also diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, and autism.
Epigenetics has established beyond any doubt that while genes are quite important, they are subject to regulation by forces that can turn them on or off, sometimes for a lifetime or even across generations. Epigenetic changes are above and beyond longer-term changes due to random mutations and natural selection.
This first general introduction to epigenetics is driven by many stories such as the Dutch famine of World War II, Jose Canseco & steroids, breeding of mules & hinnies, Tasmanian devils, and contagious cancer. Each chapter in the book starts with an entertaining or intriguing example of how epigenetics affects human and animal biology and inheritance, followed by detailed discussion of the mechanisms at work.
After a brief general review of genetics in Chapters 2-3, Francis devotes Chapters 4-6 to epigenetic gene regulation and how it is influenced by the environment, beginning in the womb. Chapter 7 covers the inheritance of epigenetic states, elaborating further on the long-term effects of the Dutch famine. The final four Chapters provide additional details on epigenetics, including its applications in stem-cell and cancer research. The book's extensive notes and bibliography span pp. 162-181 and 182-215, respectively.
The Dutch Famine of the mid-1940s constitutes an important example. When, near the end of World War II, Germans were retreating from Eastern Europe, they decided to punish the Dutch resistance by destroying much of their infrastructure and flooding their agricultural fields. The ensuing famine led to ~20,000 deaths and had other devastating effects on the population, particularly, on pregnant women, whose malnutrition led to deficiencies in their babies and multiple subsequent generations. The Dutch kept meticulous health records, which allowed detailed studies of the effect of the famine and jump-started the field of epigenetics. Such large-scale human experiments are nearly impossible to plan, given limitations on the use of human subjects.
2024/08/23 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] An old cartoon that aroused my attention because I'll be teaching an undergraduate circuits course (ECE 10A) during winter 2025. Ohm's law is at the very beginning of the course! [Center] Iranian cleric: We have received a message from Imam Zaman (the 12th Shi'i Imam who is in hiding) to hold off on attacking Israel! [Right] New Yorker cartoon: Spending the day in the sun.
(2) Kamala Harris hits it out of the ballpark: She promises to be President for all Americans, operate with common sense, rebuild the middle class, establish an opportunity economy, and respect the rule of law.
(3) World's second-largest diamond: A 2492-carat gem-quality diamond was found in Botswana this week. What's the largest? The 3105-carat Cullinan diamond, found in South Africa in 1905 and divided into smaller gems. Some are among the British Crown Jewels.
(4) Is a revolution possible in Russia? On the surface, it appears that Putin is firmly in control. But there is growing opposition to the war in Ukraine and hints of unrest among people stuck with low wages. Regime change in Russia will of course affect Russians and Ukrainians the most, but the Islamic regime in Iran will also be a big loser. [Related Business Insider story]
(5) Question: How long can you keep those little ketchup, dressing, & mayo packets from fast food joints?
Answer: Use them in a couple of weeks at most. You never know how old they are when you get them.
(6) Did you know that Toyota engines are used in certain models of other car brands? Here's a partial list: BMW; Chevy; Geo; Lotus; Pontiac; Subaru; Suzuki.
(7) Cash for finding scientific errors: Europe's Estimating the Reliability and Robustness of Research (ERROR) project offers payments to reviewers who spot errors in code, statistical analyses, and reference citations in psychology and psychology-related papers. Modeled after software bug-bounty programs, reviewers receive up to 1000 Swiss francs (around US $1172) for each paper they analyze, with bonuses for identified errors, including up to $2930 for errors requiring a major correction notice or a retraction. Meanwhile, authors are paid $293 for making data available & answering questions, and another $293 if only minor errors are detected.
2024/08/21 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] America should move forward to greatness, not backward. [Center] Follow this sage advice: I did, right after getting this fortune-cookie message yesterday. It definitely worked! [Right] IEEE CCS tech talk on energy storage technologies (see the last item below).
(2) Michelle Obama's brilliant speech at the Democratic National Convention.
(3) Stephanie Grisham, former Trump official who resigned in the January 6 aftermath, speaks at the Democratic National Convention, revealing what Trump says about his supporters when cameras are off.
(4) A new type of nuclear proliferation: Conventional nuclear bombs are difficult to make, because they need highly-enriched uranium. However, a dirty-bomb capable of doing much damage can be built by terrorists from advanced-reactor fuel. The threat is rising due to a new emphasis on nuclear power to achieve net-zero carbon emission by 2050.
(5) Tonight's IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk (in-person and WebEx event): Yours truly spoke under the title "Energy Storage Technologies to Facilitate the Use of Renewable Energy." [51-minute recording]
Renewable energy is gradually becoming cost-competitive, as we invest more in developing new production and storage technologies. The storage part is critical and needs significantly more effort. Production levels of renewable energy, solar and wind in particular, tend to be variable. Such supply variations, combined with natural variations in demand, give rise to the need for storing energy, in much the same way that we store grains in silos to smooth out the variations in when & where they are produced and when & where they are needed. In the case of grains, even year-to-year variations due to weather, pests, and natural disasters can be tolerated with sufficient storage capacity.
There is no reason why similar smoothing methods cannot be used for energy. The fact that we have not been investing more in developing energy-storage technologies is a direct result of the "low cost" of energy derived from oil, gas, & coal and the exorbitantly-funded campaign by the fossil-fuel industry to brand renewable energy as "expensive." However, most cost comparisons are unfair, because they ignore environmental and other indirect costs. Mitigating the effects of harmful emissions from burning fossil fuels is rather expensive, a figure we should include in their life-cycle cost. If we do so, the so-called “green premium” will vanish or even become negative.
I briefly surveyed a number of existing and emerging energy storage technologies, from mechanical (flywheel, pumped hydro, gravity, compressed air, liquid piston), through chemical & electrochemical (hydrogen, biofuel, biodiesel, supercapacitors, batteries), to superconducting & cryogenic (magnetic, liquid air). Strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches were enumerated. Emphasis was placed on the solar-battery combo, which is finding its way into homes and businesses throughout the world. These small-scale solar-battery nodes can be likened to PC-disk nodes, which together with larger-scale server-storage nodes constitute the Internet. In a similar manner, an Intergrid of energy can be conceived which will fuel the Third Industrial Revolution.
2024/08/20 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Respecting the fact that the tree was there first: If only the same respect was shown to US Native Americans. [Center] It sure took a long time and many attempts for a woman to rise to the pinnacle of political power in the US. It's still not a done deal, but if it does happen, many women deserve the credit; Shirley Chisholm, Geraldine Ferraro, and Hillary Clinton, to name just three. And, now, Kamala Harris is the bearer of the torch. [Right] Cover feature of IEEE Spectrum magazine (see the last item below).
(2) Making platonic connections: City dwellers and remote workers who feel lonely can now use apps to arrange group meals with strangers.
(3) Justice not served: Chrystul Kizer was 17 when she killed a man who filmed his sexual abuse of her for more than a year. She has been sentenced to 11 years in prison.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Major Hezbollah ammunition depot in south Lebanon targeted by Israel.
- Iranian officials admit that mass exodus of nurses and other healthcare workers is a serious problem.
- The proposed cabinet of the Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reflects Iran's institutional stagnation.
- Facebook memory from Aug. 20, 2019: Friendship may develop into love, but not the other way around.
(4) A trailblazing woman tech journalist retires: Tekla S. Perry joined the staff of IEEE Spectrum magazine in 1979. Her stories, which she began writing with notepads and pencils, have stood the test of time and constitute a history of the Silicon Valley and electronics technology. I will miss Perry's stories in IEEE Spectrum, a magazine which I read regularly.
(5) Quote of the day: "In voting for Vice President Harris, I assume that her public policy views are vastly different from my own but I am indifferent in this election as to her policy views on any issues other than America's Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, as I believe all Americans should be." ~ Conservative judge Michael Luttig
(6) The hunt for rogue planets: Our galaxy may hold a trillion wandering sunless planets, but finding them isn't easy. Rogue planets are created in various ways:
- Ejection from orbit due to encounter with a larger planet.
- Independent formation from gas & dust in stellar nurseries.
- Destabilization due to encounter with another star.
- Being put loose due to explosive death of a giant star.
These planets are shaking up astronomers' ideas about planetary formation. Only giant planets formed in-place (#2 above) can be directly observed, because they emit enough heat to be detected with an infrared telescope.
2024/08/18 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The West is complicit in the way women are treated in certain societies, such as Afghnaistan and Iran. [Center & Right] Two math puzzles involving two & three squares.
(2) Alain Delon [1935-2024], heartthrob and prolific French actor, dead at 88: During my youth, he was seemingly on every movie poster and a subject in every gossip column. I have seen many of his movies (he was a most-popular star in Iran), yet I can't name any of the films off-hand. It has been said that there is no French cinema without Alain Delon. RIP. [Alain Delon's profile, through his interviews]
(3) The US presidential race has devolved into a beauty pageant: At a campaign rally, Trump compared his looks to his opponent’s, claiming that he was better-looking. [Tweet, with photos]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Our 2024 choice in a nutshell: Prosecutor & coach/veteran vs. real-estate developer & venture capitalist.
- The Soviet-era Minsk Aircraft Carrier, previously converted to a theme park in China, destroyed by fire.
- Webinar: Fighting agents and influencers acting in the West on behalf of Iran's Islamic regime. [Details]
- Child prodigy plays Vivaldi, with skill and infectious joy!
- African proverb: The sheep will spend its entire life fearing the wolf, only to be eaten by the shepherd.
- Facebook memory from Aug. 19, 2019: Mediocre passions vs. great ones.
(4) Iran-linked social media accounts used ChatGPT to generate posts and comments with disinformation about the US election: OpenAI has disrupted the operation and closed the accounts, which were mostly unsuccessful, because they did not produce much likes, comments, or sharers.
(5) University of California prepares for campus protests: In a letter to the UC community, President Michael Drake reiterated the importance of free speech on campus and urged the formulation of clear/transparent policies regarding camping and other campus obstructions.
(6) Final thought for the day: A batch of books that I took home from my UCSB office today, shown covering my car trunk and the entire back seat. I will have to repeat this transfer two more times to complete the process before my retirement. [Tweet, with photos]
2024/08/17 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] When I see a woman athlete embrace her significant other upon winning a race or earning a medal, I feel sorry for Iranian women athletes who have to muffle their joy as they stand all alone, because Islam does not allow a public display of affection. [Center] A view of the Caspian Sea, with Alborz Mountains of Iran at the bottom and the Caucuses on the left.
[Right] MS World Discoverer (a German expedition cruise ship) hit an uncharted reef in Solomon Islands on April 29, 2000.
(2) On price stability: For many years, I remember buying Roma tomatoes for $0.99/lb. I am sure the market price fluctuated for various reasons, but grocery stores took the loss, when needed, to offer consumers a stable price. Not anymore! After a shortage of a few weeks to prepare the consumers, Roma tomatoes came back at a price of $1.49-$1.99. Many fruits, such as apples, peaches, and grapes, that used to sell for around $1.50/lb are now offered at $3.00-$4.00/lb. Merchants pass on market price increases to consumers right away, which is a sure cause of inflation beyond what we would have if prices were kept stable for a while.
(3) Free book containing almost all the math you need for machine learning: Algebra, Topology, Differential Calculus, and Optimization Theory for Computer Science and Machine Learning, Jean Gallier and Jocelyn Quaintance, Dept. Computer & Information Science, U. Pennsylvania.
[PDF]
(4) The terrorist ambassador, turned professor: The German government had evidence of Seyed Hossein Mousavian's involvement in the terror of Iranian dissidents abroad, but chose to let him go for fear of the mullah's retaliatory actions. [Tweet]
(5) Copper mining cannot keep up with ramp-up of EVs (from E&T magazine, July-August 2024): Copper is needed in all aspects of electricity generation, storage, and distribution. A new study reveals that by 2050, the world needs to mine 115% more copper than has been mined in all of history just to meet current needs, without even considering the green-energy transition.
(6) Israeli army officers sing a Persian song made famous by Hayedeh to show the bonds of friendship between Israeli and Iranian people. [Tweet, with video]
(7) The technology of electric cars is ~200 years old: From Ben Franklin's electric motors, through cheap oil derailing the progress, to market maturity, we have come a long way. [E&T magazine, July-August 2024]
(8) Final thought for the day: Apparently, someone mentioned to Trump that Harris has an edge in looks. In his latest rally, Trump claimed that he is better-looking than Harris!
2024/08/15 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Henry Yang's 31-year tenure as UCSB Chancellor is coming to an end (see the next item below). [Top center] Throwback Thursday: Royal Tehran Hilton, 1962 (zoom in on room balconies). [Top right] Throwback Thursday: My mom, her two sisters, her oldest brother, and a younger family member. [Bottom left] Trump wins the gold medal in lying while breaking the world record. [Bottom center] Don't buy the lies that everything was hunky-dory under Trump: We paid a lot for his presidency. [Bottom right] Royal Society consider the implications of AI to the scientific enterprise (see the last item below).
(2) UCSB's Chancellor Henry Yang to step down: In a letter to the campus community, Chancellor Yang indicated that he will step down at the end of the 2024-2025 academic year, returning to research and teaching. Yang came to UCSB in 1994 from his former position as Dean of Engineering at Purdue University, making him the longest-serving chancellor in the history of the UC system. Under his leadership, UCSB grew to become a top-ranking public university in the US, making significant progress in research production & funding, campus facilities, academic prestige, and worldwide recognition. He will be missed!
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- WHO declares the rapid spread of mpox in African countries a global emergency.
- Eric Schmidt blames Google's woes on remote work policies: Other employers are also on board.
- This is Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. [Tweet, with video]
- Preparing for ten hot days in Goleta, a lot better in Ventura.
[Tweet, with images]
- Iranian music: Pallett performs "From Eastern Lands." [7-minute video]
- Persian poetry: A poem by Yaghma Neyshaburi, the brick-maker who offered sage advice.
(4) "Science in the Age of AI": This is the title of a May 2024 Royal Society report, bearing the subtitle "How artificial intelligence is changing the nature and method of scientific research."
The 108-page PDF document begins with an executive summary, which outlines key findings & future research questions, a set of four recommendations, and the following five chapters, sandwiched between an introduction and a conclusion.
- How AI is transforming scientific research
- Research integrity and trustworthiness
- Research skills and interdisciplinarity
- Research, innovation and the private sector
- Research ethics and AI safety
A key theme is that AI tools for science must follow the traditions of openness and reproducibility.
2024/08/13 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] VP Kamala Harris on the cover of Time magazine. [Center] The Colosseum is incredible, but it isn't unique: There are over 200 Ancient Roman arenas, on three different continents, many of which held over 50,000 people. And the Romans even built one stadium with a capacity of 150,000. [Right] Math puzzle: How many triangles do you see in this figure?
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Trump campaign hacked by Iran: Internal e-mails & a vetting file on J. D. Vance are supplied to the media.
- California partners with Nvidia to bring AI resources & skills to students, faculty, and developers.
- J. D. Vance is probably better-educated than D. J. Trump but he makes the same kinds of false claims.
- An Iranian top official: "Our society isn't mentally prepared to accept the guidance and leadership of women."
- My favorite fortune-cookie message: You're never too old to learn something new.
(4) Heat-trapping "glitter" proposed for warming up Mars: The median Martian surface temperature is –65 degrees Celsius. The proposed method is viewed as an initial step for making Mars more habitable to humans. Since iron and aluminum are abundant on the surface of Mars, the material can be made locally, rather than shipped from Earth.
(5) Stanford U. athletes won 39 medals at the Paris Olympics, surpassing the medal counts of countries like the Netherlands, South Korea, Germany, and Canada. Texas, Cal, and Harvard also earned quite a few medals.
(6) One consequence of extreme heat: Those who receive their meds through mail should be aware that summer temperatures inside delivery trucks can reach 150 F, potentially damaging medications.
(7) The Trump-Musk show: I watched the X (Twitter) chat between the criminally-indicted fellow and the Tesla guy, who reportedly wants to be an advisor in the next Trump administration. It was a lie-fest, with Trump doing much of the talking and Musk adoringly offering his approval. UAW has filed federal labor charges against the duo for threatening workers in the course of the program.
(8) IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk on Wednesday, August 21, 2024, 6:00 PM: Yours truly will speak on "Energy Storage Technologies to Facilitate the Use of Renewable Energy." [Free registration]
2024/08/11 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A mind-boggling optical illusion. [Center] The American people are ready for a president who smiles as she talks about friendship and hope. We are tired of dour faces talking of gloom and doom. [Right] he 2024 Paris Olympics closes (see the last item below).
(2) Today's farmers market at Goleta's Camino Real Marketplace, with musical entertainment by the trio Strings & Arrows. [Video 1]
Video 2]
(3) How China solved the problem of putting tens of thousands of characters (words) onto a keyboard with only dozens of keys. [13-minute video]
(4) We use D, C, AA, AAA, and AAAA batteries: What happened to B and A battery sizes? These missing battery sizes were defined and existed at one point, but given the fairly small size & capacity spacings between C and AA, the B and A sizes do not provide sufficient advantages in compactness or storage capacity, so over time they fell out of favor.
(5) On our fascination with sports:
The 2024 Paris Olympics coming to an end is a bittersweet experience for me. I watched the games very selectively, owing to some events not being of much interest to me and because I had a limited amount of time to watch. Football (soccer), basketball, volleyball, and some gymnastics took up the bulk of my TV time. I will miss watching so much quality sports.
As I look back on the 17-day experience, I keep wondering about the reasons we enjoy watching sports. If we compare sports to music, say, we know that music is good for us, whether we participate as a player or just listen and move to it. The recent book Music and Mind, edited by Renee Fleming, leaves little doubt about how music improves our mental acuity and makes life more enjoyable overall.
In the case of sports, there are definite benefits to participation but, as far as I know, no evidence of significant health benefits in watching. Certain sports do have artistic elements and watching them can presumably bring us the same benefits as art. But there are also the less charitable reasons for watching athletes compete, much in the same way that Romans watched gladiators.
Regardless of the tribalism implied in enjoying the sports that are most-popular in our country and cheering on our country's participants, the Olympics does bring us the joys of seeing athletes from the entire world come together despite their obvious differences. There is something noble in accepting defeat by a more-skilled opponent or team and going back to the drawing board to improve our deficiencies, whether it is for doing better in the next Olympics or for the satisfaction of excellence.
2024/08/10 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Iranian women earning Olympics medals: What a display of women's power to backward rulers who don't recognize women as full human beings (see the next item below). [Center] Visual challenge: Do you see the number? [Right] Let's take science out of the colonial era (see the last item below).
(2) Three Iranian-born women earn Olympics medals in taekwondo: Two of them, competing in a match for Iran and Bulgaria, used to be good friends. These women have delivered a kick in the face to a mullah, who once said women's worth isn't measured by whether they can kick but by how well they raise children.
(3) Roya Hakakian writes about her motivation to investigate the story of Mohammad Jafar Mahallati at Oberlin: An Islamist who rose to the professorial rank among serious scholars.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Russia has issued a strong warning to Iran against targeting Israel.
- No one utters the word "truth" more than the most-contemptible liar.
- Facebook memory from Aug. 9, 2018: Iranian music, with mixed Persian-Azeri lyrics.
- Facebook memory from Aug. 10, 2017: On anti-Semitism in Iran.
(5) Olympics gold-medal match in women's soccer/football: USA played Brazil, the teams having previously beaten Germany and Spain, respectively, in the semifinals. Somewhat surprisingly for such an important match, the play was wide-open in the first half, which ended up 0-0, despite several scoring opportunities for both teams. Brazil became quite dominant in the final 10 minutes before halftime.
Twelve minutes into the second half, Swanson's speed paid off, as she put a through pass past the Brazil goalie. The 1-0 score persisted through the end of the second half (which included 10 minutes of stoppage time). Brazil again dominated in the last 10 minutes, coming close to equalizing on multiple occasions.
This is the US women national soccer team's fifth Olympics gold medal.
P.S.: I saw more shots of Tom Cruise in the stands than of the US coach on the sideline!
(6) The colonial legacy of science: Science, in its modern form, emerged from the Enlightenment-era Europe. At the time, a handful of European countries exerted political and economic control over more than half the world. The colonialists enslaved people and extracted precious metals, spices, and other wealth from their lands. The term "parachute science" was coined for the situation when foreign scientists were dropped in and wrote about problems in distant lands, with minimal involvement from local scientists. That legacy is still with us. For example, a 2019 study found that fewer than half of papers on infectious diseases in Africa had an African first author. We have to recognize this colonial legacy and work to allow researchers in once-colonized nations to become full partners in science.
2024/08/08 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Political executions continue in the Islamic Republic of Iran, regardless of who is the president. [Center] Pyramid of palindromic prime numbers: In this example, each number appears in the middle part of the next number. There are other pyramids formed by palindromic primes. [Right] Talangor Group talk on genetics (see the last item below).
(2) Trouble in space: Two NASA astronauts, who traveled on Boeing’s Starliner to the Int'l Space Station in June for a planned 8-day mission, will stay there until February, because their return vehicle has developed problems that make it potentially unsafe.
(3) Three Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna are cancelled after discovery of plans by two teenagers to carry out an Islamic-State-inspired attack with explosives and weapons.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- President Pezeshkian writes to Khamenei, asking him to refrain from a full-scale war with Israel. [Meme]
- Hamas' new political leader demonstrates his education program for kindergartners. [Photo]
- The airship that became a flying aircraft carrier.
- Iran's George Floyd: Afghan teenager suffers a broken neck, when security forces pin him to the ground.
(5) Tonight's Talangor Group meeting: Dr. Davood Kolbehdari spoke under the title "Genetics and Breeding." Before the main talk, Dr. Farid Akhbari gave a short presentation on "The Psychology of Tattoos," covering a history spanning thousands of years and mental/social reasons for their prevalence. There were ~85 attendees.
Dr. Kolbehdari began by citing the prediction that by 2050, we need to produce 70% more food, given the estimated ~2 billion growth in world population and the expected rise in the standard of living for billions of people in the developing world. The question facing humanity is how we can grow so much more food, without further destroying the planet.
An obvious answer is the use of higher-yielding crops and more-efficient agricultural and pest-control methods. For example, in the case of corn, a staple of the American diet, the nearly-constant yield during 1860-1940 began to take off in the 1940s due to advances in genetics. Unfortunately, greedy agricultural companies do not allow the people to gain maximum benefits from the rising crop yields, because they restrict access or charge exorbitant fees for patent-protected seeds that they develop.
Dr. Kolbehdari cited many examples of advances in high-yielding crops and the legal battles over their use and abuse. Fortunately, the patents associated with the seeds for such crops have a 20-year protection, but so far, advances have been so quick that it isn't cost-effective to use 20-year-old seeds in lieu of the most recent offerings.
A natural question, which I asked at the end of the talk, is why limit ourselves to pursuing improved crops and agricultural innovations. Like any other matter, various food products can be synthesized from their molecular components. In my humble opinion, synthetic food production method, which are now in their infancy, will be scaled up to make agriculture, as it is known today, obsolete. Here is an informative article on the benefits and challenges of synthetic food.
2024/08/07 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Kamala Harris taps Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate: Walz's fatherly looks and Midwest small-town credentials appear to complement Harris's big-city background. [Center] Math puzzle: In this diagram of 3 concentric circles, find the exact value of x. [Right] Black Diamond apples are currently grown only in the mountains of Tibet. [Right]
(2) Extreme hypocrisy: MAGA politicians, who consider masking and vaccination impositions on their freedom & privacy, have no problem telling women that they must have more babies and obey their husbands.
(3) Language is more than just a communication tool: Yes, language allows us to express our thoughts, but it also helps shape them. In this 23-minute Persian video, the effect of language on how we think is discussed. [Equivalent 14-minute TED talk, in English]
(4) If you think the Higgs boson particle is an unpromising subject for a Broadway musical, you're not alone: David Henry Hwang of "M. Butterfly" fame, unmoved when the idea was first pitched to him years ago, has since come around and is now developing a musical based on the discovery in 2012 of the infamous particle.
(5) Olympics women's soccer: USA, which beat Germany 4-1 in the group stage, faced the Germans again in a semifinal game today. The first half went scoreless, with the US looking somewhat disorganized and Germany looking quite beatable.
Neither team played like an Olympics champion in the scoreless second half. Smith put the US ahead on a through pass in minute 5 of the first overtime period. Both teams dodged bullets a couple of minutes from the end of the match, putting the US in the gold-medal game with the 1-0 score. [4-minute highlights]
(6) Archaeologists Find a 2,400-Year-Old "Pot of Gold" in Turkey: An ancient hoard of Persian coins offers insights into the political landscape around the time of the Peloponnesian War.
(7) US antitrust-law violation: Judge rules that Google has an illegal monopoly on Internet search.
(8) The US presidential race: Harris is closing the gap with Trump and in some cases enjoys a small lead, as traditional Democratic voters are coming back and some Republicans are inclined to vote for Harris in order to give their party a chance to recover from the disgrace of Trump. According to a group of Republicans: "... our party's nominee is not qualified for office ... It is time to put partisan loyalties aside and vote for the leadership that will truly represent the people we want to be in the eyes of the world. Character matters."
2024/08/05 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Kamala Harris didn't suddenly become black, as Donald Trump claims (see the next item below). [Top center] New Yorker cartoon of the day: Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris presidential debate. [Top right] Former Iranian FM Javad Zarif and President Masoud Pezeshkian (see the last item below). [Bottom row] Belated spring cleaning: One of my summer projects is to get rid of decades worth of technical journals and conference proceedings. Here you see one load out of a dozen or so loads already recycled. In the course of cleaning, I discovered many transparencies, which were used with overhead projectors before PowerPoint slides and digital projectors took over.
(2) In her 2019 autobiography, Kamala Harris wrote: "My mother understood very well that she was raising two black daughters. She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud black women."
(3) Parhelion: A natural phenomenon, when three suns are seen in the sky, the Sun itself and two reflections in ice crystals falling down from clouds. [Tweet, with video feom China]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- First anti-trust ruling of the modern Internet era: Google acted illegally to maintain its search monopoly.
- Campus protests and possibly academic strikes in the US will reportedly return with the start of the fall term.
- Dozens of military men, some of them high-ranking, arrested in Iran on suspicion of spying for Israel.
- Sergei Shoigu, Secretary of Russia's Security Council, is in Tehran for high-level talks. [IranWire.com]
- War on arts & artists: Iran's Islamic authorities continue to threaten and imprison artists.
- If you wouldn't buy a used car from someone, you shouldn't vote him into office. [Tweet, with meme]
- Facebook memory from August 5, 2015: "Yar Injidi," a beautiful Azeri song.
(5) Bangladeshis celebrate after forcing their PM to flee the country: Some have characterized the protesters as Islamists, but this joyful singing doesn't sound Islamist to me.
(6) Final thought for the day: Iran's former FM Javad "we have no political prisoners in Iran" Zarif is back on airwaves and on social media, spreading lies and denying the brutal acts of the Islamic regime. He was once unceremoniously dumped by the hardliners. I really hope that he is dumped again. People like him, who can speak good English and present seemingly coherent arguments internationally are more dangerous than the inarticulate religious fanatics. As the Persian saying goes, a thief who carries a bright light can take more-valuable items. The government of President Masoud Pezeshkian is already sidelined by the IRCG, which makes official statements and issues threats in the aftermath of Ismail Haniyeh's assassination in Tehran.
2024/08/04 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] A double-birthday celebration in our family and the dinner menu. [Top right] Cat-lady-themed merchandise and the ",la" (comma la) moniker are trending. [Bottom left] Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA. [Bottom center] Balloons at the Paris Olympics (see the next item below). [Bottom right] Renee Fleming's Music and Mind (see the last item below).
(2) Air balloons at the Paris Olympics: The opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics featured a Montgolfier balloon reference and air balloons have been featured in various promos and graphics for the event. The papermaker French brothers Joseph-Michel Montgolfier & Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier launched the era of spectacular hot air balloon flights in the late 18th century. The first humans to take to the air in free flight did so aboard one of their balloons.
(3) Women's Olympics soccer quarterfinals (USA 1-0 Japan): Japan played tight, marking defense for the entire first half, disrupting the normal game flow for the US. Patient ball control followed by a few over-the-top long passes didn’t work for the US, leading to a scoreless game at halftime.
The second half and the entire first 15-minute overtime period also went scoreless, with both teams having some scoring chances. Then, in minute 2 of stoppage time, Rodman scored the game's only goal on a through pass and some wonderful footwork.
[7-minute highlights]
(4) Smart speed bumps: Badennova, a Spanish company, makes smart speed bumps from non-Newtonian fluids that exhibit variable viscosity under stress. When used in speed bumps, they stay soft at low speeds but harden when you drive over them too fast.
(5) Book review: Fleming, Renee (editor), Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness, unabridged 22-hour audiobook, read by Gina Daniels and six others, Penguin Audio, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book, composed of a large number of essays, begins with a foreword by former Director of NIH, Nobel Laureate Francis S. Collins, who tells us about his surreal experience of singing with three Supreme Court Justices and soprano Renee Fleming at a gathering, an event that made him bent on having NIH support more research on the connection between arts (music in particular) and neuroscience.
Then, following an "Overture" by Fleming herself, chapters written by a wide variety of scientists and artists unfold, beginning with a chapter entitled "How and Why: Experts Explain the Basic Science Connecting Arts and Health, Including Origins in Evolution: Musicality, Evolution, and Animal Response to Music," which sets the stage for the rest of the material.
Contributors to this volume make a convincing case that the arts empower and heal, collectively presenting a manifesto for neuroarts, the transdisciplinary study of how the arts and aesthetic experiences measurably change the body, brain, and behavior and how this knowledge is translated into specific practices that advance health and wellbeing.
We learn, among other things, that all forms of music, not just classical music, have relaxing effects. Moving to musical rhythms is part of our nature, something that develops quite early. Even though music therapy has been practiced for a couple of centuries, only recently has it been taken seriously for the treatment of physical and mental ailments. Even now, insurance companies tend not to pay for the cost of music therapy.
It is unfortunate that as evidence on the empowering and healing power of music and other art forms piles up, schools in the United States continue to trim arts programs to save money. Lack of a place for arts in public education limits artistic activities to the well-to-do, further exacerbating the opportunity divide. It is my hope that Fleming's book brings our school officials and politicians to their senses, making them support (including by providing ample funding) arts education across the K-12 curriculum.
2024/08/03 (Saturday): Today, I present reviews of three books on history, finance, and politics.
(1) Course review: Lee, John W. I., The Persian Empire, 24 lectures in the "Great Courses" series, undated.
[My 5-star review of this course on GoodReads]
I discovered this course by accident and was delighted by its content and by the fact that it is taught by a distinguished UCSB colleague, John W. I. Lee. Professor Lee has many academic honors to his name, including an Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award and the Harold J. Plous Memorial Award.
Professor Lee aims to corrects the negative view of the Persian Empire, which emerged from accounts by the Greek, leading to Persians being depicted in histories and films as the bad guys, the villains who were ruled by despotic leaders and lost the Battle of Marathon. Examining the Persian Empire from the Persian perspective yields a vastly different picture. We see the Persian Empire as a major force with a lasting influence on the world in terms of administration, economics, religion, and architecture.
Professor Lee tells us that as part of his research for this course, he studied American textbooks from the 1800s and 1900s. In 19th-century textbooks, writers go from describing the Persians fairly positively to calling them despotic, decadent, barbaric Orientals. By 1900, a popular textbook summed up the new view: One Greek was better than 10 Asiatics! And Hollywood (e.g., in the film "300") helped perpetuate the negative view.
The sources used by Professor Lee include:
- Greek historical writings, which are obviously biased, but because Persians did not write their own history, Greek writings remain important sources, when checked against other corroborating evidence.
- Stories in the Hebrew Bible, which are likely overly idealized.
- Travelers and their writings.
- Archaeological discoveries, including accounts of the same events in three different languages, which facilitated decoding and allowed cross-checking.
- Thousands of Persepolis tablets, found during a fortification project, which contained official royal or governmental records.
- Documents in Aramaic, flowing from Egypt, where the dry weather provided the requisite conditions for preservation.
The Persian Empire [559-323 BCE] was arguably the world's first global power. A diverse, multicultural empire with flourishing businesses and people on the move; an empire of information, made possible by a highly advanced infrastructure that included roads, canals, bridges, and a courier system. And the kings of Persia's Achaemenid dynasty (notably Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes) presided over an empire that created a tremendous legacy for subsequent history.
Professor Lee discusses many of the aspects named above in nearly chronological order: From the founding of the Empire; through capitals, palaces, & roads, challenges & battles, expansion, cultures & religion, city & country life, and the role of women; to the Empire's dissolution and its legacies.
According to Professor Lee, history of the Persian Empire isn't a static subject. Just as new discoveries in recent decades have created significant changes in our views, future archaeological discoveries will likely bring about additional changes.
For a list of the 24 lectures and a brief description of each, see this Web page.
(2) Book review: Galloway, Scott, The Algebra of Wealth: A Simple Formula for Financial Security, unabridged 8-hour audiobook, read by the author, Penguin Audio, 2024.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book can be put in the category of financial self-improvement. It collects in one place everything a non-expert must know in order to achieve financial security in the shortest possible time. Financial security is defined as having enough assets to cover expenses from the proceeds. The model of a person working for 30+ years before retiring and drawing income from pensions or investments is obsolete. In the modern world, one can attain financial security at age 40, say, and then decide whether s/he wants to continue to work for professional improvement and/or satisfaction.
Galloway presents in four fairly long chapters his personal formula for achieving financial freedom based on the four principles of Stoicism, focus, time, and diversification. He maintains that we can eliminate economic anxiety through a combination of well-paid work, diversified investments, and good financial habits. What he calls the algebra of wealth is represented by the following formula:
Wealth = Focus + (Stoicism * Time * Diversification)
Chapter 1. Stoicism: A fundamental tenet of stoicism is discerning what is under our control and what is not. Living below your means, practicing financial discipline, and controlling your spending are essential aspects of financial stoicism. Central to the tenets of stoicism is a strong character. Do toot your own horn in order to advance as quickly as possible, but also develop kindness, generosity, and willingness to help others.
Chapter 2. Focus: To get started, you must earn an income, the more, the better. You should follow your talent rather than your passion in order to maximize your earning potential. You should invest in improving your skills and building relationships, both personal and professional. It is unfortunate that people have to change jobs in order to earn a fair salary for their skills. If necessary, do play that game: Get a job offer and ask your employer to match it.
Chapter 3. Time: Your most-important asset is time. In fact, all wealth comes directly or indirectly from time. If necessary, delegate tasks to paid workers in order to free your own time for more important stuff. When you are young, you have plenty of time and you must use that time to earn income and start the ball rolling on compounding. A small monthly saving when you are 20 can create more wealth than a much larger amount that you set aside beginning at 50, owing to the effects of compounding.
Chapter 4. Diversification: This is the most-complicated chapter and covers more material than the previous chapters. In a nutshell, diversification is about risk mitigation and avoidance of over-commitment. It requires a good understanding of financial concepts and of the markets. Everyone should learn about investment, various financial instruments, risk & return, taxation, and post- & pre-tax retirement savings. Galloway goes out of his way to advise against day-trading. He prefers to focus instead on index funds that perform better than almost any other investment.
In short, you need discipline and humility. Don't credit your gains to your own brilliance and your losses to external factors. Chance plays a big part in both. Following a disciplined approach will allow you to build up on your gains and learn from your losses.
(3) Book review: Tsang, Steve and Olivia Cheung, The Political Thought of Xi Jinping, unabridged 11-hour audiobook, read by Rebecca Lam, HighBridge Audio, 2024.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Xi Jinping, China's President (in practice, its Supreme Leader), is the least-known of the leaders of the world's major powers. So, given that China has the world's second economy and, by some accounts, may overtake the US within a few years, this book is a timely addition to the genre of political biographies.
Xi Jinping has made significant changes to China's political system, its economy, and its relationships with the rest of the world. Xi's ruling philosophy and worldview is called "Xi Thought" in this book. Xi has cemented his Thought (what we in the West call doctrine) as the new state ideology. After having the party rescind the limit of two 5-year terms for the top leader, he began his third term in 2022, essentially making him leader for life.
Xi dreams of replacing the American-dominated world order with a Sino-centric order in which China has resumed its rightful place as the top country in terms of power, wealth, advancement, civilization, and benevolence. Any alternative vision or history is banned. Collective leadership at the top has been transformed into an echo chamber. Party members are required to study Xi Thought on a daily basis, using an app. Xi Thought is also fully integrated into China's education system.
Xi views his Thought, strongly influenced by Mao Zedong Thought, as "China Dream of National Rejuvenation," a "Make China Great Again" vision, to be realized by 2050. He sees no reason for China not being the world's leading power, given its glorious history and record of successes. In Xi's telling, a point of pride for China is that it has never invaded another country, a demonstrably-false claim.
Fighting corruption is one of the main tenets of Xi Thought. When he took over in 2012, corruption was rampant. Party leaders had lost ideological conviction, had their individual fiefdoms, and were pursuing their private interests. For China's problems, Xi blames both the West and the prior leaders' opening up policies.
The authors have used Xi's speeches, writings, and issued policies to conceptualize Xi's vision independently of narratives provided by the Chinese Communist Party or other official sources in China. For example, Xi deems loyalty to China, to the Communist Party, and to him as being one and the same. He has upended the communism principle of rule by a committee of equals to place himself on top of a hierarchy that is not allowed by communism.
Both the writing of the book and narration of the audio version are dry and uninspiring. Perhaps this dryness is inevitable for a book derived from speeches, writings, and policies, rather than from insider accounts and personal interviews. But the latter style would be quite impractical in the case of the Chinese leader.
2024/08/02 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Getting rid of prickles in plants (see the next item below). [Center] Stealing the customer's time, bit by bit (see item 3 below). [Right] Ananka Harris' Conscious (see the last item below).
(2) Do you want to forget Anne Bronte's musing, "he that dare not grasp the thorn / should never crave the rose"? Are you tired of waiting for love to turn the thorns into flowers, as Mowlavi/Rumi suggested?
Welcome to the age of gene editing! You can get rid of the prickles (the correct word for thorns) altogether and have flowers only: Pure, beautiful flowers! From an evolutionary standpoint, prickles serve to defend a plant against herbivores.
According to an article by Elizabeth A. Kellogg in the August 2, 2024, issue of Science, "Plant prickles are controlled by genes involved in the final step of cytokinin biosynthesis."
From another article by Satterlee et al., we learn that "homologous genes control prickle formation in all of these species [that have prickles]," providing an answer to the question of how similar features are developed on unrelated organisms.
(3) Time-wasting steps in stores and on-line: Lately, one has to answer a few questions on the grocery-store keypad, before being allowed to proceed with payment. Charity round-ups and other donations are the usual culprits. If I want to help a charity, I will do it at the time and in the amount of my choosing. A random few cents isn't my idea of helping.
The situation is worse on-line. You want to do on-line banking? First, you have to read ads about special offers, then scroll to the bottom of the ad, before you are allowed to do your business. On-line message in-boxes, which are intended for urgent messages/alerts to customers, are routinely filled with ads and offers.
I often complain to merchants who waste my time in this way, but the complaint seldom results in changes. Taking your business elsewhere is the only way to get back at such merchants.
(4) Book review: Harris, Annaka, Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind, HarperCollins, 2019. [My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Science writer Annaka Harris, who happens to be the spouse of Sam Harris, focuses on neuroscience and physics. In this 130-page gem of a book, Harris does a phenomenal job of exposing the mysteries of the mind, consciousness, and free will. She doesn't waste any time before attempting to define consciousness, quoting Thomas Nagel's "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?":
"An organism is conscious if there is something that it is like to be that organism."
Now considering the spectrum of organisms "bacterium, oak tree, worm, ant, mouse, dog, human" at some point along the sequence, the answer to the question "Is there something that it is like to be that organism" turns from "no" to "yes." The question that has occupied us for centuries is why the light turns on for some collections of matter in the universe but not for others.
Harris takes her working definition of consciousness and runs with it to discuss intuitions and illusions (Chapter 2), our brain being free when it decides to act in a certain way based on inputs received but the case for conscious free will being more shaky (Chapter 3), how the way certain parasites that affect the behavior of their hosts turn our intuition of free will upside-down (Chapter 4), who we are, or the notion of "self" (Chapter 5), whether consciousness is everywhere, referred to as panpsychism, and not a property of only certain collections of matter (Chapter 6), whether consciousness exists without thinking or even any inputs to our brain (Chapter 7), and the relationship between the mystery of consciousness and the mystery of time (Chapter 8).
Time sits squarely at the center of most physical mysteries, including consciousness. The two views of time are known as presentism (only the present is real and the perceived one-way movement of time is an illusion) and eternalism (just because we are at a certain instant of time doesn't mean that other instants do not exist). "As we continue to look out from our planet and contemplate the nature of reality, we should remember that there is a mystery right here where we stand." [the book's final sentence, p. 110]
2024/08/01 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Soccer star Nadia Nadim (see the next item below). [Center] Swiss Army Knife is a well-built, versatile tool that is appreciated worldwide (NYT ad). [Right] Misogyny or stupidity? You decide!
(2) Nadia Nadim, a role model, and not just for girls: Her father was killed by the Taliban when she was 11 and her family fled Afghanistan in the back of a truck. Nadia has scored nearly 200 goals in professional soccer and represented the Danish national team on 98 occasions. She has finished medical school and is studying to become a reconstructive surgeon when her playing days are over. She speaks 11 languages fluently and is on the Forbes list of the most powerful women in international sports.
(3) The latest in an ever-changing explanation: Ismail Haniyeh, the top Hamas leader assassinated in Tehran, was killed by a remotely-controlled bomb smuggled into his guesthouse months ago. [NYT]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Four US nationals were released by Russia in a massive deal involving 7 countries and 24 prisoners.
- Someone sign up Trump for a course on race: A person can be both Indian-American & African-American.
- Midtown Manhattan 23-story office building, sold for $332M in 2006, changed hands again for $8.5M.
- Agnotology: Study of deliberate, culturally-induced ignorance, typically to sell a product or influence opinion.
(5) Agnoiology: Theoretical study of the quality and conditions of ignorance, and in particular of what can truly be considered "unknowable" (as distinct from "unknown"). The term was coined by James Frederick Ferrier, in his Institutes of Metaphysic (1854), as a foil to the theory of knowledge, or epistemology.
(6) What's wrong with our justice system? In a deal with the US government, the 9/11 mastermind and two associates plead guilty in exchange for removing the death penalty from consideration. Why this deal now, 23 years after the crime? Why haven't these despicable criminals been tried already? I am against the death penalty, but if it is still an option in the US, why remove it from consideration in the most atrocious crime ever?
2024/07/31 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] US women gymnasts earn gold, while Simone Biles establishes herself as the best-ever by earning her 10th individual title. [Center] Math puzzle: In this diagram, featuring a rectangle of side lengths a & b and a semicircle, find the height h in terms of a and b. [Right] Steven Pinker's The Stuff of Thought (see the last item below).
(2) Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Tehran: His death has been confirmed by multiple sources inside & outside Iran. Earlier on Tuesday, Haniyeh had attended the inauguration of Iran's new president and met Iran's Supreme Leader.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Meta pays $1.4 billion to settle a Texas lawsuit alleging abuse of users' biometric data.
- Elon Musk's retweet of an altered Kamala Harris video is viewed 120 million times.
(4) Book review: Pinker, Steven, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by Dean Olsher, Penguin Audio, 2007.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, conducts research on language, cognition, and social relations. He has been the subject of controversies over his sociopolitical views, including musings about progressives who don't believe in progress and the claim that racist attitudes in the US declined during the Trump regime. However, none of these detracts from my respect for him as a scientist.
Having recently read linguist Amanda Montell's Wordslut (my review), a condemnation of language's role in oppressing women and treating them as social miscreants (e.g., via the usage of the words "slut" and "bitch"), I jumped at the chance of reading Pinker's broader study of language as a window into human nature. Pinker's eloquence is on full display in this wonderful book.
Pinker theorizes that language functions at two levels at all times. Using the example "If you could pass the salt, that would be great," he points to a dilemma faced by the requester, who does not want to be seen as ordering people around while also wanting to have them pass the salt; hence, the polite non-request in lieu of a direct request. I would add to Pinker's two levels a third level known as "doublespeak": The use of language to deceive, control, and oppress.
Pinker's The Stuff of Thought overlaps with Montell's Wordslut when he discusses the syntax of swearing and swear words in the chapter "The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" (Pinker later published a book by this title). Why we swear, how taboos change over time, and how we use obscenities in different ways, are among the fascinating questions addressed in this chapter. Why do so many swear words involve sex, bodily functions, and religion? Why would a democracy deter the use of words for two activities, sex and excretion, that harm no one?
There is a lot more in Pinker's tour de force. Our use of prepositions & tenses taps into the human concepts of space and time, and our nouns & verbs speak to our notions of matter. Even how we name our babies has important things to say about our relations to our children and to society.
I highly recommend this brilliantly-crafted and highly readable book to anyone who is curious about the development of language and how it is driven by and mirrors human nature.
2024/07/30 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [left] Cover feature of Sciecne magazine on air pollution (see the next item below). [Center] Gender equality is finally achieved at the 2024 Olympics. [Right] Emily Nussbaum's Cue the Sun: The Invention of Reality TV (see the last item below).
(2) From Science magazine's special section on air pollution: "Air is an essential but invisible resource. When we notice it, it is usually because of suspended dust, smoke, ash, or haze. Such particulates—along with harmful gases, chemical vapors, and suspended biological agents—constitute air pollution. The health and environmental effects of exposure to air pollutants have long been apparent and are now increasingly well documented in terms of overall life expectancy as well as incidence of asthma, cancer, and cardiopulmonary disease." [Issue of July 26, 2024]
(3) Book review: Nussbaum, Emily, Cue the Sun: The Invention of Reality TV, unabridged 15-hour audiobook, read by Gabra Zackman, Random House Audio, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Described derisively as "dirty documentaries" and flatteringly as "unscripted series," reality TV shows are much older than most people think. Besides game shows, which go way back, an early program in the genre was "Candid Camera," which recorded behaviors and reactions of unsuspecting observers of peculiar, artificially-created events for comic effect. The program had radio roots in "The Candid Microphone," also created and hosted by Allen Funt.
The modern embodiments of the genre range from low-budget program fillers to megahits such as "Survivor," "Big Brother," and "The Bachelor." The shows elicit reactions from contempt to fascination, sometimes both at the same time. Many audience members watch them while holding their noses. Some of the most-successful embodiments of the genre use conflict and embarrassment as tools to create situations that draw in audiences, who are sometimes conflicted and/or embarrassed to watch.
With the exception of "Candid Camera" and a few competition programs, such as "American Idol," I had little interest in reality TV, so I was drawn to this book to learn what all the fuss was about. I was surprised to find out that early interest in reality TV was in part motivated by making the networks' programming strike-proof.
Nussbaum covers much ground in the first 12 chapters:
- The Reveal: Queen for a Day and Candid Camera
- The Gong: The Filthy, Farkakte Chuck Barris 1970s
- The Betrayal: An American Family
- The Clip: America's Funniest Home Videos and Cops
- The House: The Real World
- The Con: The Nihilistic Fox '90s
- The Game: The Invention of Survivor (and Mark Burnett)
- The Island: Survivor: Borneo
- The Feed: Big Brother
- The Explosion: Reality Blows Up and Becomes an Industry
- The Rose: The Bachelor and Joe Millionaire
- The Wink: Bravo and the Gentrification of Reality TV
Given Donald Trump's rise to the US presidency owing, in large part, to his reality NBC show "The Apprentice," Nussbaum had really no choice but to include him in the narrative, which she does in the final Chapter 13. "Taking a failed tycoon who was heavily in hock and too risky for almost any bank to lend to, a crude, impulsive, bigoted, multiply-bankrupt ignoramus, a sexual predator so reckless he openly harassed women on his show, then finding a way to make him look attractive enough to elect as president of the United States? That was a coup, even if no one could brag about it."
2024/07/29 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] Let's keep the plight of Iranian women in our hearts and minds, as we are distracted by a steady stream of news about the ongoing Gaza war, US elections, and Paris Olympics. [Right] Fiesta Centennial: Celebrating its 100th year, Old Spanish Days (Fiesta) in Santa Barbara is a tradition that honors the city's history, spirit, culture, heritage, and traditions. The annual five-day festival takes place this year from July 31 to August 4, 2024.
(2) A rocket fired from Lebanon kills a dozen children playing in Golan Heights soccer field: Overall, 30 children were transported to hospitals. Evidence points to Iranian-made rockets of Hezbollah.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- President Biden commemorated the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the LBJ Presidential Library.
- J. D. Vance's musings on family & raising children are hypocritical in view of his own family background.
- Canada's women's Olympics soccer coach/team penalized for spying on rivals with a drone.
- Comic legend Bob Newhart accepts the 2002 Mark Twain Prize for comedy.
- Vance-ing Queen: ABBA song politicized!
- Facebook memory from July 29, 2012: "Keep your words sweet. Someday you may have to eat them."
- Facebook memory from July 29, 2010: A Persian couplet from Abou-Saeid Abolkheir.
(4) Women's Olympics soccer: After starting somewhat shaky and escaping a near-fatal defensive mistake, the US women scored first, with Germany evening up the match at 1-1 midway through the first half. USA responded minutes later to take the lead, adding another goal for a 3-1 advantage at halftime.
Play in the first 30 minutes of the second half was sloppy, with Germany having more scoring chances. After some back-and-forth, Williams scored a goal near the end of the match (89') to cement the impressive 4-1 US victory. The other three US goals were by Swanson (26') and Smith (10', 44').
(6) Milestone for Ottawa's Persian-language radio program: Congratulations to Mr. Mehdi Fallahi and his collaborators, who are celebrating 23 years on the air and 1200th episode for their Namaashoum program. Monday, August 5, 2024, 7:00-9:00 PM on CKCU 93.1 FM, website, or Telegram channel.
2024/07/28 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Earth image, captured by Japan's iSpace HAKUTO-R lunar lander during a recent solar eclipse. [Center] A work by Shamsia Hassani, lecturer in fine arts and first known Afghan graffiti artist. [Right] Stephen Hawking's The Universe in a Nutshell (see the last item below).
(2) Applying the "duck test": If he doesn't live like a Christian, doesn't act like a Christian, and doesn't talk like a Christian, then he probably isn't a Christian!
(3) When US-led economic sanctions crushed Syria's elite, they maintained their grip on power through a multibillion-dollar illicit drug industry.
(4) Trump thinks that voting is a nuisance: He urges his "beautiful Christians" to get out and vote just this one time, because if he is elected, he will fix the system so that they don't have to vote ever again.
(5) I am so proud of my daugther who spent Saturday afternoon in Los Angeles to participate in an event to help people with various disabilities enjoy paddle-boarding & other water activities.
(6) Billy Joel bids farewell to Madison Square Garden: Over the last 10 years, Joel, 75, has performed his classic '70s & '80s hits at MSG; a run of 104 shows, with 2 million attendees and $260+ million ticket sales.
(7) Book review: Hawking, Stephen, The Universe in a Nutshell, unabridged 3-hour audiobook, read by Simon Prebble, Random House Audio, 2001. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Hawking considers this book a sequel to A Brief History of Time, a hugely successful science book that sold a copy for every 750 Earth inhabitants and was translated into dozens of languages. The Universe in a Nutshell aims to update the public about developments since the 1988 book was published. Summaries of the book's 7 chapters follow.
Chapter 1 offers simplified explanations of Einstein's Special/General Theory of Relativity, which form the bases of almost all modern concepts of our universe.
Chapter 2 uses Einstein's theories and some of Hawking's own groundbreaking work to show how time can come to a stop when mass collapses to super-density.
Chapter 3 uses Einstein's theories and quantum mechanics to view the universe as a set of different "histories," and discusses the ongoing work on a unified theory.
Chapter 4 considers time and the possibility of looking forward into the future, suggesting that black holes might destroy the info we try to glean about the future.
Chapter 5 notes that even though a sufficiently advanced civilization should be able to visit the past, tiny success probabilities make this feat practically impossible.
Chapter 6 theorizes that ever-increasing speed of technological and biological advancements will make future humans orders-of-magnitude more complex than us.
Chapter 7 updates the so-called "string theory" with "p-brane" theory, which includes the disturbing possibility that our entire universe is just a hologram.
2024/07/27 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] The 2024 Paris Olympics begins with a fanfare. And, of course, the Eiffel Tower must feature prominently in any Paris-Olympics story! [Top center] New Yorker cartoon of the day: New Olympics sports for a much hotter world that awaits us owing to climate change. [Top right] Science humor! [Bottom left] English lecture and Persian poetry-reading by Iranian author/poet Moniro Ravanipour (see the next item below). [Bottom center & right] Talk on history of feminism (see the last item below).
(2) "The Story of Memories: Against Silence and Oblivion": This was the title of yesterday's talk by Iranian author & poet Moniro Ravanipour, delivered as the 2024 Elahe Omidyar Mir-Djalali Distinguished Lecture. Following the English lecture, the program consisted of an interlude with musical performance, Persian poetry-reading from the new book Give Me a Piece of Autumn, another musical performance, and closing remarks.
A recording of the program will likely appear on the Elahe Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute Web site.
Here is a 2020 talk by Ravanipour on roughly the same subject.
Interestingly, Ravanipour, who is one of the most-important contemporary Persian authors/poets, did not start writing until after Iran's Islamic Revolution.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Something beautiful to start the weekend with: Vivaldi "Storm," by two accordionists.
- In Santa Barbara, Cox Cable covers some Olympics events on Channels 618 (PARS1) and 619 (PARS2).
- Olympics men's soccer: France got a big scare from Guinea, before finally scoring in the 75th minute.
- In Olympics men's soccer, Iraq withstood Argentina's attacks for 2/3 of the game, but eventually fell 1-3.
(4) "History of Feminism: Developments Along the Path of Acquiring Human Rights for Women": This was the tile of a comprehensive talk by Ms. Mitra Zaimi (computer specialist & social activist) as part of the UCLA Salamat group (ucsalamat.net/) Zoom meeting series, offered in conjunction with the Human Foundation (bonyad-ensan.com). There were ~50 attendees.
Ms. Zaimi began by reviewing the four waves of feminism, emerging shortly after the French Revolution, in which women played a big part.
First Wave: 1800s-1920s
Second Wave: 1960s-1970s
Third Wave: 1990s-now
Fourth Wave: 2010s-now
For each of the four waves of feminism, Ms. Zaimi presented key sources/events (e.g., books/thinkers) that drove the movement.
The word "feminism," which had been used pejoratively to refer to men who were not viewed as being sufficiently masculine, assumed its modern meaning in 1948.
In the second part of her talk, Ms. Zaimi focused on women's movements in Iran, discussing among other thigs, the role of women in ancient Persia, struggles over voting rights, religious fundamentalism that led to numerous misogynistic laws and many campaigns that oppose them.
2024/07/26 (Friday): Today, I write about a 2-day educational/training retreat I attened in Malibu.
(1) Reflections on a teacher-training retreat in Malibu, California: I have been involved with NAMI (National Alliance for Mental Illness) for several months now. NAMI strives to create a better tomorrow where all people affected by mental illness can experience hope, recovery, and wellness in a world free of stigma.
Following my attendance at a NAMI Family-to-Family class, I volunteered and was chosen to attend a 2-day training program for individuals who want to help by leading Family-to-Family classes.
The training program was held Wed.-Thu., July 24-25, 2024, at Serra Retreat, in the beautiful hills of Malibu, California. The Retreat is at the site of an old mansion which was purchased by a religious organization and dedicated to use as a retreat center for various groups.
The 2-day program was packed with advice on how to conduct a course, how to avoid giving misleading information by strictly following the content guidelines, how to monitor class participants for signs of distress, and how to deal with disruptions and emergencies.
(2) On scaling up efforts to spread public awareness of mental illness: Much has been written about the sorry state of mental healthcare in the US. Despite some improvement due to efforts of National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI), of which I am a member and a volunteer, and similar organizations, lack of public awareness of various diagnoses and the associated social stigma persists. NAMI has educational programs that raise public awareness and provide tools for family members impacted by the illness of a loved one to help them in navigating mental-health services and understanding the range of diagnoses and treatment options.
I recently read the book The Genius of Israel, by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, which is about the remarkable social resilience of the small nation, which remains happy and optimistic in the face of internal challenges and external threats. Though not a sequel to Start-Up Nation by the same authors, the book discusses the same kinds of innovative approaches to solving tough problems.
One aspect that caught my eye is Israel's outsize film and TV industries, despite the miniscule market for films in Hebrew. For example, the highly successful American series "Homeland" was adapted from the Israeli series "Prisoners of War." An Israeli TV series that is relevant to my topic here portrays a psychologist who treats patients at his clinic five days a week and then seeks psychological treatment for himself. A similar US series would go a long way toward scaling up efforts to spread public knowledge about mental illness and confronting the stigma that comes with lack of awareness.
2024/07/25 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday: Street photographers in Mashhad, Iran (ca. 1949), looking for customers among pilgrims. [top center] New Yorker cartoon of the day: "Yeah, tell the boss we found them." [Top right] Singer/showman/poet Fereydoon Farrokhzad, who was assassinated by Khamenei's agents in 1992, is buried in Bonn, with his grave site bearing a verse of a longer poem he had composed for his tombstone. [Bottom left & center] Just a couple of beautiful symmetric patterns. [Bottom right] Dominic Erdozain's One Nation Under Guns (see the last item below).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Let the race begin: Will America choose a sex offender or a former prosecutor who convicted sex offenders?
- Following Biden's withdrawal, Trump's age and health are under renewed scrutiny. [Washington Post]
- Trump uses the nickname "Lyin' Kamala" for his new election rival: That's rich, coming from Liar-in-Chief!
- The tables have turned: Trump is now the oldest presidential nominee in US history!
- They're attacking Harris for being childless: Imagine the attacks if she had 5 kids by 3 different husbands!
- UCSB Library has acquired the papers of Nobel Laureate and ECE professor Herbert Kroemer (1928–2024).
(3) Book review: Erdozain, Dominic, One Nation Under Guns: How Gun Culture Destroys Our History and Threatens Our Democracy, unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by Dan Bittner, Random House Audio, 2024.
[My 5-star review of this book on Goodreads]
This is a book about how the Second Amendment to the US Constitution was distorted into a guarantee for an individual right to bear arms. "There is no mystery to the Second Amendment. The mystery is how one part of America convinced itself that privately-held guns were the foundations of democracy and how everyone else was bullied into acquiescence."
The cost of unchecked gun ownership isn't limited to the 100+ lives lost daily to gun violence, which is already too high. It also includes social anxiety and the fear of public spaces, which are anathema to the notion of freedom. Instead of asking fundamental questions about the place of guns in our society, we are entangled in secondary notions of background checks and banning certain types of ammunition and some classes of high-power weapons.
Historian Erdozain traces the roots of the gun culture to racism and nationalism, which created a rogue and reckless freedom based on birth and blood; a far cry from the liberty promised by our Constitution. The simplistic view of our society being composed of good guys and bad guys, with good guys needing arms to defend themselves against bad guys, is one of the contributing factors. The good guys are thought to be pure and angelic, and they will use their guns to defend the society against the bad guys. This myth has been busted time and again by stats that show the vast majority of gun deaths are not caused by crazy mass-shooters but by the "good guys" who commit errors, are enraged by romantic conflicts, or lose it after too many drinks. Under our gun culture, the most-dangerous room in a house is the bedroom!
In our gun culture, self-righteous "good guys" often act as police officers, judges, juries, and executioners. Stats also show that a tiny fraction of gun deaths are due to a good guy taking on a bad guy in self-defense or in defense of others. By 2008, when the US Supreme Court reinvented the Second Amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller, most American had already acceded to the notion of an armed society. Saving our democracy requires that we go back to the founders' ideas of what it means to be free.
2024/07/23 (Tuesday): Today, I present reviews of two books on US politics, plus an interesting image.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Clay Cane's The Grift (see the next item below). [Center] Thirteen pictures of the sun, each month, same place, same time. [Right] The Situation Room, by George Stephanopoulos and Lisa Dickey (see the last item below).
(2) Book review: Cane, Clay, The Grift: The Downward Spiral of Black Republicans from the Party of Lincoln to the Cult of Trump, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by the author, Recorded Books, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book is an assault on Black politicians who have accepted the Republican Party's priorities and policies, many of them going as far as becoming full-blown Trump supporters. They are tolerated within the GOP, as long as they know their place and do not rock the boat. Often, they are discarded like used tissues, once they have outlived their usefulness to the Party. Such Black politicians are described as grifters, enriching themselves and/or gaining political power at the expense of average Black Americans and other disadvantaged groups.
A notable example of such grifters is South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, who earned a mere 8% of the Black vote in his home state in 2016. Other prominent examples are Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, HUD Secretary Ben Carlson, and White House Aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, the latter now having turned on Trump. A notable common trait of these grifters is that they do very little to lift Blacks out of the vicious cycle of poverty, because they assert that racism no longer exists in the US. Even worse, having benefited from Affirmative Action programs and other assistance, they try to deny the same benefits to Blacks and other marginalized groups.
Cane does mention a few Blacks who did not sell out and were thus sidelined by the GOP. Notable examples include Will Hurd, a former Texas Representative & CIA agent, and Michael Steele, 2009-2011 Chair of the Republican Nat'l Committee, who withdrew from his 2011 re-election bid after it became clear that he'd lose.
(3) Book review: Stephanopoulos, George and Lisa Dickey, The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by the author, Peter Ganim, and Elisabeth Rodgers, Grand Central Publishing, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book offers a look at the recent history of the United States, as viewed from the Situation Room (Sit Room) in the White House. The writing is fast-paced and engaging. Stephanopoulos had a ring-side seat at the White House or good access to sources of information for the latter part of this history. He also does a good job in reconstructing the early part of the history, particularly the Iran hostage crisis, which occupied Jimmy Carter for a good part of his presidency.
Other crises covered in the book include the Bay of Pigs fiasco (JFK), catastrophic exit from Vietnam (LBJ), the Iran-Contra affair & attempted assassination (Ronald Reagan), collapse of the Soviet Union (George H. W. Bush), the Watergate affair (Richard Nixon), September 11, 2001, terror attacks (George W. Bush), operation to eliminate Osama bin Laden (Barack Obama), January 6, 2021, insurrection (Donald Trump), and withdrawal from Afghanistan (Joe Biden).
The Sit Room was established in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs fiasco in order to improve communications and advice-seeking in the White House. Originally, it was a drab, rather boring place, with very limited space and technical capabilities. Over the years, it underwent many modifications, renovations, and expansions, until it featured multiple conference rooms and real-time video feed by the time the operation to eliminate Osama bin Laden took place. As significant renovations took place, relics from the old Sit Room were installed in various presidential libraries.
The Sit Room boasts many non-partisan staffers working under multiple administrations, without whose dedication and expertise the US President would not be able to function effectively.
2024/07/22 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A primitive culture carved hundreds of large stones in the shape of perfect spheres some 1400 years ago in a remote region of Costa Rica. [Center] Beautiful geometric symmetries. [Right] I support the new likely Democratic presidential candidate: Bracing for racist & misogynistic attacks!
(2) Words of wisdom: Once you hit a certain age, life becomes a delicate balance between staying awake and falling asleep, while slowly getting worse at both.
(3) Bangladesh follows in the footsteps of Iran: Street protests against new discriminatory hiring practices in the public sector have led to hundreds of deaths and Internet service disconnection.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Joe Biden announces an end to his presidential campaign and endorses VP Kamala Harris.
- The Republicans are really scared of Kamala Harris. They plan to ask the courts to invalidate her candidacy.
- China least-impacted by Microsoft/CrowdStrike outage: Little reliance on Microsoft or security software.
- Scientists race to explain the Curiosity Rover's discovery of pure sulfur on the Martian surface.
- Colorful street canopy in Malaga, created by Spanish crochet teacher Eva Pacheco and her students.
(5) After sabotaging several Democratic bills in the Senate and leaving the party, Joe Manchin says he's considering re-registering as a Democrat and running for president.
(6) The statutory retirement age in the US is 66 or 67: That's higher than the age in all but 9 countries. The global median is 61. [Washington Post]
(7) Do Iranians really want to support those shouting "long live the king/prince" or prefer the chants "long live Iran" & "long live the Iranian nation"? Do we want to overthrow one idol & replace him with another one?
(8) Which kind of president do we want: One who quits his re-election bid for the good of the country or one who threatens a civil war if he isn't elected?
2024/07/20 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The first Moon landing by humans occurred 55 years ago, on July 20, 1969. [Center] The red you see in this image is an illusion: The image is made entirely of blue-green, black, and white. [Right] 70th Anniversary of Boeing 367-80: It came to revolutionize commercial air transport, when its production version entered service as the iconic Boeing 707, America's first jet airliner.
(2) The importance of data longevity and compatibility: NSA has lost access to a 1982 recorded lecture by Grace Hopper, because it is in a format that NSA no longer has the ability to view or digitize. I wrote about such problems in an article published in the 2019 Encyclopedia of Big Data Technologies.
(3) RNC speeches reassured the working class that the GOP cares about them: Yet not one Republican in Congress supports raising the minimum wage and 90% support cuts in social security benefits. [Tweet]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Banks, airlines, and other businesses experience global outages due to a Microsoft Windows update.
- Efforts to make digital accessibility rules part of the Americans with Disabilities Act pick up steam.
- Female law professor dismissed from her university position in Iran via a text message.
- Pat Craig (aka modern-day Noah) is the go-to guy when animals are threatened by neglect or disaster.
- Bob Marley, Saudi style! [Video]
- Poorly-maintained private road within UCSB property, featuring a totally-faded stop sign. [Photos]
(5) Classy: Last night, Donald Trump's acceptance of his nomination at RNC will be preceded by Kid Rock, Hulk Hogan and the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
(6) Contemporary Iranian history: Abbas Milani's exploration (in Persian) of the relationship between the two Pahlavi monarchs, based on 156 letters that the prince wrote to his father. A ChatGPT-produced English translation is also available. [Right] The first Moon landing by humans occurred 55 years ago, on July 20, 1969.
(7) Final thought for the day: I am really disappointed with Joe Biden, whom I have strongly supported. He is behaving as if he is entitled to the nomination rather than think about our country's future.
2024/07/18 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday: Taxi-meter that was used in Iran some six decades ago. [Center] Math puzzle: What fraction of the square's area is shaded Orange? [Right] Cartoon of the day: When engineers graduate!
(2) Comedian Bob Newhart dead at 94: He had a couple of TV sitcoms and a number of funny routines in which he talked over the phone to another side whom you did not hear or see. Here is an example of Newhart, playing the role of an IBM employee, talking to Herman Hollerith about his punched cards.
(3) Circumventing sanctions: As airlines try to offload their Airbus A340 planes due to their excessive fuel consumption, Iran's IRGC is purchasing them for use by its Mahan Airlines, the largest in Iran, through shell companies it set up throughout the world. Over the past decade, IRGC has purchased 20 wide-body jets, diverting some of them to Syria and Venezuela. The US Treasury Department has apparently turned a blind eye to these violations.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Here is what Republicans really think of Donald Trump (Ted Cruz): Pay no attention to RNC speeches.
- Here is what Republicans really think of Donald Trump (Marco Rubio): Pay no attention to RNC speeches.
- J. D. Vance, Trump's VP pick, several years ago: "Trump could be America's Hitler."
- Let's stop talking about miracles & God's will: Talk about sensible gun laws & a ban on assault rifles instead.
- Facebook memory form July 18, 2016: My Persian quatrains inspired by a Mowlavi (Rumi) poem.
(5) Fact check: Multiple RNC speakers claimed that crime in the US is rising because of illegal immigrants. In reality, US crime rate is declining & immigrants commit fewer crimes than US citizens.
(6) Nikki Haley endorsed the guy who she swore to her donors was unfit & couldn't be trusted. No character! No morals! No courage! She probably expects a cabinet position in return. I really hope she doesn't get it.
(7) On the Republican VP nominee, J. D. Vance: He built his reputation on being from Appalachia, the forgotten area of the US. I read and reviewed his book, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. Now, there is an essay by someone from Appalachia who claims J. D. Vance does not represent him. Black folks don't exist in his narrative. Queer folks don't exist in his narrative. "He is white, Christian, and has longstanding generational ties to the region. I, on the other hand, am south Asian, the child of Indian immigrants who settled in Appalachia in the 1970s, because work in the chemical industry brought them there, and left in the early 2000s, because work disappeared. … My friends with generational ties to Appalachia experienced the book much as I did. They felt misrepresented. Misunderstood. Scapegoated for the result of the 2016 election. Many wrote pieces in direct response. Elizabeth Catte's What You're Getting Wrong About Appalachia is an absolute must-read in this regard."
2024/07/17 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Proud to announce my election as a Fellow of Industry Academy of the Int'l Artificial Intelligence Industry Alliance. [Right] IEEE Central Coast Section talk (see the last item below).
(2) Women's soccer match (USA 0-0 Costa Rica): US dominated both halves of play, including taking 16+ corner kicks, with no goal to show for it. There were plenty of scoring opportunities for the US, but the team just didn't have the scoring instinct to convert the chances to goals. Hope they play better at the Olympics.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Judge Eileen Cannon dismisses the mishandling of classified documents case against Donald Trump.
- Trump's would-be assassin rushed his shots, because a security officer was already on the roof where he was.
- Trump turning his head to point to a sign saved his life: It caused the bullet to hit his ear, not his head.
- Argentina pulls out tough 1-0 overtime victory over Colombia to become Copa America champion.
- Spain beats England 2-1 to claim the 2024 European championship for an unprecedented fourth time.
(4) Friendly women's soccer match: USA played against Costa Rica. Dominating both halves of play, including taking 16+ corner kicks, with no goal to show for their efforts. There were plenty of scoring opportunities for the US, but the team just didn't have the scoring instinct to convert the chances to goals. Hope they play better at the Olympics.
(5) Tonight's IEEE Central Coast Section talk: Dr. Maryam Majedi (UCSB CS) spoke under the title "A Taxonomy for LGBTQIA+ Inclusion in Social Media Platforms."
Within a couple of decades of the Internet becoming public, its use turned from a nicety to a necessity. Being able to participate in Internet exchanges must now be viewed as a right, not a privilege. And with rights come protections. Rising anti-LGBTQIA+ violence in the online environment makes the aforementioned protections vital. Unfortunately, systematic implementation of inclusion across these platforms is a highly understudied subject. Dr. Majedi and co-workers have analyzed a corpus of psychology and computer science literature to identify different dimensions of LGBTQIA+ inclusion, introducing a taxonomy that includes three orthogonal dimensions within a social media ecosystem. Based on the taxonomy, an inclusion map has been constructed which defines the borders of disjoint regions in the continuous inclusion space. The taxonomy has been applied to 14 popular platforms to visualize where each platform lands on this map. The study reveals that only a small fraction of the studied popular platforms is completely inclusive. Most of these platforms lack implementation measures for at least one of the three identified inclusion dimensions. The study highlights areas within each platform that need improvement and allows LGBTQIA+ community members to make informed decisions when choosing platforms.
2024/07/15 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Latest NYT presidential poll: If Kamala Harris becomes a candidate, she will do better than Biden against Trump among women and under-65 voters and a tad worse among senior citizens. A caveat is that Harris has not been in the spotlight in the sense of being tested in debates or subjected to negative attacks. [Center] The 2024 US election will be important for women and seniors, given changes proposed in Project 2025. [Right] "Game of Life" animation (see the next item below).
(2) Conway's "Game of Life" (a cellular automaton): In this 0-player game, the universe is modeled as an infinite 2D grid of square cells, with each cell being alive or dead. A dead cell will come alive in the next time step if it has exactly 3 live neighbors. Otherwise, it will remain dead. A live cell will die of loneliness if it has 0-1 live neighbors. It will die of overcrowding it it has 4-8 live neighbors. Otherwise (with 2 or 3 live neighbors), it will survive through the next time step. The game starts from an initial "seed" distribution of live and dead cells at time 0 and will proceed through "generations" autonomously. Very interesting patterns of life will emerge depending on the grid's initial condition.
A simple introduction to "Game of Life" [6-minute video].
On this page you will find some simple animations. [Wikipedia page]
A few mind-boggling animations [7-minute video].
John Conway reflects on his "Game of Life" [11-minute video].
A related cellular automaton, with prizes for its Rule 30 (don't spend any time on this tough problem).
(3) "Political violence has no place in America": This has been the reaction of many politicians to the assassination attempt against former President Trump. Really? Where have these people been over the past decade, when political violence has been all over our social media and, occasionally, a physical reality?
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- I wish we saw the same outrage and calls for action when shootings occur in classrooms!
- Grieving Ukrainian families learn to cope by climbing in the Alps: Touching story of strength & charity.
- Math oddity: 11 + 2 = 12 + 1. Also "eleven plus two" and "twelve plus one" use exactly the same letters.
- A type of cactus goes extinct in the US owing to sea level rise.
- Persian poetry: A beautiful love couplet from Bidel Shirazi.
[Tweet, with the Persian poem]
- Swedish symphony orchestra brings Siavash Kasrai's poem "Arash-e Kamanguir" to life. [6-minute video]
(5) Abbas Kiarostami's legacy: French actress Juliette Binoche wrote a touching letter to Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami upon his death, lamenting that she was left with unanswered questions about the simple/complex man (who directed her in "Certified Copy") and about his enigmatic country. [A Taste of Kiarostami]
2024/07/13 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Schrodinger's Smiley! [Center] Math puzzle: Find the circle's radius R. [Right] By chance, a NYT photographer captured the image of one of the bullets, as it approached Trump's head.
(2) Special 100th Edition of Caltech's Stargazing Lectures: Caltech Professor and Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne spoke last night under the title "An Odyssey Through the Warped Side of Our Universe." Thorne is the first author, with Lia Halloran, of the book The Warped Side of the Universe.
Rather than trying to summarize the lecture, I recommend that you watch it through the following link to also benefit from a number of interesting diagrams and a couple of video animations.
Interestingly, both of the terms "wormhole" and "black hole" were coined by John Wheeler for concepts discovered by others. Wheeler resisted the idea of a black hole for nearly a decade, before embracing it.
Thorne's lecture begins at the 16-minute mark of this 117-minute video.
(3) In 2016, Donald Trump convinced Americans that he can transfer his skills in running a business in New York to running the US: Now, he is banned from running a business in New York, yet it seems he is making the same claim for 2024!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The shooting suspect & a spectator are killed and Donald Trump is injured at a campaign rally.
- A brief but useful introduction to brain plasticity. [5-minute video]
- World's driest desert blooms in winter (southern hemisphere) due to El Nino.
- Persian music in the pre-Revolution Iran (1962-1979): Shahbal Shabpareh performs a 9-minute medley.
(5) US women national soccer team's friendly match against Mexico: Despite relentless attacks by the US early in the first half, the two teams went into halftime scoreless. Additional US dominance in the second half produced only one goal. The US team should work on converting more of their scoring chances into goals.
(6) Hal Berghel, writing in IEEE Computer magazine (issue of July 2024) on some of the challenges facing our system of higher education: "The reward structure is suboptimal, focusing increasingly on measurements rather than what is being measured, and emphasizing indirect flow from external funding over the intrinsic value of the research being funded. Fifty years ago there was widespread agreement that research funding was an input to a research program. These days, it is often perceived as an end-in-itself. Regrettably, some university administrators take a transactional approach to research funding: if it carries a full indirect rate and isn't illegal, it's good research."
(7) Metamorphic fault tolerance: MFT is a new paradigm for building reliable software systems based on the notions of design diversity and data diversity. More precisely, it addresses one of the trouble spots of the latter two methods which require a way of telling whether a computed result is trustworthy (the oracle problem).
See: Zheng Zheng, Daixu Ren, Huai Liu, and Tsong Yueh Chen, "Metamorphic Fault Tolerance: Addressing the Oracle Problem of Reliability Assurance for Contemporary Software Systems," IEEE Computer, July 2024.
2024/07/12 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Beautiful 5-way symmetry. [Center] Hedges turned into works of art by Tim Bushe in his London neighborhood. [Right] Nahid Pirnazar's Ketab-e Anusi (see the last item below).
(2) A Mowlavi (Rumi) verse that provides comfort through your deepest sorrows: And when you think all roads and passages are closed;
A hidden path, unknown to anyone else, will be revealed
[Tweet, with Persian verse]
(3) Two serious flubs by President Barack Obama (I mean Joe Biden): He referred to Kamala Harris as "Vice-President Trump" and to President Volodymyr Zelensky, standing next to him, as "President Putin"!
(4) Book review: Pirnazar, Nahid (translator & editor), Ketab-e Anusi: The Life of Persian Jews in the Safavid Era, in Persian, Iran Namag Books, 2021.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
There is another book in print, also titled "Ketab-e Anusi," with the subtitle "The Forced Religious Conversion of Jews During the Safavid Dynasty," which is translated/corrected by Amir-Ali Fallahian and published by Ketab Corporation in 2021. Here is the publisher's blurb on the latter book: "The Book of the Anusi is a collection of narrative poems describing the life of Jewish Persians in the mid Safavid dynasty era in the 17th century CE. Reporting on the calamities befalling the Jews in various Persian cities between the years 1607 and 1662 CE, Babai Ben Lotf tells of the difficult years under Shah Abbas I, the more tolerant interlude during Shah Safi and the event of the forced religious conversion of Jews at the time of Shah Abbas II. The narratives, the information and the content offered in this book, are not only important concerning the culture, history and the social life of the Jews of Persia, but also significant when it comes to Persian history at large under the Safavids, the history of religion in Persia, social history, languages and dialects in Persia, local histories as well as the history of Persian literature in general."
Much of the description above is also applicable to Pirnazar's book, which contains poems by Babaee ben-Lotf (Part 1, pp. 43-314) and Babaee ben-Farhad (Part 2, pp. 315-374), with minor additions by Mashiah ben-Rafael (Part 3, pp. 375-381). The three parts cover, respectively, the years 1613-1660 CE, a time interval in the Safavid era, certain events in the period 1666-1736 CE, and events from the Safavid's collapse to the early years of the Afsharids. The book ends with a 13-page Persian glossary, a 10-page Hebrew glossary, and a 9-page index of names.
The three parts of Ketab-e Anusi have always appeared together in a single volume. The book was never published and what we have are about half-dozen handwritten copies held by various museums, cultural organizations, and individual collectors. Dr. Pirnazar has used three of these copies (described on pp. 20-21) in assembling her book.
Historical events that one can glean from Ketab-e Anusi form an important part of Iran's past and the way in which Jews, and by extension, other religious minorities, were treated during the reign of the Safavid kings who wanted to promote Shi'i Islam and were thus rather intolerant of other faiths. We learn from Ketab-e Anusi that Jews lived in many areas of Iran's territory: Abarqu, Ashraf, Damavand, Esfahan, Golpayegan, Hamedan, Kashan, Kermanshah, Khansar, Lar, Lorestan, Nahavand, Natanz, Qom, Qazvin, Shiraz, and Tuyserkan. With regard to jobs and professions, Jews earned a living as Taylors, millers, silk-weavers, goldsmiths, antiques dealers, perfume-makers, pharmacists, medical workers, and musicians.
The book outlines the social standing of Jews, their daily lives, as well as persecutions and molestations they suffered. No one knows exactly how many Jews were forcefully converted to Islam and what the Jewish population would be today, if forced conversions had not occurred. Resisting conversion came with a heavy cost; a number of Jewish leaders were killed for refusing to convert to Islam. A significant portion of the forced converts were Georgian Jews and Christians, who were forcefully relocated to Mazandaran and points further south.
"Anusi" is a Hebrew word meaning "a Jew forced to apostatize but who remains secretly Jewish." The fact that Hebrew has a single word for such a complicated notion tells us that, perhaps, Jews were subjects of forced conversions outside the places and time periods covered by this book. Many of the verses in the book's poems are faulty in rhyme, wording, or meaning. For this reason, Pirnazar urges us to read the book as a historical account, not a literary work. Still, dealing with the imperfect poetry is torturous for someone who is familiar with and adores the works of classical Persian poets.
The book contains many typos. A vast majority of these typos are minor annoyances and do no harm to the reader's understanding. A few are rather serious and hard to decipher. An example of the first category from pp. 19-20 is the two spellings of a name: "Tahmasb-Gholi" and "Tahmas-Gholi." As an example of the second category, a section on page 28 is headed "Events of the Years 5161-1161 CE." The beginning of the section's first sentence, "Georgia in the 16th and 17th centuries" suggests that perhaps 1611-1615 CE was intended, but it takes much more digging to make sure.
2024/07/11 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] Throwback Thursday (1): Ma'soomeh Khakyar went to Iran from Baku and became notorious for the first cinematic kiss in the 1953 Iranian movie "Golnesa." IMDB describes the film thus: "Golnesa is the popular girl of their village and all want to marry her, but she is deceived by a man from the city." After the "illicit" kiss, she was under unbearable pressure from her husband and his family, until she poured gasoline on her beautiful body and set it on fire. She is buried at Tehran's Mesgarabad Cemetery. [Top right] Throwback Thursday (2): Television sets of the mid-20th-century. [Bottom left] Indian math prodigy Ramanujan dreamed up mind-boggling roots-of-roots identities such as these. His identities involving the number pi are equally amazing. [Bottom center] Math challenge: Do we have enough information to derive the perimeter of this shape? [Bottom right] Tonight's Talangor Group meeting (see the last item below).
(2) Cypress Hill made a "Simpsons" joke from 1996 come true last night: The hip-hop group performed with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall.
(3) Power-hungry data centers: Driven by the use of AI, data centers constitute the fastest-growing segment of the energy market. Data-center operators are working on multiple fronts to reduce their energy needs and to gain access to reliable energy supplies, up to and including building nuclear power plants nearby.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Sharifeh Mohamadi has been sentenced to death in Iran under the bogus charge of "rebellion/revolt."
- Post-hurricane power outage and historic heat a deadly combination in Texas.
- In 75th-anniversary meeting, NATO accuses China of supplying Russia with technology to attack Ukraine.
- A diverse group of older women gymnasts, led by Simone Biles, will represent the US at the Paris Olympics.
- Calendar math puzzle: What is the sum of the roots of (1/2 - x)^45 + x^45 = 0?
(5) Tonight's Talangor Group meeting: Dr. Heidar (Hamid) Azodanloo (lecturer of comparative literature at U. Minnesota) spoke on "History and Historical Awareness." Before the main talk, yours truly gave a brief presentation under the title "The Third Industrial Revolution: The Internet of Energy," which entails the worldwide harnessing, storage, and distribution of energy obtained from renewable sources.
History isn't a static set of facts or data points. Who tells the story affects the content (hence, for example, the large number of books on Iran's Constitutional Revolution) and the reader's interpretation also plays a part. The story-teller imposes his/her own views or interpretations on the story s/he tells and the reader sees the story in the context of today's traditions and knowledge. All of these change over time. The same historical event, as told 100 years ago, is different from its telling today. And language plays a big part in all these processes. Nothing we think or say emerges without going through the filter of language.
2024/07/10 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Selfie with Dr. Hamed Ghoddusi (see the next item below). [Center] My first cars (see the last item below). [Right] The house where I lived 54 years ago (see the next to the last item below).
(2) Meeting a colleague and fellow-Iranian: Professor Hamed Ghoddusi of Cal Poly SLO College of Business paid a visit to UCSB on Tuesday 7/09, during which we had a productive chat. Our conversation introduced me to the Shapley–Shubik power index in weighted voting systems of the kind used, for example, in corporate decision-making (where stock holdings determine the weights) and in the UN Security Council (where weights are based on a country's status as permanent or non-permanent member). Fascinating stuff that help my research and teaching on voting algorithms.
(3) Emergence of self-replicating digital life: "A self-replicating form of artificial life has arisen from a digital 'primordial soup' of random data, despite a lack of explicit rules or goals to encourage such behaviour. Researchers believe it is possible that more sophisticated versions of the experiment could yield more advanced digital organisms, and if they did, the findings could shed light on the mechanisms behind the emergence of biological life on Earth."
(4) Iran's shadow government: Operating under the Supreme Leader, the shadow government has a shadow president and shadow ministers that must approve every decision.
(5) Free Iranian cultural program in Beverly Hills: Sunday, July 21, 2024, Beverly Gardens Park, 9439 Santa Monica Blvd. Includes Persian food truck. Sponsored by Farhang Foundation.
(6) My first two cars (early 1970s): A couple of months after arriving at UCLA in 1970, I decided to buy a car, because it was impossible to get around without one. I bought a brown Oldsmobile Delta-88 V8 gas guzzler for $200 (quite a sum for my budget)! It ran well and had a lot of power, but luxury Detroit cars had very low resale value. When I had a bit more money due to my income as a research assistant a couple of years later, I upgraded to a metallic blue Ford Mustang convertible, which I bought for about $700. It looked good on the outside, but nothing in it worked: The top could not be retracted, except manually with a lot of effort; power windows wouldn't roll up or down. I suspected the person who sold it to me to be a gang member or drug dealer. The photos aren't of the actual cars but Internet photos that I have picked to be similar to my cars.
(7) Memories of my arrival at UCLA in 1970: For a few months 54 years ago, I lived at a boarding house near the UCLA campus. In exchange for a discounted rate, which was all I could afford at the time, we helped with cleaning, meal service, and dishwashing. when I visited UCLA in mid-June to attend a graduation ceremony, I took this photo in front of the house which I believe was the location of the boarding house.
2024/07/08 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Reality check for those who thought Iran's various presidential candidates were different: Pezeshkian declares his commitment to Hezbollah and other factions of "the Resistance Front." [Center] The fate of Iran's past presidents: They are all dead or sidelined, unable to speak their minds, the only exception being Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader. Presidents in Iran are discarded like soiled bathroom tissue. [Right] Project 2025 is a blueprint for the second Trump administration: Prepared by the Heritage Foundation, it guts multiple government programs and rolls back many social advances of the past few decades.
(2) What we all suspected is officially confirmed: Anti-Israeli protests in the US were informationally, logistically, and financially supported by Iran's Islamist government.
(3) "Only the Lord Almighty could convince [me] to step aside." ~ Joe Biden
Wrong answer! It's not about you, Joe! You should have said something to the effect that you are bent on the Democrats winning the White House in 2024 and that if you perceive that your candidacy jeopardizes this goal, you'd happily step aside.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- New York Times calls for Biden to drop out. But so far, no call for the felon to drop out!
- Columbia U. removes tree deans because their text-message exchanges contained anti-Semitic tropes.
- Lehigh U. student who won a full scholarship with fake documents and a ChatGPT-written essay is expelled.
- Iran's so-called "Reformist" President reassures Russia and Hezbollah of Iran's continued support.
- Erdos-Straus conjecture: For any integer n > 1 there are positive integers x,y,z such that: 4/n=1/x+1/y+1/z
- Facebook memory from July 8, 2019: Kissing the ruler's hand is in conflict with democracy.
(5) Oops, they did it again: StorageReview engineers set a new world record by calculating pi to more than 202 trillion digits using dual Intel Xeon 8592+ CPUs and 28 Solidigm P5336 61.44TB NVMe SSDs. Their previous record of 105 trillion digits was set earlier this year using a dual processor 128-core AMD EPYC 9754 Bergamo system with 1.5TB of DRAM and almost a petabyte of Solidigm QLC SSDs.
(6) Emergence of self-replicating digital life: "A self-replicating form of artificial life has arisen from a digital 'primordial soup' of random data, despite a lack of explicit rules or goals to encourage such behaviour. Researchers believe it is possible that more sophisticated versions of the experiment could yield more advanced digital organisms, and if they did, the findings could shed light on the mechanisms behind the emergence of biological life on Earth."
(7) Princeton University should fire Hossein Mousavian: He was linked by the German government to an assassination squad that killed four Iranian dissidents in Berlin's Mykonos Restaurant, Mafia-style, when he was Iran's Ambassador in Bonn.
2024/07/07 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Our Fourth of July Weekend BBQ at my sister's, combined with belated birthday celebration for her daughter. [Center] Math puzzle: Determine the areas A, B, and C of the three triangles. [Right] NYC has turned into the world headquarters of observation decks and summer dresses (NYT photos).
(2) Iran's election result: Masoud Pezeshkian becomes Iran's new president with 16.3 million votes to Saeed Jalili's 13.5 million votes. Voter participation was announced as 49.6%. These numbers are highly suspicious, as they come from the government, with no internationally recognized election monitors.
(3) Not one photo or video has been published by Iran's Islamic regime to show crowds of voters at the precincts consistent with the 30 million (49.6%) turnout. The turnout for the first round of voting is widely believed to have been 13.3%. The second round's turnout is estimated to be ~10%. Iran allows no international observers for its elections. Government officials run the polls and report the results.
(4) Talk about apartheid! In Islamic Iran, multiple classes of people are defined, each class with a different set of rights. In addition to gender apartheid, there is religious apartheid (Muslim vs. non-Muslim; Shi'i vs. Sunni; people of the book vs. those with no book), and clergy vs. laymen. The clergy even have their separate courts and system of justice.
(5) Another analysis of Iran's election data: Dividing the total number of votes cast by the claimed participation ratio should give you the number of eligible voters. This latter number rose substantially in the week between the election and the run-off. Another clear indication of fraud. [Tweet, withy video]
(6) Iran's new president faces reality: His announced news conference with domestic & foreign reporters was cancelled on orders from the Supreme Leader. One of his strongest advocates, a professor & lawyer, was arrested. And he claims he never promised to remove the filtering of the Internet. Who's the boss?
(7) Iran's Islamic regime survives because even though most Iranians live in poverty and face economic hardships, those who prop up the brutal dictatorship live in 10,000-square-foot luxury penthouses. [Video]
(8) Final thought for the day: If one person says it's raining, and the other says the sun is shining, it's not the media's job to quote them both. It's their job to look out the window and report the truth.
2024/07/05 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Ditch the Ten Commandments: Post these Ten Commitments in schools instead. [Center] Cartoon of the day: The conservative majority of the new US Supreme Court. [Right] Not-so-subtle message to the White House occupant.
(2) America celebrated its independence from the British Empire yesterday: Algeria does it today. Dozens of other countries that have seceded from the British Empire celebrate the event on various dates.
(3) Islamic Iran's extreme apartheid recognizes seven classes of people, each with a different set of rights: From lowly voters at the bottom to male Shi'i Muslim clerics owning the highest positions of power. Vote if you want but know that your vote is a tool of power for the top class.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- At Germany's request, EU begins the process of designating Iran's IRGC as a terrorist group.
- German scientists have seen ants bite off others' legs to prevent the spread of infections from open wounds.
- Science humor: Is Iron-man the same as Fe-male?
- I had forgotten how wonderful Jose Feliciano sounded on the acoustic guitar. Enjoy!
[5-minute video]
(5) Iran's former FM Javad Zarif sounds different these days: Gone are his unapologetic desire for meddling in the affairs of Iraq, Syria, & Lebanon and his pride in being under pressure for supporting Palestine.
(6) Greece has chosen to go against the trend: Many countries are considering shortening the work week to 4 days, which research shows benefits productivity and improves employee well-being. Greece is lengthening the work week to 6 days to boost national productivity and give workers additional overtime pay.
(7) Academic freedom can quickly disappear just like any other freedom: "Academics researching online misinformation in the US are learning a hard lesson: Academic freedom cannot be taken for granted. They face a concerted effort—including by members of Congress—to undermine or silence their work documenting false and misleading internet content. The claim is that online misinformation researchers are trying to silence conservative voices. The evidence suggests just the opposite."
(8) Final thought for the day: I hope Joe Biden does not commit the same mistake as Ruth Ginsberg. She refused to retire until it was too late and we lost one Supreme Court seat. A 5-4 conservative majority would have been a lot better than the current 6-3 supermajority.
2024/07/04 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Happy birthday to America! Dark clouds cover our country this July 4th. But we will replace these dark clouds with bright, sunny skies soon. We have done it before and we will do it again! [Top center & right] Throwback Thursday: Georgia "Tiny" Broadwick was the first woman to parachute from an airplane. To perform this feat, she hung from a trapeze-like swing suspended beneath the airplane just behind the wing. [Bottom left] Book introduction: This book presents a diverse group of mathematicians, including Donald G. Saari, whom I got to know through his research on social choice, but he has very broad interests. [Bottom center] Range of accurate weather forecasts in the US: Seven days out in southern Florida, 4-5 days out in the Southwest region, 3-4 days out in coastal areas, and no more than 2 days out in the central plains. [Bottom right] A curious engineer's musings on the tail-lights of modern cars (see the next item below).
(2) Musings of a curious engineer: Lately, I have been paying attention to tail-lights on cars and noticed that you can divide them into two categories. One category is when the tail-light extends onto the trunk lid; another when the tail-light ends before the trunk lid begins. Based on my small sample, the former category is more common. Why is this important? When the tail-light extends onto the trunk lid, a separate set of wires must be included to direct power to that section of the tail-light. So, car design engineers should be motivated to avoid this situation in order to minimize the production cost. There is also the issue of reliability due to cables connecting to a moving trunk lid. Of course, aesthetics and ease of access to the trunk are quite important as well. Pay attention to different car models and decide which kind of tail-light looks better.
(3) Facebook memory from July 4, 2023: Happy 4th to everyone not pleading the 5th about the 6th!
(4) Facebook memory from July 4, 2022: Observing America's birthday is an excellent occasion for reflecting on our relationship with the original owners of this land.
(5) Facebook memory from July 4, 2010: My Persian poem advocating unity & equality (inspired by Jack Johnson's story and what the phrase "the great white hope" signified).
(6) Greece has chosen to go against the trend: Many countries are considering shortening the work week to 4 days, which research shows benefits productivity and improves employee well-being. Greece is lengthening the work week to 6 days to boost national productivity and give workers additional overtime pay.
(7)Trump's lies and racist/xenophobic comments during the first presidential debate were overshadowed by Biden's miserable performance: During the debate, Trump referred to Biden as a Palestinian (evidently, he considers "Palestinian" a pejorative term). He then said on the very next day, "Look at a guy like Senator Schumer. I've always known him, known him a long time. I come from New York; I knew Schumer. He's become a Palestinian. He's a Palestinian now. Congratulations. He was very loyal to Israel and to Jewish people. He's Jewish. But he's become a Palestinian because they have a couple of more votes or something; nobody's quite figured it out." Again we see the use of "Palestinian" as a pejorative, along with the anti-Semitic trope: If Schumer criticizes the Israeli government, he is a scheming Jew or he must have been bought off.
2024/07/03 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] New robe design for the US Supreme Court. [Center] Math puzzle: Find the radius r of the semicircle inside the square. [Right] Socrates Think Tank talk (see the last item below).
(2) Wonders of number theory: For m no less than 25, there exists at least one prime number between m and 6m/5 (Theorem due to Nagura). Then, because the 26th prime is 101 and (1.2)^26 ~ 114.48, we can show by induction on n that the nth prime is less than (1.2)^n.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Peaceful transfer of power in the Netherlands: Outgoing PM delivers the reigns of power and bikes home.
- California's $300 billion 2024-2025 budget includes significant cuts for UC and Cal State.
- Californians are warned about a dangerous heat wave in the week ahead.
- A heat wave is coming our way this weekend: Stay in the shade and hydrated. [Tweet, with chart]
(4) Tonight's Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Mahmoud Sabahi spoke under the title "From Jaber ibn Hayyan's Alchemy to Today's Chemistry and Super-Challenges Ahead." There were ~105 attendees.
Alchemy, from the Greek root "khemia" ("kimia" in Persian), was a cult "science" with the goal of converting base metals into gold or to find a universal elixir. Works attributed to the Father of Chemistry Jabir ibn Hayyan, which are tentatively dated to 850-950 CE, contain the oldest known systematic classification of chemical substances, and the oldest known instructions for deriving an inorganic compound, ammonium chloride, from organic substances, such as plants, blood, and hair, by chemical means.
Chemistry entered a new phase when chemists succeeded in producing hydrogen (which appears in nature only as compounds). This was followed by the production of ammonia, which has many applications (e.g., in agriculture). By the mid-20th-century, the US chemical industry created R&D labs in large numbers to exploit the practical benefits of new scientific discoveries. By 2013, the total value of the chemical industry reached $3.5 trillion, and continued to grow exponentially in the decade since.
Waste generation and pollution are the main challenges facing the chemical industry. In her 1962 book 'Silent Spring,' Rachel Carson brought attention to these problems. By 1990, a paradigm shift to "green chemistry" occurred, which advocated prevention rather than treatment of harmful waste. More recently, certain long-lasting chemicals, which do not deteriorate and thus find their way into our food supply and bodies, creating many health problems, have found widespread applications, from non-stick cookware to water-repellent & stain-resistant clothing.
In conclusion, Dr. Sabahi recommended a number of references to follow up on the topics discussed. The article "The Lawyer who became DuPont's Worst Nightmare," profiles Rob Bilott, who exposed a brazen, decades-long history of chemical pollution. The 2019 movie "Dark Waters" covers the same story. California is leading the way in regulating harmful chemicals (see, e.g., California PFAS Drinking Water Advisories). Finally, the 2006 NRC Report "Sustainability in the Chemical Industry: Grand Challenges and Research Needs" charts the industry's path ahead.
2024/07/02 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Would you dare climb these stairs? The 54 steps of the Norman staircase are carved into the rock of one of the mountain towers that overlook the ancient village of Castelmezzano, in the Lucanian Dolomites. The dizzying lookout point tells the story of conquests and battles that occurred more than 1000 years ago. [Center] Witch's stairs: So-named, because they were thought to confuse witches and thus protect occupants from them. Their design allows steeper inclines in houses with too little space for ordinary staircases. You can see them in very old New England homes. [Right] World's tallest tree: Hyperion, a coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) in California's Redwood National Park, is the world's tallest known living tree at 380.3 ft (115.92 m) tall. It's even taller than the Statue of Liberty.
(2) An amazing math trick: Ask an opponent to choose a polynomial p(x) of any degree with nonnegative integer coefficients. Tell them you can determine what it is with just two values: You choose a and ask for p(a), then choose b and ask for p(b). What is a winning strategy?
(3) Serious cybersecurity warning: The United States, Canada, and Australia warn that 52% of 172 open-source projects studies contained code written in a memory-unsafe language.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- At least 27 people were killed in a stampede during a religious event in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
- The US Men's National Soccer Team eliminated from COPA America after 0-1 group-stage loss to Uruguay.
- The sick world of teenage influencers: Who is she influencing when 92% of her followers are adult men?
- The Rubik's Cube turns 50: It is still as tough as ever to solve.
- Bringing Back Our Wetland: 68-minute documentary film produced by UCSB Cheadle Center.
(5) Million-dollar prize for AI to solve puzzles that humans find easy: Deducing the correct pattern that links pairs of colored grids relies on skills that AI models lack at present. Google's new $1 million prize will encourage the development of an AI that can solve such puzzles.
(6) Short list of five books for "UCSB Reads 2025" Program announcedby by UCSB Library:
- The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet (2021) by John Green
- The Book of Delights: Essays (2019) by Ross Gay
- The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of US History (2023) by Ned Blackhawk
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (2022) by Gabrielle Zevin
- Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality (2024) by Venki Ramakrishnan
(7) Letters from the former Shah of Iran to his father: Dr. Abbas Milani has gained access to 104 letters that the late Shah wrote to his father, who had instructed him to report on his condition and his academic progress weekly, while studying in Switzerland. Milani discusses these letters in this 13-minute video.
2024/07/01 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Expressive fonts. [Center] Possible fraud in Iran's presidential election (see the next item below). [Right] Hugh Prather's Notes to Myself (see the last item below).
(2) Data detectives:There are methods for detecting fakery in data sets, the best-known of which is based on Benford's Law about distribution of digit values in large data sets. Today, the X (Twitter) platform is abuzz with an anomaly in Iran's reported election data. The numbers of votes for all four candidates, as well as the total number of votes and the number of invalid ballots are all multiples of 3. Given that the total number of votes isn't independent of the other five figures, the chance of this happening at random is (1/3)^5 or 0.4%, so there is speculation that election officials, under orders from higher-ups, have inflated the numbers by a factor of 3, to portray a 13.3% turnout as a 39.9% turnout. Even the inflated figure is an all-time low (it was 49% in the 2021 election, itself lowest up to that point). Users are also posting video clips of Supreme Leader Khamenei stating in 2001 that the 40% voter turnout in certain Western countries is a disgrace. [This post, in Persian]
(3) Remember that your vote isn't just for Biden vs. Trump: It is for Biden administration of competent progressives, vs. Trump administration of backward religious zealots who will roll back decades of gains in women's and minority rights.
(4) My disgust with some Iranian opposition groups: The X (Twitter) platform is filled with videos of Iranians verbally assaulting those who went to cast their ballots at IRI embassies, using the vilest language (sample). We are free to express our views or to boycott the show election, but should not verbally abuse or force others to act against their will, regardless of their beliefs or motivation. (I apologize for the language in this posted video, but wanted to give a representative example). [This post, in Persian]
(5) Book review: Prather, Hugh, Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person, unabridged 2-hour audiobook, read by Sean Patrick Hopkins, Random House Audio, 2021.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
In exploring his own life in this book, first published in 1970, writer/editor Hugh Prather [1938-2010] helps the reader examine his/her own. Prather's aphorisms include "perfectionism is slow death" and "this anxiety running through my life is the tension between what I should be and what I am." Being grateful for who we are and what we have is a common theme in Prather's musings: "Another day to listen and love and walk and glory. I am here for another day. I think of those who aren't."
New York Times once opined: "Some of Mr. Prather's experiences come from having had seven 'parents,' including a drug addict, two alcoholics, an institutionalized mentally ill patient, a convicted murderer [one of his father's wives] and a convicted embezzler [one of his mother's husbands]." Prather confesses that adhering to the advice he dispenses is difficult, even for him. There are always exceptions!
Notes to Myself was not intended as a commercial book. It began as Prather's private musings on the nature of life, death, love, sex, and much else. After the immense success of his first book, Prather wrote several other self-help books, including two books for couples (co-authored by his wife, Gayle Halligan Prather): Notes to Each Other and Spiritual Parenting.
Comedy writer Jack Handy spoofed Notes to Myself in his public musings known as "Deep Thoughts," which became a recurring feature on the comedy show "Saturday Night Live" in the 1990s and was also released as a series of books.
2024/06/30 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Hearty Iranian breakfast for three. [Center] A mechanical analog computer (see the next item below). [Right] Sohrab Ahmari's Tyranny, Inc. (see the last item below).
(2) Mechanical analog computer from 1872 that predicted ocean tides: William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) became rich from a patent for laying undersea telegraph cables, so he decided to buy a yacht as a summer home, where he hosted scientific parties. Based on his extensive observations and by applying harmonic analysis to tidal phenomena, he designed a device which traced the tidal curve for a given location. Mechanical tide-predicting machines remained in use until the 1950s, when they were replaced by digital computers.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The choice is yours: The man who speaks the truth with some difficulty or the man who lies with ease.
- Good summation of the first US presidential debate and the Biden-vs.-Trump choice: It isn't even close!
- An introductory course on programming should be called "Programming 1100101," not "Programming 101"!
- My KIRN Radio Iran program on "Women in Science and Engineering" will be rebroadcast today at 6:00 PM.
(4) Iranian presidential election: Eligible voters ~61.5 million; Votes ~24 million (if you believe the regime); Turnout ~39% (This is a marked drop from the 49% turnout in 2021, which itself was a low up to that point). There will be a run-off between Masoud Pezeshkian (42.5% of the vote) and Saeed Jalili (38.6%).
(5) Book review: Ahmari, Sohrab, Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty—and What to Do About It, unabridged 8-hour audiobook, read by the author, Random House Audio, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Unchecked corporate power is being criticized both from the left and from the right, with members on one side of the spectrum occasionally even endorsing or praising ideas from the other side. Ahmari, a conservative, dedicates his book to "Adrian, Chad, Gladden, and Patrick"; first names of a group that were co-founders of the Substack newsletter Postliberal Order. Shoshana Zuboff, a decidedly liberal author and professor, had previously written The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (my review) on the horrors of illicit corporate power gained through amassing users' private information.
According to Ahmari, unchecked corporate power hurts both employees (e.g., through so-called flexible contracts and mandatory arbitration agreements) and consumers (privatization of vital emergency services, local newspapers going under, the rich-friendly bankruptcy law that allowed Purdue Pharma to escape liability for the opioid crisis). These are important concerns for our society, whether you consider them populist or conservative musings.
Ahmari's ideas are more FDR than Ronald Reagan, more Ruth Bader Ginsburg than SCOTUS's conservative opinion approving of arbitration clauses, more Elizabeth Warren than Paul Ryan, more an Amazon whistle-blower than corporate lawyers defending Amazon's miserable COVID response. For the ills he enumerates, Ahmari places the blame on the economic liberalism of the right and the social liberalism of the left. One remedy is to restore workers' rights, that are gradually disappearing, through the establish
2024/06/29 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] To make sense of this image, hold it nearly horizontally and look at it from the bottom edge. [Center] Yes, Biden's 3.5-year record as President is more important than his performance in a 90-minute debate. But we live in the age of soundbites. Biden must show his decency by stepping aside & letting someone else confront Trump's lies & vitriol with words that Americans understand. P.S.: Trump's many debate lies were fact-checked live on CNN. [Right] Reclaiming Our Democracy (see the last item below).
(2) What kind of debate prep team does Biden have? Why don't they prep him to answer with short, clear statements, rather than long-winded sentences, in the middle of which he gets lost?
(3) First, Louisiana makes posting of the Ten Commandments mandatory in classrooms. Now, Oklahoma requires public schools to teach the Bible. And these are 40th- and 43rd-ranked states in terms of K-12 education, according to US News & World Report!
(4) California Public Utilities Commission rejects a petition by AT&T to cut off millions of Californians from their landline phone service: AARP on behalf of its senior-citizen members, who depend on landlines, successfully lobbied for the rejection. AT&T will go to the CA State Legislature next, in an effort to overturn the rejection.
(5) Book review: Daley-Harris, Sam, Reclaiming Our Democracy: Every Citizen's Guide to Transformational Advocacy, unabridged 11-hour audiobook, read by author, Rivertowns Books, revised & updated edition, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This is a detailed account of citizen activism by Sam Daley-Harris, who founded RESULTS (originally an acronym for Responsibility for Ending Starvation Using Legislation, Trimtabbing, and Support) in 1980 to facilitate citizen advocacy by training the participants in methods of influencing politicians and journalists, editorial writers, in particular. Trimtabbing is a reference to trim tabs, the small surfaces that allow boat or aircraft pilots to control larger control surfaces like rudders or elevators and which were popularized as a metaphor for individual empowerment by Buckminster Fuller in a 1972 interview.
This 20th-anniversary edition has a new chapter on Citizens Climate Lobby, a powerful new advocacy group following the RESULTS model, and another new chapter on Center for Citizen Empowerment and Transformation, which is focused on spreading the original concepts developed by RESULTS to help reduce malnutrition and preventable disease with what Daley-Harris calls "transformational advocacy" based on three pillars: An organizational structure supporting volunteers with a clarity of purpose and high expectations; A disciplined outreach plan that produces letters to elected officials & editorials to newspapers, while also cultivating close personal relationships with politicians & journalists; The empowering value of idealism.
The account is a bit too drawn out and, at times, repetitive, but the message is something that every American should hear. The ideas described are universal and useful to world citizens, but much of the specific suggestions and action strategies may not apply outside the US.
A conversation with Sam Daley-Harris in this 26-minute video provides a good overview of the key ideas.
2024/06/28 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Right] Ellwood Marine Terminal Restoration Project (see the next item below). [Center] Talangor Group program on elections and history of Islamic seminaries (see the last item below).
(2) Ellwood Marine Terminal Restoration Project: Yesterday, I went on an informative 2.5-hour tour, organized by UCSB's Cheadle Center for Biodiversity & Ecological Restoration. The two oil storage reservoirs, seen at a distance from UCSB North Campus Open Space Visitor Center in one of the photos, will be demolished beginning in October 2024, and the large parcel of land connecting the Open Space to the Pacific Ocean will be reconfigured, restored, and landscaped to its original state before oil exploration in the area began. The reservoirs were used for many years to store oil coming from Platform Holly, with tanker trucks transporting it to various destinations. Representatives from Chumash People have been given front-row seats in the planning and restoration processes. [Project Web site]
The two oil storage reservoirs and a smaller water reservoir, used for firefighting, will be demolished, all electric wires & poles will be removed, and trails & visitor amenities will be built for the local community to enjoy the area's breathtaking views. Trails will become open to the public shortly after the demolition work this fall, as the multi-year restoration work proceeds in parallel. The vicinity of the Marine Terminal is one of my favorite areas for walking, so, I'm excited about the restoration work. [2-minute video]
(3) Today is 2*pi Day (2 * 3.14 = 6.28), aka tau day: According to some, tau is a more-important constant than pi. Mathematician Michael Hartl liked tau so much better than pi that he wrote the Tau Manifesto.
(4) Last night's Talangor Group program: Dr. Mostafa Daneshgar Rahbar (Assistant Professor of Intelligent Systems, Lawrence Technological U.) spoke under the title "History of Islamic Seminaries." Dr. Daneshgar Rahbar has a PhD in engineering, but he was also concurrently educated at a seminary, although the latter background is not reflected on his LinkedIn profile. There were ~65 attendees.
Prior to the main talk, there was open discussion on the concurrently-unfolding first US presidential debate and on Iran's presidential election, scheduled for the following day.
Dr. Daneshgar Rahbar began by clarifying that his talk's focus will be on Shiite Islamic seminaries, geographically distributed, for the most part, in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon.
The history of Islamic seminaries spans a timeline that began with Shi'i Imams and continued with a few key personalities, once the 12th Imam purportedly went into hiding. The appearance of Islamic seminaries was part of the institutionalization of Shiite Islam, which took hold at the time of the 6th Shi'i Imam, Ja'far Sadeq.
Subjects taught at these seminaries include faith & reason, God & the universe, interpretation of Quran, teachings/traditions of the Prophet & Imams, prophecy, ethics, and religious/theological language. The seminaries are intimately tied to the notion of marja'-e taqlid (religious authority who should be imitated or followed) and operate within an extremely opaque financial system.
Some seminaries are local, whereas others are large institutions that train and "export" clerics to locations worldwide. Najaf seminary is a good example of such large, prestigious institutions. Iran's Qom Seminary is influential politically, but not necessarily from a religious standpoint.
Islamic seminaries that thrive are typically located next to important religious shrines. For example, Najaf is where Imam Ali is buried, Mashhad houses the tomb of Imam Reza, and Qom is the burial place of Hazrat-e Ma'soumeh.
The Najaf Seminary was for a long time the center of gravity for Shi'i Islam and housed & produced the most-respected Shiite leaders. There are many other centers of learning for Shi'i clerics, but Najaf can be likened to the MIT of Islamic seminaries. Iran's rulers tried to reduce Najaf's influence, but they did not succeed.
Searching the Internet for possible additional sources of information, I came across a 22-page article from 2021, entitled "Islamic Seminaries: A Brief Historical Survey."
2024/06/27 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday (1): This family-run bookshop in Tehran has been operating for 150 years, since the Qajar era. [Center] Throwback Thursday(2): Ghahveh-khaneh (literally, "coffee house") was a fixture of Iran's society, before it was replaced in many instances by modern cafes and restaurants. They actually didn't serve coffee, but tea, plus a limited number of snacks and meals, the most-prominent among them being abgoosht ("meat stew"). [Right] Socrates Think Tank talk (see the last item below).
(2) SpaceX earns $843 million NASA contract to build a vehicle to remove the International Space Station from its orbit when its useful life ends in a few years.
(3) The sad state of open-access publishing: Publishers being paid for every article they publish is a recipe for disaster, as they have no incentive to reject fraudulent or marginal papers. Yet, we can't really go back to the undemocratic, closed-access model. Reforming the system is our only option.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The presidential debate was pure torture. Biden had trouble enunciating words. Trump spoke too many lies.
- Israel's Supreme Court rules that Orthodox Jews, now exempt from military service, can be drafted to serve.
- Marching backwards: Infant mortality rate has ticked up in Texas following the state's abortion ban.
- With 500,000 unresolved fraud cases, identity theft overwhelms the US Internal Revenue Service.
- Two French teenagers, a forward and a center, are NBA's top draft picks.
- This woman in Shiraz, Iran, operates a mobile bookstore which she moves around on a bike.
- Patience is a superpower: 17-minute TEDx talk by Oliver Burkeman.
- Copa America: Panama defeats USA 2-1, making it tough for the US to advance from the group stage.
(5) Sickening: "If you want to be free to go out without your hijab, then aroused young men should be free to rape you." ~ Representative of Iran's presidential candidate who's closest to the Supreme Leader
(6) Last night's Socrates Think Tank talk: Saleheh Ebadirad (Sally Rad), a PhD candidate in biochemistry and astrobiology at UC Riverside, spoke under the title "Tree of Life."
Dr. Ebadirad began by presenting quite a few tree diagrams drawn by scientists at various junctures, each one showing the branching of the species on Earth, with the trees getting more sophisticated over time. She then discussed the various theories about the origins of life on Earth, including proteins hitching rides on asteroids. She showed a diagram that represented the proliferation and extinction of life forms, including the Cambrian explosion which happened around 530 million years ago and six extinction events, the last one of which is now in progress. She concluded her talk by speculating on the future development of the tree of life.
2024/06/26 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Math puzzlers: Find areas of the yellow triangles on the left & right and ratio of the radii in the middle.
(2) The presidential election circus in Iran: Only 3 days left to polling on June 28. All candidates have distanced themselves from harsh treatment of women on the streets for ignoring hijab laws. But this is par for the course. For decades, enforcement of hijab laws would wane as polling neared, only to pick up with greater intensity after the election. Iranian women are smarter than to fall for promises from someone, who, like all other Iranian presidents, will be a powerless figurehead who must defer to edicts of the Supreme Leader and his Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
(3) Students way ahead of their professors in embracing AI: Half of the students surveyed indicated that AI has helped them attain better grades. Two out of five faculty members are familiar with AI, but only 14 percent said they are confident in their ability to use AI in their teaching.
(4) To people of Iranian heritage who support Trump: He says clearly that he will make a deal with Iran's Islamic regime (no change of leadership), because of the country's huge economic potential.
(5) World initiative on curbing hate speech and mis/disinformation: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres releases global principles that call on tech companies, advertisers, media, and other organizations to avoid using, supporting, or amplifying hate speech and mis/disinformation.
We can dismiss this effort as just another grandiose UN report that will sit on shelves, gathering dust. But, even though the UN lacks enforcement power to implement these recommendations, defining the problem and its dimensions is a useful start.
(6) Digital price-labels and dynamic pricing: Leading retailers are switching from printed price-labels on store shelves to digital displays. With digital labels, they will save money and also be able to adjust prices dynamically, perhaps several times per hour.
Dynamic pricing is totally consistent with the principle of supply-and-demand in a free-market economy. Yet, I find its use for basic commodities quite jarring. When you see a price on the store shelf, will you end up paying a different amount at check-out? Whereas with on-line shopping you can wait for an unreasonably high price to drop before you buy, you don't have the same option when shopping at a store.
We humans crave stability. Micro-level dynamic pricing feels like someone pulling the rug from under our feet. Already, prices fluctuate wildly at supermarkets: A 12-pack of soda can cost $7.99 one day, $5.99 the next day with a digital coupon, and $9.99 another day, with a buy-one-get-one-free deal. Dynamic pricing will only add to the existing chaos.
2024/06/24 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Sensible advice from your librarian. [Center] Home decor idea: Tree of knowledge. [Right] Michio Kaku's Hyperspace (see the last item below).
(2) Coordinated terrorist attacks in Russia: Gunmen attacked a synagogue, a church, and a police station, killing at least two dozen people (15 of them policemen). [Washington Post]
(3) Human rights are universal, not relative: Flogging, cutting of hands, and stoning, even if they were part of the Iranian culture, which they are not, are inhumane. Charlatan Javad Zarif tries to justify Iran's compulsory hijab laws by claiming that every country has a dress code. When was the last time you saw US or European security forces drag a woman into a police van for violating the dress code? [Tweet, in Persian, with video]
(4) A part of Iran's influence campaign in the West: Javad Zarif led a campaign, aided by lobbyists of Iran's Islamist regime and paid "journalists," to portray General Qassem Soleimani a national hero and a terrorism fighter, instead of the criminal mass-murderer that he was. [Tweet, in Persian, with video]
(5) Book review: Kaku, Michio, Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension, unabridged 14-hour audiobook, read by Tim Lounibos, Highbridge Audio, 2023.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku is a prolific writer. I have read several of his books, but Hyperspace impressed me the most in terms of content and presentation. Ever since Einstein, physicists have been obsessed with building a bridge between relativity and quantum theory, in order to synthesize a unifying theory, the so-called "theory of everything," that is applicable both at the scale of planets & galaxies and at the microcosmic world of subatomic particles.
Speculations about more dimensions, beyond the familiar three for space and one for time, have existed for decades, both in the scientific community and among sci-fi writers. Kaku reviews these dimensions up to 10 (that an 11th dimension would make the model most-stable, became known after this book had been written) and asserts that superstring theory dealing with these extra dimensions is the best approximation yet to the sought-after unified theory.
According to superstring theory, dimensions beyond the fourth are curled up at a microscopic level, thus making them imperceptible to us humans. We only perceive the four "big" dimensions. The imperceptibility of other dimensions can be likened to a 2-dimentional being, as postulated in Edwin A. Abbott's classic novella Flatland (my review), being totally unaware of the third space dimension.
Superstring theory posits that there are no elementary particles (like electrons or quarks). We have nothing but pieces of vibrating strings. Each vibration mode corresponds to a different particle and determines its charge and its mass. In the current understanding of the theory, those strings are not "made of" anything: they are the fundamental constituent of matter.
Superstring theory is so difficult that many of its key equations remain unsolved. But to gain insight about how the universe works does not require solving the equations in full. Kaku offers many examples from everyday life that help the reader understand what all the fuss is about and what scientists are actually working on or quarrelling about. In the process, he offers intelligent speculations on the possibility of time travel and faster-than-light movement via wormholes.
2024/06/23 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) (1) Yesterday's Summer Solstice Parade in Santa Barbara: Waiting along Santa Barbara Street, at Canon Perdido, for the Parade to arrive, scenes from the parade (2-minute video), and barbequing afterwards.
(2) Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi's death sentence overturned on appeal: This is good news, but for every well-known person spared because of intense social-media campaigns and international pressure, dozens of lesser-known dissidents are executed quietly.
(3) The media is hyping the upcoming presidential debate: They use superlatives to reel us in. Oh, it's the earliest debate ever! It can shape the campaigns for months! And so on, and so forth. Take it from me, the debate will do nothing, just as criminal convictions accomplished nothing. The criminal charlatan will die if he isn't in the spotlight. He is gasping for air. Don't give him air!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Undisputed leader: Iran accounts for 74% of global executions during 2023. [Amnesty International]
- EU Soccer: Switzerland was getting ready to celebrate when Germany tied the match 1-1 in stoppage time.
- Copa America soccer: USA defeated Bolivia in the group stage, 2-0. [9-minute highlights]
- A little puzzler: How many times do the two hands of a standard 12-hour clock meet each other during a day?
(5) KIRN Radio Iran (Los Angeles) program, on "The Status of Women in Science and Engineering," Sunday, June 23, 2024, at 6:00 PM PT. [Podcast]
(6) UCSB warns student protesters that their sprawling encampment was illegal and must be removed: After no action was taken by the protesters, UCSB has begun to remove the tents and other artifacts set up across a lawn in central campus. The protesters had also defaced parts of adjacent buildings. [From a letter sent to the campus community by Chancellor Yang]
2024/06/20 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday: The top photo, taken at a 1927 conference, is a virtual who's-who of the giants of physics. Marie Curie was the only woman among them. Ninety years later, a group of women physicists playfully recreated the photo with only one man among them. [Center] The heightened risk of nuclear war (see the last item below). [Right] A final thought for the day!
(2) Happy summer! We are having beautiful weather in Santa Barbara, but nearly half of the US is experiencing a scorching heat wave already!
(3) Virginia Hislop just graduated from Stanford University's Graduate School of Education at the age of 105: She got her bachelor's of education in 1940, four years after enrolling at Stanford, but earning her master's of education got delayed by 84 years.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Hundreds of Hajj pilgrims are reported dead from extreme heat in Saudi Arabia reaching 125 F. [WaPo]
- AI-assisted drones can decide which fruit to pick based on size, color, ripeness, & estimated sweetness.
- Time-lapse view of world airline traffic during 24 hours. [1-minute video]
- Dire Straits all-time greatest hits: Topped by their fantastic "Sultans of Swing." [113-minute audio file]
(5) Biden's lead among women voters has shrunk from 13% to 8%: How can a campaign be so out of touch to lose the support of women to a misogynist and rapist? Trump's lead among men remains in double-digits.
(6) Arvind Mithal (known simply as Arvind) dead at 77: The Charles W. & Jennifer C. Johnson Prof. of Computer Sci. & Eng. at MIT was known for his work on dataflow architectures and parallel computing. As a graduate student and later as a computer architecture researcher, I read many of Arvind's papers. RIP!
(7) Risk of nuclear war has become quite high: "Dark clouds loom on the nuclear horizon, with threats from all directions: Russia's nuclear bombast in its war on Ukraine, China's construction of hundreds of nuclear missile silos, North Korea's missile testing, India and Pakistan's ongoing nuclear competition, and Iran's push toward nuclear weapons capability. In response, US policy-makers are discussing whether a further American nuclear arms buildup is needed. At the same time, evolving technologies, from hypersonic missiles to artificial intelligence, are straining military balances and may be making them more unstable. The risk of nuclear war has not been so high since the Cuban Missile Crisis." ~ From Science magazine editorial, June 21, 2024
2024/06/19 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Celebrating Freedom Day: Juneteenth, the 19th day of June, commemorates the end of slavery in America's confederate states. On this day in 1865, that is, 159 years ago, the Union Army established authority over Texas, setting free the slaves who still didn't know about the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863. [Top center] Tonight's IEEE CCS tech talk (see the next item below). [Top right] Tonight's Socrates Think Tank talk (see the last item below). [Bottom row] Math puzzles: Find the area of the yellow triangle, the measure of the angle marked X, and the radius R of the blue quarter-circle.
(2) Tonight's IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk: Dr. Benjamin Carlson (Westmont College) spoke under the title "Large Hadron Collider." The talk's more-detailed title was "Beyond the Higgs Boson: Using the Higgs Boson to Look for New Particles and the Future of LHC." Of particular interest is the pursuit of particles that may constitute dark matter.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN revolutionized modern physics when it helped discover the Higgs boson over a decade ago. The LHC will continue taking data for another 20 years, so long-term plans are being made for tackling a number of big questions, with understanding of dark matter being at the forefront.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Canada designates Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist group. [Tweet, in Persian]
- Nvidia overtakes Microsoft and Apple Computer to become the world's most-valuable company. [WaPo chart]
(4) Louisiana passes a bill that requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public classroom. At this rate, the Christian Republic of America isn't far away!
(5) Tonight's Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Mohsen Attaran and Dr. Kamran Malek made a joint presentation entitled "Physical Patient ~ Digital Twins."
First, Dr. Attaran discussed the notion of digital twins in general and in the special case of medical applications. A patient's digital twin is an electronic model that holds all pertinent medical information for him/her, including health history, surgeries, allergies, medications, implants, and so on.
Next, Dr. Malek discussed how a patient's digital twin facilitates and speeds up the diagnosis and helps identify appropriate treatments. The entire medical history of the patient, prior diagnoses, imaging results, are consulted and cross-checked within a fraction of a second; what used to take days with manual information requests and evaluations.
2024/06/18 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] Composition of the universe: Two slightly different accounts, both indicating that about 95% of the cosmos is dark energy & dark matter. [Top right] A beautiful calligraphic rendering of a Mowlavi (Rumi) verse. [Bottom left] You can read this sign going across or down: The choice is yours! [Bottom center] Washington: SCOTUS Square. [Bottom right] Help-wanted sign at a Goleta bakery.
(2) The rise of non-traditional schooling: As more US states introduce financial support for home-schooling and private micro-schools, parents are pulling their kids out from low-performing public schools.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- I can assure you this isn't my class: Try to guess the subject being taught!
[Tweet, with photo]
- Facebook memory from June 17, 2021: Extended-family photo, recreated from a 2018 photo.
(4) "Women in Science and Engineering": This is the title of my presentation for the Persian-language "Marzhayeh Danesh" ("Frontiers of Science") radio program, which will be broadcast on Sunday 6/23, beginning at 6:00 PM, on KIRN Los Angeles, AM 670 or FM 95.5 (livestream). My talk consists of four 8-minute segments that will run between news & ads in the 1-hour program. Many of the previous programs are available as podcasts. They also livestream their programs.
(5) Final thought for the day: #EndGenderApartheid
2024/06/17 (Monday): Today, I present reviews of three books on the Persian poetry of Nezami Ganjavi.
(1) Book review: Ganjavi, Nezami (Dick Davis, translator), Khosrow & Shirin, Mage Publishers, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Before "Romeo & Juliet" (1597), there was Nezami Ganjavi's "Khosrow & Shirin" (ca. 1180 CE). There are in fact quite a few other Persian love-stories/tragedies that precede Shakespeare by centuries. Nezami also wrote "Layla & Majnun," one of the greatest epic love poems in Persian. Nezami has a third love story, "Haft Paykar." All three of these love stories are summarized and interpreted in Summaries and Interpretations of Three Love Stories by Nezami Ganjavi (in Persian, Mirasban, 2022; my review).
Here is the gist of the story: After the death of his wife and a new failed marriage, Sassanid King Khosrow II finally marries Shirin while in exile in Armenia. They live happily together for several years until Khosrow's son, Shiroyeh, also in love with Shirin, orders his father's death. Shirin decides to take her own life, fearing humiliation through forced marriage to Shiroyeh. Khosrow and Shirin were buried in the same grave. The story also features Farhad, a sculptor who fell in love with Shirin and was willing to do anything to win her, but their love remained platonic.
Nezami does not portray Shirin as a damsel in distress to be saved by a knight in shining armor, but as a proto-feminist. Once, when Khosrow comes to her in a drunken state, she does not let him into the castle and reproaches him for his fling with another woman, Shekar. Khosrow was madly in love with Shirin, but Shirin kept rebuffing his advances, because she feared she would become a plaything for him to use as he pleased while he was intoxicated, not the queen she aspired to be. Eventually, Shirin received the marriage proposal she wanted.
By depicting Shirin's influence on Khosrow, which made him undergo transformation from a pointless life of pleasure to a spiritually meaningful one, Nezami dispenses advice on how one should live his/her life and on the importance of selflessness.
(2) Book review: Nizami (Translated from Persian and edited by Dr. Rudolf Gelpke, in collaboration with E. Mattin & G. Hill), The Story of Layla and Majnun, Bruno Cassirer, 1966.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Presented in 53 short, untitled chapters, plus a postscript, this translation of Nizami's epic love poem begins thus: "Once there lived among the Bedouin in Arabia a great lord, a Sayyid, who ruled over the Banu Amir. No other country flourished like his and Zephyr carried the sweet scent of his glory to the farthest horizons. Success and merit made him Sultan of the Arabs and his wealth equaled that of Korah." What ate at this otherwise fortunate man was the fact that he had no son to inherit his wealth. When his wish was granted and he was given a son, celebrations ensued.
"The child was committed to the care of a nurse, so that under her watchful eye he should grow big and strong. So he did, and every drop of milk he drank was turned in his body into a token of faithfulness. Each line of indigo, drawn on his face to protect him against the Evil Eye, worked magic in his soul. ... Two weeks after his birth the child already looked like the moon after fourteen days and his parents gave him the name of Qays. ... [When he grew up,] people told the story of his beauty like a fairy tale. Whoever saw him—if only from afar—called upon heaven to bless him."
The sample quoted passages above and below should convince you that the translation of the work is engaging and of high quality.
Qays was educated under the care of a distinguished learned man. One day he meets Layla, a beautiful girl, a "miracle of creation" whose "face was a lamp, or rather a torch, with ravens weaving their wings around it."
"While all their friends were toiling at their books"
"These two were trying other ways of learning."
"Reading love's grammar in each other's looks,"
"Glances to them were marks which they were earning."
"Their minds were freed from spelling by love's spell,"
"They practiced, writing notes full of caress;"
"The others learned to count—while they could tell,"
"That nothing ever counts but tenderness."
When Qays realized that he can't get Layla's hand in marriage, his aimless and erratic behavior earned him the nickname Majnun (Madman). Scores of pages later, we read about Layla's death. "A cold fever shook her limbs and spread dark blotches and stains over her sweet face. … Sensing that death stood close, she allowed no one near but her mother, revealing in this hour for the first and last time, the secret of her love. … When I am dead, dress me like a bride. Make me beautiful. As a salve for my eyes, take dust from Majnun's path. Prepare indigo from his sorrow, sprinkle the rose-water of his tears on my head and veil me in the scent of his grief. … He will come, my restless wanderer—I know. He will sit at my grave searching for the moon, yet seeing nothing but the veil—the earth—and he will weep and lament."
It happened just as Layla had predicted. When Majnun learned about the death of his beloved, he rushed to her and fell on her grave as if struck by lightning. He exclaimed: "Oh my flower, you withered before you blossomed, your spring was your fall, your eyes hardly saw this world. … Your musk-mole, your gazelle eye—where are they [now]? The splendor of your agate lips, the amber-scented coils of your tresses—what has happened to them?" Majnun goes on and on with his lament, before returning to the wilderness. When he could not find solace anywhere, his longing drove him back to the grave of his beloved.
In short order, Majnun started to feel weak, moving quickly toward death; though not quickly enough from his viewpoint. He transitioned, while reciting a prayer on
Layla's grave: "Maker of all things created! I implore thee in the name of everything which thou hast chosen: relieve me of this burden. Let me go where my love dwells. Free me from this cruel existence and, in the other world, cure me of my torment here."
The exquisite story of the love between Layla and Majnun is Nizami's way of portraying the ideal lover, while dispensing life advice and explaining soul's search for God.
(3) Book review: Abedinejad, Mehdi, Summaries and Interpretations of Three Love Poems by Nezami Ganjavi (in Persian), Mirasban, 2022. [My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Abedinejad intermixes verses from epic poems by Nezami Ganjavi [ca. 1141-1209 CE] with brief textual narratives to summarize and interpret three of the five stories forming parts of Nezami's "Khamsa" ("Five Treasures"). Besides the three love stories covered in this book ("Khosrow & Shirin," "Leyla & Majnun," and "Haft Peykar" aka "Bahram Nameh"), "Khmasa" also includes "Makhzan ol-Asrar" and "Eskandar Nameh."
The book under review begins with a 15-page preface, written by Mehdi Farahani Monfared, who offers a brief biography of Nezami and also introduces the author. About a quarter of the book is devoted to "Khosrow & Shirin" (pp. 29-76), one-sixth is taken up by "Leyla & Majnun" (pp. 77-109), and more than half (pp. 111-227) covers "Haft Peykar."
There are quite a few books and articles on Nezami's "Khosrow & Shirin," including a wonderful new English translation by Dick Davis
(my review). "Leyla & Majnun" has similarly received much attention; see, for example, the translation by Dr. Rudolf Gelpke (my review). Both of these love-stories/tragedies predate Shakespear's "Romeo & Juliette" by several centuries. "Haft Peykar" has a somewhat different nature, for even though it does contain elements of a love story, it is mostly the life story of King Bahram Gur, known for his hunting skills and seven wives: The seven "peykars" or "beauties" of the story's title.
The book could have benefited from an index to help link the similar notions discussed in the three stories.
2024/06/16 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] A happy Fathers' Day to all dads and father-like nurturers & mentors, past, present, and future! Today, we particularly remember our fathers who are no longer with us. They are missed! [Top center] Two steps forward, one step back (see the next item below). [Top right] Food equation: World population reaching 10 billion by 2050 + 40% of the Earth's agricultural land already degraded = Disaster. [Bottom row] Combined graduation and Fathers' Day celebration at a park near UCLA, with yummy take-out food from Shamshiri Restaurant. The proud graduate had the company of our entire extended family, some of them coming from far-away places.
(2) For women, there is good news and bad news: The good news a few days ago was the rising level of contribution by women to scientific/technical papers over the past two decades: In the US, contributions of women rose from 30% to 42% (26% to 39% worldwide). Here is the bad news: The status of women on the corporate ladder is declining. While half of entry-level positions are held by women, the fraction declines to one-third at the VP level and to about one-fourth at the C-suite level.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- An option for pensioners: Retirement on a college campus with a pass to attend any class they wish.
- The oldest unsolved problem in mathematics: Does there exist an odd perfect number? [12-minute video]
- Human athletic abilities are improving so fast that we may soon turn into a different species.
- Starting with 5, every second Fibonacci number is the hypotenuse of a right triangle with integer sides.
(4) Another watchdog loses its battle with MAGA: Stanford has shut down its Internet Observatory, which aimed to identify viral disinformation about election procedures and outcomes in real time. Ongoing lawsuits and congressional inquiries into the Observatory have cost Stanford millions of dollars in legal fees.
(5) Wells Fargo fires 12+ employees who pretended to work: With the prevalence of remote work, some companies have deployed tools that monitor keystrokes and eye movements, take screenshots, and record Website visits. Technologies like "mouse jigglers," which make it appear as though workers are using their computers when they are not, allow workers to evade surveillance.
(6) Final thought for the day: This hand-made card and gift of audiobooks for Fathers' Day put a smile on my face. Thank you, my precious daughter!
2024/06/15 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] China has been steadily rising in contributions to published scientific/technical papers: It overtook EU in 2019 and USA in 2023. India is also on the rise. It's worth noting, however, that a significant share of retracted papers are also from India & China. [Center] That's a real cat on the bookshelf, not a figurine! [Right] This madman has no place in government: In a "policy" meeting with top congressional Republicans, Trump made a bizarre claim about Pelosi's daughter, and one of her four daughters responded.
(2) United Auto Workers union is reportedly coping with tensions between its student members focused on the war in Gaza and its blue-collar workers focused on pocketbook issues. [NYT]
(3) UCLA has a new chancellor: University of Miami President, the Mexico-born global public health researcher Julio Frenk, will become the next chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles. He will inherit from the retiring Chancellor Gene Block a campus roiled by protests over the Israel-Hamas war.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Abortion bans are good for the travel business. [NYT infographic]
- Arizona man planned a mass shooting of Blacks & other minorities at a rap concert to incite a race war.
- Facebook memory from June 14, 2021: On repunit primes (prime numbers of the form 111...11).
- Facebook memory from June 14, 2021: Worry about crony capitalism, not socialism.
- Facebook memory from June 14, 2020: Religion has become a tool of politics (Persian poem).
- Facebook memory from June 15, 2014: Fathers' Day celebration, 10 years ago.
(5) The habit of comparing ourselves to others can lead to poor mental health: "The comparison starts at an early age. Perhaps we wish we had the same toys as one of our friends or the backpack they have. As we grow older, ... you may find yourself comparing how much money you make to others or where you are in terms of relationships, education, or careers. ... If it is not addressed, comparison can lead to poor mental health and issues like anxiety and depression."
(6) Start-ups go to war: The war with Russia has supercharged the Ukrainian tech sector to form a drone development superhub. [E&T magazine]
(7) Fire Seyed Hossein Mousavian: Princeton U. professor and former Iranian diplomat with blood on his hands, threatens that Iran can quickly cause $1 trillion damage to UAE in the event of a war with the US.
(8) The hostage-taking Iranian mullahs are rewarded: In a prisoner swap deal, #HamidNouri who was serving a life sentence in Sweden for his role in the mass-execution of political prisoners was returned to Iran.
2024/06/14 (Friday): Today, I offer reviews of 3 books on understanding and dealing with mental illness.
(1) Book review: Nakazawa, Donna Jackson, Girls on the Brink: Helping Our Daughters Thrive in an Era of Increased Anxiety, Depression, and Social Media, Harmony, 2022.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Science journalist Donna Nakazawa maintains that "our daughters, students, and the girl next door are more anxious and more prone to depression and self-harming than ever before." In 2019, 1 in 3 girls reported symptoms of major depression, vs. 1 in 10 boys. A typical young girl feels that her life is one endless performance, during which she is examined and judged. When combined with unchecked immersion in social media, the mental state above can derail a young girl's emotional development.
Fortunately, there is also good news. Puberty, which is considered a particularly vulnerable period for girls, is also a time when the female brain is responsive to various kinds of support and scaffolding. This responsiveness can potentially turn a young girl's innate sensitivity into a superpower.
In her book, Nakazawa offers 15 simple strategies for raising emotionally healthy girls, based on cutting-edge science that explains the modern pressures that make it so difficult for adolescent girls to thrive. I was fortunate to attend Nakazawa's book talk, sponsored by UCLA's Semel Institute, on March 5, 2024, when she reiterated the need for urgent action to save our girls.
(2) Book review: Amador, Xavier, I'm Not Sick, I Don't Need Help: How to Help Someone Accept Treatment, Publisher, 20th Anniversary Edition, 2022. [My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Anosognosia (lack of insight) is a neurological condition in which the patient is unaware of their neurological deficit or psychiatric condition. One of the most-challenging tasks in caring for a loved one with mental illness is to get them to accept that they are sick and then to open them up to advice and help from professionals. Based on decades of experience with mentally-ill patients and their families, Amador advanced a four-part strategy dubbed LEAP (listen, empathize, agree, partner) for developing partnership and trust with those experiencing anosognosia.
Amador's I'm Not Sick has become a classic, providing information and insights, not only to mental-health and criminal-justice professionals, but also to family members who care for a mentally-ill loved one. In this 20th Anniversary Edition, all chapters have been updated with new research on anosognosia and much more detail on LEAP.
You can read an excerpt of I'm Not Sick on this Web page. And here is a 75-minute talk by Amador on his book. For those with less patience, this 18-minute TEDx talk contains all the essentials.
(3) Duckworth, Ken, You Are Not Alone: The NAMI Guide to Navigating Mental Health, unabridged 14-hour audiobook, read by the author & Tim Fannon, Zando, 2022.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Many families who care for loved ones suffering from mental illness are in the dark about diagnoses, treatments, and recovery processes, which leads to frustration and inability to help. When it comes to mental health, the US healthcare industry remains chaotic, underfunded, and inaccessible. To make matters worse, there are no tests, such as bloodwork and X-ray used for physical ailments, to help with definite diagnoses of mental illness, leading to conflicting and confusing advice.
This NAMI-supported book, which oozes with expertise and compassion, contains:
- First-person accounts illustrating the diversity of mental health journeys
- Guidance on dealing with mental health conditions and seeking care
- Research-based evidence on what treatments and approaches work best
- Insight and advice from renowned clinical experts and practitioners
NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness, is a valuable resource that the sufferers of mental illness and their families/caretakers can turn to for advice and help. Among other activities, NAMI supports peer-to-peer and family-to-family classes and discussion groups. [Web site]
2024/06/13 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday: Shams Beer was a popular and fairly inexpensive brand in Iran before the Islamic Revolution. The Armenian-owned Shams Beer Factory in Eastern Tehran was set on fire by Islamists on January 30, 1979, with its contents looted. [Top center] New Yorker cartoon: "The captain has informed us that our arrival will be somewhat delayed because of Europe's continuing shift to the right." [Top right] Meet Iran's 6 presidential candidates: Three are fairly well-known (Pourmohammadi is a hanging judge, who, like Raisi, has blood on his hands; Ghalibaf is corrupt to the core; Jalili was Raisi's ideologue). The other three are highly unlikely to win (Pezeshkian is a reformist who may have been allowed to run as a show candidate; Zakani and Ghazizadeh are nobodies). As usual, several big names, including a former president and a former speaker of the Parliament, were disqualified, which should make for an interesting campaign season. [Bottom left] Socrates Think Tank talk (see the next item below). [Bottom center] Math puzzle: In the isosceles triangle ACD, find the length X of AB. [Bottom right] Talangor Group talk (see the last item below).
(2) Last night's Socrates Think Tank Talk: Dr. Mohammad B. Bagheri talked about "The God of Spinoza." There were 165 attendees.
Baruch Spinoza [1632-1677], a philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, opined that though everything ultimately derives from God, s/he cannot be the cause of sadness since s/he is perfect. As understood by Spinoza, the real cause of sadness is ignorance or people's lack of understanding the causes that have led them to feel sorrow.
In Spinoza's view, it is absurd to think of God as a being who listens to our prayers and gets angry at us when we misbehave. To follow God is to work hard to understand the nature around us and to be resigned to living according to nature's laws. When we see something as a miracle, it is simply because we have not yet discovered the laws of nature that govern or cause it.
The Enlightenment thinker was branded a heretic, but his philosophy is loaded with subtle religious insights. He recognized the existence of God but was an enemy of religion. Albert Einstein once said that he believed in "Spinoza's God," which was seen as proof that great scientific minds have no time for superstitious fairy tales.
Spinoza is a key figure in rationalism. He was excommunicated by religious authorities, who instructed everyone to avoid him and to cease all communication with him. Spinoza's most-significant work was on ethics, which, by his own request, was published after his death.
(3) I have fond memories of Jerry West, the basketball and Lakers legend who just died at 86: In my graduate-student days at UCLA, I watched a lot of basketball, and watching Jerry West play was a treat. His silhouette has been immortalized on the NBA logo. RIP.
(5) Women have made gains in STEM research: A large-scale study by academic publisher Elsevier has found a ~50% increase in contributions of women researchers to STEM fields (26% of total production in 2000 to 39% in 2022; 30% to 42% in the US). At the current rate of progress, parity is still ~30 years away.
(6) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Khalil Rashidian spoke under the title "Climate Change and the Heightened Water Crisis in Iran." There were ~70 attendees.
There has been much talk about the dwindling water resources in Iran for the dual reasons of climate change and inept water-management officials. Businesses run by top clerics and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps abuse water resources to maximize their short-term profits, showing no concern for long-term consequences of their action. A few officials who criticized this state of affairs were sidelined or forced into exile. Environmental activists are routinely arrested and imprisoned for opposing the government's shortsighted policies.
Against this background, Dr. Rashidian's talk consisted of two parts. First, he presented a general overview of climate change (global warming and the attendant sea-level rise), along with current and future consequences of expected changes. In the second part, he focused on the case of Iran, with an extensive review of the depletion of water resources and the resulting damage to the environment and the livelihood of local farmers. A particularly challenging problem is the sinking of ground which damages farmlands and gobbles up buildings and other infrastructure in sinkholes.
While pursuing appropriate policies might mitigate some of the problem, much of the damage inflicted by past inaction and abuse appears to be irreversible. Border disputes over water resources complicates future planning and raises the severity of the problems.
2024/06/12 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Is there an example in human history when book-burners were the good guys? [Center] Amanda Montell's The Age of Magical Overthinking (see the last item below). [Right] Imaginative artwork with a message: Seen on Sunday at the arts & craft show along Santa Barbara's Cabrillo Blvd.
(2) Trump supporters say that Hunter Biden was convicted to project a fake image of a fair legal system: Imagine what they would say if Hunter had been exonerated!
(3) Saudi Arabia invests in chip design: The kingdom's National Semiconductor Hub, which will develop fabless chip companies, as part of a strategy to position itself as a leader in semiconductor design, hopes to attract 50 firms by 2030 to develop simple chips, with manufacturing done internationally for now. [Bloomberg]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- As people around the world gain in English fluency, the translated book market has shrunk. [NYT]
- What an excellent 5-minute workout! Nice music too!
- Engineering design: I had no idea that bowling pinsetter machines are so complex! [12-minute video]
- Math puzzle: Consider y = 2^x. Is there a non-integer value for x that yields an integer value for y?
- Super-funny stand-up comedy routine by Jim McDonald. [23-minute video]
- Facebook memory from June 11, 2016: My daughter's graduation from UCLA.
(5) Book review: Montell, Amanda, The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by the author, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I became familiar with linguist Amanda Montell's work through Wordslut (my review on GoodReads), a wonderful mix of pop culture and academic linguistics that addresses the ways in which patriarchy has invaded and overtaken the English language.
In The Age of Magical Overthinking, Montell maintains that in the 21st century, our focus has shifted from external threats to internal ones. Glued to our phones and alienated from our loved ones, we are increasingly lonely. She points to cognitive biases that rule our brains, from the "Halo effect," cultivating worship/hatred of larger-than-life celebrities, to how the "Sunk Cost Fallacy" can keep us in harmful relationships long after we have realized their toxicity.
Our society faces a crisis of the mind, which is intensified by misinformation and disinformation from social media and other sources. Our reliance on specialists has been replaced with taking advice from untrained influencers. Montell exposes our cultural obsession with irrational beliefs and debunked ideas, and gives us tools to escape it.
2024/06/11 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Virtual talk on Persian-language computer output (see the next item below). [Center] Rethinking Intelligence, a book by Rina Bliss (see item 3 below). [Center] Patrick House's Nineteen Ways of Looking at Consciousness (see the last item below).
(2) How We Taught the Computer to Write in Persian: This was a title of a talk I gave on Monday morning to a group of graduates from Arya-Mehr/Sharif University of Technology. The attendees included 4 of my former students, a couple of whom shared stories from our interactions some 5 decades ago. The talk was very similar to the ones I have been giving to various audiences since 2017, updating the slides by adding figures and other material each time. Here is a link to the PDF slides of my talk.
(3) Book review: Bliss, Rina, Rethinking Intelligence: A Radical New Understanding of Our Human Potential, unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by Samantha Tan, Harper Audio, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The nature of intelligence has been debated for centuries, with the debate intensity picking up in recent decades, as we began struggling to define artificial intelligence. For a long time, the test-based intelligence quotient (IQ) was accepted and used to "measure" intelligence, with the results used to predict a child's future and to plan his/her course of studies and career options. Bliss, a genetics expert and member of the faculty at Rutgers University, adds fuel to the fire that debunked the primacy of IQ tests and the innate nature of intelligence.
She presents her ideas in 9 numbered chapters, sandwiched between introductory and concluding chapters. Chapters 1-4 constitute Part I, Understanding Intelligence (Thinking intelligence; Understanding IQ; The nature of Intelligence; Nurturing intelligence). Chapters 5-7 comprise Part II, Nurturing Intelligence (The growth mindset; From mind to mindful; Learning to connect). Chapters 8-9 of Part III are about Valuing Intelligence (Getting smarter as a society; Seeing value in us all).
Relating her challenging family life, with a chronically overworked mom and a perpetually overdosed dad, Bliss tells us that, as a part-Asian student, being perceived as a superior intellect was her ticket out of trouble. "Even for a 'smart kid' like me, the pressure to perform was overwhelming. I was tormented by the fear that I wouldn't measure up."
Sharing insights from the burgeoning science of epigenetics, Bliss helps us harness our environments to empower our minds. One key is eliminating toxic stress. Other factors include embracing a growth mindset, prioritizing connection, becoming more mindful, and reforming systemic issues such as poverty, racism, the lack of quality early childhood education. Bliss reframes human behavior and intellect, offering a new perspective for understanding ourselves and our children.
(4) Book review: House, Patrick, Nineteen Ways of Looking at Consciousness, unabridged 5-hour audiobook, read by Taylor Clarke-Hill, Macmillan Audio, 2022. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
A poem can be translated in many different ways. There is no such thing as the "correct" translation. In fact, none of the many translations may trigger the same emotions in the reader as the original poem. House's book title mimics commentaries by Eliot Weinberger and Octavio Paz, who looked at 19 translations of a 1200-year-old Chinese quatrain.
Consciousness is a very difficult topic to discuss and understand. Most descriptions of it entail either hand-waving or circular arguments. I am afraid that all 19 ways discussed by House suffer from the same shortcomings. However, one does learn a great deal about related topics in psychology and neuroscience in the course of pursuing an understanding of consciousness.
2024/06/10 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] How the extreme right creates non-existent issues to anger the MAGA base into voting and contributing money: This poll is based on the totally false assumption that undocumented immigrants can vote if they want to. In reality, they can't register to vote. [Center] G7 taps women's-rights activist @AlinejadMasih for its Gender Equality Advisory Council. [Right] These two women are separated by less than one meter in space and more than 1400 years in time!
(2) Your driving score: We all know about credit scores, but did you know that there is also a driving score? The score is based on how often you speed, slam on the brakes, look at your phone, or drive late at night. The data can be collected by your car or smartphone apps and sold to brokers, who work with auto insurers. [NYT]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- UC given a temporary restraining order against UAW strikers, while its claim of strike illegality is assessed.
- Apple announces built-in intelligence for iPhone, iPad, & Mac, while setting a new standard for privacy in AI.
- Iran's assassins & kidnappers target dissidents and former US government officials. [13-minute video]
- PBS "Firing Line" program examines the Electoral College: Reasons for abolishing or keeping it.
(4) An Ohio high-school graduate hands a copy of Handmaid's Tale to a school official to protest the book's banning by her school district.
(5) The Brain and Hate: The multi-part online series "The State of Hate" is co-sponsored by the Friends of Semel Institute, the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital Board of Advisors, and the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate. The UCLA Initiative to Study Hate is a three-year pilot project intended to foster cutting-edge research and high-level teaching to understand better and mitigate group-based hate.
In today's first installment, after opening remarks by Dr. David Myers, Distinguished Professor, Director of the Luskin Center for History and Policy and Director of the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate, UCLA Professors Adriana Galvan and Mario F. Mendez discussed the opportunities and challenges of studying the neuroscience of hate. They also covered some of the cognitive processes that advance hateful behavior & how we can counter them.
Evolutionarily, hate has served the role of ensuring our survival. In this role, it is closely related to fear. However, hate has outlived its usefulness in today's law-abiding societies. It is now threatening, rather than ensuring, our survival.
Part 2, Hate and the election, and Part 3, Hate and the social media, will come in fall 2024. Recordings of these discussions will be made available on the Semel Institute Web site.
2024/06/09 (Sunday): Today, I offer reviews of books on words, languages, and communication skills.
(1) Book review: Pirnazar, Nahid (editor & compiler), Judeo-Persian Writings: A Manifestation of Intellectual and Literary Life, Routledge, 2022. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Judeo-Persian documents, that is, Persian-language texts written in the Hebrew alphabet, date back to the 8th century CE. They include Biblical epics, Biblical commentaries, historical texts, liturgical poems, and court & trade documents.
Judeo-Persian religious poetry is closely modeled on classical Persian poetry, with the best-known poet being Mowlana Shahin Shirazi, who composed epic versifications of parts of the Bible. The poet, a contemporary of Hafez, is known to have worked during the 1316-1335 CE reign of Ilkhan Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan.
Once adequately researched and properly catalogued, the rich literary tradition of works written in Judeo-Persian can contribute to a better understanding of linguistics, history, and sociocultural issues of nearly three millennia of Jewish presence in Southwest Asia.
Dr. Pirnazar takes a valuable step in this direction by reviewing the history of Judeo-Persian (Part 1; pp. 1-41) and providing representative samples of Judeo-Persian writings (Part II; pp. 43-121). Each sample includes the original text, its Perso-Arabic version, and an English translation. Three pages of references and a 3-page index conclude the book.
(2) Book review: Montell, Amanda, Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by the author, Harper Audio, 2019.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
A misguided English proverb goes, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words [or names] can never hurt me." In fact, words, and language more generally, are tools of oppression and deception and are thus potentially hurtful.
For many centuries, coining words and devising linguistic rules have been under the control of powerful white men. The English language is full of words that are used to put down women and other marginalized groups. In the case of women, the use of "bitch," "slut," and "pig" are quite familiar. Some of the above started as normal (occasionally even positive) words that were appropriated for use as put-downs. Others were created as insults.
Montell makes us aware of the uneven way in which male and female gender are treated and offers suggestions on how to handle this imbalance. She puts her linguistics degree to good use in tracing sociolinguistics' historical roots and its impact on the contemporary feminist stance broadly practiced today.
Given that we view the world, and even think, through the lens of language, Montell's observations on how to take back the language and make it more precise in dealing with gender are quite important for anyone who wants to use language effectively and fairly.
According to Library Journal, "[Wordslut] blends academic study with pop-culture attitude ... At its heart, this work reflects a tenet of sociolinguistic study: language is not divorced from culture; it both reflects and creates beliefs about identity and power."
(3) Book review: Duhigg, Charles, Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by the author, Random House Audio, 2024.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Duhigg confides that he wrote this book when he realized that his own communication skills needed improvement, which is somewhat of a surprise, given that he is a journalist.
All you need to know about the subject matter of the book is included in the first 15% or so. The elaborations in the rest of the book aren't particularly helpful. Good communicators, the kind of people who are routinely used in hostage-negotiation situations or find themselves leading and influencing jury deliberations, are characterized by empathetic listening skills and the ability to help a conversation move along by injecting interesting questions, the kinds that trigger emotions and require deep thinking.
For example, rather than ask a shallow question about your line of work, they may inquire about the aspect of your job that you like best. Although a good communicator should avoid making a conversation about him/herself, injecting emotional, personal comments that project vulnerability is usually helpful.
Good communication skills, which are acquired through practice, don't only impact our professional stature. We can lead healthier, happier, and more fulfilling lives when we connect with others. Conversations positively affect our brains, bodies, and how we experience the world.
2024/06/08 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Some of the 24+ victims of Islamic Republic of Iran's terrorist attacks under Seyed Hossein Mousavian's watch: Princeton University should fire him from his faculty position. [Center] Calligraphic writings are usually produced with special calligraphic pens: A number of Persian masters also produce calligraphic art with ordinary ball-point pens. This wonderful sample is from Akbar Mojaradi. [Right] Kaveh Akbar's Martyr! A Novel (see the last item below).
(2) Virtual Town Hall Meeting facilitated by the Santa Cruz Faculty Association: UCSB faculty and union organizers were present in a Zoom gathering on Friday afternoon to update us on the latest developments on the academic workers' strike and its impact. My own classes are not affected by the ongoing strike (one is a graduate course with no TA and the other is a freshman seminar graded based on attendance), but my colleagues are experiencing much anxiety over how to handle the end-of-academic-year tasks without violating various laws. Students, particularly those about to graduate, are even more anxious.
(3) Book review: Akbar, Kaveh, Martyr! A Novel, unabridged 11-hour audiobook, read by Arian Moayed, Random House Audio, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Kaveh Akbar's poetry has been published in The New Yorker and The New York Times, among other venues, and his work has received a lot of critical acclaim as well as multiple prestigious awards.
Martyr! is Akbar's debut novel. It features the profoundly-sad protagonist Cyrus Shams, an Iranian-American who was brought to the US as a baby by his father Ali. A major theme in the story is the gruesome death of Cyrus's mother, Roya, whose Tehran-to-Dubai Iran Air flight was mistakenly shot down over the Persian Gulf by the US Navy. There were 66 children aboard the flight. Cyrus was supposed to be the 67th, but Roya decided to leave her months-old baby at home. However, bear in mind that nothing in the story is what is seems; there are quite a few plot twists!
Other major themes in the story are the struggles of Cyrus's father, Ali, a hard-working & proud laborer, relatives and acquaintances who were physically or psychologically injured during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, and the plight of Orkideh, a very special artist who is dying from cancer. We also learn about Cyrus' imaginary brother, Beethoven, who once had a conversation with basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
As a poet, Cyrus is in a constant struggle with life as well as death. He wants to die in a way that serves a bigger purpose, hence the novel's title, which, in Cyrus' view, does not mean strapping explosives to himself and carrying out a suicide-bombing mission. Much of the fascinating story is about Cyrus (his struggles, depression, addiction, and sense of powerlessness), but there are a few chapters that are told from the perspective of his parents, one of his friends, and his uncle.
This is a difficult, but rewarding, novel to read. It draws you in, but wears you out at the same time. There are a couple of fillers, which in my view should have been left out. For example, the life story of the great Persian poet Ferdowsi does not belong in this otherwise absorbing story. Ditto for discussion of another great poet, Mowlavi (Rumi).
2024/06/07 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Bora Bora is an island in French Polynesia: The extinct volcano, Mount Otemanu, sits at the center of this atoll. The Teavanui Passage, the only opening to the ocean, allows large ships to enter the serene lagoon. [Top center] New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest: What do you think of my entry? "Time travelers from the future bring us the cutest things!" [Top right] Qasr al-Farid, an unfinished tomb in Saudi Arabia: The Saudis have spent nearly $1 trillion in recent years on expanding tourism. But what does tourism mean in a country that enforces strict Islamic laws? [Bottom left] Election circus in Iran: Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signs up to become a presidential candidate. His chances of passing the filter of the Guardian Council are slim to none. More importantly, he is mistaken in believing that his criticism of high-level mullahs will erase the effect of his calling Iranian street protesters "dust & dirt," while security forces under his command shot them! [Bottom center] Home: Multilingual sign seen over the Ocean Road underpass on the UCSB campus. [Bottom right] Kip Thorne's The Science of Interstellar (see the last item below).
(2) Imagine our country's history, its pursuit of a more-perfect union, and its ideals of equality being delegated to a bigoted felon for safeguarding!
(3) Did the COVID-19 pandemic leave us a legacy of other diseases? Whooping cough cases have doubled and unusual forms of cancer have begun to appear. [NYT]
(4) Book review: Thorne, Kip, The Science of Interstellar, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by Eric Michael Summerer, Tantor Audio, 2014. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I recently watched Christopher Nolan's 2014 sci-fi film "Interstellar." I particularly enjoyed the powerful film score, composed by Hans Zimmer. In order to augment my understanding of the film's story, I searched for and found the following explanation of the film's script and its plot summary.
https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/interstellar-explained-meaning-plot-summary/
Further investigation led to the book under review here. Cal Tech theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate Kip S. Thorne [1940-], who was intimately involved in the making of "Interstellar," explains that the notions behind the film's story, mainly black holes and wormholes, are grounded in real science. When scientific facts had to be stretched, care was taken to keep events and scenes within the realm of possibility.
"Interstellar" was directed by Christopher Nolan, after Steven Spielberg dropped out due to disagreements with Paramount. Nolan went on to achieve even greater fame with his recent film, "Oppenheimer," which was honored with 7 Academy Awards.
Thorne starts his book with the film's history and his interactions with the actors, special-effects artists, and other collaborators, before proceeding to describe the actual physics in the remaining 30 chapters, organized into 7 parts, as follows:
- Foundations (the universe & its laws, warped time/space, black holes)
- Gargantua (anatomy & imaging, gravitational slingshots, disks & jets)
- Disaster on Earth (blight, gasping for oxygen, interstellar travel)
- The wormhole (visualization & discovery, gravitational waves)
- Exploring Gargantua's environs (Miller's & Mann's planets, vibrations)
- Extreme physics (5th dimension, gravitational anomalies, singularities)
- Climax (the tesseract, messaging the past, lifting colonies off Earth)
2024/06/06 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] D-Day celebrated after 80 years: On June 6, 1944, troops from the US, Canada, and Britain landed in northern France under heavy fire. The invasion helped lay the groundwork for victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. World leaders (minus Putin, who was not invited) and WW II veterans, some of them 100+ years old, have gathered in France to mark the occasion. [Top center] Throwback Thursday: Photos with my three sisters, over the years. [Top right] CE Capstone Project Presentations (see the last item below). [Bottom left] Yesterday, I taught my last class for the spring quarter and will go into summer mode upon grading a last homework assignment and a few research reports. [Bottom center] Of possible interest to my SoCal readers: Maestro Shardad Rohani, in concert with Roudaki Orchestra, featuring violin soloist Cyrus Forough, Sunday, July 14, 2024, at UCLA's Schoenberg Hall. [Bottom right] I hate to criticize queers during this Pride Month: But someone please tell those who placed the bottom sign at the UCSB encampment about what they do to LGBTQ people in Gaza and other Middle Eastern Arab/Islamic countries.
(2) President Biden speaks on the 80th anniversary of D-Day: To surrender to bullies or to bow down to dictators is simply unthinkable. To do that means forgetting what happened here on these hallowed beaches in Normandy. Make no mistake, we will not bow down. And we will not forget.
(3) Stanford U. will suspend 13 students who were arrested after occupying the president's office: The pro-Palestinian protesters illegally entered a building, injured a law enforcement officer, and caused extensive damage to buildings in Stanford's historic quad.
(4) Computer engineering senior capstone project presentations at UCSB today: It's rewarding to watch seniors turn into competent engineers! [CE capstone Web site with detailed descriptions and team members]
Project name – Description (Sponsor)
Locus – A low-cost, stand-alone sensor used to measure turbulent dissipation in the ocean ... (Coast Lab)
EyeMatic – Camera system that utilizes machine learning for eye anatomy recognition (Alcon)
United Sensors – Support for integrating multiple redundant sensors on quadcopter drones ... (AeroVironment)
P.E.T.E. – Proof of concept to monitor astronauts' progress as they complete procedures ... (NASA)
PenGUI – Touch screen GUI written in Python to control a VCSEL laser (Praevium)
Lumirail – Dynamic LEGO art installation map in downtown Boston, featuring LEDs that show ... (Jeong Group)
Chirality – Smart glove that acts as a hand-motion to computer interface (IFT)
Homeflow – Intuitive health wearable that collects meaningful data (IFT)
Concordia – All-in-one assistant to help control any bluetooth or wifi connected devices in ... (Laritech)
FSAE – Sensor suite for Gaucho Racing’s GR24 Formula car ... (SingleStore and UCSB Urca)
Empro – Electric modification that transforms traditional mechanical bikes into e-bikes (CNSI)
Unmanned Surface Vehicle – Small unmanned watercraft drone surveying coastlines ... (AeroVironment)
2024/06/05 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The intensity of destruction in Ukrainian cities as a result of the Russian invasion (NYT infographic). [Center] Meme of the day: "Whoever lives for the sake of combating an enemy has an interest in the enemy's staying alive." ~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche [Right] Taylor Swift is really a big deal: Her concerts have notable impact on local economies.
(2) For those interested in the history of floating-point arithmetic and the impact of IEEE 754 Standard: UC Berkeley Professor William Kahan presented 27 lectures during May-July 1988 on challenges of floating-point arithmetic and how IEEE Standard 754, first issued in 1985, made the situation much better, though by no means perfect. Professor Kahan, a Turing Award winner, turns 91 today.
(3) Serial degree seeker: Benjamin B. Bolger, 48, has 14 advanced degrees, plus an associate's and a bachelor's from Harvard, Stanford, and Yale, to name a few, in subjects such as international development, creative nonfiction, and education.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Pro-Palestinian protesters occupying the office of Stanford University President have been arrested.
- Boeing's Starliner capsule takes astronauts to orbit: The project had suffered years of costly delays.
- US clears the way for antitrust inquiries of Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI. [NYT]
- Computer Science 2023 Curricula released by IEEE Computer Society, superseding Curricula 2013. [PDF]
- There is overwhelming evidence that Israel runs a US influence campaign on the Gaza War. [NYT]
(5) National Air & Space Museum's lectures on samples-return missions: Following three previous lectures on samples-return missions from the Moon, an asteroid, and a comet, the fourth and last lecture in the series, delivered by Dr. Meenakshi Wadhwa (Arizona State U.), was about returning samples from Mars, both in already completed missions as well as missions planned for the near future.
The planet Mars has fascinated humans for centuries. But it is only in the last few decades that robotic orbiters, landers, and rovers have allowed us to explore the Red Planet in ever increasing detail. Some of our biggest questions relating to the formation and planetary-scale evolution of Mars, including its geologic and climate evolution, the history of water and volatiles, as well as the potential for the development of life in its ancient past can only be addressed by detailed analyses of carefully selected Martian samples in state-of-the-art Earth-based laboratories. The campaign to return Mars samples to Earth is underway with the on-going collection of well-documented samples by the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. Dr. Meenakshi discussed the samples that have been collected so far, those expected to be collected in the near future, and the scientific motivations for bringing these samples back to Earth.
2024/06/03 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Blue Arch, Sicily, Italy: Symbol for entire generations of lovers, better known as the arc of kisses, this natural wonder, was purchased by the municipality after it was confiscated from the mafia, and was later restored using methods with very low environmental impact. [Center] Cartoon of the day: Is the world we humans experience a simulation? [Right] Russia's human trafficking: Forty-six children taken from Ukraine are up for adoption in Russia (source: NYT).
(2) American Association for the Advancement of Science CEO expresses worries about flat or reduced research budgets and a trend at the US Supreme Court to overturn or limit federal agency policies that are informed by science.
(3) Trump's conviction hurt him in the pocketbook: The value of his shares in Trump Media & Technology Group fell by $400 million in one day.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Mexico's bloodiest election (37 assassinated candidates) will likely produce its first female president.
- Rupert Murdoch, 93, marries Elena Zhukov, a retired molecular biologist, in Los Angeles.
- UCSB, UCSD, and UC Irvine added to the list of University of California's striking campuses.
- Brace yourself for a heat wave that will bring triple-digit temperatures to much of the western US.
- Persian fusion music: A beautiful Arabic song, performed with Persian lyrics. [Audio file]
- Mexico elects its first woman and first Jewish president, Claudia Sheinbaum, a respected climate scientist.
(5) Written in the 1950s and published in 1961: "It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character." ~ Joseph Heller, Catch 22
(6) A Chinese spacecraft lands on the far side of the moon: The uncrewed Chang'e-6 probe, named for the goddess of the moon in Chinese mythology, will collect rare samples from a region that no other country has landed on.
(7) Princeton must fire Mousavian: The Wikipedia page for Seyed Hossein Mousavian, now at Princeton University, has been updated to include sheltering assassination squads during his ambassadorship term in Germany, which led to his forced return to Iran.
(8) The summer Olympics will cause business owners in Paris to forego their August vacations, when, traditionally, you find the sign "ferme" ("closed") on many shops and boutiques. Amid tightened security, 15 million visitors are expected to visit the City of Light.
2024/06/02 (Sunday): Reviews of three books covering our universe, diet, and fantastic numbers.
(1) Course review: DeGrasse Tyson, Neil, The Inexplicable Universe: Unsolved Mysteries, six half-hour lectures in the "Great Courses" series, undated. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson is a wonderful explainer of difficult scientific topics. The six lectures in this course are entitled:
- History's Mysteries
- The Spooky Universe
- Inexplicable Life
- Inexplicable Physics
- Inexplicable Space
- Inexplicable Cosmology
Summaries of the six lectures are available on the Great Courses Web site.
This course was the basis of a 2012 documentary miniseries.
(2) Book review: Avena, Nicole M., Sugarless: A 7-Step Plan to Uncover Hidden Sugars, Curb Your Cravings, and Conquer Your Addiction, unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by Kim Ramirez, Tantor Audio, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
That too much sugar is bad for you is something we all know. But the fact that sugar is addictive isn't as well-known. Sugar addiction begins in childhood. Kids' foods are loaded with sugar, and some parents make the problem worse by rewarding good behavior with sugary snacks. You may have heard the statement "Eat your broccoli and I'll give you a lollipop" from a parent. It is unfortunate that eating good food is portrayed as undesirable, an act that should be rewarded with harmful food.
Avena's 7-step plan, which I have already started to follow in my own life, is as follows:
- Admit you're addicted
- Take stock of your sugar intake
- Identify your triggers
- Begin with your beverages
- Break down your breakfast
- De-sugar your dinner
- Keep lunch & snacks super-simple
In this 68-minute video, Dr. Nicole Avena is interviewed about her book.
(3) Book review: Padilla, Antonio, Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them: A Cosmic Quest from Zero to Infinity, unabridged 14-hour audiobook, read by the author, Macmillan Audio, 2022.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Antonio Padilla, a leading theoretical physicist and YouTube star, asserts that numbers are awesome, but they are even more awesome if they represent physical realities. Physics gives numbers personalities. He then takes us on a cosmic tour of nine of the most-extraordinary numbers in physics, including:
- 1.000,000,000,000,000,858, the factor by which Usain Bolt slowed time during a record-breaking dash
- Graham's number, which is so large that it might cause your head to collapse into a singularity
- TREE(3), whose finite value could never be reached before the universe reset itself
- 10^(-120), which measures the highly-unlikely balance of energy the universe needs to exist
- 0.000,000,000,000,000,1 or 2^(-16), the unexpected mass of the Higgs boson particle
And, of course, there are zero & infinity (actually, infinities), not to mention the infamous googol & googolplex.
This YouTube presentation by Padilla, entitled "Mysterious Numbers: Unlocking the Secrets of the Universe" touches upon many of the Fantastic Numbers concepts.
2024/06/01 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Late lunch at Shalhoob's Funk Zone Patio, followed by desserts at Goat Tree. [Center] IranWire cartoon: The Butcher of Tehran is being depicted as a saint. [Right] Some of the memorial plaques displayed on Santa Barbara's Stearns Wharf, including one that explains how the wharf was named.
(2) Is Salman Rushdie really wrong on Palestine? A self-described "Muslim" accuses Rushdie of Islamophobia. "Salman Rushdie is the embodiment of modern-day Islamophobia, a literary figure who masquerades as a 'progressive free thinker' and a by-product of a liberal atheist elite obsessed with Islam."
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Come on, US voters! Having a hard time deciding between a convicted felon & an old guy who walks funny?
- Bill Mahr advises pro-Palestinian protesters to take up the cause of gender apartheid.
- The US women's soccer team looked sharp today in prevailing over South Korea 4-0. [4-minute highlights]
- Math challenge: Find the greatest common divisor of 2^25 + 1 and 2^26 + 1.
- Facebook memory from June 1, 2020: We need politicians who read books!
- Facebook memory from June 1, 2011: Human beings are wired for optimism.
(4) Prepare the popcorn for Iran's presidential election soap opera: Already, infighting has started among factions close to the Supreme Leader, the only ones that will be allowed to run in the upcoming election to replace President Raisi.
Iranian elections are tightly controlled by the Guardian Council, which simply and without any explanation disqualifies anyone not to Khamenei's liking during the "vetting" process. But, at this early stage, candidates are allowed to sign up and to run their mouths against their potential rivals.
Former President Ahmadinejad seems to have much info about who went into which hotel room with whom, and is threatening to expose supposedly pious men with very loose zippers. Exposing financial fraud is another feature of Iranian elections, but somehow the embezzlers tend to prevail and everyone forgets about their misdeeds shortly after the election.
The mullahs' opposition groups will collect a lot of ammunition against them in the coming weeks, as exposures and threats of exposure cause one candidate after another to withdraw. Two high-level prospects have already announced that they won't run. Next will come a wave of disqualifications of candidates previously thought to be regime insiders.
You may need more than one tub of popcorn! [Persian version on Facebook]
2024/05/31 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Carpet bazaar in Tabriz, Iran. [Center] Nikola Tesla's statue in Niagara Falls, New York. [Right] Traditional Iranian breakfast.
(2) According to Donald Trump, the trial leading to his conviction on 34 felony charges was rigged: "The real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people," he maintains. But then, he has said repeatedly that he won't accept the election outcome if he loses!
(3) Voyager 1 resumes its scientific mission after an interstellar crisis that required its antiquated 1970s computer to be fixed remotely over a distance of 24 billion km. [Source: Science magazine]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Hossein Amanat, architect of Tehran's Azadi Tower, awarded honorary doctorate by U. British Columbia.
- Australia cautions its citizens against traveling to Iran. [Source: Kayhan London]
- Evaluation of the impact of Facebook misinformation on the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine in the US.
- The ancient art of calligraphy is experiencing a revival. [NYT story]
- Persian music: "Jaan-e Maryam," a composition by Kambiz Mojdehi, played by international artists.
- After 45 years of being banned from public performance, Iranian women singers still sound wonderful!
(5) The following is a list of Republican officials calling for Trump to drop out of the presidential race, now that he has been convicted of 34 felonies.
The list is currently empty. It will be updated as Republican officials dare to stand up for their party.
(6) Verdict on the great Persian poet Sa'adi: I chanced upon a May 27, 2017, Facebook post by Yalda Sadeghi (reposted by a friend) in which she faults Sa'adi for his misogynistic, anti-Semitic, and xenophobic verses. Yes, he did write the wonderful verse,
"Human beings are members of a whole; In creation of one essence and soul,"
which is admired worldwide, but he also wrote,
"If the Christian well's water is unclean; It shouldn't bother you when washing a Jew's corpse,"
insulting Christians and Jews in one verse.
The original post and its repost garnered numerous comments, both in approval and in disapproval. Some commenters cited additional Sa'adi verses that are in poor taste. Many commenters pointed out that Sa'adi, like anyone living in those days, was the product of a society and a historical period. Judging him by today's standards is inappropriate.
The bottom line: Be proud of your talented and brilliant ancestors, but also be aware that they had many failings as humans, so don't raise them to the status of gods.
[My Facebook post, with Sa'adi's original Persian verses.]
2024/05/30 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] A first in US history: Trump found guilty on all 34 felony counts in the Manhattan hush-money case (see also the next item below). [Right] Today's special session of the United Nations General Assembly to honor Iran's President Raisi was very sparsely attended.
(2) Many high-ranking Republicans continue to stand with Trump after his conviction: Calling the trial a political circus and Trump a political prisoner (even before he is imprisoned) is an insult to hard-working Americans who assisted with Trump’s indictment and conviction. Members of the jury which convicted him are in danger, as are the prosecution team. Even if the DA had political motives, he still had to convince the jury that crimes had been committed and the defense had the opportunity to contradict the arguments and evidence. No person with such disregard for the law and the legal process should be entrusted with a public office.
(3) FBI dismantles world's largest botnet: Comprised of 19 million infected computers in 190+ countries, the botnet facilitated financial fraud, identity theft, child exploitation, bomb threats, and cyberattacks.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Omarosa was telling the truth: There is indeed evidence of Trump referring to her using the n-word.
- Now in Stanford U.'s archives: Correspondence between Ebrahim Golestan and writer Sadeq Chubak.
- Mitsubishi robot solves Rubik's Cube in record 0.305 s: The best human solution time is 3.13 s.
- Bullet-proof bike tires, invented by NASA for use on rovers exploring other planets. [4-minute video]
- Facebook memory from May 30, 2018: Free speech vs. inclusivity on campus (even more relevant today).
- Facebook memory from May 30, 2018: The eighth Parhami Family reunion (the very last one).
(5) MIT Press leads in open-access book publishing: Libraries will pay an advance fee for each book. If enough funding is generated, digital copies will be made available to readers free of charge.
(6) Scorching temperatures predicted for summer months: Workers need additional protections, but some states are taking away existing protections.
(7) Extreme weather events and inflation caused US home insurance rates to increase by 11+ percent last year: These higher insurance costs are not reflected in the official inflation data, which explains part of the disconnect between how people feel about the economy and how it looks on paper.
(8) Super-sharers of fake news on Twitter: Only 2107 registered US voters were found to account for 80% of the fake news appearing on Twitter. Super-sharers consist mostly of women, older adults, and registered Republicans. Their posts are generated through manual and persistent retweeting, not automatically.
2024/05/28 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Book lovers' wall clock. [Center] The colors of irrational numbers: Write the number pi in hexadecimal (3.243F6A8...), drop the integer part and keep the first six fractional digits (243F6A). The resulting 6-digit hex code represents a color. Any other irrational number can be similarly linked to a color (credit: Vadim Ponomarenko). [Right] The Science of the Good Samaritan (see the last item below).
(2) Some US baseball records and record holders will change: Major League Baseball officially incorporates into its record book stats from the Negro Leagues, in operation from 1920 to 1948 when baseball was segregated.
(3) Non-permanence of on-line content: According to Pew Research Center, 38% of Web pages in existence in 2013 are no longer available, along with 8% of Web pages that existed last year. The analysis also found that 23% of news Web pages and 21% of government Web pages contain at least one broken link, and 54% of Wikipedia pages include at least one "References" link that is broken.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- University of California academic workers strike expands to UCLA and UC Davis.
- Being built at Liberty Canyon over the US 101 Freeway, SoCal's wildlife bridge will open in 2026.
- Food-mood connection: The food you eat affects all aspects of your health. Mental health is no exception.
- Our inner sense of time and why time appears to go by faster as we age. [3-minute video]
- The story of how blue LEDs were made, unlocking a revolution in efficient lighting. [12-minute video]
- If gays shouldn't get married b/c you are a Christian, then you can't order a steak b/c I am a vegetarian!
(5) Book review: Smith, Emily, The Science of the Good Samaritan: Thinking Bigger About Loving Our Neighbors, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by the author, Zondervan, 2023.
[My 2-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I am really ticked off by this book and its author. The word "Science" in the title along with the author's "Dr." honorific (she is a Duke U. faculty member with a PhD in epidemiology) strongly suggest a popular science book about what makes us humans an altruistic species, a la Matthieu Ricard's Altruism: The Science and Psychology of Kindness. So, I was shocked by the fact that the book contains no science, other than occasional references to the author's scientific background.
There are, however, many references to Jesus and Bible verses. I'm not saying that the book is worthless but that it is offered in a misleading package. A perfectly-fine box of cookies may similarly be dismissed if the package bears the label "Chocolates."
I liked some of the author's musings, such as her criticizing Texas Governor Greg Abbott over blaming the very high COVID rates in his state on a relatively small number of undocumented immigrants who tested positive, while Texas already had one of the highest COVID infection rates in the nation. Such logical statements do not overcome my primary objection to the book.
2024/05/27 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] On this US Memorial Day, we honor the memory of those who fell to protect our freedom: Kissing and hugging the flag and wrapping our misguided policies in it are cheap. Doing something for our veterans, including protecting them from predatory private colleges that mislead them and milk their educational benefits would be priceless. I love quoting Mark Twain on this occasion: "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." [Center] The 2024 Italian Street-Painting Festival (I-Madonnari) in Santa Barbara: Held over the Memorial Day weekend at the Old Mission, the Festival brings together experienced and aspiring artists to create wonderful chalk paintings. There is also a music stage (sample music) and food & merchandise booths. [Right] Salman Rushdie's Knife (see the last item below).
(2) Hamas fires rockets at Tel Aviv for the first time in months: Israel retaliates by bombing a camp where it claims Hamas has significant presence.
(3) Math challenge: If a, b, c, d are nonzero positive integers such that a/b + b/c + c/d + d/a is an integer, then (4abcd)^(1/4) is also an integer.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Landslide in a Papua New Guinea village buries 2000 people alive.
- Taiwan is capable of disabling advanced chip-making machines in the event of a Chinese invasion.
- Check-in computers at several US hotels run a remote-access app that leaks guest info to the Internet.
- IRI thugs attack protesters in London: One of them kicks a woman who was pushed to the ground.
(5) Book review: Rushdie, Salman, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by the author, Random House Audio, 2024.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Satanic Verses, which elicited a fatwa death-sentence for the author from Ayatollah Khomeini, was Rushdie's 5th book. He has written more than a dozen books since. He states, somewhat jokingly: You don't have to start with that particular book; there are plenty of other books to go around.
In Knife, Rushdie does not name his assailant, referring to the 24-year-old knife-wielding man as "A." On a fateful day in August 2022, more than 33 years after Khomeini's fatwa, Rushdie suffered 15 stab wounds, one of them blinding him in the right eye and another one nearly paralyzing him. His recovery was long and arduous, and he dedicates this book to those who saved his life.
Rushdie tells his story in 8 chapters, bearing short titles: "Knife" (description of the attack); "Eliza" (the love of his life); "Hamot" (site of a hospital in Erie County, Pennsylvania); "Rehab" (nearly a month, somewhere in NYC); "Homecoming" (transferring to a second home in NYC); "The A." (a masterfully-written imaginary conversation with his assailant); "Second Chance" (reflections on what he might do with his newfound life); "Closure?" (is he now a different person or writer?).
Through Rushdie's powerful words, the reader experiences the pain of 15 knife stabs that almost killed him and the challenges of numerous procedures that brought him back from the dead. Of course, no one expects Rushdie to write about his medical ordeal and the subsequent rehab (both physical and psychological), without throwing in philosophical observations such as the irony of an atheist seeing his survival and return to a near-normal life as a miracle. Rushdie's writings are full of miracles and other supernatural events, but he himself is a follower of science and logic.
Rushdie describes his assailant as a simpleton who had no clear understanding of Rushdie's work or even of his own motives for planning to kill him. Rushdie cites a doctor as saying that he was lucky that the assailant had no idea of how to kill a man with a knife! Interspersed with factual reporting about his near-death experience and meditations, Rushdie also offers plenty of commentary on the poisonous political climate around the world.
Rushdie is grateful for all the messages of love and support coming from around the world. To him, the fact that Iran showed no reaction was fully expected, given that the country's leader had issued the death fatwa. However, he was stung by the total lack of support from India or Pakistan. Incredibly, someone once told him that if you make yourself a subject of hate then some hateful person will come for you.
2024/05/26 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzle: In this diagram featuring a regular pentagon, find the measure of the angle marked in orange. [Center] Our family's gathering for a memorable Memorial Weekend BBQ, hosted by my sister. The flowers and plant are samples of my photography during an afternoon walk in East Ventura. [Right] Math puzzle: Find the radius of the circle in this diagram featuring a rectangle and four equal angles.
(2) "The Seed of the Sacred Fig": Mohammad Rasoulof made the film in Iran, cleverly skirting the censors. He recently fled the country on foot, after the mullahs issued an arrest warrant for him. He and his film are now at the Cannes Film Festival. Inspired by the #WomanLifeFreedom Revolution, the film's storyline represents gender and generational conflicts within a family.
(3) Tropical algebra: Consider the set of real numbers and operations of "tropical addition" x ta y = min(x, y) and "tropical multiplication" x tm y = x + y. An alternative form of tropical algebra uses max(x, y) for addition.
Computations of tropical algebra are easier/faster to implement in hardware, because multiplication is simplified to addition and exponentiation to multiplication. When real-valued input data is encoded as the transition instant of a signal from 0 to 1, a single OR gate can perform tropical addition.
The descriptor "tropical" was attached to this algebra by French mathematicians in honor of the Hungarian-born Brazilian computer scientist Imre Simon, who published several papers on these ideas in the late 1970s. Apparently, to Frenchmen, Brazil is quite tropical! Some on-line sources credit Bernard Carre's 1971 paper, "An Algebra for Network Routing Problems," as the birthplace of these ideas.
Many of the properties of ordinary algebra are valid in tropical algebra. For example, distributivity holds:
x tm (y ta z) = (x tm y) ta (x tm z)
Translation: x + min(y, z) = min(x + y, x + z)
A polynomial in tropical algebra takes the form:
f(x) = (a(0)) ta (a(1) tm x) ta (a(2) tm 2x) ta . . . ta (a(n) tm nx)
= min(a(0), a(1) + x, a(2) + 2x, . . . , a(n) + nx)
Explanation for tropical exponentiation: x te j = jx
Tropical algebra began garnering serious attention when it was realized that the Floyd-Warshall shortest-path algorithm using min-plus operations can be formulated in tropical algebra.
There is more to tropical math than the short introduction above. For example, there is tropical geometry, tropical analysis, and tropical cryptography, to name a few related areas.
The following book describes Tropical geometry as "a combinatorial shadow of algebraic geometry, offering new polyhedral tools to compute invariants of algebraic varieties. It is based on tropical algebra, where the sum of two numbers is their minimum and the product is their sum. This turns polynomials into piecewise-linear functions, and their zero sets into polyhedral complexes. These tropical varieties retain a surprising amount of information about their classical counterparts."
Maclagan, Diane and Bernd Sturmfels, Introduction to Tropical Geometry, American Math. Soc., 2015.
Here is a nice introduction to tropical mathematics.
2024/05/25 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] An old private residence in Yazd, Iran, renovated and converted to a hotel. [Top center] A top-level mullah wishes martyrdom for all Islamic Republic of Iran officials: Finally, we are on the same page! [Top right] Just a beautiful, soothing image to prepare us for the long Memorial weekend ahead! [Bottom left & center] Double standards: Why is it that the UN and other sources condemn the death and destruction in Gaza Strip on a daily basis, whereas the same calamities in Ukraine barely get a mention? [Bottom right] Musings of a curious engineer: Today, during my long walk along Santa Barbara's waterfront, I noticed that hubcaps or wheel interiors for most cars (around 90%, perhaps) use 5-spoke designs. There are rare 6- and 7-spoke designs, but nothing else. Pursuing the reasons on-line, I found the following explanations. The Wheels have had 5 lugs for decades, so having 5 spokes allows the lugs to sit inside or between spokes. A prime number of spokes prevents vibrational harmonics from building up and creating undue stress. Of course, 3 and 7 are also prime numbers. Five spokes look nicer than 3 and are easier to manufacture than 7.
(2) Yesterday's ECE Distinguished Lecture at UCSB: Dr. Matthew W. Daniels (NIST) spoke under the title "Computing Beyond Boolean Logic Using Time, Stochasticity, and Geometry."
We are so used to standard logic elements such as AND and OR gates that we find it difficult to imagine another platform for computation. Yet alternate computing technologies are being pursued with vigor. Among these, optical computing, biological computing, and quantum computing are best known. What Dr. Daniels focused on today is the use of the same CMOS logic elements to compute differently, because the data is viewed differently. He presented several examples.
a. Temporal computing: Inputs are logic signals that transition from 0 to 1, with the instant of transition being the data value of interest. With this interpretation, an AND gate outputs the larger of the two real input values and an OR gate the smaller of the two. One way of storing values is to convert time to resistance by building a variable resistor whose resistance increases with the time elapsed since a control signal was asserted and it stops changing when a data single arrives.
b. Stochastic computing: The probability of a signal value being 1 is the value of interest. An AND gate then becomes a multiplier of real numbers. This computation scheme imposes serious time penalties in most cases, as the inputs must vary over long-enough time periods for probabilities to make sense, but there are application areas that can benefit significantly from this scheme.
c. Ising models: These are mathematical models that use discrete variables to represent magnetic dipole moments of atomic "spins" that can be in one of two states (+1 or –1). The spins are arranged in a graph, usually an infinite lattice, allowing each spin to interact with its neighbors. Neighboring spins that agree have a lower energy than those that disagree.
d. Binarized neural networks: Data is encoded in the following way. Device conductance (inverse of resistance) represents synaptic weights and voltage/current stand for neuron I/O. This scheme, which multiplies weights by values and sums the resulting products, can be implemented in a purely analog form.
2024/05/24 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Rock-n-roll band from the Stone Age. [Top center] UCSB West Campus Point faculty housing Palm Plaza: More than three decades ago, and today. [Top right] Islamic hierarchy: Nine people died in a chopper crash atop the mountains of northwestern Iran. Yet we seldom read about the victims besides Ebrahim Raisi or Hossein Amirabdollahian. This memorial service announcement names five of the victims. The other four simply don't count. [Bottom left] Cartoon from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo: Woman Life Freedom Helicopter. [Bottom center] Yet one more talk about consciousness (see the next item below). [Bottom right] Talk on self-love vs. narcissism (see the last item below).
(2) Today's SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind talk at UCSB: Dr. Hakwan Lau, RIKEN Center for Brain Science, Japan, and author of In Consciousness We Trust: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Subjective Experience, talked under the title "The End of Consciousness."
Consciousness is a very difficult topic to discuss and understand. Most descriptions of it entail either hand-waving or circular arguments. My latest read on the topic, Nineteen Ways of Looking at Consciousness, failed to clarify the problem for me.
My review on GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6518323954
According to Lau, 'consciousness' is an archaic term that served a useful purpose at one time. Biologists who are interested in the nature of life no longer try to look for 'vital forces.' Instead, they identify specific functions that are essential for living — e.g. reproduction, metabolism, genetics, digestion — and they develop mechanistic explanations for these functions, through careful experimentation and empirically-informed theorizing.
Lau suggests that subjective perception, attention, metacognition, wakefulness, rational control of behavior, and even metaphysical speculations about the mind are all intertwined. Just like 'vital forces,' the utility of consciousness for rigorous theorizing has expired, and the term has accordingly become a liability. As the end begins, a more mature science will emerge.
(3) Tonight's Talangor Group program: Dr. Arash Taghavi spoke under the title "Self-Worth: From Self-Love/Respect/Confidence to Narcissism." Before the main talk, Dr. Fereydoun Majlessi briefly discussed "Iran's Ownership of Three Islands in the Persian Gulf." There were ~100 attendees.
Self-love, like all love, arises from caring. The object of love isn't assumed to be perfect; in fact, s/he may have many shortcomings, that give rise to the need for help or protection. Self-absorption, or narcissism, is based on the idea of self-perfection, which, counterintuitively, arises from a high level of insecurity.
A narcissist is incapable of listening or taking advice. You cannot argue with a narcissist, because s/he is insecure and views any criticism as a personal attack. A narcissist demands compliance from those around him/her and resorts to gaslighting, threatening, or guilt-tripping, for example, to control others.
The difference between self-love/respect/confidence and narcissism is the difference between a personality trait and a personality disorder. There is no known treatment for narcissism, so we should learn to recognize its symptoms in order to protect ourselves.
Self-love can lead to the establishment of personal boundaries, which are sometimes mistaken for narcissism. A self-loving person lives as s/he pleases and does not constantly seek other people's approval. S/he also does not try to impose a way of life on others.
It is difficult to sum up discussions on psychology and human behavior. Boundaries between various conditions are often blurred and open to interpretation. In the preceding paragraphs, I have tried to touch upon key terms and concept. I found the following article helpful: https://www.psychologs.com/narcissism-v-s-self-love-who-wins/
2024/05/23 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday (1): When I was a child, we'd buy sugar in cone form and would use tools ("ghand-shekan" or sugar-cube breaker) to break it down into small, irregular chunks to serve with tea. Packaged sugar-cubes had just entered the market, but they were still luxury items and, besides, would melt too quickly in your mouth. [Top center] Throwback Thursday (2): Undated newspaper ad for sea trip from Khorramshahr, Iran, to New York, taking 30-32 days. [Top right] Throwback Thursday (3): Iranians on the street in the pre-Islamic era. Notice the smiles, which have been wiped off their faces by the joyless mullahs. [Bottom left & center] Talk on the evolution of the Persian script (see the last item below). [Bottom right] Cartoon from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo: Woman Life Freedom Helicopter.
(2) C. Gordon Bell, a visionary who helped design some of the first minicomputers in the 1960s, dead at 89: Bell [1934-2024] went to work in 1960 for Digital Equipment Corporation, where he started designing computers like the PDP-8, the first commercially successful minicomputer. Bell spent 23 years at DEC as vice president of research and development before leaving and co-founding his own companies, Encore Computer and Ardent Computer. In 1986, Bell joined the National Science Foundation and advised Microsoft in the early 1990s before joining the company as a senior researcher in 1995. The computer pioneer was always looking ten steps ahead and building that version of the world.
(3) Today marks the 10th anniversary of the Isla Vista mass-murder tragedy that claimed the lives of six UCSB students and injured 14 others on May 23, 2014: Remembrance and memorial events are planned by a number of campus and student organizations.
(4) UN sends condolences for President Raisi's death, seemingly forgetting its own condemnations of Islamic Iran's vast human rights abuses under "the butcher of Tehran" and other regime criminals.
(5) Will we finally afford to go to a live concert? The Ticketmaster parent company is being accused of having an illegal monopoly. Consumers have been screaming for years about obnoxiously high fees charged on top of already expensive concert ticket prices. The US Justice Department finally listened.
(6) Tonight's Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Hossein Samei spoke under the title "Script in Iran." He presented a comprehensive review of how the Persian script has evolved over the centuries and outlined the many efforts that have come about to change or reform the script. The challenges that have motivated the aforementioned change/reform proposals include mismatch between the written and spoken forms, elimination of short vowels, inconsistencies brought about by mixing Persian & Arabic scripts, chaos in connecting or not connecting parts of the same word, locations & multiplicities of dots, different shapes for the same letter, and disorder in spelling.
2024/05/22 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Bertolt Brecht said it all: "Who does not know the truth, is simply a fool ... yet who knows the truth and calls it a lie, is a criminal." [Center] My daughter's kashk-e bademjoon (Persian eggplant dish, with curd). [Right] Talk on vibration effects in electronic circuits (see the next item below).
(2) Tonight's IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk: Dan Bezzant (Raytheon) spoke under the title "Vibration Effects on Electronic Circuitry."
The phrase 'solid state' has brought many in the profession to think that digital electronic circuits are immune to mechanical events around them. Bezzant's discussion showed from a practical viewpoint how shock and vibration can affect the function of electronic circuits, how this effect gets propagated from mechanical shock or vibration to the operation of a solid-state circuit, and what design techniques can be used to mitigate or eliminate disruptions to functionality.
(3) This Certificate of Appreciation was awarded by conference organizers for the opening keynote lecture I delivered to DCHPC 2024 on Tuesday, May 14, 2024, under the title "Fixed-Degree and Constant-Diameter Interconnection Networks for Parallel Supercomputing."
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- A UNC-CH business school professor learns that some of his classes were recorded without his knowledge.
- Facebook memory from May 22, 2015: Manhood, manliness, and patriarchy.
- Facebook memory from May 22, 2011: The day I entered historical records.
- Facebook memory from May 22. 2010: On reason overcoming flaming passion.
(5) Did US sanctions kill Iran's President Raisi? According to former FM Javad Zarif, the difficulty in obtaining spare parts for Iran's aging choppers and planes directly contributed to the crash that killed Raisi. Yet, for years, Iran's Supreme Leader and other top officials have claimed that not only sanctions do not affect Iran's economy, but they are blessings in disguise, because they help the country become self-sufficient. As the Persian saying goes: Should we believe the fox's denial or the rooster's tail that's sticking out?
(6) "OSIRIS-Rex: Revealing Secrets from the Dawn of our Solar System": In continuation of the National Air and Space Museum's lecture series on samples-return NASA missions, Dr. Dante Lauretta (Head of OSIRIS-REx research team at the University of Arizona) discussed the findings from the first set of data from analysis of the samples returned from near-Earth asteroid Bennu. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft launched in September 2016 and began its journey to Bennu, a carbon-rich, near-Earth asteroid. The spacecraft rendezvoused with Bennu in 2018 and successfully obtained a sample in October 2020. The spacecraft embarked on its return voyage to Earth on May 10, 2021. On Sept. 24, 2023, the spacecraft jettisoned the sample capsule and sent it onto a trajectory to touch down in the Utah desert. Analysis of the sample promises to provide insights into the formation of the Earth as a habitable world and the origin of life.
2024/05/20 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Today, on the UCSB campus: Students protesting in support of Palestine are preparing to strike. [Top center] Displays of nature's colorful beauty. [Top right] Lecture on Iran-America relations (see the last item below). [Bottom left & center] The deceased Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi had vowed to escalate the fight against hijablessness: Here are how two artists have interpreted his demise. [Bottom right] Fifteen Baha'i women sentenced to jail terms, fines, and civic probations in Isfahan, Iran.
(2) Get Ready for More 'Hard Landings' in the Middle East (Michael Rubin, in the
Washington Examiner): "Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi perished in what Iranian media initially labeled a 'hard landing.' That Iranians celebrated with fireworks in Raisi's hometown Mashhad reflects the hatred with which Iranians view the regime that oppresses them. This should be a warning to the regime: Raisi is one thing, but when 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has his hard landing, it will kick-start Iranians' active quest for regime change."
"For the European Union to send condolences upon the Butcher of Tehran's death shows the moral blindness at the heart of European policy; it is equivalent to sending condolences upon the 1942 death of Reinhard Heydrich, the German Reich's acting governor of Bohemia and Moravia."
(3) The Cuban spies who infiltrated the US government and operated with impunity for many years: Cuba apparently can't use the gathered intelligence, so it's likely in the business of selling it to other US adversaries.
(4) UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran: Dr. Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet (U. Penn) spoke today in English under the title "Heroes to Hostages: US-Iran Diplomacy through Race Relations and Human Rights." The Persian version of the lecture was delivered yesterday.
Iranian intellectuals of the post-Mosaddeq era advanced an anti-colonial rhetoric that burst wide open during the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Many writers, some with socialist leanings, watched with interest political happenings in formerly colonized states. These conflicts were often rooted in experiences of racial discrimination and social inequality. At the same time, the Iranian state also engaged with some of these themes and expanded its diplomatic relations with a range of countries in the Global South.
Although formal ties between Iran and the US were strengthened during the two decades preceding the 1979 revolution, social dissent also grew markedly. The debate on human rights gave voice to these concerns, as Iran's politicians and writers reflected on the legacy of human rights and reassessed the country's ties to the West. Race relations provided an unanticipated and often missed opportunity for collaboration.
Note: In the context of this talk and the book on which it is based, "race" also embraces ethnicity (viz., the Arab or the Iranian race).
2024/05/19 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Discussion on AI (see the next item below). [Center] Copter crash in northwestern Iran (see item 3 below). [Right] A Briefer History of Time (see the last item below).
(2) Lecture and panel discussion on AI's past, present, and future: In a Zoom session, hosted by the SoCal Chapter of SUTA (Sharif U. Technology Association), Dr. Babak Hojjat, CTO at Cognizant, reviewed AI's accomplishments and potentials. Panelists Mohammad Ramazanali (Salesforce), Dr. Yahya Tabesh (Professor Emeritus, SUT), and Mitra Zaimi (Unisys) then discussed the topic.
(3) Helicopter carrying Iran's President and Foreign Minister crashes upon landing: Rescue teams have not yet reached the crash site.
Mid-morning update: Early reports from Iran indicated that President Raisi's copter had a hard landing. It now seems that it crashed in a mountainous area with very low visibility, likely by hitting a mountain. While hard landings may be survivable, crashes rarely leave survivors.
Late-night update: Iran's President, Foreign Minister, and seven others are confirmed dead at the crash site.
(4) IEEE honors the 50th anniversary of the Internet: In the second of a three-part program, IEEE virtually celebrated 50 Years of the Internet, honoring the 1974 IEEE Computer Society paper on TCP by Vint Cerf & Bob Kahn. Tomorrow's third part, held in a hybrid format at the Computer History Museum, will officially dedicate the historic paper above, as well as the work of the IEEE 802 Standards Committee and the birth of Google & its PageRank Algorithm. [Streaming on IEEE TV]
(5) Book review: Hawking, Stephen (with Leonard Mlodinow), A Briefer History of Time, unabridged 4-hour audiobook, read by Erik Davies, Random House Audio, 2005. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
A Brief History of Time (1988) was a hugely successful science book that sold a copy for every 750 Earth inhabitants and was translated into dozens of languages, turning Hawking into a global cultural icon. This new version of the book focuses on the most-important topics of the original, adding depth as well as new material and explanations.
When we talk about the greatest scientist of all time, Einstein invariably comes to mind. Hawking isn't at the same level, given the theories for which he is responsible defy experimental verification and are thus viewed with skepticism by some other scientists. But when it comes to explaining science to the public, Hawking beats Einstein and maybe even the "explainer-in-chief" Richard Feynman. Given how many difficult topics were addressed in A Brief History of Time, it is a testament to Hawking's communication skills that so many people read it (or attempted to read it).
In this update & rewrite of A Brief History of Time, Hawking and Mlodinow focus on quantum mechanics, string theory, the Big-Bang theory, & other topics in a more accessible fashion to the general public. Newly discovered concepts are included and previously-known topics are explained in greater detail throughout the book.
2024/05/17 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Right] Geometric beauty of plants and vegetables. [Center] You can tell the chemical composition of a meteor from its color. [Right]
(2) Climate change threatens Big Sur's scenic access road: Between 2016 and 2023, Caltrans spent $315 million dollars in unplanned emergency work in the area after fires, mudslides, and bridge collapses.
(3) Math challenge: You run a lap around the track at an average speed of V. How fast should you run a second lap so that your overall average speed for both laps is 2V?
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Humanitarian aid is flowing into Gaza by way of a floating pier built by the US military.
- Leading cause of death for pregnant & postpartum women in the US: Murder by an intimate partner.
- Actress Reese Witherspoon leads a book club that reliably sends its monthly picks onto the best-seller list.
- Demonstration that a bull set free, without being made angry, runs happily and does not touch anyone.
- Math challenge: Which is larger, the number 10! (10 factorial) or the number of seconds in 6 weeks?
- California Strawberry Festival returns to Ventura County Fairgrounds this weekend, 5/18-19.
- Madrid-based Grupo Talia (orchestra & choir) performs many memorable international pop songs.
- "I Feel Good," performed by Grupo Talia in a way that really makes you feel good!
(5) Our justice system at work: Indiana judge rules that tacos are sandwiches, allowing a taco vendor to operate in a mall that accommodates sandwich shops but bans fast-food joints.
(6) Risky pathogen research: The Biden administration is tightening federal oversight of the so-called "gain-of-function" studies that could enhance risky viruses to increase their ability to cause a pandemic.
(7) Another pay-to-publish program unmasked: "Last year, physician Rupak Desai coauthored more than three dozen conference abstracts in Circulation, the American Heart Association's (AHA's) flagship journal. The works marked a modest fraction of his publications in 2023, which totaled 162. But Desai, scholarly productivity notwithstanding, is not employed by a hospital, university, or any other type of scientific institution."
"Based in Atlanta, Desai runs a business that offers junior doctors from around the world a chance to beef up their CVs before applying for coveted residency or fellowship positions at hospitals or physician offices in the United States. For about $1000 and a commitment to work 10 to 15 hours remotely over a few weeks, last year's participants in Desai's Express Research Workshop could get a byline on three abstracts submitted to AHA's biggest annual conference, the Scientific Sessions meeting, according to an online ad that was removed after Science contacted Desai for this story." [From Science magazine, May 10, 2024]
2024/05/16 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] This UCSB service vehicle nonchalantly drove on walkway near the Engineering II Building around 2:00 PM on Wednesday 2024/05/15 and parked in front of Courtyard Cafe. I hope the driver had legitimate business there, rather than going in to get a cup of coffee. [Center] Opposition figure and anti-compulsory-hijab campaigner Masih Alinejad is being portrayed by Iran's cyber-army as a stooge of the mullahs: They know they are hated and want to transfer some of that hatred to someone whose effective women's-rights campaign has put fear in their hearts. Most Iranians know better than to fall for these childish accusations. Alinejad is human and has committed a number of strategic errors over the years, but she is no stooge of the misogynistic Islamic regime. [Right] Campaign to have ex-IRI official Seyed Hossein Mousavian fired by Princeton U. kicks into high gear.
(2) The Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Lab again ranked first in the Top 500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers: The US has 171 systems on the list, including the Aurora supercomputer at Argonne National Lab. As for networking technologies, Infiniband is used by nearly half the systems on the Top 500 list (48%), while Ethernet is used by 39%.
(3) According to US FDA, 200+ diabetes patients were injured when their insulin pumps shut down unexpectedly: Version 2.7 of the t:connect Apple iOS app, used with the t:slim X2 insulin pump with Control-IQ, had a software issue that caused it to repeatedly crash and relaunch, draining the pump's battery and causing it to shut down and suspend insulin delivery. The app has been recalled.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- I am always impressed by how artists draw a portrait: Here is a wonderful sample.
- The design of the Titanic ocean liner and why it was doomed to sink. [19-minute video]
- Paul McCartney praises Beyonce's magnificent cover of his civil-rights-inspired song "Blackbird."
- Persian music: "Dokhtar-e Hamsayeh" ("The Girl Next Door"). [2-minute video]
(5) A so-called think tank in Tehran, with direct ties to IRGC terrorists and the Islamic regime's intelligence apparatus runs Iran's influence campaign in America and Europe, while not being targeted by sanctions.
(6) University of California union of academic employees, which includes graduate-student researchers, TAs, and post-docs, authorizes a strike which may begin as early as today. UAW alleges unfair employment practices over the handling of pro-Palestinian protests.
(7) Florida, the state in greatest danger from sea-level rise and other consequences of global warming, decides to stick its head in the sand and remove references to climate change from its energy policies.
(8) Bidirectional charging: Student transportation provider Zum is initiating a project with the Oakland Unified School District to send power from EV bus batteries back to the California utility grid. Oakland, the first school district to fully electrify its bus fleet, can potentially return 2.1 GWh of energy to the grid annually through this program. Larger districts like San Francisco Unified and Los Angeles Unified are expected to follow suit. [CNBC]
2024/05/14 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Venture scientists and technology entrepreneurship: This is the cover theme of IEEE Computer magazine's May 2024 issue which begins with the column "Dissertation, Inc." and continues with several articles on how elite science & engineering programs around the world encourage their graduates to shift their focus from being job consumers to becoming innovators and job creators. [Center] Terrorist president greets terrorist "diplomat": The so-called diplomat, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison but was later returned to Iran, complains that in prison, he was fed stale bread and high-fat cheese, with no soda! [Right] Yutaka Nishiyama's The Mysterious Number 6174 (see the last item below).
(2) Violence against women: According to Etemad newspaper, at least 23 Iranian women and girls have been killed by men in their families in the first 1.5 months of the Persian new year 1403.
(3) Book review: Nishiyama, Yutaka, The Mysterious Number 6174: One of 30 Amazing Mathematical Topics in Daily Life, Gendai Sugakusha Co., 2013. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This is a fascinating book from start to finish. I recommend it highly to anyone interested in mathematical puzzles, oddities, and mysteries.
Let me describe the number in the book's title, which is the subject of Chapter 15. Take an arbitrary 4-digit number whose digits are not all the same. Perform the Kaprekar operation on the number as follows: Obtain the largest 4-digit number that uses the same 4 digits and subtract from it the smallest 4-digit number with the same digits. Repeat the process by applying the Kaprekar operation on the new number and on every number subsequently obtained. Regardless of the starting number, you always end up with 6174, and the process takes 0 to 7 steps. This amazing property is believed to be incidental, but there may be some deep mathematics behind it. By the way, the same process applied to a 3-digit starting number yields 495. This article by Nishiyama provides more details and quite few other amazing facts.
Here are titles of a few of the book's other 29 chapters, all of them containing interesting and surprising facts. Each chapter is written as a separate article, with an abstract, AMS subject classification, key words, and list of references.
04. Stairway light switches
06. The mathematics of egg shape
12. Miura folding: Applying origami to space exploration
16. Numerical Palindromes and the 196 problem
21. Opening the black box of random numbers
24. Machin's formula and pi
28. Odd and even number cultures
2024/05/12 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Happy Mothers' Day: Mothers make the world go around. Their contributions to our well-being are so broad and deep that, in fact, every day should be Mothers' Day. [Top center] In 2018, May 12, birthdate of the late Maryam Mirzakhani, was designated as Women in Mathematics Day. Mirzakhani was awarded the Fields Medal, mathematic's highest honor, in 2014. [Top right] This afternoon at Ventura Harbor, before celebrating my daughter's birthday with the family at Andria's Seafood. [Bottom left] These are shadows cast by nine zebras photographed from overhead. [Bottom center] Math puzzle: Find the length x. The diagram isn't to scale. [Bottom right] Pro-Palestine protests at UCSB (see the last item below).
(2) The truth behind pro-Palestinian protests at America's elite colleges: These protests aren't about Palestine, Israel, or the war in Gaza, although many participants are sincere in their beliefs that they are. The protests are about Russia, China, and Iran taking advantage of weaknesses in our society to create chaos. American universities, once the Crown Jewels of our socioeconomic system, have been hurting from the effects of COVID and a steady stream of academic and other scandals. The current disruptions may deal a fatal blow to their well-being and the public trust in them.
(3) Sun, Surf and Cinema in Santa Barbara: Free summer films, Friday nights under the stars, Courthouse Sunken Garden, 8:30 PM.
7/05: "Jaws"
7/12: "Point Break"
7/19: "50 First Dates"
7/26: "Blue Crush"
8/02: *** No screening during Fiesta
8/09: "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou"
8/16: "Mamma Mia!"
8/23: "Crazy Rich Asians"
(4) UCSB pro-Palestine encampment in its second week: While the university administration has called for a dialogue and non-disruptive protest, the demands of the protesters, which include the establishment of a Palestinian Studies Department and scholarships for Palestinians students, in addition to divestment from and academic boycott of Israel as well as abolishment of UC Police Department, are unlikely to be met. The campus has responded to the protests with a collective "meh"; there is no police presence and no counter-protests.
2024/05/10 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Commencement 2024 (New Yorker cover). [Top center & right] See how many of these eight Persian sayings/expressions you can identify. [Bottom left] Our volcanic Moon (Science magazine cover feature). [Bottom center & right] A month after treating us to a spectacular total eclipse, the Sun is playing nasty-and-nice with its communications-disrupting geomagnetic storms and the awe-inspiring Northern Lights.
(2) Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof sentenced to 8 years in prison, plus flogging & fines, for making films and documentaries that are "harmful to national security."
(3) Looming strike of UAW academic workers at UCSB: The potential strike is allegedly based on "unfair labor practices" connected to ongoing campus protests on the Gaza war.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Canada's Parliament voted to list Iran's IRGC as a terrorist organization and to shut down their operations.
- Coldplay & Sting join 100+ musicians and other icons urging release of Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi.
- All sorts of weird standard samples are maintained by US National Institute for Standards and Technology.
- Persian music: Reza Malekzadeh performs "Aram Aram." [4-minute video]
(5) "The West is a woman to be mounted": This is a rather polite translation of what the predominant Arab culture thinks of the West and Westerners. Positive traits of Westerners (compassion, kindness, empathy) are all viewed as weaknesses by the Arabs. Until the West understands this mindset, no amount of negotiation will help bridge the culture gap. It's not just anti-Semitism we are facing but also extreme misogyny.
2024/05/09 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday: This toy gun was a thing when I was growing up in Iran. You'd load into it a paper strip bearing tiny amounts of gunpowder at regular intervals. Each time you pulled the trigger, the paper strip would move forward, allowing a hammer to hit the next explosive charge. [Center] "The Age-Proof Brain" webinar (see the last item below). [Right] My daughter at an arts-and-crafts market, a 3-day event in Goleta, continuing to Saturday.
(2) When an English town removed apostrophes from street names, such as "St. Mary's Walk," many unhappy residents started a petition drive and used marker-pens to reinsert the apostrophes.
(3) According to Association of American Medical Colleges, for the second year in a row, students graduating from US med schools were less likely to apply for residency positions in states that enforce bans or significant restrictions on abortion.
(4) "The Age-Proof Brain": This was the title of today's webinar by Dr. Marc Milstein, based on his book with the same title. When it comes to keeping your brain in tip-top shape, you aren't limited to crossword puzzles, brain games, and Sudoku. Debunking common misinformation, Milstein shared new, breakthrough science-supported strategies to:
- Improve memory and productivity
- Increase energy and boost your mood
- Reduce the risk of anxiety and depression
- Form healthy habits to supercharge your brain
Whereas our brain shrinks by 5% per decade beginning at age 40, there are things we can do to slow this shrinkage and to minimize its effects. Also, our brain is like a factory, producing useful stuff but also leaving behind junk which should be properly discarded to keep our brain clean. Only 30 minutes of brisk walking per day does wonders for the health of our brain and the rest of our body.
2024/05/08 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] War in Gaza has now expanded to its southernmost region, where many Gazans have taken refuge. [Top center & right] UCSB Reads 2024 authors' talk (see the last item below). [Bottom left] Birthday wish for my daughter (see the next item below). [Bottom right] My freshman seminar class, ECE 1B ("Ten Puzzling Problems in Computer Engineering"), meeting this quarter in Psych 1924.
(2) To my beloved daughter: As you celebrate another milestone birthday, I want you to know how proud I am of what you have accomplished and of the young woman you have become. You were born on Mothers' Day and we will celebrate with the family this coming Mothers' Day. Until then, enjoy your special day today and your arts & crafts endeavors over the next three days. I love you! [P.S.: Photos are from FB memories on May 8.]
(3) My heart goes out to the Class of 2024: These kids began their studies under COVID, struggled with on-line education, and are now trying to graduate, with commencement ceremonies disrupted by war protesters and, even worse, the prospects of classes and final exams being shut down by strikes.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Microsoft to invest $3.3 billion in an AI data center in Wisconsin.
- Rutgers researchers unveil 3D human-body modeling approach with realistic body poses & movements.
- I have a hunch that RFK Jr. isn't the only politician with parasitic brain worm and memory loss!
- The Beatles' "Let It Be," after 50 years: John Legend and Alicia Keys perform. [4-minute video]
(5) UCSB Reads 2024 Program wraps up: Tonight, I attened an informative and entertaining lecture by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, authors of Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us. This was my fourth and final year on the UCSB Reads Advisory Committee that was charged with selecting the book. I learned a great deal from my participation and found the experience to be immensely rewarding.
My 4-star review of Your Brain on Art on GoodReads.
A previous conversation with the authors about their book (Video).
2024/05/06 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Impact of AI on the fast-food industry: Much has been written about AI in manufacturing, healthcare, education and many other domains. The cover feature of the spring 2024 issue of IT Now focuses on AI's impact on fast food, and food tech more generally. For food preparation, AI improves uniformity and efficiency, as well as hygiene. [Right] SAGE Center talk at UCSB (see the last item below).
(2) Israel marks Holocaust Remembrance Day: Six million Jews were murdered by the Nazi regime and its allies in the Holocaust from 1933-1945.
(3) It seems that most groups opposing Iran's Islamic regime are under double-sided attacks.
From one side, the mullahs' cyber army, using fake names and profiles, spread false stories about their backgrounds and personal lives.
From the other side, foul-mouthed, misogynistic followers of Reza Pahlavi do the same, while the "Prince" (nowadays promoted to "King") tacitly endorses their words & deeds by not commenting.
Needless to say, both camps "discuss" everything but democracy.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Graduation ceremonies at many US universities cancelled or disrupted by pro-Palestine protesters.
- Teens devise a geometric proof for Pythagorean Theorem, a problem that had stumped us for centuries.
- The secret of creativity: "If you want a new idea, read an old book." ~ Ivan Pavlov
- Rousseau on money: "The money you have gives you freedom; the money you pursue enslaves you."
(5) The mathematics of knot theory and some of its applications in material science: Interestingly, the many knots that are known can be arranged into something like the Periodic Table of elements. [11-minute video]
(6) Yesterday's SAGE Center talk at UCSB: Under the title "Drunk: Intoxication, Ecstasy, and the Origins of Civilization," Edward Slingerland (UBC; author of the 2021 book Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization) talked about his book and the research that led to it.
Drawing on evidence from archaeology, history, cognitive neuroscience, psychopharmacology, social psychology, literature, and genetics, Slingerland argued that our taste for chemical intoxicants is not an evolutionary mistake, as we are so often told. In fact, intoxication helps solve a number of distinctively human challenges and played a crucial role in sparking the rise of the first large-scale societies.
2024/05/05 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Cause of Iran's ~50% inflation rate: The mullahs have printed more money in the past 2.5 years than the country had done in the previous 2.5 millennia. [Center] The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America (see the last item below). [Right] Paris Olympics: Of the 36 members of IOC's 2024 Refugee Olympic Team, 14 (~40%) hail from Iran.
(2) Jerry Seinfeld, a Jewish comedian who built his brand of comedy on an apolitical show "about nothing," is being forced to choose sides, given the Israel-Hamas conflict and protests on US college campuses.
(3) Iran offers scholarships to expelled pro-Palestine students: That's the recipe! One semester at an Iranian university will bring them back to their senses.
(4) Book review: Lewis, Hyrum and Verlan Lewis, The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America, unabridged 4-hour audiobook, read by the first author, Kalorama, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
We humans are tribal and there is no way around this evolutionary trait. Tribes do not necessarily embrace a consistent, logically-constructed set of beliefs. However, when you belong to a tribe, you tend to assume the validity of the entire belief set. Here's a useful analogy. When you go grocery-shopping, you pick items that you like; there is no rhyme or reason. Suppose the store did not allow you to pick what you want but offered you two filled carts to choose from. You would pick the cart that contains more of your favorite items. But then to turn around and claim that everything in your chosen cart is better than everything in the other cart would not be appropriate. This is unfortunately what we do when we belong to a party: We think that all policies of our tribe are better than everything of the competing tribe.
tend to think that philosophy comes first, followed by policy, and finally party. Evidence shows that it is exactly the opposite: We attach ourselves to a tribe, then discuss policies, and finally we make up a philosophical story to tie all of those incoherent policies together.
At one point in American politics, The New Deal was the single political issue, so designating its opponents as conservative/right and its proponents as liberal/left made some sense. Now, politics is multi-dimensional: There are a multitude of issues such as free trade, immigration, abortion, and so on. We should start using more precise terminology to characterize people's views on individual issues, rather than lumping all of them together. Right/Conservative and left/liberal are highly imprecise. If you want to talk about someone's views on abortion, then characterize his/her views on that one issue, rather than labeling him/her a conservative or a liberal. Unfortunately, we have come to use liberal/conservative and left/right labels as tools of slander.
2024/05/04 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Math: Prove that alpha is twice theta, find the length x, and prove that x & theta add to 45 degrees.
(2) Happy Star Wars Day: May the fourth (be with you)! To mark the nearly 50 years that have passed since the making of the original Star Wars film, US National Air and Space Museum has set up a special exhibit that includes an actual operable X-wing flyer.
(3) Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman [1934-2024] dead at 90: Kahneman, an Israeli-born psychologist, earned a 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics for his integration of psychological research into economic science.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Counter-protesters initiate violence at UCLA: Police intervenes after a few hours of unchecked clashes. [NYT]
- Disruptive protest encampment at UCSB: University administration calls for constructive dialogue.
- On kindness: "The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention." ~ Khalil Gibran
- On love: "What we've enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love becomes a part of us." ~ Helen Keller
(5) BASIC turned 60 on May 1: Intended to make computing accessible to a broader audience, Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code was popular among novice programmers. BASIC continued to evolve over the years and is still popular among retrocomputing enthusiasts. Its descendants include Microsoft's Visual Basic, Visual Basic for Applications, and Small Basic.
(6) UNC-CH students take down the American flag and raise the flag of Palestine in its place: Elsewhere, in NYC, protesters burn an American flag. Please use your reasoning ability and ask who benefits from desecrating the American flag? Donald Trump, that's who! Ditto for the perception that extremist Muslims are taking over America under the Biden administration. Fingerprints of Putin are all over these coordinated protests. His plans for Ukraine will be crushed under another Democratic administration.
(7) Three geeky events on May 17, 19 & 20, 2024: IEEE honors the 50th Anniversary of Internet TCP/IP.
- Friday, May 17, 3:00-5:00 PM PDT: Online event broadcast from SRI's PARC Campus, featuring talks by Internet pioneers Vint Cerf & Bob Metcalfe and unveiling of IEEE Milestone plaques for the Alto Personal Computer, Ethernet, and Laser Printer. The in-person event is sold out, but you can watch via livestream.
- Sunday, May 19, 12:00-2:30 PM PDT: IEEE i50—Virtual Celebration of 50 Years of the Internet, honoring the 1974 IEEE Computer Society paper on TCP by Vint Cerf & Bob Kahn. [Livestream registeration]
- Monday, May 20, 1:00-4:00 PM PDT: Dedicating three IEEE Milestones: IEEE Computer Society 1974 paper on TCP; IEEE 802 Standards Committee; Birth of Google & PageRank. [Livestream registeration]
2024/05/02 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] Florida's infamous 2000 butterfly ballots (see the next item below). [Right] Talk on Gallium-Nitride (see the last item below).
(2) Revisiting Florida's 2000 butterfly ballots: Key requirements of democratic elections include facilitating participation and making it easy to vote for one's preferred candidate on a clear, transparent ballot.
Butterfly ballots used in Palm Beach County, Florida, may have cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000. Many voters (enough to swing the election in a very close race) voted for Pat Buchanan, listed on the right-hand side of the ballot across from the second punch-hole in the middle, thinking that they were voting for Al Gore, the second name on the left-hand side.
Data shows that where butterfly ballots were used, Buchanan got a much higher share of the votes than in other Florida counties. While this isn't a proof that the confusing ballots handed Florida, and thus the national election, to George W. Bush, evidence that they did is overwhelming.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Four Iranian men are identified as having sexually assaulted and killed #NikaShakarami.
- Latinos move to the right: 39% say they'll vote Republican in 2024, compared with 29% in 2012. [NYT]
- Queer Techne: Book explores gay, queer, & feminine communities in early advances in computer science.
- Facebook memory from May 2, 2022: When my daughter relocated to San Diego with a U-Haul truck.
(4) "Interstellar" explained: I recently watched Christopher Nolan's 2014 sci-fi film "Interstellar." I particularly enjoyed the powerful film score, composed by Hans Zimmer. To augment my understanding of the film's story, I searched for and found this explanation of the film's script and its plot summary. Further investigation led me to theoretical physicist Kip Thorne's 2014 book, The Science of Interstellar, which I have started reading.
(5) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Elaheh Ahmadi (UCLA ECE Dept.) spoke under the title "Thank God for GaN (Gallium Nitride)." Before the main talk, Mitra Zaimi made a brief presentation on the occasion of Persian Gulf Day, which included screening of a video.
Dr. Ahmadi began with a review of the importance of semiconductors in our daily lives and how abundance and ease of manufacturing have led to silicon becoming the dominant choice. She then outlined certain desirable properties of GaN, which gained notoriety through enabling the production of blue LEDs and the ensuing revolution in energy-efficient lighting, support higher performance as well as reduced size & weight for electronic circuits. While GaN has the drawbacks of much higher cost and more-difficult manufacturing compared with silicon, Dr. Ahmadi cited a growing number of applications, notably in power conversion and RF domains, that use it to advantage.
This EPC Web page presents a summary of GaN benefits and has several videos linked at the end, including applications to motor drive, industrial drones, and DC-DC conversion in data centers.
2024/04/30 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Four members of Iran's security forces are identified as having sexually assaulted and killed the young protester #NikaShakarami. [Center] How adding a 1 to the denominator significantly complicates the integration process and changes the answer. [Right] Voting is way more effective for solving our problems than thoughts and prayers!
(2) We have the first AI commencement speaker: D'Youville University in upstate New York thought its selection would be fun and relevant in an age of AI. Not everyone agreed.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- UCLA student is blocked from entering a campus area by pro-HAMAS demonstrators. [Tweet, with video]
- Mohammad Fazeli's 17-minute TEDx talk (in Persian): Policymaking requires inter-agency cooperation.
- Kurdish music: Sung in the dialect spoken in Kermanshah and Ilam. [Tweet, with video]
- Quotable: "What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other." ~ George Eliot
(4) Facebook memory from Apr. 30, 2014: "We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people." ~ John F. Kennedy [Of equal significance to Islamic Iran and Evangelical America]
(5) Facebook memory from Apr. 30, 2018: Republicans study and pass bills like the rest of us read and accept updated terms and conditions on iTunes. ~ Comedian Seth Myers, speaking at an Obama-era White House Correspondents Dinner
(6) Facebook memory from Apr. 30, 2018: Let me share my reply to a comment on a Facebook post of mine, which many of you will not see otherwise. The commenter essentially claims that all accusers of Bill Cosby were asking for what happened to them, because, like Playboy Bunnies, they use powerful men to get ahead.
"You have really revealed your misogyny in your last comment. Equating half the population of the world with (at most) a few hundred women you encountered while working at the Playboy Mansion shows that you are the one-dimensional person in this discussion. #MeToo isn't just about Playboy Bunnies or even those in the entertainment business. Looking one layer deeper, which is impossible in your one-dimensional universe in which laws are devised based only on personal experiences, one notes that many women are placed in a position to beg for privileges by powerful men who have decided they own and can dole out those privileges. It's ironic that you expect discretion, good judgment, and morality from young women, but not from powerful older men who take advantage of them."
2024/04/28 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] My keynote talk (see the next item below). [Top center] Gross, but interesting, fact: All of the world's humans mushed together into a 1-km-diameter ball and placed on NYC's Central Park. [Top right] Street art in Tehran's Ekbatan neighborhood, depicting the brutality of security forces against women. [Bottom left & center] Iranian Garden in Vanak Villge, Tehran (see the last item below). [Bottom right] Over the years, many of the hardliners of Iran's Islamic regime have fled to the West, overtly or covertly: Campaigns are underway to identify and expel these undesirable elements, some of whom have attained positions of influence in academia and elsewhere. The flight of hardliners from Iran will accelerate as the mullahs' regime continues to crumble.
(2) My forthcoming keynote talk: Entitled "Fixed-Degree and Constant-Diameter Interconnection Networks for Parallel Supercomputing," the English-language keynote will be delivered virtually at the Third International Conference on Distributed Computing and High-Performance Computing, to be held in Tehran on May 14-15, 2024. My talk will be on Tuesday, May 14, 9:45 AM Tehran time (Monday, May 13, 11:15 PM PDT). Attendance is free for those who pre-register.
(3) The 3x + 1 problem, aka Collatz's Conjecture, revisited: An easily-understood and innocent-looking problem that has defied solution after many decades. [13-minute video]
(4) The Chinese government is outraged over Netflix adapting Cixin Liu's novel, Three-Body Problem.
(5) "A Brief History of the Future": Six-part PBS docuseries, hosted by futurist Ari Wallach. I watched the first two episodes last night. It is full of interesting facts, but rather underwhelming in presentation and editing.
(6) Acclaimed soprano Renee Fleming talks about her new edited collection, Music and Mind, containing essays from leading scientists, artists, and health care providers on the powerful impact that music and the arts can have on our health.
(7) Tao Te Ching: "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."
This quote is often used to imply that the teacher is sent by God or other supernatural forces. I believe in it from a different perspective: Unless you are ready to learn, you won't be teachable.
(8) Vanak Village Iranian Gardens: My family used to live in Vanak, Tehran, adjacent to what later became Al-Zahra U., for many years. So, I was excited to learn about a relatively new large public park in the area that is registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Carved out from properties formerly owned by the Mostowfi ol-Mamalek family, the park is famous for its flowers (tulips in particular), fountains, and super-tall trees.
2024/04/27 (Saturday): Here is my report on the 2024 Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival.
(1) Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival: Held today & tomorrow at Alameda Park, the festival focuses on various ways of taking care of the environment, including green energy, clean transportation, and more. Many of the attendees came on bikes.
(2) Alameda Park, home of the SB Earth Day Festival, has an elaborate children's playground. And the festival includes many activities for children.
(3) Bikes and e-bikes were big at today’s SB Earth Day Festival: I was particularly impressed with an e-bike that had a big basket to seat two small children and also hold some cargo.
(4) Many models of electric, hybrid, and pluggable-hybrid cars were on display at today's SB Earth Day Festival: I was particularly impressed with the American-made Lucid, which boasts a range of 500+ miles.
(5) As usual, the food court was a popular feature of SB Earth Day Festival: The food was as always over-priced, so I decided to skip eating there.
(6) Other sights at today's SB Earth Day Festival included an inviting coffee cart, a music stage with continuous programming, a demo of induction cooking, and a gadget that protects cars from rodent infestation.
(7) Not included in the six photo collections above, described from top-left to bottom-right, are a large number of displays & booths representing city departments, our elected representatives, businesses catering to Earth Day themes (including organic growers), and artists displaying their work.
2024/04/26 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] On dependable computing (see the next item below). [Center] Talk on converting sewage to potable water (see the last item below). [Right] On software bloat (see item 3 below).
(2) IEEE Computer magazine, issue of April 2024: "With the increased complexity of software systems, dependable, reliable, and trustworthy computing is of paramount importance. Of these qualities, dependability is of particular interest in mission critical systems, where failure can lead to loss of human life. The technology used to build such systems must meet the expectations of its stakeholders' and regulatory requirements." [From Guest Editors' introduction to the special issue]
(3) Bloat is software's greatest vulnerability: Nicholas Wirth's1995 Oberon operating system, which included an editor and a compiler, had a total size of 200 KB. Many of today's operating systems use 200+ KB for their configuration files alone. Bloated software isn't only less efficient, but also significantly more vulnerable to interaction failures and malicious hacks.
(4) Last night's Talangor Group talk: Hamid Shirazi (sociopolitical activist) spoke under the title "Transforming Wastewater into Drinking Water." Before the main talk, the life & work of the great Persian poet Sa'adi was celebrated and Mohsen Mahimani made a short presentation on "The Latest Developments of the Gemini Chatbot." There were ~70 attendees.
Two of the most-important requirements of public health are the availability of safe drinking water and proper disposal of sewage (human waste). Nearly 1/3 of the world's population does not have access to modern, hygienic toilets. Proper sewage disposal is available to an even smaller group.
Wastewater is 99.9% water. The remaining tiny amount is composed of a wide variety of chemicals and organisms. Beyond being an important resource, especially in drier regions, the monitoring of wastewater is a valuable public-health tool (e.g., in COVID detection).
With shortage of drinking water intensifying worldwide, various conversion schemes have been proposed or are being used to generate new sources. The best-known among them is saltwater conversion, which works well for communities with an adjoining sea/ocean. The desalination technology is fairly mature, but it is energy-intensive and has thus seen limited use.
Wastewater conversion is one of the newer methods, which is more efficient. In my community of Santa Barbara, this is done, but the output is intended only for irrigation, as it does not meet the standards of drinking water. Our city has two systems for water distribution, one for potable and another one for reclaimed water. A more elaborate, and thus more expensive, process, involving additional steps, is needed to derive drinking water from wastewater.
Mr. Shirazi outlined the cleanliness standards and provided examples of various approaches being used for producing clean water from sewage. He also showed multiple short videos on the conversion process and the design of industrial plants doing the conversion. Singapore was mentioned as a country that is quite advanced in this regard.
A related discussion is the future of water resources in the world (given that they are not distributed uniformly) and possible armed conflicts over these resources, the way world countries have fought over oil for decades.
2024/04/24 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Doomsday predictions (see the last item below). [Top center] My daughter displayed her artistic chops at this afternoon's Isla Vista Farmers Market: I visited her stand briefly between a class and other commitments. [Top right] Math puzzle: Two congruent rectangles are shown inside a square. What is the leaning angle? [Bottom left & center] Iranian mullahs are frustrated in the war against Israel, so they take revenge against Iranians by unleashing hijab enforcement goons on the streets and arresting artists/celebrities who dare to speak up. Popular rapper #ToomajSalehi has just been sentenced to death for his anti-regime stance and critical song lyrics. A #SaveToomaj campaign is spreading worldwide. [Bottom right]
(2) National Air & Space Museum's lectures on samples-return missions: Today's talk on the Stardust Discovery Mission (samples return from Comet Wild-2) was the second of four lectures, the previous one having been about samples return from the Moon and forthcoming ones discussing OSIRIS-Rex (samples from asteroid Bennu) and bringing back Mars samples. Fascinating talks!
(3) Women's rights take another step back: First it was the overturning of Roe-v-Wade by the US Supreme Court, severely curtailing women's reproductive rights. Now comes the overturning of the foundational sex-crimes conviction of the #MeToo era, that of Harvey Weinstein, by NY Court of Appeals.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Evidence that the Chinese government controls TikTok content (Tweet, with NYT chart).
- Ukrainian resilience: Kharkiv schools have been moved underground, inside subway tunnels.
- The mullah's security forces rape & torture detainees, specifically targeting ethnic & other minorities.
- Michigan Publishing Services offers an expanding collection of free textbooks in electrical engineering.
- Persian music: An oldie song played on the tar.
- Barbra Streisand sings "Love Will Survive," a song from "The Tattooist of Auschwitz."
(5) British soccer teams are playing a few pre-season games on the US West Coast: One on the chosen venues for their "Wrex Coast Tour" is UCSB's Harder Stadium on July 20. [Poster]
(6) "Ey Zan" ("Oh Woman"): An awe-inspiring tribute to the strength and grace of women around the globe. This breathtaking collaboration features the captivating voices of Maliheh Moradi and Mina Deris, who lend their remarkable talent to this powerful ode to womanhood. [5-minute video]
(7) Doomsday countdowns in Iran and Israel: Several years ago, Iran installed timers in many major cities to count down to the destruction of Israel. I believe that these timers will expire in ~16 years. Israel is more aggressive, installing billboards that declare the demise of the Islamic Republic of Iran on Cyrus the Great Day, October 28, 2028 (about 4.5 years from today).
2024/04/23 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Talk on the Periodic Table (see the next item below). [Center] Iranian mullahs are using the fog of war to step up their assault on women: Morality police and "hijab enforcers" are back on the streets in full force, acting more violently than ever before. [Right] Michio Kaku's Quantum Supremacy (see the last item below).
(2) Birth of the Universe and the Periodic Table: This was the title of today's Zoom talk by Mitra Zaimi (chemical engineer, computer scientist), under the auspices of Persian Cultural Center of Atlanta. There were ~50 attendees.
In the beginning, after the Big Bang, there was only hydrogen, the lightest element, with one proton and one electron. A bit later, helium was formed from two hydrogen atoms through a process that is responsible for most of a star's energy. Heavier elements, up to iron, gradually emerged with help from heat and gravity. Elements heavier than iron can be formed only by a process called neutron capture, where neutrons penetrate an atomic nucleus.
The Periodic Table of elements, usually credited to Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev who in 1869 formulated the periodic law relating chemical properties to atomic mass, is a marvel that includes all elements that appear in the universe or that can be created in the lab. No element not appearing in the table can exist. Not all elements in the table were known at Mendeleev's time, but he correctly predicted many of them based on the periodic rules that he discovered.
This interactive version of the Periodic Table allows you to explore the elements & their properties.
(3) Book review: Kaku, Michio, Quantum Supremacy: How the Quantum Computer Revolution Will Change Everything, unabridged 11-hour audiobook, read by Feodor Chin, Random House Audio, 2023.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku presents a history of quantum computing and discusses its potential applications in terms understandable to non-physicists. The computing discipline's love affair with digital integrated circuits may have come to an end, as their underlying technology can no longer keep pace with the rising demand for computational power, so we have been looking to other technologies to bridge the gap between available and desired capabilities. Quantum computing, with its unfulfilled promises, is one such technology, which continues to produce hype but little in way of concrete results in practically-relevant application domains.
Quantum supremacy refers to experimental demonstration of a quantum computer performing calculations that are beyond the capabilities of classical computers. It may happen one day, but neither Google's nor IBM's claims of having accomplished this feat have passed muster. Kaku repeats much of the hype.
One area in which Kaku paints a particularly rosy picture is that of finding cures for diseases through computational methods. Nearly everyone is aware of the role of viruses and bacteria in human diseases. Another important cause of diseases, that is, misfolded proteins or prions, is not as widely known. Prions cause damage to healthy proteins, thereby propagating the disease within the body. Studying of the various ways in which proteins fold and misfold requires a great deal of computational power that is beyond what classical computers can offer. Prion-caused dementia and other terminal neurodegenerative diseases can benefit potentially benefit from computational attacks enabled by quantum computing.
Kaku's discussion of quantum supremacy isn't for the layperson. It is potentially useful to computing professionals, but many such professionals may resent the lack of details, much redundancy, and excessive hand-waving.
2024/04/22 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Happy Passover to all my Jewish readers! With sincere hope for peace and understanding throughout our fragile world. [Center] Happy Earth Day! Santa Barbarans will be celebrating Mother Earth this coming weekend at Alameda Park. [Right] ChatGPT for Dummies (see the last item below).
(2) A scorching summer: NOAA projects that 2024 will rank among the 10 warmest years on record and gives it a 55% chance of topping 2023 as the warmest year ever.
(3) Book review: Baker, Pam, ChatGPT for Dummies, unabridged 5-hour audiobook, read by Angela Juarez, Tantor Audio, 2023. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This is the first "for dummies" title that I have pursued for my own benefit, rather than to assess and introduce such a book to novices. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised with the depth and breadth of the book. As a Distinguished Professor, I thought I wouldn't be caught dead learning something from a "for dummies" book, but I did learn a lot from Pam Baker's systematic and comprehensive treatment. The book allowed me to sort out and systematize what I had previously learned about ChatGPT from a multitude of articles/videos/talks.
This clear, engaging, and approachable book demystifies the world of conversational AI and introduces readers to the power of ChatGPT, using clear explanations, practical examples, and step-by-step instructions. This book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in exploring the possibilities of conversational AI.
Following is a list of chapters and their very brief summaries in terms of basics, the ethics of using AI-generated content, the potential for bias & misinformation in AI-generated content, and guidelines for using AI responsibly. The book concludes with a chapter on the future of AI. We learn that some disruption is inevitable, but the rewards under proper care and responsible use are monumental.
- Introducing ChatGPT: It's not just another conversational AI tool but the field's gold standard
- Understanding Conversational AI: Insights into NLP, ML, and components of a chatbot system
- Getting Started: From setting up the development environment to accessing the necessary tools & resources
- Designing Conversations: Principles and best practices for creating engaging and effective conversations
- Training Your Chatbot: Data collection & preprocessing steps, and techniques for fine-tuning and optimizing
- Evaluating and Improving Chatbot Performance: Metrics for assessing conversational quality and strategies for enhancing the chatbot’s responses & user experience.
- Deploying Your Chatbot: Hosting options, integration with messaging platforms, and considerations for scaling and maintaining the chatbot's availability.
- Advanced Techniques and Applications: Multilingual support, persona-based conversations, and integrating external APIs to enhance the chatbot’s capabilities.
- Conclusion: A summary of key learnings and the potential of ChatGPT in revolutionizing conversational AI.
I highly recommend this book to novices and experts alike.
2024/04/21 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] World Central Kitchen (see the next item below). [Center & Right] History repeats itself: The Nazis preventing Jews from entering Vienna University in 1939 and Palestine supporters at Columbia University denying access to Jewish students in 2024.
(2) Documentary film screening at Arlington Theater: Oscar-winning director Ron Howard's 2022 "We Feed People" spotlights renowned chef Jose Andres and his nonprofit World Central Kitchen's incredible mission and evolution over a dozen years, from being a scrappy group of grassroots volunteers to becoming one of the most highly regarded humanitarian aid organizations in the disaster relief sector. The film screening was sponsored by UCSB's Arts and Lectures Program.
(3) Know HAMAS, the entity being praised by many student protesters in the US: [It puzzles me that quite a few Iranians, having witnessed the destruction of Iran and its culture by an Islamic regime, want the same for Palestinians.]
The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS), a comprehensive manifesto comprised of 36 separate articles, all of which promote the goal of destroying the State of Israel through Jihad, was issued on August 18, 1988. Excerpts follow.
Goals of HAMAS: "The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished Palestinian movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine." (Article 6)
The exclusive Muslim nature of the area: "The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Holy Possession] consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgment Day. No one can renounce it or any part, or abandon it or any part of it." (Article 11) "Palestine is an Islamic land, ... the Liberation of Palestine is an individual duty for every Muslim wherever he may be." (Article 13)
The call to jihad: "The day the enemies usurp part of Muslim land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim. In the face of the Jews' usurpation, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised." (Article 15)
Rejection of a negotiated peace settlement: "[Peace] initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement ... Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the infidels as arbitrators in the lands of Islam ... There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility." (Article 13)
Anti-Semitic incitement: "The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him." (Article 7)
2024/04/19 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Family cars, over the years (see the next item below). [Center] The lying mullahs: In the aftermath of the 1979 revolution, Iranian women were promised repeatedly that hijab will not become mandatory and that anyone bothering hijabless women on the streets will be punished. [Right] Iran claims that Israel hit it with micro-drones "of the kind we give to our children as toys": They seem to be preparing the public for no response to the Israeli attack. Semi-official reports indicate the use of three large, radar-evading, guided missiles.
(2) Station-wagons vs. SUVs: Some seven decades ago, car manufacturers began catering to the needs of multi-kid families by introducing station-wagons with humongous trunks. With the safety culture of those days, several kids would fit in the trunk. These beautiful and graceful cars were later replaced with minivans, which were safer and could carry extra passengers instead of lots of cargo. Nowadays. Families gravitate toward SUVs, which are much safer (say, in rollovers) but not as roomy. In fact, some SUVs have less interior space than standard sedans.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Colorado enacts a first-of-its-kind privacy law that bans the sale of human brain waves.
- Paris Olympics organizers are preparing for what they deem near-certain cyberattacks this summer.
- The solution to homelessness isn't more court cases: It is more affordable housing.
- Anne Lamott reflects on turning 70.
- Kurdish music: Russian star Zara performs with a dance troupe. [4-minute video]
- My family's early-birthday celebration. [Video of persian piano music, played by my niece]
(4) France's love-hate relationship with science: Last December, France's president made an impassioned plea for supporting research and a major reorganization of the nation's research structure. But only 2 months later, worrisome deficits led to a 10-billion-euro cut in the French budget, including a disproportionate 0.9-billion-euro reduction in allocations to research & higher education. [From a Science magazine editorial, April 19, 2024]
(5) Murderous mullahs: Federal Criminal Court of Argentina has confirmed that both the 1992 attack on the Israeli Embassy and the 1994 AMIA bombing were carried out by Iran-backed groups.
2024/04/18 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] UCSB Summit on AI and Human Creativity (see the last item below). [Center] Shalhoob's opens on Hollister Ave., between Goleta and Santa Barbara, in the location of the former Woody's BBQ, which closed 3 years ago. [Right] Math puzzle: Find the length x in the following diagram.
(2) CNN is reporting a major explosion in Esfahan, believed to have been caused by a ballistic missile. All flights in and out of Tehran, Esfahan, and Shiraz have been cancelled.
(3) Mellichamp Initiative in Mind & Machine Intelligence Summit: AI and Human Creativity (April 18-19, 2024, UCSB Henley Hall): As AI's capabilities to create visual art, music, stories, and videos improve exponentially, we are filled with questions about how AI-generated creativity differs from the human creative process. Where does generative AI fall below humans and where does it exceed human abilities? How can AI be used to potentiate human creativity? Will the massification of generative AI stiffen human creativity? What is the future role of the artist with the proliferation of generative AI? What are the legal framework and challenges in protecting artists' copyrights? This summit tackles the questions above to promote understanding and chart a future course of action.
[Full Summit Program]
What I learned early on: The word "technology" comes from two Greek words, transliterated "techne" and "logos." Techne means art, skill, craft, or the way, manner, or means by which a thing is gained. Logos means word, the utterance by which inward thought is expressed. So, in a way, art is already part of technology.
Second talk: Jennifer Walshe (U. Oxford) made a virtual presentation on her book, 13 Ways of Looking at AI, Art, and Music. "AI is not a singular phenomenon. It is many different things to many different people, a planetary-scale project which manifests for each of us locally in the same way that the climate makes a part of itself known to us through the weather on our street. If we are going to try and think seriously about AI, we need to think on the scale of AI. We need to think like the networks do – in higher dimensions, from multiple positions." [Full text]
Fourth talk: Daphne Ippolito (Carnegie Mellon U.) spoke under the title "Creative Writing with an AI-Powered Writing Assistant: Perspectives from Professional Writers." She described the AI-powered Wordcraft writing assistant and how professional writers reacted to it in the course of a months-long study.
Keynote talk: Ahmad Elgammal spoke under the title "Art in the Age of AI." He traced brief histories of computer-generated and computer-assisted art, outlined ongoing work at Rutgers University's Art & AI Lab, and touched upon unresolved legal issues pertaining to AI-generated art. At the end, a short video about how Beethoven's unfinished 10th Symphony was completed with help from AI was screened.
Final talk (Friday): Pamela Samuelson (UC Berkeley) spoke on "How Copyright Law Conceptualizes Creatuve Expression."
Many attempts at copyrighting AI-generated art have been unsuccessful, because the norm for copyright is substantial involvement of a human (simply issuing a prompt does not constitute substantial involvement). The current policy has precedents that go back to the 1980s, when copyrightability of computer-generated work was hotly debated. For example, machine-generated colorized versions of black-and-white films have been deemed uncopyrightable. On the other hand, current copyright law allows an employer to copyright the work of an employee, which leads some to question why AI isn't viewed as an underling.
2024/04/17 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Talk about Persian rugs (see the next item below). [Top center] Where is this place where elephants drive? [Top right] IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk (see the last item below). [Bottom left & center] Trump's Bible and Disney's production of "The Lyin King." [Bottom right] Surprise, surprise! We have a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
(2) Today's Haji Baba Club talk: Sophia Sacal (freelancer at Christie's) spoke under the title "The (Epistemological) Warp and Weft of Persian Rugs: How Knowledge is Produced in Western Art History." How do we know what we know about Persian rugs? Knowledge is often produced through and from a Western perspective, leading to what decolonial theorist Ambar Quijano calls "the coloniality of power and knowledge." A revision of art historical sources, such as travelers' journals and connoisseurs' catalogs, will reveal how the Persian rugs' epistemological warp and weft (or the way in which we know what we know) has not been articulated from within, but rather from the outside. We often see photos of Persian rugs with unnamed and unacknowledged women/girls in the frame, as if all Iranian women & girls are interchangeable, whereas other art forms are identified with the artists' names. This calls for decolonialization of knowledge about Persian rugs.
(3) PEN America: In the first half of the 2023-2024 school year, there were more than 4300 book bans across the country — a number that surpassed the entire previous academic year.
(4) Israel's options against Iran: Many analysts advise Israel to "take the win" (its defenses held and there was no loss of life) and remain calm. Others point to significant economic harm due to disruption of activities, flight cancellations, and even GPS malfunctions. Ignoring the attack will embolden Iran and other adversaries, who may think hitting sparsely-populated areas will bring them symbolic victories with no down side.
(5) A piece of the International Space Station crashed through the roof of a house in Florida: This is highly unusual, because such pieces usually burn and vaporize as they re-enter Earth's atmosphere.
(6) Today's IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk: Dr. Ben Mazin (UCSB Physics Dept.) spoke under the title "Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors for Exoplanet Detection and Biophysics."
MKIDs, a fairly mature 20-year-old technology, are superconducting detectors useful across the electromagnetic spectrum and have even been used in particle and other sensing modalities. Their primary advantage over other low-temperature detectors is their inherent frequency-domain multiplexability at GHz frequencies. Room-temperature readouts leveraging commercial software-defined radio components allow researchers to build reasonably affordable and compact systems with tens of thousands of pixels. The talk contained operational principles of MKIDs, a review of their development focusing on the exciting work of the past decade, and a preview of what we can expect in the coming years.
2024/04/15 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Floating settlements are being tried as a potential solution to sea-level rise in vulnerable countries (source: E&T magazine, March-April 2024). [Top center] With college buddies, Faramarz and Farid, celebrating 60 years of friendship (Westwood Village, Los Angeles). [Top right] Falling oil prices seem to have delayed the completion of the Persian Gulf coast railway project (green line on the map) connecting all six Gulf Cooperation Council member states (source: E&T magazine, March-April 2024). [Bottom left] Math challenge: In this infinite tiling pattern, what fraction of the tiles are black? [Bottom center] Visual challenge: Do you see anything and if so, what? [Bottom right] Completed in 1624 in the wake of a newfound Anglo-Scottish unity, the Berwick Old Stone Bridge turns 400 this year (source: E&T magazine, March-April 2024).
(2) Misinformation and disinformation are major problems in this year of global elections, when half of the world's population have a chance to vote. [Source: E&T magazine, March-April 2024]
(3) The Iranian people are abandoned: The mullahs know full well that a retaliatory attack by Israel is likely. Yet they have not informed the public about the risks, nor have they issued directives on how to act in the event of an attack.
(4) In his new memoir, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, Salman Rushdie writes about the 2022 attack that blinded him in one eye and his wife's support through his recovery.
(5) Climate change in action: Northern Kenya is cattle country, but herders in that region are switching from cows to camels to deal with rising temperatures and erratic rainfall.
(6) The standard Rubik's Cube is 3 x 3 x 3: I had seen larger cubes, such as 4 x 4 x 4 and 8 x 8 x 8, but this 22 x 22 x 22 puzzle is the largest ever built. Its movement mechanism is mind-boggling! [Video]
2024/04/13 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Yesterday's UCSB ECE Summit 2024 at the Loma Pelona Center on campus: In addition to faculty talks and student presentations, there was a guest faculty keynote (Rama Chellappa, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, Johns Hopkins U.) and an industry keynote (Marco Zuliani, Apple Computer's System Intelligence and Machine Learning Sr. Director). [Top center] Here is a Web site that generates Nastaliq script for Persian texts supplied by the user: Other scripts offered by the site, which I mentioned during my Talangor talk on Thursday 4/11, include Shekasteh, Moal'la, and Kufi. [Top right] Iran launches a massive air attack on Israel: The skies between the two countries are virtually devoid of air traffic. My heart goes out to Iranians and Israelis, who are caught between two war-mongering madmen. [Bottom left] Snacks I prepared this morning in anticipation of a rainy day indoors: Now, I am glued to the TV, following breaking news. [Bottom center] Santa Barbara's majestic Granada Theater turns 100. [Bottom right] Facebook memories from Apr. 13 of years past: Quotes and memes.
(2) Avi Wigderson, Herbert H. Maass Professor in the School of Mathematics at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, has been named ACM's Turing Award winner for 2023: He has been a leading figure in computational complexity, algorithms & optimization, randomness & cryptography, parallel & distributed computation, combinatorics, and graph theory.
(3) Canadian-American journalist Robert McNeil [1931-2024] dead at 93: He was a beloved and trusted newsman, who co-anchored the PBS NewsHour for many years. RIP.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Physicist Peter Higgs [1929-2024], of the Higgs boson fame, dead at 94. RIP.
- Nobel Laureate women, 1903-2023. [Slide show]
- Iran's state media use images of Texas fires to claim that missiles hit and destroyed Israeli targets.
- Persian music: Paying tribute to the late singer Viguen with a 7-minute medley of his most-famous songs.
(5) A sample of salaries and prices in Iran, one year before the 1979 Revolution: Teacher's monthly salary, 3500 tomans (~$500); Chelow-kabob, 7 tomans (~$1); Barbari bread 1 toman (~$0.14). [Detailed list]
(6) Only 60% of US students who enrolled in college earned a degree or credential within 8 years of high-school graduation: Of the ~23.000 ninth-graders tracked since 2009, ~74% had enrolled in college at some point, by the time the study concluded in 2021, a drop of ~10% compared with the study's previous iteration.
2024/04/11 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] A beautiful spring day, captured in flowers along my walking path in a neighborhood adjoining Foothill Road. [Top center] As Facebook turns 20, social apps are losing their appeal: Can we do anything to prevent their demise? [Top right] Lucy's world: Fifty years after her discovery, the 3.2M-year-old fossil still reigns as mother of us all. But she now has rivals. [Bottom left] The Mid-Atlantic Ridge: Extending from the Arctic to the tropics, the spectacular underwater mountain range, stretching over 10,000 miles, reaches above sea level in Iceland, creating an impressive landscape of volcanoes, geothermal springs, and geysers. [Bottom center] Tonight's Talangor Group tech talk (see the last item below). [Bottom right] Funeral procession in Tehran for the seven Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps generals killed in Syria.
(2) Women's soccer: In the championship match of SheBelieves Cup, USA prevailed over Canada (just barely). Canada took a first-half lead. In the second half, the US came from behind to take a 2-1 lead, before conceding a penalty kick that tied the score after 90 minutes. The US won the penalty shootout 5-4. [Highlights]
(3) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Yours truly gave a talk entitled "A Historical Review of Computer-Generated Persian Script." I also gave a brief presentation about the Feb. 16, 2024, opening of Iran Computer Museum, which included the screening of this 13-minute video. A large team of young Iranians were involved in launching the small-scale museum, taking advantage of the extensive collection of systems & gadgets donated by Nasser Ali Saadat and financial help from Hessam Armandehi. The museum has both physical and virtual exhibits, as well as an oral-history collection.
A few years ago, I decided to sit down and document the development of the Persian script in connection with modern technology. The Persian script underwent significant changes with the advent of printing press, typewriters, and computers. I was involved at Tehran's Arya-Mehr/Sharif University of Technology in several early projects on computer-generated Persian script, an effort that went through multiple generations of printing technology, from drum and chain printers through the eventual dominance of dot-matrix technology. My historical reflection resulted in two journal papers, one in Persian and another in English, whose citations and PDF links appear below.
B. Parhami, "Computers and Writing in Persian: A Review of Challenges and Solutions" (in Persian), Iran Namag, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 3-32, Summer 2019 (1398).
[PDF]
B. Parhami, "Computers and Challenges of Writing in Persian: Explorations at the Intersection of Culture and Technology," Visible Language, Vol. 54, Nos. 1-2, pp. 186-223, April 2020.
[PDF]
In the talk, I outlined certain characteristics of the Persian script that made it difficult for early computer printers to produce high-quality Persian output. A number of band-aid solutions were proposed to adapt printers designed and optimized for the Latin script to the needs of Persian script. Later, dot-matrix printers and displays made the adaptation simpler, although several challenges still remained.
Today, we have Persian print and display outputs of reasonable quality, but text-processing algorithms, particularly if we mix Latin and Persian scripts, still leave us scratching our heads when we encounter silly line-break and formatting errors. [Recording of the talk]
2024/04/08 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Today's solar eclipse across the US: I was walking from home to my class on campus, 11:00-11:50 AM, which included the peak eclipse time of 11:11. I stopped from time to time and put my viewing glasses on to look at the Sun. Only nerds get excited about a partial solar eclipse! Everyone around me went about their business, as if nothing was happening. We Californians will have to wait until 2045 to get a better deal.
(2) Is every number special? Some believe so. Consider the seemingly drab number 1729. Indian mathematician Ramanujan is credited with noticing that it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two perfect cubes in two different ways:
1729 = 9^3 + 10^3 = 1^3 + 12^3
(3) US insurance companies take drone images of homes, which can result in policyholders being dropped for signs of roof damage, yard debris, overhanging tree branches, and undeclared swimming pools or trampolines.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Putin's mines have been maiming and killing Ukrainian civilians since Russia's invasion began.
- The constant 6174 is named after Indian mathematician D. R. Kaperkar.
- Rail transportation in Bangladesh: Efficiency, yes; Safety, no. [Video]
- When your foreign-born child makes fun of and corrects your immigrant English!
(5) An essay on understanding others' feelings: It examines empathy, including what it is, whether our doctors need more of it, and when too much may not be a good thing.
(6) Open-access journals aren't working as we hoped they would: In retrospect, it should have been obvious that a pay-in-advance publication strategy would motivate publishers to accept much junk science and to underinvest in systems to ensure the long-term availability of the published works. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will require grantees to post as preprints all manuscripts that result from research it funds. It will also stop paying for researchers to publish their papers in journals that charge a fee to make papers free. According to the Foundation, the mandate is needed to accelerate the dissemination of research findings and because too many authors cannot afford publishing fees.
2024/04/07 (Sunday): Today, I offer a course review on human prehistory and two science book reviews.
(1) Course review: Fagan, Brian M., Human Prehistory and the First Civilizations, 36 half-hour lectures in the "Great Courses" series, 2013.
[My 4-star review of this course on GoodReads]
Brian M. Fagan [1936-], Professor of Anthropology at UCSB, has authored two widely-used textbooks: People of the Earth and In the Beginning. His other works include The Rape of the Nile, The Adventure of Archaeology, Time Detectives, and The Little Ice Age. He also edited The Oxford Companion to Archaeology.
At first impression, "human prehistory," defined as the story of human development before the advent of writing, might seem an oxymoron. While it is very difficult to deduce what went on before humans began recording events in writing, there is ample evidence that archaeologists can draw upon to make informed guesses. The fossil record is of course a big help.
In this course, we hear about the footprints of a pair of hominins who walked across a dry riverbed covered with volcanic ash, which preserved the footprints for modern scientists to examine. The footprints tell us not only about the foot size of the species, but also the gait and speed of movement of our ancestors some 4 million years ago, as they strived to adapt to life outside thick forests (change of diet, need for faster movement to hunt or to evade predators). It takes a lot of detective work to extract detailed info from a small collection of evidential material and it takes the skills of a persistent detective to put the puzzle pieces together, but it definitely qualifies as legitimate science.
The first ten lectures of this fascinating course deal with the origins and development of modern humans. The remaining 26 lectures introduce the development of agriculture & states, interaction of societies, and many of the most-significant early civilizations on all continents.
On this Web page, you can find a detailed description of the course, including the titles of the 36 lectures. A short abstract of each lecture is available by clicking on its title.
(2) Book review: Adee, Sally, We Are Electric: Inside the 200-Year Hunt for Our Body's Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by the author, Hachette Audio, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Biological terms ending with "-ome" imply a totality: genome, biome, proteome. The subject of this book is electome, that is, the head-to-toe bioelectric signaling system of your body and its 40 trillion cells. The shocking story (pun intended) of bioelectricity, from the 18th century lab of Luigi Galvani, an Italian scientist hunting for what gives animals the spark of life, to DARPA's secretive use of brain zapping to speed up soldiers' sniper training.
Science writer Adee opens the book with a gripping story of her transformation into a stone-cold sharpshooter who eliminated a large number of simulated enemy actors in a desert battle simulation. All it took was a 9-volt battery and a little brain-zapping.
She then takes us on a grand tour of the various ways in which our bodies use electricity to orchestrate our lives. She describes how cells use ion channels to usher charged molecules in and out. And she touches upon new applications that include military training, as described above, and medicine, including cancer treatment, implants, and bioelectric bandages that speed wound-healing.
(3) Book review: Perkowitz, Sidney, Physics: A Very Short Introduction, unabridged 5-hour audiobook, read by Jason Martin, Tantor Audio, 2023. [My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Physics is one of broadest areas of science, so an overview provided in a 140-page pocket-size book is by necessity quite limited. Perkowitz organizes his material into 6 chapters of 20 or so pages each, followed by references and further reading/viewing.
- It all began with the Greeks
- What physics covers and what it doesn't
- How physics works
- Physics applied and extended
- A force in society
- Future Physics: Unanswered questions
It is very helpful to look at a discipline from a big-picture perspective. Questions such as what physicists do, is experimental confirmation really necessary or optional (as today's string-theorists assert), how are small & big physics projects funded, why is physics so popular with government and research-funding agencies, why there aren't more women physicists, why the shift from single-author papers of decades ago to today's norm of dozens or even hundreds of authors, and international collaboration & competition.
2024/04/06 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Today's family outing in Santa Barbara (Reunion Kitchen at the East Beach and the famous Chromatic Gate on Cabrillo Blvd.). [Center] Iranian women's-rights activist Sepideh Qolyian, 32, wrote her second book in prison: The book, a strange combination of prison memoir and baking recipes, is a masterpiece that takes you to the darkest corners of Iranian jails and, at the same time, elevates your spirit by introducing you to incredible women who dance, sing, bake, and act inside prison to defy their tormenters (reported by IranWire). [Right] Dozens of US bridges lack protections against being hit by wayward ships.
(2) A 4.8 earthquake shook New York City and surrounding areas Friday morning: Earthquakes are rare in NYC, with the largest one recorded being a magnitude-5.2 shaker in 1884.
(3) Note ending an e-mail message from a UCSB student: "I really enjoyed ECE 1B with you my freshman year during COVID. I met people working on those puzzles that I've worked with for the rest of school. Thank you."
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The 39th straight month of job growth in the US raises hope that inflation is coming under control. [Chart]
- Dream discovery: A highly concentrated deposit of helium is discovered in northern Minnesota.
- Tuition at some private US colleges is approaching ~$100K per year.
- A Brief History of the Future: Six-part PBS documentary, created by futurist Ari Wallach.
- Islamic Republic's authorities executed 853+ people in 2023, the highest number in eight years.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 6, 2023: On the use of scaffolding for hardware and software systems.
(5) A California man who discovered a back-door planted in a piece of open-source software may have stopped a nasty worldwide cyberattack. [NYT story]
(6) There's so much hype about Monday's solar eclipse: Everyone insists that you shouldn't miss it, but then they tell you not to look at the Sun. How am I supposed to see it if I don't look at the Sun?
(7) US Women prevail 2-1 over Japan in a semifinal match of SheBelieves Soccer Cup: Japan took the lead in minute 1, but the US tied the match before halftime and scored the winning goal on a penalty kick late in the second half. In the final match on Tuesday 4/09, 4:00 PM PDT, USA will play Canada, which prevailed over Brazil in penalty shootout, after a 1-1 draw. [4-minute USA-Japan highlights]
(8) The flow of talent from academia to industry has accelerated: Academic salaries have never been competitive with those of the industry, but the gap has been growing and working conditions at universities have been deteriorating of late.
(9) Final thought for the day: Ayatollah Khamenei says that the Islamic Republic will negotiate with the Devil if it perpetuates the regime's survival. Everyone should get behind and support the regime. Interestingly, every time he mentions the Islamic Republic, he points to himself!
2024/04/04 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday: The upcoming April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse in the US was predicted in March 1970. [Center] Warmer-than-usual ocean temperatures foretell a daunting hurricane season. [Right] Zoe Schiffer's Extremely Hardcore (see the last item below).
(2) Join NSF during the April 8 solar eclipse to learn about the science of the Sun: Scientists will describe the unique experiments happening during the eclipse. It will all be on YouTube, starting around 11:00 AM PDT.
(3) In defense of shared governance at universities: University of California Academic Senate Chair Jim Steintrager addressed the Board of Regents at the March 20 Joint Meeting of the Regents' Academic and Student Affairs & Compliance and Audit Committees. His remarks begin at the 17:26 mark of this video.
(4) Book review: Schiffer, Zoe, Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk's Twitter, Portfolio, 2024.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
For many years, Twitter had been defined by the hands-off leadership style of co-founder Jack Dorsey. Twitter's staff spent years trying to protect the platform against impulsive billionaires. Then, trouble arrived when one such billionaire made himself the company's CEO, ending the era of Twitter giving everyone a voice, from Occupy Wall Street to the Arab Spring. Overnight, Twitter went from a company that was short on profits but long on influence to being all about profits and one person's ego.
Santa-Barbara-based journalist Schiffer draws on interviews with 60+ employees, internal documents, court filings, and congressional testimony to produce an account of Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter and the ensuing chaos. She examines the effects of the volatile entrepreneur's takeover on the social media company and its thousands of employees (resignations, firings, etc.).
Beginning in January 2022, Musk began accumulating Twitter shares. A few months later, he joined the board and made an offer to purchase the business. Suits and countersuits slowed the process, which finally ended in the fall of that year, when Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion. Intent on cutting costs, Musk instituted massive layoffs, including engineers, content managers, and root password holders (critical to the company's operations), actions that weakened morale and caused advertising revenue to nose-dive.
Schiffer concedes that Musk's product ideas were reasonable, "but they were all over the map. In addition to relaunching Twitter Blue, he was exploring a payments platform, long-form video, long-form tweets, and encrypted direct messages." Since his childhood, "Musk had harbored a belief that he was destined to have a great impact on the world." His track record confirms that he is capable of having impact, but not necessarily that the impact will be positive in all cases.
There is general agreement in many different reviews of the book that Schiffer has done a remarkable job of researching her subject, but she leaves several important questions unanswered. Here are some examples. Is Twitter doomed to failure under Musk's leadership? Technical failures are well-described, but what about Musk's free-speech hypocrisy? She certainly has opinions on these questions, given her long-term reporting on Twitter, but she does not share her views with the book's readers.
For those who don't care for a book-size report with lots of details, this New York Magazine article by the author, Casey Newton, and Alex Heath might be considered a good substitute.
2024/04/03 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Images from Taiwan's 7.4-magnitude shaker: Reportedly, 9 people have died in this strongest earthquake in 25 years. The relatively low fatality figure is a testament to the country's building technology and rescue efforts. [Top center] About 100,000 live salmon spilled off a truck in Oregon, but most survived by flopping into a nearby creek. They are heading toward the ocean. [Top right] Socrates Think Talk talk (see the last item below). [Bottom left & center] Massive mosques to be erected at all city parks in Tehran: This is the Iranian mullahs' plan to keep an eye on people who use parks for jogging, group-exercise, and social gatherings. These architectural drawings show the mosque planned for Gheitarieh Park in northern Tehran. [Bottom right] New Yorker cartoon of the day: "Spring cleaning is just replacing the winter clothes on this chair with lighter, more colorful ones."
(2) UCSB Plous Lecture Honor: Dr. Charmaine Chua, Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Studies, will give the 2023-2024 Harold J. Plous Award Lecture on Thursday, April 11, 4:00 PM, at the Mosher Alumni House. Her lecture is entitled "Breaking Our (Supply) Chains: Anti-colonial Resistance in a Just-In-Time World."
(3) Tonight's Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Kamran Malek (obstetrics & gynecology) spoke under the title "Stem Cell, Gene Therapy: What Is on the Horizon?" There were ~110 attendees.
Dr. Malek indicated that today's three hottest topics in healthcare are stem cells, gene therapy, and the use of AI. So, he structured his talk into three sections, with Q&A at the end of each section.
Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that can turn into any specialized cells, but as they divide, they gradually become more limited in their adaptation capabilities. Damaged or improperly functioning cells can be removed and stem cells sent to replace them. Medical ethics dictates that stem cells be used to replace other cells, not to create an embryo, for example.
The human genome map, developed a few years ago, catalogs all of our genes. The goal of gene therapy is to replace a defective gene with a healthy one that is mounted on a viral vector. The defective gene is first silenced by targeted use of special enzymes. Once silenced, a healthy gene takes over and replaces it. This is the idea behind the CRISPR technology, which earned its co-inventors, Biochemist Jennifer Doudna and microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier, a Nobel Prize in 2020.
I could not stay for the third part of the talk due to prior commitments.
2024/04/01 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] CACM cover feature, April 2024: In an article entitled "The Science of Detecting LLM-Generated Text," Ruixiang Tang, Yu-Neng Chuang, and Xia Hu discuss the many approaches to mitigating the potential misuse of LLMs through automatic detection. [Center] Natural intelligence: Ants break down the grains & seeds they collect for winter into halves to keep them from germinating even through rain and the most-perfect germinating conditions. Amazingly, ants break down coriander seeds into four pieces, because a coriander seed will still germinate after being divided into two. [Right] Heavenly symmetry: Photo or painting?
(2) Happy first day of April: April Fool's Day is named after Englishman Charles April. He was easily fooled, so he lost the fortune his father left him. His wife divorced him after getting tired of his foolishness. He believed every fake story he read, as you are doing now ...
(3) Vanishing structures of rural America: Vermont-based photographer Jim Westphalen honors the long histories of decaying structures that are in danger of vanishing without a trace, along with generations of families that lived and worked in them.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- A temporary shipping route for barges and tugboats to be opened around the Baltimore bridge wreckage.
- Havana Syndrome: How Russia targets high-level American officials worldwide with a secret weapon.
- With Daniel Craig, the fifth Bond, out, who should play the title role in the highly-profitable franchise?
- Show that the area of a quadrangle with side lengths a, b, c, d does not exceed (1/16)(a + b + c + d)^2.
(5) Harvard removes human skin from the binding of a 19th-century book in its collection: The book, Des Destinees de L'ame, meaning Destinies of the Soul, was written by Arsene Houssaye, a French novelist and poet, in the early 1880s. The printed text was given to a physician, Ludovic Bouland, who bound the book with skin he took without consent from the body of a deceased female patient in a hospital where he worked.
(6) How to comment on social media (satire): "Do not read the whole original post or what it links to, which will dilute the purity of your response … Listening/reading delays your reaction time, and as with other sports, speed is of the essence." ~ Rebecca Solnit
(7) Shahram Nazeri to be awarded the 14th Bita Prize for Persian Arts: Nazeri is an award-winning musician and acclaimed composer. As a young artist, he was well-versed in traditional vocal styles but eager to discover new melodies and spaces, drawing inspiration from Kurdish and other Iranian ethnic musical traditions. In his mastery of Iran's grand epic Shahnameh, and deep immersion in the poetry of Rumi, he has had the unique role of bridging the heights of Iranian epic and mystical traditions. He has been no less a creative pioneer in using masterpieces of modernist Persian poetry from poets like Nima and Akhavan to create pieces that brilliantly fuse tradition and modernity in Iran. [Sample musical performance]
2024/03/30 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Right] Rolling some Persian-style dolmas (dolmehs) to help my daughter. [Center] Where have all the peace symbols gone? (see the last item below).
(2) Iranian Kurds take Nowruz celebration seriously, with dancing and other festivities: The joyless Islamic Republic officials prefer religious mourning to any display of life and joy, so they have summoned many of the organizers to court. [Video 1] [Video 2] [Video 3]
(3) Quote of the day: "People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things." ~ Steve Jobs
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Israeli forces create a "Google Maps" of threats in Gaza by using data from sensors and intelligence feeds.
- Electric power use by data centers to increase six-fold over the next decade.
- World's largest inflatable theme park is coming to Santa Barbara, April 26-28, 2024.
[Tweet, with photo]
- How Henry E. Warren's 1916 clock enabled the power grid by regulating the generated power's frequency.
- Linda Doyle shatters Ireland's academic glass ceiling by becoming Trinity College's first female provost.
(5) Research universities and hospitals push back on a proposal by Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to increase oversight of investigations into fraud and plagiarism.
(6) The war at Stanford (and other college campuses): A Stanford sophomore had to change his discussion section for a CS course when the TA leading it asserted that he wanted Joe Biden killed.
(7) The end of Boston Market: Founded in 1985 and expanding to 1200 stores in the 1990s, the casual-healthy food joint is on its way out, with only 27 stores remaining nationwide.
(8) Colleges/schools of AI are sprouting nationwide: In some cases, combined AI/data-science academic units are being formed. In a way, this is inevitable. Successful programs with a lot of student interest and funding tend to go their own way. My worries stem from the fact that once AI is cut off from its CS & CE roots, fundamental scientific progress may be overshadowed by sexy devices & apps that bring in funding from the government and industry. What do you think?
(9) Final thought for the day: Have we given up on peace? When was the last time you noticed the peace symbol on a banner or saw someone flash the two-finger version of it? Bringing back the peace symbol requires that we start wishing health & prosperity on our foes, instead of death & misfortune.
2024/03/28 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] My new graduate seminar, ECE 594BB, at UCSB (see the next item below). [Top center] What if we built a really big computer? I'm not referring to a warehouse-size supercomputer, which we already have, but a planet-scale machine. What are the challenges of building a planet-scale computer of the kind imagined by Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and what uses can we envision for such a machine? [Top right] A mosque in every city park: This is Tehran Mayor's renewed pledge, after seemingly retreating in the face of broad opposition to cutting down of trees and reduction of public spaces. [Bottom left & center] Today's food creations: A hearty chicken & vegetables soup (put together from everything we had in the fridge) and a Shirazi salad. [Bottom right] You have likely seen this method of protecting highway bridge columns from collisions: Why aren't there similar mechanisms for bridges over waterways? Granted, the Highway method is in part to protect drivers, but still, it would make sense along waterways. See also the last item below.
(2) My new UCSB course on the technical aspects of democracy: I will be designing and teaching a new ECE 594 graduate seminar entitled "Mathematical, Algorithmic, and Engineering Aspects of Democratic Elections," to be offered during fall 2024. Preparing for the course and possibly recording its lectures will be done over the summer. I will update you on my work's progress with occasional social-media posts.
(3) IEEE ethics rules lead to the suspension of Chinese Professor Peng Zhang for harassment: The case is fairly old, but the conclusions and action of IEEE's Ethics and Member Conduct Committee were announced in the March 2024 issue of IEEE Spectrum magazine.
(4) Unfortunately, the danger of Joe Biden losing to Donald Trump exists and cannot be wished away: All the Democrats can do is to bring all hands on deck and ensure broad participation.
()5 Final thought for the day: Ships should not collide with bridges and bridges should not collapse if there is a collision. Simple, huh? Not so fast! We are told that investigating the collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge and the cargo-ship failure that caused it could take years. By then, the incident will be forgotten and the urgency of action will be gone. Remember January 6?
2024/03/26 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] The collapse of a bridge in Baltimore, MD (see the next item below). [Right] The disappearing island: In the span of a human lifetime, the majority of Nyangai's land has been washed away, and most of its population has fled. Within a few years, the island may disappear altogether.
(2) Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge collapses after a large cargo ship collides with it: Search and rescue operations are complicated by high winds and ice-cold waters. Engineers are scratching their heads in the aftermath. Huge cargo & cruise ships threaten many bridges that have not been built to withstand their impact. The collapse of the entire Francis Scott Key Bridge rather than one of its spans indicates an urgent need to revisit bridge design. Also, new ship designs, so that vessels are not totally incapacitated by loss of power, should be extensively discussed. [Maps & photos]
(3) Total Solar eclipse happens roughly once every 366 years in the same spot on Earth: Teachers in areas of totality or near-totality on April 8, 2024, plan to use the spectacle as a learning tool, hoping to get children and their parents excited about science.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Qatari royal invested about $50 million in pro-Trump network Newsmax.
- Hamas terrorists meet with Terrorist-in-Chief Ali Khamenei in Tehran. [Tweet, with photo]
- Communications of the ACM, a premier computing journal, becomes an open-access, Web-first publication.
- Snippets from a major musical concert in Tehran, sponsored by Iran's National TV, 1977. [Video]
(5) Is artificial intelligence (AI) the new data science? A few years ago, claims that "big data" will solve all of our problems were front-page headlines. Many opportunists became data scientists overnight and were hired by new and established companies who wanted to erect a stand for themselves in the data-science marketplace. Now, suddenly, the number of AI experts has multiplied, with many overnight conversions from other specialties. Everyone is giving lectures on AI, painting rosy pictures that ensure their continued employment and re-invitation to speak. Brace for major downsizing in the industry to get rid of all the pretend AI experts!
2024/03/25 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The entire universe in a log-log chart (see the next item below). [Center] A new word game from New York Times: A theme word starts at one of the letters and traces a path by downward, upward, leftward, rightward, or any diagonal movement (e.g., TIME at the upper-left corner). (The solution) [Right] The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived (see the last item below).
(2) There is a long pedagogical tradition in physics of putting everything into one log-log plot. In their October 1, 2023, American J. Physics paper, Charles H. Lineweaver and Vihan M. Patel provide an overview of the history of the universe and the sequence of composite objects (e.g., protons, planets, galaxies) that condensed out of the background as the universe expanded and cooled.
(3) Book review: McElvenny, Ralph Watson and Marc Wortman, The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived, unabridged 17-hour audiobook, read by Donald Corren, PublicAffairs, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Before Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk, there was IBM's Thomas Watson Jr. [1914-1993]. This book is a biography of the man who oversaw the transformation of IBM, originally specializing in electromechanical business-machines, into a digital-computing behemoth, creating a company whose name was synonymous with computers for several decades. Tom Watson Jr.'s success at IBM may have been at least in part due to the rivalry with and rebellion against his father. When Watson Jr. appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1955, a marketing triumph for the company, the old man was resentful.
Tom Watson Jr. began life as an angry and often depressed young boy. Alternately indulged (he wore a jacket & tie at age 9 and as a teen, was supplied with his own car, a sailboat, and a monthly allowance worth $7000 in today's money) and disciplined by his domineering and emotionally-distant father, Watson Jr. predictably rebelled, yet he managed to create the bluest of the blue-chip companies. He was a mediocre student, who barely earned his high-school diploma and couldn't get into colleges of his choice. His father eventually got him into Brown University.
Tom Watson Sr. saw IBM's business as that of tabulating machines, which were quite profitable, resisting the suggestion that the company should invest on and move into the computer business. In 1964, under Watson Jr.'s leadership, IBM unveiled a series of computers known as System/360, revolutionizing the field of computer architecture and establishing IBM as a dominating and hip computer company. Until then, computers, even those built by the same manufacturer, were incompatible, causing a user who wanted to upgrade to a larger system to start from scratch and do a significant amount of re-programming and application adaptation.
System/360 computers, which ranged from small business machines to the largest supercomputer of the day, were upward-compatible, allowing programs developed for smaller systems to run on the larger ones with only slight changes. This was a major technical achievement and also a smart business strategy. It motivated customers who needed larger computers because of expansion of their data-processing needs to stay with IBM; a clever way of locking the customers in without facing anti-trust scrutiny. It also provided software developers a larger market and spurred innovations in the software industry.
Following Watson Sr.'s passing in 1956, Watson Jr. assumed the dual roles of President and CEO at IBM, leading the company to new heights by focusing on its computer business, rather than the electromechanical punched-card systems that were his father's favorites. Watson Jr. stepped down from his positions at IBM in 1971 due to health reasons, but he continued to be active in public service and diplomacy.
One aim of the authors is to exonerate IBM from allegations of cooperating with the Nazi regime in Germany. They claim that Watson Sr. cut all ties with Hitler before the US entered World War II and his company subsequently aided the US war effort. The authors also bust the myth that Bill Gates skunked IBM by developing MS-DOS as the industry-standard operating system, noting that IBM would have faced antitrust trouble had it required a proprietary system.
Both Watson Sr. and Watson Jr. treated IBM, a public company, as family property, even though they never owned more than 5% of its stock. This attitude led to Watson Jr.'s rare mistake of appointing his totally-unqualified, alcoholic brother, Dick, as CEO, an act that led to the System/360 project going into a tailspin and forcing Dick's removal.
One should read this book with the awareness that one of the authors is Watson Jr.'s grandson. This family connection does allow closer scrutiny of the family dynamics, but it seems to have shaped the identification of heroes (Watson Jr. and his supporters & soothsayers) and villains (Watson Jr.'s foes, particularly T. Vincent Learson, who eventually replaced Dick and saved the System/360 endeavor).
2024/03/24 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Iranian singer/songwriter Faramarz Aslani (1954-2024) dead at 69: He was a beloved musician, best-known for composing and performing "Ageh Yeh Rooz." RIP. [Top center] US population growth and thus GDP improvement over the rest of this century depends on immigration policies (NYT chart). [Top right] Digital dissection of museum animals: That's the goal of openVertebrate, a project involving 18 institutions that has spent the past five years creating 3D reconstructions of museum specimens, which are now available freely online (from Nature Journal, March 22, 2024). [Middle left & center] I have updated the Web pages for my spring 2024 courses, a 1-unit freshman seminar, ECE 1B, and a graduate course on computer arithmetic, ECE 252B. Recorded lectures for both courses are available through the Web pages for anyone interested to follow along. [Middle right] A genetic cause of male mate preference: A gene for mate preference has been shared between hybridizing butterfly species, according to the cover feature of Science magazine, issue of March 22, 2024. [Bottom row] Family outing at Balboa Park in Los Angeles on Sunday, preceded by a house-warming party for my niece on Saturday (photos), and followed by an enjoyable luch at Denj Restaurant (images) in Woodland Hills.
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- ISIS responsible for attack on Moscow music hall: 60+ [update: 130+] dead, scores more injured.
- Apple sued by the US government for its iPhone monopoly, which hurts consumers and competitors.
- US-led UN Security Council resolution for ceasefire in Gaza is vetoed by China and Russia.
- Men's soccer: USA prevailed over Mexico 2-0 in the championship match of the CONCACAF Nations Cup.
- Intel to spend ~$20 billion to revamp chips manufacturing capabilities with support from the CHIPS Act.
- Breakdown of spending in America's $1.2 trillion infrastructure investment.
[Tweet, with chart]
- UCSB Interactive Learning Pavilion honored with "US Building of the Year" Award. [Tweet with photo]
- Is the entire observable universe inside a black hole? Black-hole cosmology advances this theory.
- How are extremely heavy weights and massive forces measured? This video tells you all about it.
- Tesla's most-profitable business isn't selling electric cars: It is installing energy-storage packs.
- Fishing skills on display. [3-minute video]
- Facebook memories from Mar. 22 of years past: An Amy Leach quote and a defense of video games.
2024/03/22 (Friday): Today, I present three book reviews on the progress and philosophy of science.
(1) Book review: Penrose, Roger (with Abner Shimony, Nancy Cartwright, & Stephen Hawking; ed. by Malcolm Longair), The Large, the Small, and the Human Mind, Cambridge U. Press, Canto Edition, 2000.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Following a foreword by Malcolm Longair and a preface to the Canto Edition, The book unfolds in seven chapters and two appendices, with Chapters 1-3 written by Roger Penrose, Chapters 4-6 contributed by the three co-authors who criticize Penrose's ideas, and Chapter 7 containing a response by Penrose.
Chapter 1. Space-time and cosmology (the big)
Chapter 2. The mysteries of quantum physics (the small)
Chapter 3. Physics and the mind (the human mind)
Chapter 4. On mentality, quantum mechanics, and actualization of potentialities
Chapter 5. Why physics?
Chapter 6. The objections of an unashamed Reductionist
Chapter 7. Response by Roger Penrose
Appendix 1. Goodstein's theorem and mathematical thinking
Appendix 2. Experiments to test gravitationally induced state reductions
This is an enlightening book that can benefit anyone in search of the truth about science and its relationship with philosophy.
(2) Book review: Rovelli, Carlo, Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity, unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by Roy McMillan, Penguin Audio, 2017. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
In this volume, Carlo Rovelli, the author of million-selling Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, has produced an accessible book on quantum gravity, a leading-edge area of research in which he works. The book was published in Italy in 2014 and was translated later, so it is coming to English-language readers after his later book, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics.
Rovelli begins by reviewing what humans knew about science in ancient Rome, particularly through important musings of Democritus, whose works unfortunately did not survive owing to the Church's objection. Democritus postulated the existence of tiny building blocks, or atoms, rejecting the notion that matter is infinitely divisible. Other ideas were contributed by Plato and Aristotle, who perceived mathematics as a tool for understanding the universe.
Hundreds of years later, Ptolemy presented formulas to calculate the movements of planets and, thus, predicting their future positions. It then took 1000+ years for Galileo to bring experimentation to science, thus starting the modern scientific tradition. Copernicus revolutionized astronomy by showing that celestial calculations become more accurate if we consider the Sun as the center of our Solar System. Newton laid out the foundations of classical mechanics and formulated the law of universal gravity. Faraday and Maxwell contributed further revolutionary advances.
Then came Albert Einstein, who in his mid-20s published four groundbreaking papers on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special theory of relativity, and the equivalence of mass & energy. Ten years later, he proposed a general theory of relativity, which incorporated gravitation. Einstein's contemporaries, Max Born, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, Niels Bohr, and Erwin Schrodinger, developed quantum mechanics, thus creating a quest among physicists to devise a theory that unifies them, what is sometimes referred to as the theory of everything. Rovelli pays homage to string theory, but he belongs to a rival school known as loop quantum gravity, which predicts that space is not a continuum but is formed of "atoms of space."
Rovelli tries to bridge the divide between science and art, opining that, "Our culture is foolish to keep science and poetry separated." Lucretius's long philosophical poem "On the Nature of Things" celebrates the mysteries of the natural world, while foreseeing much of contemporary physics. Praising poetic approaches to science and dissing our lust for certainty, which is never offered by science, Rovelli takes a swipe at atheists like Richard Dawkins, labeling them just as prejudiced and intolerant as those they criticize. He opines that such people have no better idea of how the world really works than those they put down.
In her review of Reality Is Not What It Seems, Lisa Randall, Professor of Theoretical Particle Physics at Harvard University, faults Rovelli for occasionally trivializing or oversimplifying, worrying that the approach of turning equations into poetry is akin to feeding the readers enticing junk food, which "though tasty, isn't always as nourishing and sustaining as one might have hoped."
(3) Book review: Rouse Ball, W. W., A Short Account of the History of Mathematics, abridged 31-minute audiobook, read by Tony Shalhoub, Audible, 2020. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This short audiobook belongs to the Audible Sleep Collection, audio programs "created to invite relaxation and sleep." It tells the story of how Ionian Greeks formalized the study of mathematics more than five centuries BCE based on the teachings of ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians, outstripping their former teachers. Much of ancient math was practically oriented, with little abstraction. The development of arithmetic and geometry are discussed, but astronomy is deemed to be outside the scope of this brief history.
2024/03/21 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] My mom would have been 95 today: Her favorite photo and a page from her diary. Happy birthday! And happy new year! [Right] IEEE CCS tech talk (see the last item below).
(2) European Union legislators approved the AI Act on March 13, 2024: It will be enacted into law in phases later this year. Non-EU countries including the UK cannot ignore it. As with GDPR rules, the Act includes proposed regulations that organizations will need to comply with, in order to do business with the EU.
(3) Netflix adapts Liu Cixin's beloved sci-fi trilogy 3 Body Problem: Hailed as an audacious feat of engineering, the series begins in the 1960s China during the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. Having read one of Liu Cixin's books, I recommend the books and the Netflix series to all science buffs.
(4) Last night's IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk: Dr. Philip Lubin (UCSB Physics Dept.) spoke under the title "Planetary Defense Using Hypervelocity Penetrators."
Planetary defense refers to protecting Earth from near-Earth space objects, mostly asteroids but occasionally comets, which can create major loss of life, up to and including widespread extinction. Each year, we can expect impact from an asteroid several meters in diameter, harboring impact energy on the order of 0.01 megatons of TNT. Over a lifetime, asteroid size of 10s of meters and impact energy of 1 megaton can be expected. As the accompanying chart shows, once every million years, asteroid diameter on the order of 1000 meters and explosive energy of ~1000 gigatons might be expected. This energy is millions of times greater than the destructive power of the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
So, even though cataclysmic events are rare, their severity warrants preparing appropriate defenses. Assuming an object on a collision course with Earth has been identified, defense startegies include deflection (usable when there is sufficiently advance warning) and pulverization (usable in both long- and short-warning situations). Dr. Lubin described his academia/NASA/national-labs/private-space team's work on the use of hypervelocity kinetic penetrators that pulverize or disassamble an asteroid or small comet. Studies have shown the method's effectiveness against asteroids in the 20-1000m diameter class. This was demonstrated during the talk by screening simulation videos. Once an asteroid has been broken up, the numerous tiny pieces created either miss the Earth or burn up in Earth's atmosphere.
2024/03/19 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Reflections on my two-day trip to Santa Catalina Island: Located off the California coast, southwest of Long Beach, the tourist destination Avalon, near the Island's southeastern tip, is easily accessible by a 70-minute ferry ride. Having lived in Southern California for 40 years, 4 years as a grad student at UCLA and 36 years as a professor at UCSB, visiting Catalina was on my bucket list, which is now checked off! For would-be visitors: If you live close to Long Beach, I recommend a day-trip to Catalina. If you aren't into shopping, activities are rather limited. There is a casino (which I didn't visit), swimming (for those who enjoy freezing water), kayaking (1-minute video), snorkeling, and a semi-submarine ride during which you get to see lots of fish & kelp.
(2) The government-shutdown game: US lawmakers create the drama of a looming shutdown so that when an agreement is reached and there is no shutdown, the public feels like they have accomplished something!
(3) Leaders of some other countries during Vladimir Putin's extended reign in Russia. More will be added over the next six years! [List]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Top-earning majors within 5 years of graduation: Computer eng. tops the list, with CS in third position.
- From "The Angry Grammarian": "The Comma with Too Many Names" & "Lie with Me and Lay Me."
- How a stupid dare after drinking alcohol paralyzed and later killed a young man. [Video]
- Math challenge: What is the limit as x tends to infinity of the xth root of x?
- Dawn Baillie makes museum-worthy movie posters that capture the film's essence in one frame.
(5) NSF hosts an educational livestream on YouTube during the April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse: During the program, scientists explore some of the high-tech facilities they use, including the NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, the largest solar telescope in the world.
(6) According to The Atlantic, the number of Stanford U. seniors in computer science has more than doubled to 18% over the last decade. In the same time period, the rate went up from 23% to 42% at MIT.
(7) The latest video message from the Iranian Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi: The brutality of Iran's Islamic regime isn't a sign of its strength but springs from extreme weakness.
(8) Science & math can make you rich in the market of stocks and options: Be aware, though, that the brilliant physicist & mathematician Isaac Newton was a lousy investor!
(9) This Persian verse is attributed to Mojgan Eftekhari, the mother of Mahsa Amini, the young women whose death while in the custody of Iran's morality police triggered the #WomanLifeFreedom Revolution
2024/03/18 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Our outdoors haft-seen for Nowruz 1403: Awaiting the spring equinox (saal-tahveel) on Tuesday, March 19, 2024, 8:06:26 PM PT (Wednesday, March 20, 6:36:26 AM Tehran time). [Center] My latest Nowruz poem and its recitatin (see the next item below). [Right] Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness (see the last item below).
(2) My latest Nowruz poem: Every year since 2002, I have composed a cheerful Persian poem to welcome the bliss of Nowruz and the beauty of spring. Here is my poem for 2024 (Persian New Year 1403). Iranian people have suffered for many decades under the brutal Islamic regime, yet they remain as hopeful as ever that the spell will be broken one day soon, allowing them to discard the mullahs' imposed culture of mourning, sorrow, and martyrdom in favor of Iranian cultural elements of music, poetry, arts, and year-round joyous festivals.
A rough English translation follows:
Clean out your home for a momentous celebration
Wear the freshest clothes, a new season is upon us
Unroll the Nowruz spread in homes near and far
Renew your loyalties, hope and promise are here
The spring breeze is blowing from the mountainside
Streams are flowing, the fields have turned green
The hills and plains teem with fragrance and color
Enmity has disappeared, love and hope now rule
It is time for joy, passion, laughter, and open arms
Pale faces have turned red from the joy of Nowruz
P.S.: Many of my previous Nowruz poems are available on my personal poetry page.
(3) Book review: Taleb, Nassim Nicholas, Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by Joe Ochman, revised & expanded 2nd ed., Random House Audio, 2019. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
We tend to credit skill or talent for enormous success. While skill or talent can put you on the path to moderate success, much luck is needed for outsize wealth and lasting fame. The latter result from luck, a combination of a fortunate rare event and a lack of negative rare events. The path to fortune and fame is by and large a random walk.
Former options trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb examines the outsized role luck plays in success. While cited examples are mostly from what Taleb has experienced in the world of investing, he makes it clear that his principles are applicable to any field ruled by unpredictability. Economics and politics are prime alternate examples, with publishing and filmmaking not too far behind.
Taleb also addresses the problem of why people do not understand luck and how we can develop awareness of randomness and accommodate it in our lives. The ignorance of randomness has an asymmetric manifestation. Most people attribute their successes to talent and skill, whereas they view their failures as influenced by random events. In other words, I picked a highly profitable stock because I am good at recognizing value, but my stocks that tanked did so due to chance events beyond my control.
There are professions and fields where chance has little or no influence. Dentistry is Taleb's favorite example, where success is built on perseverance and skill, with a pinch of luck. While some dentists are wealthier than others, the difference is nowhere close to that of wealthy and barely-surviving stock traders.
A factor that leads to our being fooled by randomness is survivorship bias. We see examples of people who have thrived in a particular industry (a writer who land a movie contract or an investor who strikes it rich), and then inappropriately extrapolate to the expectation of wild success for anyone. We don't see, and thus forget about, the writer who didn't produce a best-seller or the investor who lost it all in an ill-advised trade. Looking at "invisible" alternatives allows us to better assess the influence of luck.
We are actually quite good at evaluating probabilities in situations with well-defined parameters, like playing Russian roulette for $50 million by shooting a gun loaded with one real bullet and five empty chambers at our head. but when chance events are beyond our logical assessment, because they are ill-defined or involve too many parameters, we do less well.
As they say in the field of investing, past performance is no guarantee for future gains. There are rare events that nobody has experienced and thus do not show up in the past record. A rare negative event in the stock market can wipe out the gains from years of moderate success. These rare events or "black swans," are, by definition, unpredictable because they don't follow any rules. Risk assessment is impossible for unpredictable events.
2024/03/16 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A retired American diplomat is the first person to document 10,000 different bird sightings. His record-setting find: An orange-tufted spiderhunter. [Center] This evening's sunset walk to Coal Oil Point Beach in Goleta. [Right] Don't tread on my gun & heart-attack burger: RNC, under Trumpian management, unveils its new Statue of Liberty.
(2) Noteworthy elements of a metro-car video in Tehran: Widespread musical talent among Iranians, despite various prohibitions, passengers daring to cheer on & sing along, and dismissal of mandatory hijab laws.
(3) Over the past four decades, spring has arrived earlier and earlier in the Continental US: Up to four weeks earlier in much of the country and a bit later in small areas, mostly in the Midwest. [Tweet, with infographic]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- UN report implicates Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in crimes against humanity.
- Iranian women continue to defy hardline clerics, despite heightened threats of fines and imprisonment.
- Misogynistic posts and comments are not okay, even against women supporters of Iran's Islamic regime.
- Math challenge: If for nonzero x, we have f(1/(1 + x)) + f((x + 1)/x) = x, what is f(1/2)?
(5) Quote of the day: "Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less." ~ Marie Curie
(6) We tend to think of the Worldwide Web as the most-important fruit of the age of digital connectivity: But Wikipedia, an invaluable free resource, may be just as important.
(7) Iran's former "moderate" FM Javad Zarif criticizes the "hardliners": I feel no sympathy for his being sidelined, because during his tenure as foreign minister, he defended Iran's horrible human rights record, dismissed people's legitimate demands, and generally deferred to the Supreme Leader on matters big & small.
(8) On police officers sexually assaulting children: The stories keep coming!
"Former Lewisville police officer sentenced for sexually assaulting a child"
"Ex-Chicago cop sentenced to 25 years in sex trafficking of young girls"
"Sex abuse victim of former LVMPD officer: 'I was turned into a human pet'"
It is sickening that some of our supposed protectors abuse their positions of power & public trust! There is a Persian saying: "We use salt to prevent food from becoming rotten. God help us when the salt goes rotten!"
(9) Viruses, bacteria, and prions: Nearly everyone is aware of the role of viruses and bacteria in human diseases. From a book I am reading (Michio Kaku's Quantum Supremacy), I learned about another important cause of diseases, that is, misfolded proteins or prions. Misfolded proteins cause damage to healthy proteins, thereby propagating the disease within the body. Research on protein folding and quantum computing, that can provide the computational power to advance this area of research, raises hopes of dealing with prion-caused dementia and other terminal neurodegenerative diseases.
2024/03/15 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] AI visualizations (see the next item below). [Center] Last night's Talangor Group talk (see the last item below). [Right] Talk on Iranian polymath Qutb al-Din Shirazi (see item 3 below).
(2) AI-visualized technical rooms for each decade, from 1980 to 2050: Here are some of the images.
On my Facebook post of these images, a perceptive friend noted the total absence of women in all cases.
I responded thus: Excellent observation! This is why we worry about human biases (in this case, those of the designers of AI systems) finding their way into programs and algorithms. We have a long way to go to remove such biases from people and, indirectly, from the algorithms they develop.
(3) Today's Stanford University webinar: Dr. Kaveh Niazi (Stanford Online High School) talked under the title "Qutb al-Din Shirazi and His Observations on Ptolemy's Lunar Model."
Qutb al-Din Shirazi [1235-1311 CE], a renowned student of Khwaja Nasir al-Din Tusi, completed in 1282 CE his astronomical text Ikhtiyarat-i Muzaffari, a richly-detailed work composed in Persian, which covers much of the material appearing in his 1281 Arabic text Nihayat al-Idrak fi Dirayat al-Aflak. Intriguingly, the Persian book includes material that is missing from its companion. One such passage treats the concept of the prosneusis point as defined for the Ptolemaic lunar model in the Almagest. An examination of Shirazi's discussion of the prosneusis point offers a window to his approach to theoretical astronomy, while also highlighting his approach to the authoring of technical texts for astronomy students.
(4) Last night's Talangor Group Talk: Hooshyar Afsar(zadeh), journalist & social-justice activist, spoke under the title "Haji Firooz and Today's World." Before the main talk, Dr. Reza Toossi made a short presentation in celebration of pi Day. Among interesting observations offered by Dr. Toossi was the fact that perhaps 7/22 should be designated as pi Day, given that the approximation 22/7 is closer to the real value of pi than 3.14. Note that in some date notations, the day number is written before the month number (such as 22/7/2024). There were ~80 attendees.
Haji Firooz is a subject dear to my heart, so let me begin my report with a long introduction about my own views. I have written many times about Haji Firooz being a racist symbol, although most Iranians vehemently deny that they, or Iranians as a whole, harbor racist sentiments.
On March 20, 2014, I criticized a post about President Obama's Nowruz message by an Iranian-American, who referred to him in the post as Haji Firooz. On March 4, 2019, I repeated my plea to fellow-Iranians to abandon the racist tradition of Haji Firooz. On March 24, 2021, I posted a short essay entitled "Haji Firooz rears his ugly head again," in which I characterized the Haji Firooz tradition as racist and dismissed the various long-winded explanations that have been offered about why it is not racist.
Please bear in mind that for an act or statement to be deemed offensive, it's not necessary for the perpetrator to intend to offend someone. It is sufficient for the target or an observer to take offense. So, blackface is deemed offensive in America, regardless of whether the wearer of the face meant to ridicule/offend someone. Similarly, we teach men that an act they commit in good humor against a woman is deemed offensive if the woman takes it as a sexual transgression, whether or not it was meant as such. This is why I strongly recommend the removal or modification of the Haji Firooz tradition, to eliminate all of its offensive elements.
Last night, I became aware of academic research on the roots of the Haji Firooz tradition. Research has found no trace of the tradition in classical sources. Claims by defenders of the tradition, who go to great lengths to justify it in one form or another, usually have no valid reference citations. Complicating the issue is the fact that Iran's Islamic regime is against Haji Firooz and all other joyful traditions rooted in Iran's pre-Islamic history. This makes opposition groups more adamant in defending such traditions.
Afsarzadeh briefly reviewed the history of slavery in Iran, which included not just colored people from Africa but also white women from Armenia, Georgia, and elsewhere who were used as sexual slaves in harems of the rich and powerful. In 1929, slavery was officially banned in Iran by an act of parliament, a ban that was later enshrined in the Constitution. This would have been unnecessary were slavery not practiced in the country.
Afsarzadeh drew parallels between Haji Firooz and the American Jim Crow Laws (named after a black minstrel show routine), which were meant to marginalize African-Americans the same way the Black Codes did.
Rather than outline the rest of Afsarzadeh's presentation, I post the following link to his Persian-language article "Haji Firooz and Today's World" (the first item on this search page, which also leads you to some of Afsarzadeh's other works).
Among sources cited by Afsarzadeh are Behnaz A. Mirzai's 2017 U. Texas Press book A History or Slavery and Emancipation in Iran, 1800-1929 and Beeta Baghoolizadeh's upcoming 2024 Duke U. Press book The Color Black: Enslavement and Erasure in Iran.
2024/03/14 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday: Tehran, Hafez Ave., ca. 1960. [Center] Happy pi day! March 14 is known as pi day, because 3/14 matches the first three of the infinite sequence of digits in pi = 3.141 592 653 589 793 ... [Right] Last night's Socrates Think Tank Talk (see the last item below).
(2) Software engineering basics ignored: US Education Department officials have blamed various elements for the FAFSA (federal financial aid system) problems that delayed the college admission process and caused enormous anxiety for the applicants. They blame an attempt to implement many changes in the face of insufficient funding from Congress.
Yet, anyone with minimal expertise in software engineering knows not to introduce too many changes all at once, regardless of the available budget. In a production system with many thousands of users, changed components must be provided with back-ups in the event of unexpected problems. Did they actually perform substantial testing on the new system or were they spewing code up to the last minute?
In my graduate course on dependable computing, I present a long list of software project failures when one or more tenets of software engineering were ignored. Examples include an operating system that was to be built of all-new components and an airline ticketing system that incorporated hotel & rental-car reservations.
(3) Programming distributed systems: This was the title of an ACM webinar, which I watched as I walked to my 10:00 AM class yesterday. The talk by Mae Milano (Princeton University) and Ethan Cecchetti (University of Wisconsin) contained several interesting and useful ideas on efficiency, reliability, and consistency of distributed systems. Here is a 60-minute recording of the talk.
(4) Last night's Socrates Think Tank Talk: Dr. Mohsen Attaran (Cal State U. Bakersfield) spoke under the title "Cold War 2.0: The Microchip War with China." There were ~125 attendees.
The speaker's thesis was that Cold War 2.0 is unfolding between the US and China; Russia is no longer a major player on the world stage, as its GDP continues to decline and its major assets (oil & gas) are increasingly overshadowed by new technology. For example, Russia is forced to buy its microchips from China, settling for inferior quality.
Taiwan's prominent position in the microchips industry creates multiple problems. First, its position makes it a valuable target for China, who would acquire much of the technology if it were to occupy Taiwan. Second, the fall of Taiwan would disrupt US's access to microchips, an eventuality that may have motivated the US CHIPS Act, which allocated significant funds to rebuild the microchips manufacturing capability on US soil.
Besides microchips and electronics, Taiwan enjoys a strategic position on the Far-East shipping lanes, a fact that China dislikes. Another major player in the area is Vietnam, which is enjoying close ties with the US and other developed countries and stands to benefit significantly if tensions between the US and China escalate.
Generally, talks entailing political analyses do not produce answers on which everyone agrees. This is one reason I tend to skip political talks. I made an exception tonight, because the microchips and electronics industries are dear to my heart. Furthermore, I have both professional colleagues and former students who work in Taiwan, which makes me curious about the tiny island nation's future.
2024/03/13 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] The eve of the last Wednesday of the Persian calendar year (last night) is known as Chaharshanbeh Suri, with traditions of jumping over bonfires, a spread of fruits and nuts, and ghaashogh-zani (similar to trick-or-treating). [Top center] Randall Munroe's What If? (see the last item below). [Top right] Total solar eclipse of Monday, April 8, 2024, in the US: It appears that in Southern California, we will see a partial eclipse of around 40%. In Santa Barbara, the partial eclipse will begin at 10:06 AM, peaks at 11:11 AM, and ends at 12:19 PM. [Bottom left] Math puzzle: Compute the length x. [Bottom center] Math puzzle: Given that the three areas in the circle are equal, find the angle alpha. [Bottom right] In this diagram with two circles and six semicirlces, what is the ratio of the areas of the two circles?
(2) Tributes are pouring in for our departed colleage, Nobel Laureate in Physics Herb Kroemer: "In India, there is the concept of a guru, someone who is a teacher in the broadest sense, someone who teaches not only curriculum, facts, skills, and information, but creativity, morals, ethics, leadership, discipline, graciousness, and generosity. We have been fortunate to share time with Herb Kroemer, who embodies the broad ethos of the guru. He taught physics, materials science and electrical engineering at the highest level, but also behavior and life." ~ UCSB Dean of Engineering Umesh Mishra
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Mixed-political-party marriages are much rarer today than mixed-race marriages. [PBS report]
- Persian food: Sepand's ghormeh-sabzi stew, with my rice and potatoes tah-dig. [Photos]
- Biography of the guy behind Veritasium, the source of many enlightening science videos.
- Science videos are effective only if they address misconceptions head-on. [8-minute video]
(4) Book review: Munroe, Randall, What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by Wil Wheaton, Blackstone Audio, 2014.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Randall Patrick Munroe is an American cartoonist, engineer, and author, best known as the creator of the webcomic xkcd. In this book, which consists of 57 short chapters, and its 2022 sequel, What If? 2, Munroe answers hypothetical science questions he receives from readers of his webcomic xkcd. The answers are scientifically rigorous, but also contain a good dose of humor.
Here is an example of such questions that appear absurd at first, but not absurd enough not to merit a genuine science-based answer. If you started rising steadily at 1 ft/s, how exactly will you die? Will you freeze or suffocate, or something else?
Here is another example question. Is launching the entire human race into space possible? Do we have enough energy on Earth to do it? This latter question piqued my interest. We need about 4 gigajoules (roughly a megawatt-hour) per person to escape Earth's gravity. The total energy needed is about 5% of global consumption per year; a large amount, but not impossible. However we need energy to carry the energy we need after leaving Earth. When all is added up, the required energy becomes impractical, though still not quite impossible.
2024/03/12 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Math puzzle: What is the difference between the green and yellow areas? [Top center] Two math challenges: Extract the given root without using a calculator and find the area of the middle square in terms of the areas a and b of the other two squares. [Top right] Stephanie Land's Class (see the last item below). [Bottom row] The mathematical symmetry of architectural tiles and carpet designs.
(2) Book review: Land, Stephanie, Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education, unabridged 9-hour audiobook, read by the author, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This is the story of a single mother, going to school and cleaning houses, offices, and gyms for income, struggling to raise her daughter in the face of high child-care costs, while dealing with an unreliable and emotionally-abusive ex, who shuns his responsibilities, often sneaking off with very short notice.
This is the second memoir by Land, whose first one, Maid, told the story of a single mother who tried to stay away from an abusive boyfriend and out of homeless shelters by cleaning houses in the Pacific Northwest, while harboring the dream of one day returning to college to become a writer.
The main theme of Class is the difficulty of getting educated in America, while living below the poverty line. Here, we see the 35-year-old single mother moving with her daughter to Missoula, Montana, where she returns to college but still struggles to survive, despite getting tuition, childcare, food-bank, and other assistance. Her long-divorced parents provide no emotional or financial support.
Everything in her life is unstable and unreliable (her car, her house-cleaning gigs, childcare, her ex, housemates, friends, and lovers), giving her a sense of isolation and loneliness. She has amassed tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, which, realistically, she may never be able to repay. The day-to-day struggles to survive leaves no time or energy for long-term financial planning.
The book leaves Stephanie's status unresolved, ending with her returning home from the hospital with a newborn second daughter, perhaps as an opening for a third memoir, but we know from events outside the book that she became a celebrity writer, as she had dreamed, seeing her first memoir turn into a highly-successful Netflix series.
The fact that Stephanie dug herself out of poverty has no doubt something to do with her hard work, determination, and "resilience" (a term she resents), but given how many other hard-working and talented single mothers do not make it tells us that some level of luck was also involved.
If only the pandemic-era child tax-credit were extended to become a permanent benefit for struggling parents! As I write this review, the US Congress is considering a temporary extension, but the level and duration of the extension are unknown. Nevertheless, just discussing the need for child tax-credit is a good start and raises some hope for children's-rights activists and struggling parents, single moms in particular.
2024/03/11 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Dr. Herbert (Herb) Kroemer (1928-2024), my ECE UCSB colleague, passes away at 95: He joined UCSB in 1976 and held the Donald W. Whittier Chair in Electrical Engineering. He was honored with the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics. [Top center] Math puzzle: In this diagram with two circles, find the length AB. [Top right] Believe it or not: Eighty-percent of the continental US population lives in the east half of the country. Of the remaining 20%, a tad more than half (11%) lives fairly close to the Pacific coast. [Bottom left] The US economy is in a much better shape than those of other advanced countries (New York Times chart). [Bottom center] Math puzzle: I usually supply the puzzle statement and ask you to come up with a solution. In this case, you need to supply both the statement and the solution! [Bottom right] Trump's gift to his voters: Cumulative COVID death rates in US counties according to the level of support for Trump in 2020.
(2) UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series: In yesterday's event, held over Zoom, four panelists reflected on "Various Aspects and Impacts of #WomanLifeFreedom Movement in Iran and Internationally." Dr. Nayereh Tohidi (sociologist; Cal State U. Northridge Emerita) introduced the panelists and moderated the discussion.
- Farzaneh Bazrpour (journalist) spoke on "Iranian Newspapers' Diversion from the Official State Cliches Because of Mahsa's Movement." Both the state-controlled media and the country's officials are devising new propaganda and oppression strategies in response to people's legitimate demands.
- Dr. Azadeh Momeni (political scientist; U. Toronto) spoke on "Intersection of Arts and Politics: From the American Women's Suffrage Movement to Arab Spring to Iranian #WomanLifeFreedom Movement."
- Dr. Homa Hoodfar (sociocultural anthropologist; Concordia U. Emerita) spoke on "#WomanLifeFreedom: A Political Watershed in the Iranian Protest Culture." She stressed the role of men's support, or lack thereof, in the success or failure of women's protest movements in Iran.
- Dr. Saeed Paivandi (sociologist; U. Lorraine, Nancy) presented "A Critical Analysis of the #WomanLifeFreedom Movement." This latest protest movement, which led to strong push-backs from security forces and government officials, also brought about political, personal/identity, and social changes.
(3) RIP, astrology: Most people already know that astrology is a scam. Nevertheless, a team led by MIT's Jackson Lu decided to bury this scam. They took a massive sample of 173,709 people and correlated their zodiac signs with their scores on the Big Five personality traits. There was zero correspondence.
(4) Major loss for India: Of the 1.5 million Indian students studying abroad, most will use their foreign degrees as stepping stones to lucrative careers outside India. [AP report]
(5) A final thought: Everyone laughed when a naked man appeared on the Oscars stage last night, pretending to be a streaker who changed his mind. Is it just me or are we treating male and female nudity differently?
2024/03/10 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Iranians of my generation have fond memories of this resilient French car wasn't much to look at, but it got the work done reliably and efficiently. [Top center] Cartoon based on the content of first-grade textbooks in Iran: Dad supplied bread. Mom supplied water. ???? supplied poison (referring to the poisoning of school girls in Iran). [Top right] Meme of the day: We need to save the Earth! [Bottom left] Voices of Women for Change honors four remarkable Iranian women (see the last item below). [Bottom center] A common kerosene-burning cooking implement at Iranian homes before gas and electric ranges arrived on the scene. [Bottom right] New Yorker cartoon of the day: "In my dream I'm in a large auditorium surrounded by people. They're all looking at me—and that's when I realize I'm completely naked."
(2) The Oscars: The movie "Oppenheimer" ended up winning 7 Academy Awards, including both male-actor honors, best original score, best director, and best motion picture. [List of nominees & winners]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Republicans' goals for the US? Kicking and punching an effigy of Joe Biden. Classy! [Tweet, with video]
- Goleta, over the next 10 days: Springlike weather in the lead-up to Nowruz.
[Tweet, with image]
- Meme of the day: Ban liars & crooks, not history & books. [Tweet, with photo]
- Facebook memory from Mar. 10, 2018: Tehran University's graduation awards ceremony, 1968.
(4) "Girls on the Brink: Helping Our Daughters Thrive in an Era of Increased Anxiety, Depression, and Social Media": This was the title of Tuesday's Semel Institute book talk by Donna Jackson Nakazawa, who maintains that "our daughters, students, and the girl next door are more anxious and more prone to depression and self-harming than ever before." In 2019, 1 in 3 girls reported symptoms of major depression, vs. 1 in 10 boys. A typical young girl feels that her life is one endless performance, during which she is examined and judged. In her book, Nakazawa offers 15 simple strategies for raising emotionally healthy girls, based on cutting-edge science that explains the modern pressures that make it so difficult for adolescent girls to thrive.
(5) Voices of Women for Change belatedly celebrated International Women's Day on Saturday morning by featuring and honoring four remarkable Iranian women:
- Azar Fakhr (Actress): Champion of women's theater
- Dr. Nayereh Tohidi (Professor Emerita, Cal Statue U. Northridge): Champion of women's rights
- Azar Nafisi (Critically-acclaimed Iranian-American writer): Champion of women's literature
- Roshi Roozbehani (London-based Iranian illustrator): Champion of women's arts
The four honorees offered remarks of varying lengths, as they accepted the Dance of Freedom Figurine bearing a plaque with the award's citation, recited by Ms. Taraneh Roosta.
2024/03/08 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Happy International Women's Day: This 113th edition of #WomensDay must be observed more vigorously than before, 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). [Center] IranWire cartoon of the day: International Women's Day in Iran. [Right] The greening of transportation: "We are in the early stages of a key transition: Electrification could be the first fundamental change in airplane propulsion systems since the advent of the jet engine."
(2) Power to Iranian women & girls: A group of Iran's University of Isfahan students celebrated their graduation in this way and were reprimanded for it.
(3) Days after Iran's election period during which hijab enforcement was put on the back burner to encourage participation, new punishments for hijablessness, including direct withdrawal of the fine from a woman's bank account, are unveiled. [Video, narrated in Persian]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Get ready for self-security-screening at US airports: TSA is giving the system a try at Las Vegas airport.
- America's aging grid infrastructure is ill-equipped to deal with the rising demand in electricity.
- UCSB's Multicultural Center suspended for allowing anti-Semitic posts and signage on its premises.
- A refreshing explanation of the speed of light and why it is finite.
- Am I a robot? I hope not, but I do fail many "I am not a robot" tests!
- "Eggplane": A most-efficient flying machine with a 5000-mile range. [5-minute video]
- Buddha: "Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, and faithfulness the best relationship."
(5) Viewing statistics as second-class math is misguided: An influential committee of the University of California Academic Senate has ruled that, starting in the fall of 2025, "high school students taking an introductory data science course or AP Statistics cannot substitute it for Algebra II for admission to the University of California and California State University." Data science advocates are worried that the recommendation "may disqualify data science and possibly statistics under the category of math courses meeting the criteria for admissions." Dozens of high school math teachers and administrators have signed a letter that reiterates support for data science and statistics courses.
(6) Several Islamist sympathizers have been elected in the UK: One winner, Scotsman George Galloway, who doesn't mind wearing designer clothes while leading his followers like an Islamic cleric, roared "From the river to the sea." Labour's candidate, Azhar Ali, told a party meeting that Israel had allowed the October 7 Hamas massacre to take place to give it the green light to invade Gaza.
2024/03/07 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Herb-rice and fish is a staple of Norooz family gatherings among Iranians, at home and in diaspora. [Top center & right] Dinner, a few nights ago: I did the easy part (rice with tah-dig); My younger son was in charge of the hard part (Persian zucchini stew). [Bottom left] While Iranian mullahs spend billions on their terrorist stooges abroad, the plight of flooded communities in the country's southeastern region goes unanswered. [Bottom center] Facebook memory from Mar. 7, 2017: Women who changed the world. [Bottom right] Eternal Melodies: Arash Fouladvand and his magnificent Bahar Choir celebrate 8 centuries of Mowlavi/Rumi in a highly-anticipated musical production: Paris, June 7; London, June 16, 2024.
(2) Shukoufan, an NGO for educating children in Iran, operates two schools in the poorest neighborhoods of South Tehran. Its volunteers provide nutrition to students and train local teachers for an enriched curriculum.
(3) Censoring the word "rape": Book-banning makes it harder to discuss sexual violence and nullifies some of the progress brought about by the #MeToo movement. [Book covers]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Food warning: Six ground-cinnamon brands found to contain unacceptable amounts of lead.
- Mitch McConnell endorses Donald Trump, citing voter support: What happened to principles and convictions?
- Praying was Mike Pence's strategy for controlling the COVID-19 pandemic.
[Tweet, with photo]
- Buying the horseshoe before the horse: Google launches $5M prize to find real apps for quantum computing.
- A hair-raising escape from a life-threatening flood.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 7, 2011: My essay, on the eve of International Women's Day.
(5) War injuries lead to violence: Scientists found profound damage, of the kind suffered by veterans due to blast exposure, in the brain of the man who killed 18 people in Lewiston, Maine, in October.
(6) On the perils of digital-only publication scheme: I have voiced concern in the past over the fate of digital publications, particularly those appearing in open-access journals. Maintaining reliable, readily-accessible archives is expensive and open-access publishers, who have already collected their fees up-front, have little incentive for preserving the papers in perpetuity. A new study has found that more than a quarter of all publications with active DOIs cannot be found in reliable archives on the Internet.
(7) National Air & Space Museum's lectures on samples-return space missions: Wednesday's first talk in the series was entitled "To the Moon and Back", by Dr. Barbara Cohen (NASA Goddard). The lunar rocks brought home by Apollo astronauts reshaped our understanding of our Moon, the Earth, and the entire solar system. Gathering more of them is one of the most-important reasons to go back to the Moon. The Artemis program is enabling lunar sample return both by humans and robots. Dr. Cohen discussed key science derived from lunar samples and how we are planning for more.
2024/03/05 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] A new book about Elon Musk by Santa-Barbara-based journalist Zoe Schiffer: Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk's Twitter. [Top center] The Roman Amphitheater of Catania in Sicily, 2nd century CE. [Top right] Jonathan Toplin's The End of Reality (see the last item below). [Bottom left] Satellite images show the devastation of Texas wildfires. [Bottom center & right] Nature photography along my 5 km Sunday walking path in Goleta.
(2) US Supreme Court rules that states cannot remove candidates from the ballot based on the 14th Amendment: As much as I want Trump barred from the 2024 election, I think the SCOTUS decision was the right one. Given the closeness of US presidential elections, I don't want the possibility of a handful of states banding together to exclude a candidate from their ballots, effectively ensuring his/her defeat.
(3) If you aren't self-employed, don't earn over $200,000, and don't itemize deductions, you may be able to use IRS's free tax-filing program for the 2023 tax year.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Fascinating physics: The turntable paradox.
- France amends its constitution to include abortion as a fundamental right.
- Credit card late fees to be capped in the US: Banks are expected to fight the initiative.
- Tumbleweeds invade Utah, covering neighborhoods and blocking houses, much like a heavy snowfall.
(5) Toplin, Jonathan, The End of Reality: How Four Billionaires Are Selling Out Our Future, unabridged 11-hour audiobook, read by Jason Culp, PublicAffairs, 2023. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
American writer, film producer and scholar Jonathan Trumbull Taplin [1947-] graduated from Princeton University in 1969 and is the Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. His previous books include Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy (2017) and The Magic Years: Scenes from a Rock-and-Roll Life (2021). The End of Reality is a sequel to the former book.
In 1909, Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published "Manifesto del Futurismo" ("The Manifesto of Futurism"), in which he expressed an artistic philosophy entailing a rejection of the past and a celebration of speed, machinery, violence, youth, and industry. The manifesto predates many 20th-century events commonly suggested as its potential meaning, but the political movements that led to Fascism were already in place in the early 1900s. These movements motivated the manifesto, which in turn influenced Mussolini and his ilk. Taplin likens the agendas of US tech titans to Marinetti's.
Taplin accuses Marc Andreesen, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Mark Zuckerberg of exploiting the low quality of life among the poor in America by selling them fantasies. The promises of a more-fulfilling life in the metaverse and access to a more equitable economy based on cryptocurrency are indeed appealing. According to Taplin, crypto and social-media only preserve the status quo, that is, the free-market liberalism under which the rich have gotten much richer and the tech giants' wealth & power have grown. Dominance of the rich technocrats is further entrenched by the rampant distrust and political polarization amplified through the social-media they control.
I believe everyone should read Taplin's The End of Reality and take its warnings to heart.
2024/03/04 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] The day Moon pretended to be Saturn (Francisco Sojuel). [Top center] Role reversals: Usually, in photographs, we see a large Earth and a much smaller Moon. China's Chang spacecraft shot this photo from the the Moon's far side. [Top right] Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot (see the last item below). [Bottom left & center] Pea soup by my younger son and tacos by yours truly. [Bottom right] In AARP magazine's cover feature (Feb./Mar. 2024), Robert De Niro talks about life, fatherhood, family, and the secrets to his legendary career.
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Why is it that we can see some parts of the universe that are moving away faster than the speed of light?
- Cool engineering: The workings of a household fan. [6-minute video]
- Carl Sagan demonstrates cosmic distances in our universe.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 4, 2015: "We rarely hear the inward music, but we're all dancing to it." ~ Rumi
(3) Book review: Sagan, Carl, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, Random House, 1994.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This sequel to astronomer Carl Sagan's highly successful Cosmos was inspired by the famous "Pale Blue Dot" photograph (video link), which shows our Earth on February 14, 1990, as a tiny dot from a distance of 6 billion kilometers, where Voyager 1 was exploring the furthest parts of our Solar System. Sagan uses a description of the photograph as a springboard to discuss our state of knowledge about the Solar System, the place of our species in the universe, and a human vision for the future in a mesmerizing and philosophical narrative.
Sagan begins with an account of how we were led astray for millennia by claims of our species being unique and the pride that produced the Earth-centered world view. Lack of knowledge and tools to falsify the geocentric model, along with significant threats to deniers of geocentricity during the Roman inquisition, delayed our realization that we aren't at the center of the universe.
Sagan then provides a review of the Solar System, beginning with the aims and findings of NASA's Voyager Program. As a participating scientist in the Program, he paints a detailed picture of the difficulties in exploring low-light distant planets, particularly when we consider mechanical and electronic malfunctions in deep space.
Sagan emphasizes the importance of studying other planets and our own Moon in order to gain the requisite knowledge to protect Earth, characterizing NASA's abandonment of its Moon missions as shortsighted. We risk major, and possibly total, loss if we don't track large extraterrestrial objects doggedly and with great precision.
It's exciting to realize that our generation finally realized the dream of breaking into space, probing the far reaches of our Solar System and learning much about the cosmos. Such discoveries led to additional humility and realization of our insignificant place in the universe. Our future as a species may well depend on our ability to colonize other planets and to learn even more about the history and current state of the universe.
According to Wikipedia, "In 2023, the audiobook of Pale Blue Dot, read by Sagan, was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry as being 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant'."
2024/03/02 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] When there is a will, there is a way: Nature always finds a way around adversity. [Top center] Math oddity: The best-known packing of 11 unit-squares into the smallest possible square area. The packing is due to mathematician Walter Trump. [Top right] Yet another example of nature finding a way around adversity. [Bottom left & center] A few nerdy T-shirt messages: The first message refers to the upcoming total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. I traveled to Oregon to see the one in 2017. [Bottom right] Michio Kaku's The God Equation (see the last item below).
(2) Forces at work to turn the Taliban's Afghanistan into a global Caliphate under strict sharia law: Chicago-based charity Islamic Oasis is working with a German-British organization named the Qamar Charity Foundation to build both the ideological and welfare infrastructure for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
(3) Abusive behavior on Facebook: The following is a Messenger exchange I had over the past two days with a Facebook "friend" I don't know personally. [Image]
(4) Book review: Kaku, Michio, The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything, unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by Feodor Chin, Random House Audio, 2021.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Much unification has taken place in the domain of natural laws (physics). When Newton formulated the laws of gravity, he unified all the celestial and earthly laws of motion before him. But physicists have a habit of not leaving well enough alone, and they keep on discovering new theories! The ultimate challenge now facing physicists is to unify relativity and quantum theory with previous results, in order to create a grand theory or a unifying equation that could unlock the remaining mysteries of nature, from what happened before the Big Bang to the possibility of time travel; what Kaku calls "The God Equation."
After a chapter entitled "Introduction to the Final Theory," Kaku structures his presentation in 7 chapters:
- Unification—The Ancient Dream
- Einstein's Quest for Unification
- Rise of the Quantum
- Theory of Almost Everything
- The Dark Universe
- Rise of String Theory: Promise and Problems
- Finding Meaning in the Universe
Kaku's own research field, that is, string theory, offers one of the possibilities for such a unified theory, but there are still wrinkles to be ironed out. Kaku offers the analogy of 2D beings having assembled two huge sections of the jigsaw puzzle representing a unified theory, but being unable to fit the two sections together, no matter how hard they try. Kaku suggests that the two assembled sections might fit together along a third dimension, which is invisible/incomprehensible to the 2D beings. Despite his expertise being in string theory, Kaku is open to criticisms of string theory and discusses them alongside the strengths.
It is fair to say that, when a unified theory does emerge in future, it will catch everyone by surprise, just as all previous major breakthroughs in physics came as surprises to experts and non-experts alike.
2024/03/01 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] A salute to women at the beginning of Women's History Month: Next Friday (March 8, 2024), we will celebrate International Women's Day. [Top center] Iran's top female runner and Asian-record holder was not allowed to participate in world championships. [Top right] So far, I have read 20 books in 2024, which puts me four books ahead of the pace for my 100-books target. [Bottom left] Don't complain about the multi-year drought in your area: Antarctica's Dry Valley has not seen rain for about 2 million years! [Bottom center] Pre-paid meals at a restaurant allow cashless hungry people to choose a meal to eat: Splendid idea! [Bottom right] Tim Schwab's The Bill Gates Problem (see the last item below).
(2) US Department of Justice gets its first AI officer & sci/tech adviser: Princeton U. CS professor Jonathan Mayer (CS PhD & law doctor) will serve in the position.
(3) Book review: Schwab, Tim, The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire, Penguin Business, 2023. [My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This is the first book by Tim Schwab, an investigative journalist based in Washington, DC. Schwab tells us that Bill Gates runs his foundation, as he did Microsoft, with an iron fist, bestowing all the power, and shining the spotlight, on himself.
We read in the book's introduction that Gates bullied and mistreated Paul Allen, Microsoft's co-founder, giving him a much smaller share and eventually forcing him out in the mid-1980s. Allen later became a multi-billionaire, because he resisted the pressure to sell his Microsoft shares upon departure. Gates himself was driven out after the government's 1990s anti-trust case against Microsoft, during which he provided a disastrous defense that painted the company as an evil force.
Schwab has done a significant amount of research on Bill Gates and his foundation. Sandwiched between introductory and concluding chapters, are 15 numbered chapters with brief titles, dealing with various aspects of Gates' life and activities: Lives saved; Women; Taxes; Fail fast; Transparency; Lobbying; Family planning; Journalism; Education; White man's burden; Bloat; Science; Agriculture; India; Covid-19.
While Schwab makes a good case about Gates' personal flaws and bullying personality, I believe that people doing charitable work must be cut some slack. Gates has certainly followed in the footsteps of earlier billionaires, who amassed their fortunes through exploitation and then tried to cover their misdeeds by turning to charity. Gates' focus on leveraging technology to reduce suffering worldwide is commendable. Second-guessing a philanthropist on alternate priorities that could have produced better results is counter-productive, in my view.
Schwab maintains that the Gates Foundation is more a tool for exerting power and buying influence than a genuine charitable organization. It helped transform Gates overnight from a greedy billionaire to a world-saving philanthropist. Yet, I would argue that having a well-endowed charity that spends money on causes I don't personally endorse is better than having no charity at all. I'm sure that if someone scrutinized my own meager charitable contributions, a great deal of problems and inefficiencies would be discovered. Choice of where to give is highly personal, whether you donate $100 or $100 million.
Schwab admits that the world does need Bill Gates' money, but he isn't convinced that the world needs Bill Gates. In the end, Schwab proposes a reappraisal of philanthropy along the lines of what was done in the 1960s. The resulting regulations, now 50+ years old, are overdue for reassessment.
2024/02/29 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Happy Leap Day! Enjoy this extra day in February, as we end the celebration of Black History Month and look forward to observing Women's History Month. [Top center & right] Fragrance and beauty of different kinds. [Bottom left] Math puzzle: in this diagram with one rectangle and four circles, prove that R = 3r. [Bottom center] Math puzzle: Find the radius R of the circle. [Bottom right] The US energy boom: Major energy sources (oil, natural gas, renewables) have doubled in the 24 years since January 2000.
(2) In an insightful CACM column, Moshe Vardi writes about how computing and economics influence each other. Productivity growth from computing and communications is a prime example of common interests.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The Hindenburg and other giant airships that went extinct with the advent of modern aviation.
- Girls on the Brink: UCLA Semel Institute webinar, March 5, 2024, 5:00 PM PT. [Info]
- A tribute to Iran, the beautiful. [Instagram post, with music video]
- My attempt at making artsy tah-dig, which we had with store-bought gheimeh-bademjan Persian stew.
(4) For 18 years, the UCSB Reads Program has brought Santa Barbara communities together to read a common book that explores compelling interdisciplinary issues of our time. Gene Lucas, whose 36-year career at UCSB spanned various roles, most notably as Executive Vice Chancellor and Acting University Librarian, is credited with starting this program, whose latest selection is Your Brain on Art. [Image]
(5) Tonight's Talangor Group meeting: Dr. Arash Taqavi spoke under the title "The Empty-Nest Syndrome." Before the main talk, Mitra Zaimi screened a video in remembrance of prolific Iranian poet/author Hamid Mosadegh [1940-1998], who was a lawyer by training. There were ~95 attendees. [Event flyer]
According to Wikipedia, "Empty-nest syndrome is a feeling of grief and loneliness parents may feel when their children move out of the family home, such as to live on their own or to have a higher education." While not a clinical condition, empty-nest syndrome can lead to depression and a loss of purpose, especially for stay-at-home or full-time parents or those who are also dealing with other stressful life events. Keeping in contact with the children who have moved out is one of the most-effective coping mechanisms.
In the US, some parents are dealing with the opposite phenomenon (let's call it "the full-nest syndrome"), because adult members of the "Boomerang Generation" return to live with their parents, primarily due to joblessness or other economic hardships. About one-third of 18-34-year-olds live at home with their parents.
2024/02/28 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Math puzzle: Given the areas of three trignales, find the area of the pink one. [Top center] Tah-dig art: The bottom-of-the-pot crispy rice, sometimes with potato or bread slices added, is a staple of Iranian cusine. This version uses parsley to create an artsy tah-dig. Please note that this isn't my creation. [Top right] Math puzzle: What fraction of the rectangle's area is shaded?
(2) The Odysseus lunar lander is on its side & will likely run out of energy soon: Possibly tangled up while landing, it is still sending images & data to Earth.
(3) Iranian economist Dr. Masoud Nili: Iran is dying. Mismanagement has turned our country, which is rich in natural and human resources, into a land of poverty and misfortune. [Tweet, with video]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Market valuation of Intel vs. NVIDIA over time. [Video]
- Journalist/activist Masih Alinejad's interview with DW Persian.
- For she has sinned: A young woman's father & brothers kick her and beat her, as she screams in pain.
- Pooran's cover of the jazzy Persian song "Shab Bood." [3-minute video]
- Pallette, a unique Iranian band, in concert in Los Angeles, Sat. April 27, 2024. [Flyer]
- UCSB Chancellor's message to the campus community regarding recent anti-Semitism incidents.
(5) Words vs. stones: According to Freud, civilization began when humans started hurling words at each other instead of stones. There is more variety in words than there is in stones. You can pick a word that inflicts just the right amount of pain. One can evade stones or deflect them with a shield, but not so for words.
(6) This is how foreign-language films are dubbed into Persian: This old example happens to involve only male voices, but women have been at the forefront of the dubbing industry in Iran.
(7) Caltech's Watson Lecture Series: "Einstein's General Relativity, From 1905 to 2005," by Kip Thorne (Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics). [74-minute video]
(8) Final thought for the day: Why is former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad allowed to run his mouth, while many other high-ranking officials have been silenced? I believe that he may not have been bluffing when he claimed that he has documents showing corruption at the top of Iran's religious and political hierarchy. The documents are supposedly kept in a safe place and will be released if something happens to Ahmadinejad.
2024/02/26 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Talk on Reza Shah in exile (see the next item below). [Center] The rise of US dollar and dollar coin against Iranian toman: The nearly straight-line rise indicates exponential growth of dollar's value and exponential decline of Iran's currency, given that the vertical axis is scaled logarithmically. [Right] Talk on Nezami's Khosrow and Shirin (see the last item below).
(2) Sunday's event in the UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran: "Reza Shah's Exile in Mauritius" by Houchang Chehabi (Boston University).
[Note: I was unable to attend this event, so this brief report is to inform my readers about the event, whose recording will become available through UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies.]
Upon Reza Shah's forced abdication in 1941, the British sent him to Mauritius Island, one of their colonies. Even though the authorities of the island tried to make Reza Shah feel comfortable and at home, he considered himself a prisoner and developed numerous physical and mental problems. He left the island with his wife and children after 7 months and went to South Africa, where he remained until his death in 1944. This talk reviewed the details of Reza Shah's years in exile and the interactions of his family with residents of the island.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Donation of $1 billion by a former professor to provide free tuition at a Bronx medical school.
- The wonderful world of Tesla coils, including using them to play music. [11-minute video]
- Simple blueberry-harvesting device. [Tweet, with video]
- Facebook memory from Feb. 26, 2016: Calligraphic rendering of a Persian verse by Hafez.
(4) Today's Georgetown U. event on Iran: Dick Davis (Iranologist, Poet, University Professor, and Translator) spoke under the title "Nezami's Khosrow and Shirin."
Before Romeo and Juliet, there was Khosrow and Shirin by Nezami Ganjavi. Dick Davis introduced Nezami's 12th-century masterpiece of Persian poetry and read from his new translation of the work (Mage Publishers, 2023, 520 pp.).
Khosrow and Shirin is a nuanced story. Yes, it follows the usual plots of love stories, with their twists and turns, but it also has elements you don't find in other love stories. For example, Shirin transforms Khosrow by educating him. At one point, overcome with passion, Khosrow tries to rape Shirin, but she stops him and takes the opportunity to teach him about gentlemanly behavior.
Nezami has a special place among the great Persian poets in that his interests revolved arount poetry (art, more generally) as an end in itself, which is different from Sa'adi's use of poetry to dispense advice on how to live or Hafez's goal of celebrating erotic love or mysticism.
2024/02/24 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Seasons of life: Youth, middle age, old age. [Center] Math puzzle: Fill in the missing digits in this multiplication. [Right] Talk on publishing and the state in Iran (see the last item below).
(2) IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk of Wed. 2024/02/21: Dr. Rich Wolski (UCSB, CS) spoke on "Building the Computational Infrastructure of Reality: Experiences with the Internet of Things." [Read more]
(3) From PBS News Hour: Teenage girl "influencers" post innocent photos of themselves on accounts managed by mom or dad. Followers are predominantly weird men who make inappropriate or explicit comments.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The majestic Sydney Opera House: History and design details, including a 3D virtual tour.
- A typical day in the life of Miami, Florida, featuring heavy cruise-ship traffic. [Time-lapse video]
- Visual comparison of tiger populations in different countries. [Animated presentation]
- According to Nobel Laureate Roger Penrose, string theory is wrong and dark matter does not exist.
(5) Today's event in the UCSB/Farhang-Foundation Lecture Series: "Publishing and the State in Iran: From the 1950s to the Present" by Dr. Laetitia Nanquette (U. New South Wales, Australia).
The medium of print is a powerful tool that has links throughout all echelons of society. Hence, the Iranian state, despite the various forms it has taken over this long period, has consistently shown a keen interest in utilizing and influencing the publishing sector. The state predominantly communicates its ideology and contributes to shaping its identity through the medium of print.
Both during the Pahlavi era and after the Islamic Revolution, government impeded the free flow of ideas in print media, but on occasion also helped by holding book exhibits, offering award programs. And subsidizing paper, which is expensive and under a government monopoly.
One of the bright spots in the Pahlavi era was the Franklin Book Program, managed by Homayoun Sanatizadeh. Franklin was a Cold War instrument to compete with communism and Soviet Union's cultural influence. It wasn't however a right-wing operation, as it was run by Iranians with center and left political leanings.
In addition to the official censorship program (that required books to obtain publication certificates before any publisher dared to touch them), various forms of self-censorship by the writer, editor, and publisher have been in place. Beginning in 1977, a law required book-sellers to keep a record of their customers.
Five categories of books have been frowned upon by the Iranian state: Communist, Christian, Foreign-language, anti-Islamic, and sexually-explicit. For a few short years after the Revolution, books were more or less free, but newspapers were tightly controlled. During 1979-1983, Enghelab Avenue was a vibrant center for book-sellers and publishers.
Article 24 of Iran's post-Revolution Constitution is explicit in banning any publication that is harmful to the principles of Islam. Just as film directors and producers have learned to convey their messages in a way that gets around the censors, so too authors and publishers strive to present ideas in a manner that does not rile the censors. Control over Web sites is less strict than print media.
This scholarly talk included many reference citations, one of which is the following: Abiz, Alireza, Censorship and Literature in Post-Revolutionary Iran: Politics and Culture Since 1979, Bloomsbury, 2020.
2024/02/22 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday: Paul McCartney and his then fiancee, actress Jane Asher, visited Iran for 2 days in 1968 on their way back from India, touring historic and cultural sites such as Tehran's Shah Mosque. [Top center] New satellite-based research reveals that land along the US East Coast, from Boston to Miami, is slumping into the ocean, compounding the danger from global sea level rise (NYT). [Top right] Each dot in this image of a small portion of the universe is a galaxy and each galaxy contains about 100 billion stars, with each star having at least one planet. This is how insignificant Earth's place and humans' place are in the universe! [Bottom left] Cleaning crew finds two Q1 microcomputers, which were last used in the 1970s: Only one other Q1 is known to exist. [Bottom center] The largest tip ever (see the last item below). [Bottom right] A beautiful and surprising mathematical identity: See if you can prove it.
(2) World Music Series: A subset of UCSB Middle East Ensemble performed on campus yesterday in a free noon concert. Here are two samples (a Turkish dance and a Persian love song).
(3) Scientific fraud: Retraction notices multiply. This set includes entire issues of the journal Microprocessors and Microsystems as well as several individual articles. [Tweet, with article images]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- A black hole 17 B times larger than our Sun & eating the equivalent of one Sun every day discovered.
- Intuitive Machines touches down on Moon in nail-biting descent of its lander, a first for the US since 1972.
- Google suspends the capability of its Gemini chatbot to generate images of people.
- An interesting talk by Dr. Laetitia Nanquette on publishing and the state in Iran. [My report on Facebook]
(5) Operations of a major ransomware group disrupted: UK National Crime Agency, US FBI, Europol, and a coalition of international police agencies has taken control of an online site run by the LockBit ransomware group, whose software was the most-deployed ransomware variant across the world last year.
(6) Deans' lists, a long-time staple of American higher education, appear to be heading for extinction. Last fall, Cornell and Penn stopped releasing deans' lists in an effort to reduce students' academic stress. Meanwhile, Brown hasn't had a dean's list since it moved to its current open curriculum academic model in the late 1960s, and Harvard last published a dean's list in 2002.
(7) Final thought for the day (the largest tip ever): In 1922, when Einstein realized he didn't have cash to tip a bellboy in Japan, he wrote two notes for him, both in German.
The first note contained his theory of happiness: "A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness."
On a second note, he wrote: "Where there's a will there's a way."
The first note recently sold for $1.6 million. The second note fetched $0.24 million. Total tip = $1.84 million.
2024/02/19 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Happy Presidents' Day (see the next item below). [Top center] Sepideh Rashnu, the fearless Iranian women's-rights activist, hijabless in front of Tehran's notorious Evin Prison, to which she has been summoned for serving her prison term. [Top right] The harassment and arbitrary detention of Iranian Baha'is continue: The documentary "To Light a Candle" tells part of this 21st-century horror tale. [Bottom left] Gun violence: America's parade of corpses. [Bottom center] Math puzzle: Given the areas of three of the squares, find the area of the fourth one. [Bottom right] Lady Justice trying to hang on, as governments in Iran and elsewhere are bent on blowing her away.
(2) In praise of Presidents' Day: In American history, few occasions stand as proud reminders of the nation's journey and the leaders who shaped its destiny quite like Presidents' Day. Yes, we have had terrible Commanders in Chiefs, but they have been few & far in between, and we should strive to keep it that way.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- A report from the opening of Iran Computer Museum on February 16, 2024 (video, narrated in Persian).
- Middle East Quarterly: Brief reviews of eight books about the Middle East.
- Getting to know prominent computer scientist Kurt Mehlhorn: Part of the "People of ACM" series.
- Jon Stewart ridicules Tucker Carlson for his free propaganda piece in praise of Russia.
- Space fact of the day: Human-made objects orbiting the Earth have a total weight of 25 million pounds.
(4) In the upcoming Iranian elections, Tehran residents are offered a choice between two competing slates, both approved by the regime and neither one including a woman.
(5) Near-record winds in the US northeast pushed multiple passenger planes to speeds exceeding 800 mph, a tad over the speed of sound (767 mph), but for technical reasons, they did not break the sound barrier.
2024/02/17 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Screenshot of video generated by OpenAI's Sora, an AI video generator aimed at facilitating filmmaking but which can also contribute to the proliferation of fake videos. [Center] The spiral of square roots. [Right] The unique and fantastic street lights at Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
(2) Nowruz and spring are one month away: The spring equinox (saal-tahveel) will be on Tuesday, March 19, 2024, 8:06:26 PM PT (Wednesday, March 20, 6:36:26 AM Tehran time).
(3) Succession conflicts will end Islamic Republic of Iran's claim to legitimacy: Saudi Arabia was in a similar bind, but it resolved the problem by putting MBS in charge and sidelining others with claims to the throne.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Aleksei Navalny, outspoken Putin has died in prison: He survived a nerve-agent attempt on his life in 2020.
- Be my Valentine: India's Narendra Modi loves those who sell oil to him. [Tweet, with photo]
- National unity is good, but one should not have to sacrifice one's principles to achieve it. [Tweet, with meme]
- Sharif U. Technology Association (SUTA) reunion: Aug. 30 to Sep. 1, 2024, Niagara Falls, Canada.
- China's super-advanced space station, "The Heavenly Palace," is taking shape. [17-minute video]
- A brief but spectacular take on the future of the Internet: Networking pioneer Vint Cerf on PBS News Hour.
- How language shapes the way we think: 14-minute TED talk by Lera Boroditsky.
- Thirty-six Super Bowl halftime shows ranked: Looking back at some of these shows is fun.
- Facebook memory from Feb. 17, 2013: A tribute to my father (with texts in Persian and English).
(5) Houthi bypass: Goods forge an overland path to Israel via Saudi Arabia & Jordan, avoiding attacks on ships in the Red Sea. Israel-based firms run trucking routes from the ports of Dubai and Bahrain to Haifa.
(6) Leap day is coming up: Couples who dislike anniversaries have a chance to get married on Feb. 29, which will lead to anniversaries once every four years.
(7) The defenseless people of Gaza: This is an expression we hear often. But we should stop and ask, "Why are they defenseless?" They have a government with a significant stash of arms which went into hiding instead of defending its people. Hamas likely knew that it could not stand up to Israel, yet it decided to trigger a war by its barbaric acts on October 7, 2023.
2024/02/15 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday: Class of 1968, Electromechanical Division, College of Engineering, University of Tehran. [Top center] Spring's in the air: Early this morning on the UCSB campus. [Top right] Persian calligraphy in fashion: Even low-brow clothing, such as T-shirts sold on Amazon, feature calligraphic art & messaging. [Bottom left] Meme of the day: Eleanor Roosevelt on liberals and liberalism. [Bottom center] Math puzzle: Find the height of the red pole. [Bottom right] Futurism and its connection to Fascism (see the last item below).
(2) Exam anxiety is a real problem for many students, so instructors should strive to reduce it by improving transparency and inclusivity in both written and oral exams.
(3) Imran Khan's election victory speech from prison in Pakistan: The AI-generated speech signals that we are entering uncharted territory in the use and abuse of AI.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Chief Middle East Advisor to Turkey's President Erdogan: "Israel must be destroyed."
- Hamas networks operate openly in Western Europe, often posing as human-rights advocates.
- College Board pays $750K to settle claims that it violated students' privacy by selling their personal data.
- Scientific integrity is going down the drain: A Columbia cancer surgeon kept publishing flawed studies.
(5) Microsoft's "AI Anthology" contains a diverse collection of essays on the future of AI, with the aim to answer two core questions:
- How might this technology and its successors contribute to human flourishing?
- How might we as society best guide the technology to achieve maximal benefits for humanity?
(6) Academics in US, UK, and Australia collaborated on drone research with Iran's Sharif University of Technology, which is under sanctions for its ties to the military.
(7) The Manifesto of Futurism: In 1909, Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published "Manifesto del Futurismo," in which he expressed an artistic philosophy entailing a rejection of the past and a celebration of speed, machinery, violence, youth, and industry. The manifesto predates many 20th-century events commonly suggested as its potential meaning, but the political movements that led to Fascism were already in place in the early 1900s. These movements motivated the manifesto, which in turn influenced Mussolini and his ilk. In Jonathan Taplin's The End of Reality, a book which I have started reading and will review in due course, agendas of US tech titans are likened to Marinetti's.
2024/02/14 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Happy Valentine's Day! Sending you love and wishing you all the peace and joy that love can bring. [Top center] Young girls ice-skating at Ice Palace, a sports & entertainment complex just south of Vanak Sq. on Pahlavi Ave. in the pre-Revolution Iran. [Top right] Neil deGrasse Tyson's Starry Messenger (see the last item below). [Bottom left] Math puzzle: Find the measure of angle x if the blue part of the square is twice as large as the yellow part. [Bottom center & right] Opening of Iran Computer Museum: I am delighted to report that thanks to the efforts of visionary investors and a large group of young people managing & curating the collection, Iran Computer Museum will open its doors in Tehran on Fri., Feb. 16, 2024.
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- UCSB World Music Series: Irish, Scotish, & Celtic music by The Decent Folk. [Video 1] [Video 2] [Video 3]
- Only 16% of community-college students transfer and graduate with a bachelor's degree within 6 years.
- Under intense pressure, Texas A&M closes its campus in Qatar because of that country's support of Hamas.
- In Indonesia, a player was struck by lightning on the soccer field and died.
- Fashion show in Tehran, Iran, 1958. [Tweet, with video]
- A very interesting and informative discussion on neuroscientific experiments regarding free will.
(3) Book review: Tyson, Neil deGrasse, Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by the author, Macmillan Audio, 2022.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Our perspectives on Earth and human species changed significantly once astronauts saw our bluish planet from the space, a sight that lacked any borders or human-made structures. Our "pale blue dot" planet is but a tiny part of the immense universe that contains galaxies so far away that their distance to Earth is measured in light years (one light year, the distance light travels in one year, is about six trillion, or 6*10^12, miles).
As much as we take pride in our ability to predict the course of science and technology, most transformative sci/tech ideas surprised us when they emerged. By presenting facts about our universe and its unbounded beauty, Tyson challenges prevalent assumptions about our existence and abilities. Just like our cave-dwelling ancestors of 30,000 years ago, we remain shortsighted and averse to risk: "Let's solve the problems in our cave, before venturing to areas outside the domain of our daily existence," the elders may have advised enterprising youngsters, who wanted to explore further.
We encounter the same mindset today, when certain politicians and thought leaders demand that we solve Earth's problems (or worse, America's problems) before venturing into space or gazing at distant galaxies, to which we may never travel.
Tyson also points out that we are not as different as we think we are from our political or social adversaries. Fox News is abhorred by the left for its agenda-driven news coverage, a disdain that transfers to the entire Fox network. Yet some of the most-socially-progressive programs have been shown on Fox, including a version of the science series "Cosmos," black-led programs, and the irreverent "The Simpsons" that made fun of everyone and everything. Additionally, Fox Sports is a respected player in its field. Tyson levels similar criticisms at the right for distrusting all non-Fox media.
As we grapple with political and cultural stands that are more polarized than ever, Starry Messenger provides a much-needed antidote to our intolerant and divided demeanor, while making a passionate case for a cosmic perspective and scientific rationality, the twin driving forces of enlightenment.
2024/02/12 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] February 11 is UN's International Day of Women in Science: Let's celebrate their many accomplishments, despite getting smaller research grants and less in other forms of support than their male colleagues. [Top center] The perfect symmetry & signature blue tiles of Shah Mosque, Isfahan, Iran. [Top right] Avoiding toxic positivity is important when trying to help someone in distress. [Bottom left] IEEE celebrates its 140th anniversary this year by offering the e-book Inspiring Technology: 34 Breakthroughs. [Bottom center] David Linden's The Accidental Mind (see the last item below). [Bottom right] Cat owners and their hostage partners will appreciate this cartoon!
(2) What an exciting Super Bowl! I had no favorite team going in, but by the end of the 25-22 overtime nail-biter, I was cheering for the champions, Kansas City Chiefs.
(3) Being thrown into the sea isn't just a Hamas threat against Israelis: The Greeks face a similar threat from Turkey, which has also threatened an invasion of Armenia.
(4) Book review: Linden, David J., The Accidental Mind: How Brain Evolution Has Given Us Love, Memory, Dreams, and God, Harvard, 2007.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I read this 276-page book on the heels of listening to a comprehensive 36-lecture course, Understanding the Brain, which I have reviewed on GoodReads. Linden's book takes a higher-level view, skipping many details of our brain's architecture and subsystems in favor of historical perspectives on its evolutionary development.
The book contains the following 9 chapters, between a 4-page prologue entitled "Brain, Explained" and an 8-page epilogue, "The Middle Things." There is also a 7-page list of "Further Readings and Resources."
- The Inelegant Design of the Brain
- Building a Brain with Yesterday's Parts
- Some Assembly Required
- Sensation and Emotion
- Learning, Memory, and Human Individuality
- Love and Sex
- Sleeping and Dreaming
- The Religious Impulse
- The Unintelligent Design of the Brain
As evident from several of the chapter titles, the author doesn't consider the brain an elegantly-designed, highly-efficient organ that is perfectly suited to its functions. Weighing around 3 pounds, our brain is a patchwork of old (outdated) structures and newer growth that together use some 20% of our body's energy. Far from being a miracle of intelligent design that should be worshiped, the miracle is the fact that this amalgam of ad-hoc parts works as well as it does!
Early on, Linden highlights three guiding principles of the brain's design that show the ways in which human brain is poorly organized:
- New brain structures appear on top of ancient structures, like added ice-cream scoops to previously deposited ones. Imagine trying to build a modern car while being restricted to adding parts and systems to a 1925 Model-T Ford.
- The component parts (the cells) of the brain have engineering flaws. That the brain made of such crummy parts works at all is in part due to its massively parallel and massively redundant architecture.
- The brain's assembly process (brain development) is suboptimal. Because the brain has never been redesigned from the ground up, it is filled with multiple systems and anachronistic junk.
2024/02/10 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Happy Lunar (Chinese) New Year: May this new year of the dragon bring peace and prosperity to the world! [Top center] Cropped from original painting by architect/artist Talieh Keshavarz: "A Fine Day at Laguna," acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48. [Top right] IEEE Computer magazine's cover feature for February 2024 (see the next item below). [Bottom left] Headquarters of an on-line seller in Iran was defaced after a product was interpreted as insulting Prophet Mohammad's daughter. The message threatens that the extremists will next come for the company's employees. [Bottom center] Find the area of the smaller of the two equilateral triangles, given the areas of three other triangles. [Bottom right] This afternoon's walk alongside Devereux Slough in Goleta: One of the photos appears to be upside-down, but it isn't.
(2) Cover feature of IEEE Computer magazine: "Disruptive technologies, especially artificial intelligence, are affecting all of us. But are we using this technology in an ethical way?" The issue contains several interesting articles, including "International Federation for Information Processing Code of Ethics in Context."
(3) Prompted by a reply to my post on research fraud, I am posting about a 2020 paper of mine entitled "On Research Quality and Impact: What Five Decades in Academia Has Taught Me."
[PDF: English;
Persian]
(4) In the US, ~2 cyclists are killed and ~50 are injured in traffic accidents per day: None of these 52 daily accidents is widely reported, except possibly on local news. But a Waymo driverless car being involved in an accident in which a cyclist suffers minor scratches becomes front-page news. Why?
(5) As an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Computing, I was delighted to see the article "Toward Sustainable Computer Systems," by Lieven Eeckhout (Ghent U.), in the February 2024 issue of IEEE Computer magazine. It begins thus: "Sustainability is a pressing concern that encompasses much more than cutting carbon emissions to reach net zero. However, with the right techniques and tools, computer scientists and engineers can understand and navigate a variety of new design tradeoffs that will steer future solutions."
2024/02/08 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Stars you see at night are part of this yellow circle. [Top center] Munker optical illusion: The balls behind the horizontal lines are all the same color. [Top right] Math puzzle: Find x as a function of m and n. [Bottom left] Scientific fraud goes to the next level: We knew of the practice of offering author slots on low-quality or plagiarized research papers for a fee. Now, journal editors are being approached with offers of significant cash bribes for accepting fraudulent papers. [Bottom center] Polar bear snoozing on an iceberg: This photo, shot by amateur photographer Nima Sarikhani during an expedition in Norway, was chosen from among 50,000+ photos for the 2023 Wildlife Photographer of the Year People's Choice Award. She hopes it will inspire people to fight climate change. [Bottom right] Talk on holography (see the last item below).
(2) The science of 6 degrees of separation: Or is it 5 or 4 degrees of separation now, owing to greater connectivity through social media? [8-minute video]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Tucker Carlson provides free propaganda platform for Putin on the Ukraine war.
- Qatar eliminates Iran at the Asian Cup semifinals 3-2. [13-minute extended highlights]
- UCSB World Music Series noon concert: Tom Ball & Kenny Sultan performed yesterday. [Video 1] [Video 2]
- Humor: If you have children looking for science project topics, here's a suggestion!
(4) Sportsmanship to the extreme: Danish team captain, whose team was trailing 0-1 against Iran, intentionally missed a PK when he realized that the player who touched the ball with his hands did it because he mistook a spectator's whistle for the end-of-game whistle by the referee. [Video]
(5) Wednesday night's book talk at UCSB's Campbell Hall: What can we do to remain hopeful in a world filled with hatred and divisive stories on social media? As head of TED, Chris Anderson has had a ringside view of the world's boldest thinkers sharing their most uplifting ideas. With his new book, Infectious Generosity: The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading, Anderson looks at one of humankind's defining but overlooked impulses—generosity—and how we can super-charge its potential to build a hopeful future.
(6) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Mohammad Taghi Fatehi spoke under the title "Holography: What It Is and What It Is Not." Before the main talk, Dr. Payam Kiani made a brief presentation on stereo vision & 3D TV.
Holography is a technique to record and reconstruct a 3-dimensional scene on a 2D plane (i.e., a hologram) based on optical diffraction and interference. Holography was discovered in 1948 by Hungarian-born electrical engineer Denis Gabor who proposed to use this technique to improve the resolution in electron microscopy. Gabor received the Nobel Prize in Physics for this work in 1971.
This 13-minute YouTube video contains an introduction to how holograms are made.
2024/02/06 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A design to maximally irk the MAGA crowd! [Center] A nerdy birthday gift: This paper was sent to me by IEEE Computer Society a few days ago, along with a birthday message. It refers to the "birthday paradox," the fact that you only need 23 people in a group for the probability of two or more individuals having the same birthday to exceed 50%. [Right] The great escape: A recurring dream of Iranians.
(2) Light at the end of the tunnel: Stayed home on Monday, having cancelled my UCSB class due to the possibility of life-threatening flooding in the entire SoCal region. Looking forward to Thursday and beyond.
(3) The Salton Sea: The story of the California lake that was created by an engineering mistake, brought with it prosperity and tourism, and then became a dead zone just as unexpectedly. [10-minute video]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- California storm news, including a fallen tree partially blocking Storke Road near my home.
- Wildfires in Chile kill 112, with hundreds more missing. [Photos]
- Dartmouth College reinstates standardized testing for applicants. Other elite colleges will likely follow suit.
- Moonquakes could spell trouble for future Moon missions and bases to be built there.
- The roadmap to slowing and even reversing aging according to Nobel Laureates.
- Cheesy ad for the 1961 B-movie "Why Bother to Knock" in pre-Revolution Iran.
[Tweet, with image]
(5) Like all of his predecessors, former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is being completely sidelined: He has been disqualified from seeking election to Iran's Assembly of Experts, a post that would have allowed him to remain in the spotlight.
(6) Hypocrisy: The mullahs host an American porn star visiting Iran, because she supports Palestinians. But they have a problem with soccer star Ali Daei's daughter appearing sans hijab!
(7) When the balance of nature is disturbed: Big-headed ants, brought to Africa recently by tourism and commerce, eat the native ants, which protect the trees from elephants. Now, elephants eat more trees, leading to inadequate cover for lions hunting zebras, so the lions get less food. [NPR sory]
(8) Fraudulent bank accounts created for University of California employees: Names, SSNs, and other personal information (believed to have been collected in an old data breach) are being used to open unauthorized bank accounts at Chime, Go2Bank, and Acorns.
2024/02/04 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Mathematical art: Floor mosaic from Hisham's Palace, Jericho, 8th century CE. [Top center] Talk on the effect of learning on the brain structure (see the last item below). [Top right] Believe it or not, such corrugated brick walls use fewer bricks than a straight wall: They're known as crinkle-crankle walls, and 100 fine examples survive in Suffolk, England. The savings in the number of bricks comes from the fact that a straight wall with a single layer of bricks won't be as stable. [Bottom left] History made at the 2024 Grammy Awards: Joni Mitchell, 80, offered an emotional rendition of "Both Sides Now" at her first-ever performance on the Grammys stage. [Bottom center] Withholding help from those who need it, because a few bad apples may take advantage of our generosity, is wrong. [Bottom right] We read that movie theaters are in trouble financially. Here is a popcorn replacement suggestion to bring audiences back!
(2) Home-bound today: Coffee brewed, news shows on, as we brace for a day of rain, serious flooding, and high winds in the Santa Barbara area. [Tweet, with images of news & cooking]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The storm approaching California has intensified: Historic rainfall and flooding expected.
- Storm damage: Two condos in a Goleta housing complex got seriously damaged by a falling tree.
- Santa Barbara Airport has closed down due to flooding on the runway.
- Iran scores an impressive 2-1 victory against Japan in the Asian Cup tournament. [9-minute highlights]
(4) Cancellation of my in-person class (message to students): Due to potential flooding and the ensuing challenges, I am cancelling our discussion session and office hour on Monday 2/05 per campus safety guidelines. Please watch Lecture 6 on shared memory implementations and Lecture 7 on sorting networks before our Wednesday 2/07 class. We will discuss three lectures in the next two discussion sessions.
(5) "How Learning Changes the Brain Structure": This was the title of the first talk in this morning's Persian Zoom meeting hosted by UCLA Medical Center. Dr. Mohammad Bagheri was the speaker.
The talk's main message was that brain decline isn't inevitable as we age. Neuroplasticity, brain's ability to change its structure and wiring, remains with us until we die. The link between brain changes and learning is a 2-way street, with brain rewiring creating new knowledge and learning triggering changes in the brain. As long as we don't stop learning, our brain will continue to improve. If we don't learn new things or stop practicing existing skills, brain decline will ensue.
When we master/practice a domain/skill, three processes are triggered in the brain. The first one is synaptic strengthening, which is a short-term chemical process. The second one involves restructuring of connections, a long-term physical process that is similar to committing something to long-term memory. The third one creates regional specialization in the brain, which brings about permanent functional changes.
2024/02/03 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] "In Hot Water": This is the title of the cover feature for Science magazine, issue of February 2, 2024. The focus is on how El Nino will change in a warmer world. [Top center] What a contrast! Taylor Swift and her boyfriend, KC Chiefs tight-end Travis Kelce. [Top right] Africa's emerging ocean (see the next item below). [Bottom left] Math challenge: Compute the infinite sum on the third line, given the clue on the second line. [Bottom center] Found in Dominican Republic: Praying Mantis preserved in amber is about 30 million years old. [Bottom right] Square roots of natural numbers occurring in a 3D cubic grid.
(2) A new ocean is forming in Africa along a 35-mile crack that opened up in Ethiopia in 2005: The crack, which has been expanding ever since, is a result of three tectonic plates pulling away from each other. Africa's new ocean will take million of years to form, but the Afar region's fortuitous location at the boundaries of the Nubian, Somali, and Arabian plates makes it a unique laboratory to study elaborate tectonic processes.
(3) Extensive research fraud exposed: Cliques of mathematicians at institutions in China, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere have been artificially boosting their colleagues' citation counts by churning out low-quality papers that repeatedly reference their work.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- SoCal weather: Potentially life-threatening flooding between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, Sun.-Mon.
- Video of severe flooding in San Diego, California (late January, 2024).
- Drug overdose deaths are rising, but San Francisco's rate is more than double the US average. [NYT chart]
- Some men resent women for simply taking up space, regardless of their accomplishments & good deeds.
- A la "Peanuts" (cartoon): "It's a basic competency test. I'll hold the ball, & you come running up & kick it!"
- No amount of Islamic oppression and economic hardship can dampen the spirit of fun-loving Iranians.
(5) The Salton Sea: The story of the California lake that was created accidentally by an engineering mistake, brought with it much economic & tourist activities, and became a dead zone just as unexpectedly.
(6) NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour installed at California Space Center in Los Angeles: What's unique about this installation is that the 122-foot-tall flier with a 78-foot wingspan has its massive external fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters attached, all displayed as if they are on the launch platform. [Tweet, with photos]
(7) Santa Barbara area rents are rising: Meanwhile, UCSB's plans to develop additional student housing have been delayed by the Munger Hall debacle, squeezing the students financially. Rents in Isla Vista & Goleta are even higher than the area averages shown. [UCSB Daily Nexus chart]
(8) A final thought: In Goleta, we have rain in the forecast for 7 of the next 10 days: The already-saturated ground may lead to life-threatening flooding and mudslides. The entire SoCal area is in the same boat.
2024/02/01 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday: This photo, taken at an unspecified location some five decades ago, contains two very famous Iranian pop singers. [Top center] Celebrating my birthday with the family four years ago: You do the math! [Top right] Woodcut by Adolf Vollmy: The work was inspired by an 1833 meteor shower that was so intense (up to 100,000 meteors every hour) that many thought the end of the world had come. [Bottom left] US policy toward Iran (see the next item below). [Bottom center] A birthday present: Having completed a 3-year term as an IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Visitor/Lecturer during 2021-2023, I have just learned that I have been reappointed to the position for another 3-year term, 2024-2026. [Bottom right] Reflections at the end of another birthday (see the last item below).
(2) Biden's miscalculations about Iran: After the hard-line stance of the Trump administaration, Biden returned to Obama's appeasement policy, which has led to tensions and instability in the region. Prohibitions against supporting proxy terror groups should be included in any new deal with Iran.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Meta's Mark Zuckerberg apologizes to child abuse victims and their families at a US Senate hearing.
- Unprecedented ~60 MPH winds expected on Sunday along CA Coast, from Channel Islands to Fort Bragg.
- Why 4 of 5 sufferers from autoimmune diseases are women: The female-only Xist molecule is implicated.
- MAGA World vs. Taylor Swift: I am taking the side of the talented star against the bullies!
(4) At the end of my 77th birthday: I am thankful for all the birthday wishes from family & friends and for having been given a chance to complete another revolution around the Sun. The kids and I celebrated by having dinner at Nikka Fish Market & Grill in Goleta, where I ordered a char-broiled trout dish (my mom's favorite) and a cup of clam chowder. Your place was empty.
I will spare you my usual long essay on properties of my birthday number, 77, except to note that it's a semi-prime (7*11), the sum of the first eight prime numbers (2 + 3 + 5 + 7 + 11 + 13 + 17 + 19), and the sum of three consecutive perfect squares (4^2 + 5^2 + 6^2).
2024/01/31 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Third-to-eighth-grade math scores have recovered somewhat after the COVID years but they are still 0.4 year under the average in 2019 and earlier (NYT chart). [Center] One of Norway's 200,000+ islands. Only Sweden has more islands than Norway. [Right] Interesting article on AI fairness (see the last item below).
(2) First human receives a Neuralink brain implant: The company claims rapid recovery of the patient (whose identity is unknown) and successful detection of neuron spikes by the implant.
(3) How the Celsius temperature scale in use today came about: Anders Celsius originally had it upside-down, with 0 being at water's boiling point and 100 at its freezing point.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Atmospheric river coming to SoCal this week: Extreme rainfall & heavy snow forecast across the West.
- Gen-Z gender divide: The women are liberal, whereas men tend to support demagogues and strongmen.
- Chita Rivera, the classically-trained and Tony-winning Broadway star dancer, dead at 91.
- ABBA songs & their wonderful harmonies never get old: Covers of "Super Trooper" & "Dancing Queen."
- State Parks are among the most-valuable treasures of our Golden State, California. [FB post, with photo]
- Dundunba Drum Lab performed at UCSB’s World Music Series noon concert today.
[Video 1]
[Video 2]
(5) National Air & Space Museum's 2024 lectures on samples-return missions, on YouTube (5:00-6:00 PM PT).
March 6: "To the Moon and Back" (Dr. Barbara Cohen)
April 24: "The Stardust Discovery Mission: Bringing Comet Wild-2 Samples Home to Earth" (Dr. Scott Sandford)
May 22: "OSIRIS-Rex: Revealing Secrets from the Dawn of our Solar System" (Dr. Dante Lauretta)
June 5: "Bringing Mars Samples Back to Earth" (Meenakshi Wadhwa)
(6) Inherent limitations of AI fairness: This is the subject of the cover feature of Communications of the ACM, issue of February 2022.
The vast majority of AI literature is concerned with the easily-attainable notion of group fairness, which requires that any two protected groups should, on average, receive similar labels. Group fairness expresses the principles of individual fairness by looking at the sum of discrimination toward an entire group rather than individual contributions.
Though this increased statistical power makes group fairness more-practical to measure and satisfy, it comes with its own problems, including Simpson's Paradox, which essentially warns us that conclusions may vary depending on the granularity of groups.
2024/01/29 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Wonders of our Solar System: Clearest photo of Planet Jupiter ever taken. [Center] Year of the humanoid: Legged robots from 8 companies vie for jobs. [Right] Yaxi Highway, aka the Skyroad: China's 240-km marvel of engineering.
(2) Amazing math & engineering: This set of 242 interlocking bevel gears on the surface of a sphere is composed of 12 blue gears with 25 teeth each, 30 yellow gears with 30 teeth, 60 orange gears with 14 teeth, and 140 red gears with 12 teeth. [Tweet, with GIF image]
(3) Algorithmic video surveillance will be taken to new heights at the Paris Olympics: But unlike the Chinese who quietly accepted surveillance at the last Olympic Games, the French are vehemently protesting.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Three US soldiers killed and 34 injured in Jordan by drone strikes linked to Iran.
- Israeli investigation reveals that much of Hamas's arms used on Oct. 7 came from the Israeli military.
- The UN fires several employees after allegations that they aided Hamas in its attack of October 7.
- Artemis II will send astronauts around the Moon in world's first crewed deep-space mission in 50 years.
- Synchron is racing Neuralink to bring its brain implants, delivered via blood vessels, to market.
- An explanation of why we continue to cough after we are no longer sick.
- Modeling sports match-ups with intransitive dice games: A fun, but challenging, math exercise.
- The comic genius of Robin Williams during a British TV interview.
(5) Cox Communication's dishonest service: About a week ago, I went to Cox store in Santa Barbara to return a cable box I no longer needed. Rather than simply record the return, which would have reduced my monthly fee by a few dollars, the agent apparently signed me up for new services, which will increase my cost, all without my consent. What triggered my suspicion was the assignment of a new account number, an unnecessary action for the transaction.
[On X (Twitter), a Cox PR person responded to my criticism and recommended that I contact Cox's customer service to fix the problem.]
(6) Ex-contractor for IRS sentenced to 5 years in prison for leaking Donald Trump's tax returns: As usual, low-level criminals are pursued with vengeance, while those at the very top walk free, either because they aren't charged or else their teams of influential (and expensive) lawyers use every delay tactic in the book and negotiate favorable plea deals after everyone is worn out.
2024/01/27 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] Stearns Wharf during today's outing in Santa Barbara with my sisters on the occasion of my upcoming birthday. [Right] Homa Katouzian's Humour in Iran (see the last item below).
(2) Our bodies constitute permanent records of government policies: Americans are getting shorter (once the world's tallest, we are now hovering around 50th in the world), heavier, & less intelligent, and we die younger. In this podcast, two scientists discuss how these undesirable changes are direct consequences of government policies on healthcare, nutrition, and equity.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Taking advantage of the the Israel-Gaza conflict, Iran's Islamic regime picks up the pace of executions.
- Iran's top diplomat embarrasses the country with his English speech at the UN.
- Jewish Iranian-American astronaut Jasmine Moghbeli is a target of anti-Semitic hate speech in Iran.
- A hilarious explanation of the lyrics for the song "Waltzing Matilda." [5-minute video]
- Animal intelligence: Solving a maze by thinking outside the box. [Video]
- See if you can identify which of these ten faces were AI-generated and which ones are real (I got only 4).
(4) Attosecond physics: We can now mark time and observe physical phenomena within 10^(–18) second. This ability, which was honored with the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics, opens up new avenues for developing advanced materials with mind-boggling properties and for understanding our universe in much greater detail.
(5) Book review: Katouzian, Homa, Humour in Iran: Eleven-Hundred Years of Satire and Humour in Persian Literature, I. B. Tauris, 2024. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Combining Persian original texts with some English translations, the book, which is aimed at both scholars and ordinary readers, covers 11 centuries of satire, irony, & humor in Persian verse & prose. The Persian literary tradition includes various forms of humor, from the coarse and obscene to the subtle and refined. The sources range from Ferdowsi's epic Shahnameh, master satirists such as Obeyd Zakani, Sa'di, Rumi, Khayyam, Hafiz, Anvari, Sana'i, Khaqani, Suzani, Qa'ani, & Yaghma, ending with 20th-century literary figures such as Iraj, Dehkhoda, Bahar, Eshqi, Aref, Hedayat, Jamalzadeh, & Al-e Ahmad.
The book's 10 chapters follow a 17-page introduction, in which we read a few samples of humor and learn, among other things, about the lack of an exact Persian equivalent for the term "humor" or "humour" (none of the Persian/Arabic terms "tibat," "motayebeh," "mezah," "tamaskhor," "maskhareh," "shukhi," or "latifeh" means exactly the same).
- The First Three Centuries
- Rumi, Sa'di, Hafiz
- Obeyd Zakani (c. 1300-1370)
- From Old Classics to Neoclassics (15th to 18th Centuries)
- The Neoclassical Period: Bazgasht-e Adabi in the 19th Century
- Iraj and Bahar
- Dehkhoda and Eshghi
- Aref, Seyyed Ashraf, E'tesami, Rouhani, Bibi Khanom
- Satirical Fiction
- The Satirical Press
As a side note, "Homa" is usually a female name in Persian, but Dr. Homa Katouzian [1942-] is a man who uses the literary name "Homa" as a shorthand for "Homayoun."
2024/01/25 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Convertible chair/step-ladder I bought from Amazon: The design idea is neat, but the assembly instructions are exclusively in Chinese. I have decided to return the item but fear that shipping it to China may cost me a fortune! [Center] Our Earth, viewed from a different perspective: Centered at the North Pole, this map tells us that the US and Russia are closer to each other than we generally think and highlights the immensity of the Pacific Ocean. [Right] Talangor Group talk (see the last item below).
(2) Several countries are studying near-Earth asteroids using space probes: One threatening asteroid, which is the size of a football stadium, will fly by very close to Earth in 2029 and may crash into the Pacific Ocean on its next visit in 2036, triggering a tsunami that destroys the US West Coast and Hawaii.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- NASA's Ingenuity will fly no more: A broken rotor blade seals the fate of the first copter to fly on Mars.
- How the merger of two neutron stars that occurred 130 million years ago was detected in 2022.
- Jon Stewart is returning to executive-produce "The Daily Show" and to host it on Monday nights.
- Racing cars on sloped roads: Straight-line road isn't the fastest. [Tweet, with animation]
- Farhang Foundation's Nowruz Concert in Orange County, California, March 23, 2024.
- Throwback Thursday: Frank Sinatra's 1975 concert in Iran; I was there and remember the event fondly.
(4) "Pale Blue Dot" refers to a photo of Earth taken by Voyager 1 space probe in 1990 from a distance of ~3.7 billion miles, as it was leaving our solar system. It has come to signify our small place in the universe.
(5) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Towfigh Heidarzadeh (UC Riverside) spoke about "Critical Thinking in Science: Demarcating Science, Pseudo-Science, Anti-Science, and Superstition." Before the main talk, yours truly made a short presentation on "Doublespeak in Science and Technology." There were ~95 attendees.
Demarcation of science and pseudoscience is important, both theoretically and from a practical standpoint (should the government invest in telepathy or alternative medicine?). Pseudoscience tends to impede the progress of science. Science is a complicated system/network. We cannot produce new science without relying on all that has gone before us.
Superstition is a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic, or false conception of causation. Pseudoscience is similar to superstition, but it uses scientific terms in order to legitimize non-scientific conclusions. Pseudoscience lacks evidence and isn't reproducible or falsifiable. Anti-science denies the legitimacy of science altogether, citing certain errors in previous scientific hypotheses to cast doubt on everything scientific.
2024/01/24 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Bike paths not prioritized (see the next item below). [Top center] MagQuest seeks new global magnetic map: A more-accurate magnetic map would help make the adjustments needed to find true north. [Top right] Tonight's IEEE CCS tech talk (see the last item below). [Bottom left] Math puzzle: What fraction of the square's area is shaded green? [Bottom center] Math puzzle: In this diagram with a regular hexagon and two squares, what fraction of the hexagon's area is shaded purple? [Bottom right] Math puzzle: In this diagram, what is the length of the blue line segment?
(2) On UCSB campus, today: This space between the campus library and the new ILP classroom building used to host a bike path. After building ILP, a walkway and landscaping replaced the bike path, making the bike parking area to the east of ILP nearly inaccessible from the west side of the campus. Predictably, students ride along the walkway to get to the parking area. Ironically, the space is wide enough to accommodate both a bike path and a walkway.
(3) Credit/debit-card fraud is rampant: A couple of days ago, I received notice from my bank that an attempted use of one of my cards at a jewelry business had been declined. They wanted to know whether I had initiated the transaction, which I had not. My card has been invalidated as a precautionary measure and is being replaced with a new card. Stay alert!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Biggest aircraft cleared for flight: The massive 400-foot air-transport is allowed to fly up to 1500 feet high.
- Lithium extraction gets faster & greener: New technologies double production while reducing pollution.
- World's first road with an EV charging lane is being built in Sweden.
- World Music Series: Mariachi Las Olas de Santa Barbara performed at UCSB today.
[Video 1]
[Video 2]
(5) Tonight's IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk: Nicholas Hogasten (Technical Fellow, Teledyne FLIR, Goleta) spoke under the title "Video Signal Processing for Thermal Imaging Applications."
Thermal Imaging presents interesting video signal processing problems. The speaker reviewed some of these problems & their potential solutions. The main purpose of the presentation was to get students or early-career scientist excited about the possibilities of thermal imaging, but anyone curious about sensing in more exotic wavebands learned something. Some basics on why thermal imagers have different properties and challenges compared with typical reflected-light imagers and signal-reconstruction solutions to overcome those problems were discussed. The talk also touched upon some physical-world phenomenology for LWIR/MWIR imagers.
2024/01/23 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] The Milky Way Galaxy, as seen in the dark sky of Iran's Semnan Province. [Top center] This is our beautiful Golden State, California. [Top right] The city of Ardebil in Iran, at the base of the majestic Sabalan Mt. [Bottom left] If you crave lentil-rice (Persian "adas-polo") and don't feel like making it from scratch, Trader Joe's can help. [Bottom center] Math puzzle: In this diagram with 3 squares, what is the area of the yellow triangle? [Bottom right] Sorina Higgins' book on C. S. Lewis (see the last item below).
(2) Tim Scott and Ron DeSantis have endorsed Trump. Nikki Haley says she will pardon him if elected President. Go ahead, vote them in, if you crave a crime spree at the highest level!
(3) Harmful datasets to be removed: The UC Office of the President has directed all UC locations to remove the LAION-5B dataset from campus devices and networks. The Large-scale Artificial Intelligence Open Network (LAION) is a non-profit that creates open-source machine learning tools frequently used by AI researchers for the purpose of training AI models. The datasets are thought to contain harmful or illegal content.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- California State University faculty began their systemwide strike on Monday (and ended it on Tuesday).
- Oscar nominations: "Oppenheimer" leads the way with 13 nods. [Full list]
- Today's New Hampshire primary may be the last stand for Nikki Haley and anti-Trump forces.
- Building a large restaurant from a food truck within minutes. [Tweet, with video]
(5) Course review: Higgins, Sorina, C. S. Lewis: Writer, Scholar, Seeker, Six lectures in the Great Courses series, Audible Originals, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Clive Staples Lewis [1898-1963], who went by the name "Jack" to his family and "C. S." professionally, was a prolific writer who wrote in multiple genres (children's books, sci-fi, theological reflections, and scholarly works), but he is best-known for his 7-volume "Chronicles of Narnia" series. Interestingly, Lewis did not have children of his own and he began writing his children's series relatively late in life.
For Chronicles, he originally had only one story in mind, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." Ideas for additional volumes came to him in dreams. He wrote the seven volumes chronologically out of order. After his death, publishers chose to number the volumes in chronological order, with the prequel "The Magician's Nephew" issued as Volume 1, but C. S. Lewis's fans prefer his original production order.
Lewis lost his mother early on and was sent to a boarding school by his detached father. He later married an older woman, who had children his age. In a way, he took as his lover a woman who filled the gap left by the loss of his mother. Lewis, who was an atheist through his 20s, befriended several of his contemporary writers, including J. R. R. Tolkien, and became a religious man in part owing to their influence.
The six lectures in this wonderful course cover various aspects of Lewis's life and written work.
Lecture 1. Little Boy Jack: Childhood and Narnia
Lecture 2. A Life of Loss and Joy (bio and life philosophy)
Lecture 3. Hearing and Telling the Greatest Story (his religious conversion)
Lecture 4. Theological Fiction
Lecture 5. The Ransom Cycle (his sci-fi/space trilogy)
Lecture 6. Literary Criticism (his academic publications)
2024/01/21 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Santa Barbara the beautiful: Ads for real-estate agencies (not my photos). [Top center] Los Angeles' first freeway is hopelessly outdated—and dangerous, due to narrow lanes and super-short on- and off-ramps—but people love it. The first portion of the historic Arroyo Seco Freeway, connecting Pasadena to downtown LA, opened in 1940 and had a speed limit of 45 mph. [Top right] Earth's beautiful nature: From various Internet travel ads (not my photos). [Bottom left] Meme of the day: Stop War! [Bottom center] Math puzzle: Find the ratio r/R of the radius of the yellow circle to the radius of the orange quarter-circle. [Bottom right] Book talk on history of satire and humor in Iran (see the last item below).
(2) On punctuality: If you join a webinar and at 11:05 you get the message "Wait, the webinar starts at 11:00 and at 11:10 they are still playing elevator music, you know that it is organized by Iranians!
(3) Capturing the dynamics of long-term changes: The camera that is designed to take a single image of a Tucson, AZ, landscape over the next 1000 years.
(4) Why you can't tickle yourself: According to The Accidental Mind, a fascinating book I am reading, the cerebellum predicts our sensations and signals other brain regions to subtract the "expected" sensation from the "total" sensation, making the "net" sensation near-zero. This relativism is helpful because the brain should focus on unexpected sensations, which may correspond to danger. We now know that some humans who sustain damage to the cerebellum are unable to generate predictions and can thus tickle themselves.
(5) Today's University of Toronto book talk: Dr. Homa Katouzian (economist, historian, political scientist, literary critic; U. Oxford) spoke under the title "Humor in Iran: Eleven-Hundred Years of Satire and Humor in Persian Literature." The talk was based on a 2024 I. B. Tauris book by the same title. There were ~130 attendees. As a side note, "Homa" is usually a female name in Persian, but Dr. Homa Katouzian [1942-] is a man who uses the literary name "Homa" as a shorthand for "Homayoun."
Combining Persian original texts with some English translations, the book, which is aimed at both scholars and ordinary readers, covers 11 centuries of satire, irony, & humor in Persian verse & prose. The Persian literary tradition includes various forms of humor, from the coarse and obscene to the subtle and refined. The sources range from Ferdowsi's epic Shahnameh, master satirists such as Obeyd Zakani, Sa'di, Rumi, Khayyam, Hafiz, Anvari, Sana'i, Khaqani, Suzani, Qa'ani, & Yaghma, ending with 20th-century authors such as Iraj, Dehkhoda, Bahar, Eshqi, Aref, Hedayat, Jamalzadeh, & Al-e Ahmad.
2024/01/20 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Marall Nasiri wrote the names of 71 Iranian women political prisoners on her body as she accepted an acting award in Sweden. [Top center] New Yorker cartoon of the day: "Everyone on this stage is committed to a future of net-zero income-tax payments." [Top right] For years, Israelis have debated whether it's a good idea to deploy women soldiers on the front lines, given the atrocities they may face in the event of being captured. As discussion goes on, these women soldiers continue to serve as before. [Bottom left] A family picnic in rural Iran. [Bottom center] The S&P 500 index hits an all-time high, as it inches toward 5000 (NYT chart). [Bottom right] Today's talk on poet Sohrab Sepehri (see the last item below)
(2) Rain can't dampen women's "Call to Action": The 8th annual Women's March took place in Santa Barbara this evening, with the goal "to unite and mobilize our community to take a stand against the assault on women's rights and democracy." I feel guilty for skipping the event today for the first time since its inception, but here is our local ABC affiliate's report on the event.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Japan became the fifth country to set down a spacecraft on the Moon.
- AlphaGeometry AI program performs on par with gold-medalists in solving Olympiad geometry problems.
- In 2024, US domestic airfares will fall, while international flights will become more expensive. [NYT]
- Museum pieces: I must be one of the last people to get rid of my landline phone service! [Tweet, with photo]
(4) Today's Farhang-Foundation/UCSB talk: Dr. Fatemeh Shams (social literary historian & poet, U. Penn) spoke under the title "Sohrab Sepehri's Modernist Mission."
Sohrab Sepehri (1928-1980) is celebrated by some as one of Iran's greatest poets who inspired experimentalist modernist poets of his generation. He has also been criticized as being aloof and detached from societal realities. Dr. Shams introduced Sepehri's modernist mission and tried to rehabilitate the importance of his oeuvre by focusing on the between-ness and otherness that is central to his work.
Through a close reading of Sepehri' s Eight Books (Hasht Ketaab), Dr. Shams elaborated on ways in which Sepehri transcended the rigid boundaries of ideology and dialectical identity by inviting the reader into an imaginative space of aesthetic, existential, epistemological fluidity, and freedom.
Dr. Shams recited several of Sepehri's poems, including "A Garden in Sound," in Persian, while showing her English translations of the verses on projected slides. Sepehri's poetry has become very popular in post-Revolution Iran, because his words provide people refuge from hardships and oppression.
P.S.: Writing in The New Yorker, Neima Jahromi discusses Sohrab Sepehri's poetry, under the title "Poetry and Politics in Iran."
2024/01/18 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday (1): The entrance of Bagh-e Golshan Cafe in Tehran's Shah-Abad Ave., opposite Sepahsalar Garden. The restaurant was open past midnight and featured live musical entertainment by popular singers of the day. [Center] Math puzzle: Find the ratio of the areas of the squares. [Right] Throwback Thursday (2): My aunt Soury's family, shortly after they immigrated to Israel in the 1940s.
(2) Berkeley Lecture Series (in Persian): Dr. Nayereh Tohidi will speak under the title "Iran in a Transformative Process by Woman, Life, Freedom." Sunday, Jan. 21, 2024, 11:00 AM PST. [In-person and on Zoom]
(3) Iran's Supreme Leader advocates for a referendum among Palestinians to choose their form of government, but when it comes to Iran, he maintains that lay people aren't sophisticated enough to choose properly.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Retaliating for Iran's missile strikes, Pakistan attacks several points in Saravan, southeastern Iran.
- Persian music: Mostafa Maddahi sings & plays the tar, as the song's composer weeps in the audience.
- Persian music: Viguen performs "Mahtab," his own composition, with lyrics by Nasser Rastegar-Nejad.
- Piano maestro Anoushirvan Rohani and singer Homayoun Shajarian in a January 2024 Toronto concert.
- Wednesday's World Music Series concert by Los Catanes del Norte. [Video 1] [Video 2]
- A scene from the Iranian film "Tomorrow Is Bright," in which singer Delkash performs her own song.
(5) It appears that Supreme Leader Khamenei is trying to goad the US into bombing Iran in order to deflect attention from his regime's many political and economic failings.
(6) Colossus' 80th anniversary: The British Colossus was the first computer to decode German messages for the Allied forces during World War II and is credited by many experts for shortening the war.
(7) Interlinked Computing in 2040: Part of the cover feature of IEEE Computer magazine's January 2024 issue, focusing on safety, truth, ownership, and accountability.
(8) End of tenure at universities? Nebraska is the latest US state to propose legislation for ending tenure at public colleges. The merits of tenure or lack thereof can and has been debated extensively, with meritorious arguments on both sides. However, there will be serious financial implications if some colleges end tenure while others keep it. Colleges that ditch tenure will have to offer much higher salaries to keep and attract talent. For decades, faculty salaries have been much lower than those of industrial positions requiring comparable qualifications. Colleges without tenure will be in direct competition with industry for talent.
2024/01/16 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Iran's two-faced Islamic regime: One official says that hijabless women have the right to vote (to boost participation figures). Another says the government has banned offering services to hijabless women. [Top center] Iranian architecture: The Ameri-ha Historical House, Kashan, Iran, was built in the second half of the 18th century. The massive house covers 9000 square meters and has 85 rooms, two bath-houses, and 7 courtyards adorned with gardens and fountains. [Top right] A humbling space fact: Removing the Earth from the Milky Way Galaxy doesn't change it a bit. [Bottom left] Then (2018) and now (2024): Facebook-generated post. [Bottom center] Math puzzle: In this diagram with two circles of known areas, what is the square's area? (Note: Diagram not to scale) [Bottom right] John MacCormick's What Can Be Computed (see the next item below).
(2) Book review: MacCormick, John, What Can Be Computed? A Practical Guide to the Theory of Computation, Princeton, 2018.
[My 4-star review of this course on GoodReads]
Theory of computation is the primary link between computer science and mathematics. Because of its requirement for rigor, theory of computation is often considered to be inaccessible to those who are not mathematically trained. This book attempts to bridge the gap by maintaining mathematical rigor in discussing topics in the theory of computation, while also linking the concepts to practical applications by encouraging active experimentation via computer programs in Python and Java.
Fundamental notions of the field, including Turing machines, finite automata, universal computation, nondeterminism, Turing & Karp reductions, undecidability, and complexity classes, including P & NP, are covered, as are the connections between undecidability and Godel's incompleteness theorem and Karp's famous set of 21 NP-complete problems. The presentation makes the field, usually the purview of graduate courses, accessible to undergraduate students.
The book essentially answers the following question affirmatively: "Is there anything that computers will never be able to do, no matter how fast the hardware or how smart the algorithms?" This verdict is in contrast to Rene Descartes famous statement: "There cannot be any [truths] that are so remote that they are not eventually reached nor so hidden that they are not discovered."
The book is subdivided into an overview (Chapter 1) and two parts: Computability Theory (Chapters 2-9) and Computational Complexity Theory (Chapters 10-14).
- Introduction: What Can and Cannot Be Computed?
- What Is a Computer Program?
- Some Impossible Python Programs
- What Is a Computational Problem?
- Turing Machines: The Simplest Computers
- Universal Computer Programs: Programs that Can Do Anything
- Reductions: How to Prove a Problem Is Hard
- Nondeterminism: Magic or Reality?
- Finite Automata: Computing with Limited Resources
- Complexity Theory: When Efficiency Does Matter
- Ply and Expo: The Two Most Fundamental Complexity Classes
- PolyCheck and NPoly: Hard Problems that Are Easy to Verify
- Polynomial-Time Mapping Reductions: Proving X Is as Easy as Y
- NP-Completeness: Most Hard Problems Are Equally Hard
2024/01/15 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] Today, we honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, among whose memorable statements is the following: "We need leaders not in love with money, but in love with justice. Not in love with publicity, but in love with humanity." [Top right] Israel is the only country in the Middle East to name a street after MLK, who was a Zionist. [Bottom left] Reporters who were imprisoned for exposing the death of #MahsaAmini (see the next item below). [Bottom center] Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1969 (55 years ago) and in 2022. [Bottom right] Understanding the Brain (see the last item below).
(2) Islamic Republic of Iran: A country where insider criminals get away with a slap on the wrist but those reporting on crimes serve long prison terms. These two women, who reported on the death of #MahsaAmini while in custody of the Morality Police, were just released from prison temporarily by posting huge bails and were immediately charged with new "crimes" for going hijabless! [#WomanLifeFreedom]
(3) "And Kill Them Wherever You Find Them": Name of Islamic State's operation for solidarity with Gaza. The suicide bombing at Qasem Soleimani's memorial in Iran was the first step of this operation.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Ron DeSantis is 2nd in Iowa & Nikki Haley finishes 3rd: 4th-place Vivek Ramaswamy ends his campaign.
- Nobel Peace Laureate Narges Mohammadi's prison sentence is extended by the Mullahs' regime in Iran.
- Full list of Emmy Awards: "The Bear" and "Succession" led with 6 wins each, while "Beef" followed with 5.
- An iPhone sucked out of a missing door in an Alaska Airlines mishap survived 16,000-foot fall to the ground.
(5) SAT seems to be winning the war waged on it: Highly-selective colleges are slowly returning to requiring SAT scores, citing their strong correlation with college performance, as measured by academic GPA.
(6) Elsevier journal Microprocessors and Microsystems has retracted all articles in a 2021 special issue guest-edited by Vimal Shanmuganathan, citing substandard rigor in the peer-review process.
(7) Course review: Norden, Jeanette, Understanding the Brain, 36 lectures in the Great Courses Series, The Teaching Company, undated. [My 4-star review of this course on GoodReads]
This course, designed and taught by Professor Jeanette Norden (School of Medicine, Vanderbilt U.), begins with "Historical Underpinnings of Neuroscience" (Lecture 1) and ends with "Neuroscience—Looking Back and Looking Ahead" (Lecture 36), visiting along the way topics such as brain structure, central nervous system, neurotransmitters, stroke, visual & auditory systems, depression, the reward system, brain plasticity, emotion & executive function, sleep & dreaming, consciousness, Alzheimer's, and effects of stress.
On this Web page you can find a list of lecture titles and a brief description of each lecture.
2024/01/14 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] So, you say the January 6 insurrection wasn't planned? How do you explain these T-shirts? [Center] New Yorker cartoon of the day: Snow White and her agent, accountant, lawyer, life coach, personal assistant, publicist, and stylist. [Right] IranWire cartoon of the day: The Ayatollah and his lash.
(2) North Korea is rated as the world's most-hellish country: Afghanistan is second. The Taliban are just as brutal, but they don't have a competent security apparatus. The documentary "Beyond Utopia," filmed on iPhones and currently vying for an Oscar nomination, chronicles a family's secret escape out of North Korea.
(3) With each new technology, we hear claims that it will revolutionize education: Yet, by and large, we still teach through a teacher meeting in-person with a number of students. What gives?
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Tal Becker's speech on behalf of Israel at the international court considering accusations of genocide.
- Today's amazing science fact: Electromagnetism explained via special relativity.
- Dangerous elevators: A small number of Paternoster or doorless lifts are still operating in parts of Germany.
- A new rendition of an old popular song from southwestern Iran. [1-minute video]
(5) With the lowering of dammed reservoirs on Klamath River, the largest dam removal project in US history entered a critical phase this week.
(6) Zero-proof bars are sprouting across the country: Non-alcoholic brews and spirits serve customers who seek out health & wellness alternatives in their drinking routines. At $400 million in annual sales, they form a tiny share of the market right now, but they are projected to grow to about 30% of the total market.
(7) Best-Presentation Award: My January 9, 2024, talk at the IEEE 14th Annual Computing and Communication Workshop and Conference was honored with a Best-Presentation Award. Here's a 14-minute recording of the practice version of my talk entitled "Recursive Implementation of Voting Networks." And here's the PDF paper.
(8) The next real estate crisis is looming: Empty offices in NYC and other major urban centers, along with ~40% price drop since the pandemic, are about to crush big banks, who are kicking the can down the road.
(9) American neurosurgeon Ali Rezai is pioneering ways to try to help people with drug addiction and with Alzheimer's disease. One experiment focuses beams of ultrasound on the brain.
2024/01/12 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] The magnificent Dimond Head Volcano in Hawaii. [Top center] How war is spreading in the Middle East: New York Times infographic. [Top right] Promising information technologies for 2024 (see the next item below). [Bottom left] Lost city in the upper Amazon unearthed: The dense system of pre-Hispanic urban centers consists of an anthropized landscape with clusters of monumental platforms, plazas, and wide streets running over great distances, intertwined with extensive agricultural drainages and terraces. Period of occupation: From about 500 BCE to 300-600 CE. [Bottom center] Would-be dictator Donald Trump marches ahead, despite criminal indictments, civil lawsuits, and criticism from "mainstream" Republicans. [Bottom right] In this image, Earth is compared in size to the much larger Jupiter, which has a diameter of ~11 times that of Earth, giving it a volume of ~1300x.
(2) IEEE Computer Society's 2024 Technology Predictions Report: The domains of predictions, listed in order from high-potential (graded A/B) to low-potential (graded C/D), include generative AI applications, next-generation AI, advances in cybersecurity, managing misinformation, remote healthcare, digital twins for vertical applications, new 3D printing applications, new programming models, Reliability, autonomic autonomous and hybrid systems, energy resources for powering data centers, sustainable ICT, regenerative agri-tech, non-terrestrial networks, new battery chemistry and architecture, low-power AI accelerators, alternate material for electro machines, alternate materials for electro machines, cost-effective recycling of batteries, metaverse, accessible quantum computing, and satellite (constellation) recycling.
(3) A question about time: Lines of longitude on Earth demark time (every 15 degrees is one time zone). But these lines all meet at the poles. So, what time is it at the poles?
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Harvard accused in federal lawsuit of not protecting Jewish students against intimidation and harassment.
- US FDA scientists recommend that the feds remove marijuana from its most restrictive category of drugs.
- Tomorrow's presidential election in Taiwan is more about economic woes than the threat from China.
- How we used to calculate pi and how Newton simplified the process by a series of brilliant discoveries.
- Periodic & aperiodic tilings of the plane and their relationship to crystals no one thought could exist.
- Ancient city, with sophisticated networks of roads & canals, found under vegetation in Amazon Forest.
(5) Today's surprising space fact: The first human-made object to reach space was Soviet Union's satellite Sputnik 1, which was launced on October 4, 1957.
(6) Get to know Donald Trump: His lawyer argued in court this week that former presidents are immune from prosecution even for any murders they ordered while in office. [New York Times report]
(7) Samantha Rose Hill, Hana Arendt biographer, explains how Arendt's writings on evil and totalitarianism found new popularity after the election of Donald Trump in 2016. [Video]
(8) An insightful analysis of the political dilemma facing American Muslims: After 9/11, American Muslims formed progressive alliances, leaving their Republican ties behind, despite the fact that their religious leaders remained staunchly conservative. Hamas atrocities of 10/7 again challenges their political leanings.
2024/01/11 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday: Baccarat Cabaret in Tehran, Iran, 1974. Believe it or not, families frequented the cabaret, located in the basement of Atlantic Cinema on Pahlavi Avenue. It was more like a restaurant with entertainment than a genuine cabaret. [Center] Tonight's Talangor Group talk on emotional machiavellism (see the next item below). [Right] Liz Cheney's Oath and Honor (see the last item below).
(2) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Arash Taghavi spoke under the title "Emotional Machiavellism: An Introduction to Emotional Deception." Before the main talk, Dr. Ryan Homafar gave a short presentation on "Justice and Politics," in which he pondered the question of whether justice can be viewed as a necessity of politics, that is, a right, rather than a moral nicety, viz. an optional add-on. There were ~75 attendees.
Emotional manipulation is common in sociopolitical settings and in personal relationships. We try to emotionally manipulate others for three reasons: Gaining benefits; Maintaining power; Avoiding responsibility. Religions manipulate their followers by inducing guilt. Other methods used include threatening, gaslighting, invoking pity, and tantalizing (deceptive praise).
We all manipulate others emotionally and are manipulated in return to some extent. So, learning the signs of emotional manipulation is important to our well-being. Many of us Iranians have had emotionally manipulative parents. However, rather than blaming such parents, we should recognize that they are products of their upbringing and experiences. It is up to us to protect ourselves against such manipulations.
Lack of susceptibility to emotional manipulation is a sign of emotional maturity.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Donald Trump: "January 6 was a beautiful day." Vote for him if you want more such beautiful days!
- US missiles hit Houthi targets, after the Iran-backed group threatened shipping safety in the Red Sea.
- Quote of the day: "Illusion of knowledge is more dangerous than ignorance." ~ Physicist Richard Feynman
- The Drake Passage at the southern tip of South America and other dangerous waters of the Antarctic Circle.
(4) Book review: Cheney, Liz, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, unabridged 12-hour audiobook, read by the author, Little, Brown & Company, 2023. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This is an important book, telling the story of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, interwoven with biographical information about Liz Cheney's life in Wyoming and Washington, DC, as well as about her father, former US Vice President Dick Cheney.
>Oath and Honor is as much an indictment of Donald Trump as it is a slap at her fellow-Republicans, who enabled and excused his immoral and narcissistic behavior. Cheney names multiple cowardly Republicans who publicly supported Trump out of political expediency, while criticizing him in private.
The writing is straightforward and at times repetitive. Cheney's tone is angry, which is quite natural, given what she went through before and after she served on the House Select Committee. She fell out of love with the Republican party she previously adored. Cheney was stripped of her leadership position in the House
Republican caucus and was later defeated in her re-election bid by a Trump-endorsed candidate.
The "warning" part of the book is about the real danger of Trump returning to the White House and completing what he couldn't do during his first term, because even his hand-picked officials and aides didn't go along with his crazy, anti-Constitutional schemes. The lies that Trump and his collaborators continue to perpetuate, and their schemes to get rid of public servants in the government, constitute real and present danger to the US democratic institutions and traditions.
As I write this review, Donald Trump faces 91 felony counts in federal and state courts, as well as multiple civil lawsuits, which may land him in jail and/or ruin him financially. Yet his support base continues to be strong, as if nothing has happened. The year 2024 will be a real test of the US system of justice and its safeguards against authoritarian tendencies in our leaders. If we emerge unscathed from this challenge, it is in no small part due to the courage exhibited by Liz Cheney.
2024/01/10 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Socrates Think Tank talk on modernity (see the next item below). [Center] Father of the Internet, Robert Kahn, recognized with an IEEE Medal of Honor: Medals also given to other pioneers. [Right] Robert M. Sapolsky's Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will (see the last item below).
(2) Tonight's Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Abdi Modarressi spoke under the title "Musings/Inquiries on Modernity." There were ~145 attendees.
Modernity has two aspects: Physical modernization (renewal) and cultural modernity (enlightenment). Physical modernization and cultural modernity do not necessarily go hand in hand. The related term "modernism" refers to the manifestation of modernity in art styles.
Most societies, regardless of their development level, have embraced physical modernization (what the speaker called the "hardware" dimension of modernity). Physical modernization has no cultural prerequisites and can bring benefits to societies, whether or not they understand the technology and regardless of their ability to create the technology locally.
Cultural modernity (the "software" dimension) is a lot trickier and few societies outside Europe, the birthplace of modernity, have been able to achieve it (Japan being a notable exception). Iran had several opportunities, including during the Golden Age of Eastern Science & Arts and after the Constitutional Revolution, to make headway in this regard, but reactionary forces prevailed in both instances.
(3) US FDA issues a nationwide alert against taking tianeptine: Also known as "gas station heroine" (because it is sold at many gas-station convenience stores), the substance had been associated with overdoses and deaths.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Each container of bottled water contains hundreds of thousands of microscopic pieces of plastic.
- Work done 35 years ago in Macedonia to control a robot with brain waves honored as an IEEE Milestone.
- Congrats to Janet Afary & Kamran Afary for winning a second book prize for their Molla Nasreddin.
- Facebook memory from Jan. 10, 2018: The day when US 101 near Santa Barbara looked like a river.
(5) Today's surprising space fact: The largest volcano in the solar system is Olympus Mons on Mars. It has a height 3 times that of Mt. Everest.
(6) Book review: Sapolsky, Robert M., Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will, unabridged 17-hour audiobook, read by Kaelo Griffith, Penguin Audio, 2023. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The book's intentionally ambiguous title reflects the two parts of its message: The science of why there is no free will and the science of how we can best live once we accept this fact.
I have recently reviewed two concise books on free will or lack thereof. In 96 pages, Sam Harris argues persuasively that free will is an inherently flawed and incoherent concept (my review). As I wrote in my review of Free Will: A Very Short Introduction (132 pp.), Western philosophers holding various views on the topic of free will are classified, roughly, as incompatibilists, compatibilists, sceptics, and libertarians.
- Incompatibilists believe that the whole universe is defined by causal determinism, making free will impossible. All of our actions have root causes that are beyond our control. Put another way, free will is incompatible with determinism. Therefore, some philosophers reject causal determinism.
- Compatibilists think that even if we accept causal determinism, we can still have freedom of action, because only the decision to act is generated deterministically, not the ensuing voluntary action itself.
- Sceptics subscribe to incompatibilism but think that even if the universe is not causally determined, it is impossible to act freely, since what is left is chance. In other words, actions are random outcomes of chance events, with will playing no role.
- Libertarians believe that a universe determined in part causally and in part randomly leaves room for the freedom to decide on the actions taken. Alongside random & deterministic factors which make up the universe, there is a part of the human consciousness which decides independently. This kind of free will is neither a product of chance nor a consequence of a deterministic cause, but an agent of action itself.
Sapolsky begins by discussing the four viewpoints above, as well as their various shades and combinations, relating each category to moral responsibility & punishment, and continuing with the declaration that his goal "isn't to convince you that there is no free will; it will suffice if you merely conclude that there's so much less free will than you thought that you have to change your thinking about some truly important things."
He then presents quite a few arguments against the existence of free will. Some of the provocatively-titled chapters include "Willing Willpower: The Myth of Grit," "Is Your Free Will Random?" and "The Joy of Punishment." The "Appendix: Neuroscience 101" offers a capsule review of neurons and how they function, so that neuroscientific arguments against free will can be better understood.
2024/01/08 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] A few Iranian women TV announcers/hosts from the pre-Revolution period. [Top center & right] Roya Heshmati, an Iranian woman who was punished with 74 lashes for refusing to wear the hijab, tells her story. [Bottom left] Celebrating my grand-nephew Aiden's first birthday over the weekend. [Bottom center] Math puzzle: Find the area of the square. [Bottom right] Remembering some of the victims of Ukranian Airlines Flight PS752 (see the last item below).
(2) NASA launches its first Moon-landing mission in 50+ years: The uncrewed commercial spacecraft is expected to land on the Moon on February 23, 2024.
(3) From time to time, I am surprised with the success of one of my social-media posts: A repost about a large language model trained in Persian at U. Tehran received more than 18,000 impressions on LinkedIn. [Image]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Boosting productivity and avoiding overload by streamlining the set of tech tools you use. [Report]
- The complete list of 2024 Golden Globes winners: "Oppenheimer" shines with 5 awards.
- A survey of ~3000 AI researchers indicates a 5% chance that AI will drive humans extinct.
- Santa Barbara Channel Islands history finds a home in Carpinteria.
- A few celebs reaching milestone birthdays (60th, 70th, and 80th). [Image from AARP Magazine]
- Ringo Starr continues the musical tradition of the Fab Four. [Image from AARP Magazine]
(5) Today's surprising space fact: The temperature on the surface of the Moon varies drastically. It ranges from a low of –173 Celsius at night to a high of 127 Celsius during the day.
(6) A final thought, on the fourth anniversary of the downing of Ukrainian Airlines Flight PS752: "Today marks 4 years since the tragic passing of our beloved colleague and co-founder of this lab, Prof. Mojgan Daneshmand, along with her husband Prof. Pedram Mousavi and their daughters, Daria and Dorina." This is how University of Alberta remembers a co-founder of its Microwave, Millimeter-Wave, and MetaDevices (M3) Laboratory.
2024/01/07 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Film screening at UCLA (see the next item below). [Center] The exquisite tiling pattern of Nasir-ol-Molk Mosque, Shiraz, Iran. [Right] A talk on intellectualism in Iran (see the last item below).
(2) UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran: Maryam Sepehri's 86-minute documentary film "Alborz: We Climb Mountains" will be screened in Royce Hall 314. I won't be able to attend and write a report, so I am sharing the information for those who might be interested. [Sepehri's YouTube Channel]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- US FDA authorizes Florida to import medications from Canada, where prices are significantly lower.
- Alaska Airlines grounds its 737 Max 9 fleet after one plane lost part of its fuselage during flight.
- Siberia is warming at twice the rate of the Earth: Melting permafrost uncovers history & ancient viruses.
- Astronauts on the International Space Station witness around 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every day.
- Regional actor Kim Sullivan made it to the big time when he debuted on Broadway at age 70. [Image]
(4) Today's surprising space fact: The Sun is so massive that it accounts for 99.86% of the total mass of our solar system. Its mass is 330,000 greater than the mass of Earth.
(5) Bonus surprising space fact for today: The largest black hole discovered so far is TON 618. Its mass is estimated to be about 66 billion times that of our Sun.
(6) "Intellectualism": As part of UCSalamat series of talks, Dr. Mohammad B. Bagheri presented a continuation of the discussion he began on December 3, 2023. [My report on the first part]
Dr. Bagheri began by reiterating some notions from the talk's first installment. An intellectual is a thinker who also has social concerns, as opposed to just sitting in an ivory tower. The two parts of the term "rowshan-fekr" (Persian for "intellectual"), that is, "rowshan" ("lit" or "bright") and "fekr" ("thought"), have positive connotations. Because of this, Iranians tend to be reluctant to apply the label to anyone who disagrees with them politically. Also, given the long history of dictatorial rule in the country, anyone who collaborates with the government is automatically removed from the circle of intellectuals.
There are three main categories of intellectuals in Iran.
- Western-leaning intellectuals want to bring a version of Western civilization to Iran. They were mistaken in thinking that importing symbols of modernity (household appliances, western-style universities) to Iran would be sufficient for social progress. Their advocacy of changing the Persian script to the Latin script led to a backlash against them. Taghizadeh and Foroughi are apt examples of this group.
- Religious intellectuals (an oxymoron?) subscribe to religious idealism. They believe that religion must play an important role in people's daily lives. This group took advantage of people's distrust of Western intellectuals to advance their agenda. Jalal Al-e Ahmad and Abdolkarim Soroush are good representative of this group. Khomeini-devotee students who raided the US Embassy in Tehran and took hostages fall into this category (the latter group also had Marxist leanings).
- Leftist intellectuals sneakily inserted their viewpoints into the slogans/goals of Iran's 1979 Revolution to gain more power. The deep religious influence among Iranians in the pre-Revolution Iran made people distrustful of leftist ideologies, represented by the Toudeh Party and also several militant leftist or leftist-Islamic groups. Even though many leftist intellectuals were killed by the Islamic regime, their numbers and influence remain strong.
Dr. Mohamad Bagher Bagheri has a Web site through which you can learn more about his background and gain access to YouTube videos of his lessons on critical thinking.
2024/01/06 (Saturday): Today, I offer book reviews on AI & pocket-calculator histories and global trade.
(1) Book review: Pickover, Clifford A., Artificial Intelligence: An Illustrated History—From Medieval Robots to Neural Networks, Union Square & Co., 2019. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Clifford Pickover has a knack for explaining scientific concept in easily-readable form, as evidenced by his many books in this domain. His book on the history of artificial intelligence is no exception. True to his style, Pickover describes major systems and milestones in the history of AI, with each of the ~100 concise entries accompanied by a full-page illustration.
All important developments, be they fictional ("The Terminator") or real (the Rumba robotic vacuum cleaner), receive a mention. The book can be read from cover to cover like a sumptuous meal or be explored by snacking on the entries that look inviting.
(2) Book review: Houston, Keith, Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator, unabridged 9-hour audiobook, read by Elliot Fitzpatrick, Tantor Audio, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Many members of my generation owned and admired their electronic pocket calculators, which, after dethroning the engineers' slide rules, were themselves unceremoniously replaced by much more powerful computing devices. Nevertheless, calculators did play an important role in the development and history of computing. I have fond memories of my very first electronic calculator, the fairly affordable HP-35, which I bought in 1972 during my grad-school days at UCLA.
Beginning with a history of counting and ancient calculating devices, Houston tracks down the origins of the modern electronic calculator, along with some interesting detours, like how Texas Instruments hijacked high school math curricula across the US by promoting its outdated calculator lines that were highly profitable.
(3) Book review: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Value Creation and Capture: Implications for Developing Countries, UN Digital Economy Report, 2019.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The world's economic and social structures are being transformed by the rapid spread of digital technologies. The good news is that the digital economy is creating many opportunities for developing countries. But there are multiple pieces of bad news to worry about, particularly the widening digital divide and the benefits going disproportionately to a small number of countries, companies, and individuals.
It is imperative that the challenges just cited be addressed in these early years of the digital era, before the problems get out of hand. Success in this domain requires collecting statistics and empirical evidence and offering them as aids to decision-makers across the globe, as they try to adopt sound policies in the face of a fast-evolving digital economy comprising a moving target.
"This first edition of the Digital Economy Report—previously known as the Information Economy Report—examines the scope for value creation & capture in the digital economy by developing countries. It gives special attention to opportunities for these countries to take advantage of the data-driven economy as producers and innovators—but also to the constraints they face—notably with regard to digital data and digital platforms."
2024/01/05 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzle: Find the area of ABCD. [Center] Bill Gates and Paul Allen, founders of Microsoft, at Seattle's Lakeside High School, one of the few schools worldwide that owned an advanced Teletype Model 30 computer in 1968. [Right] The #MeToo Movement in Iran (see the last item below).
(2) First change in Microsoft Windows keyboard in three A newly-added key will launch Microsoft's AI chatbot, which is integrated into Word and other Office products. The software giant sees the key's addition as the entry point into the world of AI on the PC.
(3) Today's surprising space fact: The Voyager 2 spacecraft, launched in 1977, is the most-distant human-made object from Earth. It entered interstellar space in 2012.
(4) Oddities in the Iran explosion that killed 100+ at a ceremony marking the 4th anniversary of General Qasem Soleimani's assassination: None of his three children was in attendance. One of his daughters later said that she had a vision of her dad asking her not to attend! Soleimani's comrades, that is, other IRGC top generals, also skipped the ceremony. No high-level Iranian official, often paying lip service to Soleimani's influence & contributions, was in attendance. These facts make it more likely that Iran's Islamic regime had a hand in the massacre, to create a reason for cracking down on Sunni Muslims protesting their miserable living conditions in Iran's southeastern region. Iranians from all walks of life, particularly ethnic and religious minorities, are forgotten by the government, while billions of dollars in aid are given to Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and other proxy groups to wage war against Israel and the West.
(5) Book review: Yaghoobi, Claudia (editor), The #MeToo Movement in Iran: Reporting Sexual Violence and Harassment, I. B. Tauris, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Dr. Claudia Yaghoobi is a Roshan Institute Professor in Persian Studies and Director of the Center for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at UNC Chapel Hill. She has written and lectured widely on social and political issues in Iran, particularly the challenges facing women in a patriarchal and theocratic society.
What makes Iran's #MeToo movement remarkable is the reluctance of many victims of sexual violence to speak up, given that reporting on their experiences may subject them to more violence in the guise of "family honor."
Contributors to this edited volume contextualize the Iranian #MeToo activism within the long tradition of Iran's feminist movements and within the Middle East historical background in 9 chapters that are sandwiched between an introduction by the author and an afterword by Roger Friedland, Janet Afari, and Charlotte Hoppen.
Narratives of survival of sexual violence are often delegitimized due to the cultural structure that gives men exposed as rapists the power to dismiss their accusers as crazy or delusional, particularly given that the victims have not traditionally enjoyed much family or societal support. The problems faced by the survivors are multiplied when they belong to sexually or socially marginalized groups.
You can find the book's table of contents on the Bloomsbury Web site.
2024/01/04 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Hope 2024 is off to a good start for you and your loved ones. If you are having problems in keeping your new-year resolutions or face other struggles, hang in there. Spring isn't too far away! [Center] Ancient statue of Ayatollah Jannati on display at the Louvre. [Right] Iranian mullahs proudly display their program to arm Hamas through Qasem Soleimani.
(2) A senior Hamas leader and two of his military aides killed by a drone strike in Beirut: Don't ask me why the Hamas leader was sheltered in Beirut, while his people are under Israeli attacks in Gaza.
(3) Iran previously used proxies to attack shipping vessels: Now, a one-way drone launched from Iran has hit CHEM PLUTO, a Japanese-owned chemical tanker. Additionally, an Iranian Navy ship has entered the Red Sea. The US may start sinking Iranian ships to deter additional attacks.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The year 2023 was the hottest on record, raising fears that global warming is actually accelerating.
- Islamic State takes credit for bombing at the anniversary observation of Qasem Soleimani.
- Harvard President Claudine Gay resigns under the pressure of mounting plagiarism accusations.
- Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in prison: But his list of clients is alive and may come out any day now.
- U. Tehran's NLP Lab has announced the availability of Llama 7b, a large language model trained in Persian.
- World's oldest land animal, a 400-pound tortoise on St. Helena Island, turns 191 (or more).
- Facebook memory from Jan. 4, 2014: With the kids, on the stairs leading to an Isla Vista beach.
- Facebook memory from Jan. 4, 2012: With the kids, on Santa Barbara's Stearns Wharf.
(5) Today's surprising space fact: The fastest-moving object in the universe is a pulsar, which rotates at a speed of about 43,000 revolutions per minute.
(6) Japan Airlines jet is engulfed in flames after colliding with another plane on the runway: All passengers and crew got out safely, but 5 people died on the smaller Coast Guard plane.
(7) It seems that finally middling criminals above foot-soldier rank are being prosecuted in the US: But those higher up are still walking free and continuing with their evil deeds.
(8) Vaclav Hovel, on fighting tyranny (not an exact quote): You don't have to march on the streets and risk the consequences. Just decide that you won't participate in any activity based on lies. Serve the truth and the regime of lies will collapse on its own.
(9) A. M. Turing Award honoree Niklaus Wirth [1934-2024] dead at 89: Among his many contributions to computer science & engineering were the formal separation of language syntax & semantics, the programming language Pascal, and wonderful books on data structures, algorithms, & programming. RIP.
2024/01/01 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Welcoming the New Year 2024 (see the next item below). [Center] Math puzzle: Find the length x.
[Right] Free Will, by Sam Harris (see the last item below).
(2) Happy New Year! This is a message we repeat every year, but then find out that the new year is much like the old year: full of challenges and disappointments; injustices and heartbreaks; rough spots and dead ends. Same old same old, as they say. But there are signs that 2024 may actually be different. In the US, fat cats, who have dodged accountability for years, may finally face justice. We may see the end of the brutal Islamic regime in Iran. We may witness Ukrainians prevail over the big bully to their north. Let's not lose hope!
(3) My New-Year 2024 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. In the case of 2024, 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 puzzles!
0 = 2 + 0 + 2 – 4
1 = (2 + 0) * 2 / 4
2 = 2 + 0 * 2 * 4
3 = 2 ^ 0 – 2 + 4
4 = 2 * 0 * 2 + 4
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Magnitde-7.6 quake in Japan causes damage, but the main threat seems to be from the resulting tsunamis.
- Ordinary Iranians suffer from poor air quality: Government officials use expensive air-purification systems.
- Iran's Supreme Leader claims that 20+ years ago, God spoke through his mouth to IRGC commanders.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy for those suffering from insomnia. [14-minute video]
(5) Today's surprising space fact: The Andromeda Galaxy is the closest spiral galaxy to our Milky Way. The two galaxies will collide in about 4 billion years, creating the new galaxy dubbed "Milkomeda."
(6) Book review: Harris, Sam, Free Will, Free Press, 96 pp., 2012.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Whether or not living beings are free to choose their thoughts and actions has been debated for centuries. A belief in free will seems to be essential for human survival. Thinking about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality—as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement—without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions, seemingly makes no sense.
The scientific consensus appears to be that free will is an illusion. However, we won't run into contradictions if we assume that we have free will (in fact, we almost need the illusion of free will to hold people accountable for their deeds or have any motivation at all), but evidence points in the opposite direction. As physical entities, our behavior (including thoughts) are governed by physical laws, so that our current state, a result of everything that has happened to us since the Big Bang, is theoretically enough to determine our future state.
In this short, easily-readable, and highly-personal book, Sam Harris, well-known for his books The End of Faith (2004), Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), The Moral Landscape (2010), Lying (2011), Waking Up (2014), and Making Sense (2020), provides a clear explanation of why free will is an inherently flawed and incoherent concept.
The intention to do one thing rather than another does not originate in consciousness. Using fMRI studies, neuroscientists have discovered that our brain activity indicates the choice we are going to make more than half-a-second before we become consciously aware that we will make that choice. Case closed!
This panel-discussion video is a good source for an introduction to free will.
Blog Entries for 2023
2023/12/31 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] My year in books, according to GoodReads: During 2023, I read and reviewed 113 books, with a total of 35,388 pages. The books ranged in length from 38 to 1388 pages, averaging 313 pages. On average, I gave the books a rating of 4.1 stars. [Center] Here come end-of-year lists of the best and the worst of 2023. [Right] To Infinity and Beyond, by Tyson & Walker (see the last item below).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Update from 2023 to 2024 is in progress: Please wait. [Image]
- US Navy helicopters sink boats belonging to Yemeni Houthi rebels that attempted to hijack a cargo ship.
- Surf's up: Early afternoon on Saturday, 12/30, at Ventura Harbor Village Beach. [Video 1] [Video 2]
- Are you brave enough to drive on this floating bridge in China's Shizuguan Scenic Area?
- Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor: Part of a harp concert by Sophia Kiprskaya.
(3) Today's surprising space fact: The International Space Station, the largest human-made object in space, is the size of a football field. It travels at a speed of 17,500 miles per hour.
(4) Book review: Tyson, Neil deGrasse and Lindsey N. Walker, To Infinity and Beyond: A Journey of Cosmic Discovery, National Geographic, 2023.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Neil deGrasse Tyson [1958-] is an astrophysicist with a knack for science communication. Through his numerous public lectures, talk-show appearances, and the TV series "StarTalk," Tyson has established himself as a knowledgeable and witty astrophysicist who can explain the mysteries of the universe in the simplest possible terms. Tyson's co-author, Lindsey N. Walker, is a writer and senior producer at "StarTalk."
Let me begin my review by quoting a paragraph from the book's front flap: "The journey begins close to home, exploring Earth's atmosphere, the nature of sunlight, and missions past and present to nearby planets. From there, we surge on to exoplanets, black holes, nebulas, and galaxies. The farther we travel, the wilder the questions become as astrophysical theories collide with common sense. What's the shape of the universe? What happens when two black holes merge? Did other worlds spring into being at the Big Bang? And if so, can we tweak the spacetime continuum and visit them? As we travel through the cosmos and beyond, these and equally intriguing propositions are tackled with cutting-edge science—and a delightful dose of wit."
The book is composed of four parts, each with many sections (named in the table of contents below) and numerous sidebars, veering into "Hollywood Science," "Cosmic Conundrum," "Exploration," and "Science History." The division of material into relatively short sections, augmented by the detours just mentioned, make the book a joy to read. In fact, I plan on a second reading of some of the parts I found more-interesting to ensure proper understanding.
Part 1, Leaving Earth: Earth's atmosphere; Beyond the troposphere; The weight of air; Dreams of ascending; Felix Baumgartner and the edge of space; The billionaire "space race"; From aircraft to rockets; Rocket science and Max Q; Launch locations; Newton, an apple, and a cannonball; Rocketeers in peace and war; Attaining Orbit; Space junk and the Kessler effect; Orbits and their decay; The rocket equation; A lesson from meteorites; Onward to deep space.
Part 2, Touring the Sun's Backyard: Our Sun; A windy star; Mercury, first of the rocky inner planets; How Einstein killed Planet Vulcan; Exploring Mercury; Vibrant Venus; Phases of Venus; Transit of Venus; Exploring Venus; A lesson for Earth from Venus; Earth-Moon system; The tidal force; Mars; Imagined Martians; Exploring Mars; Terraforming Mars; The Asteroid Belt; Potentially hazardous asteroids and comets; The gas giants; Jupiter; A spot of red; Exploring Jupiter; Saturn; Exploring Saturn; Ocean worlds and the search for life (as we know it); Ice giants, Uranus and Neptune; Pluto and Planet X; On to beyond.
Part 3, Into Outer Space: Into thin air; Light, wave or particle?; Light, a wave; Light, a particle; The death of the aether; Gravity and Lagrange Points; Shocking truths; Shock waves beyond the Solar System; A dark mystery; Measurable yet unimaginable magnitude; The hidden messages in rainbows; The hunt for exo-Earths; Space pilgrims.
Part 4, To Infinity and Beyond: To the edge; Space/time; Time travel, heading to the future; Black holes; Time travel, returning to the past; FTL method #1, through the wormhole; FTL method #2, fire up the warp drive; FTL method #3, deploy the tachyons; Breaking and repairing causality; Many, many, many worlds; What about free will?; The journey continues.
2023/12/30 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Iranian woman mullah: "Hijab doesn't let men take advantage of my beauty." You be the judge! [Top center] Meme of the day: No means no. Isn't it amazing that we have to spend time on stating this obvious fact? (Image credit: Amnesty Int'l) [Top right] Mark L. Schrad's Vodka Politics (see the last item below). [Bottom left & right] Scenes from Friday's walk along Coast Village Road in Montecito. [Bottom center] Math puzzle: What is the ratio of the area of the red triangle to the area of the blue triangle?
(2) Aerogel: This lightest-ever solid substance, which is an excellent insulator, was pioneered by NASA back in the dawn of the Space-Shuttle era. Its density of 0.00016 g/cm^3 makes it 6000+ times lighter than water.
(3) Observation by Neil deGrasse Tyson: The odds of a deck of 52 cards being shuffled into the exact same order is one in 52! (approximately one in 80 * 10^66 or one in 80 unvigintillion).
(4) Today's surprising space fact: Neutron stars are incredibly dense objects. They have a mass of about 1.5 times the mass of our Sun, but are only 12 miles in diameter.
(5) Book review: Schrad, Mark Lawrence, Vodka Politics: Alcohol, Autocracy, and the Secret History of the Russian State, Oxford, 2014. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Vodka is the alcoholic drink commonly associated with Russia (and the former Soviet Union). Schrad chronicles 500 years' worth of evidence that vodka is a big part of Russia's economy, a major instrument of power, and, perhaps, a source of Russian society's backwardness. Its prohibition may have triggered the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and alcohol poisoning from its overuse leads to some 55,000 deaths annually (~200 times that of the US, which has more than twice the population). From the late 1680s to the 1800s, a tad over half of the state's revenue came from taxes on only two commodities: vodka and salt.
Schrad suggests that societal alcoholism isn't hard-wired into Russians' genetic code but is rather part of its autocratic system that has long used vodka as a tool of control. Examining palace intrigues under the tsars and the drunkenness of Soviet & post-Soviet leaders reveals the central role played by vodka. Most every modern state has successfully curtailed alcoholism, but vodka continues to pose a challenge to the Russian leadership and to the country's economy and healthcare system.
Schrad presents his detailed account of the role of vodka in Russia and the lives of Russians in 24 chapters, with titles such as "Peter the Great: Modernization and Intoxication," "Drunk at the Front: Alcohol and the Imperial Russian Army," "Did Alcohol Make the Soviets Collapse?" "Alcohol and Boris Yeltsin," and "Alcohol and the Demodernization of Russia." Schrad's scholarly treatment of the topic ends with 80 pages of notes.
In the book's ultimate paragraph, Schrad writes: "The story of vodka truly is the story of Russia: not just its culture and society, but its history and statecraft as well. Whether it can ever break free of the shackles of vodka —the autocratic system that nurtures it and is nurtured by it—may well be the most fundamental political question facing the future of Russia."
2023/12/29 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] The magnificent salon of the Palazzo della Ragione (Padova), with a ship-shaped ceiling and the imposing cycle of medieval frescoes on an astronomical theme (photo by @urs.eggenberg). [Top center] Fruits and finger-foods for my daughter's party with friends. [Top right] Stairway to Heaven: The celestial entrance known as "Heaven's Gate," located within the Tianmen Mountain in China. [Bottom left] Meme of the day: Do not confuse your love of privilege for the love of freedom. [Bottom center] Iranian intellectuals will be judged harshly by history (see the next item below). [Bottom right] Math puzzle: Find the measure of the angle labeled with a question mark.
(2) What were Iranian intellectuals thinking in the lead-up to the 1979 Islamic Revolution? Here is a snapshot, captured from a letter written by Ali Asghar Haj Sayyed Javadi, just a few days before Khomeini returned to Iran. He predicted that after Khomeini's return, no one would lie, doors would not bear locks, everyone would act with brotherly love, and so on. "The Imam must come so that things are set right and wrongdoing, betrayal, and hate disappear."
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- High surf causes extreme flooding in areas of Ventura, California: Beaches are
- Big waves in Santa Barbara & other SoCal locations cause coastal flooding, delight surfers. [Photos]
- We expect one of the largest yearly declines in US violent crimes: In 2020, we saw the largest increase.
- StarTalk episode: Malcolm Gladwell, on the safety of self-driving cars. [9-minute video]
- A very interesting discussion on free will, or lack thereof.
- We humans have a hard time comprehending exponentially growing quantities and astronomical distances.
- Comedian George Carlin, on America's two favorite sports: Baseball and Football. [3-minute video]
- Sculptures dancing to Tom Jones' "Delilah." [3-minute video]
(4) New York Times' graphically-detailed report of how Hamas weaponized sexual violence in its Nov. 7, 2023, attack on Israel [read only if you can stomach explicit descriptions of sexual violence]: "A two-month investigation by The Times uncovered painful new details, establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence."
All those claiming to be feminists must face this question: Do you condemn weaponization of sexual violence against women in organized and chaotic/haphazard acts of war?
(5) Today's surprising space fact: At a distance of about 10,000 light years from us, there is a giant cloud of alcohol. It contains enough alcohol to make 400 trillion pints of beer.
(6) Getting ready for winter quarter 2024: UCSB classes begin on January 8. Here is my updated Web page for the graduate course ECE 254B (Advanced Computer Architecture: Parallel Processing). If anyone is interested to follow along, links to recorded lectures are provided on the Web page.
2023/12/28 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Software developers should learn about learning (see the next item below). [Top center] One of my favorite light meals: Feta cheese, with sour-cherry jam, on Costco baguettes or Iranian barbari bread. [Top right] Computer games gain academic stature: ACM has launched the peer-reviewed quarterly journal Games: Research & Practice, under Editors-in-Chief Sebastian Deterding and Kenny Mitchell from UK academic institutions. [Bottom left] AI-powered forecasting: Predicting worldwide weather and cyclone tracks with greater speed & accuracy. [Bottom center] Math puzzle: Find the area A of the yellow triangle, given the areas of other triangles. [Bottom right] One hundred years of imagineering: This is the cover theme of E&T Magazine's Nov.-Dec. 2023 issue, which looks at the centenary of Walt Disney Pictures and how fiction and the film industry have inspired technological advances.
(2) Software developers should learn about learning: This is the theme of the cover feature for the Jan. 2024 issue of Communications of the ACM. The article offers ten pieces of advice to software developers.
- Human memory is not made of bits
- Human memory is made of one limited and one unlimited system
- Experts recognize, beginners reason
- Understanding a concept goes from abstract to concrete and back
- Spacing and repetition matter
- The Internet has not made learning obsolete
- Problem-solving is not a generic skill
- Expertise can be problematic in some situations
- The predictors of programming ability are unclear
- Your mindset matters
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Turkish soldiers kill Kurdish women, execution-style: Where is the outrage against Turkey?
- Teacher: "I won't hang photos of the killers of Iranian youth in my classroom. They belong in the trash bin."
- Google's top-3 search terms for 2023: Titan submersible, Israel-Gaza war, & death of actor Matthew Perry.
- Airplanes still have barf bags in seat pockets: But when was the last time you saw anyone throw up in flight?
- Observation of the day: We don't really wash our hands. We just watch as they wash themselves!
- Facebook memory from Dec. 28, 2018: Recitation of my humorous Persian poem from 1980.
(4) Generative AI's depiction of a child bride: Yes, most of us abhor hearing about girls as young as 9 marrying middle-aged or even old men, but seeing a picture is worth a thousand words.
(5) Today's surprising space fact: Venus's year is shorter than its day. Venus takes about 225 Earth days to orbit the sun, but it rotates on its axis once every 243 Earth days.
(6) Until the 18th Century, women couldn't write on paper: They were allowed only to embroider words on fabric or tapestry. Women like Caroline Schelling, Caroline von Gonda, and Betina von Arnim defiantly created a literary tradition for women, by dropping the needle and picking up the pen. [Facebook post, in Persian]
2023/12/26 (Tuesday): Today, I present 3 book reviews on the digital age and its social consequences.
(1) Book review: Steiglitz, Kenneth, The Discrete Charm of the Machine: Why the World Became Digital, Princeton, 2019.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The analog signals of our televisions, radios, telephones, and computers gave way to digital signals several decades ago. Professor Kenneth Steiglitz (Princeton U.) explains the main reasons behind this transformation. In doing so, he pays tribute to the contributions of geniuses such as Joseph Marie Jacquard (stored-program loom), Charles Babbage (program branching), Alan Turing (discrete abstract computer), Harry Nyquist (digital signal processing), Claude Shannon (notions of information & bandwidth), and Richard Feynman (nanotechnology & quantum computing).
Steiglitz then proceeds to tell us how the brilliant ideas listed above led to transformative systems and applications such as the Internet, artificial intelligence, and autonomous robots, how certain problems continue to challenge us with present-day technology, and whether the toughest of these problems (e.g., traveling salesperson) will be made tractable by quantum computing or by new technologies mimicking the analog/digital mechanisms of the brain.
The history of how the digital idea took over to become the lifeblood of our civilization is impressive, but picturing where this revolutionary idea may take us in the years and decades to come is breathtaking.
(2) Book review: Filimowicz, Michael (ed.), Systemic Bias: Algorithms and Society, Routledge, 2022.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book is one of the titles in Routledge's "Algorithms and Society" series. Other titles in the series include Digital Totalitarianism, Privacy, and Deep Fakes. This fairly small volume contains three ~20-pp. chapters.
- "From 'Diversity' to 'Discoverability': Platform Economy, Algorithms and the Transformations of Cultural Policies" (by Christophe Magis). [Analyzes how the movement away from earlier critical studies of the global cultural economy has produced the weak concept of 'diversity.']
- "Modern Mathemagics: Values and Biases in Tech Culture" (by Jakob Svensson). [An attempt to understand tech culture, its values, and its biases through the metaphor of magic.]
- "Reading the Cards: Critical Chatbots, Tarot and Drawing as an Epistemological Repositioning to Defend Against the Neoliberal Structures of Art Education" (by Eleanor Dare and Dylan Yamada-Rice). [A critique of the neoliberal structures in universities, which undervalues alternative ways of knowing, such as making, drawing, and experimenting with materials.]
I found the coverage of topics somewhat haphazard and the depth of treatment rather disappointing.
(3) Book review: Eysenck, Michael W. and Christine Eysenck, AI vs. Humans, Routledge, 2022.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Most AI books are written by AI experts, who tend to focus on the red-hot field's achievements and positive transformative effects. Authors of the book under review are psychologists who bring their knowledge of human cognition to the discussion. It is becoming increasingly common for non-AI experts to write books about AI, with focus on social, economic, political, and human-development viewpoints.
The book's first six chapters cover a brief history of AI & robotics, AI dominance, human strengths, AI's extent of (un)intelligence, human limitations, and robots & morality. Chapter 7 ponders "the winner" and Chapter 8 considers the future. All chapters are richly illustrated with diagrams and photographs.
The digital economy is changing how companies create value and compete, so AI, as one of the cornerstones of our modern digital economy, will likely dominate the global scene. Strengths and weaknesses of AI and humans are in different domains, so, like many other authors, Eysenck & Eysenck reach the conclusion that AI should augment, not replace, human intelligence.
2023/12/25 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Wishing my family and friends a joyous Christmas, a peaceful week ahead, and a bright new year! [Top center] My daughter paddle-boarding near Santa Barbara's Stearns Wharf: She started at the Harbor and I walked from the Harbor to the Wharf, where I took these photos on Sunday 12/24. [Top right] Classic DeSoto car, parked on Santa Barbara's Stearns Wharf on Sunday (video clip, with music). [Bottom left] More photos from Stearns Wharf. [Bottom center] Christmas Eve in years past (FB memories). [Bottom right] A few photos I shot along Cabrillo Blvd. on Sunday, between the Harbor and Stearns Wharf.
(2) Happy Kwanzaa (December 26), the holiday that celebrates the African diaspora! Kwanzaa means "first fruits of the harvest" in Swahili. [Image]
(3) Ban Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from Facebook, X, and other social-media platforms: Any leader who blocks his/her people from using a platform should be banned from it.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Christ & Newton were both born on Dec. 25: Which one do you think had a greater impact on humanity?
- Five Israeli hostages found dead in Gaza Strip tunnel.
- The US targets Iran-backed militia in Iraq with airstrikes, after they carried out repeated drone attacks.
- NIAC lost favor when it was exposed as a lobby for Iran's mullahs: The Islamist CAIR is now on the ropes.
- Hundreds of Airbus workers fell sick after feasting on lobster & foie gras at the company's holiday party.
- There is now a 3.5-year continuous sea cruise which visits 150 countries and costs $116K for the basics.
- The five biggest tsunami waves in history: The biggest-ever was 1720 feet tall. [10-minute video]
- There's a neighborhood in Mexico City that can't give up on the famous 1960s hippie-favorite VW Beetle.
(5) The airport of the future: Icelandair utilized an AI image generation tool to envisage the architectural landscape of some of the United States' largest airports by 2050.
(6) Does computing have blood on its hands? Writing in the January 2024 issue of Communications of the ACM, columnist Moshe Vardi thinks so, citing hate-mongering, contributing to the youth mental-health crisis, and other misdeeds on social media as examples. "In the fall of 2021, whistleblower Frances Haugen released a massive set of Facebook internal documents to Congress and global news outlets. The documents revealed that Facebook was well aware of the adverse societal impacts of its technology ... It is no wonder that dozens of U.S. states are now suing Meta, accusing it of contributing to the youth mental health crisis." As a first step toward finding appropriate solutions, computing professionals, once considered "Rebels," to borrow a term from "Star Wars," must admit to having had a hand in creating the social-media "Empire."
2023/12/24 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Just 9000 years ago, Britain was connected to continental Europe by an area of land called Doggerland, which is now submerged beneath the southern North Sea. [Center] Our family's Secret-Santa gift exchange, in-person and via FaceTime: I got a 3-month membership to Audible (audiobook seller). [Right] Thomas Pink's Free Will: A Very Short Introduction (see the last item below).
(2) Einstein's biggest mistake: He thought that the universe is stationary, ridiculing those who considered it moving or expanding. Einstein's own equations suggested that the universe is moving, but he was so sure this isn't the case that he artificially added a term, which he called "anti-gravity," to make the equations support his view. Finally, when in 1922 Russian mathematician Alexandr Friedman suggested that Einstein should consider a universe in motion, Einstein began to slowly change his mind. It took him nearly a decade, and many publications by other physicists, to reverse his view. Finally, like a true scientist, Einstein admitted his mistake, when he said in 1931, "The redshift of distant nebulae has smashed my old construction like a hammer blow." The theory of an expanding universe led naturally to the Big Bang theory and a beginning for time. Ironically, the term "Big Bang" was coined by physicist Fred Hoyle in the 1940s as a mocking reference to the theory that everything was created out of nothing in the remote past, but this sarcastic nickname stuck.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Iran's Zayandeh Rud River basin in crisis: Report from Iran, published in Science magazine, Dec. 22, 2023.
- Dish TV has to pay a $150,000 space-debris fine for failing to properly de-orbit its Echo-Star-7 satellite.
- A viral dance turns into a collective act of civil disobedience, making Iran's joyless mullahs nervous.
- Can AI therapy help America's mental health problem? There are 20,000 apps claiming they can.
- David Papworth of Intel, on what led to Pentium 6 and how that changed the microarchitectural paradigm.
(4) Book review: Pink, Thomas, Free Will: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, 2004.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This is yet another useful book in Oxford's "Very Short Introduction" series that does a commendable job of covering a complex & extensively-argued subject in just 132 pages. Whether or not we have free will has been the subject of debate among philosophers for many centuries, beginning with Aristotle in 4th-century BCE. Free will is one of the very few problems that modernity does not seem to understand better than past thinkers.
Ordinary (non-philosopher) humans tend to think that we have control over our actions and are thus morally responsible for them. Our feelings & desires, on the other hand, are beyond our control for the most part. Most religions advocate this view and condemn theories postulating the lack of free will, despite the seemingly contradictory assertion that an all-knowing God has charted our path in life.
Western philosophers holding various views on the topic of free will are classified, roughly, as incompatibilists, compatibilists, sceptics, and libertarians.
Incompatibilists believe that the whole universe is defined by causal determinism, making free will impossible. All of our actions have root causes that are beyond our control. Put another way, free will is incompatible with determinism. Therefore, some philosophers reject causal determinism.
Compatibilists think that even if we accept causal determinism, we can still have freedom of action, because only the decision to act is generated deterministically, not the ensuing voluntary action itself.
Sceptics subscribe to incompatibilism but think that even if the universe is not causally determined, it is impossible to act freely, since what is left is chance. In other words, actions are random outcomes of chance events, with will playing no role.
Libertarians believe that a universe determined in part causally and in part randomly leaves room for the freedom to decide on the actions taken. Alongside random & deterministic factors which make up the universe, there is a part of the human consciousness which decides independently. This kind of free will is neither a product of chance nor a consequence of a deterministic cause, but an agent of action itself.
There are many other shades of belief within and between the four main categories above, which can be pursued, perhaps for years, once the basics are understood.
2023/12/23 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Mount Damavand greets the first rays of sunlight at dawn: May brightness come to the entire land of Iran, following the gloom and darkness of the past 45 years. [Top center] Fascinating animations: Here's a GIF example. Many more GIF images & videos are found on Etienne Jacob's Web site, titled "Loops, creative coding." [Top right] Elephant Rock, situated in Tongaporutu Beach, New Zealand. [Bottom left] City of Goleta's "Zip Books" Program: If Goleta Valley Library or its local affiliates do not hold a title, a patron can request the book, which will be purchased using grant money and directly shipped from Amazon.com to the requester's home. [Bottom center] Fir trees being cut down for Christmas: The St. Nicholas Day Massacre. [Bottom right] Wendy H. Wong's We the Data (see the last item below).
(2) Did you know that our solar system rotates around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy? Since its birth, the Sun has gone around 20 times.
(3) Large container ships are going around the Horn of Africa: The Houthis in Yemen have made the Red-Sea route unsafe, adding 10 days to what would otherwise be a 25-day trip. This detour reduces cargo capacity and increases fuel costs. The Western world cannot and will not stand for a rogue nation disrupting international trade. If the Houthis do not stand down, get ready for a major show of force in Yemen.
(4) Book review: Wong, Wendy H., We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age, The MIT Press, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Traditionally, human rights are defined in terms of our physical selves, including our thoughts and actions. In this digital age, we are all creators of data through our interactions in cyberspace, thus facilitating surveillance. Recording, analyzing, and permanently storing data about us, what Wong, a political-science professor at UBC, calls "datafication" of the world, necessitates that our data be included in any consideration and definition of human rights.
We should speak out when we feel we're being left out of the most-important conversations about technology, ethics, and policy. Prevalence of data does change the game in the sense of complicating the safeguarding of our lives and developing the human potential. Our rights and values have changed over time through various social developments and associated adjustments. There is no reason why we cannot adapt once more to make sure that datafication, and the age of surveillance capitalism it engenders (as discussed in Shoshana Zuboff's wonderful book), does not harm our humanity, that is, compromise our autonomy, community, dignity, and equality.
The book's eight chapters, listed below, illustrate the transformation of the human experience in the era of pervasive data and emphasize where autonomy, community, dignity, and equality can shape discourses and policies on data governance. Important topics, such as the right to be forgotten, facial recognition technology, the growing power of Big Tech & its near-total lack of accountability, are all included.
- Data Are Everywhere
- Why Human Rights and Data Go Together
- Data Rights
- Is Your Face Yours?
- Do We Need Human Rights When We're Dead?
- Big Tech and Us
- Data Literacy, or Why We Need Libraries, Not Twitter
- We, the Data
The book ends with a call to action through the recognition of a human right to data literacy. By itself, data literacy isn't enough to safeguard human rights, but it is a necessary and useful prerequisite.
2023/12/22 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] You are free to do what you want in your church: However, stay away from dictating what should be taught in science classrooms. [Center] Brian Kernighan's Millions, Billions, Zillions (see the last item below). [Right] Six generations (ages 111, 88, 70, 39, 16, 0.13 years) in one frame.
(2) Where are Hamas leaders and administrators? Normally, when a country or territory faces an emergency (war or natural disaster), the leaders lead, calming the people, telling them where to go, and facilitating the distribution of water, food, & meds. They don't go underground or flee to other countries.
(3) "Margin Call": A 2011 American drama based loosely on Lehman Brothers and other over-leveraged investment banks that brought about the 2008 financial collapse. [10-minute video]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- War front has already been opened between Israel and Hezbollah in northern Israel.
- Will the US continue to appease the Houthis, despite their heightened aggression on behalf of Iran?
- Goleta Valley Library receives $4.3 million state grant for much-needed facility improvements.
- It's okay that some children are afraid of the dark, but it's tragic that some adults are afraid of the light.
- Persian cooking: Recipe for tahchin-e morgh (a dish with chicken & rice).
(5) Book review: Kernighan, Brian W., Millions, Billions, Zillions: Defending Yourself in a World of Too Many Numbers, Princeton, 2018. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Brian Kernighan [1942-], a Canadian computer scientist, was one of the three scientists at Bell Labs who revolutionized their field by devising the UNIX operating system. Later, he co-authored the first book on the highly-influential C programming language. So, this book on huge numbers and their impact on our society, hailed by the publisher as "an essential guide to recognizing bogus numbers and misleading data," should be considered a side project for Kernighan.
We humans have the ability to recognize small numbers built into our brain by evolution. We immediately recognize the difference between one predator and three predators following us. Larger numbers are abstract constructs whose recognition depends on our acquired computational abilities. In modern times, we have developed an appreciation for million and billion, in part because of the widespread use of the terms "millionaire" and "billionaire." Even here, most people have no idea how long it takes to count from 1 to 1,000,000. Trillion-dollar national budgets are beyond the grasp of even the most-numerate people.
With the help of examples drawn from journalism, advertising, politics, and other domains, Kernighan shows us how numbers can mislead and misrepresent. Consequences of misunderstanding numbers can be serious in domains such as voting, purchasing, and making investment decisions.
One essential skill for our modern world is the ability to tell whether a number is a ballpark estimate or the result of precise calculations. Another is the skill to quickly determine whether a number makes sense. Ballpark estimates are misrepresented if they come with too many digits of precision. A columnist's 1996 claim that Americans receive 2 million tons of junk mail per day is easily refuted by dividing the number by the US population and then estimating the load of a mail-carrier for a residential neighborhood. Complementing the ability to recognize fake or misleading numbers is learning how to make our own estimates when needed.
Collectively, the skills mentioned in the preceding paragraph, which this book attempts to develop, help us avoid becoming a victim of inadvertent or deliberate number abuse.
2023/12/21 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Celebrating the ancient Persian festival, Yalda Night (see the next item below). [center] Two math challenges: Simplify the first expression to the extent possible and solve the equation for n. [Right] Throwback Thursday: The garrote, is a device for execution that found its way to modern times from 1st-century-BC Rome. The condemned would sit with a metal clap wrapped around his neck before the executioner turned the screw that would theoretically burst his brainstem, killing him instantly.
(2) Happy Yada Night (Shab-e Yalda): Iranians celebrate the longest night of the year occurring at winter solstice, because in ancient times they believed that evil forces were strongest on this longest night of the year and they began to weaken over the following days and months. Let's hope that the evil forces of Iran's murderous Islamic regime weaken and disappear from the face of the Earth. The images above include a Persian poem I composed for Yalda Night in December 2022. [Persian traditions & songs for Yalda night]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Rudi Giuliani was ordered to pay $148 million in a defamation case: Within days, he filed for bankruptcy.
- Saudi Arabia shoots down a Houthi missile, heading from Yemen towards Israel.
- Journalists @Sima_Sabet & @FardadFarahzad are targets of assassination plots in the UK by Iran's agents.
- Mass shooting in downtown Prague: The incident left 14 people dead and ~30 injured.
- Farhang Foundation's celebration of Yalda Night. [43-minute video]
- Facebook memory from Dec. 21, 2019: Two of the many versions of "Shab-e Toolani," a Yalda Night song.
- Facebook memory from Dec. 21, 2018: Earth at Winter Solstice.
- Facebook memory from Dec. 21, 2017: Calligraphic rendering of a verse by the Persian poet Sa'adi.
(4) Quote of the day: "By 2050, one thousand dollars of computing will exceed the processing power of all human brains on Earth." ~ Futurist & inventor Ray Kurzweil
(5) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Hassan Hossein Zadeh spoke under the title "Yalda Night and Mithraism." Before the talk, a video clip about Yalda Night was screened by Mitra Zaimi and a poem composed for Yalda Night last year was recited by yours truly. There were ~70 attendees.
The talk consisted of several short sections, as follows.
Introduction: Yalda Night is the birthday of Mithra (the Sun, symbol of love & goodness).
Linguistic roots: The word "Yalda" is composed of two parts, "Yal" meaning "Sun" and "dey" meaning "day."
Cosmological connection: Winter Solstice, when we have the longest night of the year.
Customs: Putting on one's best clothes and enjoying fruits, while celebrating with joy and reading poetry.
Yalda Night spread: Redness of the spread & the fruit (pomegranate, watermelon) represent warmth & love.
History: The earliest celebration of Yalda is unknown, but the tradition is at least 2500 years old.
Mithraism: The ancient Mithra or Mehr is a symbol of love, loyalty, truthfulness, brotherhood & victory.
Rome's official religion: Mithraism was adopted by Romans and was practiced for 400 years.
Link to Christianity: Popularity of Mithraism in Rome led to Christianity adopting many of its traditions.
2023/12/19 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Zoroaster statue by Edward Potter, installed in the 1950s atop New York's Appellate Court, Madison Square Park, Manhattan. [Center] Comedian Jon Stewart finally understands the Republicans: Fiscal responsibility is a requirement only for spending programs that help the poor. Paying for programs benefiting the rich is never discussed. [Right] The (Mis)Behavior of Markets (see the last item below).
(2) Justice served: A Swedish appeals court upholds the life sentence of Hamid Nouri, one of the Iranian officials on the "Death Panel" responsible for the massacre of political prisoners in the late 1980s.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Vera Molnar, a Hungarian-born artist who has been called the godmother of generative art, dead at 99.
- Brain-like supercomputer, that's much smaller & uses less energy than comparable machines, due in April.
- Albert Einstein on education: "Education isn't the learning of facts; it's the training of the mind to think."
- Einstein's other equation, A = x + y + z: A is success, x is work, y is play, z is keeping your mouth shut.
(4) Book review: Mandelbrot, Benoit B. and Richard L. Hudson, The (Mis)Behaviour of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin, and Reward, Profile Books, 2008. [My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Benoit Mandelbrot's influence on geometry has been likened to Albert Einstein's contributions to physics. In this book, Mandelbrot brings his ideas on chaos and complexity science to the field of economics, making a convincing case that decision-making based on normal distribution, taught to business majors for over a century, need to be updated and that fractals provide a useful tool for improving the predictions of existing economic theories.
As an example of the difficulty of predicting or even recognizing market variations after the fact, the authors present four price-charts of the kind you find in a brokerage-house report, two of which represent the prices of real financial instruments and two are forgeries. The challenge is to identify the real ones. Putting charts of the daily price changes side-by-side with the price charts helps us identify the real and forged charts.
The paradox of markets is that both real human emotions/decisions and stochastic/chance events affect the outcomes. A company's share price may rise because new income-producing contracts were signed, which prompted a bunch of investors to buy shares. On the other hand, there are seemingly random variations that no one understands and occasionally catch everyone by surprise, because normal distribution suggests that wild fluctuations are rare events.
For the period 1916-2003, the bell-curve-based theory predicts 58 days when the DJIA index moved more than 3.4 percent, but there were 1001. Theory predicts 6 days of index swings beyond 4.5 percent, but there were 366. And index swings of more than 7.0 percent should come once every 300 millennia; in fact, the 20th century saw 48 such days.
Mandelbrot proposes that there are two mechanisms at work. The Gaussian mechanism favors stability: The best predictor for tomorrow's price is today's price. There are frequent small changes and rare jumps. Fractal geometry provides just the right tool to model abrupt changes of the kind that takes people by surprise. In the same way that the fractal patterns repeat themselves along all time frames, stock prices also appear to move in replicating geometric patterns through time.
Even though Mandelbrot's insights provide us with an understanding of why markets behave the way they do, these insights do not help us predict market movements. Fractals explain roughness, a property that is superimposed on the smoother behavior provided by the Gaussian model. Prediction based on fractals would require that we estimate the length of time the fractal should be repeated, which is inherently difficult, given the infinitely-recursive nature of fractals.
You can hear Mandelbrot talk about the book in this 73-minute lecture he gave at Microsoft Research.
2023/12/17 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Italy's Dolomite Mountains (credit: NYT). [Center] Acoustic design of wall and ceiling of the music hall at Al-e-Qapu Palace, Esfahan, Iran. [Right] A plate of exotic fruit to celebrate the end of the fall quarter: Winter quarter will begin on January 8, so we have 3 weeks to enjoy the holidays.
(2) European Parliament awards the Sakharov Prize, EU's top human-rights honor, to Mahsa Amini and the #WomanLifeFreedom movement. Amini's family members were barred from traveling to accept the award.
(3) Do not trust dietary recommendations: After decades of telling us that whole-milk & other full-fat dairy products are bad for us, thus bringing about an endless array of low-fat and non-fat products, scientists now think that dairy fat may actually be good for us, reducing the risk of diabetes & lowering blood pressure.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Fake-news has risen 1000% since May: AI is making it easy for anyone to create propaganda outlets.
- Ex-officials of Islamic Republic of Iran living in US & Canada are facing increased scrutiny.
- Today, we came across some of my daughter's school artwork from years past.
- Jungle law: Buffalo relentlessly defends its calf against lions, before being forced to surrender.
(5) In the US, the best political commentaries come from comedians: Palestinians should set a more-realistic goal than "From the River to the Sea." Wars end through negotiations, which require a bit more flexibility than demanding 100% for your side and offering 0% to the other side.
(6) Pinkwashing: According to Palestinian-run BDS website (boycott, divestment, sanctions), pinkwashing is a propaganda ploy by the Israeli government "that cynically exploits LGBTQIA+ rights to project a progressive image while concealing Israel's occupation and apartheid policies oppressing Palestinians." It seems that all groups and nationalities are prone to falling for baseless conspiracy theories.
(7) AI job recruiters are here: Jenny Johnson, introducing herself as "the AI representation of elite recruiting ... with real-time global job insights, extensive industry knowledge, and 24/7 availability," contacted me (actually, the e-mail was sent mistakenly to my daughter), asking whether a paragraph she had put together about who I am professionally is accurate, so that she could send me "curated opportunities based on this profile." The paragraph was actually quite good as an AI program's work.
(8) The biggest Hamas tunnel in Gaza Strip uncovered by Israeli forces: The honeycomb of passageways features a drainage system, electricity, ventilation, sewage, rails, and a communication network.
(9) The beauties of Markoff equation: The equation x^2 + y^2 + z^2 = 3xyz has an infinite number of integer solutions and finding those solution reveals much beautiful mathematics. For example, if (x, y, z) is a solution, then so is (3yz – x, y, z). A Markoff number is a positive integer z such that there exist two positive integers x and y satisfying the Markoff equation. The first few Markoff numbers are 1, 2, 5, 13, 29, 34, 89, 169, 194, 233, 433, 610, 985, ... ; Compare these with Fibonacci numbers 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, ... to discover an interesting relationship.
2023/12/15 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Breaktrough in treating obesity (see the next item below). [Center] Math puzzle: We have an outer square, a quarter-circle of radius 12, and a half-circle of radius 6. Find the area of the green right triangle. [Right] Last night's shirin-polo (sweet or adorned rice) for early dinner, by my daughter.
(2) Obesity meets its match: Drug treatments for obesity, a major public-health concern in the US, have a sorry past. But now, new therapies are breaking the mold, raising hope that they may lower rates of obesity and interlinked chronic diseases. The drugs, which mimic a gut hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1, are reshaping medicine, popular culture, and even global markets in ways both electrifying and discomfiting.
(3) Pluto back in the spotlight: It was demoted from a planet to a dwarf planet (it's smaller than our Moon) in 2006. Now, its unusually large moon, Charon, with a diameter that is over half that of Pluto itself, and the possibility of life beneath the surface of the extremely-cold dwarf planet have gotten scientists excited.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The next global superpower isn't who you think: An insightful 15-minute TED talk by Ian Bremmer.
- Is my toddler a stochastic parrot? An insightful, creative, and moving take on AI. [Illustrated essay]
- We tend to think that Americans aren't happy at work, but persistent employment misery may be a myth.
- McDonald's is releasing a new limited-edition Happy Meal for adults, complete with a very special toy.
(5) The Sun's warmth is an almost endless source of energy for us on Earth: Now, it seems, the coldness of deep space can also be tapped for energy. It may be decades before this scheme can be used at scale, but already chilling water to cool buildings by as much as 5 degrees Celsius has been demonstrated. The key to this advance is a new material that is remarkably efficient at sending heat out to the vast reservoir of cold in deep space, while preventing heating from both the Sun and the environment.
(6) The AI weather forecaster arrives: Trained on 40 years of weather data and models, artificial intelligence can now forecast the paths of hurricanes with eerie accuracy. [Source: Science magazine]
(7) Proof-of-concept spintronic probabilistic computer developed by Japan's Tohoku U. and UC Santa Barbara: The computer uses stochastic magnetic tunnel junctions interfaced with powerful FPGAs to achieve robustness and offer the fastest p-bits at the circuit level.
(8) Is Hamas really Islamic? Many, including some Muslims, denounce Hamas as a fringe group that betrays Islamic values, but Hamas does consider itself first and foremost an Islamic movement, dedicated to enforcing the dictates of Islam (sharia), including through jihad.
(9) A viral dance and "Happiness Campaign" frustrates Iran's clerics: It all started when a 70-year-old fish-market stall owner nicknamed "Booghy" grooved in public, an act the regime labeled as "criminal dancing."
2023/12/14 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Santa Barbara's Courthouse: Photographed yesterday on a spring-like early afternoon. [Center] Three Iranian women in the spotlight (see the next item below). [Right] Socrates Think Tank talk on brainwashing (see the last item below).
(2) Who are the sworn enemies of Iran & Iranians? From social media posts, you would think that Golshifteh Farahani, Narges Mohammadi, and Shirin Ebadi are the enemies, deflecting the spotlight from Ali Khamenei and his criminal gang. More has been written about Farahani's singing at the Nobel dinner than about the dictator keeping Mohammadi in prison and depriving her of personally accepting the biggest honor of her life. It can't be accidental that all three perceived enemies are women!
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Narges Mohammadi's statement for her Nobel Peace Prize. [French, English, Persian]
- Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi's letter to Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Hjalmar Kristersson.
- A logo that NASA dumped over 30 years ago is making a comeback, both inside and outside the agency.
- New York, IBM, and Micron will collaborate in $10 billion chip research complex near U. Albany. [WSJ]
(4) Wednesday night's Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Mohammad B. Bagheri spoke on "Brainwashing." There were ~130 attendees.
One problem with studying brainwashing is that both those who engage in it and their victims tend to vehemently deny being a part of it. We tend to view brainwashed people as unfortunate others, even though we may also be victims without knowing it. Remember that no one is immune from brainwashing; it isn't something that happens only to others.
Brainwashing is a process of controlling a person's mind by interfering with his/her thoughts and beliefs. It is much harder to brainwash someone who is familiar with critical thinking, but just being educated does not immunize one against it.
Brainwashing can be of soft or hard kind. Soft brainwashing most-commonly occurs through education, news broadcasts, commercial ads, party politics, and punishment/rehabilitation (as in a jail). Hard brainwashing often entails various kinds of pressure, frightening, torture, or various kinds of drugs.
Question: Both in English and Persian the word "brainwashing" brings to mind removing or erasing brain contents, whereas what we really mean is altering thoughts and beliefs, that is, erasing and replacing them with new ones. Unfortunately, these non-descriptive terms are too established for us to change them. Even in French, the term for washing (lavage) is used.
Answer: Perhaps this non-descriptive term, that has to be constantly defined and explained, is one of the reasons for brainwashing not enjoying acceptance in the scientific community (it is often viewed as pseudo-science). Two other terms, "Coercive persuasion" and "mind control," are a lot better, but they are not used as much as brainwashing.
2023/12/13 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] "It's Christmas Once Again in Santa Barbara" is the title of a rather cheesy song written by Barry De Vorzon, who explains its origins at the beginning of this 4-minute music video (image credit: Santa Barbara Independent). [Center] Watercolor portrait of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, by American artist Pam Wenger (1953-); on paper, 9 x 12. [Right] David Epstein's Range (see the last item below).
(2) "Saffron and Shabbat: Stories of Iranian Jewish Cooking in Diaspora": This is the title of a guest post on Ajam Media Collective by Tannaz Sassooni (@tannazsassooni), a Los-Angeles-based food writer. She begins by noting that she grew up on the floor of the kitchen, where her mother cooked dinner every night of the week. Sassooni ends her wonderfully-illustrated post by noting that if we don't document the rich culinary legacy that our matriarch left us, the heritage will be lost, as each new generation in the family living in diaspora moves further from the traditions of a distant 'home.'
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Discussion on the Confederate Flag in a 1988 episode of "Golden Girls." [4-minute video]
- Here's a challenge for you: A daunting 42,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. I haven't gone beyond 2500 pieces!
- Armenians are happy people: Part of a concert in which even the orchestra conductor dances!
- A smart comedy routine about why it makes sense to have 13 four-week months in a year.
- Facebook memory from Dec. 13, 2020: Darvish Khan's "Reng-e Parichehr & Parizad" (Persian music).
- Facebook memory from Dec. 13, 2018: Protest sign reading "We need healthcare not wealthcare."
(4) Book review: Epstein, David, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, unabridged 11-hour audiobook, read by Will Damron, Penguin Audio, 2019.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Malcolm Gladwell popularized the so-called "10,000-Hour Rule," the notion that repetition and practice are necessary for mastering something. Epstein argues that this theory of specialization applies to a limited number of skills and fails to set its adherents up for success in others. There is no evidence that someone who focuses on a single instrument beginning with childhood always ends up being more successful than multi-instrument experimenters.
Examples where repetition and practice pay off include playing classical music and golf (where the player repeatedly encounters pretty much similar situations). In other areas, sampling from a variety of domains before settling on a specialty or skill to pursue, that is having a broader range, is helpful.
Epstein maintains that the advice "never, ever quit" may be misguided. In fact, knowing when to quit one activity and starting something different is quite valuable. Van Gogh, who died at age 37, didn't develop his distinctive style until he was 34. He experimented with many skills and trades, failing in all of them, until a chance application of thick paint when he was painting during a storm created his characteristically bold style.
From his interviews with many successful people, Epstein arrived at the conclusion that late-blooming and meandering paths are the general rule rather than the exception. According to Epstein, avoiding super-specialization, or combining breadth and depth, allows you to benefit from the outsider advantage. The very top scientists participate in activities outside their areas of expertise. The higher up they are in scientific prestige, the more likely they are to have outside interests.
Active cultivation of inefficiency via taking the road less traveled buys you more advantages and is definitely not a waste of time. Frequent quitters and switchers end up with the most-fulfilling careers. In today's complex world, people who think broadly and embrace diverse experiences & perspectives will increasingly thrive.
[P.S.: A Persian review/discussion of Range is available in this 58-minute BPlus podcast.]
2023/12/11 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A first of its kind archaeological discovery: Two researchers have found a fossil of Gorgosaurus, T. rex's smaller cousin, with the partially-digested drumsticks of two birdlike dinosaurs where its stomach once was. The discovery opens a window into the behavior and diet of a predator that lived 75 million years ago. [Center] Math puzzle: A closed curve divides the points on a plane into three disjoint subsets, that is, points inside the curve, points outside the curve, and those on the curve. For the closed curve shown, how would you go about determining whether the orange point is inside or outside the curve? [Right] After a couple of weeks of intensive assembly work, I am almost finished with my combination office/library/bedroom. Just have to place a desk along the third wall and move my books into the bookcases.
(2) Rise in US traffic deaths: Until a decade ago, US traffic deaths had fallen by 90% from their 1920 level, thanks to better road & vehicle designs and greater awareness of drunken driving. While the decline has continued over the past decade in nearly all advanced countries, the US rate is on the rise again. [Source: NYT]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- New engineering advance: Floating solar farms are proving feasible and effective.
- For the 2024 Golden Globe Awards, "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" lead the pack with 9 and 8 nominations.
- How Israel was born: A 14-minute video from the BPlus podcast creators (in Persian, with English subtitles).
- Mahsa Vahdat sings a Persian song, with Kurdish melody, at the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony.
- When dancing is deemed a crime in Iran, it becomes a political statement and an act of civil disobedience.
- Iranians are shaking & moving to the same tune that got an old man in trouble for "criminal" dancing.
(4) Some Iranians need to lighten up: The mullahs have declared dancing a criminal act, going as far as blocking the Instagram account of an old man who joyfully danced in an Iranian fish market. Other demonstrations of joy are similarly criminalized. One would think that younger, more-modern Iranians have no problems with showing joy on the streets or with breaking the stuffy "royal" protocol at the Norwegian dinner in honor of Narges Mohammadi, the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner, who is in prison and could not attend. Didn't we rebel against a "royal" protocol and aren't we fighting against a "divine" protocol?
(5) Global warmth: We worry about another degree or two increase in average temperatures on Earth, as we should. But macro-level temperatures do not reflect what individual human beings experience. For example, many women who spend significant time in kitchens already suffer from the ill health effects of exposure to high temperatures, particularly in developing countries. Ditto for certain factory or mine workers. A further increase in temperatures will only exacerbate these health consequences. Economically-disadvantaged groups bear the brunt of rising temperatures and the resulting extreme weather conditions. Urban neighborhood, where the poor live, are affected more than suburbs or rural aeras.
(6) A final thought for the day, from comedian Jimmy Kimmel: "Just because you think Alfred is too old to take care of the Batcave, you don't replace him with the Joker."
2023/12/10 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Loobia-polo (bean-rice) dinner by my daughter. [Top center] My makeshift work bench, as I continue to assemble IKEA bookcases: Only a couple more to go, plus extension shelves at the top to go all the way to the ceiling. [Top right] Narges Mohammadi's children accept her Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf, as she remains imprisoned in Iran: Mojgan Shajarian performs "Morgh-e Sahar" ("Dawn Bird") at the ceremonies (4-minute video). [Bottom row] Three math puzzles: Find the fraction of each square's area that is shaded blue (left & right) and the ratio R/r in the center diagram with 2 circles, a semicircle, & a square.
(2) "Criminal dancing": Two words that tell you all you need to know about Iran's joyless theocratic regime, which has blocked an old man's Instagram account because he posted a video of himself dancing.
(3) Meanwhile in Texas: Six middle-age-to-older men assisted by three out-of-touch women sitting on the Texas Supreme Court have temporarily halted a lower court's decision to authorize a woman to have an emergency abortion despite the state's near-total ban.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Egypt's Pres. Sisi is Gaza war's big winner: His sinking popularity bounced back ahead of today's election.
- Penn President resigns after allowing a Palestinian conference on campus & evading questions in Congress.
- Amnesty International publishes 120-page report on dissidents being raped by Iran's security forces.
- The designation A-list university finds a new meaning: At Yale, nearly everyone gets "A"s.
- The saga of corruption continues in Iran: Trillions of tomans have disappeared in Tehran mayor's office.
- Missing tomato found at the International Space Station: "Houston, we have the tomato"!
- Just came across this TV ad jingle for a constipation medication: "Number 2 should be easy to do"!
- "Jamaal Jamaaloo": An old southern-Iranian song has gone viral in India, thanks to a Bollywood movie.
(5) Carl Jung on evil: "In the course of his long and productive life, Jung said a great deal about evil but relatively seldom in one place and never in the form of a single essay on the subject. His position must therefore be pieced together from many writings. However, Jung did have a consistent position on evil, which is clearly apparent in this collection. In his early work on the unconscious, Jung considered the role of evil in the mental processes of the severely disturbed. Later, he viewed the question of moral choices within the framework of his ideas about archetypes and the shadow. Murray Stein's selection and introduction show how Jung's thoughts on evil are related to these other facets of his wide-ranging thinking. Jung on Evil will appeal to all those interested in Jung, as well as students of religion, ethics and psychology."
As contemporary Persian poet Fereydoon Moshiri wrote in his wonderful poem "Gorg," there is a wolf (analog of our dark side) embedded in each of us which is responsible for all immoral and cruel acts, and this wolf is connected to and is nourished by wolves in other people.
2023/12/08 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Happy Hanukkah to all those observing the ancient Jewish Festival of Lights: This year, the festival is on December 08-15, and as usual for Jewish festivals, observance started last night, on the eve of the first day. [Top center] I love IKEA's designs: The Billy bookcases I am assembling for my new home have a recess in the lower back side to accommodate baseboards. [Top right] The cognitive powers of farm animals: New research is revealing surprising complexity in the minds of goats, pigs, and other livestock. [Bottom left & center] A few color and B&W images from Your Brain on Art, the book chosen for "UCSB Reads 2024" program. [Bottom right] A panel discussion on Iranian film history (see the last item below).
(2) Many anti-Israeli protesters claim that they are anti-Zionists, not anti-Semites: I am willing to accept this if they also say that they are pro-Palestinians, not pro-murderous-Hamas.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- U. Nevada Las Vegas shooting leaves 3 dead and 1 critically injured: The gunman was killed by police.
- Israel says it plans to flood the Hamas tunnels in Gaza with sea water.
- Surprise, surprise: Vladimir Putin says he will seek another term as President of Russia.
- A win for Russia: The US Senate votes down Ukraine aid package, despite plea by President Biden.
(4) Former Islamic Republic of Iran top-level official ousted from his US faculty position: Oberlin College has removed Professor Mohammad Jafar Mahallati from his tenured position.
(5) "Former Soviet Central Asia and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict": The new republics with significant Muslim populations have little baggage in the conflict, given their fairly recent independence. This provides an opportunity for both sides of the conflict to recruit them as allies.
(6) Iranian Cinema: 123 Years of History": This was the title of a panel discussion, sponsored by Georgetown University's Jalinous Lecture Series, featuring:
- Dr. Golbar Rekabtalaei (Historian, Author, Assoc. Prof. of History, Seton Hall U.)
- Dr. Pedram Partovi (Historian, Author, Assoc. Prof. of History, American U.)
- Ehsan Khoshbakht (Filmmaker, Film Curator, Writer, Critic)
In the late 1990s, a vault in Golestan Palace was discovered to hold films from the Qajar era, which revealed Iranian Cinema to be much older that we previously thought. Early Iranian films were private or shown in very limited screenings. Commercial Iranian cinema came much later, with the industry being younger than those in India and several other countries in the region.
Dubbing foreign films into Persian began in Italy and Turkey, before a thriving dubbing industry was established inside Iran. Similarly, early Persian films were made by Iranians in other countries (e.g., India) or by foreign filmmakers inside Iran, before a domestic film industry came into being.
The "alternative cinema" that emerged from the 1960s was mostly government-supported. Ironically, while the government was instrumental in launching a more-progressive Iranian cinema, its control and censorship tendencies have been a constant theme that have stretched through the Islamic Republic.
The term "filmfarsi," which became a pejorative term for poorly-made Iranian films, was initially used to advertise dubbed films that allowed Iranian audiences to watch films in Persian.
2023/12/07 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday (1): Iranian Girl Scouts from the city of Sanandaj in the 1960s. [Top center] TBT (2): Gigantic newspaper headline from 1979, announcing Shah's departure from Iran (photo by Akbar Nazemi). [Top right] TBT (3): Iranian women computer specialists in a photo from the summer of 1973, and the post-Islamic-Revolution headline of a fundamentalist newspaper about computers bringing dependence on imperialism. [Bottom left] TED Immigrant Diaspora begins with an Iranian installment (see the next item below). [Bottom center] IEEE Central Coast Section event in Santa Barbara (see the last item below). [Bottom right] Taylor Swift has been chosen as Time magazine's Person of the Year for 2023.
(2) "TED Immigrant Diaspora: Iranian": In a series of eight brief talks under the sponsorship of Farhang Foundation, young Iranian immigrants related their stories, composed of obstacles & heartbreaks as well as unexpected & much-deserved successes.
The participants were: Desiree Akhavan (Filmmaker);
Leili Anvar (Poetry Professor);
Dr. Abbas Ardehali (Cardiothoracic Surgeon);
Maryam Banikarim (Recovering Executive);
Newsha Ghaeli (Data Detective);
Dr. Hani Goodarzi (Biomedical Researcher);
Golriz Lucina (Creative Producer);
Niaz Nawab (Singer & Composer).
The program starts at the 12:00-minute mark of this 113-minute video.
(3) New reporting on October 7 crimes: Hamas terrorists raped Israeli women both before & after they were shot in the head. Women's body parts were tossed around for fun. ISIS actions seem tame by comparison.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Presidents of Harvard, Penn, & MIT grilled by Congress for how they dealt with anti-Semitism on campus.
- Norman Lear [1922-2023], who revolutionized TV comedy with "All in the Family," dead at 101.
- Woman, who hurled a scalding burrito bowl at a Chipotle manager, sentenced to work at a fast-food joint.
- A viral video shows a robot figure-skating and landing a quadruple axel: It's not real, folks!
(5) Kevin McCarthy will retire at the end of 2023, one year before the end of his term: This is classic chickening out. He knows his chances of being re-elected are slim, so this early retirement will save him from having to explain his not running or a possible defeat, not to mention having to choose between supporting Trump or one of his primary challengers in the upcoming election year.
(6) Wednesday's IEEE Central Coast Section Holiday Banquet and Tech Talk: The venue was Mulligan's Cafe & Bar at Santa Barbara Golf Club. After a cocktail hour with hors d'oeuvres, dinner was served. The guest speaker, Dr. Paul Leonardi, Duca Family Professor & Chair of UCSB's Technology Management Department, spoke under the title "Helping Employees Succeed with Generative AI."
Recent news stories tout the productivity-amplifying and time-saving potential of generative AI tools like ChatGPT. But the reality is that most companies are not seeing such gains. Leonardi outlined the unique challenges that large language models (LLMs) present, including the fact that, by the very nature of their design, they're constantly changing.
Leonardi explained his practical STEP framework, which he developed by working with top companies that have successfully implemented GenAI to empower employees. He discussed how to create new avenues for value creation through improving employee experiences and turning attractive productivity numbers from potential into reality.
2023/12/05 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] More-efficient assembly of 20 IKEA bookcases: After assembling 2 of the bookcases one at a time, I decided to take all of them out of the cardboard boxes, sort the parts, and then use an assembly-line approach for completing the task. With all the boxes recycled, I also have more space in the room to do the work. [Center] Persian poetry & calligraphy: Opening verse from a beautiful poem by Mohammad-Hossein Shahriar (recitation of the complete poem by Shahriar himself). [Right] Film screening, tonight at UCSB (see the last item below).
(2) Quantum computing: "Advances in quantum computing are bringing us closer to a world where new types of computers may solve problems in minutes that would take today's supercomputers millions of years." Countries and major tech companies are in a race to get there first. [CBS "60 Minutes," 13-minute report]
(3) Behind the scenes of a surprising hit movie: Directing "Barbie" was a dream job for Greta Gerwig, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind "Little Women" and "Lady Bird." [CBS "60 Minutes," 14-minute report]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Use of rape as a weapon of war must be condemned forcefully & unconditionally. [H. Clinton commentary]
- Math scores for US students at all-time low on an international exam. [Washington Post report]
- President Biden hints that he would not seek re-election if Trump weren't running.
- Liz Cheney's memoir tops charts, quickly sells out on Amazon: My library hold has a wait time of months!
- Oxford Word of the Year: "Rizz" (Gen-Z slang for a person's ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner).
- Lyrics of 3 Googoosh songs (with English translation & transliteration), courtesy of UCSB ME Ensemble.
(5) Quote of the day: "Good does not become better by being exaggerated, but worse; And a small evil becomes a big one through being disregarded and repressed." ~ Carl Jung
(6) My newfound respect for handrails: Until several years ago, I vigorously avoided using handrails when climbing or descending stairs, for fear of germs. Now, I use them regularly for fear of tripping & falling!
(7) Importance of floating-point standard in a surprising application domain: IEEE Standard 754, the latest version of which was issued in 2019, aims to make floating-point arithmetic portable across different platforms. This is important for compute-intensive engineering applications, which would otherwise produce vastly-different results, depending on the machine on which they are executed. I have just learned that gaming systems also rely on reproduceable floating-point computations. If floating-point computations used to model the physical world produce the same results when supplied with the same inputs, then, instead of communicating the entire state of the game in a distributed multi-player system, one can synchronize the simulation by just sending the player inputs, a much smaller data set. [Ref. 1] [Ref. 2]
(8) "Stonebreakers": This was the title of a documentary film screened tonight at UCSB's Pollock Theater. The 2022 documentary chronicles the heated conflicts that emerged around public monuments and the politics of memorialization, both in the wake of George Floyd's murder and in the context of the 2020 US presidential campaign. The 70-minute film-screening was followed by a live discussion with filmmaker Valerio Ciriaci and producer/cinematographer Isaak Liptzin, moderated by UCSB's Stephanie Malia Hom.
2023/12/04 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] I checked out Sunday's Arts & Craft Market at Santa Barbara's historic El Presidio. [Top center] Math humor: Weirdness of the number i. [Top right] UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran (see the last item below). [Bottom left] IranWire cartoon of the day: Iranian popular rapper & activist Toomaj Salehi has been re-arrested with new charges, after a short period of release on bail. The mullahs hate/fear music and musicians. [Bottom center] Interest rate for 30-year fixed mortgages in the US since the 1980s (see the next item below). [Bottom right] Why don't we dance much anymore? Americans' healthy & relaxing habit of dancing (in ballrooms, discos, parties, or streets) might be dying, according to a New York Times story.
(2) The weird US housing market: If the housing market behaved like other markets, prices would have fallen over the last several years. Mortgage rates have risen sharply since the COVID pandemic receded, as the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates to lower inflation.
(3) Taylor Swift 101: Some colleges are offering courses on Taylor Swift. Yes, you heard it right! Harvard, Stanford, NYU, and Arizona State are among colleges that aim to study the influence of the pop star.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Bradley Cooper plays composer Leonard Bernstein in "Maestro": Also starring Carey Mulligan. [Trailer]
- Bakhtiari Lur (from Iran) emulates Michael Jackson, dancing to a modern Persian song.
- True or false? There are more venomous species in warmer climates than in colder locations. [Answer]
- The Sleeping Beauty Problem: Somewhat similar to the Monty Hall Problem, but apparently more confusing.
- David Garrett's magical violin music. [4-minute video]
- Miracle of music: Young singer with speech impediment loses her stutter when she sings. [7-minute video]
(5) A special thanks to all the Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist, and agnostic mail carriers who deliver Christmas cards without screaming that it goes against their beliefs. We love you! [Credit: Jared Wilson]
(6) UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran: In today's installment, Dr. Azadeh Kian (U. Paris Cite) spoke in English about her new book, Rethinking Gender, Ethnicity and Religion in Iran: An Intersectional Approach to National Identity, which examines the crucial shifts that affected Sunnite and subaltern women once Shi'ism became the official state religion after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. [Book info]
Shi'ism legitimizes structural relations of power based on gender, ethnicity, religion, and class. Focusing on women in the Baluchistan and Golestan provinces in north-central and southeastern Iran, respectively, Dr. Kian studies issues of cultural racialization, ethno-centrism, Shi'a-centrism, and patriarchal & chauvinistic ideologies in Iranian society propagated by the state and sustained by its policies.
Based on quantitative and qualitative surveys taken throughout Iran, comprised of over 7000 married women and 100 interviews with a sample of Sunnite and subaltern Persian women, Dr. Kian reveals how social hierarchy and power relations based on gender, class, ethnicity, and religion operate. She also examines women's everyday lives and the family institution as a site of power in order to better understand the politics of ordinary Iranians and the relationship between state and society.
For future UCLA events and discussions on Iran, please visit this Web page.
2023/12/03 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] My order of IKEA bookcases has arrived: I assembled one of them to see whether I can manage on my own or should hire someone to do the assembly. Doesn't seem to be too hard. Let the fun begin! [Right] Arabs and Jews in the Ottoman Palestine (see the next item below).
(2) Arabs & Jews in Ottoman Palestine (book review): Not even the sharpest-eyed observer of mid-19th-century Palestine could have detected hints of the future struggle between Jews & Arabs over this land. The source of the current troubles can be traced back to local problems over grazing and water rights, which expanded into self-aware national confrontations. Perhaps conflict was inevitable, given the Muslim attitude toward these immigrants and the Zionist aspiration to leave the diaspora behind and live as independent actors.
(3) Last night's UCSB Middle East Ensemble concert: As always, the program booklet contained all the lyrics in the original language and English translation & transliteration.
Part 1 of the program consisted of five segments.
- A traditional Arabic folk dance: Music by Abd Al-Wahhab.
- A set of four Armenian songs, featuring Steven Thomson.
- A candelabra dance, by special guest DeVilla.
- Two Greek songs, performed by Alexis Story Crawshaw.
- A solo dance, composed of four parts, by special guest Aubre Hill (see Video 1).
Part 2 of the program consisted of four segments.
- Two more Greek songs, performed by Alexis Story Crawshaw.
- An Upper-Egyptian stick dance, featuring special guest The Qabila Dance Company.
- A set of three Persian songs made famous by the pop diva Googoosh, performed by Javid John Mosadeghi.
- A finale dance set, in four parts, featuring special guest DeVilla.
[Images: Batch 1; Batch 2] [Video 1] [Video 2] [Video 3] [Video 4]
(4) Today's UCLA Salamat talk: Health lectures UCLA are monthly Persian Zoom presentations that also include non-health-related content. Leading today's program was Dr. Mohamad Bagher Bagheri, who talked about intellectualism. There were 25 attendees.
An intellectual is not the same as a thinker: A thinker (philosopher; e.g., Descartes) minds his/her own business, but an intellectual has concerns about society (e.g., Voltaire). One problem in the Persian language is that the word for intellectual, "rowshan-fekr" (meaning "lit thinker"), has a positive connotation, which makes it hard for some people to admit that a person thinking differently from them is an intellectual. We have no problem saying that someone is a writer, even if we think s/he writes awful books, but intellectual is different. The word "intellectual" is often conflated with several other Persian terms such as "nokhbeh" (tops in his/her field) and "farhikhteh" (academic "nokhbeh").
The word "intellectual" is used in two senses: General & special.
In the general sense, intellectualism is combining thinking with societal concerns. For example, when Socrates went among ordinary people to learn about their problems & concerns, he was engaging in intellectual activity. In this sense, Ayatollah Khomeini may be deemed an intellectual (the fact that his plans for society were misguided is a different story).
In the special sense, intellectualism began from the age of enlightenment in Europe, when it was combined with modernity, including the notion of democracy. Enlightenment had four pillars: Critical thinking (applied to everything, including the concept of God), science, humanism, and liberalism.
In Iran, intellectuals are divided into three groups: Western-leaning, leftist, and religious. The latter two groups will be discussed in another session next month. Western-leaning intellectuals include Taghizadeh and Foroughi. Two traits of Iranians make it hard for intellectuals to have an impact: Putting great weight on traditions (don't mess with Shab-e Yalda!) and being anti-government (so anyone who cooperates with the government is not deemed an intellectual).
Dr. Mohamad Bagher Bagheri has a Web site through which you can learn more about his background and gain access to YouTube videos of his lessons on critical thinking.
2023/12/01 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzle: We have a circle with its center at O and a quadrangle ABCD with its vertices on the circle. What is the measure of the angle x? [Center] Henry Gee's A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth (see the last item below). [Right] A second math puzzle for your weekend: Squares of areas 1, 4, and x are embedded in the right triangle ABC, as shown. Find x.
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Trailblazer: Sandra Day O'Connor [1930-2023], the first woman on the US Supreme Court, dead at 93.
- Three young Palestinian-American men shot in Vermont in an apparent hate crime.
- Iran's delegation leaves the Climate Summit in Dubai because of the presence of Israel's representatives.
- Good riddance: I don't want one more minute of my time to be wasted by news stories about George Santos.
- UCSB grapples with plans for student housing, now that Charles Munger, champion of "dormzilla," is dead.
- Persian music: Niaz Nawab sings "Hagh" ("Right"): Sponsored by Farhang Foundation. [3-minute video]
(3) Book review: Gee, Henry, A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Pithy Chapters, unabridged 8-hour audiobook, read by the author, Macmillan Audio, 2021.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Many biographies of Earth have been written, so having yet another volume in this area may not seem exciting. All such books touch upon the key historical stages and notions: Earth's formation, plate tectonics, rapid evolution of life, the Great Oxygenation Event, early bacterial cells, endosymbiosis, multicellular life, tetrapods making landfall, the spinal cord, reptiles, dinosaurs, mammals, monkeys, and human-beings.
Gee offers a particularly detailed account of plate tectonics and supercontinent cycle. He tells us that the breakup of Rodinia (predecessor of Pangea) entailed so much volcanic eruption and extrusion of fresh rocks that the subsequent erosion drew enough carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to cause planetary-scale glaciation some time before 650 million years ago. Later, the formation of Pangaea caused far hotter, drier, and more seasonal land climate.
Previously, I had learned about certain sea creatures moving onto land to give rise to a vast number of new species. Details of how this transition occurred and its evolutionary basis were unclear to me. Gee provides much of the missing details. It turns out that some fish became flattened, so as to be able to swim and hunt for food in shallow coastal waters. Once there, they started to develop a set of four legs for easier movement, which then allowed them to transition onto land.
Dinosaurs are discussed as a relatively insignificant stage in the development of life, with three exceptions: Bipedalism gave them great advantage over other species; Innovations in respiration allowed them to grow very large; and transition to powered flight opened up new possibilities for them and the new species that followed.
Gee reminds us that evolution isn't goal-directed, so it does not move in one direction. When tetrapods moved onto land, their commitment to the new habitat was shaky. In fact, in a kind of reversal, some species did go back from land to sea. So, the prevailing impression that the profusion of early hominids as a series of ever more-bipedal species replacing one another in an orderly, preordained fashion is misguided.
The last third of Gee's book takes an anthropocentric turn, with heavy focus on primate and hominin evolution, ending with our departure from Africa. Perhaps skipping over recent events such as language development, domestication of plants & animals, and agriculture was necessary to keep the book "very short." Despite devoting many pages to the discussion of human development, Gee does acknowledge that the entire human history will perhaps be reflected in no more than a millimeters-thick layer in some future sedimentary rock.
2023/11/30 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday: Four Iranian singers from way back when, reunited. [Top center] Yes, there is an uptick in shoplifting incidents, but the rates over the past 3 years have been markedly lower than during the Trump years (NYT chart). [Top right] This jigsaw puzzle, based on 3D pop art by Charles Fazzino, challenged me during a long wait at the doctor's office yesterday. [Bottom left] Getting ready for the transition from fall to winter. [Bottom center] Talangor Group tech talk by yours truly (see the last item below). [Bottom right] National Geographic photo of the day.
(2) Henry Kissinger [1923-2023] dead at 100: The former US Secretary of State has received a lot of accolades, including a Nobel Peace Prize, but for some reason, I never liked or trusted the guy.
(3) Persian is spoken and ghormeh-sabzi stew is served on the International Space Station: Yesterday morning, NASA & Stanford U.'s Iranian studies program sponsored an amazing 20-minute live chat with Iranian-American astronaut Jasmine Moghbeli, who has taken a Persian stew with her to share with crewmates.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Assassins galore: Indian national charged for plotting to kill a US citizen for his Sikh separatist views.
- Communists and Islamists set aside their ideological differences to fight against the West.
- Do you know a Jew who was born in Bethlehem ~2000 years before 1948? Hint: His birthday is coming up.
- Here's what librarians do on their coffee breaks: Dominoes chain, but made with books.
(5) Forty-one construction workers were rescued in India: Stuck in a collapsed tunnel 300 feet underground for 17 days, they survived on supplies sent through narrow pipes.
(6) Tonight's Talangor Group tech talk: Yours truly spoke under the title "Recurring Designs and Patterns in Nature" (in Persian). Before the main talk, Dr. Mehdi Saremifar gave a brief presentation on "Starlink: A New Generation of Satellite-Based Communication." There were ~80 attendees.
My presentation was based primarily on the book Patterns in Nature: Why the Natural World Looks the Way It Does, by Philip Ball, which I have reviewed on GoodReads. If you don't have access to the book, this Wikipedia article contains an excellent summary.
I proceeded along the lines of the nine chapters in Ball's book: Symmetry; Fractals; Spirals; Flow and Chaos; Waves and Dunes; Bubbles and Foam; Arrays and Tiling; Cracks; Spots and Stripes. The roles of Fibonacci numbers and Fibonacci spirals and well as Benoit Mandelbrot's fractal geometry were among the topics emphasized. What Mandelbrot did for the advancement of geometry is comparable to Einstein's role in the advancement of physics.
While natural patterns tend to be beautiful, there are usually physical reasons behind their emergence. Beauty is often a mere side effect, with the possible exception of beautiful patterns on certain male animals that attract the opposite sex. For example, bilateral symmetry helps with more-efficient forward motion (in the same way that symmetric oars and rowing allows a boat to move forward smoothly and in a straight line). Likewise, the spiral pattern inside a sunflower maximizes the number of seeds that fit in a given area and spots & stripes are useful for camouflage.
[My PDF slides]
2023/11/28 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Traditional Iranian meal. [Center] Jerry Seinfeld's Is This Anything? (see the last item below).[Right] Perhaps we should reconsider the theory that huge boulders were transported to the sites of Egyptian Pyramids and other ancient structures, using primitive mechanical aids.
(2) Liberal arts vs. STEM programs: Yes, STEM fields are important but any scientist or engineer needs a solid background in liberal arts in order to create balanced designs with appropriate functionality, effective human interfaces, and attention to social consequences. While it is true that STEM majors lead to more lucrative careers, universities were never meant to be merely career-prep schools. [LA Times Editorial]
(3) Cerebras introduces 2-exaflop AI supercomputer: The goal is to have a 36-exaflop network by doubling the existing compute power and using 9 networked systems. [IEEE Spectrum magazine, Nov. 2023]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Iranian mullahs deem sociology an illegitimate field of study: Florida to follow suit.
- American students and rank among the lowest in the world for AI use.
- NASA slows the development of its Mars Sample Return mission, citing uncertainty over funding and design.
- Software-defined architecture: Dual-CPU computer teaches you system-level design. [IEEE Spectrum]
- Fish fossils on top of the Himalayan Mountains: The entire Earth may have once been covered with water.
- Did you know that the Sun is older than the Earth, but the water on Earth is older than the Sun?
(5) Wind turbines installed on floating platforms exploit the steadiest, strongest winds that blow over deep ocean water: Scaling the installations to giga-Watt level remains a problem.
[IEEE Spectrum, Nov. 2023]
(6) Book review: Seinfeld, Jerry, Is This Anything? unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by the author, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2020. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This autobiographical book consists of many short, joke-like observations on life, particularly life in New York City. Example: We get on a train (even though everyone is in the train, not on top of it), in a cab, but not on or in Uber; we just take Uber. Most of the observations aren't ha-ha funny, but that's Seinfeld's style, with all the impertinence and political incorrectness. The book's title reflects comedians' tendency to run jokes by their peers to see if they consider the material of value.
You may start getting bored at the beginning of the book, but if you persevere, the material grows on you. This look into the life and career path of one of America's greatest comic minds is a pretty good distraction in a world that has gone cruel and mad on us!
2023/11/27 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] First flight on Earth (Wright Brothers plane, Dec. 17, 1903); First flight on Mars (Ingenuity Helicopter, Apr. 19, 2021). [Center] IranWire cartoon of the day: Ayatollah Khamenei's karma. [Right] The brilliant natural-lighting system of Sultan Amir Ahmad Public Bath, Kashan, Iran, from the 1500s.
(2) Now that visiting family members have returned home safely, the Thanksgiving holiday is officially over for us. Here's an apt quote about giving thanks from Henry David Thoreau: "I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanks-giving is perpetual."
(3) First Native-American woman engineer: Mary Golda Ross [1908-2008] worked at Lockheed from 1942 until her retirement in 1973, where she was best-remembered for her aerospace design work.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The US has no universal healthcare, but 10 states come close, with uninsured rates below 5%.
- Israeli forces discover and confiscate a Hamas suitcase bearing $1.5M in cash, allegedly coming from Iran.
- This is how some Iranian kids go to school, while millions in cash & arms are sent to terrorists abroad.
- More than 20 Baha'i homes invaded in violent raids and many arrested in Iran as crackdown intensifies.
- My kids and their cousins at Santa Barbara's House of Clues (after managing to escape) and with Grinch.
- Erdos-Straus Conjecture: The equation 4/n = 1/a + 1/b + 1/c has positive integer solutions for every n > 1.
(5) Hijab-enforcers are disavowed by Iran's Interior Ministry, which characterizes them as concerned citizens acting independently, but secret documents show that they are paid government agents. [Tweet, with video]
(6) Israel's Defense Minister reports that 100+ Hezbollah fighters have been killed over the past two months and many of their command posts & ammunition depots have been destroyed. [VOA Farsi Tweet]
(7) The origins of inequality: History shows us that patriarchal systems, which may appear robust and inevitable, aren't permanent or preordained. In this 64-minute podcast, host Angela Saini discusses her own book, The Patriarchs, which dispels commonly-invoked myths about gender inequality and its causes.
(8) Boredom is actually good for us: Our most-creative work comes during boredom or relaxation. Multitasking, far from being a productivity enhancer, actually wastes our mental energy. [3-minute video]
(9) AI to help solve the information deluge problem: Scientists in nearly all fields are overwhelmed by the sheer number of papers that come their way from professional bodies and commercial publishers. Keeping up has become a near-impossibility. There is some hope that new developments in AI can lead to automatic summarization and organization of the published research literature, thus streamlining the amount of information a scientist has to take in. There are tough challenges to be overcome, though. One is the tendency of generative systems that power AI research tools to hallucinate, that is, generate false content. Another is the economics of such AI tools in terms of free-vs.-paid service and handling of copyright issues in full-text access.
2023/11/26 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Mrs. Rachel Daie, grandmother to my three children (mother of my late ex-wife), passed away on Saturday. This Persian poem honors her memory. RIP. [Center] Philip Ball's Patterns in Nature (see the last item below). [Right] Math puzzle: A circle of radius a intersects a semicircle of radius 2a, as shown. What is the ratio a/b?
(2) I hope no one is offended by the following observation about "saffron" books: Years ago, I encountered Gelareh Asayesh's Saffron Sky (a review) and Yasmin Crowther's The Saffron Kitchen (my review). What's the deal with the use of "Saffron" in book titles? There is another book, Saffron Dreams, and a Google search reveals Saffron Skies, Love & Saffron, Leila in Saffron, The Saffron Tales, and other titles. Could this be part of Iranians' feeling of inadequacy: Using our exotic side to appeal to foreigners? Perhaps I should start writing The Saffron University about my experiences as a university professor in Iran! I actually have another title in mind, but the project must wait until after I retire.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Human Rights Watch under fire for allegedly accepting millions in Qatar funds.
- Churches are under jihadi attacks in Western Europe, but no country experiences more attacks than France.
- Khamenei: "It's impossible for a woman to stand up and sing, with men who watch resisting temptation."
- Jurassic Park: Can you name this unusual animal? [Tweet, with video]
(3) Book review: Ball, Philip, Patterns in Nature: Why the Natural World Looks the Way It Does, University of Chicago Press, 2016.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Nature is complicated, seemingly employing an infinite collection of patterns and designs. But, upon closer inspection, we see that the patterns come from a relatively limited set of basic components. These familiar components recur at different size scales and in diverse, totally unrelated systems. What got me into studying this subject was a chance encounter with the observation that human fingerprint patterns and age rings in trees look quite similar.
The first person to try to develop a deep understanding of these patterns was Scottish zoologist D'Arcy Thompson, who wrote On Growth and Form, his 1917 masterpiece, to report on what he discovered. One of his key observations was the fact that pattern formation is not a static occurrence but arises from growth.
This very-interesting book consists of 9 chapters, sandwiched between an introduction and glossary & further reading. Here are the titles of the chapters and brief description of their significance.
- Symmetry: Bilateral symmetry facilitates directional motion. Many kinds of symmetry exist.
- Fractals: Benoit Mandelbrot's mathematical tool for studying roughness and self-similarity.
- Spirals: Most arise from the way things grow. Fibonacci spirals are frequent occurrences.
- Flow and Chaos: A positive feedback loop changes a river's zigzagging path over a flat region.
- Waves and Dunes: The interaction between wind and water or fluid-like sand.
- Bubbles and Foam: Bubbles are spherical; a mass of bubbles assumes complicated shapes.
- Arrays and Tiling: Patterns formed by juxtaposition or overlapping of identical shapes.
- Cracks: The similarity of cracks in dry lake beds, ceramic glaze, and cooling lava is amazing.
- Spots and Stripes: Can be explained in evolutionary terms, such as serving as camouflage.
The Wikipedia page "Patterns in nature" contains a useful summary of this book's contents.
2023/11/25 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women: Having expressed our gratitude for our blessings on Thanksgiving Day 2023, we should also remain aware of things that we don't have in this world. One such thing is violence-free home & work environments for many women. Violence against women comes in different forms, including sexual violence. [Center] The Statue of Liberty was made of copper, but over the many decades since it was built, is has turned greenish due to oxidation. [Right] Cassidy Hutchinson's Enough (see the last item below).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Hamas executes two Palestinian men in public. These terrorists kill anyone who opposes them. [Source: DW]
- Iran's President Raisi seemingly contradicts Supreme Leader Khamenei. [Tweet, with video]
- UCLA receives $11M from Persian Heritage Foundation toward the establishment of Yarshater Center.
- Thanksgiving feast continues a couple of days later: After-dinner entertainment by my nephew Avi.
(3) Book review: Hutchinson, Cassidy, Enough, unabridged 12-hour audiobook, read by the author, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2023. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Cassidy Hutchinson, went from an unknown young aide to Trump's Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to a celebrity virtually overnight, when she appeared as a witness in front of the US Congressional Committee investigating the events of January 6, 2021. On that infamous day, a violent mob of Trump supporters broke into the Capitol Building, destroying property and threatening to kill politicians who disagreed with them.
I was conflicted, as I listened to this audiobook. On the one hand, I was horrified by the fact that inexperienced young aides are placed in positions to make critical decisions and to influence decisions by others. On the other hand, we learned of some of the key missteps and evil plots in the Trump administration only because this particular young aide spoke up, when senior aides chose to keep quiet or to actively obstruct legal and legislative investigations.
The penniless Hutchinson was horrified when she was faced with huge legal expenses in order to testify in front of the January 6 Committee. She initially accepted legal help from the Trump world, which severely limited what she could and could not reveal. She herself was conflicted between loyalty to the president she adored (at least, before she came to understand the situation better) and the desire to testify truthfully. When she received an offer of pro-bono legal representation from independent attorneys, she finally relaxed somewhat and started speaking to Rep. Liz Cheney and, eventually, to the full committee.
The Trump world used a carrot-and-stick approach to try to force Hutchinson to reveal as little as possible. Lucrative job offers were dangled in front of this broke young aide, at the same time as she was warned about the dire consequences of betrayal. One can't help but feel sorry for her, although Hutchinson does not consider herself a victim in any of this, asserting that she knew full well what she was getting into.
Hutchinson reveals the dirty secrets of an administration awash in paranoia, looking everywhere, and even setting traps, to discover leakers. We learn that Mark Meadows' wife complained about the high cost of dry-cleaning her husband's suits, which smelled of smoke due to his burning large batches of documents in a fireplace. Ironically, the same paranoid people surrounding Trump allowed unsavory characters, such as the "My Pillow" guy (Mike Lindell) and a host of pardon-seeking individuals roam the White House grounds unescorted.
Hutchinson believes that January 6 happened in part because she and others in the administration didn't do enough to stop it. This is a very significant change of heart for a young woman who adored President Trump and, even after the events of January 6, still lobbied for a job at Mar-a-Lago.
2023/11/23 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Happy Thanksgiving Day 2023 to all: Wishing you health, love, friendships, personal fulfilment, and many other gifts to enjoy & appreciate on this day and on every other day of the year. [Top center] My Persian poem honoring my mother Kokab a year after her passing (see the next item below). [Top right] Book talk sponsored by Farhang Foundation & UCSB's Iranian Studies Initiative: Ava Homa (Cal State U. Monterey Bay) speaks under the title "Daughters of Smoke and Fire: Art, Activism, and Fire" (video). [Bottom row] Photos from our Thanksgiving family gathering, including yours truly doing the turkey honors.
(2) Sharing with you what I wrote for my mom's first anniversary of passing, observed with the family on Thanksgiving Day 2023: As we gather here, thanks to our generous host Behnaz, to renew our family bonds and to give thanks for all our blessings on this Thanksgiving Day, let us also remember our mom Kowkab, aka grandma Kobi, and give thanks for the gift of the 93 years we had her on this Earth. We lost Kobi a year ago, on November 14, 2022 (Aban 23, 1401 in Iranian calendar), around 7:15 AM. The one year and 9 days since her passing has been tough on the entire family.
We miss a lot of things about her that we used to take for granted: Her mere presence; Our weekly visits; Regular audio & video calls; Delicious food that she prepared for our family gatherings and sent home with us; The link to extended family through her information channel; Generous gifts she gave us on many special and not-so-special occasions; News reports about Iran & the world; And her advice & encouragement when we were struggling or in a bind.
She is with us in spirit, though. Whenever we gather as a family, I visualize her sitting on a chair, sipping her tea, and occasionally complaining of various ailments; Delighting in the presence of her grandkids & great-grandkids; Talking about plans for upcoming family events; Relating memories from Kurdistan; And, lately, under-the-breath singing of a favorite Iranian song.
The Persian poem above, which has her name "Kowkab" and nickname "Kobi" as the initial letters of its half-verses, honors her contributions to our family.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Russian and Chinese executives hold secret talks on building a tunnel to Crimea.
- The Middle East after October 7: A viewpoint from Adi Schwartz. [33-minute talk]
- Fruit plates for our large Thanksgiving family gathering.
[Tweet, with photo]
- Throwback Thursday: A nostalgic collage of singers and other artists in the pre-Islamic-Revolution Iran.
(4) There is hope for the United States: Former white evangelical shares his insider info about how evangelicals politicized religion and supported the hateful views of Donald Trump.
(5) Iran helped normalize hostage-taking: Now Israel, the US, and other countries are negotiating with terrorists who openly call for the annihilation of all Jews throughout the world.
(6) An important problem, formulated by an interdisciplinary team in the 1950s, is finally tamed: A groundbreaking algorithm for the max-flow problem was proposed in 2022. The problem, which has broad theoretical significance and practical applications, concerns transporting the most supplies from a source node to a destination node in a network while honoring link capacities. By mathematical duality, the max-flow problem is related to the min-cut problem. At this juncture, the nearly-linear-time algorithm is of theoretical nature and needs to be reworked for practical implementation. But breaking long-standing super-linear complexity barriers offers hope for scalable max-flow algorithms.
2023/11/22 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] US track-and-fielder Jim Thorpe won two 1912 Olympics gold medals in these mismatched shoes he found in a garbage can: His own shoes were stolen on the morning of his competition. One of the shoes he found was too big, so he wore an extra sock on that foot. [Center] Socrates Think Tank program (see the next item below). [Right] Mustafa Suleyman's The Coming Wave (see the last item below).
(2) Tonight's Socrates Think Tank program featured SoCal-based Iranian opera singer Shahrzad Tavakol (Shahrzad Vocal Academy). There were ~95 attendees.
In this highly-enjoyable session, Ms. Tavakol related her life story, from being educated in Iran, majoring in fine arts, to her present career as a singer and multi-talented artist. I have chosen from YouTube a couple of her Persian songs, and one sample each of her work in French, English, and Armenian.
Shahrzad Tavakol's Facebook page;
"Raaz-e Del" ("Heart's Secret");
"Ey Iran, Iran";
"La Vie En Rose";
"Besame Mucho";
"Zepyuri Hman"
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Vehicle explosion on a US-Canada bridge near Niagara Falls kills two and injures a US Border Patrol officer.
- This is a mosque in Gaza, with a lot of things that do not belong in a legit mosque. [Tweet, with video]
- Here's why sand dunes exist and look the way they do: It's the interaction between the wind & fluid sand.
- Eye-opening facts: This hourglass is a visualization of humans, living and dead, throughout the history.
(4) Book review: Suleyman, Mustafa (with Michael Bhaskar), The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the 21s Century's Greatest Dilemma, Crown, 332 pp., 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Mustafa Suleyman is a tech visionary. Trained in philosophy, he moved on to co-found DeepMind & Inflection AI, serve as a Google VP, build the large language model Pi (named for personal intelligence), and write The Coming Wave with author/publisher Michael Bhaskar. Suleyman's book has been characterized as "fascinating, well-written, and important" by Yuval Noah Harari, and it has received much praise from other luminaries.
On October 5, 2023, I was privileged to hear Suleyman in a fascinating, deep conversation with Dr. Misha Sra (UCSB CS) as part of UCSB's Arts & Lectures program. I have incorporated my notes from that session into the review that follows. As an aside, this Time magazine profile of Suleyman also reveals one of his dark sides.
Suleyman holds a mostly-optimistic view of AI developments and of technology more generally, although he does devote significant ink to AI's dangers under the umbrella of "containment." His company's Pi is envisaged as an empowerment tool for its owner. Interestingly, Pi is intentionally designed to avoid certain subjects, so if you try to flirt with it, you would get a polite answer such as "I'm just an AI, ..." Pi's design is focused on emotional intelligence, so that it can serve as a kind and supportive companion with the ability to carry on great conversations, rather than as a productivity, search, or question-answering tool. We must accept, however, that, as was the case with software, people will try to design AI to fill every possible niche.
We have unleashed so much power in our AI systems that the challenge is steering this power toward providing maximal benefits to us, while preventing any potential harm from self-directed agents. DeepMind's philosophy was that AI should aim to replicate human beings' vastly successful prediction engine, as opposed to focusing on merely rearranging and re-interpreting data. Over the past decade, compute power for AI has increased 10x every single year, yielding an astonishing overall improvement factor of 10^10, making sophisticated models possible.
Like any other product, Pi reflects its designers' values. So, it can be viewed as political, which is inevitable. We have to prepare for extreme instability. We are providing AI with a vast knowledge base at essentially zero marginal cost. Amassing power will become cheaper and everyone will be able to use the power for personal gain. We should be able to produce energy, offer healthcare, and educate everyone at essentially zero marginal cost. It is difficult to see how this will not lead to reduced suffering.
Containment is a simple idea. A well-functioning society should be able to temper development. We have done a reasonably good job with nuclear power and other technologies, which are now rather safe. But each new technology brings forth new elements that can create challenges. The good news is that regulators are moving faster than ever before and the biggest AI companies have voluntarily submitted to regulations. The bad news is that technology is moving much faster than the length of time, often measured in years, required to introduce, mull over, and enact legislation.
To ensure containment we need an "Apollo Program" for technical safety, accountability through frequent audits, choke points to limit the use of certain hardware & software, incorporation of AI critics into the circle of makers, assurance that businesses invest their profits with a greater ethical purpose, empowerment of governments to safeguard technology through regulation, establishment of alliances & global standards, a culture that encourages experimentation & learning from failures, grassroots movements toward awareness & ethical development/deployment, and an understanding that the path to dealing with the challenges involved is rather narrow and quite difficult to navigate.
A key challenge we face is the dearth of subject-matter experts in the public sector who would support the rolling out and administering regulations. We have to build at scale the needed expertise within the public sector, so that we are not dependent on, and so at the mercy of, the private sector with its massively greater wealth.
2023/11/21 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] "Girls in the Windows": Ormond Gigli's iconic 1960 photograph, whose print sold at a recent auction for $38,000. [Top center] Former political prisoner & activist Mahvash Sabet maintains that Iranian Baha'is are prevented from living normal lives. [Top right] In Gaza, schools, theme parks, hospitals, and mosques look awfully alike. [Bottom left] Sign of the times: At a supermarket checkout today. [Bottom center] Afterimage: Stare at the red dot at tip of the woman's nose of this negative image for 30 seconds and then look at a white surface while blinking your eyes quickly. You will see the original positive image. [Bottom right] This registered national monument in Zanjan, Iran, is Rakhtshoorkhaneh ("laundry house"): It was built in the 1800s for locals to use the running water in the canals to wash their clothes.
(2) Too many people think that amid the slaughter of hundreds of Israeli civilians, rape isn't something to dwell on: Rape isn't a legitimate method of combat. Let's all speak up (#MeToo).
(3) Reza Pahlavi kills his prospects of becoming Iran's leader: He confesses that he has nothing in Iran to return to. An Iranian king or president who does not care to live in Iran?
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- After OpenAI fired its high-profile CEO Sam Altman, 700+ employees signed a letter threatening to resign.
- The OpenAi coup was about safety vs. growth, or chief scientist Ilya Sutskever vs. CEO Sam Altman.
- An end to the Open AI saga? Sam Altman reinstated as the troubled company's CEO.
- Iranian official brags about personally delivering arms to Hamas & training them in the tunnels under Gaza.
- Israel's military releases videos of what it says is a fortified tunnel beneath the Al-Shifa Hospital complex.
- About 1/3 of Hamas' leadership has been eliminated: More work remains to be done. [Tweet, with photo]
- Cool science turns hot: How to make the world's hottest candle with a Tesla coil. [6-minute video]
- Holiday tip: Bringing up politics on Thanksgiving reduces the number of Christmas gifts you need to buy.
(5) Math puzzle: Consider a Lucas Sequence formed by the same rule as the Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, ...), but starting with the numbers L(1) = a and L(2) = b, rather than F(1) = 1 and F(2) = 1. How is the nth term L(n) of this sequence related to F(n)? What is the ratio L(n + 1)/L(n) for large n?
(6) Reforming expert testimony: In the US, both sides of a court case can call on experts to advocate for their positions. UK relies on experts called by the court as advisers, not as advocates. Writing in Communications of the ACM's December 2023 issue, Vint Cerf argues the advantages of the latter approach.
(7) New Yorker cartoon caption of the day (for Thanksgiving travelers): "Altimeter? Check. Instruments and radios? Check. Fuel gauges? Check. Prepared to sit on the runway for God knows how long? Check."
2023/11/20 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Happy World Children's Day (November 20): UNICEF's annual day of action for children, by children, marking the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. [Center] Iranian spies & operatives continue to enjoy academic and other freedoms in the US while denying it to their own citizens. [Right] David Sax's The Future is Analog (see the last item below)
(2) American Association for the Advancement of Science CEO Sudip S. Parikh believes that continuing-resolution funding of the US government is no cause for celebration: Passing budgets on time is essential for the American scientific enterprise and for staying competitive on the world stage.
(3) Book review: Sax, David, The Future Is Analog: How to Create a More Human World, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by the author, Public Affairs, 2022.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I was quite disappointed with this book, primarily because of its misleading title. I picked it up thinking it was about how analog circuits and analog computation are coming back, as predicted by many researchers, myself included, after being sidelined for a few decades by the higher accuracy, greater flexibility, and extreme economy of digital systems. It turned out that Canadian journalist David Sax praises personal interactions and physical contact (what he calls "analog"), while dissing virtual meetings, social media, and screen-based interactions (his "digital").
I found myself mostly in agreement with what sax says in this book, but the nagging mischaracterization problem stayed with me until the end of the book. I might have given the book 4 stars, had it been titled 'Virtual Interactions Rob Us of Intimacy and Non-Verbal Cues During Conversations.' The latter title, while much better, is still a bit misleading in that it assumes that non-verbal cues are inherently incommunicable without physical proximity, even with advances in technology.
In a way, virtual interactions saved us during the COVID-19 pandemic. They also accelerated the demise of many brick-and-mortar businesses, which would have gone extinct anyway, albeit at a slower pace. Let's not forget the large number of introverted and physically-limited individuals who were given a voice and a chance to participate in social groups. Not everyone is an extrovert who thrives within large in-person meetings.
To say that humans are analog is highly misleading. We indeed embody many digital components & processes. A neuron is digital/analog, and it can be better approximated as a purely digital than a purely analog element.
Ironically, Sax did all of his interviews and consultations for the book via screens and phone calls. His point that a vast majority of books sold are in hard-copy format is well-taken, but the truth of this assertion at present does not extend into the future. It's only a matter of time before everyone "reads" books primarily via the audio-visual system embedded in VR glasses.
Sax's strongest point is that in-person conversations are more likely to veer off-course, thus leading to interesting threads and discoveries. But maybe this is mostly due to our not having had enough time to adjust to new technologies. Observation of reactions, body language, and the like isn't impossible through a screen, especially with the development of enhanced systems, such as 3D or holographic imaging, tactile & olfactory elements, and realistic simulation of each participant's environment.
We live the way we do because of a long string of accidental and targeted developments throughout our history. Our schools and classrooms look the way they do not because those designs/arrangements are inevitable but because they just happened. On-line instruction has had a rocky start, again not because it is inevitably bad but owing to incidental factors. Systems were developed and deployed in a rush during the pandemic years. We are capable of doing a lot better, with greater financial & personal commitment and with improved technology.
Sax retreats a bit from his harsh verdict in the book's concluding section, asserting that he objects to the thoughtless use of computers (only because we can) and that it's okay to use computers if we decide judiciously and with awareness on a case-by-case basis.
2023/11/19 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] IranWire meme of the day: Narges Mohammadi vs. Islamic Republic goons. [Top center] Cartoon of the day: A very-famous physicist after a few drinks. [Top right] On the way back from Vermont, I arrived early at Burlington airport, with 2.5 hours to spare, which I used for a Vermont-style brunch. [Bottom left] Math puzzle: What fraction of the regular hexagon's area is blue? [Bottom center] Math puzzle: An outer pentagon is formed by two squares. What fraction of that pentagon's total area is shaded green? [Bottom right] Photos from atop Santa Barbara's Stearns Wharf: The windy day brought out many sailboats.
(2) Rosalynn Carter dead at 96: She expanded & formalized the role of the US First Lady and acted as a full partner to her husband, President Jimmy Carter.
(3) Nasrin Sotoudeh's message to her daughter Mehraveh for her 24th birthday: Even outside the prison, I am still a prisoner of patriarchs who want to control women's bodies and minds. ... We Iranian women must now try to conquer the big prison. Victory is near, my child; victory is near. [Facebook post, in Persian]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Hamas supporters occupy the Leaning Tower of Pisa: Radical Islam won't stop after the destruction of Israel.
- Borowitz Report (humor): George Santos to spend more time with imaginary family.
- True or false: If x < y then x^y > y^x, i.e., putting the larger of x & y in the exponent yields a larger number.
- The groom with little sense of humor and lots of misogyny! [Tweet, with video]
- Iran's youth are driving the mullahs crazy! [Facebook post, with video]
- Humor: I wonder if the great Persian poet Sa'adi got in a fight with his beloved for this double-entendre.
(5) A partial list of political prisoners under the late Shah of Iran, in response to Reza Pahlavi's recent claim that the Shah's secret police only jailed hardened criminals like Ali Khamenei. [Tweet, in Persian]
(6) Did you know that President Franklin Roosevelt moved the Thanksgiving holiday, originally on the last Thursday in November, to one week earlier so as to extend the holiday shopping period and boost retail sales?
(7) Gender inequality is a major economic challenge for India: In many other countries, female labor-force participation has propelled economic growth. But India has one of the world's lowest rates of formal employment for women, a rate that has dropped from 29% to 24% since 2010.
(8) A little-known hijacking incident: On September 19, 1995, a Kish Air Boeing 707 landed in Eilat, south of Israel, after Saudi Arabia and Jordan declined to give it permission to land. The Iranian hijacker wanted to seek asylum in Europe, but the plane did not have enough fuel to get there. To avoid embarrassment, Iranian officials started blaming Israel for the hijacking and spread fake stories about mistreatment of the plane's passengers by the Israelis. In fact, the plane and its passengers were returned to Iran the following day, after refueling. Available videos show that the passengers were treated well.
2023/11/17 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] More photos from Burlington, Vermont (see the next item below). [Top right] The cover image of Washington Examiner depicts Hell's Kitchen. [Bottom left] Well, it's not Thursday, but this 7-decades-old photo of the Iranian pop diva Googoosh, shown with her father, should not have to wait until then! [Bottom center] Iran may be the only country that is going backward in time: Female cope in the city of Shiraz, ~50 years ago. [Bottom right] A little sign of implicit sexism in a plane's lavatory.
(2) My second day in Burlington, Vermont: After yesterday's long walks off and on the UVM campus, today I relaxed at my hotel with reading & writing activities. In the evening, I attended IEEE Green Mountain Section's year-end banquet at the Essex Resort & Spa as the featured Distinguished Visitors Program speaker. The rooms and lobby areas of the Essex Resort & Spa are decorated with food/kitchen motifs.
(3) Reza Pahlavi's amnesia: For a while, he admitted that the late Shah made mistakes and that his secret police held political prisoners & tortured them. Now, he claims that SAVAK held & tortured only hardened criminals like Ali Khamenei. Also, he has opined that under PM Mossadeq, the threat of Soviet Union was quite serious, implying that Mossadeq's ouster was warranted for national security reasons.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Graduate enrollments at US universities surge, thanks in part due to the large flow of students from India.
- Pro-cease-fire protesters who shut down the super-busy SF Bay Bridge were arrested and their cars towed.
- Yet another failed Trump business? Truth Social has failed to attract advertisers and is losing much money.
- To LGBTQ activists marching in support of Hamas: Hamas would behead or otherwise kill you for your "sins."
- Is the English language on the decline? Scientist Stephen Pinker doesn't think so.
/>- The art of bulk cooking: The size of that wok is impressive! [11-minute video]
(5) Musk's anti-Semitic post causes swift reactions: In response to a post that accused Jews of "dialectical hatred against whites," Musk described it as "the actual truth." IBM reacted by pausing its advertising on X.
(6) On the hardness of making crossword puzzles: The problem of choosing words from a dictionary for inclusion in a given grid, so that intersecting words are consistent, is NP-hard.
(7) Did you know that there are quite a few uneducated writers, even some high-school dropouts, who became successful? The group includes multiple Nobel Laureates.
(8) Graduation ceremony of Sharif University of Technology, Kish campus, in which women appear without the compulsory hijab, has enraged the mullahs. [Tweet]
2023/11/16 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Happy International Day for Tolerance: Something we need more than ever in today's world. [Top center] Islamic Republic of Iran's Minister of Education: "There should be separate school textbooks for boys and girls." Seems like Iranian mullahs are in a race with the Taliban to come up with the most-idiotic ideas about women. [Top right] Math puzzle: In this diagram with three regular pentagons, find the measure of the angle shown. [Middle & Bottom rows] Burlington, Vermont (see the next item below).
(2) My first day in Burlington, Vermont: After arriving at my hotel around 2:00 AM due to flight delays and other mishaps, I spent a long day exploring Burlington and UVM, before giving a well-received talk, hosted by UVM's Student Chapter of IEEE. In the morning and early afternoon, I photographed my historic hotel (The Essex) and many of the impressive buildings on the campus of University of Vermont.
(3) The latest Top500 semi-annual list of the fastest supercomputers in the world is topped by the AMD-powered Frontier supercomputer, which retained its lead ranking with 1.194 Exaflop/s of performance.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Biden & Xi have a fruitful meeting in SF: Military communications restored. China does not want a "hot war."
- Life expectancy in the US continues to drop: Gender gap widens, in women's favor.
- The hole at the bottom of math: There are true statements that will remain unprovable forever. [Video]
- A couple of verses from a love poem by the great Persian poet Sa'adi. [Original & English translation]
(5) Weather forecasting comes to your PC: Google DeepMind's GraphCast weather-forecasting model that performs better than the best conventional forecasting tools can run on a desktop computer and makes its predictions in minutes. Using estimates of past global weather made from 1979 to 2017 by physical models, GraphCast learned links between different weather variables.
(6) Hospital search reveals Hamas strategy: Around Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital, Hamas tunnels, arms & ammunitions, and a dead hostage were found. Hamas commanders had already moved on. This is how they operate: Hide among/behind civilians and flee when the going gets tough.
2023/11/15 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzle: Find the side length of the square. [Center] Math puzzle: Find the shaded fraction of the regular hexagon. [Right] Adam Grant's Hidden Potential (see the next item below).
(2) Book review: Grant, Adam, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by the author and a large group of other narrators, Penguin Audio, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Grant is an organizational psychologist and Wharton's top-rated professor for 7 straight years. He has placed 5 books on New York Times' best-sellers list. So, when Grant says something, everyone listens!
There are two complementary views on what it takes to be successful: Talent and hard work (10,000 hours of intense practice, if you believe Malcolm Gladwell). One of the insights in Grant's book is that reigning in our perfectionist urges is also quite important. A perfectionist diver may never try difficult dives for fear of making mistakes. But mistakes are necessary on the path to success. We learn from our mistakes and criticisms that they engender, so being open to making mistakes is an essential element of success.
Grant tells the story of a Japanese architect, who learned to prioritize important elements in a design, sticking to the more-essential ones when constraints (plot size, location, ...) did not allow a well-rounded design. Then, there is the story of a baseball pitcher with a birth defect who was demoted to minor leagues multiple times, before emerging as a star at age 31, by tapping into his strengths to develop a mean knuckle-ball.
"Hidden potential" refers to the fact that some form of brilliance is buried inside every human-being, waiting to be discovered. Finland's educational system has done a fantastic job of uncovering and nurturing students' hidden potentials. Instead of singling out the best and the brightest for attention, Finnish schools give all students opportunities.
(3) Erdogan dreams about a "Muslim seat," with veto power, at the UN Security Council: He envisages Turkey as holding that seat.
(4) It would be much easier to eradicate Islamophobia if fewer Muslims joined phobia-inducing groups such as Al Nusrah, Al Qaeda, Al Shabab, Boko Haram, Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, Taliban (too many to list them all).
(5) UCSB Plous Award winner: Charmaine Chua (Global Studies) has been awarded the 2023-2024 Harold J. Plous Memorial Award, given annually to an outstanding assistant professor from the College of Letters and Science. Chua's work focuses on the political economy of globalization, particularly in the context of labor movements, logistics, and the infrastructures and technologies of global supply chains. She will deliver the Plous Lecture in spring.
(6) In the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict, acclaimed concert pianist Simon Todeschi reflects on his dilemma as a secular but proud Jew, who dislikes selective condemnation of violence.
(7) Final thought for the day: I will be in Burlington, Vermont, for the rest of this week to give a couple of IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Lectures.
- At University of Vermont: "A Puzzle-Based Approach to Promoting Technical/Digital Literacy"
- At an IEEE Section year-end banquet: "Interconnection Networks for Parallel Processors and Data Centers"
2023/11/13 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] An engineer who will be missed dearly (see the next item below). [Top right] This misprinted stamp from 1918 commemorating the start of regular airmail service sold at an auction for $2 million. [Bottom left] Electrically pumped mode-locked lasers in nanophotonics: They generate ~4.8-ps optical pulses around 1065 nm at a repetition rate of ~10 GHz, with energies exceeding 2.6 pJ and peak powers beyond 0.5 W. [Bottom center] Hamas tunnels with stored ammunition snake underneath residential buildings & hospitals in Gaza City (9-minute video). [Bottom right] On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius (see the last item below).
(2) Henry Petroski [1942-2023]: Mechanical-engineer extraordinaire, essayist, columnist, prolific author, and longtime professor at Duke University dies at 81.
Many of Petroski's best-known books fall into two categories: Those focused on the central role of failure in developing successful designs and those dealing with the evolution of ubiquitous objects, such as pencils, paper-clips, and forks.
I got to know Petroski through his wonderful book, To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design, which l have been using as an important source for my graduate course on dependable computing. RMS Titanic sank because of hubris on the part of its designers, but we learned more from this one failure than the success of many other vessels about how to design safe ocean liners.
I, for one, will miss the wisdom dispensed by Petroski in his essays and columns. Many of these works are timeless, so they will no doubt be reprinted for the benefit of new generations of engineers. Rest in peace, "Poet Laureate of Engineering"!
(3) Book review: Lucretius Carus, Titus (translated and with notes by A.E. Stallings), On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura), Penguin Classics, 2007.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
If you want to learn about science and philosophy, as they existed more than 2000 years ago (in the mid-first-century BCE, to be exact), this book by the Roman poet Lucretius is a must read. Written in some 7400 dactylic hexameters, the book aims to explain Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. Because there is no copyright, you can get the e-book or audiobook free of charge. Multiple translations of the work exist.
There are six sections (books) in Lucretius' tome. These sections were originally untitled, so the following are rough descriptions of the sections, in pairs.
Sections 1 & 2: The atom, its properties, and laws governing it
Sections 3 & 4: Mind, spirit, senses, death, and the role of sex
Sections 5 & 6: Astronomy and large-scale natural phenomena
Lucretius committed suicide at age 44. He wrote many books, only some of which have reached us. On the Nature of Things is deemed incomplete by many, who suggest that Lucretius might have died before he was able to finalize and fully edit his poem. Evidence in support of this hypothesis includes the fact that the book ends abruptly and does not include a promised discussion of the nature of gods.
2023/11/12 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] With Tim Scott revealing his gorgeous girlfriend on the debate stage, people have gone back to asking: "Where's Melania?" [Center] On Sunday, we honored the memory of my mother at Santa Barbara Cemetery, nearly a year after her passing. May her soul and the soul of others we have lost rest in peace. [Right] How I spent my Saturday: I assembled a bed I had ordered on-line, getting lots of physical exercise and even more mental exercise in trying to figure out how to put it together. The bed has an excellent design and is made of great material (A, on both counts). Assembly instructions get a D.
(2) Miniature battery-free bioelectronics: Such devices obviate the need for bulky battery-packs and cumbersome tethers by relying on wireless transfer of energy or harvesting energy from the body itself.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Donald Trump is said to be considering Tucker Carlson as a possible running mate.
- Iran hires hitmen around the world, including on US soil, to abduct or kill its opponents. [13-minute video]
- To Iranian mullahs: Didn't you say you want to wipe Israel off the map? So, why do you demand a cease-fire?
- Hebrew pocket watch, frozen in time of it owner's death who sank with the Titanic, is auctioned off.
- The $222M that McDonald's CEO's widow Joan Kroc left for NPR 20 years ago saved public radio.
- Columbia U. suspends 2 pro-Palestinian groups due to harassment threats & unmanageable safety concerns.
- Conversation with Iranian-American astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli: Live from space, Nov. 29, 2023, 10 AM PST.
(4) Religion arose to help us deal with the fear of death: The oldest religious rituals are associated with burials. Are we humans developed enough now to face death directly, without a need for fairy tales? [3-minute video]
(5) A CV of Failures: According to Melanie Stefan, keeping a visible record of your rejected applications can help others to deal with setbacks. "My CV does not reflect the bulk of my academic efforts — it does not mention the exams I failed, my unsuccessful PhD or fellowship applications, or the papers never accepted for publication. At conferences, I talk about the one project that worked, not about the many that failed. As scientists, we construct a narrative of success that renders our setbacks invisible both to ourselves and to others. Often, other scientists' careers seem to be a constant, streamlined series of triumphs. Therefore, whenever we experience an individual failure, we feel alone and dejected. Such is not the case with every profession. Consider Ronaldinho. A football player cannot hide his setbacks. Everything is out in the open — every failure to be selected for a big competition, every injury, every missed penalty is on display. Maybe this is a good thing. It shows young aspiring players what it means to be a football player. It helps them to cope with their own setbacks. So here is my suggestion. Compile an 'alternative' CV of failures. Log every unsuccessful application, refused grant proposal and rejected paper. Don't dwell on it for hours, just keep a running, up-to-date tally. If you dare — and can afford to — make it public. It will be six times as long as your normal CV."
2023/11/11 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] An ageless quote, appropriate for this Veterans' Day, when we honor soldiers and their sacrifices in fighting wars, while generals and politicians are remembered in historical records as heroes: "In war the heroes always outnumber the soldiers ten to one." ~ H. L. Mencken [Center] Sarah Hart's Once Upon a Prime (see the last item below). [Right] Tribal South-Persian weavings (see the next item below).
(2) Textile Museum Associates of Southern California webinar: "'Truly Tribal' in South Persian Weavings" was the title of a fascinating presentation this morning by James Opie (Oriental rug scholar, author, collector, & dealer). Here's a link to Opie's second book, Tribal Rugs: A Complete Guide to Nomadic and Village Carpets.
Tribes wove for personal use and not for sale to outsiders. So, unlike urban patterns and weavings, tribal designs are characterized by imperfections and asymmetry. They also exhibit a wider range of creativity.
Sample weavings shown and explained included Afshari rugs; Arab-Khamseh hot pads & rugs; Bhaktiyari saddle-bags, trappings, & rugs; Bijar rugs; Luri gabbehs, gileems (flatweaves) & rugs; Qashqa'i bags, gileems, & workshop rugs; Safavid-era rugs.
I will add a link to the recording of this highly-recommended webinar when it becomes available.
(3) Iranian women continue to be killed by their Islamic government (for violating hijab laws) and by their male relatives (under the guise of family honor). [IranWire report]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Craziest political analysis: "Arab-Americans, upset with Biden's Middle East policy, may vote for Trump."
- On November 26, 1974, Israeli PM Golda Meir gave a speech that is still relevant nearly 5 decades later.
- The Iranian young girl who fell and went into a coma after being interrogated by the mullah's agents.
- An interesting post from Nairobi, Kenya, where a Congress on "Identity, Belonging, & Migration" is held.
- Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and his hilarious take on movies that violate laws of physics.
- Patterns of superstition: Our brains try to find patterns, faces in particular, everywhere. [8-minute video]
(5) Book review: Hart, Sarah, Once Upon a Prime: The Wonderous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature, unabridged 9-hour audiobook, read by the author, Macmillan Audio, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
In this book, math professor Sarah Hart explores the relationship between mathematics and literature. She maintains that the relationship goes in both directions. Literature is full of references to mathematics and contains structures that are mathematical in nature. In the former category, Moby Dick, Flatland, and Life of Pi come to mind as stories with mathematical references. The contemporary novels A Gentleman in Moscow The Luminaries both make use of sequences of powers of 2. In the latter category, the permutational structures that govern some poetic forms constitute good examples. Sanskrit mathematics is expressed in words, using the language of poetry.
Hart bashes the prevailing stereotype of mathematicians as creatures living in a different world, where reason rules and the language of literature isn't spoken. On the contrary, several prominent mathematicians and scientist have pointed out that good science & math must contain beauty. A virtuous mathematical proof, like a beautiful poem, is tightly constructed and contains no unnecessary words. According to German mathematician Karl Weierstrass, "A mathematician who is not somewhat of a poet will never be a complete mathematician."
Contrary to popular view of math as a dry subject, it requires extreme imagination and creativity. The perceived boundary between mathematics and other creative arts is a fairly recent idea. For much of history, every educated person had to be conversant in math. The Persian poet Omar Khayyam, whose exquisite poems are known and valued worldwide, was in fact a polymath with significant contributions to mathematics. In my view, Hart is successful in sketching "the enduring conversation between literature and mathematics."
2023/11/10 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Pro-Palestinian groups attack people gathered for a documentary film screening about Hamas atrocities at the Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance. [Center] St. Petersburg Mosque, Russia. [Right] Brilliant T-shirt design: Nope, Not Again.
(2) Good riddance, Senator Joe Manchin: After sabotaging many Democratic plans in cahoots with the Republicans, the Democratic lawmaker says he will not seek reelection.
(3) Islamic Republic of Iran's view on Western hostages: "We hold hostages from every country that could possibly attack us militarily. We will kill all these hostages within an hour of the attack. I hope we get this opportunity." This guy's primitive brain doesn't work beyond his stupid pronouncement: Then what? Will the attacking country turn around and retreat or will the killing of hostages make it more determined to take revenge by wiping you off the map?
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- US college campuses see the highest ever rates of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia incidents. [USA Today]
- Americans march for Israel, to free hostages, and against anti-Semitism: I fear violence at this 11/14 event.
- Nineteen Baha'is arrested by Iran's Islamic regime: Ten in the city of Hamedan and 9 in Karaj.
- On pitfalls of statistics: If Bill Gates walks into a room, everyone in the room will be a billionaire on average!
(5) An Islamic Republic of Iran official has mused that the US should return the entire country to Native Americans: Sure, right after Islamists and mullahs return Iran to Iranians!
(6) Comparing Hamas to the Nazis is misguided: Yes, Nazis shot Jews in the backs of their heads and pushed their lifeless bodies into trenches, but deep down they were ashamed of what they did, so they tried to hide their acts from Germans & the rest of the world, and soldiers routinely got drunk to forget what they did. Hamas terrorists were proud of their barbaric acts on Oct. 7, 2023. They gleefully videotaped the rapes, beheadings, and setting fire to buildings where people were hiding, posting the videos on social media. And they called their parents in Gaza to boast about how many Jews they had killed.
(7) "Reducing water temperature makes it cooler": This is a made-up example of the kind of headlines that make you go "duh"! Here's an actual example: "Rewarding women more like men could reduce wage gap." The report on this "study" in Cornell Chronicle continues thus: "Treating women more like men, especially in terms of salary, could narrow the gender wage gap."
(8) "No GPS, No Problem: Exploiting Signals of Opportunity for Resilient and Accurate Autonomous Navigation in GPS-Denied Environments": Autonomous vehicles rely on a steady stream of signals and information from external sources for localization, route planning, perception, and situational awareness. This includes reliance on positioning, navigation, and timing information from global navigation satellites. Current autonomous vehicles are too trusting of such information and too fragile in the face of loss or attenuation of communications links. In this IEEE AESS Distinguished Lecture, Zak Kassas (Ohio State U.) presents a framework for resilient and accurate autonomous navigation by exploiting ambient radio frequency signals of opportunity, which are not intended as navigation sources. Specialized vehicle-mounted radios collaboratively draw relevant positioning and timing information from ambient signals of opportunity to build and continuously refine a spatiotemporal signal landscape map of the environment within which the vehicles simultaneously localize themselves in space and time.
2023/11/09 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] UCSB Jazz Combos at Wednesday's World Music Series noon concert, under impossibly blue skies (Video 1, Afro-Cuban mambo; Video 2, Cha-cha). [Top center] Iran's former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif does not consider residents of Israel civilians. [Top right] Islamic Republic of Iran manipulates its proxy forces to gain power: It cares even less about Palestinians than it does about Iranians. [Bottom left] Throwback Thursday: Iran's Commission on Price Control sets the rates for chelow-kabob (35-60 rials, depending on type and quality, ~$0.50-0.85), ca. 1968. [Bottom center] On anti-Semitism, bothsidesism, and whataboutism (see the last item below). [Bottom right] Talangor Group talk (see the next item below).
(2) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Alireza Badakhsan (U. Texas Dallas) spoke under the title "Reflection of the World in Modern Physics." Before the main talk, Dr. Tofigh Heidarzadeh (U. California, Riverside) made a brief presentation on the journey of physics until the modern times. There were ~85 attendees.
The most-important physics notions since the 20th century include quantum mechanics and relativity theory. These notions have transformed not just physics itself but our understanding of the world around us, so a basic understanding of them is essential for us modern humans. Like all important discoveries, such as the dual nature of light (composed of particles and waves), quantum mechanics and relativity created much confusion among physicists. Even today, quantum mechanics isn't understood to the same extent by every physicist. It is well-known that even Einstein did not come to peace with quantum mechanics.
In part of his talk, Dr. Badakhsan tried to tie the modern notions of physics to spirituality (e.g., Eastern religious & philosophical traditions) and mysticism (as practiced, for example, by several Persian poets). Having read Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics and several of its critiques bordering on ridicule, I am rather skeptical of these connections. Vague spiritual and mystical statements can be interpreted in many different ways and one can assign various meanings to them, including interpretations connecting them to physical laws that were never part of the intended meaning.
(3) My brush with anti-Semitism, bothsidesism, and whataboutism: I have started the process of leaving social-media groups that exhibit anti-Semitism in the wake of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Sometimes, the anti-Semitism is explicit and direct. At other times, it takes the form of bothsidesism and whataboutism (see below).
someone with quite a few family members residing in Israel, my interests and sensitivities are different from most of the people making comments about the conflict from various sociopolitical vantage points. I am very offended when the said family members are characterized as occupiers or oppressors that deserve to be annihilated. The older members of the family, who were oppressed in Iran's Kurdistan Province, immigrated to Israel in the late 1940s, penniless, where they started new lives after living in immigrant camps and kibbutzim for many years. As they built their new lives, they also helped build their new homeland.
BOTHSIDESISM: This is when data from both sides of a conflict are presented as if they are equally valid, to create the illusion of fairness. Actually, fairness requires vetting of data and presenting only information that is vetted and verified, even if this means excluding data from one side of the conflict. For example, when Israel says that ~1500 Israelis were slaughtered and ~250 were kidnapped on October 7, 2023, there is little doubt about the veracity of the claims, subject to the usual small uncertainties and inaccuracies. But when Hamas claims that Israel bombed a hospital, killing 500, there is no evidence to back it up. Experts examining the wreckage at the hospital parking lot have concluded that no more than 100 could have died, given that no buildings were damaged. More importantly, no evidence has been presented that Israel did the bombing. By now, Hamas should have been able to present evidence in the form of shrapnel and explosive residues to prove its claim, but no such evidence has been forthcoming. All the other Gaza casualty figures are similarly unverified and thus suspect.
WHATABOUTISM: This is the practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counteraccusation or raising a different issue. This strategy is like a murderer using the defense that other people have committed murder as well. Yes, they have, and they all should be prosecuted and punished similarly. One person's crime should be judged and punished for what it is and it cannot be forgiven because another person also committed the same crime or an even worse one. One should condemn Hamas' slaughtering of innocent civilians, using a sentence that ends in a period, not with a compound sentence that continues with "but." If you think Israelis have committed similar crimes, then raise your idea as a separate assertion, with its own evidence and analysis, using data from trustworthy sources.
2023/11/07 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Today's sleepy Election Day: Abortion rights are front & center in several states, including in Ohio, where it's Issue #1. [Top center] Human gut's private brain (see the next item below). [Top right] I love my new rainbow doormat from IKEA. [Bottom left] Two Baha'i women in their 80s, whose husbands were executed four decades ago because of their faith, are being harassed by Iran's Islamic regime. [Bottom center] Cartoon of the day: Father: "Do you have Jews, Christians, and Muslims at your school?" Daughter: "No, we have only kids." [Bottom right] Tonight's chelow-kabob dinner: Your place was empty!
(2) A second brain inside our gut: "Believe it or not, your small intestine has a brain of its own that takes over for you. The 'brain inside your gut,' or the enteric nervous system (ENS), is a complex network of neurons and glia often referred to as the 'second brain' owing to its cellular complexity and independence from central control. This second brain senses the movement of contents and responds by initiating contractions to move luminal contents in a unidirectional, aboral motion independent from your brain."
(3) Jewish Frenchman pretends to be Persian to save his life in a Nazi concentration camp, but he encounters challenges when a German deputy commandant demands Persian lessons: This is the intriguing premise (apparently based on a true story) of Vadim Perelman's "Persian Lessons" (2020). [2-minute trailer]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- In what kind of world is Donald Trump the focus of nearly all news stories, while two major wars are raging?
- Israelis are buying guns and getting firearms training in record numbers.
- Jewish man dies from head injury following altercation with pro-Palestinian demonstrator in S. California.
- The jihadi Janjaweed, a group with ties to Middle East Islamic extremists, massacres 773 civilians in Darfur.
- Ohio votes to enshrine the right to abortion in its state constitution.
- Iranian human-rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh sends a video message to the Paris Bar Association.
- Young Iranian women are bringing the misogynistic Islamic regime to its knees! #WomanLifeFreedom
- Another dot.com idea bites the dust: WeWork files for bankruptcy amid a glut of empty offices.
- Institute of Engineering and Technology's reading list on "Women in Engineering and Technology."
(5) Book talk: Dr. Bahram Grami introduces his book, Ahmad Shamlou, Behind the Mirror. This interesting talk, which the speaker insisted isn't a literary criticism, reveals a great deal about Shamlou's personality, his misogyny, the doubtful nature of his translations, his drug addiction, his promise to Queen Farah Pahlavi not to speak ill of the Shah's regime, his false claims of serving time as a political prisoner, his negative view of Nowruz, and the insults he hurled at the great poet Ferdowsi. [56-minute video]
(6) Diesel generator at an EV charging station: This isn't as silly as it may appear at first sight. The generator is said to be a back-up for the solar-powered facility in the Australian Outback. [Photo]
(7) A transformative change: Saudi Arabia will use the Western Gregorian calendar in lieu of the traditional Islamic calendar for official business.
2023/11/05 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Special issue of IEEE Computer magazine on CE education: The issue offers three articles on teaching chip design & verification, edge AI, and multiprocessor OS. [Top center] New Yorker cartoon of the day: Self-checkout comes to trick-or-treating. [Top right] Science magazine's cover feature (see the next item below). [Bottom left] Old-time Iranian singer Akbar Golpayegani (1934-2023) dead at 89: The photo shows him, his wife, their daughter, and two granddaughters. [Bottom center & right] My niece's belated birthday party, during which the top piece of her wedding cake, frozen for about six months, was also served.
(2) Cover feature of Science magazine, issue of Nov. 3, 2023: Successful restoration of vegetation in degraded ecosystems, especially in warmer, dryer regions, is hampered by a substantial herbivore control of vegetation under restoration. "Herbivores at restoration sites reduced vegetation abundance more strongly (by 89%, on average) than those at relatively undegraded sites and suppressed, rather than fostered, plant diversity."
(3) A scathing critique of the positions taken by Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush, an architect of Iran's version of Cultural Revolution, which led to a 3-year closure of Iranian universities and expelling of many students and faculty members. 11-minute video, narrated in Persian]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Hamas tunnels discovered in Gaza have entry and exit points under hospitals, mosques, and schools.
- This Palestinian girl claims UN aid entering Gaza is being sold on the black market at ridiculously high prices.
- Never forget the massacre of Oct. 7, 2023: Graphic footage from the dead at the music festival.
- Mark Meadows' book publisher is suing him for lies he included in his memoir in support of Donald Trump.
- Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: A somewhat deeper explanation, with an analogy to Fourier transform.
- Following national initiatives on AI promise & risks, the United Nations also launches an AI advisory body.
(5) The film industry is being taken over by game technology companies: This is the thesis of an article in IEEE Computer magazine (issue of November 2023). A result of this takeover will be the need for a chief scientist position at all major film studios.
(6) Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza was hit by a Palestinian rocket: New York Times draws this conclusion based on four sets of indicators that include video footage from the air, ground video footage, Hamas not having produced any evidence such as shrapnel after more than two weeks, and tapes of conversations between Hamas members. There is still a tiny non-zero probability that an Israeli rocket hit the hospital, but evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
(7) The killing of 1400 Israelis by Hamas was justified: Thus says the Fatwa Department of Al Azhar University, the most prestigious institution in the Islamic world which is sometimes referred to as the Muslim "Vatican." The Fatwa reads, in part, "The term 'civilians' does not apply to the Zionist settlers of the occupied land. Rather, they are occupiers of the land, usurpers of rights, deviators from the straight path embodied by the prophets, and blatant disregarders for the sanctity of the historic city of Jerusalem, which encompasses the city of Jerusalem's respectable Islamic and Christian heritage."
2023/11/03 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzle: In this diagram with three squares whose areas are given, what is the area of the blue triangle? [Center] Talangor Group talk (see the last item below) [Right] Math/stat humor: Normal and paranormal distributions.
(2) "Beyond Engaging Men: Masculinity, (Non)Violence, and Peacebuilding": This is the title of a new report published by Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, launched on October 30, 2023. According to Dr. Robert U. Nagel, Lead Report Author, "Bringing in men and masculinities avoids burdening women with the sole obligation of achieving gender equality. We need to mobilize men to create more gender-equal processes and institutions that will benefit everyone."
(3) UCSB's Institute for Energy Efficiency celebrated its 15th anniversary today: The 5.5-hour program included an opening keynote address and talks on data centers, green AI, energy-efficient materials, and the challenge of climate change. The event concluded with a reception, a poster session, and a tour of Henley Hall.
(4) Thursday's Talangor Group talk: Ardeshir Mansouri (philosopher of science) spoke under the title "Iranians and Modernity." The main talk was preceded by two brief presentations: An anniversary remembrance of Vanik Tatavoosian (1953-2022), a founding member of the Talangor Group, and a brief talk by Dr. Payam Kiani on the Lion & Sun emblem, a composite symbol, said to be from the period of Seljuk Turks, that graced Iran's national flag until 44 years ago. There were ~90 attendees.
Modernity has its roots in the Renaissance period (centered in Italy, France, England) and the ensuing rebirth after the Dark Ages. With modernity, Europeans returned to their ancient selves, that is, who they were in the age of thought & reason. After modernity came modernism and modernization. In non-European lands, the process was reversed, so that they began with modernization and moved toward modernism and modernity. Russia must be considered non-European, because it embraced modernity with significant delay (18th century).
Iran's first encounter with modernity occurred in the Safavid period, when printing press, railroad, and photography, among other manifestations of modernization, were brought in. Iranian adoption of modernity did not start with thinkers and philosophers. Its roots can be found in the weakness against foreign powers. These foreigners had all the tools of power (militarism), so Iran's rulers aimed to duplicate their success. Unfortunately, the aforementioned manifestations of modernity were not used to spread modern thought but rather to spread religious beliefs and various "ism"s. So, part of the problem is that we adopted manifestations of modernity without modernizing our thoughts.
Interestingly, before we took significant steps in our quest to adopt modernity, we encountered the introduction of the notion of Westoxification, which opposed and tried to nullify Western thought. The idea was advanced that we should return to our own selves, not to European selves (our own modernity, not theirs). As a result, we vacillated between infatuation with Western thought and enmity to it, thus missing the boat of modernity.
It is in the aforementioned sense that some people consider "tajaddod" (renewal, in Persian/Arabic) to be different from modernity. Modernity for us is an imported notion, whereas return to self, which is highly desired, never actually happened in Iran. To summarize, the Persian/Arabic term "tajaddod" is sometimes taken to be equivalent to modernity and sometimes is taken to be different (a native version of return to self).
2023/11/02 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top row] Throwback Thursday: My younger maternal aunt (top right corner in the school photo, taken when she was a teen) looks so much like my mom; my parents in a studio portrait from 70-75 years ago. [Bottom left] Memes of the day about Iran: (1) The physician who attended her award ceremony wearing no hijab must wear the chador from now on. (2) One condition of Saudi Arabia to normalize its relation with Israel was being given control of the Gaza Strip. (3) Instagram accounts of many celebrity influencers are being closed over hijab violations. (4) In October 2023, 76 Iranian prisoners were executed. [Bottom center] Wednesday's multicultural dinner: Italian pasta with meat sauce, Iranian Shirazi salad, and French bread. [Bottom right] A book about the dark side of astrophysics (see the last item below).
(2) You ought to know: Palestinians were not driven out in 1948 by the Israelis. They were convinced by the armed forces of several Arab countries that planned to conquer Israel to get out of harm's way.
(3) Baha'i woman, who was expelled from school in Iran for her faith, won a prestigious prize in 2018: Shabnam Raayai-Ardakani is only the second woman to win APS's Fluid Dynamics Award.
(4) In Islam, the punishment for drinking and sexual promiscuity is condemnation to Hell, and the reward for those going to Heaven is access to unlimited liquor and sex. [Attributed to Iranian writer Sadegh Hedayat]
(5) Book review: Tyson, Neil deGrasse and Avis Lang, Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military, unabridged 19-hour audiobook, read by Courtney B. Vance, Random House Audio, 2018.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Tyson has written the book Astrophysics for People in a Hurry (my lukewarm review). Before the latter book, Tyson wrote a much heavier tome, Accessory to War, which he jokingly describes as "Astrophysics for People Not in a Hurry." We often associate astrophysics with high-minded research focused on understanding the universe, with little attention to worldly applications. Tyson and Lang do a great job of dispelling this myth. In a nutshell, they state that astronomers have always been in the service of the warring generals. They are good at detecting, locating, and tracking objects, which are useful capabilities for land, sea, and air combat.
Accessory to War is detailed and well-researched, beginning with techniques and technologies used in the ancient world (use of the stars, vision aids) and continuing systematically up to the present day (advanced detection methods, space tech). The early part of the book is a feast of history, covering thousands of years of war & conquest with the help of astronomers and their tools. Ptolemy, Galileo, and Kepler paid close attention to military uses of their knowledge and had military sponsors.
In modern times, the invention of radar, understanding of the electromagnetic spectrum beyond visible light, and space-based command & control have greatly increased combat capabilities. The close association between astronomy and war explains, in part, why the fields of astrophysics and space research are lavishly funded. Today, thanks to such funding, we have at our disposal a wide array of both earth-based and air/space-based detection & location technologies.
The 100+ pages of notes in the hardback version of the book (nonexistent in the audiobook, of course) are indicative of the authors' scientific minds and extensive research. Their arguments, that advanced technologies, space tech in particular, have made wars much more dangerous, is well-supported by the presented evidence. The combination of weapons of mass destruction and precision tracking & delivery methods have indeed brought humanity to the brink of extinction-scale wars, which can be avoided only through international cooperation and understanding.
2023/11/01 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Chess puzzle: White, which is in danger of losing the match, has a brilliant move that leads to a win. What is that move? [Center] Game trees for chess puzzles (see the next item below). [Right] Today's World Music Series noon concert at UCSB's Music Bowl (Klezmer Music with Kalinka): The five-piece band included an accordion, a clarinet, a trumpet, a bass, and a banjo (Video 1: a 1920's tune entitled "Get Happy Jews") (Video 2: A Yiddish song from the 1920s) (Video 3: A song from Ukraine) (Video 4: A jazzy song whose title and background I did not catch) (Video 5: One last sample of music from the concert).
(2) On the structure of easy and tough chess puzzles: The diagram shows alternating chess moves by white and black. On the left is a typical easy chess puzzle, with white mating in 2 moves: White makes a move, black's move is forced, white finishes with the second move. In the middle is a somewhat more-challenging puzzle: White makes a move, black has two possible moves, one of which leads to immediate mate and the other one leads to a white move that mates in one more move. On the right is an example of a tough chess puzzle: Black has three possible moves in response to white's first move, and so on. This kind of rich branching structure occurs at the end of real chess games.
(3) In a message smuggled out of her prison cell, Nobel Peace Laureate Narges Mohammadi writes: "Victory is not easy, but it is certain."
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- US special forces are in Israel to help in the search for hostages taken by Hamas.
- Philanthropic foundations to provide $200 million funding for AI advancement.
- FDA recalls 21 eyedrops due to unsanitary conditions in production facilities which create an infection risk.
- A capsule history of Israelis and Palestinians: It's quite different from what most people think.
- Talk about remote software update! NASA sends a software patch to Voyager 2, 12 billion miles away.
- Home sellers win a $1.8 billion lawsuit against brokerages that conspired to inflate agents' commissions.
- Why almost all coal on Earth was made at about the same time: Between 360M and 300M years ago.
- Corporate welfare, good (it's capitalism), welfare for workers and ordinary people, bad (it's socialism).
- George Carlin on political double-speak: How politicians torture the English language. [9-minute video]
- Facebook memory from Nov. 1, 2019: Persian music, performed on piano and kamancheh.
(5) This is why Israel cannot agree to a cease fire: "We will repeat the October 7 massacre time and again, one million times if we need to, until we end the occupation." ~ Hamas
(6) Persian music: The late Fereydoun Farrokhzad (assassinated by Islamic Republic of Iran operatives in Europe) performs a modern Persian song, accompanied by Shohreh Solati. [5-minute video]
(7) US universities covet the R1 (tier-1 research) designation: Currently, a complicated formula is used to determine which institutions qualify as R1. The process is being simplified to considering only two factors, viz. research expenditure of at least $50 million and granting of at least 70 doctoral degrees. The thresholds for the R2 designation are $5 million and 20 doctoral degrees.
2023/10/31 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Prominent Iranian human-rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh arrested in Tehran for not wearing a hijab at the funeral of a 16-year-old girl who died after being roughed up by hijab-enforcers. [Top center] With my daughter returning from a Halloween party, we have an additional cat in our household. [Top right] The Chinese non-believers: Iranian Paralympic athlete regained his sight by praying to the Eighth Imam the night before his match: Chinese officials did not accept this excuse and kicked him off the games. [Bottom left & center] Sunday's dinner: Quince stew (in a slow-cooker) with rice, courtesy of my daughter. [Bottom right] We are prepared to welcome little trick-or-treaters later this evening!
(2) Jews who are religious and believe in putting up Torah scrolls (Mezuzahs) on the frame of their entry doors, have begun to remove them, because they are easy marks for spotting Jewish homes by anti-Semites.
(3) When physicists enter a new domain, they often discover the footsteps of mathematicians who walked there before. [9-minute video]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- At the end of "A Primer on Hamas" series of articles, by Mark Durie: Some Concluding Thoughts.
- Rival groups at UCSB organize events in support of Palestinians and Israelis. [Daily Nexus front page]
- A tale of two 19th-century researchers reveals how science professionalization led to women's exclusion.
- Instead of a polite, generic rejection note, employers should tell interviewees exactly where they fell short.
- Association for Computing Machinery issues principles for generative AI technology.
- A glimpse of Iran's diverse ethnic profile. [1-minute video]
- Funny comedy routine about old people: I really like his impersonation of a teen's disapproving reaction.
(5) The most-educated countries in the world: Germany ranks first with an education index of 0.94, literacy rate of 99%, and school achievement of 22.91. The next four countries are Finland (0.93, 100%, 25.29%), Iceland (0.93, 99%, 21.11%), New Zealand (0.93, 99%, 17.39%), Norway (0.93, 100%, 27.49%).
(6) The Encina Royale housing complex in Goleta has electrical outlets in the carports: Some residents use these outlets for recharging their electric vehicles. The homeowners' association has reminded the residents that such use of the outlets is disallowed and will lead to fines, given the significant fire hazard. A main reason is that the 60-year-old electrical infrastructure of those outlets cannot support the high currents drawn during the charging of large batteries. Even though not explicitly stated, I think the issue of who pays for the electric energy used during charging is also an issue. You may want to watch for similar problems where you live.
(7) Palestinians did not leave their homes in 1948 because Israel kicked them out: They left because Arab armies on the verge of an invasion to try to take the land asked them to get out of harm's way.
(8) Scarier than ghosts: American Jews constitute 2.4% of the US population but are victims in 60% of religious hate crimes, according to FBI data cited by Director Christopher Wray.
(9) Final thought for the day: Jews who are religious and believe in putting up Torah scrolls (Mezuzahs) on the frame of entry doors, have begun to remove them, because they are easy marks for spotting Jewish homes.
2023/10/29 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Islamic Republic of Iran education official: "Students should record their Islamic prayers and submit the sound files to schools for verification." [Top center] Chess puzzle: White to begin and mate in 2 moves. Hint: Black currently has no legal move, so if white does not create one, the match is a draw according to chess rules. [Top right] Israelis have changed: They are now a lot more reflective and unsure of their future. They hug more and have set aside petty grievances. Much like post-9/11 Americans. [Bottom left] The small and mighty hypothalamus: It controls temperature, sleep, eating, and social interactions. [Bottom center] Male soccer player insults female referee (see the next item below). [Bottom right] Socrates Think Tank remembers director Dariush Mehrjui (see the last item below).
(2) Toxic masculinity in soccer: In an old incident from 2015, which has resurfaced in a viral post with a new, highly-misleading caption, a Turkish soccer player told a German female referee, who red-carded him, to stick to the kitchen. He later apologized for the insult, but was "sentenced" to refereeing a girls' soccer match, which he did, without a 5-game suspension or any of the drama claimed in the new viral post.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- When "I condemn Hamas' massacre of Israelis" is followed by "but," I stop reading/watching.
- Jumping robots: These demos seem to have been filmed at UCSB.
- A partial list of apologies from the Catholic Church: Compare this record to the record of science & reason.
- Things to do in Ventura, CA, as recommended by AAA Magazine. [Tweet]
- Stand-up comedian Shaparak Khorsandi gets serious in this routine about the plight of women in Iran.
- Persian music: A beautiful pre-Islamic-Revolution love song. [1-minute video]
- Facebook memory from Oct. 28, 2021: Here is why we still need feminism.
- Facebook memory from Oct. 28, 2017: Team Tyson/Nye wants to make America smart again!
(4) Texas plans a referendum for establishing $4 billion endowment to add to its two top-tier research universities, UT Austin and Texas A&M.
(5) Socrates Think Tank panel discussion: In a Zoom session with ~75 attendees, five artists and critics discussed the films of the late Iranian director Dariush Mehrjui, who was found stabbed to death along with his wife in a home-invasion incident reminiscent of the 1988-1998 chain-murders of prominent opposition figures by Iran's government operatives. Mehrjui studied philosophy, so he brought philosophical points to his films. He was a founding member of Iran's New-Wave cinema of the early 1970s. Mehrjui's last film "La Minor" was completed in 2022, the same year he dared Iran's Islamic government to kill him, because he was anti-regime. It seems that the government took him up on this dare.
- Nakta Pahlevan (actor/writer/director): "On the Philosophy Hidden in Mehrjui's Films"
- Ali Kazemian (actor/director/writer/poet): "On Cultural & Psychological Aspects of the Film 'Hamoun' (1990)"
- Sepideh Jodeyri (poet/film-critic): "On the Film 'The Lodgers' (1987)"
- Forouza Pourkay (researcher/retired-professor): "On the Film 'Santouri' (2007)"
- Gholam Reza Azari (PhD in media/communications): "Closing Remarks" (due to Internet access restrictions, this Iran-resident panelist could not join, despite valiant efforts in trying different anti-filtering products)
A question-and-answer session followed the four presentations by the panelists.
2023/10/28 (Saturday): Today, I offer 2 book reviews on size & scale in nature and human-made systems.
(1) Book review: Smil, Vaclav, Size: How It Explains the World, unabridged 9-hour audiobook, read by Stephen Perring, Harper Audio, 2023. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Vaclav Smil, professor of environmental studies at U. Manitoba, begins by observing that humans have always been fascinated by giant things. The seven wonders of the world were all humongous. When available material or construction methods impose a size limit, we work hard to overcome those limits in order to build taller skyscrapers, bigger airplanes, or larger dams. And our fascination with size isn't limited to human-made things. We are easily shocked and awed by the largest animals. At the other extreme, the tiniest things or beings also fascinate us.
Smil's book is related to another interesting book, Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies, by Geoffrey West (2017). [My review] There is a great deal of overlap between the two books. Size covers more ground, but is, by necessity, shallower, while, at double the size (pun intended), Scale digs much deeper into those aspects that it does cover.
Laws of scaling in nature are what limit the size of the largest animals and makes such animal heavier-built and less agile (compare an elephant with a gazelle). In many cases, size variations are distributed normally, with the distribution being nearly symmetric around the mean. A good example is the height of individuals, with separate distributions for men and women. In certain other cases, power-law distributions are applicable.
Size limitations and scaling laws also apply to human-made artifacts, such as buildings and jet engines. Smil covers the case of cities and companies in detail, showing that both have power-law scaling. There are very few gigantic metropolises or trillion-dollar companies, and many more provincial townships and small businesses. Other examples of power-law distributions are encountered in wealth of individuals, sales of books, and frequency of leading digits in numbers (Benford's Law). A straight-line plot on log-log scale is necessary, but insufficient, evidence for an underlying power-law.
Size is important in several different ways. It affects properties and behaviors. A large animal does not move or act in the same way as a small animal. We would readily admit to growth limits for biological systems, a recognition that has a very long history. That non-living systems also have growth limits comes as a surprise to many. An inordinately large city would be crushed under the burden of providing services and means of transportation. Even if we can build a super-tall skyscraper, it would be inefficient owing to the amount of floor space taken up by elevator shafts.
Given the importance of size, we have expended much effort on procedures and technologies for measuring it and on debating the relative merits of various characterizations and measurement methods. When one measures size (or anything else for that matter), one is drawn to consider norms and deviations from norms. This is readily accomplished in some cases, as in human height or body-mass index. With power-law distributions, however, well-defined mean and variance may not exist, making it difficult to characterize extreme cases.
Despite gaining much useful and interesting information from this book, I found it somewhat disappointing. Laws of scaling are not discussed as rigorously or completely as they could have.
(2) Book review: West, Geoffrey, Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies, Penguin, 2018.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Growth in the animal kingdom has been studied for at least a century. Scottish mathematical biologist D'Arcy Wentworth's classic 1917 (2nd ed. 1942) book, On Growth and Form, considers the effects of scale on the shapes of animals & plants and also discusses a wide array of mathematical structures and forms observed in nature, from the design of animal shells to the arrangement of plant leaves. The study of how the characteristics of living creatures change with size is known as "allometry," a term coined by J. S. Huxley & G. Tessier in a 1936 Nature paper.
Theoretical physicist Geoffrey West reiterates some of the old knowledge cited above and provides updates on studies performed since then. He also tackles scaling laws for cities and companies. Much of what I wrote in my review of Vaclav Smil's Size applies to this book as well, so I include it here by reference.
We humans are conditioned to think of scaling as being linear: Double the weight of an animal and it will need twice as much food. This follows the same logic as per-capita economic measures, that is, we tend to think in terms of a constant amount of food per cell. In this example, the food required actually grows sublinearly with weight. Doubling of weight leads to the need for ~70% more food. A cat is ~100 times heavier than a mouse but consumes only 10^(3/4) ~ 32 times the energy that the mouse consumes (a kind of economy of scale). Exponent factors 3/4 and 1/4 are encountered in many natural scaling formulas. In other cases of power-law scaling, the relationship may be superlinear.
We often talk of economy of scale as if it's an immutable law. Galileo was the first person to observe that organisms and structures cannot be scaled up indefinitely, because masses increase by the third power of size, whereas cross-section of supporting structures, such as bones and columns, increase by the square of size.
Many interesting scaling effects are discussed in connection with cities and companies. The two are different, in that companies tend to have short lifespans on average, whereas cities rarely go defunct. The speed of life, social interactions, and economic activity all scale with the size of a city (New Yorkers walk much faster than residents of small towns). There are surprising similarities among cities with diverse histories and cultural attributes. In the case of companies, scaling reveals universal dynamics that correspond to a company's size and age.
In summary, the characteristics and dynamics of diverse biological organisms, cities, and companies are governed by surprisingly similar laws that describe their structures as well as their limits.
2023/10/27 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Basalt rock near Meshginshahr, Iran: Basalt is formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron, exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90% of all volcanic rock on Earth is basalt. [Center] New Yorker cartoon of the day: Pumpkin patch. Spice patch. Latte patch. [Right] Narges Mohammadi's White Torture (see the last item below).
(2) Interview with Elaheh Amani on illicit sexual relations by Islamic Republic of Iran's government officials.
P.S.: Private affairs are of course private and I usually avoid discussing them in my posts. However, in the case of hypocrisy, the situation changes. When a public official lives differently from what s/he demands of others (to the extent of prosecuting and imprisoning them for the same acts), the matter becomes of public interest.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Maine mass shooter found dead of self-inflicted gunshot wounds: Nearly all mass shooters are cowardly.
- It would be ironic if the actions of a bunch of barbarians started World War III among civilized countries!
- Israel claims that it is responding to attacks by Iran-supported forces from north and northeast.
- Qatar must be called out for hosting Hamas leaders and providing them with offices and other amenities.
- Qatar's Jekyll-Hyde personas, as arsonist and firefighter, in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
- Putin mouthpiece threatens the US: "Iran will sink American ships taking part in the attack against Hamas."
- An exciting new archaeological discovery in Nineveh, Upper Mesopotamia (today's Mosul, Iraq).
(4) Book review: Mohammadi, Narges (translated by Amir Rezanezhad), White Torture: Interviews with Iranian Women Prisoners, Oneworld Publishers, 2022.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I had read Narges Mohammadi's White Torture in its original language (Persian) before, but after she was awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize for her relentless support of human and women's rights in Iran, I went back to the book and embarked on a more-careful reading of its English translation. Mohammadi is serving a three-decade jail term on "anti-regime" charges and, ironically, was in prison when the Nobel Prize news came.
In this book, Mohammadi interviews 12 women prisoners about their ordeals and how solitary confinement affected their mental and physical states. Facing the prospects of solitary confinement herself, Mohammadi writes: "I declare ... that this is a cruel and inhumane punishment ... I will not rest until it is abolished."
Mohammadi asserts that Iran's Islamic regime uses solitary confinement as a form of torture to break the resistance of political prisoners and extract confessions from them that are then used to strike them with long prison terms or even death sentences. Isolated from other prisoners and kept in the dark about their own case and whether their families even know where they are, detainees become extremely vulnerable to pressure and manipulation, often making self-incriminating false statements in the hopes of ending their torturous isolation.
A tiny solitary-confinement cell and social isolation affect not just a detainee's mental well-being but also impair his/her physical health. Many detainees emerge from solitary confinement with various physical ailments, not to mention lifelong mental scars. Some of the women interviewed for the book were unable to return to normal life following release from prison. In the case of women prisoners, a routine part of solitary confinement is sexual humiliation and abuse.
White Torture has been turned into a documentary film by the same title. The film has been screened as a part of several on-line symposia centered on human rights. I watched it during one such event in January 2022 and found it well-done and effective.
One of the reasons most-often cited for opposition to the Shah in the lead-up to the 1979 revolution was the fact that his secret police, SAVAK, tortured prisoners to extract confessions. The fact that torture of all kinds, including the use of solitary confinement, is rampant in Islamic Iran's prison system is thus quite ironic. Based on the continuation of torture under two vastly different regimes, together spanning more than 70 years, it would be rather simplistic to think that torture will disappear from Iran with the fall of the Ayatollahs.
2023/10/26 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday (scenes from Iran of 5+ decades ago): A taxi squeezing in two people on the front passenger seat intended for one person, and an implement that only older Iranians would recognize. [Top center] Deir-e Gachin Caravansara (rest stop for caravans), Kavir National Park, Iran. [Top right] Uncovering the secrets of ice with drones: Fixed-wing drones, capable of operating in 30+ degrees Celsius below zero & equipped with ice-penetrating radar, help map ice sheets to the north of mainland Norway that are 100+ meters deep, to assess the impact of their melting. [Bottom left] Turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce for early dinner: According to my chef daughter, there's no good reason to wait for Thanksgiving. And, of course, she's also making pumpkin pie! [Bottom center] Women Peace and Security Index: The latest data from a Georgetown U. report show Afghanistan dead-last among 177 countries in terms of women's inclusion, justice, and security. Iran (140/177), Pakistan, and several central-African countries are in the next tier. [Bottom right] George Finney's Project Zero Trust (see the last item below).
(2) Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas: "Hamas says it will fight to the end. Yet its leaders hide under mosques' domes or flee to Egypt on ambulances, leaving their people behind. These leaders don't care if Gaza is destroyed and thousands of Gazans die." [Tweet, with video]
(3) Book review: Finney, George (foreword by John Kindervag), Project Zero Trust: A Story About a Strategy for Aligning Security and the Business, unabridged 8-hour audiobook, read by Daniel Thomas May, Ascent Audio, 2022. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Zero-Trust is a security approach that eliminates implicit trust in internal and external networks. Nothing is trusted by default and each access step undergoes mandatory checks. Because of hacking and infiltration, connections from the inside of your network or from trusted outside vendors could be just as malicious as those coming from elsewhere.
George Finney, a seasoned cybersecurity expert, is the Chief Security Officer at Southern Methodist University. In this book, he describes the Zero-Trust security strategy by telling a story. A number of employees of a fictitious company, including the just-hired IT Security Director, talk with internal and external experts as they try to deal with an in-progress ransomware attack and make their company ready for future attacks. Each chapter focuses on a particular sub-topic, with a recap of the main ideas, that is, a list of takeaways, provided at the end.
Implementing any security strategy presents a tradeoff between vulnerability and employee convenience/productivity. For example, allowing log-ons that persist for a long time makes it easier on users but is a recipe for disaster in terms of increasing the chances of intrusion. As another example, multi-factor authentication, done several times during the workday, creates extra work for users, but has a significant impact on security.
As they say, security is a weakest-link phenomenon, so all aspects of the system, from physical security to identity services and remote-access guidelines, must be included in the planning. Conventional wisdom has it that security is expensive. However, proper implementation of a security protocol can actually save money, besides the fact that insecurity can be extremely more costly. John Kindervag, who is given credit for inventing the Zero-Trust model of cybersecurity, has written the book's foreword.
On May 12, 2021, President Biden issued an executive order on improving the nation's cybersecurity, particularly against hostile nations, that includes directives for removing the barriers to effective sharing of cyberthreat information and advocates modernizing federal government cybersecurity through the adoption of best practices such as Zero-Trust.
Apparently, Zero-Trust does not ensure complete security, because the author & publisher have included extensive disclaimers at the beginning of the book to protect themselves against legal trouble!
In this 8-minute video, Finney describes how the book came about and what he tried to accomplish by writing the book.
2023/10/25 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Me & Javid John, a Santa Barbara-based Persian singer who joined the audience for today's noon concert, after performing a Persian song (see the next item below). [Center] Math puzzle: Find the side length of the outer equilateral triangle from the given lengths. [Right] Reflections on the brutal conflict in the Middle East (see the last item below).
(2) Today's World Music Series noon concert at UCSB's Music Bowl: UCSB Middle East Ensemble performed a number of Egyptian songs and a Persian selection, in video 2 that follows, of a song made famous by Googoosh. He will perform three Googoosh songs at UCSB Middle East Ensemble's upcoming concert on Saturday, December 2, 2023. [Video 1] [Video 2] [Video 3] [Video 4]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Mass shootings at multiple locations in Maine kill 22 and injure dozens. "Thoughts and prayers"!
- The GOP was worried about not having a House speaker: Which brings to mind this Persian poem/proverb.
- A beautiful cover of the Beatles' "And I Love Her." [3-minute video]
- A talented street performer is surprised by another talented singer who joins in. [5-minute video]
- On the way back from today's noon concert, I encountered this group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
(4) On the Israel-Hamas conflict: I waited for a couple of weeks before offering a substantial post about the conflict in order to read about all opinions and have time to digest them.
I am very disappointed with the prevailing narratives on the traditional and social media. My perspective is that of a person with a large number of family members living in Israel. Whereas those who have no relatives or acquaintances involved in the conflict can still be compassionate, the situation is a lot more heart-wrenching when you think of specific loved ones in mortal danger, as you wait for receiving word about their safety. Here is my seven-part musing, for what it's worth. [Persian summary version]
- The October 7 massacre of 1400 Israelis (beheaded, machine-gunned, burned, raped, dragged by the hair) and the horrors suffered by 200+ hostages seem to have been forgotten. So far, in the span of one week, four hostages have been released in two rounds. How can the Western media celebrate the release of two hostages and parrot Hamas' propaganda that the release is motivated by humanitarian concerns? Humanitarian concerns by barbarians? At this rate, it will take ~1 year to free all the hostages, assuming Hamas actually wants to do this, rather than use a subset of the hostages to buy time to re-arm and repair its terror infrastructure.
- Arab and UN leaders speak about immediate cease-fire, implicitly advocating that Hamas remain in place intact. Given that the slaughter of October 7, 2023, was unprovoked, another event of the same kind may happen within a few months, with support from Iran, Turkey, Qatar, and other countries that shelter and arm anti-Israeli proxy forces. Hamas will be emboldened by its "success," while suffering only minor consequences.
- US and world media's tendency to cover "both sides" gives free air-time and ink to Hamas propaganda. Everyone interviewed advocates for peace and cease fire, and, when explicitly asked about the savage attacks of 10/7, they respond by condemning the killing of all civilians. This is akin to declaring that "all lives matter," when asked about whether they agree with "black lives matter." Yes, all lives do matter, but it also does matter who began the violence and who is being targeted for annihilation and genocide ("being wiped off the map," in the words of Iran's Supreme Leader).
- The coverage of the bombing of a Gaza hospital is a good example. Initially, Hamas claimed that Israeli forces bombed the hospital and that 500 were killed as a result. Later investigations revealed that a failed Islamic Jihad rocket, launched toward Israel, crashed on a hospital parking lot. No buildings were damaged and the number of casualties is unlikely to have exceeded 100. Yet, the initial narrative persists. When the alternate explanation is covered, it is labeled as one of two sides, despite the fact that only the theory implicating the Islamic Jihad is backed by data, images, and other facts.
- Top Hamas leaders do not actually reside in Gaza. They and their families live in Qatar & other foreign countries and they travel around the world, in the lap of luxury. So, when they shed crocodile tears for the impoverished people of Gaza, while profiting personally from the aid they receive in the name of Palestinians, from the real estate they own in Gaza & elsewhere, and from using their terror tunnels to smuggle goods into and out of Gaza, do not believe them. Again, you have to look hard in the US and international media reports to learn about the residence and financial status of Hamas political & military leaders.
- The false narrative of Israelis as occupiers must stop. Israelis settled in their holy land where they have roots. No occupying or colonizing group has ever found ancient manuscripts in archaeological digs that bore their history and were written in the same language they speak today. Many Israelis have lived in the land now called Israel for thousands of years and those who were resettled there from outside the region were moved there through a legitimate international process. Any opposition to the Israelis making their homes there should be taken up with the United Nations, not with the civilian population living and working there.
- The two-state solution existed 60+ years ago, but was rejected by Palestinians who, along with their allies, attacked Israel in June 1967, in what became known as the Six-Day War. Palestinians and Syria lost some land to Israel during that conflict, but they repeated their mistake in 1973's Yom Kippur War, cementing Israel's territorial gains. When the US and Russia occupied parts of Germany after World War II, it took decades for them to return the land to Germans. This is the reality of war: The victor tends to hang on to land it gains. Even now, when the two-state solution is discussed, return to the 1967 borders is one of the demands.
2023/10/24 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] Tonight's dinner by my daughter: Zereshk-polo with chicken and crispy rice topped with gheimeh stew. [Right] India's Solar Center in Eco Park, near Kolkata (see the last item below).
(2) Middle East Forum: A Q&A Primer on Hamas, by Mark Durie. [Update: Parts 4-6 added on 2023/10/27]
Part 1: What is Hamas?
Part 2: Why Does Hamas Think It Will Win?
Part 3: Who Supports Hamas?
Part 4: Who Are the Palestinians?
Part 5: What Is the Occupation?
Part 6: Is Antisemitism Part of the Problem?
(3) Monday's Town Hall on DEI Climate Survey Report: Held at UCSB's Mosher Alumni House, the gathering was meant to offer an initial analysis of the data collected during a 2021 campus climate survey and compare it to an earlier 2014 campus climate assessment project. Victor Rios, Evelin Estrada, and Brett Collins from the UCSB DEI office conducted the meeting.
I attended the meeting because I wanted to learn about the state of DEI efforts on our campus and how the faculty/staff group Men Advocating for Gender Equity (MAGE), which I co-chair, fits in and can contribute to the campus program.
"Climate" refers to behaviors and attitudes within a workplace or learning environment, ranging from subtle to cumulative to dramatic, that can influence whether an individual feels personally safe, listened to, valued, and treated fairly and with respect.
The mission of DEI office is to reshape UCSB into a dignifying and affirming space, by improving outcomes for all students and employees, through addressing racism and other forms of bias, and by building coalitions with community members. The ultimate goal is to create an institution where all members feel embraced.
Much info, including the complete survey, is available through the Web site of UCSB's DEI office. Next steps in the process include disaggregated data analyses, policy and program recommendations, future assessment of campus climate, and understanding data needs.
(4) Iran's IslamAn exciting new archaeological discovery in Nineveh, Upper Mesopotamia (today's Mosul).
https://www.facebook.com/iahapublic/posts/pfbid032wcsXzARPrVxHyp7W5pjq4EnzqcFmdZXJcUyQv29JwLLQuQ5f8t7zybMUzYceCALl
c regime and surveillance cameras: At the scenes of several recent crimes by regime-supported goons, surveillance cameras did not exist, were turned off, or malfunctioned, per government claims. Surveillance cameras used to identify and prosecute hijab-less women, however, always work perfectly!
(5) Iranian-born classical guitarist Lily Afshar [1960-2023] dead at 63: The death report is confirmed by multiple sources, although there are Web sites that claim she is alive and kicking. She drew from Persian and Azerbaijani folk-music traditions to create arrangements for the classical guitar which are as rich and beautiful as a Persian miniature. [A sample of her work]
(6) India's Solar Center: India is a beacon of light when it comes to switching from fossil fuels to renewables. It has stayed ahead of its advertised goals and keeps moving the goal post forward. This dome in Eco Park, New Town, Kolkata, with a height of 29 meters and base diameter of 45 meters, has 2000 solar panels that power the facility itself and nearby street lamps. Inside the dome are exhibits about the benefits of renewable energy sources, such as tidal, geothermal, wind, and solar. [Source: IEEE Spectrum magazine, October 2023]
2023/10/23 (Monday): Today, I offer three book reviews on racism, human memory, and climate change.
(1) Book review: Sellers, Bakari, My Vanishing Country: A Memoir, unabridged 5-hour audiobook, read by the author, Harper Audio, 2020. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I got to know the author from his formerly-frequent appearances on CNN panels. He impressed me with his reasoned arguments, steeped in historical references. So, I had to read his memoir, which did not disappoint. Portions of the book, primarily those dealing with the author's childhood and family life, are exquisitely written, and, had the writing been consistent throughout, a 5-star rating would have been in order.
Bakari Sellers [1984-] is from the town of Denmark, South Carolina. The town's name (as well as those of Sweden, Norway, & Finland) didn't result from Scandinavian settlers moving there, but was picked to honor Captain Isadore Denmark, an official with one of the railroad companies working in the area during the 1800s. A predominantly black town, Denmark used to be rather prosperous but fell on hard times due to various events, the last of which was the NAFTA agreement of 1994. The title's "Vanishing" refers to the struggles of rural South Carolina ("Country") and its forgotten people.
Sellers awes the reader, beginning with the introduction, where he discusses his father's civil-rights activism, career as a university professor, and friendship with Martin Luther King, as well as events of racial discrimination and violence when he was a little boy. He got into politics from a very young age, being elected at age 22 to the state's House of Representatives, where he served for 8 years. He was dissuaded from running for a statewide office, because "Democrats and Blacks do not win statewide races in South Carolina." Nevertheless, he ran for Lieutenant Governor in 2014, losing to Henry McMaster.
There are some inconsistencies in the positions taken by Sellers, which are perhaps the reasons for longwinded explanations that detract from this otherwise-important book. Whereas Sellers has worked for Congressman James Clyburn and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, he also holds controversial views, such as becoming a Zionist in 2016 and posting a later-deleted tweet, calling for a teenager involved in a skirmish with a Native American man at Lincoln Memorial to "be punched in the face."
Sellers adored his father Cleveland but had some difficulties with his mother Gwendolyn. He pursued a law degree and a legal career. He discusses some of his own health challenges and devotes many pages to his family's hardships, beginning in 2018, when his wife gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, with the girl suffering from a life-threatening ailment requiring kidney transplant and his wife nearly dying from post-delivery complications.
I view this book as essential reference for understanding structural racism that still pervades the US South. Such first-hand accounts of how racism affects people's lives, even those of a prominent and rather well-to-do family, helps us come out of our privilege shell and start thinking about personal actions we can take to guide our country into modern civilization, where compassion and human-dignity rule.
(2) Book review: Aguirre, Lauren, The Memory Thief and the Secrets Behind How We Remember: A Medical Mystery, unabridged 9-hour audiobook, read by the author, Blackstone Publishing, 2021.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The Memory Thief of this review is a medical nonfiction book. There are other books by the same title, including a young-adult novel and a fictional adventure. Lauren Seeley Aguirre, a science journalist, chronicles an investigation into devastating amnesia cases in a cluster of fentanyl overdose survivors. Studying these cases, doctors were able to prove that opioids can damage the hippocampus, a relatively small brain region that plays a big role in learning and memory.
Memory storage and recall are among the most-important attributes that make us human. We are just beginning to understand how memory works, how it fails, what deteriorates it, and how we can help it along. In particular, we are quite interested in learning how we can prevent or delay the onset of dementia, which affects 1 in 7 older Americans.
In The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers, Daniel Schachter divides the various memory dysfunctions into seven categories.
- Transience: Forgetting that occurs with the passage of time.
- Absent-mindedness: Improper encoding that results from paying inadequate attention to something.
- Blocking: Not recalling something that is properly stored, owing to the loss of its recall cue.
- Misattribution: Remembering something correctly but attributing it to the wrong source.
- Suggestibility: Mixing information gained from outside sources with things personally experienced.
- Bias: Interpreting experiences and our memory of them in light of our current beliefs and feelings.
- Persistence: Remembering emotionally-charged experiences that we wish we would forget.
Memory loss occurs due to environmental factors. There does not seem to be a genetic condition that suddenly surfaces to make our memories fade. Memory storage and recall are among the most-complex tasks in the human brain, so anything that diminishes brain health can compromise our memory function. Examples include poor diet, sleep deprivation, heavy drinking, and opioid use. Both opioid-associated amnestic syndrome and Alzheimer's disease target and damage the hippocampus, from where the damage spreads to the rest of the brain. Shellfish poisoning is another cause of damage to the hippocampus.
Cognitive workout can help avert memory loss, but the workout should involve fairly difficult tasks. Contrary to the oft-given advice, doing crosswords and Sudoku puzzles isn't enough.
(3) Book review: Biabani, Zahra, Climate Optimism: Celebrating Systemic Change Around the World, unabridged 5-hour audiobook, read by Jeed Saddy, Tantor Audio, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
With regard to achieving results, there is no difference between climate denialism ("no action needed") and climate super-pessimism ("nothing can be done"). Unfettered optimism is also dangerous, because it creates a false sense of security.
In recent years, a new style of climate optimism has entered the scene, which advocates celebrating advances in understanding the problems, signing of international pacts, and emerging technologies for dealing with various challenges. Phenomenal advances in renewable-energy generation are also sources for optimism. We should build on these successes, rather than complain about politics-driven denialism in the US, noncompliance of treaty partners, and the slow pace of shifting to renewable energy sources.
I have previously read Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility [My review], in which Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua present diverse voices from the worldwide climate movement advising us to do our share by setting aside fear and despair. According to Biabani, a young climate activist, there are good reasons for climate optimism. Changing attitudes among people and, thus, politicians who represent them tops the list. Despite political rhetoric, which sometimes takes the form of ridiculing climate change, US Red states have embraced the use of renewable energy just as much as Blue states. Court cases increasingly end in favor of those advocating climate action and against polluters & deniers. Attitudes of businesses are also changing, as they realize that climate action is good for the economy and, in many cases, for their bottom lines.
While it is true that avoiding the use of plastic straws or single-use shopping bags will not solve the climate problem, every little bit helps. In particular, the awareness exhibited by consumers and the small steps they take help nurture the spirit of optimism, generating the will to become a part of more-significant local, national, and global efforts. Actions by local governments and indigenous populations continue to provide templates for broad-based programs.
2023/10/22 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Celebrations in Gaza after Oct. 7, 2023 (top), and Sep. 11, 2001 (bottom) (Source: Jerusalem Post). [Top center] Flowers from 3 of my 4 rose bushes: I got to them a bit late, or there would have been many more. [Top right] Brynn Reinkens' How Has the #MeToo Movement Changed Society? (see the last item below). [Bottom left] Math puzzle: In this diagram, find the ratio of the blue area to the red area. [Bottom center & right] Two math puzzles: Find the radius of the circle in each of the two diagrams.
(2) The FBI has its hands full these days: Increased terror threats due to the Hamas-Israeli conflict, hate crimes, domestic extremism, increased industrial spying/espionage, particularly in view of new algorithms and products in the AI domain, with the main culprits being China, Russia, and Iran.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Biden advises Israel not to repeat our 9/11 mistake: Focus on problem areas and don't broaden the conflict.
- Trump co-defendants are being given sweetheart, no-prison deals for pleading guilty: This is sickening!
- When Palestinians talk about Hamas's brutality & corruption, believe them: They risk their lives to speak up.
- An Iranian cabinet member claims that Iran will be sending a ship and multiple planes to Gaza.
- Ultimate flexibility: A robot that flies, walks, skateboards, and slack-lines. [5-minute video]
- Kurdish music: A beautiful song from Iran's Kermanshah region. [1-minute audio file]
(4) Book review: Reinkens, Brynn, How Has the #MeToo Movement Changed Society? ReferencePoint Press, 2021.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Much has happened in the past six years, after the hashtag #MeToo went viral in 2017. For example, in 2019, three former Fox News hosts founded "Lift Our Voices" to prevent businesses from hiding incidents of sexual harassment. They were driven by an unfair mandatory arbitration clause about workplace conflicts that new employees had to sign within a thick stack of papers. So, many sexual harassment cases were settled out of court, with the settlement always including a nondisclosure agreement. Essentially, the law was used to shield sexual abusers.
After an introduction entitled "Breaking the Silence," Reinkens reviews the impact of the #MeToo movement in five chapters:
- Solidarity, Awareness, and Accountability
- An Altered Legal and Political Landscape
- The Business World Adapts
- Ripples in Education
- Toward an Uncertain Future
The end-matter includes much useful info on sources and organizations/websites. The book also includes photos of some of the key players in the movement, along with events, such as marches & demonstrations.
According to Nisha Varia of Human Rights Watch, "The #MeToo movement has exposed deeply entrenched norms that enable abuse, and urgent action is needed to ensure that all workers are guaranteed their safety and dignity."
Whereas #MeToo movement activists are predominantly women, men must resist the temptation to dismiss the problem by asserting that such behavior and the toxic masculinity that causes it do not apply to them. Sexual abuse should be everyone's concern, even if we don't (or think we don't) contribute to the problem.
2023/10/21 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Tea harvesting near the Caspian Sea, Iran. [Center] Twelve copies of the Persian word "eshgh" ("love"). [Right] USA Through the Lens of Mathematics (see the last item below).
(2) Iran architecture: A quick tour of Azadi (Shahyad) Tower in Tehran. I am sad to say that despite living and working within a mile of this beautiful monument, I never visited the treasures inside.
(3) Excerpts from Firoozeh Dumas' Funny in Farsi have been spotted on Tehran's metro cars: Whether they contain her actual musings or some distorted translation is anyone's guess! [See her post]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Top Hamas leader and his children are millionaires, living in luxury outside Gaza.
- A woman screaming anti-Khamenei slogans in Tabriz, Iran, was arrested and confined to a mental hospital.
- Kevin Chen, winner of the Rubinstein Competition, opened his concert at Carnegie Hall with "Hatikva."
- "Helping Employees Succeed with Generative AI": Harvard Business Review article by UCSB's Paul Leonardi.
(5) Another COVID-19 casualty: Just 48% of adult Americans attended at least one arts event from July 2021 to July 2022. Seems like people are not going back from on-line to in-person attendance. [Source: WaPo]
(6) Book review: Hritonenko, Natali and Yuri Yatasenko, USA Through the Lens of Mathematics, CRC Press, 249 pp., 2022.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
After traveling in the US, a country they love, the authors decided to share what they saw and learned in an educational way that would also exhibit the magic and versatility of mathematics.
Important facts and stats about the US are presented in the form of mathematical problems for students to solve in order to both hone their math skills and learn the pertinent facts. The problems are of various levels of difficulty. They are mostly interesting, though some of them seem forced. Each set of problems is followed by answers and complete solutions.
Here's a list of chapter titles:
- The New Nation
- Geography of the United States
- National and State Parks
- The US Highways
- Constructions and Inventions in the United States
- The United States in Arts
- Shopping, Food, and Entertainment in the United States
The seven chapters are followed by three appendices containing algebraic formulas & properties, an index table tying the presented problems to mathematical notions (such as absolute value and circle), and an index table linking the problems to US states.
I present a few example problems to end my review.
- The difference between the fourth powers of the numbers of unpopulated and populated US territories is 5936, while the difference between their squares is 56. How many unpopulated and populated territories does the US have?
- Pennsylvania became the nth state in 1787, where n is the number of all factors of the year. Illinois became the mth state in 1818, where m is the number of all factors of the year if the number of all factors is written in the reverse order. What are the statehood orders of Pennsylvania and Illinois?
- The number of all people who have ever walked on the Moon is the smallest sum of Pythagorean triples, which are consecutive terms of an arithmetic sequence. How many people have walked on the Moon?
- In their paintings, American illustrators and sculptors Frederic S. Remington and Charles Marion Russell show the life of cowboys and American Indians and landscapes of old American West. Remington was born 3 years before Russell but died 17 years earlier. Russell lived 10 years more in the 19th century than in 20th. Who of these great artists lived longer and for how many years? What are years of their birth and death?
- How old was artist Georgia O'Keeffe when she died, if her age can be presented as the product of x and y, which bring the minimum value to the function y = 1887x^2 – 3774x + 1986? Have you noticed anything special about the equation?
2023/10/20 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Responsible Machine-Learning Summit 2023 (see the last five items below). [Center] Math humor about functions: There are worse things than pizza with pineapple topping. Just saying! [Right] #MahsaAmini, the Kurdish young woman who became a symbol of Iran's #WomanLifeFreedom movement, was awarded EU's Sakharov human rights prize posthumously.
(2) Two American hostages have reportedly been released by Hamas: But this is no cause for celebration. Hamas follows Iran's playbook. It commits atrocities, takes hostages, and then scores brownie points for releasing the hostages. The released mother & daughter are just like dozens of similar ones who were brutally killed and, in some cases, raped.
(3) Report from the 2023 Responsible Machine-Learning Summit: Today, I attended the latest installment of the annual day-long summit at UCSB's Henley Hall. The focus was on advances in generative AI and its applications. By 2:45 PM, I got saturated with information, so I did not stay for the event's final panel discussion, which I watched via streaming. However, I did attend in person all four informative keynote talks, about which I will write separately in the four posts that follow.
(4) Keynote 1 at today's Responsible Machine-Learning Summit: "Empowering Instruction-Following Research with Language Models as Simulators" (by Tatsunori Hashimoto, Stanford U.).
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly closed off, with reasons including protection of trade secrets and safety concerns. Responsible use of LLMs requires understanding, for which we need tools. In Part 1 of the talk, Hashimoto discussed LLMs as emulators of human behavior, with the goal of replacing human feedback in reinforcement learning by LLMs. In Part 2, Hashimoto explored the limits of LLMs as human emulators. The latter discussion included the important question of whose opinions LLMs reflect by default and comparing LLM outputs with the results of opinion polls, where a poor match is observed.
(5) Keynote 2 at today's Responsible Machine-Learning Summit: "Watermarking of LLMs" (Scott Aaronson, U. Texas Austin & Open AI)
Aaronson has spent most of his career on, and is best-known for, quantum computing. He began by showing a scene from a "South Park" episode in which students used ChatGPT to do their homework and teachers used ChatGPT to grade them. The school brings in a guru who tried to detect work done by ChatGPT. Almost any nefarious use of LLMs involves attempts to hide AI's involvement. If only we could make that harder! As the Internet gets filled with LLM-generated data, there is a real danger that such data are fed back to the models, creating a destructive cycle. Watermarking entails the insertion of a statistical signal into LLM-generated text, perhaps in terms of pseudo-random word choices.
(6) Keynote 3 at today's Responsible Machine-Learning Summit: "Robustness of Adversarial Attacks on LLMs" (Eric Wong, U. Penn)
Adversarial attacks, often demonstrated through images and the resulting misclassifications, entail adding imperceptible changes to the input of a machine-learning algorithm to create undesirable behavior at the output. LLMs are built to detect certain queries and to avoid answering them. For example, if you post a question about how to build a bomb, an LLM will answer it with something like "I am sorry, but I cannot assist with that request." The jailbreak method can get around such restrictions by adding text to the query to evade the system's defenses. Jailbreak entails careful engineering of prompts to exploit model biases in order to fool it into generating output that may not align with its intended purpose. Stopping jailbreak attacks is thus an important research problem.
(7) Keynote 4 at today's Responsible Machine-Learning Summit: "Interpreting Deep Neural Networks Through the Lenses of Feature Interaction" (Yan Liu, U. Southern California)
Model interpretability in machine learning (ML) is the degree to which a human can understand the underlying cause of a decision. Stated differently, it is the extent to which we are able to predict what's going to happen, given a change in input or algorithmic parameters. Interpretability helps ML developers debug or improve their systems and allows ML users to trust the correctness and assess the fairness of a decision. Interpretability is somewhat different from explainability and requires a greater knowledge of the workings of the system, rather than offering explanations solely based on input and output. Applications of interpretability include building interpretable AI models, addressing fairness & robustness, and understanding LLMs.
2023/10/19 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Special issue of Science magazine (see the next item below). [Center] Math puzzle: In this diagram with three squares, prove that the two yellow line segments are of the same length. [Right] Islamic Republic of Iran's version of Academy Awards.
(2) Brain cell census: The human brain contains 86 billion neurons and a similar number of non-neuronal cells. NIH's BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) initiative works with centers in the US & Europe to characterize cell types and their functions in human, nonhuman-primate, and rodent brains. [Source: Science magazine, special issue of October 13, 2023]
(3) Iran's water crisis: An extended drought and mismanagement of water resources has reduced the quality of life in many regions and has led to decreased crop yields and the attendant food deficiencies.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- President Biden argues for assistance to Israel & Ukraine to help our allies' defense against brutal enemies.
- The FBI & other agencies have increased their alert levels in anticipation of violence against Jews & Muslims.
- War: Student groups on college campuses are up in arms & administrations are under pressure to take sides.
- NASA sends a spacecraft to orbit & study an asteroid, which may be between 30% and 60% metal.
(5) Quote of the day: "Patience isn't sitting and waiting, it's foreseeing. It's looking at the thorn and seeing the rose, looking at the night and seeing the day." ~ Mowlavi (Rumi)
(6) Fun fact of the day: Scheduled flight time between Los Angeles and New York has become about 30 minutes longer compared with 50 years ago. Nearly every other part of the trip also takes longer today compared with the 1970s, thanks to road traffic and airport security. [Source: New York Times]
(7) Pitfalls of interdisciplinary work: "I was attending a conference about contemporary art, and right before my talk a distinguished scholar approached me. As a small conversation group formed around us, I introduced myself as a psychology PhD student who would be presenting research on how the brain reacts to art. Silence descended, and all eyes were on me. ... Suddenly, the room felt intimidating. Only later did I learn how to stand up for myself and be proud of my status as an interdisciplinary researcher." [Opinion, in Science]
(8) "Neural Inference at the Frontier of Energy, Space, and Time": This is the title of a research article in the October 20 issue of Science magazine, which describes NorthPole, a new brain-inspired computer chip. "As seen from the inside of the chip, at the level of individual cores, NorthPole appears as memory near compute; as seen from the outside of the chip, at the level of input-output, it appears as an active memory. NorthPole is an architectural innovation at the intersection of brain-inspired computing and semiconductor technology, which defines a frontier that promises to expand."
2023/10/18 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Saturday's family gathering in Ventura, California, featured a delicious barbecue meal and other yummy foods and desserts. [Top center] Shattered peace hopes and Mariachi Las Olas de Santa Barbara, who provided much-needed relief from non-stop bad news from around the world in today's noon concert at UCSB's Music Bowl (Video 1; Video 2; Video 3; Video 4; Video 5). [Top right] IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk (see the last item below). [Bottom left] Math puzzle: In this diagram with a square and a quarter-circle, what is the measure of the angle x? [Bottom center] Math puzzle: In this diagram, the larger circle has radius 3 + 2 sqrt(2). Find the radius of the smaller circle. [Bottom right] Math puzzle: Three circles with radii 1, 1, and 2 are external tangents. What are the radii of the smallest and the biggest circles shown?
(2) A letter from the late Dariush Mehrjui: Previously unpublished anti-regime writings of the slain Iranian director indicate that his and his wife's brutal murders were likely state-sponsored. [Letter image]
(3) It is becoming clear that the explosion killing hundreds at a Gaza hospital was caused by a malfunctioning Islamic Jihad rocket: The rocket fell on a hospital parking lot, where many refugees from other parts of Gaza had taken shelter. Its nearly-full fuel tank contributed to the horrific destruction.
(4) Richard Auhll [1941-2023]: A local entrepreneur and philanthropist, who generously supported UCSB and its College of Engineering, has departed following paralysis and COVID.
(5) Tonight's IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk: Nicholas Hogasten (Teledyne FLIR) was to speak under the title "Video Signal Processing for Thermal Imaging Applications." Due to the speaker not showing up, Wayne Rothermich, who has retired from Seymour Duncan, gave an impromptu talk about guitar pick-ups, vis., electronic devices that convert string vibrations to electric currents that are supplied to amplifiers.
There are many different kinds of guitar pick-ups, which differ in sound quality and other audio parameters. With metal strings, magnets are used to pick up the vibrations. In the case of acoustic guitars featuring non-metal strings, other methods, such as those based on piezoelectric properties, are used. A guitar may be outfitted with multiple pick-ups, which would allow the player to switch between them or use a combination of their outputs.
Master guitar players may order custom pick-ups according to their personal preferences. They bring their ideas to special technical advisers who translate them to appropriate pick-up designs. These custom orders usually cost several times the typical ~$100 mass-produced pick-up models.
Overall, this was a highly-informative impromptu talk. IEEE CCS has been experimenting with WebEx streaming of its technical talks for the benefit of those who cannot attend in person. I was a beneficiary of this option tonight. The sound quality was quite good after the talk began, but Images were fuzzy at times.
[Seymour Duncan Web site]
[Seymour Duncan post about Wayne Rothermich]
2023/10/16 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Math puzzle: A rectangular area is divided up as shown. Find the ratio of the yellow area to the blue area. [Top center] Middle East's next generation will hopefully overcome dogma and live in peace and harmony. [Top right] Math puzzle: Prove that the area of the triangle BCD equals the area of the quadrangle FHCI. [Bottom row] Saturday's Farhang Foundation webinar (see the last item below).
(2) Farhang Foundation's tribute to Dariush Mehrjui [1939-2023], a prominent Iranian filmmaker who was brutally murdered on October 14, 2023, along with his wife Vahideh Mohammadifar, in their home near Tehran.
(3) Web of lies and brutality: A brave Iranian young woman talks about the mullahs' lies, their killing/maiming of Iranians, and their celebration of beheadings & other heinous acts against the Israelis. [2-minute video]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The 10/14 solar eclipse was underwhelming in SoCal, but not in regions where they saw the "ring of fire."
- Famous film director and his wife found stabbed to death in their home in Iran. [Meme]
- Six-year-old boy killed in suburban Chicago in a suspected anti-Muslim hate crime.
- Bit-flip due to cosmic radiation: The fascinating story of how a Belgian candidate got 4096 extra votes.
- The woman who taught herself about hardware by building crazy, useless gadgets. [3-minute video]
- Facebook memory from Oct. 15, 2013: Happiness is a state of mind that has little to do with material wealth.
(5) Columbia University's Professor Joseph Massad is absolutely elated at the "astounding," "striking," "awesome," and "innovative" "victories of the resistance" in the recent Hamas terror attack on Israel.
(6) "Searching for Azadi: A History of Unfulfilled Hopes": This was the title of today's Farhang Foundation webinar featuring Dr. Abbas Amanat (Yale University). [Recording of the talk]
Dr. Amanat aimed to expose the roots of the concept of "azadi" ("liberty") in Persian. Since the beginning of the 20th century, in connection with the Constitutional Revolution, Iranians have sought azadi, but certain reactionary forces prevented the dream's realization. The process repeated after the 1979 Revolution, when forces of absolutism and intolerance crushed the people's hopes for azadi. One can say that in both instances cited above, the institutions of monarchy and religion contributed to the demise of azadi, with oil wealth (an instrument the state power) being an important additional factor.
During Dr. Amanat's presentation, segments of the following two songs, performed by Mohammad-Reza Shajarian (lyrics by Hushang Ebtehaj) were played.
- "Sepideh," a song about the dawn of liberty, performed and released shortly after the 1979 Revolution.
- "Oh the Joy of Liberty" ("Ey Shadi-ye Azadi"), written in the early 1980s but performed decades later.
Dr. Amanat then reviewed the linguistic origins of the words "woman," "life," and "freedom/liberty." Unlike European languages, the Persian word for "woman" is not a derivative of the word for "man" but is based on "life" and "regeneration." Religion places bounds on azadi, many of them associated with the notion of "namus" ("honor," often applied in the context of the subjugation of women). Religion is thus fundamentally at odds with the notion of liberty.
In the final segment of his talk, Dr. Amanat reviewed the notion of liberty in European sources on political philosophy ("Liberty, Equality, Fraternity") and its adaptation by Iranians active in the Constitutional movement of the early 1900s.
2023/10/15 (Sunday): Today, I offer three book reviews on Persian poetry, tyranny, and a prairie memoir.
(1) Book review: Book review: Khatami, Ahmad (ed.), Gozideh-ye She'r-e Farsi (Collection of Persian Poems, Selected by Molla Sadra-ye Shirazi), Elm Publications, 349 pp., 2020. ISBN: 978-9642248629
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book contains samples of Persian poetry that for various reasons grabbed the attention of Molla Sadra, a 16th/17th-century Iranian philosopher with broad interests in literature. The selections are presented in rough chronological order, from the 9th century to the 16th century. The works of some four-dozen poets are sampled. At 77 and 64 pages, respectively, Attar and Khayyam are most-prominent in the book.
(2) Book review: Snyder, Timothy, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, unabridged 2-hour audiobook, read by the author, Random House Audio, 2017.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
In this brief book, historian Timothy Snyder provides a guide on how to resist and survive in the climate of authoritarianism that afflicts America. Here are three of the most-important takeaways:
- Dodge political agendas by avoiding the news and reading more books.
- Nurture the community around you by demolishing social barriers.
- Be aware of the ways social media and cyberspace limit your freedoms.
Other lessons include not obeying without thinking, defending institutions, honoring professional ethics, standing out, using language kindly, believing in the primacy of truth, developing an investigative attitude, contributing to worthy causes, learning from peers in other countries, watching out for dangerous words, and striving to act courageously.
In a historical introduction, Snyder tells us that democracy in Europe shone and then faltered at three junctions, in circumstances that resembled the current situation in America.
- After World War I (1918)
- After World War II (1945)
- After the fall of communism (1989)
That authoritarianism could develop in America came as a surprise to many of us. The defeat of fascism, Nazism, and communism gave us a false sense of security and a belief in the inevitability of more democracy and more reason. Unfortunately, the course we saw as inevitable was anything but. We do have the will and the institutions to help us ride out the current authoritarian threats, but we must take this book's lessons to heart and stay super-vigilant.
(3) Book review: Brokaw, Tom, Never Give Up: A Prairie Family Story, unabridged 3-hour audiobook, read by Lincoln Hoppe, Random House Audio, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The author, Thomas John Brokaw [1940-], served for decades as a respected journalist and TV anchor. As an author, he is known for The Greatest Generation, an instant classic and a best-seller that shaped our knowledge and attitudes toward World War II. His latest book is a memoir, that is short on pages but long on substance.
Brokaw was born in South Dakota to Anthony Orville Brokaw (nicknamed "Red" for his fiery hair), a construction foreman, and Eugenia "Jean" Conley, who worked in sales and as a post-office clerk. Dropping out of second grade, Red constantly struggled to make ends meet, moving the family to wherever he could find work. The Brokaw House Hotel, where Tom's grandparents set up shop and started a long life in the state, was popular with railroad men and traveling salesmen. One tenant, an immigrant from Sweden, stayed for 50 years.
This book is an homage to the resilience, resourcefulness, and can-do attitudes of Tom's parents, who never gave up. His parents' sacrifices and sacrifices of their contemporaries, who persevered in the face of hardships, scarce resources, the Great Depression, and World War II, are indeed worth celebrating.
2023/10/14 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Departmental retreat (see the next item below). [Top center] Cartoon of the day: Hijab enforcers in Iran and their latest victim, 16-year-old #ArmitaGravand. [Top right] Katie Porter's I Swear: Politics Is Messier than My Minivan (see the last item below).
(2) Friday's UCSB ECE Department Retreat: Held at the Mosher Alumni House on campus, the retreat began with comments by the newly-appointed Dean of Engineering, Umesh Mishra, and continued with introduction of new faculty (Gian Yu, Niels Volkmann), a panel during which junior faculty shared their activities and visions (Nina Miolane, Kerem Camsari, Haewon Jeong, Bongjin Kim, Yao Qin), discussion of our degree programs and curricula, overview of research & strategic plans, and closing remarks by Department Chair B. S. Manjunath.
(3) From the horse's mouth: Senior Hamas official states that they have been secretly planning the terrorist attacks for two years, that Russia sympathizes with them, and that the return of hostages requires the release of all Hamas prisoners, including those in Western countries.
(4) Don't blame the victims: There are reports that Egypt and/or CIA had warned Israel about a Hamas attack. I wish people who spend time commenting on whether Israel knew about the attacks would look at videos of Hamas atrocities (mowing down people with machine guns, beheadings, massacring & abducting children, and setting people on fire & watching them die) and comment on how those acts serve the cause of Palestinian liberation. This reminds me of some MAGA Republicans in the US who blame Nancy Pelosi for failing to protect the Capitol Building from the Trump mob.
(5) Book review: Porter, Katie, I Swear: Politics Is Messier than My Minivan, unabridged 9-hour audiobook, read by the author, Random House Audio, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
US Representative Katherine Moore Porter [1974-] is the first Democrat to represent California's southcentral Orange County. She represented California's 45th District from 2019 and was re-elected in 2022 to the newly-defined 47th District. She is now running to fill Diane Feinstein's Senate seat. Known for her trademark portable white board, which she uses to flash numbers & charts during hearings, Porter was trained as a lawyer at Yale & Harvard, later teaching law at UNLV, U. Iowa, and UC Irvine.
Her textbook, Modern Consumer Law, and a stint as California's independent monitor of banks in a $25 billion nationwide mortgage settlement make her imminently qualified to chip in whenever consumer interests and protections are discussed. Furthermore, as a single mother of 3 children, from an abusive marriage, she has first-hand experience of consumer challenges to supplement her academic chops. She openly discusses being dismissed as a woman and fat-shamed by political opponents and ordinary people.
This memoir is a chronological account of Porter's life and career. The writing is rather uneven, some parts registering with the reader, while others getting bogged down in too many inessential details. Still, the book has my highest recommendation as the unlikely story of a single, progressive mom elected to represent a conservative, prosperous district (median household income of ~75K, vs. $31K for the US as a whole; median home prices of ~$619K, vs. $410K for the US).
One problem with the US Congress is that almost all of its members are independently wealthy. It's one thing to talk about the plight of the working class and quite another to have experienced those challenges. Being a Congressperson costs you a lot of money, which includes maintaining two residences, buying appropriate outfits, and so on.
Porter dispenses much advice, but does not take herself very seriously. She writes with a good sense of humor, joking that "the computer made a mistake" is the corporate version of "the dog ate my homework."
Katie Porter has already established herself as a force to be reckoned with and a worthy next-generation replacement for Elizabeth Warren (one of her role models) and Bernie Sanders. Corporate execs are known to undergo special preparations for her kind of questioning. I hope she doesn't lose her edge, as she climbs the political ladder and becomes a California Senator. We need someone (hopefully more than one, but even one is better than none) who can keep corporate execs' feet to the fire and who doesn't let them get away with word salads and rehearsed lines of doublespeak.
2023/10/13 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Today is Friday the 13th (see the last item below). [Center] Throwback Thursday: Eighty years ago, the US Supreme Court ruled that forced patriotic rituals are unconstitutional. "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." [Right] Another murder by Iranian mullahs: #ArmitaGravand, who went into a coma after being roughed up by hijab enforcers, has been declared brain-dead. RIP, brave daughter of Iran!
(2) Heroes who saved lives: This Israeli couple managed to hide their 10-month-old twins in a shelter before confronting, and getting killed by, Hamas terrorists. The twins were found and saved after 14 hours.
(3) Israel's border-wall border-wall miscalculation: Inexplicably, Israel thought that a Gaza fence would protect it. The billion-dollar project was completed in 2019 and was inaugurated with much fanfare. It turned out to provide little protection against determined terrorists.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The US and Qatar block Iran's access to $6 billion from prisoner swap deal for its support of Hamas.
- Overcoming regulators' objections, Microsoft closes $69 billion deal to acquire the gaming giant Activision.
- Facebook memory from Oct. 12, 2018: Apt reminder about why Americans MUST vote in 2024.
- Facebook memory from Oct. 12, 2017: German soldiers cut off the beard of an old Jewish man.
- Facebook memory from Oct. 13, 2017: Without science, it's just fiction.
- Facebook memory from Oct. 13, 2016: US federal budget explained in comparison with a household budget.
(5) For those who have not heard Nobel Peace Laureate Narges Mohammadi speak: A 2021 conversation with her about human rights in Iran, particularly her view of solitary confinement as torture. Mohammadi is the author of White Torture: Interviews with Iranian Women Prisoners, a 2022 book that is on my to-read list.
(6) Here is a repost from Friday, May 13, 2011: Friday the 13th isn't just a harmless superstition; it has led to some interesting mathematical problems and to serious economic losses. Please read on.
- The number 13 is considered unlucky, in part because 12 is deemed a lucky or complete number: 12 is the number of months, zodiac signs, hours on the clock face, Apostles, gods of Olympus, tribes of Israel, and so on.
- According to mathematical analysis by B. H. Brown, the 13th of the month is slightly more likely to fall on a Friday than on any other day. Sunday and Wednesday are also a bit more likely to be the 13th.
- Friday the 13th occurs at least once and at most 3 times a year. Any month that begins on a Sunday has a Friday the 13th.
- On average, there is a Friday the 13th once every 212.35 days, which amounts to about 1.72 per year.
- Fear of Friday the 13th is known as friggatriskaidekaphobia, Frigga being the Norse goddess associated with Friday. Nearly 20 million people in the US are affected by this fear, causing $1 billion in lost business.
2023/10/11 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Top-10 countries with the lowest per-capita murder rates: At 6.8, the US is way down the list, below countries such as Egypt, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. [Top center] My daughter's sesame beef dish, with my Persian Shirazi salad. [Top right] My recent posts on LinkedIn have been well-received: One described a noteworthy case of brain drain from Iran and another was about an academic demotion given to a scientist who went on to win a Nobel Prize. [Bottom left] NYT photos of atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists in southern Israel (see the last item below). [Bottom right] Happy International Day of the Girl: A global observance dedicated to recognizing and empowering girls around the world, serving as a poignant reminder of the unique challenges and barriers girls face in various societies and the urgent need to break down these barriers for their well-being and development.
(2) World Music Series noon concert at UCSB's Music Bowl: Performance by Los Catanes del Norte provided a much-needed break from the barrage of bad news in recent days. [Photo] [Video 1] [Video 2] [Video 3]
(3) Hamas has done Putin, the Iranian mullahs, and the Taliban a big favor: Its murderous terrorist attack on Israel has made the world forget the atrocities in Ukraine, the winning of a Nobel Peace Prize by an Iranian political prisoner, and the death of 2500+ people in Afghanistan earthquakes.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- According to multiple reports, military equipment given to Ukraine have somehow found their way to Hamas.
- Some of the Israeli children kidnapped by Hamas terrorists. [1-minute slide show]
- Facebook memory from Oct. 10, 2021: Yesterday was World Day Against the Death Penalty.
- Facebook memory from Oct. 11, 2019: Kurdish women fighters in northeastern Syria.
(5) Daily update from Israeli Defense Forces: New death toll of Israeli civilians is 1200, as dead bodies continue to be discovered at the Hamas attack sites. [12-minute video]
(6) The hostage-taking industry in the Middle East: It all started in late 1979, with Khomeini's followers taking 66 Americans hostage at the US Embassy in Tehran. Not having paid a price for that blatant act, except for facing half-baked sanctions that were easily circumvented by the regime cronies and international middle-men, they upped the ante and became more brazen in taking hostages and demanding exorbitant sums of money for their release. Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Iranian regime puppets use the same playbook. They typically exchange one hostage for dozens of captured terrorists.
(7) Many pro-Hamas rallies around the world are or turn anti-Semitic: In New York City, some attendees praised Hamas terrorists infiltrating Israel on power paragliders and machine-gunning "hipsters." In Sydney, Australia, a dominant chant was "Gas the Jews."
(8) Puzzle of the day: Iranian mullahs openly support Hamas and celebrate their "victory." And Hamas thanks the Islamic Republic, without whose financial and military help they could not have pulled off their biggest terrorist attack. But the US maintains that Iran had no direct role in the recent conflict.
(9) Some people have apparently woken up from a deep slumber and are pointing to civilian deaths in Gaza Strip: They seem to have no memory of the terrorists who slaughtered, raped, and kidnapped 900 civilians, as they live-streamed their deeds, provoking Israel's attacks on Hamas headquarters and ammunition depots.
2023/10/10 (Tuesday): Today, I offer three book reviews on inventions, numbers, and physics.
(1) Book review: Krols, Birgit, Accidental Inventions: The Chance Discoveries that Changed Our Lives, Insight Editions, 2009.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This illustrated book, with lots of images and brief half-page descriptions, is an easy read and a delight. It teaches us that many of the most-useful items in our daily lives were invented accidentally. Errors and accidents play key roles in science and technology. In other words, "oops" may be just as important for discoveries as "aha." According to Mark Twain, "Accident is the name of the greatest of all inventions." Sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov tells us that "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'eureka!' but 'that's funny'."
Krols groups the inventions she discusses into five categories. Category titles and examples follow.
- Entertainment: Silly Putty; Play-Doh; Fireworks; Slinky; Roulette
- Food & Drinks: Artificial Sweeteners; Peanut Butter; Cheese; Tea
- Medicine: X-Rays; Penicillin; Viagra; Band-Aids; Rubber Gloves
- Everyday Life: Superglue; Post-Its; Kleenex; Velcro; Stainless Steel
- Substances: TNT; Radioactive Material; Synthetic Dyes; Dynamite
(2) Book review: Collins, Julia, Numbers in Minutes: The Quickest Explanation of Maths in 200 Essential Numbers, Quercus, 2019.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Let me begin with an aside. In my Web search to learn more about the author, I discovered Julia C. Collins [1842-1865], an essayist and schoolteacher, whose The Curse of Caste was among the first novels published by African-American women. Among the many other Julia Collins search hits is the esteemed author of the book under review who earned a doctorate in 4D knot theory from U. Edinburgh and proceeded to become Outreach Officer at the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute. Among other activities, she is passionate about encouraging girls and young women to participate in maths.
Collins presents numbers in three sections, sandwiched between a short introduction and a glossary.
- Whole Numbers (pp. 8-255)
- Decimals and Fractions (pp. 256-387)
- Negatives, Non-Real Numbers and Infinities (pp. 388-407)
The book is printed in 5"-by-5" pocket size. To give you a taste of the 200 numbers in this book, let me present a couple of examples from the first section and one example each from the other two sections.
The number 40: There are forty possible 2-digit endings for a prime number; the 60 endings of the form xy, with y equaling 5 or an even digit, are easily ruled out. Among the first 10,000 primes, 57 is the most-frequent ending. After the first billion primes, 47 takes over.
The number 561: The smallest Carmichael number (numbers that look prime through the lens of a common primality testing known as Fermat's Little Theorem) has factors 3, 11, and 17.
The number 0.7405: A 16th-century explorer wondered whether he was stacking the cannonballs most efficiently, so he asked around and the question found its way to Johannes Keppler. Although everyone agreed that stacking in layers, the way oranges are stacked at a fruit stand, is most-efficient, it took mathematicians ~400 years to prove what became known as Keppler Conjecture.
The number –1/12: There are many proofs that that the Ramanujan Sum 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + ... equals –1/12, which is a doubly-absurd result for its finiteness and negative sign. A notebook of the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan contains the "proof" shown below. With today's rigorous mathematics, we know that we cannot add multiples of infinite sums together, without running into potential contradictions.
c = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + ...
4c = 4 + 8 + 12 + ...
c – 4c = –3c = 1 – 2 + 3 – 4 + 5 – 6 + ... = 1/(1 + 1)^2 = 1/4
c = –1/12
(3) Book review: Kaku, Michio, Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel, Anchor Books, 2009.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The idea of exploring the physics of phenomena at the boundary of impossibility (at least with our current state of knowledge) is fascinating. Kaku tackles a number of such phenomena in three parts.
Class-I impossibilities, the longest of the three parts (10 chapters, 194 pp.), discusses force fields, invisibility, phasers & death stars, teleportation, telepathy, psychokinesis, robots, extraterrestrials & UFOs, starships, and antimatter & anti-universe. These are all interesting and appropriate subjects, except that, in my view, robots do not belong here. Certain aspects of robotics, such as sentience or emotive behavior could be included, but "robots" in unqualified form conjures an old technology, rather than an envelope-pushing area of study.
Class-II impossibilities (3 chapters, 59 pp.) include faster than light, time travel, and parallel universes.
Class-III impossibilities (2 chapters, 29 pp.) encompass perpetual-motion machines and pre-cognition.
A 19-page epilogue, entitled "The Future of Impossible," concludes the book.
Kaku states that "impossible" is often relative. At one point in time, people expressed skepticism that dinosaurs dominated the Earth for millions of years, before suddenly vanishing. The reasons for this disappearance might have formed fertile grounds for sci-fi, before some of the theories turned into actual "sci." Similarly, the problems discussed in this book fall somewhere between "sci" and "sci-fi," with class-I impossibilities situated closer to the "sci" end.
I was very surprised and disappointed by the book's total lack of diagrams or other graphical aids. Writing anything about science & technology without using diagrams/charts/photos is utterly absurd.
2023/10/09 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Nobel Prize, Economics (see the next item below). [Top center] Physics joke: Lunar eclipse, solar eclipse, apocalypse. [Top right] "Ring-of-fire" solar eclipse of 2023 (see item 3 below). [Bottom left] An entire Israeli family massacred in cold blood by Hamas terrorists. [Bottom center] UCSB Jewish students set up a tent in front of the campus library to commemorate Israeli casualties of the Hamas terrorist attacks and to seek support for Israel. [Bottom right] A point I have been trying to make for a long time with no success, and a coded message for you to decipher.
(2) The 2023 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics: Awarded to Claudia Goldin "for her research on gender gaps in the labor market." Goldin, the first woman to earn tenure in Harvard's economics department, is the third woman to be awarded the economics Nobel.
(3) The "ring of fire" solar eclipse of Saturday, October 14, 2023, will be visible in much of United States, Mexico, and South America. The eclipse will be partial in California and much of US; it will be total on a band extending from Oregon to Texas. In Los Angeles, CA, it begins at 8:08 AM PDT, reaches maximum eclipse at 9:25 AM, and ends 10:50 AM. For other times, see this Sky & Telescope article.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Roger Waters adapts Pink Floyd's classic "The Wall," putting new lyrics to it to produce "Hey Ayatollah"!
- English lesson: Do you know when to use "made of," "made from," "made with," and "made out of"?
- An amazing rate of change: The many now-familiar things that did not exist 25 years ago.
- A beautiful dance, amid the news of war and other devastation. Enjoy! [1-minute video]
(5) "Understanding the Hamas War on Israel": This was the title of today's Middle East Forum webinar, featuring Daniel Pipes, Gregg Roman, Jonathan Spyer, and Nave Dromi. Hamas managed to pull off a surprise attack on Israel, leading to many casualties and political consequences. What does this mean for Israel's domestic debate? For the rapprochement with Saudi Arabia? For the Palestinian Authority? Will it lead to fundamental changes in Israel's security establishment? Will Hamas survive? How will Hezbollah respond? And what about Israel's Muslim citizens?
[62-minute video]
(6) I for one will be very careful before sharing videos from Gaza and other conflict zones: During previous conflicts, videos belonging to earlier or other wars and, in one case, of a soccer riot were posted.
2023/10/08 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Ancient DNA: A special section in Science magazine's issue of Oct. 6, 2023, contains articles about how ancient DNA has radically altered our understanding of the evolutionary history of plants and animals. [Top center] Quote from Narges Mohammadi, the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and her dual awards from the Nobel Committee and the government of Iran. [Top right] Shah Mosque in Isfahan, Iran. [Bottom left] California is 18 times as large as Israel: This is why the barrage of Hamas missiles coming from Gaza Strip is so devastating, despite strong anti-missile defense systems. [Bottom center] Some of the civilian casualties of the Hamas attack on Israel. [Bottom right] Areas of Hamas rocket strikes and terrorist attacks.
(2) Dictatorial regimes are fond of installing surveillance cameras everywhere: Surveillance cameras help them maintain their grip on power but can also expose their lies. Iran's Islamic government released edited security camera footage, with obvious gaps, to claim that the hijabless 16-year-old #ArmitaGravand went into a coma because of a pre-existing medical condition, rather than due to assault by hijab enforcers. The missing parts of the security camera footage are being shared on social media, exposing the Islamic regime's lies and clearly indicating the cause of the victim's serious injuries.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Magnitude-6.3 earthquake in western Afghanistan kills at least 2000: The death toll is expected to rise.
- Israeli casualties of Hamas attacks have surpassed 400, with 2000+ injured.
- Hamas forces have undressed the corpse of a female Israeli soldier and are shown dancing over her body.
- What Hamas did to women, children, & elder Israeli resembles the methods of ISIS & Iranian mullahs.
- Israel war: American Jews have been advised to be vigilant personally & to beef up security at their events.
- The US confirms that Americans have been killed or are missing in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel.
(4) On the Hamas-Israel conflict: The massacre of ~1000 Israelis by Hamas terrorists is the largest loss of life among civilian Jews since the Holocaust. The Yom Kippur war of 50 years ago (October 1973) had 2000+ Israeli casualties, but those were primarily soldiers killed on the battlefield, not civilians. In the wake of the Hamas brutality, killing entire families and massacring hundreds of young people attending a music festival, Israelis are more united than ever, but they are proceeding carefully, in view of 100+ civilian hostages held by Hamas. There is no doubt in the minds of Israelis that Hamas must be totally destroyed. Gaza residents aren't pro-Hamas, according to several recent polls, so they can be won over with a careful campaign. There is little doubt that the missiles and other arms used in the attacks were supplied by Iran. Beyond that, Iran's role in the atrocities is still unknown, but a large number of Iranian officials and pro-regime cronies did celebrate the Hamas massacres, one tweeting that "the killing of the dogs has begun" (sag-koshi). Hamas leadership has likely fled Gaza Strip already, leaving helpless civilians to deal with the Israeli retaliation. The latest Hamas attack is tantamount to the death of the two-state solution, which is cause for celebration among the Islamists in the region, including Iran's Islamic regime.
2023/10/06 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] One more Nobel Prize announced (see the next two items below). [Top right] Iran's Islamic regime continues its murderous ways (see the last item below).
(2) The 2023 Nobel Peace Prize: Awarded to jailed human/women's-rights activist Narges Mohammadi "for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all."
(3) A woman who still smiles, after being sentenced to 30+ years in prison: The Nobel committee heard the message of Iran's #WomanLifeFreedom revolution and honored one of its most-eloquent and fearless representatives, #NargesMohammadi, with the Nobel Peace Prize for 2023. Meanwhile the Iranian mullahs and their cronies have already begun their campaign to smear Mohammadi and the "politicized" Peace Prize.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Gaza militants fire rockets into Israel in surprise attack, during which gunmen also crossed the border.
- CERN in Switzerland uses 111,000 devices to reach one exabyte of storage capacity.
- Atomic-scale multi-qubit platform raises hopes of scaling up quantum computers.
- Familiarity and recognizability breed comfort, making it more likely for us to accept falsehoods as truths.
- My daughter's creations (inspired by her late grandma): Tah-chin, with fried zucchini as appetizer. [Photos]
(5) Science note: We often talk about a blanket warming us or one blanket being warmer than another. Actually, a blanket has no warmth of its own. It simply prevents the warmth of our body from going out or the chill of the environment from coming in. It's just an insulator.
(6) Arrival of human beings in the Americas: Previous evidence pointed to people walking over from Siberia via a dry land bridge around 15,000 years ago. Controversial radiocarbon dating of seeds from a set of preserved footprints in New Mexico's White Sands National Park indicates that humans were perhaps present in the Americas as early as 22,000 years ago.
(7) The award of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize to #NargesMohammadi, the unjustly imprisoned Iranian human/women's-rights activist, has led to different reactions: There are many supportive statements, but we also see statements beginning with "I am happy/proud, but ..." At the risk of over-generalizing, it seems that opposition groups working outside Iran against the country's Islamic regime can't see eye to eye, so they are incapable of celebrating an honor or victory earned by a member of a group other than their own. Mohammadi is characterized as a reformist, so those who have lost hope in reforming Iran's theocratic regime are suspicious of her Peace Prize recognition. Some go as far as suggesting that honoring Mohammadi is part of a Western plot to keep the mullahs in power.
(8) The mullahs keep assaulting beautiful young women to keep their shaky hold on power: #ArmitaGravand is the latest victim to be brutally punished for defying Iran's compulsory hijab laws. She is in a coma at a military hospital with no visitors allowed. Two of her friends were forced to testify on state TV that Armita had not been assaulted by hijab enforcers in a metro car.
2023/10/05 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Nobel prizes (see the next item below). [Center] World Teachers' Day (see the last item below). [Right] Current status of physics: "... we've basically got it all worked out, except for small stuff, big stuff, hot stuff, cold stuff, fast stuff, heavy stuff, dark stuff, turbulence, and the concept of time."
(2) The 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature: Awarded to Norwegian writer Jon Olav Fosse "for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable." The prize is awarded for a writer's entire body of work.
(3) On the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics: What is an attosecond? It's a time period equal to one quintillionth of a second, or 10^(–18) seconds. Scientists use attosecond pulses of light to study the motion of electrons in atoms and molecules, which can reveal the underlying mechanisms of many physical and chemical processes.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Throwback Thursday: Tehran of 1967, as shown in the Italian movie "Tom Dollar." [3-minute video]
- Simone Biles, US women's gymnastics team win record 7th straight world championships title.
- Waiting for conspiracy theories to emerge about the National Alert test on October 4. [Cartoon]
- Wonders of math: Onion shape formed by the plots of the functions y = x^n and y = x^(1/n).
(5) Rewrding creativity: Twenty Americans have won what has come to be known as "The Genius Award," MacArthur Foundation's no-string-attached $800,000 fellowships to help advance their work.
(6) Tonight's interesting Arts & Lectures program at UCSB's Campbell Hall: Mustafa Suleyman (Co-Founder of DeepMind & Inflection AI, and author, with writer/publisher Michael Bhaskar, of the 2023 book The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the 21s Century's Greatest Dilemma) discussed many ideas from his book and his experience as an AI entrepreneur, in conversation with Dr. Misha Sra of UCSB's Computer Science Department. A free copy of the book was supplied to every attendee.
It was a fascinating and deep conversation about where AI is headed and how large language models will transform our lives, businesses, and society. I have taken extensive notes from tonight's conversation, which I will incorporate into my forthcoming review of the book.
For now, suffice it to say that Suleyman holds a mostly optimistic view of AI developments, quite a contrast with the many doomsday accounts. His company's version of ChatGPT is named Pi, for personal intelligence, which is envisaged as an empowerment tool for its owner. Interestingly, Pi is intentionally designed to avoid certain subjects, so if you try to flirt with it, you would get a polite answer such as "I'm just an AI, ..." Pi's design is focused on emotional intelligence, so that it can serve as a kind and supportive companion, rather than as a productivity, search, or question-answering tool.
(8) Happy World Teachers' Day: October 5 commemorates the anniversary of the adoption of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO recommendation concerning the status of teachers, which sets benchmarks regarding the rights and responsibilities of teachers, and standards for their initial preparation and further education, recruitment, employment, and teaching and learning conditions.
2023/10/04 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Another 2023 Nobel Prize (see the next item below). [Center] Math puzzle: An ant moves on the grid lines from A to C via a randomly-chosen shortest path. Find the probability that it will pass through B (Credit: @Math_World_). [Right] Our 99-year-old ex-president (see the last item below).
(2) The 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Awarded jointly to Moungi Bawendi, Louis E Brus, and Alexey Ekimov "for the discovery of quantum dot technology, which revolutionized industries from consumer electronics to healthcare." Back-story: In a highly unusual incident, the honorees' names were inadvertently leaked and published by news media a few hours before the official announcement.
(3) Soccer World Cup's Centenary: The 2030 tournament will be held on three continents (Spain, Portugal, Morocco, & 3 South American countries). Centennial festivities are planned for Uruguay's Centenario Stadium, which hosted the inaugural 1930 World Cup final. There is talk of Saudi Arabia hosting the 2034 tournament.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Kevin McCarthy fails to get enough support to remain Speaker of the House: He says he won't run again.
- The newest member of the US Senate Laphonza Butler is sworn in to replace California's Diane Feinstein.
- The high-tech Las Vegas Sphere, featuring a 160,000-square-foot LED screen, opened with a U2 concert.
- Malcolm Gladwell talks with Neil deGrasse Tyson about the extreme safety of self-driving cars.
- Math puzzle: What is the value of sqrt(i) + sqrt(–i)?
- A gentle math puzzle: Find x, given that x/21 + x/77 + x/165 + x/285 + x/437 + x/621 = 100.
- Facebook memory from Oct. 4, 2018: Creating exquisite metallic carpets in Isfahan, Iran.
(5) Iran's murderous Islamic regime: A year after #MahsaAmini's death while in custody for improper hijab, 16-year-old #ArmitaGaravand has gone into a coma after a confrontation with the morality police. And these are just two of hundreds of murderous acts by Iran's security forces & terrorist Revolutionary Guards.
(6) A model life for an ex-president (unlike you-know-who): Jimmy Carter has turned 99. He reportedly has two longstanding wishes that he would like to see fulfilled before he dies.
First, he likes to see the eradication of a horrible infectious disease caused by Guinea-worm larvae in unsafe drinking water. This may actually happen, given that there are today only six known cases of the disease worldwide, thanks mostly to Carter's relentless, decades-long efforts in fighting it.
Second, he likes to see peace in the Middle East, a feat that is still unrealized, despite Carter winning a Nobel Peace Prize for it. Efforts by Saudi Arabia and Israel are moving the process along, but this is a tough nut to crack. Whether the two countries can overcome opposition from Iran and others remains to be seen.
I for one cheer wholeheartedly for President Carter's well-being and for his staying alive until the realization of at least one of these two wishes.
2023/10/03 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & right] The first two Nobel Prizes for 2023 (see the next three items below). [Top center] Women sound off on being forced into unsafe/illegal abortions (see the last item below).
(2) The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: Awarded jointly to Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman "for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19."
(3) The unlikely and revealing back-story of Katalin Kariko's 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: In 1995, UPenn demoted Kariko because she could not get the financial support needed to continue her research, effectively forcing her into retirement. The university is still celebrating her win, with no mention of the demotion or her rocky history with the university.
(4) The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics: Awarded jointly to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L'Huillier "for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter."
(5) Today is IEEE Day: Designated to celebrate the first time in history when engineers worldwide gathered to share technical ideas in 1884, IEEE Day features activities by IEEE's many geographic & technical entities.
(6) Why are the Democrats smiling? Because they averted a government shutdown! We have sunk so low that we declare victory while all of our major problems are still intact: poverty, racism, sexism, healthcare, immigration, gun violence, educational decline, infrastructure rot, ...
(7) Politics cancels soccer match in Iran: A Saudi Arabian team in Isfahan for a soccer match leaves in protest after objecting to a Qasem Soleimani bust near the playing field, which the authorities failed to remove.
(8) An impressive mathematical animation: This spiral rotates by a tiny angle on every frame. Even though it seems that the circles change size and color, they are actually unchanging.
(9) Quoted in New York Times: "I'm 79, and women my age remember when abortion was illegal. Many of us either had a back-alley abortion, or had friends who had one. We are determined that neither our daughters nor our granddaughters have to experience this. Many of the elderly men I know still vote for Republicans. But watch out: We outlive you!" ~ Mary Leonhardt
2023/10/01 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Millions of years, captured in one frame. [Top center] Ten Baha'i women were publicly executed by Iran's mullahs in June 1983: The group included a 17-year-old girl and a pregnant woman. [Top right] Iranian school bus from the early 1960s. [Bottom left] Banned-Books Week (October 1-7): This year's theme is "Let Freedom Read." Banning books closes off readers to people, places, and perspectives. Standing up for stories unleashes the power that lies inside every book. [Bottom center] Math puzzle: Determine the length of the line-segment PQ (credit: @dmgr_2318). [Bottom right] Gerard J. Milburn's The Feynman Processor (see the last item below).
(2) The new phone-call etiquette: Increasingly, people text first to set up a mutually agreeable talk time. Leaving voice messages and playing phone-tag is falling out of favor.
(3) The US House passes a bill to keep the government open for 45 days: The GOP argues that the temporary fix will give the House and the Senate time to agree on a permanent measure. The question is: If you can solve the problem in 45 days, why didn't you start 45 days ago? You knew about this deadline months ago!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Former US President Jimmy Carter celebrates his 99th birthday today.
- The good girl who fell into the Trump trap: Cassidy Hutchinson's just-published memoir tells us how/why.
- The state of computing in 1962, when computers could do 1000 calculations per second. [10-minute video]
- Africa is splitting into two continents: A long, deep rift in Earth's crust may someday connect to an ocean.
(5) Book review: Milburn, Gerard J., The Feynman Processor: Quantum Entanglement and the Computing Revolution, Perseum Books, 1998.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book combines a description of quantum physics with an introduction to computer science., in the following 6 chapters, followed by a 3-page epilogue:
- The Quantum Principle (pp. 1-37)
- Quantum Entanglement (pp. 38-71)
- Teleportation for Gamblers (pp. 72-91)
- Reality, by Nintendo (pp. 92-118)
- Quantum Software (pp. 119-170)
- The Dream Machine (pp. 171-191)
Physicist Richard Feynman postulated in 1982 that to simulate quantum systems, you may be forced to build quantum computers. From the early-1980s germ of an idea (attributed to Paul Benioff, Yuri Manin, Richard Feynman, and David Deutsch), interest in quantum computing picked up, reaching a fever pitch in the 1990s with the development of quantum algorithms and quantum computational complexity results. Seminars, workshops, and experimental demos of quantum devices & algorithms proliferated in the late-1990s. When I chanced upon this 1998 book, I decided it may be a fun read about the excitement, as quantum computing emerged from the shadows and became a subject for dinner-table conversations and media reporting.
The book falls short in its twin goals of providing a layman's introduction to the main ideas of quantum physics and their computing implications. My recommendations for gaining an understanding of quantum computing are as follows:
- Bernhardt, Chris, Quantum Computing for Everyone, 216 pp., MIT Press, 2020.
- LaPierre, Ray, Introduction to Quantum Computing, 382 pp., Springer, 2021.
We have not only discovered more about quantum computing over the past 2+ decades, we have also learned how to better explain the ideas to non-specialists.
2023/09/30 (Saturday): Today, I offer three books reviews covering business, science/tech, and art.
(1) Book review: Leonardi, Paul & Tsedal Neeley, The Digital Mindset: What It Really Takes to Thrive in the Age of Data, Algorithms, and AI, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by Emmanuel Chumaceiro, Ascent Audio, 2022. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
[After reading this book in hard-copy form, I refreshed my memory by listening to its unabridged 7-hour audio version (read by Emmanuel Chumaceiro, Ascent Audio, 2022).]
A few days before writing this review, I watched a TED-style talk under the title "The Road Turned, Iran Kept Going Straight," by three popular Iranian professors, who were recently fired from their tenured positions by the country's dictatorial regime. The speakers pointed out that a few centuries ago, Iran was economically bustling and an important hub on the Silk Road. Then, overland trade routes were replaced by more-efficient and cheaper sea lanes, which led to Iran being left behind and becoming isolated when it did not adapt. In today's world, countries and businesses that do not adapt to digital technologies face similar fates.
UCSB Technology Management Program's Paul Leonardi and Harvard Business School's Tsedal Neeley set out to help businesses deal with the pressures and challenges of going digital. According to the authors, a digital mindset consists of a set of approaches in three key areas: collaboration, computation, and change. Working with others and effective collaboration are already familiar to most people. But collaboration in the digital era is quite different, because it requires working with other people and with machines. Making machines do what you want and trusting their predictions or recommendations are parts of the challenge.
Appreciating data and recognizing them as social constructs is another key factor. The digital world is constantly changing, so instituting an approach to change is essential. Development of skills in employees to embrace new technologies and to become capable of thriving in a changing environment is another fundamental requirement.
We are in a transition period. Younger workers have grown up with digital technologies, so they are "digital natives," while older workers can be viewed as "digital immigrants" with limited skills in their adopted digital environment. The authors assert that to be a competent citizen of the digital world requires only a 30% fluency in a limited number of areas. This is akin to what happens in learning a foreign language, where mastery might require the knowledge of about 12,000 words, whereas knowledge of 30% of these words, or about 4000 words, provides a person with the ability to work with others. The authors identify the 30% skill & knowledge sets that would make businesses digitally literate, as they proceed to higher levels of proficiency.
(2) Book review: McKay, Sinclair, The Hidden History of Code-Breaking: The Secret World of Cyphers, Uncrackable Codes, and Elusive Encryptions, Pegasus, 400 pp., 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book chronicles the never-ending arms race between code-makers and code-breakers. I don't understand "The Hidden History" part of the title though, because, to me, this is a rather conventional historical account. Apparently, the hidden-history moniker sells, because Thom Hatmann has an entire series of book with titles such as The Hidden History of Neoliberalism and The Hidden History of American Healthcare (the latter one I have read and reviewed on GoodReads).
McKay provides technical details and interesting tidbits about many of the codes he discusses. We learn about Samuel Morse coming up with the idea of dots-and-dashes, in what later became known as Morse Code, while on board a trans-Atlantic ship. Other stories included are Alan Turing's cracking of the German Enigma Code, which contributed to the defeat of the Nazis in World War II, and the long and hard road of the Human Genome Project, a major step in solving the mystery of what makes us human.
The subject of code-making interacts with many other disciplines (including linguistics, math, history, archaeology, literature, biology, and politics), borrowing ideas and constructs from them and influencing them in return. There are also social dimensions to code-making and code-breaking. Secret lovers have contributed many methods to the field because of their desire to encode messages in order to arrange romantic meetings.
Throughout the book, there are puzzles of various levels of difficulty for readers to solve. Some of these puzzles are unclear and do not contain sufficient details for typical readers to tackle them. Use of more photos and diagrams (of devices and their principles of operation) would have been helpful. Despite these shortcomings, the book is still a valuable addition to historical accounts on the topics of code-making and code-breaking.
(3) Book review: Zhuleh (or Jouleh), Turaj, A Simple Visual Guide—Persian Carpet: Classified Study of Designs, Origins, History, Styles and Schools, In Persian & English, Translator Roozbeh Zhuleh, Yassavoli Publishers, 2023. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I learned of this book when I attended an August 17, 2023, Zoom webinar by the author under the title "The Pathology of Iranian Carpets Over Time," in which he drew on decades of work on Persian carpets to provide a diagnosis of what ails the carpet-weaving arts and industry in Iran. Briefly, carpet-weaving peaked during the Safavid era (1501-1736 CE) alongside several other art forms, later falling by the wayside, primarily due to the use of low-quality material and labor-saving shortcuts in production.
The book begins with four introductory chapters on weaving in Iran, characterization of Persian carpets, origins of Persian carpets, and styles & schools of carpet-weaving, and ends with a discussion of carpetology around the world. Each of the book's remaining 16 chapters, averaging ~4 pages in length, is devoted to a particular style or region of carpet-weaving. The narrative for each chapter is offered in both Persian & English and is accompanied by photos of the discussed styles.
2023/09/29 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Global warming's toll on the body: According to Science magazine's special section on "Heat and Health" (issue of Sep. 29, 2023), a warmer climate is unhealthy, both due to its direct impact on the human body and because of its effects on vector-borne and other diseases. [Center] Status and solidarity of women in Afghanistan and Iran (see the next item below). [Right] Barbara W. Tuchman's The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam (see the last item below).
(2) Gender apartheid in Afghanistan and Iran: Georgetown University panels have chimed in on the situation of women in the Middle East.
On Afghanistan, they suggest that "eradicating the deeply rooted and institutionalized discrimination faced by Afghan women necessitates a resolute and unified stance from the global community."
On Iran, they note that "the Iranian regime has proposed a new law that could put women in prison for up to 10 years for not wearing the mandatory hijab," adding that the strict dress code constitutes gender apartheid.
(3) Make sure to thank an earthworm for bread: Earthworms help make soil more fertile by burrowing, which renders it more porous, and by digesting dead plant matter. Their impact on improving wheat harvest is roughly equivalent to one slice in every loaf of bread. [Source: Science magazine, issue of Sep. 29, 2023]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Dianne Feinstein [1933-2023]: First female mayor of San Francisco & 6-term California Senator dead at 90.
- US Secretary of State Tony Blinken conducts musical diplomacy. [1-minute video]
- An Iranian couple dressed in Qashqa'i attire walk on a street in northern Tehran. [1-minute video]
- Silvergreens, a defunct salad joint in my area, is back (sort of): It delivers salads & wraps to businesses.
- Facebook memory from Sep. 29, 2017: When two cats ate my daughter's loan copy of a book!
- Facebook memory from Sep. 29, 2011: Work vs. play.
- Facebook memory from Sep. 29, 2010: Fast food in ad photos vs. in reality.
(5) Book review: Tuchman, Barbara W., The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, unabridged 18-hour audiobook, read by Wanda McCaddon, Blackstone Audio, 2009.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The author discusses the four most-important follies of world governments, as follows:
- Troy's falling for the horse offered by the Greek and taking it into their city, thus losing the war.
- Popes' failure to reverse the church's decline, leading to Protestant reforms of the 16th century.
- England's policies during the reign of King George III, in connection with the United States.
- United States' misguided policies during the Vietnam War, prolonging the conflict and losing it.
The latter part takes up about 40% of the book, with the other three covered in lesser depth.
The book covers important topics, that is, the narrowmindedness and selfishness of those in power, but it is written in a way that does not arouse the reader's interest. A dry subject matter along with dry writing and dry narration make for a less-than-pleasurable reading/listening experience.
A Persian translation of this book exists under the title "Tarikh-e Bi-Kheradi" ("History of Idiocy," translated by Hassan Kamshad).
2023/09/28 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday: HP-35 was one the first pocket scientific calculators. It was certainly the first affordable one at ~$50. I bought one in 1972, when I was a grad student at UCLA and had much fun with it. [Top center] Throwback Thursday: These gadgets of mine, now headed to e-waste dump, were once among the coolest digital devices. The Canon Powershot SD1000 camera was the first camera I could put in my shirt pocket so that I could take it out quickly to capture various events. The Flip Mino camcorder, with 1 hour of video storage, was even thinner than my digital camera and most people would watch in disbelief as I told them that I was video-recording. [Top right] Persian calligraphy: Rendering of the Iranian people's revolutionary slogan #WomanLifeFreedom. [Bottom left] Math puzzle: Compute the area of the quadrangle ABCD. [Bottom center & right] Socrates Think Tank talk (see the last item below).
(2) In many countries, the military wants to oust civilian leaders to establish a dictatorship: In the US, some civilian leaders advocate ousting or even killing military generals who oppose their dictatorial schemes!
(3) Last night's Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Saied Tousi, CEO of USVOLT and board member of several biotech & industrial companies, spoke under the title "New Economic World Order: 'The End of Globalization' and Cold War II." There were ~130 attendees.
Dr. Tousi began by recapping his previous talk, allowing the audience to ask questions if any point needed clarification. He then embarked on a detailed discussion of two worldwide trends.
The first trend is the collapse of global fertility rate, with the exception of most countries in Africa. Italy, Japan, and China are among the countries that are affected most severely. In Japan alone, there are 10 million unoccupied dwellings that city governments are anxious to give away. Russia also has serious problems in demographics, owing to a reduction of the number of young people (lower birth rate, plus casualties of war), which is particularly detrimental to its military power.
The second trend pertains to large-scale changes in energy resources and markets (see the image). North America has become pretty much independent of Middle Eastern oil, which now goes almost exclusively to India, China, and Japan. Concurrent with changes in energy markets, the global supply chain is also undergoing a transformation. For example, Mexico is attracting a good chunk of the business that previously went to China.
There was also some discussion of the drumbeat about the US dollar being ousted from its position as the default currency for international trade. These stories are propagated primarily by Russia, China, and Iran. Despite these claims, the US dollar continues it rise, while other currencies, including euro, are declining. During the Q&A period, I mentioned that Bitcoin and gold dealers also contribute to propagating these falsehoods in order to boost their sales.
I also introduced during the Q&A period Tim Marshall's book Prisoners of Geography (my review), which confirms many of the points made by the speaker about the self-sufficiency and relative safety of the US (North America, more generally), compared with other countries/regions.
2023/09/27 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Interactive Learning Pavilion (a UCSB classroom building) & some its outdoor seating to study or take a break: I will be teaching my fall 2023 graduate course ECE 257A on fault-tolerant computing in this nicely-equipped new building, which hosted an open house yesterday (2-minute video). [Top center] Monday night atop UCSB's West Campus bluffs, looking westward & eastward (1-minute video). [Top right] Sidewalks are important: Don't treat them as if they are necessary evils (see the next item below). [Bottom left] Math puzzle: What is the ratio of the blue area to the yellow area within the outer square? [Bottom center & right] UCSB Library's reception for the start of the new academic year: Chancellor Henry Yang, EVC David Marshall, Librarian Kristin Antelman, and about 40 faculty members were in attendance. The UCSB Reads 2024 book selection, Your Brain on Art (my review), was announced during the festivities.
(2) Sidewalks as afterthoughts: Having walked in many neighborhoods of different cities, I've wanted to write about this issue for a long time. It seems that in developing city neighborhoods, planners first allocate space to roads and to parking lots serving road-side businesses. Then, whatever space is left over is used for sidewalks. Nowhere is this problem more visible than in a section of State Street near Santa Barbara's Las Positas Road. To make the city pedestrian-friendly, there is no need to close the streets to traffic, as done recently in the downtown area. Let's begin with providing decent sidewalks of reasonable width and with smooth surfaces.
(3) At least 125 people were killed and hundreds wounded in a fuel depot explosion in Nagorno-Karabakh amid an exodus of ethnic Armenians from the region. Turkey is supportive of Azerbaijan's military offensive.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Fireworks cause a deadly fire, killing at least 100 at a wedding hall in Iraq.
- Google turns 25: The optimism about a benevolent company has turned into worries about too much power.
- Iranian agents and regime apologists are in positions of power in the US government.
- Mind your surroundings: This Chicago woman puts up a fight, but she has no chance against two burly men.
- Math puzzle: What is the rightmost digit of the number 2019^2018^ ... ^3^2^1?
- Vera Rubin [1928-2016]: The hidden figure who proved the existence of dark matter in the universe.
- Goleta Lemon Festival celebrates 30 years: Saturday-Sunday, September 30 & October 1, 2023; Girsh Park.
(5) American might on full display: Iran releases several American hostages in exchange for getting some of its own money back, but pretends that the releases were motivated by humanitarian concerns and the US "coming to its knees." North Korea releases an American soldier who had entered the country illegally, saying that the American was expelled, as if being returned from North Korea to the US constitutes a punishment!
(6) I become upset when people say they are dissatisfied with both major parties: Equating the Democrats' faults with the atrocious behavior of the Republicans is a disservice to our country and to democracy.
(7) Inequity in grocery pricing: You have probably noticed that upscale supermarkets in affluent neighborhoods have much higher prices. According to a PBS Newshour story, low-scale markets in poor neighborhoods also have higher prices, while also offering fewer deals to their customers.
2023/09/25 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Iran's architecture: The historic Qavam mansion in Shiraz. [Center] Physics joke: Inside the box, Schrodinger's cat plans its revenge. [Right] Knot theory (see the next item below).
(2) Knot theory is a branch of topology concerned with the study of mathematical knots: While inspired by knots which appear in daily life, such as those in shoelaces and rope, a mathematical knot differs in that the rope ends are joined so that it cannot be undone. A mathematical theory of knots was first developed in 1771 by Alexandre-Theophile Vandermonde. Alan Turing knew that telling whether two knots are equivalent (one can be turned into the other, without cutting the rope) is extremely difficult. [8-minute video]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The 4.5-billion-year-old rock that has been brought back to Earth. [6-minute video]
- Scientists use 5 million hours of supercomputer time to create a 3D model of exotic supernovae.
- Manhattan Project II: Los Alamos will be the site of a new major effort to modernize the US nuclear arsenal.
- No need to wait for quantum hardware: Companies run quantum equations and quantum software on GPUs.
- Rachel Maddow's incredibly detailed report about Kazakh corruption, money laundering, and Donald Trump.
- Hyper-inflation in Zimbabwe: They've introduced a paper-currency worth 50 trillion Zimbabwe dollars.
(4) Documentary film about Wendy McCaw: She bought Santa Barbara News Press, one of the oldest newspapers in California, in 2000 for $110 million and ran it into bankruptcy in 2023. When it became clear in the late 2000s that McCaw had fired or caused the resignation of the best journalists on her staff, Santa Barbara residents began cancelling their subscriptions to the paper. This 2008 film is an excellent reminder of the importance of journalism ethics and responsibilities of journalists to the community. [79-minute film]
(5) Formulation of money-laundering detection as a graph problem: The challenge is to find large sums of money divided into smaller transactions between numerous bank accounts, a technique known as "smurfing."
(6) Machine unlearning: We are bombarded daily with reports on advances in, and new applications of, machine learning (ML). Owing to considerations such as privacy, usability, and the right to be forgotten, the need may arise to remove information about some specific samples from an ML model. This is called "machine unlearning." The most-common unlearning schemes fall under the two main categories of data reorganization and model manipulation. [Source: Article by H. Xu et al. in ACM Computing Surveys, January 2024]
(7) Is the Internet making us criminals? In a survey of 8000 teens, aged 16-19, across 9 European countries, nearly half admitted engaging in cybercriminal behavior in the previous 12 months. [Source: David Geer, in Communications of the ACM, October 2023]
2023/09/24 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Math puzzle: Find the area of the blue rectangle. [Top center] Math puzzle: Given the angles in this figure, prove that a^2 + c^2 = 2b^2. [Top right] Math puzzle: We have two squares and an equilateral triangle. Find the ratio of the areas of the two squares. [Bottom left] Iran's architecture: Diamond Hall at Golestan Palace Museum, Tehran. [Bottom center] See if you can read the hidden message in this photo. Painters have used this method of creating hidden messages for centuries. With the use of AI, the task is now easier than ever. [Bottom right] Andy Clark's The Experience Machine (see the last item below).
(2) Two University of Tehran professors have been suspended because they held a thesis defense exam for Leila Hosseinzadeh, a political prisoner and student activist who has been expelled from the university.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Tobacco companies are doing to processed foods what they did to cigarettes: Making them more addictive.
- US Companies' insistence that employees return to the office has resulted in a wave of resignations.
- Which is the best public college in the US? Can't tell you, for there is a tie between UCLA & UC Berkeley!
- America's political system has been hijacked but we can get it back through local action. Get involved!
- At dementia cafes, catering to Japan's aging population, forgotten or mistaken orders are tolerated.
- Scenes from the 1979 movie "Tehran Incident," featuring Peter Graves and Pouri Baneai. [3-minute video]
- Persian poetry: Praising the solidarity among various regions & ethnicities in Iran. [2-minute video]
(4) Book review: Clark, Andy, The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality, unabridged 9-hour audiobook, read by the author, Random House Audio, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Our model of the world around us is not shaped based on a one-way transmission of information from sense organs to the brain. There are more neurons going from the brain to sense organs than the other way around. We don't use sensory information to build a model but rather to adjust/correct a pre-conceived model. This is why two people can look at the same scene and reach different conclusions, which forms the basis of lack of complete trust in eyewitness accounts. Our preconceived model of the world prevails if there is inadequate sensory information to change/correct it. Relying on the preconceived model alone, when there is no sensory data or not enough to change it, is hallucination.
Here is a visual demo of how our expectation shapes our perception. If you scan this diagram from left to right, you tend to recognize the middle shape as the letter "B"; scan it from top to bottom and you will likely see it as the number "13." Here is an audio demonstration of the importance of a previous model in our comprehension. Listen to each sine-wave speech (SWS), once before the original speech and once after. You will note that the second time, you can make sense of the words spoken.
Our brains are running a continuous simulation of the world around us. Sensory info is used to update the model, not build it from scratch. The eyes need only send to the brain the visual details that differ from what is expected or predicted. This leads to informational and energy efficiency.
A fascinating book all around!
2023/09/23 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] "Frida," by UK artist Jane Perkins who creates collage/mosaic artwork from found and upcycled material. [Center] Chuck Wendig's Gentle Writing Advice (see the last item below). [Right] Golestan Palace Museum, Tehran, Iran: Sample of the mosaics.
(2) Tonight, I watched the classic-rivalry soccer match between UCSB & Cal Poly SLO: This is mid-way through UCSB's 2023 season, with a record of 4-4-0. UCSB led 1-0 at halftime on a beautiful goal that involved 3 passes inside the box. In the second half, UCSB scored with a header on a corner kick to prevail 2-0. [Images]
(3) A capsule containing fragments of the Bennu asteroid, which has a 1 in 2700 chance of hitting Earth in 2182, will parachute onto a Utah bombing range on Sunday. The fragments may hold clues on life's origins.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez charged with taking signifcant bribes in cash and gold bars.
- Math puzzle: P, I, and E are three different non-zero digits. Find the value of PIE if sqrt(PI) + E = sqrt(PIE).
- Math puzzle: What is the 0th root of 4?
- Facebook memory from Sep. 23, 2020: Many who pretend to be Christians, know little about the bible.
- Facebook memory from Sep. 23, 2018: Playing on the word "eshgh" ("love") in Persian calligraphy.
- Facebook memory from Sep. 23, 2014: Replica of Babbage's Difference Engine (Computer History Museum).
(5) Book review: Wendig, Chuck, Gentle Writing Advice: How to Be a Writer Without Destroying Yourself, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by Adam Verner, Penguin Audio, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book, which targets both novice writers and those who have made it, can be summarized as follows: There is no one-size-fits-all process for writing. I can tell you how I do it, but that may not work for you; or even for me, on the next project. Write every day? Fine if you can do it, but it's not necessary. Write a certain number of words per day or per week? Ditto! Start with an outline? Do it if it feels natural to you.
Despite a lack of concrete advice, the humorous prose makes the book an enjoyable read/listen. There are a lot of advice lists in this domain: Top-10 essentials, 15 tips, 20 things to do, 12 things to avoid, '500 Ways to Be a Better Writer' (Wendig's own earlier book), and so on.
As a writer, you spend a lot of time writing and rewriting, but you also need to spend much time reading. It is important to relax and proceed at your own pace. Writing can be hard on a person, in terms of sheer effort and fear of failure. Taking good care of yourself and treating yourself gently are important ingredients of a successful writing career.
Advice pieces such as "avoid adverbs" are nonsense. Do not avoid anything if it adds depth or clarity. Just make sure you do not overuse adverbs, or anything else, for that matter.
I end my review with a few interesting quotes from the book:
- [W]riting is a squiggly, fiddly, wiggly thing. It's not IKEA furniture.
- If you catch yourself staring at a blank page, remember that you're not alone. It happens to all writers.
- You don't have to finish everything you start, but make sure that you finish some work.
2023/09/21 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Mullahs love rap music, but not all rappers: Amir Tataloo is allowed to leave Iran to give a concert in Germany. Meanwhile the popular rapper Toomaj Salehi has been in prison for nearly a year and reportedly may face the death penalty. [Top center] A picture is worth 1000 words: Iranian boy looking for food in a dumpster, finds a book instead. [Top right] Evidence unearthed that Stone-Age humans built wooden structures: According to a paper published in the journal Nature, wooden logs, bearing signs of intentional modification and believed to be nearly 0.5 million years old, have been found in the banks of a river in Zambia. [Bottom left & center] Another example of Iran's brain-drain: Tara Javidi, who achieved first rank among hundreds of thousands of participants in Iran's 1993 nationwide university entrance exams, is now a distinguished engineering professor at UCSD (image credit: Dr. Pamela Karimi). [Bottom right] Talangor Group talk by Dr. Nader Noori on remembering and forgetting in the human brain (see the next item below).
(2) Luiz Andre Barroso [1964-2023]: Google's inventor of the modern data center, and winner of ACM-IEEE's 2020 Eckert-Mauchly Award, dead at 59. His paper in IEEE Micro, entitled "A Brief History of Warehouse-Scale Computing," is a good overview of modern data centers and their origins. Cause of death is under investigation.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Iran spins the prisoner swap with the US for internal consumption: "The US was brought to its knees".
- Sloan Foundation funds research on the development of IEEE Standard 754 on floating-point arithmetic.
- The 12 biggest myths, perpetuated by the rich, about why taxing the rich will cause more harm than good.
- Love and hope are renewable resources: Use them generously!
- "Oppenheimer," the movie, was factually accurate, say physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson & author Kai Bird.
- Santa Barbara's Paseo Nuevo mall to be demolished and replaced with rental units, offices, & retail space.
(4) Giving a little girl a platform vs. brainwashing her: One seven-year-old girl is writing a novel and hopes to become rich; The other one prays that her father, her brother, and herself are martyred. [1-minute video]
(5) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Nader Noori (VP, Stealth Neurotech) offered the second part of his presentation of last week entitled "From Pavlov's Dog to Marcel Proust: Various Forms of Memory and Their Workings" [my Facebook post of last week]. This week's title was "In Search of Memories: From Marcel Proust to ChatGPT." There were ~85 attendees.
Tonight's topics included forgetting (useful & harmful varieties), the role of cues in memory recall, impact of sleep on memory reinforcement, dreams & nightmares, language learning, musical memory, and deja vu.
2023/09/20 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk (see the next to the last item below). [Center] Farhang Foundation announces its top six Iranian short films: The in-person awards ceremony is scheduled for October 1, 2023. [Right] Socrates Think Tank talk on Persian poetry (see the last item below).
(2) Jury research: Trump attorneys are contacting potential jurors in the District of Columbia and asking them to fill out a questionnaire. This kind of "jury research" is apparently a thing for rich defendants. During this process, the defense team may come across sympathetic potential jurors, whom they will try to seat if presented as part of the jury pool. All they need is one such juror to mess up a unanimous guilty verdict. No such luxury is available to poor defendants, even if they are assigned a competent public defender. Talk about a two-tiered justice system!
(3) AI lifeguard: Cameras scan the water to detect anyone in trouble and a life-vest or raft is flown over by a drone. AI can be more-effective than a human lifeguard at both parts of this rescue operation.
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(4) Regenerative architecture: Brazilian architectural firm Estudio Guto Requena built a concept store for the Nescafe coffee brand in Sao Paulo using 3D printing with biodegradable materials and recycled plastic.
(5) Numerous Web sites are cashing in by selling Ozempic's main ingredient, semaglutide, on the cheap as a weight-loss drug: FDA has warned against advertising the off-brand use as FDA-approved.
(6) Tonight's Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Ryan Homafar spoke on "Aesthetics of Violence in Contemporary Persian Poetry" (in Persian; ~130 attendees). I will present just a very brief report on this talk, given that, due to overlap with another meeting I had committed to attending, I joined Dr. Homafar's talk 30 minutes late.
The kind of violence discussed in this talk is primarily of the magnanimous kind seen in idealistic and mystic poetry, with variations that include self-flagellation, torture by the beloved's love, sacrificing the body for spiritual gain, and cruel seduction. At the end of the talk, a few references were made to poetry of armed conflict, particularly works inspired by the Iran-Iraq war and sacrifices made by devoted Iranian fighters at the front. Throughout the talk, Dr. Homafar recited poems by classical and modern Persian poets in support of the points he wanted to make. A very enjoyable talk indeed!
It was announced by the program's host that Dr. Homafar will conduct a class on Persian poetry under the auspices of Socrates Think Tank and Talangor Group.
(8) Tonight's IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk: Dr. Brad Paden (Chief Scientist & Co-Founder of LaunchPoint Electric Propulsion Solutions; UCSB Emeritus Professor of Mechanical Engineering) spoke under the title "Adventures in Mechatronics." There were 32 attendees.
The talk's focus was on the creativity and challenges associated with the invention and design of mechatronic devices. Example systems included a maglev transportation system, a guided-catheter system, an oxygen concentrator, maglev artificial hearts, high-speed switching mechanisms including an electronic engine valve, high-power-density motors, and an energy storage system, along with blue-sky ideas such as electromagnetic launch. While modeling, control and optimization are essential ingredients in mechatronic systems, the large design and application spaces of mechatronic systems compel us to place a high value on innovation at the level of system architectures. This point was illustrated throughout the talk.
2023/09/18 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Celebration of my latest academic promotion with the family, at my sister's. [Center] Math puzzles: Find the limit of the top expression as n tends to infinity and evaluate x in (0, pi/2) from the botton equation. [Right] Tara Kangarlou's The Heartbeat of Iran (see the last item below).
(2) Irony of ironies: Sanctioned Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, complicit in mass murders of political prisoners as a member of a death panel, arrives in New York on a plane belonging to a sanctioned Iranian airliner and will be protected by the US Secret Service while in the US.
(3) Iran's totalitarian regime uses a shiny object to distract: Concurrent with the anniversary of #MahsaAmini's murder by the morality police and the release of US hostages in return for freeing $6 billion in frozen assets, Cristiano Ronaldo visits Iran at the invitation of the mullah's regime. Apparently, Iranians are easily distracted!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Canadian PM Justin Trudeau accuses the government of India of killing a Sikh leader on Canadian soil.
- Let me show you what self-confidence looks like! [Video clip]
- Facebook memory from Sep. 18, 2020: My poetic tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg [1933-2020]
- Facebook memory from Sep. 18, 2016: Vietnam rice fields as nature's painting.
(5) Book review: Kangarlou, Tara, The Heartbeat of Iran: Real Voices of a Country and Its People, Ig Publishing, 2021.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The story of Iran tends to be told as the interaction between the oppressors and the oppressed, but ordinary Iranians lead lives that are predominantly occupied by family ties, love, career concerns, music, food, and many other human needs. Yes, oppression is a big part of the picture, but it isn't everything.
Iranian-American journalist Tara Kangarlou set out to portray ordinary Iranians, not those who govern them. Using stories from 24 individuals, chosen to represent Iran's diverse population in terms of ethnicity, religion, profession, gender identity, and more, Kangarlou succeeds in depicting Iranians as having the same hopes and aspirations as people in other countries and thus sharing a lot in common with those labeled as "enemies" by the ruling mullahs.
Of course, a country of 83 million cannot be profiled in only 24 lives, but even this limited profile presents a refreshingly different image of Iran than we see in books focusing primarily on the ruling class, religious fanatics, or the theocratic system. In the rest of this review, I discuss my impressions of four of the 24 chapters, two of them in some detail and two others rather briefly.
Chapter 5, Rabbi Harav Yehuda Gerami: The young leader of the Abrishami Synagogue appears cautious in his remarks. After all, unlike a few others on the list, his full name and position are spelled out in the book. He aspires "to keep alive a centuries-old religious tradition that allows Iranian Jews to practice their faith to its fullest within the borders of their homeland." It is because of statements such as the above that the author may have felt compelled to include a disclaimer at the end of the chapter, characterizing the young rabbi's musings as a story about one person and his family, adding that persecuting individuals based on their faith is an evil act that should always be condemned. Rabbi Gerami takes pride in being the only academically trained rabbi in Iran. His beliefs and aims are more contemporary than typical Jewish leaders who are hakhams (Torah scholars). He relates that he never felt any prejudice against his Jewish community or when he was a public-school student. He dismisses incidents of harassment to naughty children and kids-just-being-kids. He maintains that Iranian Jews are allowed to take the religious pilgrimage to Israel, apparently closing his eyes to the fact that numerous Jews have been tried as Israeli spies, simply because they had traveled to Israel. He cites the presence of 25,000 Jews in Iran as "a sign that Jewish people can live freely in the country," ignoring the damning number of 55,000 Jews estimated to have left Iran in the Revolution's wake.
Chapter 8, Mina: Being identified only by her first name is a sign that this woman's story is likely damaging to the Islamic Republic. At age 12, Mina was forced to marry a 30-year-old man, an event she considers tantamount to being killed. Mina wasn't allowed to go to school, even before she got married. At 14 and 18, she gave birth to two sons, and at 19, she lost her husband in a car accident. Getting remarried would have likely meant giving up her two sons, so, she decided to endure hardships to raise her sons and allow them to get educated. She eventually found a job at an army hospital, spending part of the Iran-Iraq War years working in hospitals near the front. Even with a permanent job, survival wasn't easy, because she paid up to 80% of her income for rent. Her two sons never went to college, as she had hoped, but she is happy that they are healthy and hold good jobs. For every Mina, who, through sheer determination and some luck, makes it through life as a child bride, there are numerous others who lead miserable lives. Imagine a woman, who has not experienced a normal childhood, trying to raise normal, healthy kids, without any safety net. Child marriages are not banned in Iran. They are in fact encouraged and enshrined in the country's laws. In the US, child marriages are frowned upon, but due to exceptions and local customs, a quarter-million children, some as young as 12, were married during the 2000s.
Chapter 17, Amir Saneei: A soldier/teacher, from a family with several generations of teachers, is paid the equivalent of $7.00 per month. As a kid, Amir was conflicted about chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel," given his parents' lesson "To love all and not say bad things about anyone." Despite the measly compensation, Amir works with dedication, cultivating the confidence that he can help any student, regardless of the circumstances.
Chapter 24, Taraneh Aram: A transgender woman, born Amir, adopted her first and last names after sex-change surgery at 22. Amir's mother working as a nurse in a fancy private hospital allowed him to realize his plans. Somewhat surprisingly, Iran does provide support to transgender people, mainly because they are deemed sick. This advocate for the LGBTQ community is judged by both men and women as half-woman, because she can't give birth.
Inclusion of brief biographies of the 24 individuals, at the beginning of the chapters or as sidebars, would have been helpful in providing the reader with a roadmap and a sense of why a particular individual was chosen for inclusion. In the current format, one does not learn about the specifics of some individuals until several pages into the chapter.
2023/09/17 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A sculpture that will be completed in the year 3183: Currently, this work-in-progress in the German town of Wemding consists of four large concrete blocks. Titled "Time Pyramid," the sculpture, which will be 24 feet (7+ meters) tall upon completion, was started by Manfred Laber in 1993, with plans to add a new concrete block every decade. [Center] Our amazing nature: Rings in a tree stump resemble ridges in a fingerprint. [Right] US research enterprise and slave labor (see the last item below).
(2) The multi-tier justice system in the US: Yes, our justice system has many tiers, but not in the way that Donald Trump and his cronies claim (they maintain that Trump is treated more harshly than other criminal defendants). Any other defendant violating court orders on what he can and cannot do while out on bail would have been incarcerated by now. A petty criminal who passed off a fake $20 bill was essentially executed by a cop within minutes of committing his crime; no trial, no defense, no jury, nothing. The justice system keeps threatening Trump with consequences if he continues his foul talk about witnesses, jury members, prosecutors, and judges, in much the same way a parent might threaten a misbehaving child, without any intention of following through with the threats.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Russia's invasion of Ukraine has produced half a million deaths, counting losses on both sides. [CBS News]
- Iran: A dozen policemen in full riot gear surround an unarmed woman protester sitting on the ground.
- Iran wants to erect a digital wall: Researchers increasingly isolated as Internet access becomes restricted.
- Songbird species that display complex vocal learning are better problem-solvers and have larger brains.
- Math puzzle: Find all solutions to x^y = y^x, where x is not equal to y. [Example: 2^4 = 4^2]
- I hate it that we are giving positions of power to very old people, but do compare 46 & 45 in these photos.
(4) The amazing Statue of Liberty: This 10-minute video shows design and construction details. I climbed all the way to the head of the Statue in the 1970s. Now, doing so requires making a reservation weeks or even months in advance. Most visitors climb to the top of the pedestal, where there is an observation deck.
(5) Slave labor at US research universities: This is a controversial topic, so please bear with me as I introduce the problem and leave details to future posts. One of the benefits of achieving the highest academic rank is that you can discuss controversial topics and offer harsh criticisms, without fear of reprisals.
Graduate students are used and abused in the research enterprise. Saying that they learn valuable skills that make them more-attractive to the academic and industrial job markets, while partially true, is akin to saying that slaves benefited from job-training & skills acquisition. The situation might have been tolerable if students were treated in a friendly, compassionate manner by professors, but, in many cases, professors with research funding pit students against each other in disbursing the relatively small number of fully-paid research positions. Increasingly, undergrads are also being used in unpaid research roles, essentially mimicking within the university the corporate abuse of unpaid internship positions.
Slave labor isn't limited to students but extends to less-prestigious academic ranks such as adjunct faculty positions. When the hours spent on lesson preparation and grading are factored in, many adjunct faculty members are paid close to minimum wage.
2023/09/16 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: First anniversary of Mahsa Amini's brutal murder (see the next two items below).
(2) Today is the first anniversary of #MahsaAmini's death while in the custody of Iran's morality police: Her death sparked an uprising, some would say a revolution, that frightened the mullahs into killing hundreds of protesters, arresting thousands, and blocking/throttling the Internet. Amini's parents have invited Iranians to join them in celebrating the life of "Iran's Daughter." The government has established a security perimeter, using armored vehicles, around her family home and the cemetery where she is buried. Widespread protests in Iran and cities around the world are planned. #WomanLifeFreedom
(3) "Woman, Life, Freedom: A Retrospective": This was the title of today's webinar with Marjane Satrapi, author of the graphic novel Persepolis, and Abbas Milani, Director of Stanford University's Iranian Studies Program. The discussion was moderated by Sima Sabet. Satrapi talked about her new graphic history of Iran's #WomanLifeFreedom movement and the effort she led to offer free downloads of the Persian translation of the book, Femme, Vie, Liberte. Milani provided historical context for this latest movement of Iranian women that has earned the world's respect and support. [105-minute recording of the webinar]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The story of Iran's #MahsaAmini uprising, as told by its iconic images/videos. #WomanLifeFreedom
- Rana Mansour's touching rendition of the English version of Shervin Hajipour's Grammy-winning "Bara-ye."
- California sues Big Oil Companies, citing decades of deception on the subject of climate change.
- "May Iran Never Grieve": A musical performance featuring the voices of Mina Deris and Maliheh Moradi.
- Iranian scientist Paniez Peykari's 18-minute TED-style talk on the universe, its past, and its future.
- Baratunde Thurston's 17-minute TED talk: "How to Deconstruct Racism, One Headline at a Time"
- A cemetery in Los Angeles, California, where many old-time Iranian singers are buried. [5-minute video]
- Furniture used to last generations. Now it barely survives a move. What happened?
- Family gathering in Ventura, California, for the second night of Rosh Hashanah. [Photos]
- Joke of the day: (Q) Are five followers a lot? (A) On social media, no; in a dark alley, yes!
(5) Quote of the day: "Make your daughter so capable that you don't have to worry about whether or not she gets married. Instead of saving money for her wedding day, spend it on her education and, most importantly, prepare her for herself, not for marriage. Teach her self-love and confidence." ~ Anonymous
(6) Little Scandinavia: South Carolina has an area with the tiny towns of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. These names did not arise from Scandinavian settlers moving there. It all started with Denmark, which was named in the 1800s to honor Captain Isadore Denmark, an official with one of the railroad companies working there. As the railroad line was extended up towards Columbia, communities were named in order to fit with the "Scandinavian" naming theme. The towns are too tiny to appear on regular maps. Now you know!
2023/09/15 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] Happy Rosh Hashanah to all who celebrate the Jewish New-Year festival: The new Hebrew calendar year 5784 will start tomorrow and, like all Jewish holidays, is celebrated beginning with the night before. Observance of Rosh Hashanah involves eating several kinds of fruits and vegetables; apple dipped in honey represents sweetness and pomegranate signifies fruitfulness. [Right] Manhattan's new Perelman Performing Arts Center: Located next to One World Trade Center, the new NYC cultural site houses three theaters that can be rearranged in 60 different ways. Its translucent exterior glows amber in the evening, as chandeliers cast the silhouettes of theatergoers onto its surface.
(2) An interesting 63-minute interview (in Persian) with Dr. Narjess Afzaly, an outstanding computer scientist who left Iran and now lives in Australia, about her experiences in and connections with mathematics. To see many more such interviews, you can subscribe to Dr. Amir Asghari's YouTube channel.
(3) Quote of the day: "We will always have STEM with us. Some things will drop out of the public eye and go away, but there will always be science, engineering, and technology. And there will always, always be mathematics." ~ African-American mathematician Katherine Johnson
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Death toll of Libya's catastrophic flooding surpasses 11,000, with roughly the same number still missing.
- United Auto Workers starts strikes against all Big Three automakers for the first time in history.
- Say her name: #MahsaAmini, a vibrant swimming coach who wanted to become a doctor.
- NASA appoints a research director to lead a scientifically rigorous study of UFO reports.
(5) According to Republicans, Democrats are at fault for US budget deficits: But of our $30.9 trillion national debt, $7.8 trillion (one quarter) was amassed during Trump's presidency. So, the GOP wants us to feel guilty for the huge debt and agree to pay some of it back from cuts in Social Security and Medicare. Give me a break!
(6) The CIA spy Tony Mendez, the protagonist of the movie "Argo," was actually accompanied by a second spy, Ed Johnson, a linguist, whose identity had not been revealed until now.
(7) Quaternions: Numbers of the form a + ib + jc + kd, where a is the real component and b, c, d are the imaginary parts, were devised in 1843 by Irish mathematician Sir William Rowan Hamilton as extensions of complex numbers a + ib. Quaternions are often used in graphics programming as compact representations of 3D rotations and offer some advantages over matrices. The article "Quaternions in Signal and Image Processing: A Comprehensive and Objective Overview," published in the September 2023 issue of IEEE Signal Processing magazine is a good starting point for learning about quaternions and their applications.
(8) Minimal prime numbers: If in the decimal representation of a prime number we can cross out some digits to form another prime number, then we call the original number a non-minimal prime. For example, 593 is a non-minimal prime, because crossing out the digit 9 yields the prime number 53. In a minimal prime, no shortened version of the number is a prime. Jeffrey Shallit showed in 2000 that there are exactly 26 minimal primes, the largest one being 66600049. Similarly, there are only 32 minimal composite numbers, with 731 being the largest, such that crossing out any digit of the number leaves a prime number.
2023/09/14 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Walking on a gloomy/windy Wed. afternoon around Goleta's Coal Oil Point Reserve. The Devereux Slough is nearly dry, a harbinger of the fire season being upon us (1-minute video). [Top center] Throwback Thursday: View of Ku Klux Klan parade on Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, DC, 1926. [Top right] Photos from my days at Arya-Mehr/Sharif University of Technology (see the next item below). [Bottom row] Talangor Group talk by Dr. Nader Noori on memory and its workings (see the last item below).
(2) Me & math: An 89-minute interview, in Persian, on "People & Mathematics" site (run by Dr. Amir Asghari), with a focus on how my life & career have been intertwined with math. Because the interview occurred with little preparation and no rehearsals, a few inaccuracies slipped in. For example, I used the term "perfect graphs" where I meant "complete graphs." None of the errors is serious enough to affect the interview's overall authenticity.
(3) Throwback Thursday: The first photographs of Iran taken during 1848-1858 by Colonel Luigi Pesce, who was in charge of training Iran's new infantry troops up to the Italian standard. [24-minute slide show]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The 2024 US presidential race will be dominated by competing criminal trials of Donald Trump &Hunter Biden.
- Iran, the ammunitions highway during World War II (12-minute documentary film, narrated in Persian).
- Two physicists and a neuroscientist carry on an interesting discussion on free will. [10-minute video]
- Mr. Haloo recites his poem about a stolen donkey, with everyone blamed for the loss, except the thief!
(5) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Nader Noori (VP, Stealth Neurotech) spoke under the title "From Pavlov's Dog to Marcel Proust: Various Forms of Memory and Their Workings." There were ~75 attendees.
The main talk was preceded by the short presentation "Is There a Superior Language?" in which Dr. Hossein Samei talked about the age-old human tendency to compare languages with regard to usefulness, completeness, and expressive power. Linguistically, there is no basis for rank-ordering different languages, and each language must be viewed as the best communication tool within the culture where it was developed. Unfortunately, nearly all claims of linguistic superiority are driven by vanity, xenophobia, and exploitation. Since short presentations do not come with a Q&A period, I posted the following comment on the meeting chat: "But we can say that a particular language is more developed or more expressive in a particular domain of discourse, such as science."
Pavlov's dog refers to a famous experiment on dogs, where a bell is rung before providing a dog with food. The dog then learns to associate the sound of the bell with food, thus starting to salivate after the bell rings and before actual food is supplied. According to the behaviorist theory, organisms are active in producing memory phenomena, rather than doing so passively. This contrasts with the now prevalent cognitive tradition of memory research in which the use of strategies is avoided, with an alternative approach that may incorporate internal structures.
Memory has two separate mechanisms for short durations and long durations. There are people with brain damage who do well in remembering in the short term but not in the long term. Other topics discussed by Dr. Noori are affective (emotional) memory, which plays a key role in our decision-making, motor memory, declarative memory, & face-recognition memory (with its dysfunction known as Prospognobsia). Interestingly, reading and writing rely on two different memory mechanisms (sensing vs. motor).
Learning and memory are broad and widely-studied topics with tons of research results. A second session is planned for continuing the discussion, when Dr. Noori will also deal with the important subject of forgetting.
2023/09/13 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] At the urging of other activists, Iranian political prisoner Bahareh Hedayat ends her hunger strike after hospitalization. [Center] UCLA's new Dean of Engineering is Ah-Hyung "Alissa" Park. [Right] The face and name of #MahsaAmini have become symbols of Iranian women's determination to claim their rights as well as the rights of Iranian men. Say her name! Display her face!
(2) Putin defends Trump and criticizes the "rotten" American state's legal system. Sure, the best system of Justice uses poisoning, pushing out of high-rise windows, and exploding airplanes to take care of business.
(3) Quote of the day: "We will always have STEM with us. Some things will drop out of the public eye and go away, but there will always be science, engineering, and technology. And there will always, always be mathematics." ~ African-American mathematician Katherine Johnson
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Casualties of catastrophic flooding in Libya have tripled to 6000: A further doubling is quite possible.
- Mitt Romney to retire: Another Republican exits the US Congress rather than fight the hijacking of his party.
- Hats off to the resilient Iranian youth who still dance on the streets and sing about love. [2-minute video]
- Fascinating GIF art by Frederic Vayssouze-Faure. He has a lot more on Tumblr.
- Stop hate. We need love and unity. [1-minute video]
- Victor De Martrin musical animation has a marble hitting xylophone bars to create the Mario Bros theme.
(5) The road turned, but Iran didn't: Fired university professors Mohammad Fazeli (sociologist), Arash Raisi-Nejad (international relations expert), and Farhad Nili (economist) give a 26-minute joint presentation, in Persian, about how Iran went from being a center of commerce along the Silk Road to a totally isolated country. It failed to adapt to changes, when overland trade routes were replaced by the much-cheaper sea lanes of the Indian & Atlantic Oceans.
(6) Quote of the day: "Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true." ~ British philosopher Bertrand Russell
(7) On the tradition of a woman taking her husband's last name: Among women in opposite-sex marriages in the United States, four in five changed their names, according to a new survey by Pew Research Center. The practice is most-common among conservative Republican women (90%) and least-common among liberal Democrats and those with post-graduate degrees (about 2 in 3).
(8) Biden administration's R&D priorities for the 2025 budget request:
The 4-page document dated August 17, 2023, specifies seven broad categories.
*Advancing trustworthy artificial intelligence technology
*Leading the world in maintaining global security & stability
*Stepping up to the global challenge posed by the climate crisis
*Achieving better health outcomes for every person
*Reducing barriers and inequities
*Bolstering innovation to build economic competitiveness
*Strengthening & advancing America's unparalleled research
2023/09/12 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Book introductions: The #MeToo Movement in Iran, edited by UNC's Dr. Claudia Yaghoobi, surveys the Iranian MeToo activism and places it in the broader Middle East context. The relatively short book How Has the #MeToo Movement Changed Society? by Brynn Reinkens reflects on the MeToo movement in the US and how it has given rise to solidarity, awareness, and accountability in our society. [Center] Vacation for ordinary people vs. academics. [Right] In the lead-up to the anniversary of Mahsa Amini's murder, this sign carried by a protester says: "Kurdistan isn't alone, the entire Iran has its back."
(2) Disasters in North Africa: A total of 5000 are believed dead and thousands are still missing in catastrophic flooding in Libya which broke dams and in a 6.8-magnitude earthquake in Morocco.
(3) Exponential factorials: The notation n! represents the product n*(n – 1)* ... *2*1. Similarly, n$, the exponential factorial, stands for n^(n – 1)^ ... ^2^1, where by convention, the expression is evaluated from right to left. The exponential factorial n$ grows a whole lot faster than the product factorial n! (for example, 5! is 120, whereas 5$ is a number with 180,000 digits).
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- House Speaker Kevin McCarthy orders impeachment inquiry into Biden amid pressure from hard-liners.
- Forced marriage in Pakistan: Watch and weep at the level of human brutality. [1-minute video]
- Two large wine reservoirs broke in Portugal, sending a river of red wine to the streets.
- Facebook memory from Sep. 12, 2017: One of the few times I responded to a Donald Trump tweet.
(5) Female college students widely outnumber men: Combined with the fact that men drop out of college at higher rates than women, the college-educated workforce will continue to be mostly female.
(6) Mathematicians find 12,000 solutions for the surprisingly-tough 3-body problem: The question of how 3 objects can form stable orbits around each other has troubled mathematicians for more than 300 years, but now researchers have found a record 12,000 orbital arrangements permitted by Newton's laws of motion.
(7) Global smartening more dangerous than global warming: We humans may be wiped out by the results of global warming in a century or so, but an even more-immediate danger is unanticipated consequences of smart devices and algorithms taking over our daily lives. Just as in global warming, we have, and should strive not to miss, a window of opportunity to prevent damage from an out-of-control global smartening process.
The risks of AI are well-known and calls for ethical-AI and responsible-AI are proliferating. What's unique about AI is that the calls for caution are coming from AI researchers and developers, not from social scientists. As in any other new technology, those who discuss the social aspects of AI systems fall into two categories.
AI optimists see opportunities for improving the human condition and removing a host of social ills, from poverty to educational challenges. AI pessimists see hazards such as alienation and the widening of opportunity & wealth gaps, stoking the fear that whoever controls the AI will control citizens and institutions, leading to authoritarian rule. Most participants fall between the extremes and are thus assuming a wait-and-see attitude.
While we may consider the pessimistic view an extreme position that will rob us of opportunities to reap the benefits of AI, we must consider that even a small chance of these fears materializing is enough for us to jump into action. Would you board a plane that has a 1-in-20 a-priori chance of crashing on the account that it is 19 times more probable for you to complete your flight and enjoy whatever you planned to do at the destination?
2023/09/11 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US: Remembering and honoring the victims of the brutal Al Qaeda terrorists remains important, particularly at this time of widespread conspiracy theories and denial of the role played by the government of Saudi Arabia in assisting the terrorists. [Center] Math oddity (see the next item below). [Right] William Lutz's Doublespeak (see the last item below).
(2) Ramanujan summation: The following proof that 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + ... = –1/12 was found in one of the notebooks of the Indian math prodigy Srinivasa Ramanujan.
c = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + ...
4c = 4 + 8 + 12 + ...
–3c = c – 4c = 1 – 2 + 3 – 4 + 5 – 6 + ... = 1/(1 + 1)^2 = 1/4
c = –1/12
That something is wrong with the reasoning above became known much later, when more rigorous math was developed. Meanwhile, this absurd summation has found applications in physics, particularly in string theory.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Los Angeles Times op-ed by author Roya Hakakian about her immigrant father's reaction to 9/11.
- Another disaster in north Africa: Hundreds dead in Libya flooding, but officials fear it could be thousands.
- Hats off to Jon Stewart, who fought tirelessly to get 9/11 responders the benefits & respect they deserve.
- Bed Bath & Beyond is back from the dead: I've received 4 e-mails from the bankrupt company in 2 days.
(4) Book review: Lutz, William, Doublespeak—From Revenue Enhancement to Terminal Living: How Government, Business, Advertisers, and Others Use Language to Deceive Us, Ig Publishing, 2nd edition, 2015.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I really enjoyed reading this unique book on the subject of doublespeak and learned a great deal from it. At its worst, doublespeak, like George Orwell's "Newspeak" in 1984, is a language designed to limit thought. At its best, doublespeak is inflated language that gives importance to the mundane. Doublespeak isn't just an annoyance: It can be deadly. When defective cars are recalled, the language used may not convey adequately that the defect could be fatal and thus must be fixed promptly. Ford once announced that the rear axle bearings of Torino and Mercury Montago cars "can deteriorate" and that continued driving can "adversely affect vehicle control." It is quite possible that some recipients of this notice did not take their cars to be fixed, thinking that the problem was noncritical.
Lutz divides doublespeak into the four categories of euphemism, jargon, gobbledygook, and inflated language.
- Euphemism: An inoffensive or positive word or phrase used to avoid a harsh, unpleasant, or distasteful reality, such as the US State Dept.'s use of "unlawful or arbitrary deprivation of life" in lieu of "killing." This kind of doublespeak should not be confused with tactfulness/sensitivity, such as when we use "passed away" for "died."
- Jargon: A verbal shorthand that when used properly can lead to precision and communication efficiency. But using "organoleptic analysis" for "smelling" reeks (pun intended) of doublespeak.
- Gobbledygook: Piling on words to confuse or overwhelm the audience. Here is an example from the then US Senator Dan Quayle: "Why wouldn't an enhanced deterrent, a more stable peace, a better prospect to denying the ones who enter conflict in the first place to have a reduction of offensive systems and an introduction to defensive capability?" Alan Greenspan is also masterful in creating such "word salads."
- Inflated language: Making the ordinary sound extraordinary. Examples include calling a car mechanic "automotive internist" and elevator operators "vertical transportation corps."
In the preface to the 2015 edition, Lutz notes a marked increase in the use of doublespeak: "Doublespeak that once prompted disbelief or in some cases outrage now passes unnoticed and without comment. Doublespeak has become part of the working vocabulary of public discourse.
Politicians are fond of doublespeak. Here's a striking example from US President Ronald Reagan: "I will not stand by and see those of you who are dependent on Social Security deprived of the benefits you've worked so hard to earn." This statement was interpreted by the public as Reagan being opposed to cuts in Social Security benefits. However, later clarification from the White House revealed that Reagan had chosen his words very carefully. He was reserving the rights to judge who was "dependent" on Social Security and who had "earned" the benefits.
Another major offender is the government. Thousands of people are killed in misdirected drone strikes. The countless children or entire wedding parties killed are referred to as "collateral damage." Similarly, we do not torture but use "enhanced interrogation techniques." Government support for religion is camouflaged as "faith-based initiatives" and helping the rich by reducing or eliminating estate taxes is sold to the public as reforming the deplorable "death tax."
The book is replete with examples of doublespeak in different domains, as evident from its chapter titles, listed below. Following the nine chapters, there are three appendices: "Quarterly Review of Doublespeak," "Recipients of Doublespeak Award," and "Recipients of the George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contributions to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language."
- Involuntary conversions, preemptive counterattacks, and incomplete successes: The world of doublespeak
- Therapeutic misadventures, the economically nonaffluent, and deep-chilled chicken: The doublespeak of everyday living
- Virgin vinyl, real counterfeit diamonds, & genuine imitation leather: With these words I can sell you anything
- Negative deficits and the elimination of redundancies in the human resources area: Business communication, sort of
- Protein spills, vehicle appearance specialists, and earth-engaging equipment: Doublespeak around the world
- Predawn vertical insertion and hexiform rotatable surface compression units: The Pentagon word machine grinds on
- Nothing in life is certain except negative patient care outcome and revenue enhancement: Your government at work
- Winnable nuclear wars and energetic disassemblies: Nuclear doublespeak
Everyone should read this book. You will learn a lot and either smile or cringe as you read some of the more-preposterous examples. Comedian George Carlin had a super-funny routine about words & phrases that help hide the truth, apparently taking many of his examples from this book.
2023/09/10 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Twin primes and Brun's Constant (~1.9022): The infinite sum of the reciprocals of twin primes (pairs of prime numbers that differ by 2), that is, 3 & 5, 5 & 7, 11 & 13, ... , is approximately 1.9022. Viggo Brun tried to use this summation as a way of showing that there are infinitely many twin primes and was surprised when the sum proved finite. Of course, this finiteness does not prove that there are only a finite number of twin primes. [Top center] Happy Grandparents' Day to all those who are blessed with grandkids: "The best baby-sitters, of course, are the baby's grandparents. You feel completely comfortable entrusting your baby to them for long periods, which is why most grandparents flee to Florida." ~ Humorist Dave Barry [Top right] Etienne S. Benson's Surroundings: A History of Environments and Environmentalisms (see the last item below). [Bottom row] Saturday's stroll in Ventura Harbor Village to see a smallish street-painting festival and arts/crafts show.
(2) Maui fire death toll is ~180: This number results from adding the 66 individuals still missing (and who must be presumed dead) to the official death toll of 115.
(3) Iranian-American writer Roya Hakakian declines an invitation to participate in a meeting with Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, because such a meeting would legitimize a murderous Islamic Republic official and insult Iranian people who have undergone imprisonment, torture, rape, and even execution in their fight for freedom & democracy.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Magnitude-6.8 quake in a mountainous region of Morocco kills 2000+, with the death toll expected to rise.
- Le Monde publishes a hopeful victory message written by women political prisoners in Iran.
- Why are the laws of nature the way they are? A 12-minute presentation by Thomas Hertog.
- A brief introduction to epigenetics, by British biologist Nessa Carey. [7-minute video]
- Check out this amazing Boogie Woogie version of "The Swanee River," performed by Pianist Marius Labsch.
(5) Book review: Benson, Etienne S., Surroundings: A History of Environments and Environmentalisms, Penguin Random House, 2020.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The notions of environment and environmentalism are relatively new. Today, when we think about environmentalism, we think of activists who want to return our Earth to its pristine state, that is, how it was before widespread human activity transformed it. This is rather unrealistic and reeks of hubris. Another view of environmentalism is learning to live responsibly on an Earth that has been transformed by human life and progress. In other words, those holding the latter view accept that we have entered a distinct geological period, the Anthropocene Epoch, variously considered to have begun with the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s or the Great Acceleration of the 1950s, with certain irreversible changes over earlier eras.
This is a book of history (of ideas, of science, and of technology) which challenges much of what we think we know about environments and environmentalism, making us reconsider the reasons for caring about it and approaches to protecting it.
2023/09/08 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The largest adobe mud-brick structure in the world: Bam Citadel in the city of Bam, southeastern Iran, has a 2500-year history. It was an important hub on the Silk Road in the Medieval Era. [Center] Unusual clouds in Goleta, CA. [Right] Vaclav Smil's Numbers Don't Lie (see the last item below).
(2) UK-based math educator Dr. Amir Asghari runs a Web site, with the title "People and Mathematics," devoted to "curious, honest, and candid conversations with individuals whose professional lives are intertwined with mathematics." The site currently contains three chapters, each introducing 12 men and women.
(3) Iranian operatives roam in the US as lobbyists and academic "scholars": Hossein Mousavian, who served on Iran's nuclear diplomacy team in negotiations with the EU and International Atomic Energy Agency, is a frequent guest on policy forums, urging Washington to engage with Tehran and not seek regime change.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Hurricane Lee reaches the rare category-5 strength and may strengthen again as it heads toward the US.
- G-20 summit convenes in New Delhi, sans China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin.
- Sophisticated Iranian cyber-attack on Middle East Forum is thwarted by Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center.
- The US Internal Revenue Service is using AI technology to detect certain categories of tax fraud.
(5) The US really needs to be made great again: The party of "law & order" has degenerated into a '1984'-style thought-control and history-rewriting enterprise. [Tweet, with photos of Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy]
(6) With McConnel on the way out and Trump on the way to jail, US Republicans are poised to bring their young stars to the forefront: So, it is disheartening to see Biden (80) and Pelosi (83) seeking re-election.
(7) After being notified of a hefty premium increase for my car insurance policy and complaining to the company's chat "assistant," I researched on-line and found out that the phenomenon is nationwide and that my rate increase was actually not as bad as the average increase.
(8) Book review: Smil, Vaclav, Numbers Don't Lie: 71 Stories to Help Us Understand the Modern World, unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by Ben Prendergast, Penguin Audio, 2021.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
While it is true that numbers don't lie, they can be exploited for dressing up lies as truths, as aptly demonstrated in Darrel Huff's How to Lie with Statistics and Michael Wheeler's Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics, the latter taking its title from a saying popularized by Mark Twain, who attributed it to the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli.
Smil's book contains 71 largely-independent essays on interesting and often controversial topics having to do with numerical assessment and statistical inference. The essays, which average ~5 pages each (~5 minutes of audio), can be read straight through or in many sittings. Examples of the 71 hot-button topics discussed include vaccinations, malleability of unemployment stats, environmental impacts of cars & cell phones, nuclear electricity, electric-powered container ships, the inexcusable global food waste, why tall people enjoy so many benefits, and making sense of Brexit.
2023/09/07 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The number of abortions in the US has not gone down, despite Supreme Court's reversal of Roe-v.-Wade and passage of restrictive state laws (NYT chart). [Center] Throwback Thursday: Kakh-e Marmar (Marble Palace), Tehran, Iran, is a former royal residence, now a museum, built by Reza Shah during 1934-1937. [Right] Share of income earned by the top 1% in the US is on the rise again: It stands at 19% now, compared with ~11% five decades ago (NYT chart).
(2) Dictators can tolerate no dissent: Having ruined Iran's economy, Supreme Leader Khamenei and his gang of terror have shifted their attention to Iran's academic institutions, one of the country's few bright spots. They have started to install utterly unqualified gang members in academic positions. A couple of Iranian universities have had good showings on international rankings, though the positions have been in decline in recent years. Now, the decline and the resulting brain drain will accelerate, as the best students & faculty members abandon the compromised institutions. [Tweet, with image]
(3) Several former university presidents in Iran have criticized the firings of popular professors and the appointment of utterly unqualified faculty members: They seem to have forgotten that they are guilty of driving off many highly qualified faculty members because of following the motto "religious devotion before expertise"! They are pretending that Islamic Iran was flawless when they were in power and has deteriorated since. This is reminiscent of former PM Mir Hossein Mousavi referring to "the golden age of Imam [Khomeini]," despite its extrajudicial mass-executions and terror fatwas, and Abdolkarim Soroush, who oversaw the "cleansing" of Iranian universities under the banner of "Cultural Revolution," now criticizing the regime's higher-education policies from his perch in the United States!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- EU-official/hostage from Sweden has been in an Iranian prison for more than 500 days.
- The ugly US culture wars are in part the fault of colleges abandoning civics courses.
- The Great Wall of China is no match for the bulldozers of greedy contractors.
- A British diplomat in Iran answers a few questions in Persian. [1-monute video]
- Another viral musical hit in Iran: "Take off Your Headscarf" has become a new protest anthem.
- Mean tripping of a little kid: This soccer player was ejected by the referee, even before the game began.
(5) This Iranian cleric accuses Islamic Republic leaders of generating unrest, including burning of Qurans by their own agents, in order to crack down on dissent and consolidate their power. [6-minite video]
(6) Going in the opposite direction of its US counterparts, Mexican court expands abortion access, including as part of the national health system.
(7) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Reza Sarmast and Eng. Mitra Zaimi presented the second part of the talk "The Paradox of Plentiful Oil," which they began last week. The talk was accompanied by screening a documentary video on "Oil in Iran: From Discovery to Nationalization" to make up for the lack of coverage of Iran's case in the book. There were ~70 attendees.
Is there such a thing as the curse of oil? In last week's installment of the talk, the speakers showed that there is indeed a curse of oil for many countries with incapable governments, Venezuela being the poster child of such regimes. Tonight, the speakers focused on two notable exceptions to this rule, Indonesia & Norway, where capable governments have successfully avoided the curse of oil. A key to Norway's success was viewing the oil income as just one revenue stream, rather than the economy's main pillar. For Indonesia, sheer luck led to oil income being directed to repayment of foreign debt, thus sparing adverse effects of the economy.
2023/09/06 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Meet the new Professor of literature at U. Tehran: Saeed Haddadian, a singer of religious hymns ("maddah"), has been appointed to a professorial chair as part of a program aimed at controlling Iranian universities by Supreme Leader Khamenei's hardline cronies (see also the next item below). [Top center] Time limit for kisses in the passenger-unloading area of an airport (excuse the awkward English). [Top right] Unraveling Turkey's geometrically-complex sequence of earthquakes: Science magazine's cover feature, issue of Sep. 1, revisits Turkey's magnitude-7.8 twin quakes of February 6, 2023, classified as one of the deadliest natural disasters in the area over the past millennium. [Bottom left & center] Islamists' obsession with women's looks: To me, the good looks of women like the late #MahsaAmini trigger awe and respect. Islamists, such as this theology professor, however, see nothing but temptation & seduction in women's looks. [Bottom right] Tonight's Socrates Think Tank talk (see the last item below).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Proud Boy leader will be in prison until he is a Proud Old Man. I hope his boss gets a similarly long term.
- The Biden administration cancels oil-drilling plans in Alaska's wildlife refuge.
- This 5-minute report on the follies of Iran's foreign policy led to the closure of Entekhab news site.
- The Rolling Stones unveil their first musical album in 18 years. It is entitled "Hackney Diamonds."
(3) John H. Glenn Lecture in Space History: Today's National Air & Space Museum's "Trailblazers in Conversation" program featured Astronauts Drs. Anna Fisher, Rhea Seddon, & Kathryn Sullivan, alongside NASA Deputy Administrator Pamela Melroy (in-person and on YouTube). The three women astronauts answered questions about becoming interested in working for NASA, discussed their training, and recalled their social & professional experiences as women techies. The program marked the 45th anniversary of NASA's historic 1978 astronaut candidate class, which included the first six women candidates amongst its 35 new guys.
(4) Tonight's Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Mehdi Khalaji (Senior Fellow, Washington Institute) spoke under the title "Do Iranians of the Digital Age Living Under a Totalitarian Regime Need to Read Poetry?" There were 100 attendees, with possibly many attendees left out due to the Zoom limit.
As I usually do before attending a lecture, I researched the speaker's background from on-line sources. I discovered that Khalaji had studied Islamic theology at Qom Seminary and philosophy at Tehran's Tarbiat Modarres (Teacher Training) University. After leaving Iran, he pursued additional studies in Paris and later worked for BBC Persian, Radio Farda, and Radio Free Europe. He has written in opposition to the Iran nuclear deal and, apparently, has tried to undermine international sanctions against Iran. According to Wikipedia, "In March 2019 Khalaji and his wife, Marjan Sheikholeslami Aleagha, were listed among the main suspects in the largest financial corruption case in Iranian history with a total amount of 6.7 billion euros. Khalaji and his wife are suspected that they made contracts with Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps oil and gas company, Sepanir, and in order to bypass sanctions they used personal accounts which were used to embezzle money to United States and Canada."
Based on the profile above, I was hesitant to attend the talk, but in the final analysis, I decided to do so in light of the talk's connection with one of the titles on UCSB Reads 2024 Program's short list of books, Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us (I serve on the program's Advisory Committee). In the book, the authors Susan Magsaman and Ivy Ross discuss many practical benefits of the arts, besides the obvious aesthetic enjoyment. Pursuing and participating in art improves cognition, learning ability, memory, and focus, while reducing stress. Just one art experience per month can add 10 years to one's life. There are music-therapy and museum-therapy in the medical domain and I don't see why we can't make use of poetry-therapy! And you don't have to be good at it to reap these benefits. So, the answer of Your Brain on Art to the question posed in its subtitle is an emphatic "yes"!
Unfortunately, the talk was only marginally related to its advertised title and thus to the important topics I discussed above, that is, new neuroscientific research results on how arts affect us. It contained mostly political narratives and some general remarks on the potential harms of technology (social media, in particular). I believe that the speaker's dissing of social media is in part driven by the negative information about, and accusations against, him.
2023/09/04 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Happy US Labor Day: "Of life's two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer's hand." ~ Khalil Gibran [Top center] Turning a revolution into a business opportunity: Her royal highness is selling access with $450 VIP bundles. [Top right] Sep. 16, 2023, anniversary of the #WomanLifeFreedom movement: Iranians in the homeland and in diaspora will join forces to honor the memory of #MahsaAmini, whose death while in the custody of Iran's despised morality police sparked a revolution. [Bottom left] My approximation of Labor Day barbecue, with oven broiled chicken kabobs and veggies. Your place was empty! [Bottom center] Math puzzle: Find the area of the green square in the middle. The green and blue squares have the same center. [Bottom right] The Beatles as children. I don't know if these photos are AI-generated or real.
(2) Dry water: Significantly heavier than regular water and coming to a boil at around 50 degrees Celsius, this undrinkable 3M product has found a number of niche applications, such as extinguishing fires at electronic installations (regular water would damage the electronics). It is an excellent insulator and can be used to cool circuitry by coming in direct contact with them. [15-minute video]
(3) Please sign this petition to secretaries of state in charge of ensuring that presidential candidates meet the qualifications set forth in the US Constitution (14th Amendment, in particular).
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Indian lunar rover, Pragyan (wisdom, in Sanskrit), begins its search for ice near the lunar south pole.
- Kim Jong Un to visit Putin: Russia plans to buy arms & ammunition from North Korea.
- The Burning Man Festival turned into The Drowning Man Festival due to severe flooding around Las Vegas.
- Does Vivek Ramaswamy know what white DJT supporters think of Latinos, Indians, & other brown people?
- The anatomy of a Ronaldo header into the goal. [1-minute video]
- Liberace demonstrates the boogie-woogie style of piano-playing and its variations. [4-minute video]
(5) Wreckage of 150-year-old ship found nearly intact in Lake Michigan: The dishes of grain ship Trinidad, which sank in 1881, are still nearly stacked in their cabinets.
(6) A water park in Mashhad, Iran, was closed by authorities due to women being improperly veiled. Which begs the question: "What constitutes proper veil in a water park?"
(7) Nomad high-schoolers in Iran learned English 50+ years ago, becoming proficient after a few months. Compare their language skills with those of current Islamic Republic ministers & diplomats! [2-minute video]
(8) The cost of being a student: Setting aside expenditures on tuition and housing, the two biggest expenses for students, there are other secondary costs that exert added financial pressure. Textbooks and supplies are examples of the latter. In this essay, a teaching assistant points out that some students can't afford the cost of buying and registering "clickers" and are thus penalized when such electronic devices are required for class participation. Faculty members and TAs should be mindful of the cost of supplies and devices, and explore alternatives, before specifying them as required.
2023/09/02 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Pottery shop in Yazd, Iran, prominently displaying the distinct color of Iranian ceramics, turquoise blue. [Top center] Consequences of hijabless appearance in space: Text-message warning, followed by locking up the ISS (Mana Neyestani cartoons). [Top right] Faster job growth (by more than 2.5x) leads to expanded middle class under US Democratic administrations. [Bottom left] Jasmine Moghbeli and her husband don their #WomanLifeFreedom T-shirts. The caption states that this woman would be in prison if she lived in Iran. [Bottom center] Memes of the day about today's Iran: Widespread arrests of activist, executions, an imprisoned young man dying in custody (likely due to torture), and a surprising rise in oil exports & income. [Bottom right] Thursday night's pizzas on half-pita-breads: Toppings include ground-beef, pineapple, & onion.
(2) Hijabless Iranian women are knocked to the ground by stick-wielding vigilantes: The women are restrained by grabbing their hair, kicked, handcuffed, and touched all over their bodies in violation of Islamic rules.
(3) A university president in Iran threatens dissident students with confinement to mental institutions: Political abuse of psychiatry to "tame" dissidents has a long, shameful history in Russia and other countries. It also harms those in genuine need of psychiatric help.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- German women reopen the debate about why they can't appear in public wearing only a bikini bottom.
- A living robofish built from human cardiac cells swims like a fish & could pave the way for artificial hearts.
- AI + Holograms = Virtual presence, anywhere, in any language (4-minute talk at a Microsoft event).
- Honoring those who lost their lives to keep the #WomanLifeFreedom Revolution alive. [3-minute video]
- Rock art: Reproducing a few classics and creating some amazing new images. [1-minute video]
- France has too much wine and is paying large sums to have the oversupply destroyed: Let's head to France!
(5) Iran news: Social-media influencers and humorists are having a field day with Iranian-American Astronaut Jasmine Moghbeli's travel to space, hijabless and without having to obtain the written consent of her husband.
(6) The Holocaust didn't appear out of the blue: It was preceded by years of segregation, clothing mandates, a slate of restrictive laws, and regional massacres in Germany and other Nazi-controlled areas.
(7) John B. Goodenough [1922-2023], pioneering material scientist dead at 100: He was a giant in the fields of solid-state chemistry and physics. "His revolutionary insights into the fundamental physical properties of materials helped enable the wireless and artificial intelligence revolutions and advanced the science needed to help reduce carbon emissions."
(8) A century ago, on September 1, 1923, a magnitude-7.9 earthquake devastated Tokyo: The killer quake was followed by 1000 aftershocks over 10 days. The quake's direct damage paled in comparison with the damage caused by ruptured gas lines that created more than 130 major fires. "In Tokyo, the fires merged into a firestorm so intense that it created its own wind system and set alight the city's many wooden buildings. Survivors rushed to seek safety. Bridges became choke points, and as those made of wood caught fire, people were trapped." The two-day burning left 140,000 dead people in its wake.
2023/08/31 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Iranian-American astronaut Jasmine Moghbeli left the country (actually the Earth) without a need to obtain her husband's permission, as required by Iran's Islamic laws! In this 1-minute video, Moghbeli talks in Persian about embracing adventure as a child and reacting in disbelief when she was chosen to command a NASA mission taking astronauts to the International Space Station. [Center] Talangor Group's talk on the paradox of plentiful oil (see the last item below). [Right] A new wave of arrests, firings, and intimidations in Iran: The mullahs intensify their pressure and scare tactics against academics, journalists, artists, and celebrities a few weeks before the anniversary of #MahsaAmini's death while in the custody of Iran's despised morality police, because they fear widespread street protests in September.
(2) The great Persian poet Sa'adi has a section on the benefits of keeping quiet in his magnum opus, Golestan: The fifth tale in the section, with the message that a wise man would not argue with a fool, is reproduced in this Facebook post. Not long ago, I read and reviewed the book STFU: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World, which offers the same advice in a convincing way.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Fire in a multi-story rental building in South Africa kills at least 73 people.
- Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow's eloquent response to accusations from a MAGA lawmaker.
- UCSB Alpha Sigma Kappa: A sorority for women and non-binary students in technical studies.
- Well, here's affirmation from a fortune cookie: "Your effortless sense of humor will help someone in need."
(4) A lengthy discussion on the recent purges of faculty members at Iranian universities: Participants include purged faculty members and other higher-education experts. [5-hour audio file, in Persian]
(5) Why do US politicians cling to power long after they become ineffective due to old age? Examples include Mitch McConnel, Diane Feinstein, as well as Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
(6) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Reza Sarmast and Eng. Mitra Zaimi talked under the title "The Paradox of Plentiful Oil." There were ~75 attendees.
Is there such a thing as the curse of oil? In other words, does possession of oil reserves lead to underdevelopment? Based on Terry Lynn Karl's book, The Paradox of Plenty, the speakers presented some ideas in this domain, with the discussion to continue next week (Wednesday, September 7, 2023, 7:00 PM).
The book deals with both theoretical analysis and historical narrative, based on six case studies. Spain was a powerful country, given its vast gold stockpiles. Spain's gold-based power later gave way to black-gold power. Oil states faced problems similar to Spain's problems with gold. The paradox is that oil wealth, instead of bringing prosperity and comfort, leads to complicity and laziness, Venezuela being the prime example. There are only two exceptions: Indonesia and Norway.
In the 1970s, oil prices quadrupled, an event that constitutes the largest transfer of wealth without a war. "Dutch Disease," a term coined by the Economist magazine, afflicts oil-rich countries and other countries whose currency gains strength from discovery of valuable new resources. The term originates from the decline of manufacturing and agriculture when oil was discovered in northern Netherlands in 1959.
Capable governments can take advantage of oil income within a diversified economy, alongside appropriate taxation, thus reducing undesirable swings. Incapable governments rely exclusively on oil income, so they prosper when prices go up and struggle when they go down, making long-term planning impossible.
Venezuela is a poster child of incapable governments. When its oil income increased, half of it was taken by foreign oil companies and the other half was distributed to about 1/8 of the population. The development program was focused on industries that required heavy investment, used a lot of energy, and created few jobs. High-income government jobs stifled the private sector, leading to a rise in unemployment, out-of-control inflation, and low national satisfaction.
2023/08/30 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Diaspora Arts Connection presents the 7th annual "Let Her Sing" concert: UCLA's Schoenberg Hall, September 24, 2023. [Center] Jaqueline Rose's On Violence and on Violence Against Women (see the last item below). [Right] Socrates Think Tank talk on NICArt (see the next item below).
(2) Tonight's Socrates Think Tank talk: Niosha Nafei-Jamali spoke under the title "Introducing NICArt: Beyond Niosha Dance Academy." there were ~100 attendees.
I knew about Niosha Dance Academy through family members. This talk, punctuated with photos and video clips, taught me and impressed me a lot more. With the slogan "Engage-Educate-Entertain," NICArt (Niosha International Conservatory of Arts) extends the cultural reach of Niosha Dance Academy to diverse artistic and geographic domains. One of Niosha's visions is to make the musical show "The Story of Nowruz" a staple of spring and Nowruz, in much the same way that "The Nutcracker" is a staple of Christmas and winter. SoCal performances of the show are planned for Saturday-Sunday, March 9-10, 2024, in Orange County.
Niosha's brief bio on YouTube.
NICArt Facebook page.
NICArt on Instagram.
NICArt Web site.
Info and trailer, "The Story of Nowruz".
SF Chronicle story about Nowruz.
Niosha Dance Academy's Web site.
Niosha Dance Academy's NBA halftime show (2017).
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Arrival of four new astronauts at the International Space Station: It's getting crowded up there!
- Qatar's years-long disinformation program to manipulate the US justice system and public opinion.
- Santa Barbara experiences the electric-bike craze: City leaders are tackling the resulting safety issues.
- Today's fortune-cookie message: "Your desire to discover new frontiers will lead you far."
(4) Book review: Rose, Jaqueline, On Violence and on Violence Against Women, Faber & Faber, 2021.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Rose begins by observing that while everyone thinks they can recognize violence when they see it, "the most prevalent, insidious forms of violence are those that cannot be seen." She then goes on to cite cruel laws that impact disadvantaged groups as examples of unseen violence. A group of white men surrounding former US President Donald Trump as he signed a global gag order to cut American funding to any organization in the world offering abortion or abortion counseling were committing violence: They participated in an act that increased illegal abortions by thousands, leading to many deaths and countless injuries.
Consistent with its title, Rose's book has a sharp focus on violence against women, although she does discuss other categories of violence. Women are almost always victimized more gravely whenever there is a rise in violence. The COVID-19 pandemic and its attendant restrictions led to a general increase in violence, but had a greater impact on domestic violence against women.
I have previously read an introduction to violence from Oxford's "Very Short Introduction" series (My review). The related notion of nonviolence (in pursuing personal goals and, more commonly, in collective combat against oppression) is discussed in The Forces of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind (My review).
Rose covers her subject in nine chapters, bearing the following titles.
- I am a knife: Sexual harassment in close-up
- Trans voices: Who do you think you are?
- Trans and sexual harassment: The back-story
- Feminism and the abomination of violence
- Writing violence: From modernism to Eimear McBride
- The killing of Reeva Steenkamp, the trial of Oscar Pistorius: Sex and race in the courtroom
- Political protest and the denial of history: South Africa and the legacy of the future
- One long scream: Trauma and justice in South Africa
- At the border
In the afterword, Rose explains why the book cannot have a conclusion. "Violence is not a subject about which anyone can believe, other than in a state of delusion, that everything has been said and done." In addition to different external forms of violence, we must understand the inner force of violence, the deadly temptation to make violence always somebody else's problem. We need to keep listening to "those who show that reckoning with the violence of the heart and fighting violence in the world are inseparable."
2023/08/29 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] JWST discovers a question mark in space: Scientists believe it to be a couple of dust clouds in the process of forming two stars, but this won't stop conspiratorial (photoshop; alien graffiti) or humorous (information kiosk at Space Mall) explanations! [Center] Iran purges professors and plans to replace them with "revolutionary" faculty members (see the next item below). [Right] Philip Dwyer's Violence: A Very Short Introduction (see the last item below).
(2) Iran purges university professors: Their "crimes" range from having secular views to supporting dissident students and other protesters. President Raisi plans to add 15,000 "revolutionary" professors to the faculty ranks at Iranian universities. Having destroyed the country's economy, the mullahs are now bent on destroying what is left of its system of higher education.
(3) Zanan Collective conference at Cal State Long Beach, September 16-17, 2023: Bearing the title "The #WomanLifeFreedom Revolutionary Movement: Achievements and Challenges," the 2-day conference will feature panel discussions alongside art exhibits & performances.
(4) Book review: Dwyer, Philip, Violence: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, 2022.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I am a big fan of Oxford's "Very Short Introduction" series, which now contains hundreds of titles. I have pursued quite a few of the titles to delve into new areas of knowledge or to freshen up on subjects I had previously studied. I was drawn to this particular title when I encountered it while searching for another book, On Violence, and on Violence Against Women, which is now on my to-read list.
Titles of the book's seven chapters provide a good representation of its scope.
Chapter 1: Violence Past and Present
Chapter 2: Intimate and Gendered Violence
Chapter 3: Interpersonal Violence
Chapter 4: The Sacred and the Secular
Chapter 5: Collective and Communal Violence
Chapter 6: Violence and the State
Chapter 7: The Changing Nature of Violence
The most-common definitions of violence include only intentional acts of harm to human beings. World Health Organization (WHO) defines violence as the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation. The modern view of violence also encompasses harming animals, the environment, and inanimate objects such as cultural sites.
Violence is rooted in our deep prehistoric past. Our aggressive impulses evolved from the need to acquire food & mates and to avoid predators. The nature-versus-nurture dichotomy also enters into the discussion here. Some cultures are more violent than others and within the same culture, some groups may be more violent. Inter-group violence (war) existed in nearly all prehistoric societies. Skeletal remains point to violent trauma throughout human history.
Violence against women is particularly widespread and troubling. WHO data from 80 countries indicate that 35% of women have experienced physical or sexual violence (the range is from 23% in high-income countries to as high as 38% in Southeast Asia). In India, a woman is raped on average every 20 minutes. In South Africa, it's every 36 seconds.
After 1800, homicide in the Western World ceased to be common. The United States, with homicide rates of 2.5 to 9 times that of other affluent countries, is an exception. School mass shootings and other forms of gun violence are off the charts in the US. In the area known as the Northern Triangle in Central America, homicide rates are worse than in the Europe of the Middle Ages.
The state monopolization of violence gained momentum beginning in the 1500s. Nearly all cultures are willing to inflict severe punishments, including death, on those who deviate from the rules. The enjoyment of pain and humiliation meted out to those thought to deserve it is also universal. Torture was quite common in Europe before the French Revolution.
The extent to which religion and violence go hand in hand is hotly debated. Prominent atheist intellectuals are convinced that the very nature of religion leads to violence. In a 2004 BBC audit which ranked 3500 wars from 0 (not religious at all) to 5 (very religious), most wars were ranked 0 or 1. Of course, religious violence can take other forms besides wars. Examples include human sacrifice, ceremonial cannibalism, and scalping in certain regions of the world.
In contrast to interpersonal or intimate violence, which involves encounters between a handful of people, collective and communal violence can involve crowds (mobs), often organized but sometimes spontaneous, as in subsistence-related unrest. Crowd or mob mentality is often blamed for the escalation of violence in such cases.
Some historians have argued that as states began to gain a monopoly over violence, taking charge of administering justice, levels of violence among ordinary people declined. This does not mean, however, that violence declined overall: Think of warfare, terrorism, political purges, concentration camps, and genocides.
In the final chapter on the changing nature of violence, the author notes that environmental disasters and mass extinctions are now viewed as "slow violence," causing harm incrementally rather than spectacularly. This slow violence can and does lead to more spectacular forms of violence, such as warfare. In other words, ecocide can be a precursor to genocide. Regardless of the form, underlying reasons, and scope (individual, community, or state), "haunting shadows cast by violence indelibly remain with us."
2023/08/28 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Today is the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington: Marchers marked the occasion a couple of days ago in the nation's capital. The 1963 march was for "jobs and Freedom," but it is remembered best for MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech. [Top center] Five book reviews (see the next item below) [Top right] Heads-up computing comes of age: The device-centered paradigm has outlived its usefulness and is giving way to anywhere/anytime computing with new generations of digital eyeglasses and displays. [Bottom left] Rebutting rebuttals in the assessment of confernece submissions (see the last item below). [Bottom center] Iranian-American Jasmin Moghbeli, front-center in the photo, commands a space mission with three other astronauts from different countries to the International Space Station. [Bottom right] Connections, a new game by New York Times: Create four groups of four, with each group representing a theme or recognizable category, such as colors or exclamations of joy. You have to be patient and not go with your first instinct. In this puzzle, there are six state names, so four of them may be identified as a group. But then, what do you do with the other two state names?
(2) Book reviews: UCSB Reads 2024 Advisory Committee met today to trim the short-list of 5 books to a rank-ordered list of 3 books, so as to proceed with negotiations with authors & publishers in priority order. UCSB will announce the final selection during the fall quarter. Here are the 5 books and my GoodReads reviews.
- Neely, Nick, Alta California: From San Diego to San Francisco, a Journey on Foot ... (2019). [My review]
- Yong, Ed, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us (2022). [My review]
- Desmond, Matthew, Poverty, by America (2023). [My review]
- Taussig, Rebekah, Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body (2020). [My review]
- Magsamen, Susan & Ivy Ross, Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us (2023). [My review]
(3) You've heard about responsible AI, trustworthy AI, and explainable AI: Now comes the idea of humble AI! People don't like to be judged inaccurately and/or harshly. When this happens, users lose trust in AI. Humble AI calls for AI developers/deployers to appreciate & mitigate such harmful effects. Fascinating article!
(4) UCSB grades over the decade that started with the academic year 2012-2013: Proportion of A grades has generally increased (A+, A, and A– now account for 58% of all letter grades). [Source: UCSB Daily Nexus]
(5) Studying the impact of an author-rebuttal process in conference evaluations: Unlike journals, most technical conferences make an accept/reject decision on submitted manuscripts based on a single round of reviews. In an opinion piece entitled "Rebutting Rebuttals," published in the September 2023 issue of CACM, N. Dershowitz & R. M. Verma suggest that data point to the ineffectiveness of the rebuttal process. A key table in the paper, attributed to Gao et al., shows that reviewers mostly do not change their assessments following author rebuttals, and when they do, it is usually in the downward direction for highly-rated manuscripts and in the upward direction for lower-rated submissions (which could mean the acceptance of a worse collection of manuscripts). In the table, numbers 1-6 are reviewer rankings, pre-rebuttal in columns & post-rebuttal in rows. You can find a lot more analysis in the paper.
2023/08/26 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Three math puzzles: [Left] Evaluate this infinite product. [Center] Find the radius of the three identical blue circles at the bottom-left of the diagram. [Right] Find the area of the green square inside the 3:4:5 triangle.
(2) I am excited and honored to report that I have been promoted to the rank of Distinguished Professor at University of California, Santa Barbara, effective July 1, 2023.
Addendum: So, what is a Distinguished Professor? At most US academic institutions, professorial ranks are assistant, associate, and full professor. At University of California, there are two further ranks of Prof VI (past mid-range along the scale Prof-I-to-Prof-IX) and Distinguished Professor (which is also called Above Scale; the end of the line of academic advancement). The latter two ranks require surpassing certain performance thresholds in teaching/mentoring, research publications, international recognition, awards/honors, and professional & public service.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- CDC Says New COVID-19 subvariant may lead to more breakthrough infections in vaccinated people.
- Healthcare deserts in the US significantly overlap with regions having Internet connectivity problems.
- There have been several US mass-shootings over the past week: They no longer even make front-page news!
- Researchers at Indiana University, Bloomington, discover a botnet powered by ChatGPT operating on X.
- Human-rights activist Narges Mohammadi talks in Persian about the plight of the Baha'i community in Iran.
- In Britain, record numbers of women will start computing degree programs this year.
- George Carlin's super-funny routine about words & phrases that help hide the truth. [9-minute video]
(4) An interesting ACM podcast: Rashmi Mohan hosts Anima Anandkumar, Bren Professor of Computing at Caltech and Senior Director of AI Research at NVIDIA, where she leads a group developing next-generation AI algorithms. Her research has spanned healthcare, robotics, and climate change modeling. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an NSF Career Award, and was most-recently named an ACM Fellow. Her work has been extensively covered on PBS, in Wired magazine, MIT Tech Review, YourStory, and Forbes.
In this 46-minute audio file, Anima talks about her journey, growing up in a house where computer science was a way of life, with family members who served as strong role models. She shares her path in education & research at IIT-Madras, the importance of a strong background in math in her computing work, and some of the breakthrough moments in her career, including work on using tensor algorithms to process large datasets. Anima discusses topic modeling and reinforcement learning, what drives her interests, the possibilities of interdisciplinary collaboration, and the promise and challenges brought about by the age of generative AI.
(5) University professors are being fired in droves in Iran: The Islamic Republic has always had a problem with universities and accepted them reluctantly. Free thinking and theocracy are incompatible.
(6) Remember VCRs and DVD players? My daughter recently visited the world's last operational Blockbuster store in Bend, Oregon.
(7) The many ways one can teach a robot: "The human brain is wired to be able to learn new things—and in all kinds of different ways, from imitating others to watching online explainer videos. What if robots could do the same thing? It is a question that ACM Prize recipient Pieter Abbeel, professor at the University of California, Berkeley and director of the Berkeley Robot Learning Lab, has spent his career researching. Here, we speak with Abbeel about his work and about the techniques he has developed to make it easier to teach robots."
2023/08/25 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/08/24 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/08/23 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/08/21 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/08/20 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/08/19 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/08/18 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/08/17 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/08/16 (Wednesday): Today, I offer three book reviews, which together with reviews of Alta California (posted on July 30, 2023) and An Immense World (posted on August 15, 2023) cover the short-list of "UCSB Reads 2024" program. The short-list will be rank ordered in a committee meeting on August 28, 2023.
2023/08/15 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/08/14 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/08/13 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/08/11 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/08/10 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/08/08 (Tuesday): A pictorial on the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.
2023/08/07 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/08/06 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/08/04 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/08/02 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/08/01 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/31 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/30 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/28 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/27 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/25 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/24 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/23 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/22 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/20 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/19 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/17 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/16 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/15 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/13 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/12 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/10 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/09 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/08 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/07 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/06 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/05 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/04 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/02 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/07/01 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/29 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/28 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/26 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/24 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/22 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/21 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/20 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/19 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/18 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/16 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/15 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/14 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/13 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/11 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/09 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/07 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/05 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/04 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/03 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/06/01 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/31 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/30 (Tuesday): Reviews of three books about science, human psychology, and healthcare.
2023/05/29 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/28 (Sunday): Reviews of three books about climate change, mother-daughter bonds, and math.
2023/05/27 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/25 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/24 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/23 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/22 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/21 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/19 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/18 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/17 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/16 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/14 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/13 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/12 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/11 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/10 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/09 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/07 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/06 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/05 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/04 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/05/02 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/30 (Sunday): Today's focus is on Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival at Alameda Park, downtown.
2023/04/29 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/28 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/27 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/25 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/24 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/23 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/21 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/20 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/19 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/17 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/16 (Sunday): Photos & memories from the wedding of my niece Mina and nephew-in-law Babak.
2023/04/14 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/13 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/11 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/09 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/08 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/07 (Friday): Review of a book that's related to the book/movie "Argo" and a PBS documenmtary.
2023/04/06 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/05 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/03 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/04/01 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/31 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/30 (Thursday): Today's blog enteries are three book reviews on science & technology.
2023/03/29 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/28 (Tuesday): Today's blog enteries are three book reviews on politics, pscychology, & religion.
2023/03/27 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/26 (Sunday): Review of three books about Iran and the Azerbaijan-Georgia region.
2023/03/25 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/24 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/23 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/22 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/21 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/19 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/18 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/16 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/14 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/12 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/11 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/10 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/09 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/08 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/07 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/06 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/05 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/04 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/03 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/02 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/03/01 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/27 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/26 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/25 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/24 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/23 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/21 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/20 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/18 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/17 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/16 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/15 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/14 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/12 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/11 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/10 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/08 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/06 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/05 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/04 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/03 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/02/01 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/30 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/29 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/28 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/27 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/26 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/24 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/22 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/20 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/19 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/18 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/17 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/16 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/14 (Saturday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/13 (Friday): Today's blog entries are my reviews of two alternative-history books.
2023/01/12 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/11 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/10 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/09 (Monday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/08 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/06 (Friday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/05 (Thursday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/04 (Wednesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/03 (Tuesday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
2023/01/02 (Monday): Reviews of two books on artificial intelligence and its promises & pitfalls.
2023/01/01 (Sunday): Presenting selected news, useful info, and oddities from around the Internet.
(1) Images of the day: [Top row & Bottom center] Thursday afternoon at Goleta's Coal Oil Point Beach, looking at the four main compass directions. [Bottom left] Trump Towers in Russia and Turkey didn't work out, so he is negotiating with prison officials to put his name on this guard tower. [Bottom right] Math puzzle: Evaluate.
(2) Rebuilding Maui will take years, if not decades: Please continue to help through your favorite charity. Almost all major charities have established Maui Fire funds. [Photo]
(3) Temperature variations explained: The time-delay effect that causes mid-afternoon to be the hottest time of the day and August to be the hottest month of the year. [7-minute video]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general intere
- Where do pro-lifers stand on this? Guns killed 4752 children in the US during 2021 (+42% over 2018).
- US cinema buffs rejoice: You can see any movie on Cinema Day (Sunday, August 27, 2023), for only $4.00.
- GOP debate attack chart: Haley sparred with several others. Ramaswamy was attacked the most.
- In the United States, you are either Native American or immigrant. There is no other category.
- Math puzzle (Ramanujan Problem): Find integer solutions to sqrt(x) + y = 7 and x + sqrt(y) = 11.
- From the horse's mouth: Instagram founder explains pixels in this 6-minute video.
- Understand how Internet search works from this well-made 5-minute video.
- Understand how chatbots and large language models work from this 7-minute video.
(5) The smooch: Spanish soccer chief Luis Rubiales refuses to resign from his position following a week of criticism over placing an unwanted kiss on a star player of Spain's winning Women's World Cup team. [CNN]
(6) How the Shah caused his own downfall: The number of mosques in Iran increased from 200 to 55,000 during Shah's reign. He lavishly supported these mosques, religious schools, and the mullahs running them.
(7) The Elsevier journal Microprocessors and Microsystems retracts dozens of articles published in three of its Special Issues on <Embedded Processors / Signal Processing / Internet of People>: "Significant similarities were noticed post-publication between these special issue articles and other published sources. There is an indication that attempts have been made to disguise the copying using automated paraphrasing. Subsequent to acceptance of these special issue papers by the responsible guest editor
(8) Quote of the day: "Of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none is so degrading, so shocking or so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity; the female sex." ~ Mahatma Gandhi
(9) Final thought for the day: Multiple TV channels & news Web sites are showing Trump's mug-shot, which is really scary, so I won't share it here at this late evening hour, shortly before you go to bed. You are welcome!
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday (1): Historic photo showing Tehran of ~100 years ago, with Shemiran Gate in the background, in what is now a neighborhood of the north-central part of the mega-city. Qajar-era Tehran was surrounded by a moat and a wall with 114 planned towers and 8 gates allowing people to enter and leave the city. [Top center] Throwback Thursday (2): What was the supposedly modern and educated Shah of Iran thinking when he announced in 1975 that all Iranians should either join his single Rastakhiz Party or leave the country? [Top right] New Yorker cartoon of the day: How I spent my summer days. [Bottom left] I keep running into ads for clothing inspired by carpet designs and other Persian motifs (Source). [Bottom center] New Yorker cartoon of the day about overuse of green screens in today's cinema: "We'll add everything later." [Bottom right] Fake Hafez & Mowlavi/Rumi in English "translations" (see the last item below).
(2) Many women's dilemma, as told in "The Bridges of Madison County": Here is a Persian interpretation of a German film critic's review of the 1995 Clint Eastwood film, in which he and Meryl Streep played the main roles. My loose translation of some thoughts in the following essay: "If women aren't forced, as home-makers and mothers, to bury themselves between the kitchen and the bedroom, they won't become eternal losers in life. To emerge as heroes, instead of getting old after abandoning our true loves for security, respectability, and paradise under our feet, we must change the world and its power dynamics. In Iran, the Mahsa Revolution is showing us the way."
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Near-misses on airport runways are on the rise. [New York Times report]
- An Egyptian woman created this 1-minute video clip from photos of #MahsaAmini.
- Math puzzle: Show that any two consecutive Fibonacci numbers are relatively prime.
- Facebook memory from Aug. 24, 2019: On the distinction between Judaism and Zionism.
- Facebook memory from Aug. 24, 2019: On Republicans lying that Democrats give free stuff to everyone.
- Facebook memory from Aug. 24, 2017: Slide show made by Google Photos from my shots in Seattle.
(4) Westerners who earn a living by emulating Hafez or Mowlavi/Rumi: Years ago, after numerous attempts to find original Persian poems from their purported English translations posted on social media, I gave up the practice, because I came to the conclusion that the translations were made-up or were so loose as to be entirely different poems. I remember taking keywords from purported translations and doing Google searches. Then, I would guess about Persian words in the original poem based on the English words and perform more Google searches. Not once did I succeed with this approach.
The example which is stuck in my mind is this supposed Hafez verse: "Even after all this time the sun never told the earth 'You owe me.' See what happens with a love like that? It lights the whole sky." The verse, which appears in cyberspace with quite a few minor variations, certainly holds a noble sentiment, which many may find beautiful or inspiring, but it's not something that Hafez said or wrote. Often, a popular original-fake is turned into many variant-fakes, which are then used to create memes & art, thereby gaining eternal life!
I recently discovered this 2020 article, in which Omid Safi (Duke U. Islamic Studies Center) proposes that such fake poems constitute "Western appropriation of Muslim spirituality."
By the way, musings of Buddha, Dalai Lama, Einstein, and Gandhi have been similarly appropriated!
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Chess puzzle: White to start and mate in two moves. [Center] My purely-technical Facebook post about the history and recent trends in floating-point arithmetic was removed on account of going "against our Community Standards on cybersecurity." Refer to the last entry in my blog post of September 21, 2022, to see if you can figure out what triggered FB-AI's wrath! [Right] Tuesday concert at La Patera Historic Ranch Park: Since I posted about the Ranch and Stowe House in detail last week, tonight I will just post three sample musical videos of the band Down Mountain Lights (Video 1; Video 2; Video 3).
(2) Widespread Internet outages are expected in Iran: As we approach the first anniversary of #MahsaAmini's death in the custody of Iran's Morality Police, the regime is preparing for possible street protests. Many students and other activists have already been arrested to induce fear in demonstrators. This Web site shares tools for dealing with expected Internet outage in Iran.
(3) Sepideh Qolian on trial in a civil suit in Iran: Her previous court session had been cancelled because Qolian did not agree to appear with a headscarf. The new court session was a closed one, because she again refused to wear the hijab. Qolian faced her accuser, the reporter/interrogator Ameneh-Sadat Zabihpour, a TV "reporter" involved in extracting forced confessions from accused dissidents and making fake "documentaries" about them. In court, the physically diminutive, mentally gargantuan Qolian praised a number of freedom-fighters and spat in the face of her despised accuser.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- There is a confirmed death toll of ~115 in the Maui fire, but 800+ are still missing.
- Plane crash near Moscow kills 10, possibly including Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner mercenary leader.
- Made-up quote: "If you go after me, I'm coming after you!" ~ V. Putin, on the plane crash near Moscow
- India becomes the first country to land a spacecraft on the southern polar region of the moon.
- Israeli academics turn on their government, because academia must be built on democratic foundations.
- Wouldn't it be nice if the GOP presidential candidates never mentioned the orange guy during the debate?
- I'm sorry about the $200,000 bond: We should all try to facilitate Trump's disappearance, not make it harder!
- Facebook memory from August 22, 2010: My daughter showing off her newly-pierced ears.
(5) Iranian filmmaker and literary figure Ebrahim Golestan [1922-2023] dead at 100: Much praise has been offered for his work and influence over the years, and now in eulogy. There are also contrary views criticizing Golestan as the embodiment of Iran's patriarchal culture. Here's one example.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Facebook memory: NASA's shot of the total solar eclipse of Aug. 21, 2017. [Top center] My latest entry in New Yorker cartoon caption contest (#863): "I said I want a 'stick-figure salary' not a 'a six- figure salary'." [Top right] Mathematician/Engineer Claude E. Shannon (see the last item below).
(2) A much-wanted championship & an unwanted kiss: An official of Spain's Soccer Federation kissed a player on the lips during World Cup medals ceremony, a grim reminder of sexism prevailing in sports and elsewhere.
(3) The ultimate in talent-show performance: The young woman performing here had advanced-stage cancer and died later. Meanwhile, she brought cheers and tears with her original song containing her life story.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Hilary departs Southern California, leaving massive flooding, mudslides, and upheaval in its wake.
- A flying robot can float on gusts of wind like a bird: While floating, it uses 150 times less power.
- How a modern recycling facility recovers all useful elements from spent lithium batteries.
- Partying with classical music: "I'm a Barbie Girl," played in the style of six classical composer.
- Sample "cheesy" TV commercials from pre-Islamic-Revolution Iran (tea leaves & sandwich spread).
- Facebook memory from Aug. 21, 2017: The day when we watched a total solar eclipse in Salem, Oregon.
- Facebook memory from Aug. 21, 2014: All those awesome feelings over small things.
- Facebook memory from Aug. 21, 2010: "The blind and the Oppressor" (a Rahi Moayeri Persian poem).
(5) Stern competition between Iranian mullahs and the Taliban: Iran eliminates sculpture and cinema from art majors in a university admissions guide. Officials then claim an error, which will be corrected.
(6) You are probably over-sharing on Venmo: If you use Venmo, please review your privacy settings, because certain default settings expose all of your info to other users.
(7) Amazing instructional videos: This Web page contains short (~5-minute) videos about artificial intelligence and computers. Enjoy! I will post about some of the more-interesting videos in this collection separately.
(8) Mathematician/Engineer Claude Elwood Shannon [1916-2001]: Known as father of the information age, he made major contributions to the theoretical foundations of modern computing and digital communication.
- Information theory: He devised a theory of communication and the notions of entropy & channel capacity.
- Digital circuits: His MS thesis introduced circuits for logical operations, connecting them to Boolean algebra.
- Cryptanalysis: He laid the foundation for modern cryptography after working with Alan Turing during WW II.
- Sampling theory: He contributed to the Nyquist-Shannon theorem about signal reconstruction from samples.
- Data compression: His entropy concept paved the way for compression methods (e.g., Huffman coding).
- Reliable transmission: His noisy-channel coding theorem bounds the data rate, given an error probability.
- Maximum data rate: He contributed to the Shannon-Hartley theorem to bound a channel's data rate.
- Artificial intelligence: His maze-navigating mouse was an early demonstration of AI and machine learning.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Golestan Palace, Tehran, Iran. [Center] Hurricane Hilary has turned into a tropical storm as it approaches SoCal: Extensive rain is expected, but the impact may be less than previously feared. [Right] An important book about the life of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (see the last item below).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Magnitude-5.5 quake near Ojai, California, around 2.41 PM today: Aftershocks are being felt in the area.
- Spain squeaks by England 1-0 to claim its first women's soccer World Cup title. [4-minute highlights]
- An open and honest criticism of Islamic officials in Iran for being brutal, dishonest, and clueless.
- Regional Iranian music: A song from the western Luristan Province, with subtitles. [5-minute video]
(3) Book review: Bird, Kai and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, unabridged 27-hour audiobook, read by Jeff Cummings, Blackstone Audio, 2007.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I sought this book after watching Christopher Nolan's 2023 film "Oppenheimer" at an IMAX theater, so as to maximize the enjoyment of the film's brilliant cinematography. Cillian Murphy plays the title role, with Emily Blunt portraying his wife Kitty, Robert Downey Jr. as the devious Lewis Strauss, and Rami Malek as physicist David Hill. Matt Damon's portrayal of General Leslie Grove is less convincing. Given that a film, even one that is 3 hours long, cannot capture all the details of a complex life and filmmakers are prone to dramatization & exaggeration, perusing the book that inspired the movie became a must.
The initial "J." in J. Robert Oppenheimer, JRO [1904-1967], stands for "Julius," his father's first name (a common practice among some Jews). The title's Prometheus is a mythical figure "best known for defying the Olympian gods by stealing fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technology, knowledge, and more generally, civilization. In some versions of the myth, he is also credited with the creation of humanity from clay" (Wikipedia).
A relatively shy boy, JRO wasn't into playing with boys his own age. At Harvard, he majored in chemistry, but he was really interested in physics, which he later pursued at University of Gottingen in Germany, a major center for theoretical physics. After doing research at several institutions, he became a professor of physics at UC Berkeley, later leading Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, 1947-1966, where the likes of Albert Einstein, Kurt Godel, and John von Neumann roamed.
JRO was an enigmatic scientist, brilliant but also mercurial, who led US's efforts to develop the atom bomb (The Manhattan Project) from 1941 until the end of World War II. He wasn't completely trusted because he befriended members of the US Communist Party, but his expertise was too valuable to the war effort to set aside. So, he was put in charge at Los Alamos Laboratory, while being under surveillance. He emerged as a hero, when the project successfully tested an atom bomb, with the US military dropping two bombs on Japan's Hiroshima and Nagasaki shortly thereafter.
JRO enjoyed the limelight in the wake of Manhattan Project's success, while also harboring doubts about weapons of mass destruction and the potential for an arms race with the Soviet Union getting out of control. Having seen the devastation caused by the atom bombs dropped on Japan, he began opposing the development of the Super-bomb (H-bomb), an even more devastating weapon of mass destruction. In the end, he was heartbroken when his security clearance was revoked after a Joseph-McCarthy-style tribunal ruled that he could not be trusted.
JRO suffered from episodes of depression, homesickness, and other mental troubles throughout his life. He was a brilliant scientist but his naivete and detachment from worldly matters (he did not read newspapers or magazines) made him a victim of political manipulation in Washington, where people are thrown away like soiled toilet paper when they no longer serve the political ambitions of those pulling the strings. Much of this book is a manifesto in defense RJO and a criticism of the misguided policy of setting aside scientists for traits they tend to have as a matter of course (liberalism, favoring open discussions, thinking about the ethics of war, pursuing social justice).
One of RJO's sins was his defense of openness about technical advances, particularly the development of weapons of mass destruction. He believed that openness would curtail over-development of weapons by our enemies, that is, would dampen an arms race, and would keep the public informed about what an atomic war would mean. He advised his scientist colleagues that they had no more say in how the military used the results of their work than any other member of the public. He considered the wisdom of the masses critical in making major war-and-peace decisions at the national level.
President John F. Kennedy tried to make it up to RJO (and to compensate for his own failings in not standing up to Joseph McCarthy) by bestowing him with Atomic Energy Commission's highest honor, the Enrico Fermi Award. He was assassinated before he could do it and the task fell to Lyndon Johnson, who praised RJO profusely during his remarks. In accepting the award, RJO noted that Jefferson had often written of the brotherly spirit of science, a spirit that, unfortunately, hasn't always prevailed.
RJO died at age 62, having lost a lot of weight and nearly all of his mental sharpness. The urn containing his ashes was dropped at sea, as he had requested. Following his death, messages of sympathy and admiration arrived in large numbers.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Talk on "Mystical Origins of Persian Calligraphy" (see the next item below). [Top center] Simple math puzzle: Find the area of the blue quadrangle. [Top right] Geometric puzzles: Four seemingly underspecified problems from @gs_bangalore. [Bottom left] Walking in Ventura, before the arrival of Hurricane Hilary. [Bottom center] Course lectures on my YouTube channel (see the last item below).[Bottom right] The universe in pictures: A historical timeline since the Big Bang (the time scale is highly nonlinear) and comparing Hubble & James Webb images from the same region of our universe.
(2) Farhang Foundation's program on August 12, 2023: Kourosh Beigpour spoke under the title "Mystical Origins of Persian Calligraphy." I was very disappointed that I could not attend on that day. Fortunately, the link to the program's recording has just been released (36-minute video).
Award-winning graphic artist and type designer Kourosh Beigpour shares his profound insights into the captivating world of Persian calligraphy, delving deep into the mystical origins that have shaped this cherished art form. His relentless dedication to preserving the authenticity of this art while infusing it with his own contemporary expression has earned him accolades and admiration.
(3) One of my English language pet peeves: When one registers for an event such as a conference in advance, it is called "advance registration," not "advanced registration"!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The Constitution prohibits Trump from ever being president again: Article in The Atlantic.
- Some of the prominent faces of dissent in Iran's #WomanLifeFreedom Revolution. [2-minute video]
- The funeral of old-time singer Parvin in Iran: No mullahs, just poetry and music. [3-minute video]
- Where would India be today had it not been colonized by the British? An interesting discussion.
(5) The 1988 Iranian prison massacre: Thousands of Iranian prisoners were executed by an extrajudicial process triggered by a fatwa from Ayatollah Khomeini. Of the panel involved in carrying out the fatwa, only Hamid Noury has been brought to justice by an international war-crimes tribunal in Sweden. Another prominent member of the panel, Ebrahim Raisi, is now Iran's president. Ayatollah Montazeri was the only official to object to the executions at the time, and he was promptly sidelined and confined to house arrest for the rest of his life. This article by Hamid Enayat, published in Middle East Quarterly, contains a detailed account of the extrajudicial executions and its criminal participants who remain at large.
(6) Complete on-line graduate-level course on fault-tolerant computing: I am learning to organize my YouTube videos and, as a first step, have set up a playlist composed of 16 lectures for my upcoming fall 2023 UCSB graduate course, ECE 257A. These lectures were recorded during the distance-learning of the COVID years and are made available here to the public.
Playlist name: Fault-Tolerant Computing Lectures (UCSB Graduate Course) [Playlist link]
Other info, including course textbook and lecture slides can be found on the UCSB ECE 257A Web page.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The intricate design and tiling scheme of the dome at Isfahan's Shah Mosque. [Center] On-line course on transitional justice (see the next item below). [Right] Meghan O'Gieblyn's God, Human, Animal, Machine (see the last item below).
(2) Iran Academia's course on "Transitional Justice": This 7-week on-line course, which I just finished, is organized as follows. Week one, titled "Foundational Aspects of Transitional Justice," covers the concept's development and basic principles. Week two, "Dealing with Past Atrocities," discusses truth and justice mechanisms that are not dependent on transition. The following weeks delve deeper into specific topics, including "The Right to Truth and Truth Commissions" (Week 3), "The Right to Justice and Criminal Prosecutions" (Week 4), "Reparations and Guarantees of Non-repetitions" (Week 5), "Mass Graves" (Week 6), and "Memory and Transitional Justice" (Week 7).
In very brief terms, transitional justice aims to soothe & heal the victims of oppression or war crimes, identify the culprits & punish them according to local or international laws, and, in cases where punishment isn't possible or the amnesty option is pursued, at least draw a solid line between the present and the past to ensure that heinous crimes are not forgotten or repeated. Agents who committed crimes against humanity are liable (having followed orders isn't a valid defense), as are those who planned the atrocities or issued the orders. Monuments & other memorials may be erected as part of the remembrance process and as a way of preventing repetition of the crimes. In the case of memorializing in the service of healing, art can play a significant role.
I took this course because I was curious about mechanism for bringing perpetrators of crimes against humanity and war crimes to justice as part of a national healing process, when dictatorial regimes fall or when peace prevails after conflict. I was particularly interested in the pros and cons of pursuing justice versus granting general amnesty.
The various presentations and reading material for this free on-line course were uneven in terms of engaging the viewer/reader, comprehensibility, and logical organization. Visual aids were non-existent. It is difficult to learn from dry, monotonous, long-winded explanations. With regard to content, much of what was presented falls under common-sense provisions, that one can deduce without instruction. In particular, end-of-section questions were almost always answerable by analyzing the text of the answers, without a need to have listened to presentations or perused the reading material.
(3) Book review: O'Gieblyn, Meghan, God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology. Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning, unabridged 9-hour audiobook, read by Rebecca Lowman, Random House Audio, 2021.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
[My pitch of this book to "UCSB Reads 2024" Committee was posted on June 14, 2023.]
We are bombarded daily with stories about ChatGPT and how AI is threatening the essence of our being as humans. Technology is speeding up our lives, leaving little time for reflection, yet the deep changes that are afoot demand that we devote enough time to think about the future of humanity and our challenges over centuries and millennia, not focus merely on today, this quarter, or the next political election. On the other hand, maybe we should just stop thinking and trust the judgement of algorithms!
In 304 pages (9 hours of audio), O'Gieblyn, an essayist, columnist, and thinker, who studied theology in college, paints a detailed picture of our struggles to reconcile spirituality with technical progress. The writing is that of an essayist, almost devoid of jargon, although, as a columnist for Wired magazine, O'Gieblyn can be legitimately called a tech writer.
We humans are constantly thinking of ways of controlling and overtaking nature. We outsource our intelligence to machines, as extensions of our minds, increasingly seeing ourselves as machinelike in the process. Descartes considered all animals essentially as clocks, that is, robots without any inner experience. He believed that humans were also machines, but with souls, a viewpoint that created problems for the clockwork universe.
This is more or less the starting place for O'Gieblyn's book, which is about how the success of the modern scientific worldview rests on mechanical metaphors, with the attendant discounting of individual human thought and agency. We put consciousness and free will to the side, as we try to describe the world as a mere machine. We did it with the clock metaphor, and that's what we're doing with the computer metaphor, with the computational theory of mind.
O'Gieblyn's book provides ample opportunities to ponder and discuss hot-button issues of the day. Increasingly, technology is being developed and sold with religion-like tropes. So, we might wonder whether we are on our way to a utopian digital heaven, offered to us by gods of technology, or a dystopian digital hell of our own making. Is academia threatened by ChatGPT and similar developments? Is our increasing reliance on technology helping or impairing our move toward equity and social justice?
In the final Chapter 13, entitled "Virality," a very important point is raised about our society's exclusive focus on form at the expense of content. In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, many "experts" with no training in epidemiology or even medicine began modeling the pandemic and how it spread. They argued that data tell us everything, so there is no need for domain expertise to analyze the data and produce diagnoses & recommendations.
That a former theologian generates a remarkable synthesis of key ideas addressed for centuries through faith, philosophy, science, and technology is a pleasant surprise.
O'Gieblyn's statement that "All the eternal questions have become engineering problems" is both jarring and enlightening. The modern world has transformed empirical scientists from bad guys, who undermined religion, to good guys, who may help open a portal to digital heaven for our digitized & uploaded souls.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday: My younger son's yearbook photo from August 2003. [Top center] Definition of poetry by poet William Blake (1757-1827). [Top right] Art-deco typewriting desk. [Bottom left] Talk on acoustic filters (see the next item below). [Bottom center] Talk on what we are learning from modern telescopes (see item 3 below). [Bottom right] Talk on Persian carpets (see the last item below).
(2) Wednesday night's IEEE Central Coast Section talk: Dr. Gregory C. Dyer (Resonant, a Murata Company) spoke under the title "XBAR and the 5G Acoustic Filter." This hybrid event was held at Rusty's Pizza in Goleta and streamed on-line via WebEx.
Acoustic filters are foundational components of the radio frequency front end (RFFE) modules that enable today's compact, high performance, wide bandwidth mobile phones. These passive devices are composed of acoustic resonator networks that have a high selectivity, low-loss bandpass RF filter response. Additionally, state-of-the-art acoustic filters have footprints of less than 1 square millimeter while operating at input power levels on the order of 1 Watt. In this talk, Dr. Dyer surveyed the core acoustic filter technologies, with an emphasis on transversely excited bulk acoustic resonator (XBAR) filters. He discussed acoustic resonator and filter physics and highlighted the differentiating attributes that the XBAR technology provides for Fifth Generation (5G) telecommunications and beyond.
I had to leave the event early to make it to another meeting, so my report is based on speaker's abstract.
(3) Wednesday night's Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Bahram Mobasher (UC Riverside) spoke under the title "Uncovering the Secrets of Our Universe and Life with Present and Future Telescopes" to 100+ attendees.
Beginning with a history of space observations via crude early telescopes (Kepler, Galileo), Dr. Mobasher discussed many other telescopes built and used through the centuries, up to and including modern space telescopes (Hubble, James Webb, Euclid).
[Dr. Bahram Mobasher's Google Scholar profile]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- A weakened Hurricane Hilary to arrive in Southern California on Sunday. [Projected hurricane path]
- How language shapes the way we think: 14-minute TED talk by Lera Boroditsky.
- Michigan State University students unearth an observatory buried on campus since 1881.
- Stephen Pinker answers questions about language rules and good writing.
- Cartoon of the day: "Jason, I'd like to let you play, but soccer is a girls' game." [Image]
(5) Spain v. England in women's soccer World Cup final (Fox, Sun. 8/20, 3:00 AM PDT): Neither team has won a women's World Cup title before. In an exciting match that went scoreless for 80 minutes, Spain scored in minutes 81 & 90 to eliminate Sweden 2-1. In the other semifinal match, England breezed by Australia 3-1.
(6) Thursday night's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Touraj Jouleh spoke in Persian under the title "The Pathology of Iranian Carpets Over Time." Before the main talk, Mitra Zaimi shared a video clip about Iran's Constitutional Revolution of 1905, whose 118th anniversary was on August 5. There were ~70 attendees.
Dr. Jouleh divided his discussion into four historical periods.
- The Safavid era (1501-1736 CE): Known as the golden age of arts in Iran, the Safavid era led to the flourishing of carpet-weaving. We have inherited many exquisite carpets from that period. Each Safavid king was fond of a different art form. The art form that was emphasized depended on the interests of the Director of the Royal Library, appointed by the king. Centralization of the management of arts was a misguided policy that also had adverse effects on carpet-weaving. The idea was to bring the best artists to the capital and use them in the service of royalty and their preferences. Only carpets from 4-5 centers/regions have survived from the Safavid era to the present day. Carpets and other art forms from Kurdistan, Turkmenistan, and many other rural regions must have been ignored, given that we do not have any samples from these areas. The art of weaving was a practical art, because many villagers and nomadic tribes depended on guelims, gabbehs, khorjins (saddlebags), and the like for survival. So, it is extremely unlikely that carpets and other forms of weaving were not pursued in area outside the few centers that we now know about.
Unfortunately, so much time was spent on the Safavid era and related Q&A that time ran out and the other three eras (Qajar, 1789-1925; Pahlavi, 1925-1979; Islamic Republic, 1979-now) were not discussed. There was just a casual reference to the problem of low-quality material and time-saving shortcuts in production over the past 5-6 decades that have doomed the art of carpet-weaving.
The meeting's organizer announced that the discussion will continue in another session (perhaps next week).
(1) Book review: Desmond, Matthew, Poverty, by America, unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by Dion Graham, Random House Audio, 2023. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I perused this book shortly after I finished Mark Robert Rank's The Poverty Paradox: Understanding Economic Hardship Amid American Prosperity, giving it a 5-star review on GoodReads. The very existence of poverty in America, the world's wealthiest nation, is surprising. Rank's explanation is that the economic system in the US is set up like a game of musical chairs, played with 10 people and only 8 chairs, where the chairs represent opportunities in the form of decent-paying jobs. Desmond reaches essentially the same conclusion. It's not that the world's wealthiest nation cannot eliminate poverty. The existence of poverty is purposeful, because keeping some citizens poor serves the interests of many. Desmond dismisses those who blame poverty on systemic and structural causes, because such attributions allow us to skirt personal agency, that is, the fact that the poor are not exploited by a system but by people who are a rung or two above them on the economic ladder.
Poverty would not exist in the US, were it not for choices and actions of more-fortunate Americans. Examples of exploitative choices and actions abound: Paying undocumented workers less than the minimum wage or denying them overtime; Charging exorbitant bank overdraft fees; Setting a lower tax rate for capital gains compared with income earned through labor; Charging high rents to low-income tenants, who have few alternatives. According to Desmond, "Poverty isn't simply the condition of not having enough money. It's the condition of not having enough choice and being taken advantage of because of that."
Affluent Americans defending exclusionary zoning that keeps low-income families away from their neighborhoods has the effect of curtailing upward mobility, thus essentially being a segregationist act. The wealthiest Americans not paying their fair share of taxes is another inhibitor of upward mobility, because of its negative impact on funding adequate safety nets; and the safety nets that are in place are rather difficult to access by the poor, due to bureaucratic red tape.
Desmond's previous book, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning best-seller, Evicted, offered a thorough and thoughtful study of the US rental housing system which, among other ills, perpetuates poverty. When a low-income family spends up to 3/4 of its income on rent and is constantly worried about making the payment and avoiding eviction, it is left with little time or emotional energy to better itself in order to escape poverty's vicious cycle.
Poverty isn't a problem affecting only the poor. It drags the entire society down by being ever-present in our news, visible to us as we walk in a park, depressing us and making us feel shame. It is thus imperative that we all carefully examine our lifestyles to identify all the ways in which we contribute to poverty.
(2) Book review: Taussig, Rebekah, Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Body, HarperOne, 2020.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
At 14 months old, Taussig was diagnosed with a malignant cancer that attacked her spine. She became cancer-free after two years of intense treatment, but was left paralyzed from the waist down. In her memoir-cum-disability-justice-manifesto, Taussig, creator of the Instagram account @sitting_pretty, offers a nuanced portrait of a body that looks and moves differently than most. "Taussig's explorations of the ways her own ordinary, resilient, disabled body interacts with a largely able-bodied world are complex, evading neatly tied conclusions and categories" (Rumpus literary & culture on-line magazine).
This is the first book about disability that I have perused, so I learned a great deal from it. For many of us, seeing a disabled person evokes a variety of feelings, including pity, mercy, and charity. The obviously-visible disability tends to blind us to the fact that there is a thinking, feeling, and, perhaps, brilliant person behind the abnormal physical appearance, with many of the same challenges and aspirations as the rest of us.
Our movies and literature depict disability as horrific, inspirational, or beatific. Growing up, Taussig yearned for stories depicting disability as both nuanced and ordinary. Contrary to popular views, a disabled person isn't looking for help, kindness, and charity, but connection and understanding. Looking down on or dismissing disabled persons are prime examples of ableism, a term that I understood only after reading this book.
Like racism, ableism, defined as discrimination based on disability, is often exhibited with little or no malicious intent. Ableism includes a wide spectrum of utterances and actions, from able-bodied individuals using facilities intended for disabled people to making assumptions about a disabled person's inability to perform or excel at certain tasks. We all need to challenge ableism in the same ways that we have learned to challenge racism and sexism.
Becoming familiar with a disabled person's fears, hopes, and ambitions goes a long way toward avoiding implicit ableism, instilled in us by our upbringing and social conditioning. This is an excellent book for giving us the requisite familiarity.
(3) Book review: Magsamen, Susan and Ivy Ross, Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us, Random House, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
We have known for a long time that, far from being a luxury, art is essential to our well-being. Susan Magsamen (Johns Hopkins U.) & Ivy Ross (Google) present ample evidence from neuroscience research that engaging in art for as little as 45 minutes a day reduces the stress hormone cortisol, regardless of whether you are good at the activity. Just one art experience per month can add 10 years to one's life. The effect of playing music on building cognitive skills and improving learning is well-known, as is the health impact of listening to music. Doctors now routinely prescribe museum visits for a host of maladies, from loneliness to dementia.
Chapter 1, "The Anatomy of Arts," begins with a quote from dancer/choreographer Martha Graham: "There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique." The chapter then proceeds with what the authors characterize as an arts anatomy cheat sheet, reviewing foundational science that illuminates the ways in which humans are wired for the arts.
The remaining six chapters are entitled "Cultivating Well-Being" (2), "Restoring Mental Health" (3), "Healing the Body" (4), "Amplifying Learning" (5), "Flourishing" (6), and "Creating Community" (7). The seven numbered chapters are preceded by an introduction entitled "The Language of Humanity" (including a self-assessment survey under "An Aesthetic Mindset") and a conclusion entitled "The Art of the Future."
Engagement with the arts affects both our physical & mental well-being and our learning capacity. Unfortunately, we have seen in recent decades reduced attention to art education in favor of science & math. A pioneering large-scale Brookings Institution study found that "a substantial increase in arts educational experiences has remarkable impacts on students' academic, social, and emotional outcomes. Relative to students assigned to the control group, treatment school students experienced a 3.6 percentage point reduction in disciplinary infractions, an improvement of 13 percent of a standard deviation in standardized writing scores, and an increase of 8 percent of a standard deviation in their compassion for others."
In addition to citing research results from a variety of disciplines, particularly neuroaesthetics, the book features conversations with artists such as David Byrne and Rene Fleming. The authors end with this final sentence: "The world, and its beauty, are there waiting for you."
This 59-minute conversation with the authors at Aspen Institute touches upon the key ideas from the book.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Camels in the Taklamakan Desert, northwest China. [Top center] A meme for book lovers facing a dearth of shelving. [Top right] Ed Yong's An Immense World (see the last item below). [Middle & Bottom rows] Tonight's concert at the La Patera Historic Ranch in Goleta (see the next item below).
(2) Tonight's concert at Goleta's La Patera Historic Ranch: Held on Tuesday nights, the concerts are similar in spirit to Santa Barbara's Concerts in the Park, which I could not attend this year, due to conflict with another standing commitment on Thursday nights. Tonight's band was Moneluv, which played original and cover songs.
[Sample music from the concert (2-minute videos): Video 1; Video 2; Video 3]
La Patera Historic Ranch is also home to South Coast Railroad Museum, where an old Goleta Depot was moved and restored. Besides Tuesday evening concerts, other events take place at the Ranch. There is also a museum store, a few ranch exhibits, and guided tours of the historic Stowe House. Goleta's Lake Los Carneros Park is one of my favorite walking spots: The historic Stowe House is at the upper left corner of the map.
(3) Book review: Yong, Ed, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us, Penguin Random House, 2022.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
We humans navigate and organize the world by our sense of sight. Our trichromat vision (eyes containing three distinct types of cones, each specialized in detecting a different range of wavelengths) is indeed powerful. Some animals, such as horses & dogs, as well as many "color-blind" people, have only two types of cones. There are animals with more than three kinds of cones, but they lack brain mechanisms to compare those colors, which is the primary method for us humans to construct a model of the world around us. Daphnia water fleas, for example, can detect ultraviolet light, but only as flashes that trigger the response of swimming away toward green & yellow wavelengths, which signal the presence of food; they are unable to see entire scenes.
Having established the primacy of vision (or the nearly equivalent echolocation ability of bats & dolphins) in constructing a world view, Yong moves on to discuss various senses in turn. Here is the book's table of contents. An interesting collection of photos, showing some of the animals discussed, follows Chapter 13.
Introduction: The Only True Voyage
Chapter 1: Leaking Sacks of Chemicals | Smells and Tastes
Chapter 2: Endless Ways of Seeing | Light
Chapter 3: Purple, Grurple, Yurple | Color
Chapter 4: The Unwanted Sense | Pain
Chapter 5: So Cool | Heat
Chapter 6: A Rough Sense | Contact and Flow
Chapter 7: The Rippling Ground | Surface Vibrations
Chapter 8: All Ears | Sound
Chapter 9: A Silent World Shouts Back | Echo
Chapter 10: Living Batteries | Electric Fields
Chapter 11: They Know the Way | Magnetic Fields
Chapter 12: Every Window at Once | Uniting the Senses
Chapter 13: Save the Quiet, Preserve the Dark | Threatened Sensescapes
Each animal's senses and corresponding sense organs have been shaped by evolution to best match its needs. A highly-developed sense may compensate for another weak sense. When we lose a sense (e.g., sight) or have it significantly weakened, other senses begin to pick up the slack so as to allow us to live almost normally.
Other than sensing capabilities, animals are different in many other ways. For example, some 350 species of fish can produce electricity for defensive, surveillance, and hunting purposes. Humans have been familiar with these features from thousands of years ago, long before anyone knew what electricity was. Electric eels constitute the ultimate in electro-efficiency, having most of their 7-foot-long bodies comprised of 5-10 thousand electrocytes, allowing them to discharge up to 860 volts. Magneto-reception capability, useful for localization and navigation, is another wonder of nature found in some animal species.
We humans also sense differently from one another, depending on our genetic make-up, training, profession, and possible illnesses & accidents affecting one or more of our senses. So, each of us has a somewhat different model of the world on which we base our actions and decisions. Our extraordinary capabilities as a species do not arise from superior sensing capabilities but from our ability to process and combine information from multiple sources.
We are capable of putting ourselves in the shoes of other species, so as to understand what they sense and how they "see" the world. "A bogong moth will never know what a zebra finch hears in its song ... and a dog will never understand what it is like to be a bat. We will never fully do any of these things either, but we are the only animal that can even come close." We must choose to use our gifts of curiosity and imagination to step into the worlds of other animals: To observe, to understand, and to expand our horizons.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Science magazine highlights Australia's environmental challenges (Issue of August 11, 2023): The special section features articles on wildfires, indigenous water science, loss of terrestrial biodiversity, approaches to conserving the marine ecosystem, and indigenous prescription for planetary health. [Center] A friendly suggestion to Iranian mullahs struggling to deal with women's hair. [Right] Iran is pregnant with more unrest (see the next item below).
(2) First Anniversary of Mahsa Uprising in Iran: The Islamic regime is preparing for September 16, 2023, which is one year after #MahsaAmini died while in custody of Iran's morality police, triggering street protests throughout Iran that became known as the Mahsa or #WomanLifeFreedom Revolution. While the regime's brutal reaction, including the killing of 500+ protesters and blinding of many others, has calmed things down for now, the anniversary is expected to bring people back to the streets. [Photo credit: Masih Alinejad tweet]
(3) To conservatives who whine that Trump poses a risk to their election chances: Well, you created this monster. Don't try to make us feel sorry for you. We will take full advantage of your vulnerability with Trump!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Donald Trump and 18 of his allies charged in Georgia election-meddling criminal case.
- US shift away from fossil fuels to clean energy is happening faster than you think.
- Women's soccer World Cup has reached the semifinal stage: Spain v. Sweden & Australia v. England.
- The eBay stalking scandal: How a journalist couple became the target of harassment by eBay employees.
(5) Missing Iranian wrestler, who protested the execution of Navid Afkari, confirmed dead: Amin Bazrgar went missing in 2021 after making a series of Instagram posts. Security forces have told his family that several of his bones were discovered on a mountain in Shiraz.
(6) Scientists must begin to rehabilitate their image: Multiple high-profile cases of research misconduct and the resultant legal actions are not conducive to productivity and public trust. [Science magazine editorial]
(7) Want a cool $1 million reward? Try proving within two years Goldbach's conjecture that any integer greater than 5 can be written as the sum of three prime numbers. For example, 21 = 11 + 7 + 3.
(8) "Killing Christians takes us to paradise": Two Muslim boys, aged 15 & 16, were recently tried in Austria and sentenced to two years in prison each, because they wanted to kill Christians and restore the caliphate. They had planned to massacre as many people as possible during an attack at the 15-year-old's middle school.
(9) In Stuart Walker's book Design for Resilience, Chap. 24 is entitled "Design for Resilience" (pp. 311-339). Within Chap. 24, there is a section entitled "Design for resilience" (pp. 329-332). I kid you not!
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Meme of the day: "Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich." [Top center & right] My train/walk adventure (see the next item below). [Bottom left] The US version of the board game "Chutes and Ladders" turns 80: The game is based on the ancient Indian game "Moksha Patam" that was brought to the UK in the 1890s. [Bottom center] SI and binary prefixes (see the last item below). [Bottom right] Math puzzle: I have posted instances of such geometric puzzles before. In this one, areas of four smaller squares are given and the area of the large square is sought.
(2) My train trip to Anaheim: Yesterday, I took Amtrak's Train 770 from Goleta to Anaheim to visit with some family members. Luckily, my destination was only a 35-minute walk away from the Anaheim Transportation Center, so I left my car at home and made it a rail/walk adventure. Even though the train ride was 4+ hours each way, I spent 3/4 of that time doing useful work, such as reading books, writing, reading/answering e-mail, and checking social media. Also, I calculated that the cost of the train ticket was a bit less than what I would have paid for gas. So, it was a win-win situation: Less stress & time waste, plus lower cost.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- As the Maui wildfire death toll approaches 100 and the extent of devastation becomes clearer, please help.
- Hawaii officials were warned years ago about deadly fire danger in Lahaina.
- In the women's soccer World Cup, all the teams with previous championships have been eliminated.
- Roller-skaters inject some joy in Iran's joyless society created by the mullahs.
- Being a good citizen: This man's removal of rocks from the road surface may have saved lives.
(4) SI and binary prefixes: System International, French for International System (of Units), in use worldwide, has a recommended set of prefixes for multiples and fractions of units. Even in the US, which isn't yet on board with SI, we use some of the units and prefixes (such as calorie & kilocalorie, second, volt, milliliter, milligram, and so on). Here is a partial list of the SI prefixes for multiples. [The full list]
kilo (k, 10^3), as in kilogram = kg, kilometer = km
mega (M, 10^6), as in megatonne = Mt, megapixel = MP
giga (G, 10^9), as in gigawatt = GW, gigahertz = GHz
The next three in the series are tera (T, 10^12), peta (P, 10^15), and exa (E, 2^18). So far, so good. However, in computer science & engineering, kilobyte usually does not mean 1000 bytes, but 1024 bytes. This is because 1024 equals 2^10, and powers of 2 are more convenient for use as memory-capacity units. The same holds for megabyte (2^20 bytes), gigabyte (2^30 bytes), terabyte (2^40 bytes), petabyte (2^50 bytes), and exabyte (2^60 bytes). The powers of 2 just cited are:
2^10 = 1024
2^20 = 1,048,576
2^30 = 1,073,741,824
2^40 = 1,099,511,627,776
2^50 = 1,125,899,906,842,624
2^60 = 1,152,921,504,606,846,976
The first four are fairly close to powers of 10, viz., one thousand, one million, and one billion. After that, the difference increases, until it reaches ~15% between 2^60 and 10^18. Because of the small differences, problems seldom arise from the ambiguity when we state, e.g., that a computer has a 1-TB SSD drive. However, science demands precision and it is best to have a unique interpretation for the value of each prefix.
Many proposals have been floated over the years, including the scheme of International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). The IEC prefixes were incorporated into the ISO/IEC 80000 standard alongside the decimal SI prefixes in 2008. A nice feature of the IEC scheme is its uniformity: Ki is binary-kilo, Mi is binary-mega, and so on. The only exception is that the lowercase k for kilo is replaced with the uppercase version in Ki. This is to remain consistent with the past usages of k and K for kilo and binary-kilo, respectively. [More details]
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Fifty years of hip-hop (see the next item below). [Center] The fight over water at the Iran-Afghanistan border: The age-old conflict is intensifying due to drought. The photo shows the bone-dry Hamun Lake in eastern Iran. [Right] Poster about science in the Soviet Union (see the last item below).
(2) Hip-hop turns 50: On August 11, 1973, DJ Kool Herc brought two turntables to his sister's Bronx party. He looped the funkiest snippets of songs. Music historians took note. "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang was the first mainstream hit in 1979. Run-DMC "kicked the door open" in the 1980s. Now, hip-hop is a worldwide phenomenon. [Source: Time magazine]
(3) Dissent in Iran: During this year's Muharram mourning rituals, Iranian mullahs got a slap on the face when mourners used chants criticizing their brutality, corruption, and anti-social ideas. [2-minute video]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration completes upgrades to its supercomputer system.
- This stunning rainbow cloud spotted in China is caused by condensation from rapidly-rising air.
- Facebook memory from Aug. 11, 2019: When I met Donald Knuth at a TeX Users Group conference.
- Facebook memory from Aug. 11, 2015: Bride leads wedding guests in a spirited Indian dance routine.
- Facebook memory from Aug. 11, 2014: Beautiful recreation of the sounds of a thundershower.
(5) Repression of science in communist countries: During my August 10, 2023, presentation on Lagrange Points, I briefly cited the sci-fi novel The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, in which he paints an interesting picture of physics research in China during Cultural Revolution, when speaking of the Big Bang theory and Einstein's special & general relativity were considered reactionary. Several questions arose during the Q&A session about why communism would oppose any science. I did some digging and present the results below.
First, ideology-based opposition to social sciences isn't surprising and is also observed in countries governed by Islamic theology. Statistics isn't a social science, but has many applications therein. Furthermore, the notion of randomness is at odds with the certainty & infinite wisdom claimed for central planning (or God's will in Islam).
Portions of physics were frowned upon by the Soviet Union. In the late 1940s, quantum mechanics and special & general relativity were criticized on grounds of "idealism." Soviet physicists developed a version of the statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics, which was seen as more adhering to the principles of dialectical materialism. This process did not go as far as defining an "ideologically correct" version of physics and purging non-conforming scientists, because of the realization that it might cause harm to the Soviet nuclear program. After the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949, China reorganized its science establishment along Soviet lines, using bureaucratic rather than professional principle of organization (that is, using non-scientist leadership), separating research from production, establishing specialized research institutes, and giving high priority to applied science & technology, which includes military technology.
In biology, a similar disdain developed in the Soviet Union. In the mid-1930s, Stalin supported the agronomist Trofim Lysenko and his campaign against genetics, which was characterized as "bourgeoisie science" (due in part to its association with the priest Gregor Mendel). In a notorious "Pavlovian Session" of the 1950 joint meeting of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, several prominent Soviet physiologists were accused of deviating from Pavlov's teaching. The result of promoting pseudo-science was forcing physiologists to accept a dogmatic ideology that damaged the quality of biological research in the Soviet Union and isolated it from the international scientific community. In China, "learning from the Soviet Union" was the official policy in biological research until 1956, when the Qingdao Symposium brought about major changes leading to open discussions and rejection of Lysenko's pseudo-science.
References:
- Wikipedia: Repression of science in the Soviet Union
- Wikipedia: Pavlovian session
- Wikipedia: History of Science and technology in the People's Republic of China
- "Genetics in China: The Qingdao Symposium of 1956" (PDF)
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday: Sister Mary Kenneth Keller, the first woman to earn a doctorate in computer science in the US, 1965. [Top center] Mathematics that amazes: This diagram is due to mathematician Diego Rattaggi. The number in/by each circle represents its radius and φ is the Golden Ratio. [Top right] Motifs found on objects dug up in Iran's Fars Province: Dated as far back as 500 BCE, these motifs offer ideas for artwork, interior decoration, and even tattoos. [Bottom left] A creative artist's depiction of the poor and the rich. [Bottom center & right] Technical talk on Lagrange Points (see the last item below).
(2) Oral History of Iranian Jews: Housed at UCLA Library's Special Collections.
Abstract: Record Series 779 contains oral history transcripts and audio recordings donated to UCLA's Center for Oral History Research, and interviews from the Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History, many of them in Persian.
I learned from this 86-minute video about Homa Sarshar being honored with the 13th Bita Prize that she has donated an extensive archive about Jews of Iran, along with her own personal papers, to Stanford University.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Hawaii wildfires loss: 36 deaths, 1000s of evacuees, & total destruction of the historic town of Lahaina.
- Hawaii late-night update: Maui wildfire death toll has risen to 53 and is expected to rise even further.
- "Inside the Iranian Uprising": An informative & effective 53-minute episode of the PBS series "Frontline."
- Physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson speaks his mind on Barbie and the outrage over the new "Barbie" movie.
(4) Golriz Ghahraman, a young woman who fled Iran with her family when she was 9 and is now a member of parliament in New Zealand, challenges Iran's ambassador in front of a number of New Zealand MPs.
(5) Iran's hostage-taking is rewarded once again: I am happy for the five Americans who will be coming home, but they will soon be replaced by other Americans in Iranian jails. [NYT report]
(6) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Yours truly spoke in Persian under the title "Lagrange Points and Their Significance to Observation Satellites and Space Telescopes." There were ~65 attendees.
A brief presentation by Dr. Hossein Samei entitled "The Difference Between Script and Language" preceded the main talk. One interesting observation was that languages have been around for ~300,000 years, whereas scripts are fairly new (~5000 years). Some languages have no written form. Children learn their mother tongue way before they learn to read or write. Script is a technological phenomenon, not an integral part of a language. There exist thousands of languages but only two-dozen basic scripts.
Application of math to physics has given rise to the field of mathematical physics. Mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange [1736-1813] did pioneering work in this area. After reviewing a few concepts from physics about motion, equilibrium, and gravitational attraction, I introduced one problem in this domain, its solution, and a few notable applications to Earth observation, monitoring of the Sun, and space telescopes. The problem addressed is an instance of the three-body problem, which is super-difficult to solve in general. However, when one of the bodies is much smaller than the other two, so that its gravitational pull can be neglected (e.g., a satellite, compared with the Earth and the Moon), the problem becomes tractable. For each pair of heavy objects, with one rotating around the other, there are five special Lagrange Points in space. These points were introduced and related to the applications cited above.
[Top row] My day-trip to Academy Museum of Motion Pictures: Located at 6067 Wilshire Blvd., right next door to LACMA, the Museum is a treat for movie lovers. Movies occupy a special position at the intersection of arts and technology, so both artists and tech enthusiast will enjoy the extensive exhibits offered here.
[Second row] Every corner of the Academy Museum is filled with exhibits on cinema and film artists, including the entry lobby named in honor of pioneer and norm-breaking actor/director Sidney Poitier.
[Third row] Three early devices creating the illusion of motion (Praxinoscope, Mutoscope, Phenakistiscope).
[Fourth row] The Barbra Streisand bridge connects the Academy Museum of Motion Picture's main building to the Dolby Family Terrace, where one can relax while enjoying an expansive view of the surrounding areas.
[Fifth row] The 3-story exhibit entitled "Stories of Cinema" is augmented with a tour of cinema's pre-history in the exhibit "The Path to Cinema," which contains multiple early devices and a display on Magic Lanterns.
[Sixth row] The exhibit entitled "Back Drop: An Invisible Art" uses Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 film "North by Northwest" to illustrate how much work goes into creating what you see behind the actors. Initially, backdrops were painted. Later, photographs were used. Now, digital displays do the job.
[Seventh row] Some of Academy Museum's displays on character creation.
[Eighth row] Some of the displays on the Oscars and make-believe locations (animated or live action).
[Bottom row] Among movies honored in exhibits are "Casablanca" and the works of Pedron Almadovar.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The widening US income gap: Income growth since 1980, after taxes & benefits, by income group (New York Times chart). [Center] JR-15, the fully-functional assault rifle for kids (JR = junior, get it?): Just what we needed, because we don't have enough school shootings & other forms of gun violence. [Right] The Book of Why, by Judea Pearl & Dana Mackenzie (see the last item below).
(2) US women's exit from the 2023 soccer World Cup: The penalty kick nearly saved by the US goalie actually crossed the goal line by millimeters, giving Sweden an advantage in the sudden-death stage of PKs. The Swedish goalie emerged as the game's hero, for saving multiple shots during the match.
(3) NASA reestablishes contact with Voyager 2: The spacecraft, which left Earth 46 years ago and is currently 12.3 billion miles away, stopped communicating in July, when controllers accidentally sent a command that shifted its antenna 2 degrees away from Earth. A special command, dubbed "interstellar shout," has led to the reorientation of the spacecraft's antenna and resumption of communications with Earth. Voyager 2, the only spacecraft to have flown by Neptune and Uranus is now outside the Solar System, in the interstellar space. It's twin, Voyager 1, is the most-distant spacecraft from Earth (around 15 billion miles away, or ~5 times further than Pluto).
(4) Book review: Pearl, Judea and Dana Mackenzie, The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect, Hachette, 2018.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Computer scientist Judea Pearl (UCLA) and writer Dana Mackenzie introduce their target general audience to the subject of causality and causal inference from statistical and philosophical viewpoints. During my doctoral studies at UCLA in the early 1970s, I was fortunate to be a student in Judea Pearl's graduate course on computer memories, a topic outside his areas of expertise that he must have taught based on departmental need; yet, I learned a great deal from the course.
Early-20th-century statistical methods were inadequate for describing causal relationships between variables. A "Causal Revolution," which began in mid-20th-century, provided conceptual and mathematical tools for the task. Common statistical tools, such as correlation and regression, operate at the level of association (a crowing rooster is associated with a rising sun), without any implication that one event causes the other event.
Higher levels or rungs of the ladder of causation, intervention and counterfactuals, deal with these two questions: "How does intervention X affects the outcome Y?" and "What might have been under different circumstances?" Bayes' Theorem and Bayesian networks are introduced as tools related to causal diagrams. Ironically, it is rather difficult to show that cigarette-smoking causes cancer; it does, but no amount of discussion of correlation between smoking and cancer constitutes adequate proof.
Causal reasoning helps resolve a number of well-known paradoxes: The Monty Hall Problem, Simpson's Paradox, Berkson's Paradox, and Lord's Paradox. The authors end their presentation in Chapter 10 with a discussion of the use of causal reasoning in big-data and AI. Solving the tough philosophical problem of AI reflecting on its own actions requires the use of counterfactuals and, thus, causal reasoning.
The book's table of contents follows.
Introduction: Mind Over Data
Chapter 1: The Ladder of Causation
Chapter 2: From Buccaneers to Guinea Pigs: The Genesis of Causal Inference
Chapter 3: From Evidence to Causes: Reverend Bayes Meets Mr. Holmes
Chapter 4: Confounding and Deconfounding: Or, Slaying the Lurking Variable
Chapter 5: The Smoke-Filled Debate: Clearing the Air
Chapter 6: Paradoxes Galore!
Chapter 7: Beyond Adjustment: The Conquest of Mount Intervention
Chapter 8: Counterfactuals: Mining Worlds that Could Have Been
Chapter 9: Mediation: The Search for a Mechanism
Chapter 10: Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, and the Big Questions
Pearl & Mackenzie have an information page on the book, with much useful background, as well as links to many pertinent news reports and book reviews.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] The ancient Roman Theater of Sabratha, Libya. [Top center & right] Today, on the last day of the 2023 Fiesta (Old Spanish Days), I visited Santa Barbara's waterfront, where an arts & crafts show was held along Cabrillo Blvd., various street musicians provided entertainment for the crowd, and a historic tall ship was open to visitors. "The Mission of San Salvador" replica tells part of Santa Barbara's origin story. It was in this ship that Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo sailed to establish the first contact between Europeans and native people of the west coast of North America at the beginnings of the modern world.
(2) Living like a billionaire, without being one: The latest revelation about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is that, besides taking billionaire-style vacations involving yachts and exotic locations, he owns a $267,230 RV, built from a 40-foot converted bus with someone else's money. [NYT report]
(3) Billionaire Wendy McCaw paid a fortune for Santa Barbara News Press: After 23 years of turmoil, she buried the corpse of the once-thriving newspaper. Here is an in-depth story from Washington Post.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Meeting in Saudi Arabia may be the first ever "peace talks" where only one side of the conflict is invited.
- US women's soccer team exits the 2023 World Cup after its 0-0 match (decided on PKs) against Sweden.
- In defense of LGBTQ rights: Impassioned speech by Los Angeles School Board President.
- Mahtab Ghorbani's speech about Iran's brutal Islamic regime during a Senate session in France.
- A woman plays music on a street in Tehran, while defying Iran's compulsory hijab laws.
- LinkedIn post by a friend: I'm happy to share that I'm starting a new position as Retired at None!
(5) On watching "Oppenheimer" at an IMAX theater: On Saturday, I drove to Camarillo's Edwards Cinemas, which is the nearest IMAX theater to me. I had read that watching Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer," with its brilliant cinematography, on IMAX is well worth the extra cost (and in my case, 75 minutes of driving each way). I wasn't disappointed.
Robert Oppenheimer was an enigmatic scientist, brilliant but also mercurial, who led US's efforts to develop the atom bomb (The Manhattan Project) near the end of World War II. He wasn't completely trusted because he befriended a member of the US Communist Party, but his expertise was too valuable to the war effort to set aside. So, he was put in charge, while being under surveillance. He emerged as a hero, when the project successfully tested an atom bomb, with the US military dropping two bombs on Japanese cities shortly thereafter. The film shows Oppenheimer enjoying the limelight in the wake of the project's success, while also harboring doubts about weapons of mass destruction and the potential for an arms race with the Soviet Union getting out of control. In the end, he was heartbroken when his security clearance was revoked after a Joseph-McCarthy-style tribunal ruled that he could not be trusted.
Cillian Murphy is magnificent in the title role, as are Emily Blunt (playing his wife Kitty), Robert Downey Jr. (portraying the devious Lewis Strauss), and Rami Malek (as physicist David Hill). Matt Damon's performance as General Leslie Grove is less impressive. The film itself is well done, both cinematically and with regard to its message of political manipulation in Washington, where people are disposed like soiled toilet paper when they no longer serve the political ambitions of those pulling the strings.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Fiesta song-and-dance performance venue, the majestic Santa Barbara Courthouse (Video 1; Video 2). [Top center] Exhibition of photos at SB Public Library: Highlights from the Edson Smith Historical Photograph Collection, which contains over 3100 images of Santa Barbara from the 1870s to the 1950s (The Public Library Building over the years). [Top right] Art exhibit at SB Public Library: Teacher/Librarian Julia Laraway's fabric collage and art quilts made of cotton batik and silk fabrics featuring birds and animals of Santa Barbara's San Marcos Foothills. [Bottom row] Three more batches of photos from the historic photos exhibit, including images from the 1925 SB earthquake, scenes from Fiesta & the first train arrival in SB, and State Stree, oil drilling, fire department, & store.
(2) Dr. Nadia Nadim: She plays on the Danish women's national soccer team and has scored ~200 goals in her professional career. She fled Afghanistan at age 11 when her father was executed by the Taliban, speaks 11 languages, and plans to become a reconstructive surgeon when her playing days are over. [14-minute video]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The gunman who killed 11 people in Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue was sentenced to death.
- UCLA Chancellor Gene Block to go back to academic work after 17 years of leading the campus.
- Like other organizations, universities are reconfiguring resources, as more employees seek remote work.
- Number of students from immigrant families at US colleges rose from 20% in 2000 to 33% in 2021.
- Trump, breaking into song: "I'm so indicted, I just can't hide it; I'm about to go to jail and I don't like it."
- Quote of the day: "It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting." ~ Tom Stoppard
- Concession speeches by US candidates: There was none in 2020 and there may be none in 2024.
- Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, are separating.
- World's oldest (known/recorded) kiss happened ~4500 years ago in the Middle East.
- Expertise is pattern recognition: How a master chess player's memory is different from ours.
- Fifteen scenes in famous movies that the actors later regretted agreeing to shoot. [18-minute video]
- Fcebook memory from Aug. 4, 2014: Verses from Sa'adi's Boustan, with an adage-like final verse.
- Fcebook memory from Aug. 4, 2010: Costco exploiting the passions of those addicted to booze and guns.
(4) Water-rights fight between Afghanistan and Iran: This 24-minute documentary, narrated in Persian, traces the long history of conflict over water from Hirmand (Helmand) river, which is vital for agriculture and ranching in both countries.
(5) Germany was eliminated from the 2023 Women's World Cup: A 1-1 draw against South Korea, along with Morocco's 1-0 defeat of Colombia led to Germany being sent home before the knock-out stage for the first time ever (5-minute highlights). Another surprise was the elimination of Brazil after a 0-0 draw with Jamaica.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Cartoons of the day: Officials & clerics in charge of enforcing Iran's hijab laws have been exposed as having illicit sex with both men and women. Meanwhile, Florida rolls out its new vocational training program. [Center] Rebecca Traister's All the Single Ladies (see the last item below). [Right] The 18th-century equivalent of multiple open windows on your big-screen monitor.
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The credit rating of United States was downgraded for the second time on Tuesday 8/01.
- Making sense of legal jargon: New York Times has annotated Donald Trump's latest indictment document.
- Room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconducting material claimed by a Korean research team.
- Florida moves to a different time zone (the 1800s): Cases of leprosy surge in Central Florida.
- Two Iranian journalists, imprisoned for exposing #MahsaAmini's death, earn a major international honor.
- Iran closes schools and other services due to 100-degrees-plus heat and shortage of electricity.
(3) Book review: Traister, Rebecca, All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation, Simon & Schuster, 2018.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The titles of this book's 10 chapters, sandwiched between an introduction and a conclusion, provide an apt summary of its big ideas.
Chapter 1: Watch Out for That Woman: The Political and Social Power of an Unmarried Nation
Chapter 2: Single Women Have Often Made History: Unmarried in America
Chapter 3: The Sex of the Cities: Urban Life and Female Independence
Chapter 4: Dangerous as Lucifer Matches: The Friendships of Women
Chapter 5: My Solitude, My Self: Single Women on Their Own
Chapter 6: For Richer: Work, Money, and Independence
Chapter 7: For Poorer: Single Women and Sexism, Racism, and Poverty
Chapter 8: Sex and the Single Girls: Virginity to Promiscuity and Beyond
Chapter 9: Horse and Carriage: Marrying—And Not Marrying—In the Time of Singlehood
Chapter 10: Then Comes What? And When? Independence and Parenthood
It used to be that almost all college girls/boys had boyfriends/girlfriends. The exceptions were few and far in between. That's no longer the case. The author writes that at 18, she had never even had a serious boyfriend, and neither had any of her closest friends. In lieu of dating, her generation hung out and hooked up. So, the median age of first marriage among American women, historically hovering around 21, has risen to ~27, with the fraction of married women dropping below 50%. The fraction of married Americans aged 18-29 has dropped from 60% in 1960 to ~20% today.
For modern women, the early adult years, which were spent in married life by their mothers, are spent developing careers & friendships, falling in & out of love, moving in & out of apartments, paying their own bills, and prospering & getting in financial trouble. The unmarried lifestyle has come to be accepted by society. A state that was viewed as a disorder not too long ago is now considered normal. This independence comes at a price, however. "Many single women are poor or struggling. Almost 50 percent of the 3.3 million Americans now earning minimum wage or below are unmarried women."
Whereas old-fashioned women waited for their real lives to start upon getting married, modern women are living their real lives without waiting. Singledom is to be celebrated, not because it is necessarily a better way of life but rather because it expands the set of options available to women (and men). "Single female life is not prescription, but its opposite: liberation." I highly recommend this book and urge you to familiarize yourself with the epoch of single women.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] A beautiful mosque in Esfahan, Iran, reflected in a photographer's camera lens. [Top center] Challenging chess puzzle: White to start and mate in two moves. [Top right] Maria Ressa's How to Stand Up to a Dictator (see the last item below). [Bottom left] The evolution of medicine over the ages. [Bottom center] Forgive me Father, for I have sinned: I had some leftover Persian herbs-stew (ghormeh-sabzi) but no rice. So, I ate the stew with leftover pasta noodles. I have repented! [Bottom right] Ancient roads built by workers with no degrees lasted for an eternity. Then, the engineers arrived!
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Special Counsel Jack Smith reads a statement about Donald Trump's indictment for January 6 crimes.
- Borowitz Report (humor): Trump only a few indictments away from clinching GOP nomination.
- Iran politics: "Iran in a Transformative Process by Woman, Life, Freedom" (Article by Dr. Nayereh Tohidi).
- Rock-climbing couple say their wedding vows while climbing rocks near Tabriz, Iran. [1-minute video]
(3) Book review: Ressa, Maria, How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by the author and Rebecca Mozo, Harper Audio, 2022.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book is an important memoir/manifesto, but it suffers from over-generalizations and undue simplifications. The Nobel Peace Laureate author, born in Manila and raised in the US from age 10, relates her first-hand experience, having made a name for herself as a CNN correspondent in Asia, where she brought many innovations to the live coverage of events through social media. Her first brush with dictatorship came when Rodrigo Duterte was elected president of the Philippines, unleashed a murderous war on drugs, and harassed his on-line critics, which included Ressa and the Rappler news site she helped launch.
Ressa's critical journalism led to a sequence of 10 arrests over a period of only 2 years. The problem with social media is that while it is a great tool for citizen journalism, it is also a deadly weapon in the hands of a dictator and his/her cyber-army. Duterte unleashed vicious social-media attacks and abused the justice system to charge his critics with various crimes, such as tax evasion, securities violations, or cyber-libel.
Ressa isn't shy about blaming Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, whose greedy policies have led to uncontrolled spread of disinformation, benefiting primarily oppressors who have vast financial and human resources. She stresses the need for legislation to hold technology companies accountable, more international collaboration between news organizations in spreading facts and democratic ideals, and more spending on investigative journalism to help expose dictators' playbooks.
Standing up to a dictator isn't risk-free: Exposing the dictator's methods subjects you to on-line harassment, arrests & other judicial entanglements, and even imprisonment. At the extreme, you may be forcefully "disappeared" or physically eliminated. The global reach and instant spread of news helps mitigate the risks to some extent, but you may still have to wear a bullet-proof vest and watch your comings & goings.
A key element of social media's role in the spread of disinformation is recommendation algorithms. Mindlessly recommending a fake story or a conspiracy theory to someone who posts or reads similar stories creates a vicious cycle that leads to radicalization. The greed element comes into play because such recommendations are much cheaper to implement than ones that have humans in the loop. An algorithm to maximize ad revenues will invariably lead to compartmentalized groups of users, each of which is extremely biased and not open to alternative viewpoints.
Of course, even if the will for tighter control of the spread of disinformation emerges in the tech industry and the society as a whole, the technical aspects of the problem are ultra-complex. Once you put a group of individuals in charge of purging "undesirable" stories from social media, you need mechanisms to prevent the abuse of this censorship power. Such details are what distinguish a manifesto from a fully fleshed-out implementation plan.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Sign posted at Rusty's Pizza on Storke Road in Goleta. [Center] An on-line book seller is being shuttered in Iran because of its employees posting a hijab-less photo. [Right] Santa Barbara's La Fiesta is coming (see the last item below).
(2) Apocalypse/Apocalyptic numbers: These numbers have 666 digits, where 666 is the beast number. The 3184th Fibonacci number is apocalyptic and its first 6 digits are 116724, which suggest the existence of three other apocalyptic Fibonacci numbers. Apocalyptic primes are of the form 10^665 + n, where n = 123, 1837, 6409, 7329, 8569, 9663, ... (Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, A115983).
(3) How to deal with an unreasonable reviewer asking to cite irrelevant references: Attempt by reviewers to pad their own citations or those of their collaborators is a serious problem in our current peer-review process. Some reviewers want to have their publications or those of associates cited, even if the works are irrelevant or marginally relevant to the item under review. Unfortunately, many authors hesitate to fight such requests and opt for including the suggested references, just to gain the approval of the unreasonable reviewer and thus have their work accepted for publication. This article suggests ways of resolving the issue by appealing to the publication's editor-in-chief at the earliest opportunity, arguing why the suggested references are irrelevant and asking for a replacement reviewer.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- ChatGPT is characterized as open-source, but it scores quite low on an openness scale.
- Many of us have experienced jet-lag: Astronauts' rocket-lag is significantly broader and more intense.
- The widely-spoken Mandarin rated as the world's hardest-to-learn language.
- Persian music: An anti-hijab, pro-joy anthem. [3-minute video]
(5) Made-up quote of the day: "Stop worrying mom, we are fine." ~ Spirit of a girl appearing to her mom, who is on trial for murdering her son & daughter and who claims her children are happy where they are
(6) How scientists work to correct errors in a published paper: Prompted by Stanford University President's high-profile case of scientific misconduct, the issue of correcting scientific errors has come to the forefront.
(7) Santa Barbara 2023 Old Spanish Days (La Fiesta): Programming for the 5-day event includes the following, plus multi-day El Mercados (Mexican Markets) at De La Guerra Plaza and SBCC's La Playa Stadium.
8/02: La Fiesta Pequena (Little Fiesta) at the Old Mission, 8:00-10:00 PM
8/03: Las Noches de Ronda (Nights of Gaiety) at SB Courthouse Sunken Garden, 8:00 PM (through Saturday)
8/04: The Historical Parade, featuring floats and horses, along Cabrillo Blvd., plus Flor y Canto (Courthouse)
8/05: Fiesta Arts & Crafts Show, all day, Cabrillo Blvd. (through Sunday), plus Tarde de Ronda (Courthouse)
8/06: Tours of a historical replica of the 1542 Galleon San Salvador (Santa Barbara Harbor, Sat.-Sun.)
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Windcatchers in the hot city of Yazd were ancient architects' solution for cooling buildings: They were sometimes combined with underground aqueducts known as qanats for more-effective cooling. [Center] IranWire cartoon: In Iran, journalists who report on police violence or corruption of officials are treated more harshly than the perpetrators. [Right] Nick Neely's Alta California (see the last item below).
(2) Slab City, California: This lawless community of 150-4000 seasonal residents in a desert near San Diego takes its name from concrete slabs that were left behind when a US Marine Corps training camp in the area was torn down after World War II, with the land later conveyed to the State of California. [4-minute video]
(3) A wide gap between state-sanctioned and people's religion: Iranians use Muharram mourning ceremonies to speak up against the government's oppression and corruption. #WomanLifeFreedom [Tweet, with video]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Blast at a political rally in Pakistan kills at least 44, with the death toll expected to rise.
- Swaths of Iraq, once part of the "Fertile Crescent," are drying out due to scarce water & high temperatures.
- Attention, Trader Joe's shoppers: Some cookies & falafel are recalled, because they may contain rocks.
- Challenges of conducting a music class in the presence of children! [Tweet, with video]
- Fine examples of rock art. [1-minute video]
- Happy Sunday: Get up and dance, even if only for a short break from sit-down work.
- Facebook memory from July 30, 2017: The day I visited the Freedom Sculpture on Santa Monica Blvd.
(5) The bright side of turning 50: This 7-minute Persian song appears to be a response to a humorous song that expounds upon all the health problems one faces after turning 50.
(6) Book review: Neely, Nick, Alta California: From San Diego to San Francisco, a Journey on Foot to Rediscover the Golden State, unabridged 19-hour audiobook, read by Tristan Wright, Dreamscape Media, 2019.
[My 4-star review of this book GoodReads]
This is a combo book for hikers, naturalists, and history buffs. Neely sets out from San Diego and walks 650 miles northward over 12 weeks, carrying only a backpack & a tent and crossing the counties of San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Mateo. He describes the 9 counties in 9 chapters of varying lengths. Santa Barbara and Monterey get the lion's share at ~60 pages or ~160 minutes each.
Neely traces the route of the first overland Spanish expedition, led by Gaspar de Portola in 1769. He describes the landscape, plants, and wildlife he encounters. History enters the picture when he passes interesting spots, such as where the Chumash Indians thrived, oil-drilling operations near the Carpinteria coast, or the Old Santa Barbara Mission. California's challenges in the domain of water, agriculture, oil & gas, immigration, and development come up from time to time.
In listening to the audiobook, I was naturally more interested in Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties, that is, where I live and the counties to its south and north, but I did learn a great deal about the other six counties covered. Neely's narrative becomes drawn-out at times, but he does manage to keep the reader's interest overall.
For me, learning the origins of city, neighborhood, ranch, and road names was a major treat. For example, the name of Goleta, my hometown, means "schooner." Among multiple possible explanations for this choice is that the first-ever American ship was built in the slough in 1828. As I read about historical developments along the route, I couldn't help but wonder how much nicer our state would be today, had efforts to preserve wetlands and delineate nature preserves started a century earlier than they did. Neely's story also motivated me to try to walk along parts of the route he describes, perhaps limiting myself to what can be done in a single day, preferably without trespassing in this age of widespread gun ownership!
Alta California quickly became a national best-seller in the US. Interestingly, exploration of California by sea (1840, Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast), on horseback (1913, J. Smeaton Chase, California Coast Trails), and on foot (2012, Cheryl Strayed, Wild) have also resulted in best-selling books.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Iranian currency, with embroidery by @minaembroidery. [Center] Optical illusion: At first glance, you don't realize that there is just one person in this photo. [Right] Impact of social media on elections (see the last item below).
(2) Public opinion about what NASA should prioritize: Searching for asteroids that could hit Earth (60%); Monitoring Earth's climate (50%); Returning astronauts to the Moon (12%). [Source: Pew Research Center]
(3) The power of language in deceiving and controlling people: "The pen is mightier than the sword" isn't just a saying. Dictators use words more than guns to maintain power. In the commercial domain, doublespeak is used to sell you "sugar-free" products that contain many different kinds of sugars and fresh "deep-chilled" chicken that's really frozen chicken. [6-minute video of interview with author William Lutz]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- About half of the US population, from California to Maine, is under heat alert.
- Biden administration unveiled new safety measures to protect outdoors workers vulnerable to heat.
- A microscopic worm, frozen for 46,000 years, was revived and started having babies.
- Facebook memory from July 28, 2017: Our challenges are power density, circuit degradation, & reliability.
(5) Valley Marketplace in Valencia: I stopped there on Thursday, on the way back from Pine Mountain Club to Goleta, and found it to be an excellent Persian supermarket. It has an extensive meat section, a produce section with Persian goodies, a full-service deli (where you take a number to be served), and a bakery that prepares fresh barbari bread daily.
[Tweet, with photos]
(6) De Bruijn sequences: Consider the set of all 3-bit binary sequences, that is, 000, 001, 010, ... , 111. The circular 8-bit sequence 00010111 contains all of the preceding 3-bit sequences as substrings. The 8-bit string is thus B(2, 3), a de Bruijn sequence with all possible 3-symbol subsequences over a 2-symbol alphabet.
B(2, 4) example: 0000100110101111
B(2, 5) example: 00000100011001010011101011011111
From the examples above, it's not difficult to guess the length of a B(2, n) sequence, but can you prove it? What about B(k, n)?
(7) The killer mullahs of Iran go to Europe for medical care: Knowing that they may be pursued or even arrested, they use deception to hide their treatment. Instead of getting a German visa, for example, they go to Italy or France (where they are less likely to be exposed), traveling from there to the hospital of their choice. Dr. Majid Samii, who runs a medical center in Hanover is complicit in facilitating their travels and, at least in one case, helping them escape the wrath of Iranians in diaspora. He is close to several top mullahs and has been showered with praise as well as funding to set up medical facilities in Iran.
[Facebook post, with photos]
(8) Interesting fact: Almost half of the world's population speaks a language of the Indo-European language family, encompassing more than 400 languages. [Source: Science magazine]
(9) Social Media and Elections: This is the theme of a special section of Science magazine, issue of July 28, 2023, which comprises the following three research articles, an editorial, a news story, and a podcast.
- Asymmetric ideological segregation in exposure to political news on Facebook
- How do social media feed algorithms affect attitudes and behavior in an election campaign?
- Reshares on social media amplify political news but do not detectably affect beliefs or opinions
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Good morning, at the start of a super-hot day! As I prepare to head back to Goleta, after spending a day in Pine Mountain Club, here's the weather that awaits me over the next few days. [Top center] AESS lecture on science & practice of accurate tracking of space objects (see the next item below). [Top right & Bottom row] Prenote talk about the US CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 (see the last item below).
(2) Information and resource management for accurate tracking of resident space objects: This was the title of Wednesday's webinar by Dr. Puneet Singla (Penn State U.), offered via Zoom under the auspices of IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society.
Space situation awareness (SSA) is the ability to detect, track, and characterize passive & active space objects. In light of the large number of resident space objects (RSOs), and the generally-accepted notion that our knowledge about the number and nature of most of the objects is severely limited, accurate tracking and characterization of RSOs is a must.
For RSO tracking, the core information needed is the orbit parameters and their associated uncertainties specified at a given epoch. This allows for accurate forward prediction but owing to both the nonlinearity of the orbital dynamics and measurement sparsity/unevenness, the uncertainty associated with RSOs orbit increases in time. The fact that none of the prior accidental collision between tracked objects was observed in real time as they occurred underscores the need for SSA.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Second Trump aid charged in the case of mishandling classified/snesitive documents.
- Yuval Noah Harari explains consequences of removing the only check on the power of Israel's government.
- July 2023 is on track to become the hottest month on record.
- Women's soccer World Cup: USA and Netherlands play to a 1-1 tie, each ending up with 4 points.
- Facebook memory from July 27, 2020: Report on fake degrees in Iran (in Persian).
(4) "When the Government Makes Big Bets on Science and Technology: The CHIPS Act": This was the title of a prenote (new term, I guess, referring to a distinguished conference-related talk delivered before a conference) for IEEE 2023 Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems. The CHIPS-related talk was given by NIST Director Dr. Laurie Lacascio.
Manhattan Project, Man on the Moon Project, and Human Genome Project are perhaps the best-known examples of big bets by the US government. The $52-billion CHIPS & Science Act of 2022 (CHIPS Act, for short), is the latest example. Funding under the CHIPS Act began in February 2023 and is ongoing.
Dr. Lacascio discussed various aspects of the CHIPS Act and its potential impacts on US leadership and self-sufficiency in the targeted areas, as evident from the sample slides included in the images. The talk's recording as well as the slides used will likely be made available through MWSCAS 2023 Web site.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] RoboCup turns 25 (see the next item below). [Top center] Not your father's lenses (see item 3 below). [Top right] Uses of drones in offensive & defensive warfare (see the last item below). [Bottom left] Robert Oppenheimer on Time magazine covers (see item 4 below). [Bottom center] The service formerly known as Twitter (shades of Prince). [Bottom right] Today is my 6th X (Twitter) anniversary: By and large, I have enjoyed the medium, but must confess that the quality of comments and other interactions often disappoint me. Will I survive another year? Will Twitter survive to the next anniversary? We will see!
(2) RoboCup at 25: The RoboCup dream is to build robots capable of playing soccer at the World Cup level, that is, do for soccer what DeepMind and AlphaZero did for chess. That dream is still far from realization, but significant progress has been made over the past 25 years. Currently, robots compete annually in multiple leagues: Small-size; Middle-size; Humanoid; Standard-platform (identical robots are provided to all contestants, who must design winning algorithms and software for them). [From: IEEE Spectrum, July 2023]
(3) The Incredible Shrinking Lens: This is the title of a cover feature in IEEE magazine (July 2023). A metalens is a flat glass surface, topped with a semiconductor layer on which is etched an array of pillars less than a micrometer high that can manipulate light waves with a degree of control not possible with traditional lenses.
(4) Physicist Robert Oppenheimer appeared on the cover of Time magazine twice: Once as a hero, after atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, and another time as a traitor, after he voiced opposition to nuclear arms race and was exposed as having had a love affair with a member of the US Communist Party while leading the Manhattan Project. [11-minute video]
(5) Imagining what Fox News anchors might say about Trump if they held him to the same standards as Obama: This 4-minute montage is rather old, but it is worth re-sharing.
(6) Math puzzle: Find all possible arrangements of four points on the XY plane so that the distance between any two points is one of only two values. For example, if the four points are the vertices of a unit-square, then the two distances are 1 and sqrt(2).
(7) Drones are transforming offensive and defensive warfare: Offensive drones, of the kind used by Russia to strike Ukrainian cities, have dominated the news lately. Less conspicuous are inexpensive defensive drones used to patrol the skies. China's DJI Mavic 3, used by both Russia and Ukraine for surveillance, costs $2000, which means you can buy 55,000 of them for the price of a single F-35 stealth jet. Recently, a $3200 Ukrainian grenade-equipped drone destroyed a $4 million Russian T-90 tank. [From: IEEE Spectrum, July 2023]
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] Fleshing out the genetic basis of the human skeletal form: New research validates specific genetic variants that affect human skeletal form and ties a major evolutionary facet of human anatomical change to pathogenesis. [Top right] Bernie Sanders' It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism (see the last item below). [Bottom left] "Love Affairs and Differential Equations": Title of an entertaining paper by Harvard University's Steven H. Strogatz. [Bottom center] Brave journalists #ElahehMohammadi and #NiloofarHamedi have been in prison since September 2022 for reporting on the death of #MahsaAmini (#WomanLifeFreedom). [Bottom right] Children of the super-rich are more than twice as likely to be admitted to elite colleges: The upper middle-class gets the short end of the stick (NYT chart).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The service formerly known as Twitter: Musk ditches the iconic bird logo, as he rebrands his company "X."
- Protests in Israel against Netanyahu's "reform" of the judiciary broaden to include members of the military.
- Netanyahu's government has declared a war on women: A new bill will roll back women's rights.
- Felons can't vote, presumably because they lack proper judgement, but they can run for US presidency!
- Top tech firms sign White House pledge to flag AI-generated images.
(3) Book review: Sanders, Bernie and John Nichols, It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism, unabridged 11-hour audiobook, read by the first author, Random House Audio, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Sanders opens with the assertion that uber-capitalism, currently prevalent in the US, is characterized by unfettered greed and environmental destruction. It isn't merely unjust, but grossly immoral. While the middle and lower classes struggle, the oligarchs are doing extremely well and they own the democracy in which we take pride. The oligarchs also reign over information outlets, thus also owning our freedom of speech. The good news is that we are beginning to see cracks in the oligarchy's hold over levers of power.
Sanders then quotes Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose vision of America has unfortunately not been realized. Advocating a second Bill of Rights, Roosevelt said in his speech of eight decades ago: "We have come to clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence." Economic rights are indeed human rights. Our country cannot prosper while 60% of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck and 60,000 die annually because they cannot get the medical care they need (85 million Americans are uninsured or under-insured).
The numbers cited by Sanders about the extent of inequality in the US are staggering. Some 90% of our wealth is owned by 0.1% (one-tenth of 1%) of the population; the wealth of 725 US billionaires rose 70% during the pandemic, to more than $5 trillion; BlackRock, Vanguard, & State Street, major shareholders in 96% of S&P 500 companies, now control assets of $20 trillion. And these individuals and corporations spend lavishly to stifle any effort to raise taxes, citing the potential disincentives high tax rates can create. Never mind that America thrived under Eisenhower, when the top tax rate was around 92% and the richest 20% of Americans controlled less than 43% of the wealth.
Sanders, a master of facts and figures, provides a great deal more data in support of his economic proposals. I think every American should read this book and ask himself/herself questions of the following nature: Why are we paying twice as much per-capita as French and German citizens for healthcare, achieving poorer results and leaving millions of people uninsured, while big pharma is rolling in money (their profits rose by 90% in 2021)?
In the final chapter 10, "This Is a Class War—It's Time to Fight Back," Sanders reiterates the main ideas, recommending that "We must stop being afraid to call out capitalism and demand fundamental change to a corrupt and rigged system." Democracies thrive and get stronger from criticisms and suggestions for improvement. Only dictatorial systems claim that all is perfect and show distaste for critical viewpoints.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] IranWire cartoon of the day: Enforcement of compulsory hijab laws is again front-and-center for Iran's Islamic regime. [Top center] "Barbenheimer": Name given to two new movies, "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer," if you happen to see them on the same day. [Top right] Santa Barbara News Press files for bankruptcy: The Chapter-7 filing ends more than 150 years of history. [Bottom left] Bee-line distance vs. driving distance: The community of Pine Mountain Club is on the other side of the mountains from Santa Barbara, at a bee-line distance of about 42 miles. Driving distance is nearly 3 times as long (123 miles; 130 minutes under normal traffic). [Bottom center & right] Our Sunday night dinner, courtesy of my son: Miso soup and sushi (with crab meat, beef rib meat, and other ingredients). Your place was empty.
(2) How good a physicist was Oppenheimer, the A-bomb's architect? According to Historian David C. Cassidy, he was no Einstein, but he did Nobel-level work on black holes.
(3) Topsy-turvy US history: Florida middle-schoolers will be taught about the benefits of slavery, including skill-building for blacks. Apparently, those who worked to free the slaves interrupted these benefits!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Today's headline: "Nobody did anything about anything that you wanted them to do something about."
- Iran finds itself under pressure from several European countries for its assistance in the killing of Ukrainians.
- I find the prospects of a Trump victory over the gutless DeSantis, Pence, Scott, and Haley creepily satisfying.
- An Iranian woman's car was confiscated for not wearing a hijab: She defiantly walked home sans a hijab.
(5) On the 1935 Goharshad Mosque rebellion & massacre in Mashhad: Iran's Islamic regime is exaggerating by up to 100-fold the number of deaths (~20 confirmed in burial records, plus a couple dozens of soldiers & officers) and falsely linking, for propaganda purposes, the event to opposition to Reza Shah's order to remove women's hijabs. [12-minute video]
(6) Let's guard the Persian language: Please, please, don't use the Arabic word "nesvaan" to refer to women: Don't even use "baanovaan," which is an okay word similar to "ladies." Use "zanaan," because it creates fear in mullahs and other misogynists. Also, never use "rejaal" for "mardaan" (men). [Persian version in a tweet]
(7) New York Times tribute: Tony Bennett's melodic clarity, embrace of the audience, and warm interpretations of musical standards won him generations of fans.
(8) The most wide-open women's soccer World Cup in history is now in progress: Team USA is still favored to go all the way, but other teams have improved significantly.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A wonderful Jason Mraz concert in Santa Barbara (see the next item below). [Center] Simple joys of childhood and the immense popularity of soccer around the world. [Right] Test your knowledge of physics: I first posted this image, purportedly showing the Sun setting at the North Pole and the Moon at its closest point to Earth. See if you can explain why this can't be an actual photograph.
(2) My daughter and I attended an enjoyable Jason Mraz concert at Santa Barbara Bowl on Friday night: My ticket to this concert was a Fathers' Day gift from the kids last month. Thank You! Mraz and his SuperBand of a dozen superb musicians performed his well-known songs such as "Lucky" and "I'm Yours," as well as selections from his newer albums "Look for the Good" (2020) and "Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride" (2023). A group of rowdy, anti-social drunkards sitting not too far from us spoiled part of the fun. Don't miss this mystical magical concert if it comes your way! [Setlist]
(3) Tony Bennett [1926-2023] dead at 96: He was a champion of the Great American Songbook and a likable guy who collaborated with many artists from multiple generations. RIP!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Sepideh Qolian refused to wear a hijab for her court appearance in Iran, so the session was cancelled.
- Elite colleges have begun the process of eliminating legacy admissions.
- State abortion bans will soon be offset, at least in part, by medical advances and enlightened drug policies.
- On multitasking: For my age, I am good at multitasking: I can listen, ignore, and forget all at once.
- Quote of the day: "A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart." ~ Goethe
(5) One of the clearest explanations of the Enigma, the German message-coding machine used during World War II for secret communications. [16-minute video]
(6) Donald Trump does not know the meaning of love: He has no understanding of romantic love or of Christian love (love thy neighbor; love thy enemy). In fact, in a speech at a prayer-breakfast meeting, he criticized the idea of loving your enemy, apparently unaware that it came from Christ himself. He does not love. He does not pray. He does not ask for forgiveness. Exactly what about this charlatan is Christian?
(7) Let's guard the Persian language: The Arabic word "shahid" is often used to refer to someone who sacrificed his/her life for a noble cause. Let's use "jaavid-naam" instead. [Tweet, with the Persian version]
(8) The anatomy of a soundbite: Why it is important for scientists to create their own soundbites that provide the public with concise and fun explanations. [6-minute video]
(9) Women's World Cup Soccer: USA 3-0 Vietnam. Despite the win, this was a shaky start for team USA, as they had several other scoring opportunities. [5-minute highlights]
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Mothers of murdered/executed dissidents are on the front line of opposition to Iran's brutal Islamic regime. [Top center] US trillion-dollar companies, including newcomer to the club, NVIDIA, and their valuations over the past 5 years. [Top right] Iranian-American snacks: Lavashak-e anaar (dried pomegranates) and popcorn. [Bottom left] Memories from my UCLA Bilingual Lectures on Iran (see the next item below). [Bottom center] Talangor Group talk (see the last item below). [Bottom right] Iran's ancient architecture from the Sassanid Period: Falak-ol-Aflak Castle in the city of Khorramabad, Lorestan Province.
(2) Memories from my UCLA Bilingual Lectures on Iran: On Nov. 19 & 20, 2017, I presented two lectures entitled "Computers and Challenges of Writing in Persian," as part of UCLA's Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran. One image shows family & friends at my Persian-language lecture of 11/19, another is from my English presentation of 11/20, and the third is from Farhang Foundation's 2017-2018 annual report.
[PDF slides]
[Lecture in Persian, 73-minute podcast]
[Lecture in English, 81-minute podcast]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Stanford President resigns for research misconduct, allegedly for not correcting mistakes in publications.
- Women's soccer World Cup begins with violence: Two people are killed by a gunman in New Zealand.
- Facebook memory from July 20, 2021: Some of what we'd see on Iranian currency if people had a say.
- Facebook memory from July 20, 2020: On why we don't need perfect tests to control the spread of diseases.
- Facebook memory from July 20, 2018: 50th-anniversary reunion of Fanni College's Class of '68 in Armenia.
- Facebook memory from July 20, 2017: Zardak, Iran, is halfway around the world from Chase Palm Park.
(4) Iraqis storm & torch the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad: Once again citizens of a backward Middle-Eastern country think that a Western Democracy can dictate to its citizens not to burn a holy book.
(5) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Hossein Samei (Emory U.) talked in Persian under the title "The Persian Script and Its Challenges." There were ~60 attendees.
As Iranians, we are all aware of challenges of the Persian script in terms of teaching to children or foreign learners, and using it for precise, error-free communication. The problems include silent letters, multiple letters (up to 4) with the same sound, and minor variations between letters (e.g., use of 1-3 dots over or below the same base shape to form different letters). These difficulties are not unique to Persian and other languages/scripts suffer from them as well. For example, we have "s" & "c" and "ch" & "tu" in English that can sound the same, and we have numerous instances of silent letters, as in "knight" and "subtle." In fact, the English script is one of the most-irregular in the world.
One can try to fix the problems by changing the script (e.g., by using a Latin-based script for Persian, a solution pursued by multiple countries, such as Turkey) or by making improvements (e.g., by removing and/or adding letters). Most people are hesitant to make any changes, given the connection of the Persian script to a large volume of literary/poetic works and its cultural significance. Going back to ancient times, there were only a handful of different scripts. Other cultures and civilizations adopted one of these options to devise their own script, leading to possible mismatch between language needs and script capabilities. Change of script is often intertwined with a desire to change cultural direction and usually has some ideological and political undertones.
This two-part Nova series on writing and how it revolutionized the spread of information is quite interesting.
Here is a viewpoint that I could not discuss during the Q&A period, because the program was quite long and I had to leave: In the case of Persian, a significant obstacle to changing the script is its close relationship with the art of calligraphy. This link is quite dear to our hearts. Almost every Persian home has calligraphic art on display. Admiring elements of calligraphic art (color scheme, symmetry, overlap. etc.) and trying to decipher its textual content is a favorite pastime of mine and of many other Iranians.
This talk connects nicely with my 2017 talks, given at UCLA under the title "Computers and Challenges of Writing in Persian," which outlined efforts over five decades to produce computer-printed Persian script of reasonable quality (see item 2 above).
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] A wonderful poster to empower women and girls. [Top center] An enhanced satellite image of Iran and parts of its neighboring countries. [Top right] A wonderful painting of #Mahsa_Amini by an unknown artist. [Middle row] Facebook memories: Glorious sunsets, from July 19, 2019; The tiny town of Persia, Iowa, from July 19, 2011; My portraits over the years. [Bottom left] The naming of my hometown, the city of Goleta (see the next item below). [Bottom center] A view of Santa Barbara's waterfront at sunset. [Bottom right] IEEE Central Coast Section tech talk by Dr. Ambuj Singh of UCSB (see the last item below).
(2) What's a Goleta? Inspired by Nick Neely's book, Alta California: From San Diego to San Francisco, a Journey on Foot to Rediscover the Golden State, which contains many historical tidbits about the Golden State, I looked up the details of where the name of Goleta, my current hometown, comes from. The name means "schooner." Among multiple possible explanations for this choice is that the first-ever American ship was built in the slough in 1828. [Goleta history]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Russia continues to strike Odesa with ballistic missiles & drones, after pulling out from grain deal.
- Sugar Lab, a digital bakery based in East Los Angles, 3D-prints sweets based on custom orders.
- The feeling is mutual: Iranian woman responds to city of Rasht's top mullah, who hates hijab-less women.
- Two amazing feats of engineering in dominoes chain-reaction. [1-minute video]
(4) Tonight's IEEE CCS tech talk: UCSB Distinguished Professor of Computer Science Dr. Ambuj Singh spoke under the title "From Brain to AI/ML and Back." There were ~25 in-person attendees and a few connecting via a trial Zoom set-up, with some limitations, being tried for the first time, in the hopes of making future events hybrid to allow broader participation of members in our vast geographic region.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) have been extremely successful in predicting, optimizing, and controlling the behavior of complex interacting systems. Robustness and explainability of existing AI/ML methods, however, remain big challenges, and clearly new approaches are needed. The human brain motivated the early development of the field of deep learning and neuroscientific concepts have contributed to the profound success of deep learning algorithms across many areas.
The next leap in AI/ML may again come from a deeper understanding of modularity, robustness, and adaptability of brain architectures. Some of the challenges along this goal are to analyze and integrate heterogeneous brain signals across modalities, tasks, and subjects; decipher brain organizational structures; engineer novel deep learning architectures; and apply the insights into platforms that can effectively interact, support, and collaborate with humans.
Dr. Singh discussed some recent methods that integrate multimodal brain data to infer brain subnetworks, understand heterogeneity, learn representations of dynamic brain signals, and reconstruct complex high-fidelity imagery from input brain signals. Dr. Singh's group used data from an experimental set-up that included many individuals being exposed to different images, with their brain activities monitored via fMRI. It was demonstrated that the process is reversible (that is, converting the signals to images) with surprisingly high fidelity. Details can be found in the paper cited and linked below.
Reference: Lin, S., T. Sprague, and A. K. Singh, "Mind Reader: Reconstructing Complex Images from Brain Activities," Proc. 36th Conf. on Neural Information Processing Systems, 2022. [PDF]
[IEEE CCS event page]
[Speaker's Web page]
[IEEE CCS Technical Talks page]
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & right] Let's protect the Persian language: Often, perfectly acceptable Persian terms are available for what we lazily express in Arabic or other languages. [Top center] A polyhedron derived from the great rhombicosidodecahedron (animated version). [Bottom left] Science magazine's July 14, 2023, issue features a special section entitled "A Machine-Intelligent World": It contains an editorial on AI safety, an essay on art in the age of AI, several perspective articles, a policy forum, next-gen voices, two reviews, and a number of related items. [Bottom center] The Beautiful Santa Barbara, shot from Shoreline Park, with Harbor and Stearns Wharf visible at a distance. [Bottom right] Issa Ibrahim's memoir (see the last item below).
(2) Family values: The state with the lowest divorce rate is Massachusetts. Eight of the ten-highest divorce rates belong to red states. Red states also lead the pack in teen pregnancies. The only US presidents to have been divorced are Republican presidents. So, why is the GOP lecturing us on morality and family values?
(3) #Where_Is_Mahmonir? The mother of 9-year-old Kian Pirfalak, shot dead by Iran's security forces during street protests, has disappeared. She had been active in seeking justice for her son's death.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Israel's science-free schools for ultra-Orthodox Jews draw fire.
- In Iran, dozens of Kurdish lawyers were summoned to court for backing the family of #Mahsa_Amini.
- AI-based weather model forecasts as accurately, and 10,000 times faster, than the best system in use.
- Sleeping Beauty & a seemingly-simple question: A statistical challenge similar to "Monty Hall Problem."
- Last night's dinner, being prepared and being served: Your place was empty.
(5) Book review: Issa, Ibrahim, The Hospital Always Wins: A Memoir, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by Kevin R. Free, Blackstone Audio, 2016. [My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
In his early 20s, artist/musician/writer Issa Ibrahim became schizophrenic and killed his mother, whom he believed to be possessed. Ruled not guilty by reason of insanity, he was confined to a mental institution, whose violent, sexually-abusive, and bungling atmosphere made it much worse than a regular prison.
The book's relatively short chapters alternate between two parallel tales: Ibrahim's life before incarceration and his fight to regain his freedom afterwards. The two threads reach their respective climaxes near the end of the book, with the young Ibrahim killing his mother and the older Ibrahim set free, because his art, which kept him sane over the two decades in the mental hospital, and the sales of his work were viewed as signs of taking responsibility and the ability to lead a productive life.
Confinement to an ill-equipped, inadequately-staffed, and poorly-supervised mental institution is hardly any better than serving a regular prison term. Ibrahim states that at least in prison, there is a known release date, whereas at a mental hospital, the patient is at the mercy of a panel of experts, and so, may end up serving a life sentence.
Ibrahim's writing is alternately absorbing and mired by too much uninteresting details. I preserved in my listening, but must admit to having skipped a few sections of the latter kind. All in all, I consider this memoir a useful book for raising awareness of the sorry state of mental institutions, and mental healthcare more generally, in the US. Like the entirety of the US healthcare system, our handling of mental health is overdue for a serious overhaul.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The Island of Abu Musa (see the next item below). [Center] Did you know that if time-keeping through the use of sun-dials were invented by a civilization in the Southern Hemisphere, our clock hands would be moving counterclockwise? [Right] The Bering land bridge (see the last item below).
(2) The Island of Abu Musa: This obscure, tiny (12.8 sq. km) island in the Persian Gulf, just to the west of Strait of Hormuz, has been in the news lately, because of renewed tensions between Iran and UAE over its ownership. Iran has held on to the Island for decades, as part of its Hormozgan Province, after the British forces left the area in the early 1970s. As you see in the aerial photo, most of the island is undeveloped, which is quite strange, given its strategic location and potential for a vibrant tourism industry, of the kind enjoyed by tiny Arab sheikdoms on the south of the Persian Gulf.
(3) Iranian mullahs try to reciprocate: For years, Iranians have been bent on overthrowing the Islamic autocracy in favor of a democracy. In return, the regime is trying to replace the Iranian nation with citizens more to its liking. To this end, they are importing Iraqis to Iran's western region and Afghanis to the southeast. Their hope is to dilute the resistance of Kurds along the western border and Baluchis along the eastern border. The latest development is a reported mass admission of religiously-observant Iraqis into the prestigious University of Tehran, perhaps to gain control over unruly Iranian students.
[Map]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Twitter threatens lawsuit over Threads, Meta's "nice" version of the increasingly "toxic" Twitter.
- This is what I'd call a cheeseburger! From Burger King Thailand: A sesame bun with 20 slices of cheese.
- War for Euler's identity: 7-minute animation.
- Math humor: Proving that 1 + 2 = 3. [Tweet, with image] [Source: tinyurl.com/y7zbkgj6]
- Two very different most-anticipated films of the year open in the same week: "Oppenheimer" & "Barbie."
- Returning last night from Ventura to Santa Barbara: Photos snapped ~8:30 PM from the passenger seat.
- Super-funny comedy routine about thermometers, today and yesteryear.
(5) On recombination of humans who could have developed into different species: During the last Ice Age, water from the oceans turned into ice on land, lowering ocean levels. The lower water level caused the emergence of the Bering land bridge between Asia and North America, allowing humans to walk over from Asia and populate the Americas. When the Ice Age ended, the land bridge disappeared, isolating the two groups of humans, the ones in the Old World and those in the Americas. This separation went on for 10,000 years, until Columbus (or perhaps the Vikings before him) reconnected the two groups. Had the separation gone on for 100s of thousands of years, the two groups of humans could have diverged into different species, the way animals isolated on an island undergo significant changes. This is why astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson states in this 8-minute video that the reconnection of the Old World and the Americas was perhaps the single most-important event in human history. It is hard to imagine the two groups of people remaining separate. Had Columbus not come over, some other group of people would have done so, if not in the 1400s, then a few centuries later with the advent of modern technology. But it is interesting to think about the possibility of the two isolated groups of humans never reuniting.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Book talk by Tara Kangarlou (see the next item below). [Center] The first-ever computer game was a chess machine built in 1912 that played a king-and-rook against a solo king (from: IEEE Spectrum, issue of July 2023). [Right] Five Hundred Mathematical Challenges (see the last item below).
(2) "Tara Kangarlou, in Conversation with Abdi Nazemian": Sponsored by Farhang Foundation, today's program featured the author of The Heartbeat of Iran: Real Voices of a Country and Its People.
Using stories from 24 individuals, chosen to represent Iran's diverse population, journalist/author Tara Kangarlou has aimed to represent ordinary Iranians, not those who govern them. Of course, a country of 83 million cannot be profiled in only 24 lives, but even this limited profile presents a refreshingly different image of Iran than books focusing primarily on the ruling class, religious fanatics, or the theocratic system. The stories represent different ethnicities, professions, gender identities, and more.
The story of Iran tends to be told as the interaction between the oppressors and the oppressed, but ordinary people lead lives that are predominantly occupied by family ties, love, career concerns, music, food, and many other human needs. Yes, oppression is a big part of the picture, but it isn't everything. Kangarlou noted that the average Iranian kid has a lot in common with a Western kid, ditto for young adults, and exposing their common hopes and aspirations will help correct many misconceptions about Iran. [Recording of the program (60-minute video)]
I look forward to reading The Heartbeat of Iran, for which I just placed a hold at my local library.
(3) Book review: Barbeau, Edward J., Murray S. Klamkin, and William O. J. Moser, Five Hundred Mathematical Challenges, Mathematical Association of America, 1995. [My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book is a wonderful source of mathematical/logical puzzles and diverse challenges of various difficulty levels. Problem statements are generally succinct and the fact that full solutions are provided adds to the book's educational value. The problems appear on pp. 1-46 and solutions on pp. 47-210. Beginning on page 211, six tool chests are briefly reviewed: Combinatorics; Arithmetic; Algebra; Inequalities; Geometry & trigonometry; Analysis.
I include in my review five samples to show the nature and level of the problems. I have chosen only problems that do not include diagrams.
Problem 1: The length of the sides of a right triangle are three consecutive terms of an arithmetic progression. Prove that the lengths are in the ratio 3:4:5.
Problem 101: Prove that each of the numbers 10201, 10101, and 100011 is composite in any base.
Problem 238: Show that, for all real values of x (radians), cos(sin x) > sin(cos x).
Problem 327: Let three concentric circles be given such that the radius of the largest is less than the sum of the radii of the two smaller ones. Construct an equilateral triangle whose vertices lie one on each circle.
445: Prove that if the top 26 cards of an ordinary shuffled deck contain more red cards than there are black cards in the bottom 26, then there are in the deck at least three consecutive cards of the same color.
The following humorous poem (from p. 20), purportedly written by a student in the fly leaf of an algebra textbook, does not apply to this book!
If there should be another flood | Hither for refuge fly
Were the whole world to be submerged | This book would still be dry
(1) Images of the day: [Top row] Throwback Thursday: My paternal grandmother, Sorahi, doing homework for her adult-education course, pencil drawing of my maternal grandfather, Sassoon, which I did as a teenager, and my just-completed "memorial wall" honoring several deceased family members. [Middle left] Calligraphic rendering of a Persian verse by Khayyam. [Middle center] Math puzzle: If the blue line segments BD & CF are equal, as are the red line segments AE & AF, what is the measure of the angle CHD? [Middle right & Bottom row] Talangor Group talk on "Nature's Scaling Laws" (see the last item below).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- US FTC has opened an investigation into OpenAI over whether ChatGPT has harmed consumers.
- US Federal Drug Administration approves nation's first over-the-counter birth-control pill.
- Heat dome is expected to bring scorching record-high temperatures to southwestern US.
- Actors join writers on strike, potentially bringing Hollywood production to a grinding halt.
- World Health Organization agency declares Aspartame (artificial sweetener) as possible cause of cancer.
- Math puzzle: Prove the Markov equation m^2 + n^2 + p^2 = 3mnp has infinitely many integer solutions.
(3) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Reza Toossi (CSU Long Beach, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering) spoke under the title "Nature's Scaling Laws." There were ~90 attendees.
Have you ever wondered why small and large animals have different shapes? Tiny insects such as ants & spiders have hair-like legs, whereas huge animals such as elephants & rhinos have thick legs in order to bear their much larger weights. This is because the weight grows as the cube of linear dimension, while the cross-section of legs/bones scales up as the square of linear dimension. This is known as Galileo's square-cube law.
Tiny animals have a larger surface-to-volume ratio compared with larger animals (mouse 4:1; elephant 1:1). This affects their mobility, need for food, and metabolism. Nature cannot create a horse that is 10 times larger; such a creature won't look like a horse due to scaling considerations.
During the lively Q&A period, I mentioned that the concept of scalability exists in technological creations as well. While the computational power of a supercomputer would grow 10000-fold if we increase the number of nodes (cores or processors) from 100 to 1 million, the communication requirements would grow super-linearly, requiring a completely different connectivity for efficient communication among the 1 million nodes. This is why in a supercomputer with millions of nodes, we must invest a great deal (perhaps 80% or 90% of hardware capabilities) in the interconnection network, as opposed to processing chips.
The speaker mentioned that he had been unable to find a suitable Persian equivalent for the world "scaling." Several suggestions were made involving various uses of the word "meghiaas" ("scale"). I mentioned that "meghiaas-paziri" has emerged as an acceptable equivalent for "scalability" in the context of high-performance computer architecture.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] Drought-tolerant landscaping at UCSB West Campus Faculty Housing grounds. [Top right] Iran politics: Some bright mullah decided that washing huge pots and pans (of the kinds used to cook food for major religious gatherings) at the entrance to Iran's most-prestigious center of higher learning, University of Tehran, would send a message to those pesky intellectuals inside. [Bottom left] World's 25 most-powerful militaries (source: #worldofstatistics). [Bottom center] Meme of the day on a T-shirt: Vote. [Bottom right] Louann Brizendine's The Female Brain (see the last item below).
(2) Two novelists, both very popular in Iran, have died: The Czech-French writer Milan Kundera (94), best-known for The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and the prolific Iranian writer/journalist Rajabali Etemadi (89).
(3) Book review: Brizendine, Louann, The Female Brain, Harmony Books, 2006.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The 10th Anniversary 2017 Edition of the book, which I perused, begins with the following disclaimer: "This book is not intended to take the place of medical advice from a trained medical professional. ... Neither the publisher nor the author takes any responsibility for any possible consequences from any treatment, action, or application of medicine, herb, or preparation to any person reading or following the information in this book." That such a disclaimer was deemed necessary may have resulted from the author's MD title and her characterization of the book as an "owner's manual" for women.
The book is composed of seven chapters, sandwiched between an introduction and an epilogue. There are also extensive notes and three highly informative appendices. The main text is preceded by a list of (female) brain parts/areas, "The Cast of Neuro-Hormone Characters" (a sort of glossary), and a table naming and describing the phases of a female's life: Fetal; Girlhood; Puberty; Sexual maturity; Pregnancy; Breast-feeding; Child-rearing; Perimenopause; Menopause; Postmenopause.
Introduction: What Makes Us Women
One: The Birth of the Female Brain
Two: Teen Girl Brain
Three: Love and Trust
Four: Sex: The Brain Below the Belt
Five: The Mommy Brain
Six: Emotion: The Feeling Brain
Seven: The Mature Female Brain
Epilogue: The Future of the Female Brain
Appendix One: The Female Brain and Hormone Therapy
Appendix Two: The Female Brain and Postpartum Depression
Appendix Three: The Female Brain and Sexual Orientation
At the beginning of the book's introduction, we learn that male brains are larger than female brains by about 9%, even when correcting for body size. But this size difference isn't a sign of women's lower mental capacity. The two brains have the same number of brain cells, with the cells packed more densely in women. Such myth-busting statements appear throughout the book, making it a must-read for both women and men.
Interestingly, even though female and male brains have the same capabilities, they use different brain regions/circuits and, perhaps, different algorithms to perform the same task. In the brain centers for language and hearing, women have 11% more neurons than men. Women's brain circuitry for observing emotions in others are also more developed. Men, on the other hand, have 2.5 times the brain space devoted to sexual drive, and also have larger brain centers for action and aggression.
Men and women have the same average level of intelligence and half of the highest IQs belong to women. "The fact that fewer women end up in science has nothing to do with female brain deficiencies in math and science." I could go on about commonalities and differences in how female and male brains function, but then I would be replicating a good chunk of Brizendine's book.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] Optical illusion: The two circles in the image on the left appear like a spiral pattern. Changing every fourth element in the pattern removes the illusion. [Top right] Victor Prasolov's amazing book, Essays on Numbers and Figures (see the last item below). [Bottom left] UCSB's Harold Frank Hall (the former Engineering I) building gets new elevators: The ancient, failure-prone pair have been in use at least since 1988, when I arrived here. One of the two new units has already been installed, with the second unit going on-line in a few months. [Bottom center] Meme of the day: Poster for the Kiev, Ukraine, book fair. [Bottom right] Lovely thought for the day: A helping hand can be a ray of sunshine in a cloudy world.
(2) Me, as a large language model: I have noticed that, lately, when I sit down to write something, the words come out with much less effort than was the case, say, two decades ago. It seems that having read and reviewed hundreds of books and perused many thousands of articles (news stories, scientific papers, essays), my inner neural network has been adequately trained for effortless text generation. What I produce is often good enough to need little or no editing. Of course, editing by rearranging phrases and use of a thesaurus does improve the output quality.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Flooding closes roads and threatens towns through much of Vermont. [NYT]
- Phoenix suffers 110+ degree temperatures for 10 consecutive days: And the heat wave isn't over yet. [Axios]
- The next US president may be chosen by double-haters: It comes down to who's less-hated, Biden or Trump.
- Caltech's Ali Hajimiri: We'll be able to beam solar power from space in ~15 years. [6-minute video]
- Super-high tide this afternoon at UCSB West Campus Beach. [2-minute video]
- Math puzzle: Show that the sequence A(n) = (2 + sqrt(3))^n gets closer to integer values as n increases.
(4) Book review: Prasolov, Victor V., Essays on Numbers and Figures, American Mathematical Society, 2000.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This is the 16th title in AMS's "Mathematical World" series, whose other titles include Fixed Points (1991), Intuitive Topology (1995), and A Gentle Introduction to Game Theory (1999).
The 20 essays in this volume, ranging in length from 2 to 7 pages, are almost entirely independent, each covering "a brilliant mathematical statement with an interesting proof; or a simple, but effective method of problem solving; or an interesting property of polynomials; or it may refer to exceptional points of the triangle."
Here is an example problem from Chapter 1, "Conjugate Numbers": The terms of the sequence (2 + sqrt(3))^n get closer to integer values as n increases. In Chapter 2, "Rational Parmetrizations of the Circle," we encounter this gem: There are infinitely many points with rational x & y on the circle x^2 + y^2 = 1. Chapter 3, "The Markov Equation," reveals the structure of the integer solutions to the equation m^2 + n^2 + p^2 = 3mnp.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Math puzzle: What is the radius r of the circle touching the quarter-circle and lines drawn from the middle of two sides of a unit square to vertex B? [Top center] This is today's Tehran: Very different from Tehran of 2 years ago; quite similar to Tehran of 50 years ago. [Top right] Math puzzle: What fraction of the circle is shaded blue? The diametral lines of the two semi-circles are parallel to each other. [Bottom left] Map of modern Iranian languages. [Bottom right] The Poverty Paradox (see the last item below).
(2) Rags to riches: Google/Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai grew up in India. His family had to wait for 5 years to get a telephone line. Now, his company controls 90% of all Internet searches and 70% of all cell phones!
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Math puzzle: Show that there are infinitely many points with rational x & y on the circle x^2 + y^2 = 1.
- Six-word short story, attributed to Ernest Hemingway: "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn."
- Enrico Macias wrote & performed "Solenzara": This 5-minute video also contains Viguen's Persian version.
- Persian music: A beautiful oldie song performed by an all-women ensemble. [3-minute video]
(4) Book review: Rank, Mark Robert, The Poverty Paradox: Understanding Economic Hardship Amid American Prosperity, unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by Barry Abrams, Kalorama, 2023.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The economic system in the US is set up like a game of musical chairs, played with 10 people and only 8 chairs, according to Rank's favorite analogy. When the music stops, two people are left without chairs, regardless of who is playing. We focus on who lost and the character flaws of the losers, rather than asking why there aren't enough chairs (good-paying jobs) to begin with.
Why is there poverty at all in the richest country in the world? More than one in 10 Americans are poor. Actually, given that some people experience poverty over a short period of time (when losing a job, e.g.), the real number is somewhat higher. The social safety net in America is quite weak and we lack universal healthcare, so a job loss or unexpected illness can put us at a real risk of falling into poverty.
Ironically, the diversity of population in America, sometimes cited as a source of our strength, is also a cause of poverty. Research has shown that homogeneous societies in terms of race and ethnicity have more generous welfare states. When people in need look more like me, I am more likely to be empathetic in giving a helping hand. Unfortunately, America's love affair with rugged individualism doesn't help. We think that everyone should take advantage of opportunities that exist.
Our supposed "land of plenty" actually offers fewer opportunities than other advanced industrial societies for people to move up the economic ladder. The American Dream has become an illusion, in the wake of very wide income and wealth gaps. The Republicans' advocacy of small government is highly selective: They want the government small where it can help people in need and large where it benefits top-one-percenters and big corporations.
The viewpoint that causes of poverty lie within people's attitudes and behaviors leads to the advocacy for tough-love, job-training, and skills development. Outright neglect is justified under the banner that government is the problem not the solution, and scapegoats are created for there not being enough opportunities. The blame is placed on other groups of people (blacks, immigrants), instead of the shortage of two chairs in the musical-chairs analogy.
The notable reduction in poverty levels during the COVID years, due to expanded child tax credit, stimulus checks, moratorium on evictions, greater food/housing assistance, and increased unemployment benefits showed us a glimpse of what might be possible with universal healthcare, better-paying jobs, and, perhaps, a universal basic income.
A final point is that poverty does not affect only the poor: It hurts the entire society by undermining democracy. We pay for illnesses in one way or another. Paying on the front end through universal healthcare tends to be cheaper than paying on the back end when urgent care is needed. So, cost is not a valid argument against universal health care. The same argument applies to good childcare and good education. "We need to shift our thinking about poverty from an issue of them to an issue of us."
(1) Images of the day: [Top row] As I was walking to my car from Santa Barbara Courthouse, after being relieved of jury duty on Wednesday afternoon, I shot these photos at the beautiful Alice Keck Memorial Gardens. [Bottom left] The next team of astronauts to travel to ISS will include Iranian-American test pilot Jasmin Moghbeli. [Bottom center] The undeniably-positive role of labor unions in reducing income inequality: When roughly one-third of US workers were unionized in mid-20th century, income inequality was at its lowest (NYT chart). [Bottom right] Sarah Jaquette Ray's A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety (see the last item below).
(2) Republicans are pro-birth: They don't care about children once they are born. Democrats are pro-life: They want children to be fed, housed, insured, & educated, and parents to earn enough to take care of them.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The US healthcare system sucks compared with other advanced countries: Rampant fraud makes it worse.
- In Iran, only the Majlis is empowered to legislate, but many centers of powers make up their own laws.
- Technology to help distinguish real images from AI-generated ones is coming of age.
- As we age, our sleep needs change: Nights when we're asleep more than we're up can become elusive.
- Facebook memory from July 8, 2019: A culture built on servitude & idol worship can't achieve greatness.
(4) Book review: Ray, Sarah Jaquette, A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet, unabridged 5-hour audiobook, read by Sarah Sheckells, Tantor Audio, 2020.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book is aimed primarily at the Climate Generation (late Millennials and Generation Z), but everyone can benefit from its encapsulation of the climate problem and its prescription for cultivating a mature, compassionate, and resilient mindset that will allow taking steps toward climate justice in a hopeful, emotionally-intelligent, and sustainable fashion. We must set aside fearful, guilt-ridden, and anxiety-inducing activism that harms our well-being more than it helps solve climate problems.
These two quotes from p. 7 and p. 126 capture Ray's philosophy:
- "Reframing environmentalism as a movement of abundance, connection, and well-being may help us rethink it as a politics of desire rather than a politics of individual sacrifice and consumer denial."
- "Find beauty, savor the small gifts of being alive, see everything you possibly can through the lens of being blessed rather than victimized, recalibrate your efforts toward the small and local, collect and create positive stories ... "
Here is a list of the book's chapters, each of which ends with a checklist that reiterates and highlights the chapter's main ideas.
Introduction: Embrace life in the Anthropocene (and develop a vision for Earth, as changed by humans)
Chapter 1: Get schooled on the role of emotions in climate-justice work (climate change & mental health)
Chapter 2: Cultivate climate wisdom (make use of research on mindfulness, grief/trauma, ecopsychology)
Chapter 3: Claim your calling and scale your actions (the myth that a single individual cannot do much)
Chapter 4: Hack the story (replacing stories of urgency & doom with stories of collective transformation)
Chapter 5: Be less right and more in relation (increasing opportunities of collaborating with other people)
Chapter 6: Move beyond hope, ditch guilt, and laugh more (resist misery; guilt is destructive & pointless)
Chapter 7: Resist burnout (not just a narcissistic urge, but essential to dismantling existing power relations)
Conclusion: Feed what you want to grow (set aside fear & rage, focus on climate justice for the long haul)
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Water's triple point: Whether water is solid, liquid, or gaseous depends on its temperature and pressure. Under the right conditions (viz. 0.01 C & 0.06 atm.), all three forms of water can coexist. These conditions can occur on Mars, for example. [Top center] Math puzzle: What is the limit of the nth term of the following sequence, as n tends to infinity? [Top right] Shahrzad Elghnayan's Titan of Tehran (see the last item below). [Bottom left] Brazil's women's national soccer team lands in Australia in a charter plane that pays tribute to Iranian protesters Mahsa Amini and Amir Nasr Azadani. Images of the two victims appear on the tail fin and "No woman should be killed for not covering her head" is one of several messages appearing on the fuselage. [Bottom center & right] A venue with precious memories for me: UCLA's majestic Royce Hall.
(2) Enthusiastic feminism in the Middle East: A new generation of feminists sees women's rights as part of a wider democratic struggle, beyond class and across religious-secular divides. [Le Monde: Persian, English]
(3) Quote of the day: "You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do." ~ American novelist Anne Lamott
(4) Book review: Elghanayan, Shahrzad, Titan of Tehran: From Jewish Ghetto to Corporate Colossus to Firing Squad—My Grandfather's Life, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by Ashraf Shirazi, Tantor Audio, 2022.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Habib Elghanian (or Elghanayan) [1912-1979], one of the richest and most-respected members of Iran's Jewish community, was executed on May 9, 1979 (at age 67), less than 3 months after the mullahs came to power by overthrowing the Shah. He was accused of financial crimes as well as spying for Israel, crimes commonly concocted in the early days of Iran's Islamic regime for rich people and those who had traveled to or invested in Israel. In this book, Elghanian's US-raised journalist granddaughter, Shahrzad, dutifully commemorates the life of a man she remembers only fleetingly.
Elghanian's claim to fame and source of wealth was Plasco, a plastics-manufacturing company that became Iran's largest and most-technologically-advanced plastics producer through the use of Western technology. In addition to his entrepreneurial activities, Elghanian served as the leader of Tehran's Jewish community in the 1960s and 1970s.
In the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution, many Jews fled Iran, because they considered the country unsafe for non-Muslims. Elghanian was advised by friends and acquaintances to leave Iran, but, thinking that he had done nothing wrong and feeling indebted to the workers of his factories, he decided to stay. Because of the atmosphere of fear in Iran, only a handful of individuals attended the self-made multi-millionaire's funeral.
International reaction to the execution of the first Jew and one of first civilians by the Islamic regime was swift. The US Senate passed a resolution to condemn Elghanian's execution as a violation of human rights, a trigger event for subsequent sanctions for similar violations. Elghanian's name again dominated Iran's news stories in Jan. 2017, when the Plasco Building, Tehran's tallest for its time, burned down and collapsed in a massive fire.
As is the case with many memoirs that are intermixed with political tensions and historical events, there are inaccuracies, omissions, and dramatizations regarding what happened in the society where the story unfolds. The revolutionaries needed scapegoats for all the things that went wrong following their coming to power. Even today, after 44 years, the mullahs are blaming the Shah and his regime, the West, and Zionists for whatever ails Iran, and each government blames the one before it for budget deficits and its inability to make the economy work. Just as today's political executions are meant to induce fear into would-be street protesters, some of the early revolutionary executions were meant as warnings to would-be dissenters and troublemakers.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday: Women protesting against misogynistic laws, days after Iran's Islamic Revolution (44 years ago, on Int'l Women's Day 1979). [Top center] The January Select-Committee Report (see the last item below). [Top right] Beautiful architecture: Samarkand, Uzbekistan. [Bottom left & center] July 4th observance: Tiny flag in front of my home; humongous flag in front of Santa Barbara Courthouse, where I participated in a jury selection process yesterday. Luckily, I am off the hook. [Bottom right] Impressive architectures: The 13th-century Palmyra Castle in Syria.
(2) I don't understand this logic: Selling a cake to a gay couple is participating in and approving of the marriage, but selling a gun to a mass shooter isn't participating in and approving of the murders?
(3) Generating electricity from the air: Nikola Tesla's speculation that electricity can be produced from the air is becoming true. Tesla was looking at the Earth and upper atmosphere as two ends of an enormous battery from which power can be drawn, what today is known as hygroelectricity. A team at U. Mass accidentally demonstrated that a small but continuous electric current can be generated from the humidity in the air, using an array of microwires. Sourcing raw materials, costing, assessing the environmental footprint, and scaling them up takes time, but this is true of any new technology.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Heat records broken worldwide: The past three days were among the hottest in Earth's modern history.
- Someone has offered to Iran's Khamenei, Jannati, & Raisi a free submarine ride to see the Titanic wreckage.
- Iranian MP: If people don't bear children in response to our gentle plea, we will impregnate them by force!
- Quote of the day: "Passion is the bridge that takes you from pain to change." ~ Frida Kahlo
(5) July 4th mass shootings across the US kill 15 and injure 94: Not even thoughts & prayers are being sent by GOP politicians anymore. [Tweet, with cartoons]
(6) Book review: The January 6th Committee, The January 6th Report, unabridged 24-hour audiobook, read by Ari Melber & Joe Knezevich, Harper Audio, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Every American should read this spellbinding report, if not in its entirety, then at least its Executive Summary comprising about 15% of the 845-page report, not counting the Summary's 60 pages of endnotes.
The well-written report is available on-line for free on a US government Web site that also includes the following supporting material: Court documents; Documents on file with the Select Committee; Select Committee hearing videos; Transcribed interviews and depositions; Video exhibits; Web resources referenced by the Committee.
Here is the report's table of contents.
Executive summary
Chapter 1: The big lie
Chapter 2: "I Just want to find 11,780 votes"
Chapter 3: Fake electors and "The President of the Senate" strategy
Chapter 4: "Just call it corrupt and leave the rest to me"
Chapter 5: "A coup in search of a legal theory"
Chapter 6: "Be there, will be wild"
Chapter 7: 187 minutes of dereliction
Chapter 8: Analysis of the attack
Recommendations
Appendix 1: Government agency preparation and response to January 6th
Appendix 2: DC National Guard preparation for and response to January 6th
Appendix 3: The big rip-off: Follow the money
Appendix 4: Malign foreign influence
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Socrates Think Tank talk on quantum computers, preceded by a tribute to Dr. Firouz Naderi (see the next item below). [Center] Jeffrey Kluger's The Sibling Effect (see the last item below). [Right] I'll drink to that: "We'd rather see two men holding hands than two men holding guns."
(2) Tonight's Socrates Think Tank Talk: Dr. Payam Kiani spoke under the title "What Do You Know About Quantum Computers?" Before the main talk, I made a short presentation in honor of the late NASA scientist Dr. Firouz Naderi. Here is a link to a previous version of my presentation (14-minute video, in Persian).
Beginning with the notions of entanglement (dar-ham-tanidegui) and superposition (bar-ham-naheshti), Dr. Kiani described how a qubit can represent exponentially many different states at once, thus allowing the transformation of some NP-hard problems requiring worst-case exponential running times on classical computers into tractable polynomial-time problems for quantum computers. An example is Shor's quantum algorithm for factoring a number into its prime components.
Other topics discussed included implementation of quantum computers, the challenge of making them less error-prone, and using them in combination with classical computers for input/output and staging of computations. A brief mention was also made of quantum communication, which takes advantage of teleportation to realize highly-secure data transmission.
[Dr. Payam Kiani's YouTube Channel, containing a series of six 1-hour lessons on quantum computing.]
[Reading: "Is There a Moore's Law for Quantum Computing?" (ArXiv paper)]
[Reading: "Quantum Threat Timeline Report 2022" (Global Risk Intitute report)]
(3) Book review: Kluger, Jeffrey, The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us, unabridged 9-hour audiobook, read by Pete Larkin, Tantor Audio, 2011.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Kluger opens his book by telling the story of how he and two of his brothers put their youngest brother in a fuse cabinet, where he faced the danger of electrocution, in an effort to protect him from their father's rage. The four brothers had a difficult childhood, but they emerged from it with an appreciation of the bond they shared, feeling much stronger as a result.
In the animal kingdom, sibling rivalry may take a dark turn. Some birds take a look at multiple eggs, before discarding all but the one that appears healthiest. Shark siblings eat one another while in their mother's womb, until only one survives. Rivalry among human siblings, while not as extreme, is quite intense indeed. Each sibling tries mightily to impress the parents and others around them with his/her strongest selling point: The funny one; the smart one; the pretty one; the most-athletic. This is sometimes called "de-identification," pursuing a distinct interest where one gets 100% of the attention, instead of trying to excel in the same area as an older sibling, which gives one at most 50% of the attention.
Parents contaminate the de-identification process by making it clear, explicitly or implicitly, that some interests/skills are preferable. Favoritism is another way in which parents can create an unhealthy environment among siblings. Despite denials if asked, 70% of fathers and 65% of mothers exhibit (that is, they are not successful in hiding) a preference for at least one child. This is something that is wired in our brain by evolution; we simply can't help it. The most-common favorite for a father is the last-born daughter; for a mother, it's the first-born son.
Birth order plays a significant role in the relationship among siblings. Earlier-born children get more attention from their parents, so it's not surprising that they are vaccinated more reliably and exhibit an average advantage of a few IQ points over their younger siblings. The fact that older siblings get to take care of and mentor the younger ones also adds to their intelligence and self-confidence. Hence, the greater likelihood of first-borns becoming CEOs, Senators, or astronauts. Last-borns develop the skill to charm, as a protective mechanism, with the result that some of our greatest satirists are last-borns or near-last-borns.
Siblings fight with each other constantly, but they also teach each other about conflict avoidance and resolution. Sole-children have no sibling rivalry and for a long time were thought to be at a disadvantage with regard to developing social skills. New research has dispelled the latter myth by showing that sole-children make up for their sibling deficiency in a myriad of ways.
I really enjoyed Kluger's insightful book and recommend it highly. It is choke-full of interesting ideas and useful tips for siblings and parents alike.
Kluger's 21-minute TEDx talk on the hidden power of siblings aptly summarizes the book's main points.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Happy July 4th: This image is part of a gallery that shows how Popular Science has celebrated Independence Day over the years (see the next item below). [Center] On intelligent computing (see the last item below). [Right] World's top-1000 universities: According to World of Statistics, USA and UK have a quarter of the world's top universities. China's third position and several European countries' strong showings aren't surprising. Appearance of low-income India & Iran among the top 12 countries is unexpected. It would have been better to present data on per-capita basis to account for widely-varying populations.
(2) Happy birthday to America: On this day, we celebrate the freedoms that our forefathers fought hard to secure for us and other generations since then sacrificed to maintain. We do not celebrate our flag, but the ideals that are behind it. We do not celebrate our military might, but how it is used to safeguard our freedoms and help others protect theirs. There is a reason that Lady Liberty is holding a torch and not a gun!
(3) Internet cable channels in Iran: To drive people away from foreign-based Internet content, Iranian mullahs decided to establish their own cable channels to offer more-entertaining content than what the state-TV airs. Now, it seems that movies and TV series produced by the government's own agents have become "too racy" for their taste, leading to infighting among the various agencies involved.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Greetings of the day: Happy 4th to everyone not pleading the 5th about the 6th!
- Two companies, Upside Foods & Good Meat, gain FDA approval to sell lab-grown chicken meat.
- Strait of Hormuz: A 30-mile-wide waterway through which 15% of world's energy supplies must pass.
- Like most people, I love to travel, but some the reasons for staying put cited in this essay resonate with me.
- Azeri music: A wonderful performance of "Sari Galin," with Azeri and Persian lyrics. [4-minute video]
(5) Bukhara, another Iran: In this 30-minute Persian video, we learn about Muslim & Jewish Iranians who call Bukhara home. A Jewish artist, Neshan Nasimi, performs the songs "Zahra-ye Harati" and "Yalda Yalda."
(6) Bukhara's pond, and Molla Nasreddin: In this 27-minute Persian video, we are introduced to Bukhara, an ancient Persian city in Uzbekistan, and its people. Bukhara was a major multicultural center of the 8th century.
(7) Not teaching evolution is an injustice: Science magazine editorial, print issue of June 30, 2023, chimes in about India's moving away from teaching evolution and the periodic table.
(8) Intelligent computing is different from AI: It does use AI but also relies on other components dealing with perception, cognition, and human-computer interfacing. Entrepreneur & Stanford Professor Andrew Ng asserted in 2017 that AI is the new electricity, by which he meant that the two technologies will have comparable impacts on society and technological progress.
[Article (2-minute read)]
[Lecture (98-minute video)]
Six years later, Zhu, Yu, Xu et al. review the latest advances in intelligent computing, auguring the fourth wave of human development that will take us from the current information society to a human-physics-information-integrated existence.
[Journal article (45 pp., with 367 references)]
For example, large language models, exemplified by chat-GPT, will become indispensable assistants for daily life and work, providing functions such as chatting, writing, translating, recommending, searching, and making decisions. Eventually, intelligent computing will collect human-body data directly through wearable devices to achieve seamless human-machine coordination, virtual reality, and mixed enhancement.
[Source: Science magazine "advertorial," issue of June 30, 2023]
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Free e-book on algorithms, by Jeff Erickson, with numerous figures and exercises (Web page). [Center] Depiction of an Iranian rural breakfast tray: Unfortunately, very few can now afford all the items shown. [Right] Justin Gregg's If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal (see the last item below).
(2) Words of wisdom: Depicting gay characters in films does not force the homosexual lifestyle on viewers, any more than depicting Republican politicians forces a life of deceit and cowardice
(3) Book review: Gregg, Justin, If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by the author, Little, Brown & Company, 2022.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
There is little doubt in many people's minds that humans are much more "intelligent" than other animals. But, are we defining "intelligence" correctly? And is more intelligence, thus defined, necessarily better? The author begins by asserting that German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900] had a brilliant mind, but he wasn't a happy, "nice," or well-adjusted person and lived a miserable life, which ended in a mental asylum in Switzerland. He then invokes narwhal (aka narwhale), a medium-sized toothed whale that possesses a large "tusk" from a protruding canine tooth and lives year-round in the Arctic waters around Greenland, Canada, and Russia, as an example of "dumb" animals which have more intelligence than we give them credit for.
What is intelligence anyway, and why do we view it as an unconditionally positive attribute? Nietzsche reportedly envied cows in the field, because they didn't care about existential questions such as the meaning of life. Hence the author's wondering whether the world would have been a better place if the intelligence of Nietzsche and other human thinkers were reduced to that of a narwhal. Narwhals can't write symphonies or send a spacecraft to the moon, but they also cannot develop anti-Semitic sentiments or commit genocide.
Despite the misgivings above and other tongue-in-cheek statements, this book contains a serious discussion of human intellect and how it can be put to good and bad uses.
Every great idea we produce seems to find a way of being used to do evil deeds. Throughout history, we have used religion, philosophy, and (pseudo)science to justify horrible acts against other Earth denizens. For example, Nietzsche wasn't anti-Semitic but his anti-Semitic sister used his writings to justify Nazi atrocities.
It is well-known that we humans are "why" specialists. We look for causal connections and invent a connection where none exists. Our penchant for finding the cause of everything sometimes leads to amazing breakthroughs, but at other times it produces dumb conspiracy theories. Another aspect of human intellect and the resultant knowledge is that much of what we know is worthless (aka "dead facts").
Our superior intelligence has not only led us astray on many occasions, but has also deformed the Earth on which we rely for survival. We have used our intelligence to domesticate animals and invent new technologies, but not to prevent conditions that may lead to our extinction.
And now, let us take a look at the animal side. While it's true that bees do not commit genocide based on religious or philosophical views, they do let male drones die en mass, when they have served their purpose of mating with new queens. The drones' tongues are too short to allow them to extract nectar and they don't have protective stingers. They die a slow death (starve or freeze) if they are pushed out of the hive by female bees; "a tragic—but utterly normal—state of affairs."
The book's message can be summarized in three bullet points.
- The uniqueness of human cognition doesn't necessarily make it advantageous.
- Evolution improved our thinking but also produced many down sides.
- Our survival is threatened by our inability to consider long-term consequences.
So, in the end, are we willing to trade off our creature comforts and rich cultural existence for not having suffered World War II or the Holocaust? The answer isn't clear-cut!
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] Family gathering to celebrate the birthday of my niece, whose birthday gifts included a pair of socks bearing photos of her newborn son. [Top center] Beauty, talent, and intelligence: Actor Anne Hathaway on loving LGBTQ+ people being a human experience, not a political statement. [Bottom left] Math puzzle: What fraction of the square's area is shaded blue? [Bottom center] Math puzzle (the answer is not unique): What is the ninth shape in this series? [Bottom right] Richard Haass's Bill of Obligations (see the last item below).
(2) Do you know what AM and PM stand for? The letter "M" is for "meridiem," (Latin for midday), with "A" and "P" representing "ante" (before) and "post" (after).
(3) SCOTUS's conservative super-majority flexes its muscles: In the span of a single day, six justices strike down affirmative action programs in college admissions, declare Biden's student-loan forgiveness effort unconstitutional, and confirm that a designer of wedding Web sites can refuse to accept work from gay couples.
(4) Large language models and the issue of copyright: Is it legal to use in-copyright works as training data and producing outputs derived from copyrighted training data?
(5) Book review: Haass, Richard N., The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens, unabridged 4-hour audiobook, read by the author, Penguin Audio, 2023. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book contains a list of things that should happen but there is no law requiring them, and things that keep the author up at night. Haass states that the American democracy is most-decidedly worth keeping, but it has never been in greater peril than today. And this peril is a direct result of there being no Bill of Obligations to balance the Bill of Rights.
We Americans take our rights quite seriously and we scream if anyone infringes upon them. The Bill of Rights gives us rights in nine specific domains, defined in Amendments 1-9 to the US Constitution, along with an open-ended set of other rights, vaguely specified in Amendment 10. But there is no document that spells out our limitations and obligations vis-a-vis these rights.
In other words, we need something explicating that our freedom to swing our arm wildly stops at the nose of the person next to us. We also need to be told that our beloved democracy and individual rights will die if we don't educate ourselves on how to nurture them. We thus need strong civic education, something that is lacking in our schools and society.
Haass defines a 10-article Bill of Obligations, aka the ten habits of good citizens. We may not be able to turn these articles into Constitutional Amendments, because they deal primarily with moral imperatives aimed at shaping human behavior, not with legal concepts. nevertheless, it is important to impress these ten articles upon all citizens as part of their civic education.
1. Be informed
2. Get involved
3. Stay open to compromise
4. Remain civil
5. Reject violence
6. Value norms
7. Promote the common good
8. Respect government service
9. Support the teaching of civics
10. Put the country first
In other words, community and citizenship are fundamental to our democratic system, not optional niceties.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Right] Remembering the late Iranian-American NASA scientist, Dr. Firouz Naderi (see the next item below). [Center] Tonight's Talangor Group talk (see the last item below).
(2) Dr. Firouz Naderi [1946-2023]: Tonight, I made a short presentation in Persian on the life of contributions of a prominent Iranian-American, who had a 36-year distinguished career at NASA and, of late, was a key contributor to discussions on Iran and Iranian-Americans. I ended my presentation with this viral quote from Dr. Naderi, which was his answer to a question about whether after living for 50 years in the US, he feels more American or Persian: "Being Persian is part of my history and being an American is part of my identity and the two are irretrievably intermixed—like an egg that once scrambled, you cannot separate the yolk from the white. America is my country, and Iran is my homeland. And how blessed I am to be rooted in ancient civilization with a rich culture, and at the same time a proud American living in this young nation that has lifted me on her shoulders, allowing me to reach for the stars." [Recording of the talk (14-minute video)]
You can get more information about Dr. Firouz Naderi from the following two programs:
"USA beh Farsi" interview with Dr. Naderi (after watching the 10-minute part 1, parts 2-4 will appear).
Iran International's 25-minute tribute to Dr. Naderi.
(3) Announcing a short list of 5 books for "UCSB Reads 2024" program: Narrowed down from an initial slate of 25 committee recommendations, the list will be reduced to 3 in August, before starting negotiations with authors and publishers. Stay tuned!
P.S.: Ocean Vuong's On Earth We Were Briefly Gorgeous has been removed from consideration (she isn't accepting speaking engagements until 2025) and replaced by Rebekah Taussig's Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Body, the next selection on our rank-ordered list.
(4) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Kamran Malek spoke on "Conducting an Orchestra." The main talk was preceded by yours truly's short presentation about the late Iranian-American NASA scientist, Dr. Firouz Naderi. I will write about the latter part in a separate post.
To a lay person, the role of an orchestra conductor is a mystery. After all, isn't every orchestra member provided with notes and wouldn't s/he be able to play without a conductor? This reminds me of a cartoon, showing a conductor standing in front of a stand on which appear his instructions: "Start flailing your arms as soon as you hear music; stop moving when the music stops; then, turn around and take a bow"!
Dr. Malek discussed the structure of a symphony orchestra, the placement of the various instruments, and how the conductor coordinates the various sections by his hand gestures and body language. S/He is in charge of maintaining the rhythm and ensuring that the various sections play softly or aloud, as the piece demands. S/He also often arranges the music for the orchestra at hand, providing notes for each player, with the requisite melody and silent segments. The score in front of the conductor is quite complex, usually having one line of music for each type of instrument. The piece of paper serves only as a reminder, because the conductor typically knows the entire piece by heart. Through standard gestures understood by musicians, the conductor invites a section to come in or fade out, so as to highlight other sections.
At the end of his talk, Dr. Malek played several video clips showing how passionate conductors (one women and one man) take charge of their orchestras and contribute to the quality and enjoyment of the musical performance.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzle: How many triangles are there in this diagram? [Center] Over 122 million Americans under air quality alerts due to Canadian wildfire smoke. [Right] Harvard Business Review's Crypto (see the last item below).
(2) Simple math puzzle: If x, y, and z are successive terms of a geometric progression, x + y + z = 12, and xyz = 27, what is the value of 1/x + 1/z?
(3) "Transitional Justice": This is the title of a free 7-week on-line course by Iran Academia, which started this week. Countries emerging from a period of conflict and/or repression, must set up trustworthy mechanisms to deal with widespread violations of human rights that the regular justice system may not be able to handle. It's not a matter of revenge, but of governments' obligations to victims and survivors of human-rights abuses according to international law. The four pillars of transitional justice are truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-recurrence.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The trillion-gallon threat: California's dams may be a single heavy rainstorm away from failing.
- Biden administrations $42 billion investment in broadband affordability & access is a major step forward.
- "Golshifteh Frahani's existence is resistance": Article about the popular Iranian star's latest film role.
- Lionel Messi look-alike Reza Parastesh has been accused of fooling 23 women into sleeping with him.
(5) The new "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" may or may not be the last film in the blockbuster franchise, but composer John Williams indicates it will be his final movie before he retires.
(6) Book review: Harvard Business Review, Crypto: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review, unabridged 3-hour audiobook, read by Derek Dysart, Ascent Audio, 2023.
[My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This is the latest entry into the Harvard Business Review "Insights Series," whose other titles include Strategic Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Monopolies & Tech Giants, Blockchain, Agile, Climate Change, and Customer Data & Privacy.
The cryptocurrency domain is filled with hype, misinformation, and disinformation. Lately, crypto advocates have been trying to scare institutional investors and ordinary citizens by predicting the demise of the US dollar, in an effort to generate new crypto purchases. As a crypto skeptic, I have been looking for an unbiased assessment of the current realities and future potentials of cryptocurrencies, for my own benefit and as a resource to recommend to others. This book isn't it. While some of the pitfalls of cryptocurrencies are discussed, the overall tone of the book is enthusiastic, implying that businesses that do not rush to crypto investing risk being left behind.
Along with cheerleading for cryptocurrencies, the book also hypes non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as investments of the future. In my view, NFTs are nothing but cryptocurrencies with an image or other art/keepsake attached. As such, NFTs suffer from the same dangers as bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, including wild fluctuations in value and vulnerability to fraud.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Math puzzle: What is the diameter of the large circle, if the four small circles have diameter 1? [Top center] Math puzzle: We have two isosceles triangles within the triangle ABC. What is the measure of the angle bearing a question mark? [Top right] Top-20 patent winners in 2022: IBM occupied the top spot in US patents for decades, 1993-2021. Samsung rose to the top in 2022. [Bottom left] Chess puzzle: White to start and mate in 2 moves. [Bottom center] Murder rate in the US shows a downward trend after a COVID surge (NYT chart). [Bottom right] Ulf Danielsson's The World Itself (see the last item below).
(2) FIFA Women's World Cup, July 20 to August 20, 2023: Hosted jointly by Australia & New Zealand, 32 teams will participate in this year's tournament, 8 of them for the first time. Team USA will include veterans Megan Rapinoe (37) and Alex Morgan (33), playing alongside new talent as young as 18. The US is grouped with Netherlands, Portugal, & Vietnam in the preliminary stage, with games on 7/21 (6:00 PM PDT), 7/26 (6:00 PM), and 8/1 (12:00 AM). Fox & FS1 will broadcast all matches for the US audience. Only four countries (Germany, Japan, Norway, USA) have ever won the Women's World Cup.
(3) A dictator's hired thugs will eventually rise against him. This is as true in Iran as it is in Russia. When the hired killers see that they are paid low wages, while the protected dictator and his buddies pocket billions, they will demand a larger share of the loot.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Throwback Thursday: New York City in the 1930s, as seen from aboard a ferry. [2-minute video]
- A January 2022 underwater volcanic eruption in Tonga caused the world's most-intense lightning storm.
- Actor Andie MacDowell, on double standards: "Why is my gray hair an issue and George Clooney's isn't?"
- Peru: A mysterious country with the world's driest deserts and lushest rainforests. [9-minute video]
- Hans Zimmer: The German movie-score composer who is taking over from the incredible John Williams.
- Humor: Don Quixote asking for directions.
[Image]
- PhD proposal vs. PhD thesis: Extendable to research funding proposal vs. actual research results. [Cartoon]
(5) Book review: Danielsson, Ulf, The World Itself: Consciousness and the Everything of Physics, unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by Pete Cross, Dreamscape Media, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Acclaimed theoretical physicist Ulf Danielson (Uppsala U., Sweden) tackles the age-old question of whether the world operates in the framework of mathematics or whether mathematics only provides tools for understanding the universe that is out there. He disagrees with the thesis of William Dunham's The Mathematical Universe, siding instead with the view that the universe exists independently of our consciousness and operates the way it does.
Mathematical models are processes in our brains that approximate the universe. They are useful tools for making predictions: Nothing more. We are extremely limited in our abilities and until we acknowledge and understand these limitations, there is no hope for understanding the large, complex universe. Using machine metaphors for life is silly. Likewise, the Church-Turing hypothesis is preposterous: Who are we to set limits on what the universe can or cannot do?
Danielsson's main message to his readers is not to mistake our evolving, trial-and-error descriptions of the world with the world itself. The title of the book seemingly pays homage to Francis Crick's Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature, which posits that the origin of life on Earth is the most-fundamental question for life sciences.
Here is an interview with Danielsson about his book.
(1) Images of the [Top left] Summer Solstice Parade (see the next item below). [Top center] Lavender Festival (see item 3 below). [Top right] Next to Alameda Park, where the Summer Solstice Festival was held today, is the beautiful Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden, an oasis covering a large city block. [Bottom left & center] Facebook memories from June 24 of years past: A humorous Persian poem of mine and a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson. [Bottom right] People vs. Donald Trump (see the last item below).
(2) Santa Barbara Summer Solstice Festival 2023: Featuring music, dancing, and, of course, food trucks, today's 49th annual event started with a noon parade from the intersection of Santa Barbara & Ortega streets, ending at Alameda Park, where festivities will continue today and tomorrow. Here's a narrated 8-minute video I shot, as I walked along the parade route. And here are three 1-minute videos showing music & dance performances along the parade route. [Video 1] [Video 2] [Video 3]
(3) Santa Barbara Lavender Festival 2023: Inaugurated in 2004 as Ojai Lavender Festival, later becoming the Ojai Valley Lavender Festival, the Festival is now based in Santa Barbara. Held on the Historic Old Mission grounds, today's Festival featured lavender-based products of all kinds (including food items), a variety of other food offerings, arts & crafts, and music/dance performances. [Sample dance performance]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- A section of I-95, which had closed due to a deadly collapse, reopens in a record time of under 2 weeks.
- Russia/Ukraine: Wagner Group chief heads to exile in Belarus after his rebellious march toward Moscow.
- Iran has five religious seminaries for every public university.
- Iranian regional music from Mazandaran Province on the Caspian shore, played with "pots" ("tasht").
(5) Book review: Pomerantz, Mark, People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account, unabridged 9-hour audiobook, read by the author, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2023.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I approached this book, yet another account of Donald Trump's crimes before, during, and after his presidency, with low expectations, but found it surprisingly well-written and informative. I emerged with a detailed understanding of Trump's business dealings, producing financial ruin for a large number of actors and stealing from American tax-payers, as Trump himself secured and improved his position on Forbes list of billionaires.
The book also reinforced my views on the US justice system being broken, punishing petty criminals severely and promptly, while letting rich and powerful criminals escape unscathed. George Floyd, who passed off a fake $20 bill, was "executed" within hours of his crime. Donald Trump's financial crimes, including money-laundering to hide the payment of hush money to a porn star, took years to prosecute, as the case was shelved and resurrected multiple times. The crime occurred in 2016; as of mid-2023, the case is still in progress, with no resolution in sight.
From his media appearances, I had developed a picture of Pomerantz as an opportunist and self-aggrandizer, particularly given that he took on the Trump case at SDNY gratis. He explains in the book that he was retired at the time and needed no additional income or the hassles of reporting it.
Pomerantz and other members of the SDNY team eventually developed a strong case against Trump and convinced Cyrus Vance, Manhattan District Attorney at the time, to indict him, but, because Vance did not seek reelection as his term ended, the case fell under the jurisdiction of his replacement, Alvin Bragg, who was not comfortable with pursuing an indictment. Part of the problem was that Trump's financial crimes had no obvious victims. Yes, banks were duped by Trump's false financial disclosures into giving him large loans with favorable terms, but no bank suffered a default.
Pomerantz resigned in protest and wrote this book to present his case to the "People." Bragg eventually reversed his decision, indicting Trump in April 2023, just as this book was released. The trial is set for March 2024, but there is a chance it will be delayed as a result of defense motions or upcoming indictments of Trump for federal crimes.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday (Facebook memory from June 22, 2017): Photograph by Ray Collins, known for his masterful depiction of waves. [Top center] A spectacular double sculpture by an unknown 19th-century French artist: "The Double Statue of Mephistopheles and Margarita" depicts a happy, triumphant-looking man on the front side and a glum, subdued woman on the back side, visible through a large mirror. Wikipedia has an article about this unique work of art. [Top right] Lightning & Lady Liberty (BBC image). [Bottom left] According to The Economist, the American economy is still riding high, despite all contrary expectations. [Bottom center] Projected populations of some countries in 2100. [Bottom right] The great AI treasure hunt: In its June 2023 issue, IEEE Spectrum magazine has a cover feature on how AI is helping discover new material to replace hard-to-find critical metals for EV batteries.
(2) On fake conferences: A tell-tale sign of a fake conference is that its announcements and invitations are signed with incomplete or fake names. Generally, an organizer, manager, or other officer of a conference is proud to be part of an enterprise that contributes to the dissemination of science/technology information. Not so for fake conferences! The same applies to fake journals, whose managing editors usually refuse to sign their full names, perhaps because they lack the credentials required for the occupied positions. [E-mail image]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Tourist submersible seems to have imploded near the Titanic wreckage, killing all five on board.
- US 13-year-olds show the lowest levels of math and reading scores in 2-3 decades.
- On open-source software projects, only 1 in 20 programmers are women.
- America's population is older than ever: The median age rose from 30.0 in 1980 to 38.9 in 2022.
(4) From Washington Post's neologism contest, in which common words are given hilarious new meanings.
Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
(5) How different is a Turing Machine (TM) from a von-Neumann-style computer in terms of computational power? Matthew Regan set out to discover the extent of difference for himself by simulating a simple, old 8-bit 6502 CPU on Pure Turing, a basic TM. Even though capabilities of the 6502 are dwarfed by those of modern, multi-billion-transistor CPUs, it proved vastly more powerful than TM. For example, a single instruction of the 6502 can take up to 3 million Pure Turing clock cycles to fetch. Now, imagine playing Pac-Man, a game originally developed for the 6502. You have to be really patient to play Pac-Man on Pure Turing: It takes ~7 hours just to draw one frame's worth of movement for the Pac-Man character and the pursuing enemy ghosts!
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The 4-km-wide Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which orbits the Sun once every 6.5 years and was chased down for 10 years by European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, compared to the city of Los Angeles (credit: The Planetary Society). [Center] Math puzzle: Find the radius of the circle. [Right] Socrates Think Tank talk on women in science and engineering (see the last item below).
(2) On the number of hours in a work week: During the 1930s & 1940s, the US was a leader in curtailing the number of work hours, initiating the 40-hour work week. Germans now work an average of 32 hours per week and other EU countries are considering even shorter work weeks, some as low of 20 or even 15 hours.
(3) "LLMs: A New Way to Teach Programming": This was the title of today's ACM webinar conducted by Professors Daniel Zingaro (U. Toronto) and Leo Porter (UCSD).
Learning to program is quite challenging to students, because they need to iteratively learn many skills, such as using correct syntax, tracing code, using common programming patterns, writing code, and testing/debugging the code. Struggling with any one of these tasks may mean that the student fails to solve the problem at hand.
Large Language Models (LLMs) like GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT can shift the skills needed to succeed at programming and enable more students to become successful programmers. Remarkably, this shift, away from syntax and toward problem decomposition and testing, may also be exactly what many instructors prefer to focus on in CS 1.
The webinar was recorded and the recording will be made available in a few days on learning.acm.org.
(4) Plenary talk at ACM Federated Computing Research Conference: Turing-Award-winner Shafi Goldwasser (UC Berkeley) spoke on Wed., June 21, 2023, under the title "Constructing and Deconstructing Trust: Employing Cryptographic Recipe in the ML Domain."
She began with the observation that AI methods were not developed for an adversarial environment. Crypto, on the other hand, would not exist (be required) if there were no adversaries. Two main areas where an adversary can wreak havoc in ML is during data collection (data poisoning) and during training (breaching privacy).
*Data poisoning can be dealt with by viewing the data as coming from multiple sources, as opposed to from a single source. We already have tools and methods for dealing with data coming from different sources, a subset of which are corrupt.
*Privacy can benefit from cryptographic methods. In an ideal world, we can verify a complex, data-intensive computation with much less work & data. This has proven practical in the blockchain context. But in ML, data isn't fixed; it comes from a distribution.
(5) Tonight's Socrates Think Tank talk: Yours truly spoke in Persian under the title "Women in Science and Engineering: A Tale of Two Countries." [Recording of the talk] [PDF slides]
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.
(1) Images of the day: [Top row] Summer is officially here for me, a day ahead of schedule: I have completed the evaluation of research papers for my graduate course on computer arithmetic, submitted course grades to the Registrar, and e-mailed feedback to each student, thus completing my teaching tasks for spring 2023. Then, I celebrated with snacks and a hearty soup. [Bottom left] Amazing nature photography by Ben Hall: Migrating flamingos in Chile. [Bottom center] Math puzzle: Find the area of the square. [Bottom right] Of the Law of Nature and Nations: Eight Books (see the last item below).
(2) Three ideas from ACM Federated Computing Research Conference plenary panel "Reflecting on 50 Years of Computing Research, and Future Outlook," held on Tuesday, June 20, 2023:
*In the past, we used a high-level programming language and had it automatically translated to a low-level machine language. In future, our high-level language will be natural language and our low-level language will be a large language model.
*In the late 1980s, there was much research on systolic processing units. Many people were skeptical about the practical relevance of systolic arrays. Today, systolic arrays are indispensable parts of tensor-processing units.
*The P-vs.-NP problem has become much less relevant. Today we have SAT-solvers that do a good job in solving the NP-complete problem known as satisfiability (SAT). Worst-case exponential complexity is no longer a hindrance to practicality.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- NASA awards grants to seven all-women colleges to help bridge the STEM gender gap.
- Excessive red-tape for US "talent helps other countries lure individuals with world's most in-demand skills.
- One in three Americans dies of Alzheimer's or another form of dementia. [PBS]
- In-n-Out Burger will be celebrating its 75th anniversary in October 2023. [Link to festivities]
- Valet parking the near future: Longer term, we'll all have self-parking cars tracked by our cell phones.
- Facebook memory from June 20, 2020: Reciting Sa'adi's poems is no substitute for genuine caring.
(4) Book review: Pufendorf, Samuel, Of the Law of Nature and Nations: Eight Books.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book, originally published in 1672, is in the public domain, so the e-book reproduction of a 1729 edition, available on Archive, has no copyright or publishing details.
Samuel von Pufendorf [1632-1694] was a German political philosopher, statesman, and historian. He had originally intended to pursue a career in the church, but after studying theology at U. Leipzig, his interests shifted to politics, law, and philosophy. In 1658 Pufendorf became a tutor to a minister to King Charles X of Sweden, publishing this highly-influential book two years after beginning to teach at U. Lund.
Pufendorf criticized those in the state or the church who abused power. He proposed that international law should not be restricted to the Christian world and instead should respect the rights of all men. Pufendorf's grounding of political concepts in natural law appealed to future American leaders such as Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.
The e-book version has stayed true to the original, all the way to printing imperfections, library stamps, hand annotations, and so on. It is considered a key resource in the study of modern society and culture. The 1024-page tome is composed of 8 books and 74 chapters: Book I (9 chapters), Book II (6 chapters), Book III (9 chapters), Book IV (13 chapters), Book V (13 chapters), Book VI (3 chapters), Book VII (9 chapters), Book VIII (12 chapters).
Preceding the main e-book is an 88-page overview article with the rather long title "Historical and Critical Account of the Science of Morality, and the Progress It Has Made from the Earliest Times Down to the Publication of Pufendorf Of the Law of Nature and Nations," by Mr. Barbeyrac, Professor in Law.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Celebrating Freedom Day: Juneteenth, June 19th, commemorates the end of slavery in US confederate states. On this day in 1865, the Union Army established authority over Texas, setting free the slaves who still didn't know about the Emancipation Proclamation of Jan. 1, 1863. [Center] University students reject Iran's Islamic regime with an emphatic "No": They talk of a sea of blood separating them from the regime, making dialog impossible. [Right] Sexuality: A Very Short Introduction (see the last item below).
(2) ACM Federated Computing Research Conference: Held every four years, ACM FCRC brings together in one physical location dozens of conferences, workshops, and other technical events in all areas of computing, with the goal of achieving broader networking opportunities and scientific cross-fertilization. Today's FCRC plenary program included a talk by the 2023 Eckert-Mauchly Award recipient Kunle Olukotun (Stanford U.). He spoke under the title "Computing in the Foundation Model Era." Plenary talks continue every morning, 8:20 AM PDT, until Friday 6/23. A plenary panel, "Reflecting on 50 Years of Computing Research, and Future Outlook," will be streamed tomorrow at 1:15 PM PDT.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Submersible with 5 passengers exploring the wreckage of Titanic has been lost: Frantic search is on.
- Report: Inflation-adjusted faculty wages decline for the third year in a row.
- The dreaded phone call, when we are separated from our families. [Science essay]
- A final thought: Today's date is 4! – 3! + 2! – 1! For tomorrow, just add + 0! at the end.
(4) Book review: Mottier, Sexuality: A Very Short Introduction, unabridged 5-hour audiobook, read by Suzanne Toren, Tantor Audio, 2021. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This is another valuable addition to Oxford's "Very Short Introduction" series, which now contains hundreds of titles. I have pursued quite a few of the titles to delve into new areas of knowledge or to freshen up on subjects I had previously studied. I was drawn to this particular title when I saw a blurb on Ashkan Bahrani's Persian translation of the book (Nogam, 2023).
The classic world is considered a world before sexuality. Sexual culture was organized around male pleasure, with women and children occupying socially-subordinate positions as "minors." Sex was thus an act of dominating and controlling a submissive partner. Gender was deemed as fluid and under threat, with men risking feminization if they lost body heat (due to too much sex, say) and women being in danger of becoming more manly if their bodies heated up.
Men were supposed to want to penetrate, a sign of strength, whereas desire to be penetrated was an indicator of weakness, which was appropriate only for women, boys, foreigners, and slaves. The notion of heterosexuality and homosexuality came about much later, but men were advised that sex with a woman was only necessary for procreation and that loving a man was preferable. Sex between teachers and young students was usually considered pedagogic and erotic mentorship.
Rape was deemed a crime, not against the woman herself but against the husband, father, or other male guardian. Paying for sex was frowned upon, but it was a lesser digression than illegal sex with free women.
Christianity brought about a radically new sexual ethics, incorporating some of the ideas on self-mastery. Virginity and sexual abstinence were promoted. Early Christians saw families mainly as obstacles to religious devotion. Martin Luther thought God should have continued to shape humans out of clay, rather than produce them through sexual intercourse. Judaism, by contrast, disapproved of abstinence, because it went against God's directive to "be fruitful and multiply."
Learning about the history above makes us realize that what we consider natural in the domain of human sexual behavior has varied greatly in different historical and cultural contexts. In modern times, governments have shown interest in controlling human sexuality though public-health policies and sex-education. These efforts mostly target women and marginalized groups, leading naturally to political activism, particularly by women and LGBTQ+ communities.
The book consists of 5 chapters, preceded by "Introduction" and followed by "References & Further Reading."
Chapter 1: Before Sexuality
Chapter 2: The Invention of Sexuality
Chapter 3: Virgins or Whores? Feminist Critiques of Sexuality
Chapter 4: The State in the Bedroom
Chapter 5: The Future of Sex
(1) Images of the day: [Top row] Happy Fathers' Day to old-timers in the club and newcomers to it. Hope you continue to experience the joys of fatherhood for many years to come. As we celebrate today, let us also remeber all the dads who are no longer with us. [Bottom left & center] Beautiful Saturday in Ventura, California: Walking with extended-family members, including all three of my sisters, and celebrating Fathers' Day, a day early. [Bottom right] The Saudi FM reportedly objected to and walked away from a room with a large photo of IRGC Commander Qasem Soleimani, eventually holding the Iran-Saudi briefing in a different room.
(2) Humans arrived in Asia earlier than previously thought: The main migration of humans out of Africa occurred sometime between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. Scientists have dated skull and shin bones from a modern human, found in a cave in northern Laos, to between 68,000 and 86,000 years ago.
(3) Persian music: This song was composed by Babak Afshar and words were put to it by Touraj Negahban, especially for the ailing pop super-star Viguen, as his "Final Song." Viguen didn't last long enough to sing it, so Manouchehr Sakhaei had it modified and performed it as "Yad-e Viguen" ("In Memory of Viguen"). Ironically, the song turned out to be Manouchehr's final one.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- War crime: Evidence suggests that Russia blew up Ukraine's Kakhovka Dam from within.
- ABC/Ipsos poll on Trump's indictment: His support is slipping, but Republicans are still with him. [Chart]
- Among casualties of COVID-19 was a decline of confidence in science among US adults. [Survey results]
- Forty years ago, Iran's Islamic regime executed 10 Baha'i women: This 5-minute video tells their story.
- Earth's new-found (temporary) moon: The fantastic 30-year journey of Apollo 12's third-stage rocket.
- Fathers' Day humor: Dad is in charge! [1-minute video]
- Facebook memory from June 18, 2018: Soccer, the beautiful sport with an ugly side.
- Facebook memory from June 18, 2015: The labor of love that used to go into books.
(5) Brains begin with complete models of the world and work backward to anticipate sensory data: In The Experience Machine, philosopher Andy Clark explains not only how predictive processing in the brain can account for accurate perception but also what happens when things go wrong.
(6) EU sets the groundwork for AI regulation: European Parliament votes to regulate the use of AI across the European Union, laying the groundwork for the passage of a historic AI Act. The proposed legislation is intended to both foster AI innovation and minimize AI threats to health and safety. AI systems would be categorized based on four risk levels, from minimal to unacceptable. Among other things, the law would take aim at "social scoring systems" that make judgments based on a person's behavior or appearance, applications that subliminally manipulate children and other vulnerable groups, and predictive policing tools.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] The original Monopoly patent from 1935. [Top center] Goleta Public Library is celebrating 50 years at its Fairview Avenue location. [Top right] An extraordinary woman in 19th-century Iran (see the next item below). [Bottom left] US inflation rate: 2005-2023 (NYT chart). [Bottom center] Cartoon of the day: Lady Justice weighs the evidence. [Bottom right] Math puzzle: Find the area of the shaded triangle.
(2) Persian poetry and music: Every time I re-read this poem by Tahirih Qurrat al-'Ayn [~1814-1852], a theologian and a brave feminist who was killed for her beliefs, I am filled with awe by its beautiful meaning and craftsmanship. Joseph Salimpour, a college buddy of mine, who plays first-chair violin in this 6-minute video, is part of a musical family, with his brother composing and his sister singing a piece based on Tahirih's poem.
(3) Daniel Ellsberg, economist & famed leaker of Pentagon secret documents on the Vietnam War, dead at 92. His 2003 memoir, Secrets, which I have reviewed on GoodReads, is a must-read for every American.
(4) On Rubik's cubes: We have all seen the 3 x 3 x 3 or the standard cube. There are many other variations, including 4 x 4 x 4 and 2 x 2 x 2 cubes. This 4-minute video shows the workings of the latter mini-cube.
(5) Unity vs. pluralism: There is an abundance of social-media posts about the need for those opposing Iran's Islamic regime to remain united, so as not to allow the mullahs to take advantage of numerous opposition groups advocating diverse approaches to combat the brutal Islamic regime. There is an alternative viewpoint that differences of opinion are necessary and healthy for democracy. Practicing democracy from the initial stages of the fight against tyranny, rather than postponing it to after the regime's fall, may be fruitful. The key is to avoid being dogmatic or inflexible in our different views. Instead of forcing everyone into one mold, let's acknowledge our differences and pledge to allow and respect all ideas, no matter how different they are from our own. Let us work hard to develop positive slogans and chants to replace "death to this" and "death to that."
(6) Final thought for the day: It's not just Trump's Republican primary rivals who are mum about his abhorrent behavior that led to a criminal indictment in the mishandling of classified-documents case. World leaders are also quiet, likely because they figure they may have to deal with him someday soon.
(1) Images of the day: [Top row] Celebrating Informatics Society of Iran's 45th anniversary celebration (see the next item below). [Bottom left] Persian calligraphy: A verse of Hafez, rendered by master Ahad Panahi. [Bottom center & right] Talk about Iran's central wastelands and deserts (see the last item below).
(2) Throwback Thursday: Founded 45 years ago, Informatics Society of Iran is celebrating its anniversary and the publication of 265 issues of Computer Report (Gozaresh-e Computer), its flagship technical magazine, on Friday, June 16, 2023 (Khordad 26, 1402). As part of the upcoming event, an extensive oral history of computers in Iran will be unveiled. ISI is also in the process of planning a major celebratory event in 2028 for its 50th anniversary and publication of the 300th issue of its magazine. My message on the occasion of Informatic Society of Iran's 33rd anniversary and publication of the 200th issue of Computer Report is also included in way of remembrance.
(3) We think we have come to know glass quite well over four millennia of use: Nothing can be further from the truth. We have only begun to understand the properties of glass and its many potential applications.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Nobel-Prize-worthy discovery for curing all ailments: Passing under a camel! [Video clip]
- Swedish proverb: "Those who wish to sing always find a song."
- Facebook memory from June 15, 2017: A pencil drawing of mine from the 1960s.
- Facebook memory from June 15, 2015: USS Enterprise turned into a building.
- Facebook memory from June 15, 2014: Fathers' Day photo with Nikola Tesla doll.
- Facebook memory from June 15, 2013: 2 percent is fine for low-fat milk, but not for women in the senate.
(5) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Geomorphologist Dr. Khalil Rashidian talked under the title "A Passage to Iran's Central Wastelands and Deserts." There were ~70 attendees.
Many seas and lakes were created in Iran after the last Ice Age, ~11,000 years ago. Climatic changes caused these lakes to lose water some 3000 years ago, leaving behind salt and clay. Iran's deserts, like those in many other world regions, are located between the latitudes of 15 and 45 degrees north, the few exceptions appearing around 30 degrees south (Australia, plus tips of South America & Africa).
Iran has two major desert areas, each with its own characteristics in terms of geology and animal/plant life.
*Dasht-e Kavir, or Kavir-e Markazi (central desert), where a large salt-water lake existed millions of years ago, spans parts of the Khorasan, Semnan, Tehran, Isfahan, and Yazd Provinces. It includes a protected ecological zone known as Kavir National Park. One of the most desolate parts of Dasht-e Kavir is Rig-e Jenn ("Dune of the Jinn"), so named because the strange noises heard in the area scared the locals and passing caravans, who believed it was inhabited by evil spirits.
*Dasht-e Lut ("Lut" meaning bare or empty in Persian), has flat salty areas as well as regions with some of the world's tallest dunes. Over millions of years, volcanic rock has been broken down into sand by extreme temperature variations, which can be 60+ degrees Celsius from day to night. Despite the extreme temperature variations, the area does have plant and animal life that have evolved to tolerate the harsh conditions.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] Book introductions (see the last item below). [Top right] Historic Dolatabad Garden Pavilion, Yazd, Iran: A UNESCO World Heritage Site. [Bottom left & right] Tuesday's June gloom over Santa Barbara Channel (Pacific Ocean) and Goleta's Devereux Slough: Usually, the Sun comes out in the afternoon, but this year's gloom is an all-day affair. [Bottom center] Math puzzle: What time is it?
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- UN-backed team scans historical sites in Ukraine for digital preservation in case of destruction by Russia.
- Surprising freshwater deposits under the seafloor can be tapped in drought-stricken areas.
- The municipality of Malayer in Iran is building many scale models of important landmarks around the world.
- Humor: Suggestions for those who plan to redecorate their bathrooms. [Images]
(3) Book introductions: Today, I pitched two books at a meeting of the committee that is in charge of picking a book for "UCSB Reads 2024" program. From today's pitches, a long list of about 10 books will emerge through voting, which will then be pared down to half-dozen or so for final consideration in a meeting in August.
I chose my two titles because they deal with important problems that are on everyone's mind these days: The threats to humanity from intelligent machines and from environmental deterioration. There are a multitude of opinions in both domains and both suffer from an abundance of misinformation and disinformation. Both threaten our essence as human beings and both require long-term thinking, rather than a focus on today, this quarter, or the next political election.
First pitch: O'Gieblyn, Meghan, God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology. Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning, Penguin Random House, 2022. [Paperback, 304 pp., $17.00]
We are bombarded daily with stories about Chat GPT and how AI is threatening the essence of our being as humans. Technology is speeding up our lives, leaving little time for reflection, yet the deep changes that are afoot demand that we devote enough time to think about the future of humanity and our challenges over centuries and millennia, not focus merely on today, this quarter, or the next political election.
In 304 pages, O'Gieblyn, an essayist, columnist, and thinker, who studied theology in college, paints a detailed picture of our struggles to reconcile spirituality with technical progress. The writing is that of an essayist, almost devoid of jargon, although, as a columnist for Wired magazine, O'Gieblyn has solid credentials as a tech writer.
We humans are constantly thinking of ways of controlling and overtaking nature. We outsource our intelligence to machines, as extensions of our minds, increasingly seeing ourselves as machinelike in the process. Descartes considered all animals essentially as clocks, that is, robots without any inner experience. He believed that humans were also machines, but with souls, a viewpoint that created problems for the clockwork universe.
This is more or less the starting place for O'Gieblyn's book. Much of the book is about how the success of the modern scientific worldview rests on mechanical metaphors, which necessarily put a bracket around individual human thought and agency. We put consciousness and free will to the side, as we try to describe the world as a mere machine. We did it with the clock metaphor, and that's what we're doing with the computer metaphor, with the computational theory of mind.
O'Gieblyn's book provides ample opportunities to discuss hot-button issues of the day, in classrooms and outside. Increasingly, technology is being developed and sold with religion-like tropes. So, we might wonder whether we are on our way to a digital heaven, offered to us by gods of technology. or a digital hell of our own making. Is academia threatened by Chat GPT and similar developments? Is our increasing reliance on technology helping or impairing our move toward equity and social justice?
Second pitch: Ray, Sarah Jaquette, A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet, UC Press, 2020. [Paperback, 216 pp., $16.95]
This book is aimed primarily at the Climate Generation (late Millennials and Generation Z), but everyone can benefit from its encapsulation of the climate problem and its prescription for cultivating a mature, compassionate, and resilient mindset that will allow taking steps toward climate justice in a hopeful, emotionally-intelligent, and sustainable fashion. We must set aside fearful, guilt-ridden, and anxiety-inducing activism that harms our well-being more than it helps solve climate problems.
The following two quotes capture Ray's philosophy.
From p. 7: "Reframing environmentalism as a movement of abundance, connection, and well-being may help us rethink it as a politics of desire rather than a politics of individual sacrifice and consumer denial."
From p. 126: "Find beauty, savor the small gifts of being alive, see everything you possibly can through the lens of being blessed rather than victimized, recalibrate your efforts toward the small and local, collect and create positive stories ... "
Extensive discussion on campus and outside are possible on climate issues encapsulated and about the research cited from psychology, mindfulness, and ecopsychology.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Math puzzle: See if you can decipher the message appearing on my T-shirt. [Top center] We had our Taco Tuesday on Sunday: Your place was empty! [Top right] RIP Fakhri Khorvash (1929-2023): The iconic Iranian theater/cinema actor passed away in Los Angeles at age 94. She was disowned by her family in Kermanshah, western Iran, when she started her acting career more than seven decades ago. [Bottom left] The original 1915 patent for adjustable wrench. (Update: Wikipedia attributes the invention of the "adjustable spanner" as well as a different kind of adjustable wrench known as "plumber wrench" to Johan Petter Johansson, ca. the late 1800s.) [Bottom center] The beautiful architecture of Yazd, southeastern Iran. [Bottom right] Math lesson: Illustrating the notions of set union and set intersection.
(2) Rewarding terrorists brings more terrorism: Two weeks after the exchange of a convicted Iranian terrorist with European hostages in Iran, a new terror attack in Paris is being blamed on Islamic Republic of Iran.
(3) Mathematical oddity: Torricelli's Trumpet is the surface of revolution obtained by rotating the graph of the function f(x) = 1/x on the interval [1, &inf;) around the x-axis. It has an infinite surface but a finite volume, which leads to a paradox: We can't paint its surface with a finite amount of paint, but can fill it up with a finite amount of paint, which would then also cover its entire surface!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- We have Florida: And we have Illinois, which just passed a law that bans book bans.
- Denver earns its first NBA championship by defeating Miami 94-89 in Game 5 of the finals series.
- Remembering Iranian-American NASA scientist Dr. Firouz Naderi and his contributions. [25-minute video]
- Top-ten most-expensive & some of the least-expensive one-bedroom apartments at world city centers.
- We have Florida: And we have Illinois, which just passed a law that bans book bans.
- Lost in translation: The Persian "Bekeshid" ("Pull") becomes "Kill" ("Bekoshid"). [Tweet, with photo]
- Persian music & dance, performed at the historic Karim Khan Castle in Shiraz. [3-minute video]
- Facebook memory from June 13, 2018: The four-season tree.
(5) US Senate considers two AI-related bills: One would require the US government to be transparent when using AI to interact with people and another would establish an office to determine if the United States is remaining competitive in the latest technologies.
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(1) Images of the day: [Top left] During COVID-19 lockdown, wild mammals hit the streets in large numbers. [Top center] One sheep to the other: "I like him; he tells it like it is." [Top right] Iranian singer/actor Hana Kamkar: "Until the prohibition against women's singing is lifted, I won't attend any male-centered concert." [Bottom left] Nothing is more un-American than banning books. [Bottom center & right] Science magazine's supplement on frontiers of medical research: Brain science (see the last item below).
(2) Boris Johnson, former Prime Minister of Britain, resigns from Parliament, in the wake of the release of a House of Commons committee report on his partying during COVID-19 restrictions.
(3) Music by the Iranian pianist/composer Andre Arzoumanian, with backdrop of his funeral (6-minute video). Here are a couple more of his compositions: "Dard o Nefrin" ("Pain n Curse") and "Nasim" ("Breeze").
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The Feds are investigating right-wing political contributions aimed at infiltrating progressive groups.
- Political humor: Trump wants to see Biden in jail, but Biden has no plans for visiting him there!
- The victims of #IranProtests2022: There are now 339 confirmed names, including at least 46 children.
- A most-critical question for travel to Mars: What would astronauts eat during the 3-year mission?
(5) "The Computational Brain": This is the title of a fascinating article in a special supplement to Science, issue of June 9, 2023. Selected passages follow. The accompanying diagram is a multiscale representation of neural processing to establish basic computational principles of normal and abnormal cognition.
The brain's hardware: "The human brain is populated by diverse cell types, unique in form and function, which have been programmed by millions of years of evolution to assemble into complex networks connected by trillions of synapses. Embedded in this hardware are countless pathways for routing signals from inside and outside the body, and from the resulting symphony emerges our thoughts, feelings, plans, and dreams. One of the most important human endeavors has been to understand how these pathways are organized, what their constituent parts do, and onto which components are imprinted the remnants of our experiences."
Delineating the brain's circuitry: "To pinpoint the origins of abnormal circuit activity, researchers must decipher how entire circuits are influenced by the functioning of their parts, which requires that neurons be differentiated based on their anatomy, gene expression, and stimulus-response properties. Fortunately, the field has seen an explosion of technological advances to meet this demand, work that brings the promise of circuit-based therapies squarely into the realm of possibility ... Innovation in electrode materials and design (e.g., silicon probes) has enabled electrophysiological monitoring of large neuronal populations at multiple brain sites in rodents and non-human primates, while genetically encoded sensors report neuronal firing and neurotransmitter release with exquisite cellular resolution."
How the brain computes: "From the perspective of a computational neuroscientist, the floodgates opened by this revolution could provide the raw materials needed to construct a biologically accurate model of the brain. Indeed, machine learning approaches have shown that computers trained on the activity of a large population of cells can reliably predict which stimuli were presented to an animal as well as the response that was executed, confirming that tantalizing insights are within our grasp. Elucidating how these patterns emerge from the integration of many neurons acting in concert is a far more challenging task, but one that will define the future. Toward this goal, new anatomical and electrophysiological approaches are revealing the wiring logic that supports the brain's most basic computational routines ... These elementary building blocks define the signal processing capabilities of discrete neural pathways and may be important determinants of how relatively subtle alterations in the intrinsic properties of collections of cells can tip the balance between normal and pathological brain function."
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] RIP Dr. Firouz Naderi (1946-2023): Iranian-American social-media influencer and former NASA scientist, dead at 77. In this 4-minute video, we hear him talk about charity and human compassion being more important than his work at NASA. [Top center] Math puzzle: In this diagram, with a large square and three smaller squares of area 9, find the area of the yellow region. [Top right] Classified docs were stored in a ballroom, in a bathroom, and in a shower at Mar-a-Lago. [Bottom left] Throwback (throw-out) Thursday: Believe it or not, I bought this pair of hiking boots in Iran ~1985. They are finally going in my donations pile! [Bottom center] Eco system vs. Ego system! [Bottom right] I have eturned to the project of organizing my books by subject: Hope to complete the work this summer.
(2) Yesterday, I attended a UCSB Computer Science Distinguished Lecture entitled "Induced Subgraphs and Tree Decompositions" by the widely-honored Dr. Maria Chudnovsky (Princeton). Just wanted to share with you one of the speaker's handwritten slides, which I had not seen since the days of Vugraphs!
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- New York Times animation of smoke & haze entering the US from Canadian wildfires.
- Biden's CDC pick, Former NC Health Chief Mandy Cohen, who is also a Washington veteran, wins praise.
- In Hollywood contract talks with actors & writers, AI has emerged as a central issue.
- Will oral exams make a comeback to prevent AI-enabled cheating?
- Borowitz Report (humor): Pence endorsed by National Association of Ass-Kissers.
- Trump reveals that he has been charged in the Mar-a-Lago classified-documents case.
- Iranian women's voices cannot be deleted: Niloofar Mohebbi sings at Esfahan's Shah Mosque.
- Humor: On the Institute of Philosophy's directory map, "You are here" becomes "Why are you here?"
(4) Tonight, I watched an enjoyable John Williams concert (playing movie themes in Berlin) on PBS SoCal: He has been composing film music since 1959. His notable scores since 1975 include "Jaws," "Star Wars," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "Indiana Jones," "Home Alone," "Jurassic Park," "Schindler's List," "Harry Potter," "Lincoln," and "The Post." A few related concerts:
[Live in Vienna, 2020 (128 minutes)]
[Star Wars Concert (149 minutes)]
[John Williams Across the Stars (100 minutes)]
[John Williams at 90 (141 minutes)]
(5) Why is it that claims of scientific advancements in Iran are always made by generals? The latest supposed breakthrough, a quantum computer, turns out to be available on Amazon.com!
(6) DeepMind AI uses the technology behind AlphaZero to build faster sorting algorithms: These algorithms, developed as part of what may be called an "instruction assembly game," are already part of standard C++ coding libraries, thus they are being used trillions of times per day by programmers around the world. Previously, faster matrix-multiplication algorithms had been discovered in a similar manner. [Nature article]
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Possible relocation of the Oval Office in 2024. [Top center] Math joke: See if you can figure it out! [Top right] Personalized ads have gone too far: This one appeared on my Facebook timeline as a perfect Fathers'-Day gift. Oh, wait! Am I supposed to buy a gift for myself? [Bottom left] RIP Maryam Hakhamjani (see the next item below). [Bottom center] Iran executes activists after sham trials: In 2023, Iran has had the most executions in the world on a per-capita basis. The first activist in the recent batch was executed for "fighting against god." Domestic and international outrage led to the use of false murder & drug charges in subsequent executions. [Bottom right] On the joys of teaching: Card and gift from one of my graduating MS students, who has landed a job in Seattle.
(2) RIP Maryam Hakhamjani: Daughter of Jeyran and Nissan (my grandpa Mikaeel's & grandpa Sassoon's brother), aunt Maryam passed away in Israel on Monday, June 5, 2023. She was nearly 100 and transitioned in peace while asleep. She was a cousin of both of my parents and a lifelong friend of my mom, who was in touch with her regularly. Their kalaneh (Kurdish scallion bread) & shelkeneh, which they used to make together for Shavout, were stuff of legends. My sincere condolences to her children and the rest of our families.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Terrorism, war crime: A major hydroelectric dam in southern Ukraine has been blown.
- Multiple Canadian wildfires send smoke and haze to several US regions, including New York City.
- Former FBI Director James Comey: Trump could be wearing ankle bracelet at GOP convention.
- Will AI assist disadvantaged students in developing vital skills, or will it widen the education gap?
- Harvard turns to AI tools for grading student work in its CS50, world's most-popular on-line class.
- How magnetic-levitation (maglev) trains work and some of their advantages. [6-minute video]
- World's most-beautiful soccer field is located near a 1000-year-old village in Iran's Kurdistan Province.
(4) Persian music: Iranians are still hopeful and sing, after 44 years of their Islamic government outlawing joy and freedom of expression. Street performance of "Do Panjereh" in the city of Karaj. [3-minute video]
(5) Khamenei is toast: For decades, Iranian officials and former officials have stopped short of blaming Khamenei for Iran's problems, while he dissed every official but himself. Not anymore! Former FM Javad Zarif is the latest to put the blame for multiple setbacks directly on Khamenei and his Mafia-like network of insiders.
(6) BlueSky ranking of CS programs, based on consolidating multiple rankings: The top-10 schools are MIT, Stanford, CMU, UC Berkeley, Oxford, ETH Zurich, Nat'l U. Singapore, Tsinghua U., Nanyang Tech U., Harvard.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] A couple of days ago, at UCSB's University Center: Preps for a party, likely graduation-related. Grads-to-be are everywhere in fancy outfits or regalia, shooting photos in front of campus landmarks.
[Center] They have ruined Heaven too: Banner in Bushehr, Iran, asserts that nymphs in Heaven have hijabs. [Right] Einstein's Ideas and Opinions (see the last item below).
(2) Members of Iran's Writers Association visited and pledged allegiance to Khomeini in 1979: Later, they all became banned writers or prisoners. This 14-minute video is made by royalists and is clearly anti-leftist, but it contains truths about the complicity of Iranian intellectuals in the Islamic Republic taking hold.
(3) The Instagram account "Neural Art Canvas" has posted this amazing 2-minute video for Shervin Hajipour's Grammy-winning song "Bara-ye." It is said to have been produced with AI assist. Enjoy!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Iran's FM: Syrian generals still receive guidance from General Qasem Soleimani, who died ~2.5 years ago.
- The many uses of pineapple scraps & leaves: From sneakers & bags to soap & disposable plates.
- Persian music: Iranian girls of 45 years ago, singing the hit song "Gol-e Sangam." [2-minute video]
- Persian dance: Iranian women cannot be restrained. [1-minute video]
- Harmful myths about virginity and their role in controlling women's sexuality. [4-minute TEDx talk]
(5) I just filled out a juror questionnaire. You are disqualified from serving on a jury if you have a felony conviction. Yet, it seems, one can become US president with multiple felony convictions!
(6) Book review: Einstein, Albert, Ideas and Opinions, Three Rivers Press, 1982.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
While this collection provides insights into the thoughts and opinions of Albert Einstein [1879-1955], the pieces are loosely-related and of varying quality, as one would expect of separate informal essays, written over a long period of time. This would have been a fatal flaw for the book, if Einstein weren't such an important person in the history of humanity; hence my 4-star rating.
Part I: Ideas and Opinions (General; About Freedom; About Religion; About Education; About Friends)
Part II: On Politics, Government, and Pacifism
Part III: On the Jewish People
Part IV: On Germany
Part V: Contributions to Science
Before this volume gathering in one place Einstein's general writings, there were three collections:
- The World as I See It (1934)
- Out of My Later Years (1950)
- Mein Weltbild (1953)
The publisher has tried to incorporate the most-important parts of the aforementioned collections (an obviously subjective selection), as well as material from other sources.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] "Feminist Critiques of Charters & Laws on Women's Rights" (see the last item below). [Top center & right, plus bottom row] UCSB Middle East Ensemble's Saturdy ninght concert: The diverse program included many songs from different countries, including Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Iran, Greece, Armenia, Turkey, and Sephardic, plus several dances. One of the two Persian songs, "Ham-Ava," composed and sung by Javid John, with lyrics by Mehrdad Namavari, was about the #WomanLifeFreedom Revolution, which is afoot in Iran. Unfortunately, the lyrics also included "Man Country Development," which is a diversionary slogan (apparently coined by supporters of Iran's Islamic regime) that dilutes and sidelines the Revolution's main message. (3-minute video). Here's a Turkish song that sounds familiar to speakers of Greek and several other languages (2-minute video). And here's Turkish-style belly dancing to a Persian song (2-minute video).
(2) Does nature have legal rights? Yes, there are laws to this effect in some countries. "The success or failure of these rights-of-nature laws can depend in large part on how scientific concepts and expertise have been used to develop, interpret, and implement them. Epstein et al. reviewed key scientific aspects of rights-of-nature laws and the use of science in court decisions that have interpreted them. They examined the 'right to evolve' to illustrate challenges in applying scientific concepts in rights-of-nature laws and identify possible solutions."
(3) Panel discussion, a program of Voices of Women for Change: On Saturday, June 3, 2023, panelists Dr. Nayereh Tohidi (Professor, Cal State Northridge, @NTohidi), Mansoureh Shojaee (writer & women's-rights activist, @mansoureh5837), and Mahdieh Golroo (journalist & women's-rights activist, @mahdieh_golroo) offered "Feminist Critiques of Charters & Laws on Women's Rights." There were 56 attendees out of 125 registrants. The event was also live-streamed on YouTube.
*Dr. Nayereh Tohidi: The #WomanLifeFreedom revolution isn't just a political movement but also a cultural transformation. Charters that have emerged represent attempts to state in clear terms what the movement is about, what it aspires to, and what it opposes. The first such charter was the Mahsa Charter, which emerged from a meeting of several opposition figures at Georgetown University. This charter included women's-rights issues indirectly, through references to international laws. Subsequently, other charters emerged from opposition groups inside Iran and in diaspora. A common weakness of many of these charters is that, while paying lip service to #WomanLifeFreedom, they do not explicitly list women's demands. Dr. Tohidi then proceeded to offer a detailed critique of one such charter presented in March 2023 and known as "Manshoor-e Hamgaami" (Charter of Concordance).
*Mansoureh Shojaee: Despite the multiplicity of charters, they have not led to further rift among opposition groups. Most of these charters have common goals, but they differ in the methods used to achieve the goals. It is important to also agree on methods, as stressed in an article by Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani (linked below). Indeed, having a single charter is unnecessary. It may be desirable to produce multiple charters and use a democratic process to choose the most-favored one. The Georgetown charter has an excellent beginning by taking an anti-execution stance, but much of the rest of it focuses on diplomatic initiatives, which became the focus of subsequent discussions. All charters to date are based on masculine worldviews and need more of a feminine perspective. Women's movements aren't only about women's rights. They also include attention to peace, environmentalism, and a multitude of other sociopolitical issues.
*Mahdieh Golroo: We need the filter of feminism to view the various charters. Historically, women's issues have been pushed aside in favor of "urgent goals" that should be given priority: One example is the fate of the oil industry in 1951 vs. women's voting rights. Another example is fighting Imperialism in 1979 vs. hijab & women's rights. Sometimes, we see advocacy for giving women some limited rights (e.g., no hijab), but restricting their clothing nonetheless. Women's rights are not things to be given from above, such as token appointment of women, but to be earned from below. Often the excuse is given that Iran's society isn't ready for widespread reforms. Men, privileged under a religious regime, won't easily adjust to a completely free & equitable society. We need not limit ourselves to changes that are palatable to a patriarchal society. Countries that outlawed the death penalty did not wait until the entire society wanted change. So, we need to ask explicitly for secular marriage, reproductive rights, and divorce rights.
*A lively comment period ensued, with a few participants also including questions in their comments, which the panelists answered.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Lakes are shrinking worldwide: Satellite images reveal decline in global lake water storage. [Center & Right] Book talk on climate change (see the last item below).
(2) Sometimes taking a step back saves you and others: The original intention of this viral animation was to stress the importance of COVID social distancing, but it applies to many other social & professional contexts.
(3) Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps wants to take over the control of Internet in Iran, claiming that the Ministry of Communications isn't doing an adequate job of protecting Iran's cyber-borders. [6-minute video]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Train derailment in eastern India leaves 200+ dead, ~1000 injured.
- TikTok isn't just for teens: Retirement-home-based woman, 91, has 2 million followers on TikTok.
- Latest developments in the economic and cultural ties between Japan and Iran. [10-minute VOA report]
- New Jersey mystery: Who dumped hundreds of pounds of pasta on the side of a stream, and why?
(5) Book talk: Dr. Rebecca Solnit, in conversation with Dr. Leah Stokes (UCSB's Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics) and Ms. Nikayla Jefferson (PhD candidate).
Held last night at UCSB's Corwin Pavilion, the event, focusing on Dr. Solnit's new edited volume, Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility (my 4-stsr review), was well-attended. The format was for the three participants taking turns in asking questions of the other two.
Dr. Solnit expressed puzzlement over some people caring enough about the Earth's future, but then losing hope when they recognize the immense problems facing us is order to avoid a climate catastrophe. A prerequisite for not losing hope is being comfortable with uncertainty. Another important observation is that activists motivated by love get much better results than those driven by hate.
Our excesses in consumption, rampant in the 20th century, have done a lot of damage, primarily through using fossil fuels and plastics, the latter also fossil-fuel derivatives. Healing those damages should be our focus in the 21st century. Climate vs. jobs is a false dichotomy. There is no need to suffer: We can have many creature comforts and help save the planet too.
All three discussants practice Buddhism to various degrees and feel that the practice helps them stay positive and on message. In the final part of the discussion having to do with steps an individual can take to contribute to a climate solution, a sly, yet truthful answer is "stop being an individual and think collectively"! Another answer is "think about all the machines in your life that are powered by fossil fuels (car, stove, furnace, lawn mower, and the like) and how you can replace them with electric alternatives."
No time was allowed for audience questions, but if there were a Q&A period, I would have asked the following:
Q: US law now recognizes corporations as having rights, including right to free speech and, thus, spending unlimited sums on promoting their preferred political candidates. I just read about laws on Earth rights, including "Right to Evolve," enacted by several countries and being considered by a few others. Are such laws being pursued in the US? Wouldn't talking about the need for such laws be a better approach to bringing climate skeptics on board, instead of suggesting that we get rid of all fossil fuels? The two alternatives are really the same, differing only in the verbiage.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Ojai Music Festival, June 8-11, 2023, will feature Kayhan Kalhor and a number of Iranian women composers (Nina Barzegar, Golfam Khayam, Nasim Khorassani, Niloufar NourBakhsh, Aida Shirazi, Niloufar Shiri), with support from Farhang Foundation (tickets; schedule of free livestreaming). [Top center] US Millennials are moving to the right: This NYT chart shows the percent voting Republican in 2020 vs. 2012. [Top right] Six-fingered sculptures found in Marlik, near Roudbar, Guilan Province, northern Iran: Marlik is the site of a royal cemetery, with artifacts dating back to 3000 years ago. [Bottom left] Math puzzle: What fraction of the square's area is shaded if points K, L, and M are midpoints of the line segments on which they appear? [Bottom center] Math puzzle: In this diagram, the blue lines are tangent to the circle. Find the length x. [Bottom right] Simple math puzzle: The results of two weighing on a scale that shows the difference of weights on its two sides are shown. What result will be shown for the third weighing?
(2) Amazing advances in solving a super-hard problem: Propositional satisfiability (SAT) was the first problem proven NP-complete by Cook & Levin. Despite its theoretical hardness, SAT is being solved routinely within many application domains, including optimization, counting, and even problems involving quantifiers.
(3) The world's highest trash dump: Mount Everest is drowning in trash. If mountain-climbers don't care about our precious Earth, then we're doomed.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- US Senate approves the Biden-McCarthy debt-ceiling suspension bill 63-36, averting a US default.
- US-Europe summit in Sweden will try to craft a joint code of conduct for AI firms.
- Computer-related risks & remediation challenges: Nontechnical issues interwoven with computing tech.
- Stand-up comedy, while sitting down: Bob Newhart's classic driving instructor routine.
- Cartoon caption of the day: Cat to mouse pointing a pistol at her: "Six rounds, nine lives. You do the math."
- Facebook memory from June 1, 2018: Tea and photography is all these kids need for fun.
(5) Programming is like driving: It helps if the driver pays attention to detailed actions, while a navigator takes care of high-level planning for the trip. Pair-programming uses this analogy. GitHub's Copilot is an AI-powered code generator that allows the developer to focus on high-level requirements and code review. Copilot consists of a large language model using Codex, trained on source code (159 GB of Python code alone, as well as code from many other languages). The experience developers encounter is similar to the use of autocompletion, that has been in modern integrated development environments for years. The difference is that these suggestions may be longer, sometimes spanning multiple lines of code.
(6) A Columbia U. PhD student, whose parents were denied higher education during China's Cultural Revolution, shares her experience of, and pride closing the gap with her peers, who had privileged childhoods.
(7) The disappearing boundary between organism & machine: This is good news for many humans who suffer from various ailments and can benefit from smart artificial body parts and brain-computer interfaces.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Faster arithmetic algorithms discovered through machine learning (see the next item below). [Center] Please do not threaten your political opponents with hanging once Iran's Islamic regime has been toppled. You may not see eye to eye with these opponents, but democracy, if that's what you're after, requires respect, tolerance, and kindness. Strive to be different from the Islamists, who kill the country's youth and then demand that families pay the cost of the bullets used to kill them. [Right] Math puzzle: Each of the four identical "houses" within the semicircle in this diagram is composed of a square and an equilateral triangle. What is the area of each "house"?
(2) Data science's new focus is finding faster arithmetic algorithms: On October 5, 2022, a team from DeepMind, Alphabet Inc.'s UK-based subsidiary, reported in an article in the journal Nature a way of uncovering better algorithms through its AlphaTensor reinforcement learning framework. The results are still at a theoretical stage, but they show promise for developing faster practical matrix-multiplication algorithms, which are at the heart of computations for machine learning.
(3) Still, no NBA team has recovered from a 0-3 deficit in a 7-game series: Boston came close, by tying the series 3-3, after losing the first 3 games. But Miami Heat won 103-84 in Game 7 to thwart the rally. Miami advances to the finals against Denver Nuggets, in a series beginning June 1.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced Theranos founder, begins serving her 11-year jail sentence.
- Most top research universities in the US are now hiring women presidents.
- New challenges for gender equity efforts: Jobs replaced by AI are mostly held by women.
- Iranian officials caught with briefcases full of foreign currencies and gold coins. [Half-minute video]
- Evolution visualized: Why there was no first human. [4-minute video]
- Cartoon caption of the day: General, chiding Siri after nuclear launch: "No, Siri ... I said order LUNCH!"
(5) Iranians are totally ignoring the mullahs and their edicts: This viral 1-minute video, of a man proposing to his (hijabless) girlfriend at the Tomb of Hafez in Shiraz, has led to the arrest of the site's managers and the firing of Fars Province's Director of Cultural Heritage.
(6) The debt-ceiling suspension legislation passes the US House 314-117: More Democrats than Republicans voted for it. The bill is expected to pass the Senate, avoiding a US Treasury default.
(7) Prospects of war breaking out between Iran and Afghanistan: Border skirmishes over water rights have been escalating. On paper, the Taliban will likely not risk attacking the militarily-stronger Iran. But they don't act according to normal human logic and have little to lose in terms of infrastructure that can be targeted, while they can do significant damage to Iran's infrastructure. Such a war may have international cheerleaders, hoping to weaken Iran and destroy the advanced military equipment inherited by the Taliban when US forces left.
(1) Book review: Einstein, Albert (translated by Alan Harris), The World as I See It, unabridged 4-hour audiobook, read by Pete Cross, Dreamscape Media LLC, 2021 (originally published in 1935).
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Einstein's discovery of laws of nature that no one else could see before him is no doubt a result of how he saw the world. So, it might be instructive to learn about his view/model of the world.
Part I: The World, as I See It (pp. 1-41)
Part II: Politics and Pacifism (pp. 45-80)
Part III: Germany, 1933 (pp. 85-93)
Part IV: The Jews (pp. 97-119)
Part V: Scientific (pp. 125-214)
After the introductory Part I, with 28 short sections, beginning with "The Meaning of Life" and ending with "Reply to the Women of America," the rest of the book consists of fairly short Parts II-IV (26 pp., on average) and the 90-page Part V, where Einstein discusses his views on science.
This book is available for free from Internet Archives (PDF file).
(2) Book review: Ury, Logan, How to Not Die Alone: The Surprising Science that Will Help You Find Love, unabridged 8-hour audiobook, read by the author, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2021.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This how-to book consists of three sections:
Section 1. Getting Ready (Chs. 1-7): Understanding challenges of modern dating, the three dating tendencies, attachment styles.
Section 2. Getting Out There (Chs. 8-12): Like everything else, dating needs practice, so go out and get your reps (as in exercise).
Section 3. Getting Serious (Chs. 13-18): How to make a relationship work, moving-in together, break-up plans, getting married.
The main take-away from Section 1 is finding out which dating tendencies you have and why each of the three main tendencies is associated with unrealistic expectations.
The romanticizer feels that love will come to him/her, meaning that the Prince Charming or Cinderella will appear in time. For the romanticizer, the process of finding the right person is the main event, and, as in Disney movies, they will live happily ever-after, with no plans or effort. The lack of realism here is about the relationship.
The maximizer views finding a romantic partner as an optimization problem, much like buying a vacuum cleaner; a little bit more Googling, and you'll locate a better model. By endless searching for a slightly-better partner, perfect becomes the enemy of great. This links back to economic research on the optimal amount of sampling before making a decision. The lack of realism here has to do with the partner.
The hesitator wants to postpone dating until s/he has become "a catch" through various transformations. Such a person does not consider herself/himself good enough for dating. The lack of realism here is about oneself.
Sections 2 and 3 aim to help the readers overcome their dating tendencies and the associated unrealistic expectations.
(3) Book review: Hartmann, Thom, The Hidden History of American Healthcare: Why Sickness Bankrupts You and Makes Others Insanely Rich, unabridged 4-hour audiobook, read by Sean Pratt, Koehler Publishers, 2021.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The book's subtitle says it all: The US healthcare system is designed not to keep you healthy but to generate maximum revenue for hospitals, insurance companies, big pharma, and their executives & shareholders. Each time a presidential administration tries to put in place a single-payer universal healthcare system, which is the norm in all other industrialized societies, one or more of the players named above or their paid stooges in Congress interfere to make the plan fail.
The book's four sections deal with:
- How bad things are in the US regarding healthcare
- Origins of our profit-based healthcare (or sickness) system
- Ongoing fight for healthcare as a human right
- How a real healthcare system can save lives
Here is one example of how we pay for inefficiencies in our healthcare system. US insurance companies typically spend $0.80 out of every dollar they charge on healthcare services. The rest goes to overhead, such as salaries, which include multi-million-dollar pay/benefit packages for their executives. The norm in other countries is $0.95-0.98/dollar. For-profit insurance companies try to reduce their healthcare costs via co-pays, deductibles, denial of coverage to sick people, and disapproval of expensive treatments. Hospitals typically have teams of employees just to do insurance billings and handle the back-and-forth needed to have treatments or charges approved.
The US spends 24% of its GDP on healthcare, whereas Taiwan, with much better health outcomes, spends 6% of its GDP. Taiwan's edge in health outcomes, which includes lower infant-mortality rate and longer life expectancy, was particularly notable during the COVID-19 pandemic. We encounter the same story in nearly all advanced countries, with the possible exception of Switzerland, which has opted for private health insurance within its national healthcare system.
Around 1915, Woodrow Wilson's administration tried to bring national health insurance to the US along the lines of the German model. Frederick Hoffmann of the Prudential Health Insurance killed the proposal by writing extensively about its weak spots, claiming that such a system would destroy the Daniel Boone spirit of individuality in America. Over the decades, the fear-mongering term "socialized medicine" has been used to scare away the public from reform.
Republicans stripped most of the provisions of JFK's proposed healthcare law by the time it passed Congress under LBJ. George W. Bush tried to privatize Medicare, but failed in the face of strong opposition. Nevertheless, he instituted the private Medicare Advantage program, which costs the government a great deal more than standard Medicare (in part, because of insurance companies making enrollees appear sicker than they really are, so that they can charge more), while providing lousy services & benefits.
Hartmann names many other names, including former Senator Joe Lieberman, who single-handedly killed the public option under Obamacare, a provision that could have served as a successful model for a later expansion to a national healthcare program. Hartman writes, half-jokingly, that the "i" in front of Liebermann's name didn't denote "independent" but "insurance"! Our healthcare system is replete with greed and inefficiencies, mostly because of major campaign contributions to politicians of both parties by healthcare organizations and big pharma.
I think every American should read this book to see how every effort to bring our healthcare system into the norm of every other industrialized country was defeated by self-serving institutions, including the American Medical Association, with bribed politicians as their accomplices. Just like gun-control measures, the lack of which continues to kill Americans, children in particular, the absence of an efficient, up-to-date healthcare system is killing and bankrupting Americans in large numbers.
(1) Images of the day: [Top row] On this US Memorial Day, we honor the memory of those who fell to protect our freedom: Kissing and hugging the flag and wrapping our misguided policies in it are cheap. Doing something for our veterans, including protecting them from predatory private colleges that mislead them and milk their educational benefits would be priceless. [Middle left & center] A verse in Quran and its English translation: An example of how religions say the simplest things in the most complicated way (and this feature isn't unique to Islam). Here, Quran apparently wants to tell you that "people are liars, so don't argue with them." [Middle right] Math puzzle: In this diagram, featuring a regular hexagon and a square, prove x > y. [Bottom row] I Madonnari Italian Street-Painting Festival, held this long weekend at Santa Barbara Mission (sample musical entertainment, 2-minute video; Festival overview, 4-minute video).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Each American owes ~$100,000 as his/her share of the US national debt.
- There are suggestions that the US should investigate financial corruption of Khamenei's family.
- An open letter to Reza Pahlavi about his out-of-control followers committing violence against Mr. Haloo.
- Iran's presidential computer system hacked and numerous secret/top-secret documents released.
- A man paralyzed from the hips down gains the ability to walk after cutting-edge surgery.
- Jeff Kluger, author of The Sibling Effect, presents a 21-minute TEDx talk on the hidden power of siblings.
- Tom Hanks delivers a passionate Harvard graduation speech in praise of the truth.
- Having confined women to their homes, the Taliban set their sights on getting rid of evil street musicians.
- A stroll in Tehran's Artists Park: Compulsory hijabs are giving way to music & dancing. [13-minute video]
- Facebook memory from May 29, 2020: The Swish Machine: A most-elaborate Rube Goldberg construction.
- Facebook memory from May 29, 2017: Photos from a memorable Parhami Family Reunion.
- Facebook memory from May 29, 2012: My daughter being honored at her high school's Awards Assembly.
(3) Angelina Jolie and her role as a secret agent to steal and manipulate Iranians' genes: One of the many conspiracy theories advanced by Iran's Islamic leaders. [Video, narrated in Persian]
(4) Quote of the day: "There is ... no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal." ~ Toni Morrison
(5) Unprecedented: A number of Basijis, who are filtered in several stages, before being taken to meet Iran's Khamenei, complain to him about lack of transparency and ignoring people's voices. Khamenei's visitors are expected to remain quiet, except when chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" in approval.
(1) Book review: Solnit, Rebecca and Thelma Young Lutunatabua (editors), Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by multiple narrators, Blackstone Publishing, 2023. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The authors, along with diverse voices from the worldwide climate movement, advise us to do our share by setting aside fear and despair. The book's many short essays are successful in conveying that collectively, we can counteract institutional inertia, the fossil fuel industry's determined opposition, and political inflexibility, if we just avoid being frozen by obstacles and the immensity of the problem. This Web page contains a list of resources for those who want to get ideas about how they can make a difference.
I look forward to Rebecca Solnit's June 2, 2023, book talk at UCSB's Corwin Pavilion, in conversation with Dr. Leah Stokes, UCSB's Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics.
(2) Book review: Dern, Laura and Diane Ladd, Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter Talk Life and Love (and Banana Pudding), unabridged 8-hour audiobook, read by the authors, Hachette Audio, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
An actor mother-and-daughter reveal their intimate conversations about life and love, when the mother (Diane Ladd; "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," "Ghosts of Mississippi," "Primary Colors," "Chinatown") was diagnosed with a serious illness and the daughter (Laura Dern; "Big Little Lies," "Little Women," "Twin Peaks," "Jurassic Park," "Inland Empire") decided that she should accompany her mother on doctor-prescribed walks.
Their revelatory heart-to-hearts broke down traditional barriers between mother & daughter and became the basis of this joint memoir, composed of alternating short chapters by the authors, accompanied by many photographs, family recipes, and other mementos. Reese Witherspoon, another of my favorite performers, wrote and reads the book's foreword.
Both actors are among my favorite performers, so I looked up their filmographies, which I share with you below. Among their accomplishments is both having been nominated for acting Academy Awards for the same film, "Rambling Rose," a first in Oscars' history.
Laura Dern's performances in 49 films/shows ranked.
Diane Ladd's 120+ film/TV roles catalogued.
Ladd & Dern do a lot of name-dropping, which may be quite satisfying for movies fans among their readers, but that's not the main message one takes away from this remarkable book. First is the influence of grandma Mary, who helped raise Dern when Ladd divorced Dern's father, the actor Bruce Dern. Ladd apparently felt unfairly burdened by having to support both her daughter and her mother. Dern often resented being left with her grandmother, as her mom went to work.
Raw emotions emerge when mother and daughter recall significant events in their lives somewhat differently, like the time when Ladd slapped Dern in the kitchen of their home or when Ladd took Dern's young son for a significant haircut without her permission. But, by far, the greatest pain revealed in this book is a loss Ladd experienced as a young mother, when her first child with Bruce Dern, a 1.5-year-old daughter, drowned and the marriage also fell apart as a result.
(3) Course review: Kung, David, Mind-Bending Math: Riddles and Paradoxes, 24 lectures in the "Great Courses" series, Course Number 1466, undated. [My 4-star review of this course on GoodReads]
In two-dozen lectures, averaging ~30 minutes each, Dr. David Kung (Professor, St. Mary's College of Maryland) presents a number of fascinating topics in mathematics, including some of the most-enduring riddles/puzzles and paradoxes:
The liar's paradox (in Lecture 1, "Everything in This Lecture Is False")
The Monty Hall Problem (in Lecture 3, "Probability Paradoxes")
Zeno's argument on the impossibility of motion (in Lecture 5)
The infinity conundrum, which wasn't resolved until the 1900s (in Lectures 6 & 7)
Godel's demonstration that mathematical consistency is a mirage (Lecture 10)
Arrow's Nobel-worthy theorem (in Lecture 11, "Voting Paradoxes")
The prisoner's dilemma (in Lecture 13, "Games with Strange Loops")
The disappearing shapes (in Lecture 17, "Bending Space and Time")
The amazing Banach-Tarski's 1 + 1 = 1 (Lecture 23)
The course aptly ends with Lecture 24, entitled "The Paradox of Paradoxes" entailing three key questions (copied here from the course's on-line description):
Why are we so obsessed with puzzles and paradoxes?
Why do we relish the mental dismay that comes with contemplating a paradox?
Why do we expend so much effort trying to solve conundrums and riddles?
Professor Kung shows that there is method to this madness!
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Isfahan-born model Mahlagha Jaberi wears a noose necklace to protest executions in Iran. [Center] Today's talk by Dr. Farzaneh Milani (see the next item below). [Right] Friday's talk at UCSB by an expert from OpenAI (see the last item below).
(2) "From Us or Them to Us and Them: Bahiyyih Nakhjavani at the Threshold": This was the title of today's fascinating talk by Dr. Farzaneh Milani (U. Virginia), presented under the auspices of Farhang Foundation and UCSB's Iranian Studies Initiative. Dr. Janet Afary introduced the speaker for this academic year's final event in the series.
The talk consisted of two interconnected sections.
- The definition and significance of thresholds in the poetic and Narratological architecture of Iranian women's literary tradition
- The life and work of Bahiyyih Nakhjavani—an epitome of threshold poetics
Bahiyyih Nakhjavani, was born in Iran, grew up in Uganda, and was educated at a boarding school in Wales and at U. Mass. She is a prolific author of fiction, non-fiction, and children's books and is active in many other social & literary projects. One of Nakhjavani's most-significant books, The Woman Who Read Too Much: A Novel, is inspired by the life of the brilliant feminist/poet Tahirih Qurrat al-Ayn, who was put to death on false accusations at age 46. Quite a few other Iranian feminist thinkers died or were killed at relatively young ages. In contrast, many prominent US leaders died in their late-80s, offering many years of support and service to women's causes.
In a Q&A comment, I thanked Dr. Milani for a fascinating talk and offered the hope that a feminist Iranian writer is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Such an honor is certainly overdue and will help immensely in the promotion of women's rights in Iran.
The full video recording of this talk will be forthcoming in a few days.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Islamic Center of England, effectively the UK office for Iran's Islamic regime, has been shut down.
- Remember "alternative facts"? Ron DeSantis is talking about "alternative accreditation" for school curricula!
- CheatGPT? There's an arms race on campus, and professors may be the losers.
- Tesla re-launches the "Long Range" version of its Model 3 with an official EPA range-rating of 333 miles.
(4) "Embeddings and Retrieval Augmented Generation": This was the title of yesterday's talk by Dr. Arvind Neelakantan (OpenAI Research Lead and Manager, deep learning for real-world applications) at UCSB's Institute for Energy Efficiency, delivered to a full auditorium. The event was sponsored by the Center for Responsible Machine Learning and the Mellichamp Initiative in Mind and Machine Intelligence.
An embedding is a relatively low-dimensional space into which one can translate high-dimensional vectors. Embeddings make it easier to do machine learning on large inputs like sparse vectors representing words. Ideally, an embedding captures some of the semantics of the input by placing semantically similar inputs close together in the embedding space. An embedding can be learned and reused across models.
After introductory remarks, a very brief history of embeddings in the last decade (task-specific, general-purpose text, code, image), Dr. Neelakantan discussed OpenAI's work on embeddings that are useful to perform natural language and code tasks like semantic search, clustering, topic modeling, and classification. In the latter part of his talk, Dr. Neelakantan dove deeper into the application of embeddings for retrieval-augmented generation with language models.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Talangor Group talk on Iran's underdevelopment (see the next to the last item below). [Center] My book recommendations to you, from Florida's list of banned books. [Right] Nuclear power and deep decarbonization (see the last item below).
(2) "Artificial Intelligence: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly": This was the title of tonight's Cal Tech Watson lecture by Dr. Yaser Abu-Mostafa. ChatGPT has rocked the general public's perception and expectations of artificial intelligence (AI). In this 96-minute lecture, Dr. Abu-Mostafa explained the science of AI in plain language and explored how the scientific details illustrate the risks and benefits of AI. Between the extremes of "AI will kill us all" and "AI will solve all our problems," the science can help us identify what is realistic and what is speculative, and guide us in our planning, legislation, and investment in AI. [Recording: 96-minute video]
(3) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Eng. Hamid Shirazi (social/political activist) talked about "Iran's Underdevelopment and Its Japan Envy." The main talk was preceded by a short presentation entitled "Lagrange Points and Their Role in Space Applications," in which Dr. Behrooz Parhami presented the main ideas and promised to elaborate in a regular presentation later. There were ~90 attendees.
Development (social, political, economic) has been a focus of discussions since the Constitutional Revolution, even though there seems to be no broadly-accepted, crisp definition of development. Political awareness among Iran's citizens rose in the wake of Russo-Iranian Wars, 1812-1828, resulting in Iran losing 260,000 km^2 of its soil (present-day Armenia, Azerbaijan, & Igdir Province of the Russian Empire), and culminating in the humiliating Treaty of Turkmenchay. These wars also sharpened our senses of freedom and justice. Unfortunately, they also helped plant the idea of religious government.
Comparison with Japan is appropriate because the two countries entered modernity at about the same time. There is no secret that Iran and Japan took diverging paths toward development. Iranian leaders, from the Shah to today's ruling mullahs, struggled with Japan envy. A key difference between the two countries during the early years of this comparison is that the Shah was an absolute ruler, whereas Japan's Emperor was a ceremonial leader, emerging to speak in public only when Japan was surrendering at the end of World War II.
Following the Russo-Iranian Wars, Iranian intellectuals formulated various "return-to-self" philosophies, many of which viewed Western progress with loathing or suspicion, views that were often accompanied by conspiracy theories. Some of these intellectuals went too far in rejecting anything non-Iranian or non-Islamic. The lack of self-confidence in dealing with technologically-advanced countries on equal footing is one of causes of Iran remaining underdeveloped.
(4) "What Is the Role of Nuclear Power in Deep Decarbonization": This was the title of today's hybrid seminar by Dr. Jessica Renee Lovering (Co-Founder & Executive Director, Good Energy Collective) at UCSB's Institute for Energy Efficiency.
Uranium's energy density is off the charts (76,000,000 joules/kg, compared with 24 for coal and 46 for gasoline). This is why nuclear energy has always been an attractive option; in the 1970s, oil crisis and air pollution were among the main reasons, while today, climate change, grid stability, and Russian gas are front & center. Nuclear waste disposal, a key reason for opposition to nuclear power, is less of a problem today, due to changes in technology.
Older nuclear-power projects were vertically-integrated, state-owned infrastructures, whereas "advanced nuclear" offers commercial products. We still need a shift in the regulatory structure, from per-project licensing to bulk licenses issued based on evaluating the soundness of designs, much as we now have for aircraft. Broad categories of advanced nuclear technology include small modular (light-water) reactors, typically < 300 MW, microreactors the size of shipping containers and adequate for a hospital or university campus, typically < 10 MW, and non-LWRs based on different fuels and coolants, which are safer and produce less waste, typically 200-600 MW.
Today, many companies around the world are developing "new" reactors, in view of the renewed sense of urgency and bipartisan support: NuScale SMR (70 MW, but deployed in 6-packs or 12-packs); Terra Power Natrium (345-500 MW; higher-enriched fuel, liquid-metal-cooled); Okio Aurora (1.5 MW, needs no water); Kairos (145 MW, salt-cooled). Countries are reconsidering their previous policies of decommissioning nuclear power plants.
The following are Dr. Lovering's most-significant and most-recent publications.
- "Historical Construction Costs of Global Nuclear Power Reactors," Energy Policy, 2016.
- "A Techno-Economic Evaluation of Microreactors for Off-Grid and Microgrid Applications," Sustainable Cities & Society, 2023.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Socrates Think Tank talk by Dr. Mandana Zandian (see the last item below). [Center] Tina Turner, queen of rock & soul, dead at 83. RIP. [Right] I used a colorful patio table cover, bought for less than $10, and washed/refilled my little fountain to freshen up my courtyard as a nice place to relax or eat in late-spring & summer months.
(2) Evidence of Iran's money-laundering to circumvent sanctions through fake front-companies and their accounts in Chinese and other banks. [6-minute video]
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- US Supreme Court limits EPA's authority to police water pollution in a ruling on the Clean Water Act.
- Life is unpredictable: Dr. Firouz Naderi hospitalized with a serious injury. Wishing him a quick recovery.
- Facebook memory from May 25, 2019: The problem with truncated headlines in news apps.
- Facebook memory from May 25, 2015: The 97-member-strong Fifth Annual Parhami Family Reunion.
- Facebook memory from May 25, 2011: Sources to enjoy the rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
(4) "Artificial Intelligence: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly": This was the title of tonight's Cal Tech Watson lecture by Dr. Yaser Abu-Mostafa. ChatGPT has rocked the general public's perception and expectations of artificial intelligence (AI). In this 96-minute lecture, Dr. Abu-Mostafa explained the science of AI in plain language and explored how the scientific details illustrate the risks and benefits of AI. Between the extremes of "AI will kill us all" and "AI will solve all our problems," the science can help us identify what is realistic and what is speculative, and guide us in our planning, legislation, and investment in AI. [Recording: 96-minute video]
(5) Tonight's Socrates Think Tank talk: Dr. Mandana Zandian (author, poet) talked about her book, The Iranian Cedar and the Seedlings of Modernity: In Conversation with Dr. Abbas Milani (Sarv-e Irani va Javaaneh-haa-ye Tajaddod), published by Ketab Corporation. The book, presented in the form of a conversation, is Dr. Zandian's ode to her mentor Dr. Abbas Milani. There were 120 attendees.
Iranian cedar, with its long lifespan is a symbol of survival and resistance; there is now a cedar tree in the southeastern Yazd region that is 4500 years old. Boteh-jegheh (aka paisley) on fabric designs is inspired by the Iranian cedar. The book's cover image is adapted from a design at Persepolis.
Milani's writings are all centered explicitly or implicitly on the notion of modernity. Humanism, as reflected in the great Persian poet Sa'adi's writings, is another focal point. When speaking of modernity, most people focus on political modernity, whereas cultural modernity is an important prerequisite, as stated or implied by many thinkers, such as Aref Qazvini.
According to Milani, a text is like a triangle, with its three sides being the text itself, the writer (story-teller), and the reader. A "democratic text" builds citizens, because it allows each reader to interpret the narrative according to his/her personal experiences. A non-democratic text, on the other hand, conveys an inflexible meaning, as exemplified by religious or ideological writings. This is in part responsible for a reader experiencing a democratic text differently, when s/he reads it repeatedly at different ages and brings to it different mixes of knowledge and life experiences.
One idea that was new to me is Dr. Milani's preference for "kherad-e masnooee" rather than "hoosh-e masnooee" as the Persian term for "artificial intelligence." I don't quite understand why "kherad" (which has the English equivalent "wisdom") is the right term to use in this context.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math puzzle: Find the area of the right-angled triangle. [Center] An abstract painting of the great Persian poet Ferdowsi. [Right] Discussion on big-tech TV (see the last item below).
(2) Santa Barbara's 37th Annual I Madonnari Italian Street-Painting Festival: Held each year during the Memorial-Day weekend, the Festival brings artists of all ages together for producing impressive chalk paintings on the pavement around the Old Mission.
(3) Miami Hotel/cabaret (history): Located in north Tehran, the joint was a hub of music and other entertainment shows, first by invited international artists, and later by top Iranian performers, such as Googoosh, Dariush, and Haideh in pre-Islamic-Revolution Iran. [11-minute video]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Illinois report asserts that 1900+ were sexually assaulted by the Catholic ministry over seven decades.
- Two children were swept away by raging water in a Central California river: One's dead, the other's missing.
- Santa Barbara man dies in single-truck wreck at the Fairview Ave. US 101 on-ramp in Goleta.
- Persian music: Old-time singer Parvin, 84, honored by friends at a private ceremony. [1-minute video]
- Persian music: Many years ago, "Morning Greetings" began Tehran Radio's morning programming.
- Facebook memory from May 23, 2015: Today is the 9th anniversary of the mass shooting in Isla Vista.
- Facebook memory from May 23, 2010: A verse from a wonderful Persian love poem.
(5) The notion of time in tech systems: "Just as the digital world has played a pivotal role in how we perceive the passage of time, ... the concept of time has a direct bearing on the design of digital things. This manifests itself in modern software and data systems where instantaneous state changes are commonplace. There are, however, some significant developments that greatly enhance software time management."
(6) Cinema Under the Stars: This year's "Summer Cinema" screenings at Santa Barbara Courthouse Sunken Garden (Fridays, 8:30 PM; no screening on Aug. 4, due to Fiesta) bears the theme "Out of This World."
July 07, Close Encounters of the Third Kind;
July 14, Alien;
July 21, Mars Attacks!;
July 28, The Fifth Element;
Aug. 11, Star Trek;
Aug. 18, Guardians of the Galaxy;
Aug. 25, Nope
(7) "Big Tech TV and the Politics of Gender, Race, and Class in Silicon Valley": This was the title of tonight's discussion at UCSB's Pollock Theater, in which Dr. France Winddance Twine (Sociology, UCSB) and Dr. Lisa Parks (Film and Media, UCSB), in conversation with Marc Francis (Assistant Editor, Film Quarterly), examined the ways big-tech TV shows such as "WeCrashed" (starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway) and "Super Pumped" (starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Uma Thurman) represent power dynamics in Silicon Valley workplaces.
Presented in collaboration with UC Press journal Film Quarterly, this timely event built upon an article that Parks and Twine published in the spring 2023 issue of the journal.
Tonight's discussion topics included structural inequalities in the workplace, the myth of corporate self-regulation, and the culture of CEO worship in Silicon Valley. Trailers and opening sequences of several episodes of the two series were screened. They showed that whereas women do get in on occasion, they are quickly pushed out by the toxically masculine cultures of such workplaces. Women are advised to keep quiet, which they often do, especially when an IPO and the opportunity to cash out is imminent.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Shushtar: With its historic aqueducts and canals, the city in Iran's southwestern Khuzestan Province has 13 UNESCO World Heritage Sites to its name. [Top center] Iran's modern history: Newspaper article, reporting on a planned film project of Marshall Erwin Rommel's private photographer, covering Iran's oil challenges, from the D'Arcy Concession to Mossadeq's efforts. [Top right] The Rational Animal (see the last item below). [Bottom row] Beautiful architectures.
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- G7 leaders call for international standards to govern the development of generative AI.
- A German MP considers EU's Iran policy in the face of 220 executions this year "shameful."
- The "pro-life" former US President. [4-minute video]
- I got to choose my fortune a few days ago, when I dined with my son, but he didn't want his fortune cookie.
(3) Book review: Kenrick, Douglas T. and Vladas Griskevicius, The Rational Animal: How Evolution Made Us Smarter than We Think, unabridged 9-hour audiobook, read by Tim Andres Pabon, Gildan Media, 2013.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5532937049]
Many books in the realm of behavioral economics and neuroeconomics have discussed human decision-making. The old assumption in the field of economics that humans are rational actors has fallen out of favor, having been replaced with the more-nuanced choice theory. Here are three books whose subject matters overlap with the current book, along with links to my reviews of them.
Algorithms to Live By (Christian & Griffiths): My review
Predictably Irrational (Dan Ariely): My review
The Upside of Irrationality (Dan Ariely): My review
Unlike the last two books, which try to explain why we may act irrationally, the current book redefines rational decision-making in terms of evolutionary wisdom, even when the outcomes seem erratic.
Kenrick, Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University, and Griskevicius, Professor of Marketing at University of Minnesota, present a compelling account of our decision-making as a rational process, driven by sometimes-conflicting evolutionary forces, even though the result may at times appear irrational. Kenrick & Griskevicius explain that even though our choices aren't always consistent, we now understand that we follow quite rational criteria wired into our brains by evolution.
Sandwiched between introduction (Cadillacs, Communists, & Pink Bubble Gums) and conclusion (Mementos from Our Tour) are the following nine chapters that elaborate upon our sub-selves, defined in Chapter 2.
Chapter 1. Rationality, Irrationality, and the Dead Kennedys
Chapter 2. The Seven Sub-Selves
Chapter 3. Home Economics vs. Wall Street Economics
Chapter 4. Smoke Detectors in the Mind
Chapter 5. Modern Cavemen
Chapter 6. Living Fast and Dying Young
Chapter 7. Gold Porsches and Green Peacocks
Chapter 8. Sexual Economics: His and Hers
Chapter 9. Deep Rationality Parasites
The heart of the book is Chapter 2, listing and briefly describing our seven sub-selves. We are told, for example, that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. suffered from multiple-personality disorder; we all do. We make different choices, depending on which of our seven selves is running the show at any particular moment. The assumption that we have stable preferences (thus businesses marketing to our perceived profile) is misguided. Each of us is an amalgam of multiple selves, with different behaviors. A restaurant may emphasize its uniqueness or its popularity in different ads. If you watch a scary film, the ad focusing on popularity tends to be more effective. You want to go with the crowd, rather than stand out, in this context.
Our seven sub-selves are in charge of managing the seven goals wired into us by evolution:
*Self-protection sub-self (personal or national defense)
*Disease-avoidance sub-self (a source of xenophobia)
*Affiliation sub-self (forming friendships and alliances)
*Status sub-self (our inner go-getter)
*Mate-acquisition sub-self (our inner swinging single)
*Mate-retention sub-self (getting along, to raise our kids)
*Kin-care sub-self (caring for family and humankind)
(1) Saturday at California Strawberry Festival, Ventura County Fairgrounds, followed by walking along Main Street: I arrived at Festival gates about an hour before its opening time, given the train schedule from Goleta. Before going to the Festival, I walked along the beach, watching hordes of surfers and joggers. Parts of the bike path at this Ventura beach have been washed away (Photos). I placed a memorial rock for my mom at Haole's Memorial Rock Garden (more photos). A most-interesting art exhibit at the Festival contained a number of wonderful celebrity portraits by the Thousand-Oaks-based artist Gary Saderup. Strolling along Main Street after a late lunch, I took some photos in front of a number of intereting shops and at the Heart of Ventura, near City Hall (more photos). I also snapped photos of the Ventura Mission and its Gift Shop.
(2) UC Berkeley to open a College of Computing, Data Science, and Society: The new College will provide a free curriculum to expand data science to institutions everywhere.
(3) Natural stupidity (NS) adds to concerns about AI: A Texas professor accused his students of cheating and withheld their grades just before graduation, because ChatGPT claimed it wrote the work they had submitted.
(4) Diophantine equations, Part 2: One of the marvels of math, these are equations with multiple non-zero, positive, integer-valued variables. The most famous one is x^n + y^n = z^n, which is known to have no solution, except for n < 3 (Fermat's Last Theorem). Here is another fascinating Diophantine equation, purportedly posed by Douglas Hofstadter at an informal meeting of a group of mathematicians: a/(b + c) + b/(c + a) + c/(a + b) = 4. Be warned that the smallest solutions are 80-digit numbers. If you replace 4 with 178, the smallest solution will have ~400M digits. [Read more]
(5) The Microarchitecture of DOJO, Tesla's Exa-Scale Computer: Designed by Tesla for its internal workloads, the architecture can be used for any machine-learning workload, all the way to the exa-scale level.
[Article]
(6) Las Cafeteras at Marjorie Luke Theater (SBJH Campus): Tonight's enjoyable concert, sponsored by UCSB Arts & Lectures, featured Afro-Mexican rhythms, electronic beats, and powerful rhymes that document community stories.
[Video 1 (a love song)]
[Video 2]
[Video 3]
[Video 4]
[Video 5 ("La Bamba")]
(7) Composer/Conductor Arash Fouladvand, Paris-South Symphony Orchestra, and Bahar Choir perform "Aan Yaar Mi-Aayad," based on a Mowlav/Rumi poem. [8-minute video]
(8) Risks of not getting enough sleep: Being awake for 17 hours is comparable to having a blood alcohol level of 0.05%, not far from the impaired level of 0.08% in the US. Going without sleep for 24 hours is similar to a blood alcohol level of 0.10%.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Retirement party for a long-time UCSB colleague: Val De Veyra is retiring after 36 years at UCSB (last 25 with the ECE Department). Her encyclopedic knowledge of university regulations and her problem-solving skills will be hard to replace. She managed ECE's Student Affairs Office at the time of retirement. [Center] Today's panel discussion on CharGPT (see the next item below). [Right] Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality Among Men (see the last item below).
(2) "Unraveling the Secrets of ChatGPT": This was the title of today's "Panel for Scholars and Educators" held at UCSB's Henley Hall, Room 1010.
Executive Vice Chancellor David Marshall made brief welcoming remarks. He began with an observation that the metaphor often used for the current situation in AI research and its attendant potential dangers is "arms race," which invokes the panic we experienced during the US-Soviet nuclear arms race. He stressed the need for an academic-based response, appealing to academic integrity and pedagogy, rather than a fear-based reaction.
Next, Dr. William Wang, Mellichamp Professor of AI and Co-Director of UCSB's NLP Group, provided some background about ChatGPT, introduced by the company Open AI, and similar systems from other tech companies. He discussed both the strengths and weaknesses of the technology, emphasizing that any /ML system, including those based on large language models, is as good as the data used on its training. He suggested that we should deal with any such technology responsibly and ethically. Discussion in this important area will continue with an in-person lecture by Open AI's tech lead & manager next Friday at noon.
The next part of the program was a panel discussion, with the following participants:
- Dr. Lei Li, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Co-Director of UCSB's NLP Group
- Dr. Lisa Berry, Senior Instructional Consultant with UCSB's Office of Instructional Development
- Dr. Rita Raley, UCSB Professor of English
- Dr. Norah Dunbar, UCSB Professor of Communication
- Dr. Joe Walther, Director of UCSB Center for Information Technology & Society
A Q&A session ended the event, which was live-streamed (4:52 mark of this 111-minute video).
(3) German-Iranian journalist Golineh Atai honored with major award for her book Freedom in Iran is Female. [News story, in English] [4-minute video, narrated in Persian]
(4) Book review: Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (translated by Ian Johnston), Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality Among Men, unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by Neville Jason, Naxos AudioBooks, 2015. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Author/philosopher/composer Jean-Jacques Rousseau [1712-1778] was an influential figure in Europe during the Enlightenment. Rousseau's works have been translated into English and published under various titles such as Basic Political Writings (1987), Collected Writings (13 vols., 1990-2010), The Confessions (2000), On the Origins of Language (1986), 'The Social Contract' and Other Later Political Writings (1997), and Rousseau on Women, Love, and Family (2009).
In this book, a powerful critique of modernity, Rousseau sets out to demonstrate how the spread of civilization upends man's natural happiness and curtails his freedom by creating artificial inequalities in wealth, power, and social privilege. Human beings were more equal in primitive societies. As societies grew in sophistication, someone who was stronger and more-intelligent gained an advantage over weaker individuals. Thus, inequality arising from moral or political causes is significantly greater and more-dangerous than inequality due to natural or physical differences.
Rousseau's social and political arguments in this Discourse were revolutionary and quite influential in his time. He observed that laws aiming to rectify these imbalances in power and privilege tend to perpetuate them. Rousseau opines that the birth of private property was the "beginning of evil." Later, he wrote The Social Contract, famous for the phrase "man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains," to study how freedom may be possible in civil society. His writings got him in trouble with religious and ruling authorities, making him a fugitive in later stages of his life.
This is Rousseau's second discourse, the first one having addressed the arts and sciences. Both discourses were produced for submission to writing competitions. The first one did well, received the top prize, and is in part responsible for Rousseau's rise to fame. The second one didn't fare so well, but it is viewed as an important book that lays out the foundations of social sciences.
I have seen other readers complain about the translation quality, but I found it more than acceptable. Perhaps, such an important book should be read in the original French language, but this luxury wasn't available to me. Rousseau's own notes appear at the end of the volume; he recommends that the readers should ignore those notes in a first reading. Translator's notes appear as footnotes.
(1) Images of the day: [Top row] Reveling in the extreme beauty of wildflowers, sunsets, and nature of our precious Earth. [Bottom row] Talk on the German Foreign Office's Iran Archive (see the last item below).
(2) Diophantine equations: One of the marvels of math, these are equations with multiple non-zero, positive, integer-valued variables. The most famous one is x^n + y^n = z^n, which is known to have no solution, except for n < 3 (Fermat's Last Theorem). Here is another fascinating Diophantine equation, an instance of Pell's Equation: x^2 – 61 y^2 = 1. Don't try to solve it without computational help, as the smallest set of answers are 10- and 9-digit numbers!
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Disney cancels $1 billion development in Florida as a result of its feud with Gov. DeSantis.
- Iran executes three more street protesters, despite broad international calls to stop the executions.
- College graduates are leaving large coastal cities in droves, mainly because of unaffordable housing.
- Iranian cuisine: Street kabobs in the Caspian-Sea region.
(4) "Presence and Silence: The Iran Archives in the German Foreign Office": This was the title of a fascinating talk by Dr. Jennifer Jenkins (U. Toronto), as part of the U. Toronto series, "Rethinking History: Returning to Archives and Documents." Much of what was discussed today will appear in Dr. Jankins' forthcoming book, The Persian Question: Germany, Iran and the Near East in the Age of Empire, 1857-1914. The meeting with ~100 attendees was convened by Arezou Azad & Mohamad Tavakoli.
The German Foreign Office in Berlin possesses an enormous archive on Iran, which can help shed light on modern Iranian history. Dr. Jenkins came across these archives when she began working many years ago on German orientalism. Years of research and several grants later, an 85-page, single-spaced index of the enormous archive was generated. The archive came as a surprise, given the relative dearth of information about the German-Persia relations in the secondary historical literature. This voluminous archive makes the point that Germany can no longer be left out from the histories of Iran's modern transformation.
Dr. Jenkins introduced this archive (its size, scope, and the many topics it covers), speaking to how Iran's modern history can be rethought in the light of these documents. We see in the archive's documents that German officials criticized the workings of the British in Iran as well as the Russian influence-peddling in the northern part of the country. These inter-imperial tensions is a key reason why the archive is so massive.
Germany's relationship to Iran, forged during the Constitutional Revolution and the signing of the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, played forward into the period of the First World War and Reza Shah's modernization of Iran. The documents show that Germany positioned itself as a suitable partner for Iranian nationalists and modernizers, transforming regional power relationships in the process. Germans deemed the nationalist's agenda as part of a legitimate sociopolitical movement, in contrast to the British view of it as anarchy. As for Russia, it was viewed by German diplomats as "the enemy of liberty."
German officials looked at Iran as a major unexplored opportunity and put a lot of emphasis on solutions to poverty & corruption and the need for modernization. Strong ties were forged between Germans and Iranian nationalists during the Constitutional Revolution of the early 1900s. German involvement was particularly broad in the efforts to establish a modern financial system and a national bank to replace the imperial bank, key demands of the nationalists.
The talk's recording will be posted on the Elahe Omidyar Institute's Web site within a couple of weeks.
(1) Images of the day: [Top row] IEEE CCS tech talk by Dr. Behrooz Parhami (see the next item below). [Bottom left] The Mueller Report (see the last item below). [Bottom center & right] My attempt to replicate a dish my mom used to make from chicken livers/hearts and potatoes. I did not quite know which spices to add, so I improvised and got a decent result. The other photo is from my cooking night over the past weekend.
(2) Tonight's IEEE Central Coast Section technical talk: Dr. Behrooz Parhami (ECE, UCSB) spoke under the title "Lagrange Points and Their Significance to Space Applications."
Dr. Parhami began by stressing that the talk's subject matter is outside his areas of expertise. Having learned about Lagrange Points from a video clip by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, he decided to pursue the topic and to share what he discovered with others.
Application of math to physics has given rise to the field of mathematical physics. Dr. Parhami introduced one problem in this domain, its solution, and a few notable applications to Earth observation, monitoring of the Sun, and space telescopes.
The problem addressed is an instance of the three-body problem, which is super-difficult to solve in general. However, when one of the bodies is much smaller than the other two, so that its gravitational pull can be neglected (e.g., a satellite, compared with the Earth and the Moon), the problem becomes tractable. For each pair of heavy objects, with one rotating around the other, there are five special Lagrange Points in space. These points were introduced and related to the applications cited above.
[Speaker's UCSB ECE page]
[IEEE CCS event page]
[IEEE CCS Technical Talks page]
(3) Book review: Mueller, Robert, et al. (introduction and commentary by reporters Rosalind S. Helderman and Matt Zapotosky), The Mueller Report, unabridged 19-hour audiobook, read by Matt Zapotosky, Rosalind S. Helderman, Marc Fisher, Sari Horwitz, Dennis Boutsikaris, Cassandra Campbell, Gibson Frazier, Robin Miles, Fred Sanders, Jayme Mattler, Vikas Adam, Joy Osmanski, Cynthia Farrell, Samantha Desz, Prentice Onayemi, and Jackie Sanders, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2019.
[My 5-star review of this book on GoodReads]
I don't know why I postponed reading this important report, with implications to the future of democracy in our country, for so long. Anyway, I am glad I finally got to the report's eye-opening findings, which had previously been lost to cries of "hoax" from one side and soundbite media coverage that glided over important details and implications from the other.
A vast majority of Americans (97% by one estimate), including members of congress and other top-level politicians, haven't read the full report, although they do not hesitate to express opinions about its conclusions at every opportunity. I think every American should read the full report, rather than rely on snippets fed to us by the media. As a matter of fact, citizens of other countries can also benefit from reading the report, given that Russia and a few other actors continue to try to influence elections and national debates around the world.
The massive report is presented in two volumes, both of which are contained in the Washington Post edition. Volume I is about Russian interference in the 2016 US election and the interactions and encouragements of Trump people regarding the interference. Volume II discusses the various ways Donald Trump tried to thwart the investigation into Russian interference as well as the many ways he tried to shield himself from investigation.
Many of the details, such as footnotes, supporting documents, timeline of events, and biographical appendices, are not read out in the audio version but are included in accompanying PDF files. There are also quite a few deleted parts, which are flagged as "redacted," followed by one of four reasons for the redaction: Secret Grand-Jury material, possible harm to ongoing matter, revealing private info on third-party individuals, or revelation of investigative methods.
Trump supporters repeatedly claim that their vote was not influenced by Russia. This is likely because they are unaware that, just on Facebook, IRA (Internet Research Agency; a cyber-arm of the Russian government) controlled hundreds of accounts, pretending to be owned by real Americans or US interest-groups, making tens of thousands of posts and reaching an estimated 100+ million Americans. The fake group names spanned the entire range of American politics and included "United Muslims of America," "Don't Shoot Us," "Being Patriotic," and "Secured Borders."
Mueller could have easily suggested, based on overwhelming evidence, that Trump committed crimes that could not be pursued while he was president but that he should be held accountable after the end of his term. Instead, he used very soft language that left room for the "no collusion, no obstruction" interpretations by Attorney General William Barr and other Trump cronies. Whereas the case for collusion with Russia might be deemed hard-to-prove, given that Trump and his campaign people may have inadvertently retweeted or otherwise spread fake IRA posts, the list of Trump actions to impede Mueller's investigation and even to have him fired leave no doubt that he was guilty of obstruction of justice.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Brides put on sale by Iranian match-making firms (see the next item below). [Center] Iran's Islamic regime is executing dissidents at an alarming rate: Let's put some pressure on the butchers (rally locations). [Right] A fish story (see item 3 below). [Right] Outdated poster (see item 3 below).
(2) Iran's campaign for women getting married earlier and bearing more children has gone too far: There are now government-sanctioned private match-making firms that advertise with large street banners bearing taglines such as, "We have apples, we have pomegranates, we have dignified brides." The only missing info is the bride's price per kilogram!
(3) My fish (and chips) story: I went into a local pub/restaurant and ordered fish-and-chips. The charge was $8.00. I pointed to a poster on the outside window, advertising $5.99 fish-and-chips. Shrugging it off, the server said that the sign was out of date. No apologies, no offer to honor the advertised price. Nothing. I was too hungry to make a fuss about it, so I ate my food and left. A couple of days later, I noticed that they have blanked out the price on their poster.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Like NRA's "good guy with a gun" argument, Bill Gates claims an AI pause will only stop the good guys.
- Inspired by the success of "All in the Family," Bob Hope made "All in the West," starring John Wayne.
- Persian music: A private performance by Anoushiravan Rohani, his son Reza, & old-time singer Martik.
- Facebook memory from May 16, 2014: The world has its ups and downs, don't worry (Persian verse).
(5) UCSB's Mahsa Amini Graduate Fellowship: The Fellowship's fund has reached the $20,000 level, with the goal being $50,000. Please consider contributing to help us reach the goal and start using the funds on worthy doctoral candidates in non-STEM disciplines who have earned bachelor's degrees in Iran.
(6) "Journey to Yazdegerd Castle": A documentary film about remarkable discoveries of Dr. Edward Keall, a British-Canadian archaeologist, during visits to an ancient castle in Iran's Kermanshah Province.
(7) Do we still need universities? This question has been posed and discussed widely, ever since we emerged from the social restrictions of COVID-19. Can't we just move everything on-line, so that everyone benefits from the best and most-knowledgeable teachers and cut costs in the process? The fact that we did not do so well in meeting student needs during the pandemic should not be viewed as confirmation that on-line instruction doesn't work. We were thrown into a new situation unexpectedly and unprepared. With the experience of COVID years under our belt, we should be able to do better.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Happy Mothers' Day: This is the first Mothers' Day for me without my mom, who passed away in November 2022. So, I have collected some of my previous Mothers' Day greetings and photos in this image. Miss you, mom! [Top center] This voluminous book may be an exaggeration: However, I'm sure you can find at least one thing your mom was right about and tell it to her face, if you are lucky enough to still have her around. It would make an excellent Mothers' Day gift. [Top right] Rebecca Goldstein's Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel (see the last item below). [Bottom row] My Saturday stroll at Ventura Harbor Village, before a family gathering (Video of a street musician).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- A committee of the EU Parliament has approved a first-of-its-kind artificial-intelligence regulation bill.
- Our changing world: There is a place in our universe; it contains life; it contains us. [2-minute video]
- A look back at "Seinfeld," the show that ended 25 years ago (in May 1998), after redefining adulthood.
- What a way to spread Jesus's teachings of love and tolerance: You can't be a Christian and a Democrat!
- Tiredness in the afternoon: The post-lunch dip is real, but there are ways to combat midday sleepiness.
- Hidden-camera clip, 1965: Girls & boys react to an attractive teacher asking them to be in his/her class!
(3) Book review: Goldstein, Rebecca, Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel, W. W. Norton & Company, 2006. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Modern science stands on three legs: Einstein's theory of relativity, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and Godel's incompleteness theorem. The latter refers to one of two theorems:
*Godel's First Theorem: In any formal system adequate for number theory there exists an undecidable formula, that is, a formula that is not provable and whose negation is not provable.
*Godel's Second Theorem (a corollary to the First Theorem): The consistency of a formal system adequate for number theory is not provable within the system.
It comes as a shock that even mathematics, this most-precise of the sciences, can never be formalized in any complete system. One remarkable feature of Godel's Theorems is that they are mathematical results that speak and have implications to outside mathematics. Philosopher Goldstein paints Godel as an enigma, compared with his contemporaries such as Einstein, Wittgenstein, Russell, and Oppenheimer.
The four parts of the book are preceded by Epigraph & Introduction and followed by Suggested Reading.
I. A Platonist among the Positivists
II. Hilbert and the Formalists
III. The Proof of Incompleteness
IV. Godel's Incompleteness
The action begins at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, where giants have gathered to tackle the world's toughest problems while feeding off each other's knowledge and enthusiasm. Both Godel and Einstein shared the conviction that truly good science keeps the larger philosophical questions in view. So, it's not surprising that the two dissimilar scientists, separated in age by nearly three decades, talked to each other regularly during walks that made others wonder what these two scientists had so much to tell one another. In his later stages of life, Einstein had said that his own work no longer meant much and that he continued to come to the Institute for the privilege of walking home with Godel.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Selected verses from a beautiful ghazal by Hafez (#265 on ganjoor.net). [Center] Having your cake & eating it too: Mistakes by 17-year-old boys shouldn't ruin their lives, but it's okay if they ruin the lives of 17-year-old girls. [Right] Perils of raw data without analysis (see the next item below).
(2) The slippery slope with statistics: A New York Times chart shows that the number of apprehended migrants on the southwestern border of the US has risen significantly during the first two years of the Biden administration compared with the Trump years. Here is my question: Does more apprehensions mean a greater number of border crossers or better enforcement of immigration laws (that is, low apprehension rate means that a lot of migrants slip through)?
(3) CNN's big mistake: It gave Donald Trump 1+ hour of free air time to spread his election lies, lie on other issues dozens of times, insult the host, make misogynistic statements, to which the MAGA audience laughed, and evade all serious policy-related questions. And all of these abuses of air time were totally predictable!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Anti-compulsory-hijab activism is intensifying in Iran: Here is the recitation of a Persian protest poem.
- William Shatner talks about "Star Trek," acting in space roles, & the future of our Earth. [13-minute video]
- AI continues to become more scary: Robotic soldier, developed for the US Army.
- California State Parks: Some of their must-see places.
- Iranians avoid stepping on the US flag placed at the entrance of what appears to be a shopping mall.
- Mr. Internet: Vint Cerf reflects on 50 years of progress since he first sketched the idea in 1973.
(5) The island of Socotra: Located 150 miles off the coast of Somalia and 220 miles off the coast of Yemen in the Indian Ocean, Socotra is home to unique plant and animal species.
(6) Voice of dissent from the Qom Seminary: This video, in which a prominent Iranian cleric disses the idea of governing based on edicts from 1400 years ago, has surfaced after 12 years. [4-minute video]
(7) Political humor: Scientists are working on a polygraph (lie-detector) machine that can be used on Donald Trump and George Santos, without catching fire due to overheating!
(8) GPUs & FPGAs are the engines that allow AI & machine learning to advance by leaps & bounds: Yet, these workhorses of the hottest fields of research are in the shadows and their designers don't get proper credit. As a case in point, a single NVIDIA A100 GPU has been shown to outperform a hypothetical quantum-computing system with 10,000 error-correcting qubits, a system that is nowhere close to being realizable at this time.
(9) There is a new argument that Biden can raise the debt ceiling by himself, if the Congress does not cooperate: Here is how the argument goes. As US President, Biden has sworn to uphold the laws of the land. Spending bills passed by congress are some of those laws he must uphold. If there are no funds to uphold all laws (pay all government obligations), his authority does not include selectively upholding the laws: it's either all laws or none of them. He can't pay the military but withhold payment from retirees, say. He could presumably pay 80% of the obligations, say, and issue IOUs for the remaining 20%. He can't cut the payments unilaterally. But IOUs are also debts and issuing them constitutes raising the debt ceiling.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Optical illusion: It's amazing how adding little squares distorts our perception of the checkerboard pattern, making it appear to bulge out. [Center] Iran's Islamic regime now quotes Victor Hugo & Leo Tolstoy, instead of the Prophet & Imams, on the importance of modesty and chastity for women! [Right] Venky Narayamurti's talk at UCSB, yesterday (see the last item below).
(2) Fareed Zakaria, on King Charles III's coronation: Zakaria's Sunday commentary included interesting tidbits, such as a king who banned his wife from attending his coronation because she ate raw onions, and Charles III's dilemma regarding how to include his brother Andrew and his son Harry (who headed straight to the airport afterwards) in the coronation ceremony.
(3) AI guru Geoffrey Hinton discusses his fears about the future of AI: "I think it's quite conceivable that humanity is just a passing phase in the evolution of intelligence." [8-minute video]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- May 12, Fields-Medalist Maryam Mirzakhani's birthday, is the International Women in Mathematics Day.
- It turns out that today isn't just International Women in Mathematics Day but also International Nurses' Day!
- A conversation with Google administrators & scientists on the future of AI. [27-minute CBS News report]
- Title of an ACM tech talk: "All I Needed to Know about Project Management, I Learned Planning a Wedding"
- Facebook memory from May 12, 2017: On "toman" or "toomaan," Iran's currency unit.
(5) An advisory panel has suggested that all women should start getting regular mammograms at age 40: The panel cites an increase in breast cancer diagnoses among younger women and persistently high death rates among Black women. The previous recommendation was to begin at age 50.
(6) Trump, as you have never seen him before: During his deposition in the E. Jean Carroll rape case, he seems mousy at the start but becomes combative near the end with the female questioner. [48-minute video]
(7) Seeing what a mouse sees: Scientists at Lausanne's Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have developed the CEBRA machine learning algorithm, which they say is capable of predicting information like what mice see when they watch a movie. CEBRA can anticipate unseen movie frames directly from neural signals after an initial training session mapping brain signals and movie characteristics. The algorithm functions well with less than 1% of neurons in the visual cortex, given that region in mice encompasses 0.5 million neurons.
(8) Rachel Maddow's take on the parallel or perhaps intersecting extremism & anti-Semitism in mainstream Republican politics and White-Nationalist mass shootings. [40-minute video]
(9) A former dean of engineering visited UCSB yesterday: Venky Narayanmurti, who was at the helm of our College of Engineering from 1992 to 1998 (before departing for Harvard), gave a talk entitled "Rethinking the Nature and Nurture of Discovery Research: Implications for Science and Technology Policy." The talk was based on Narayanamurti's 2021 book, The Genesis of Technoscientific Revolutions (co-authored by Jeffrey Y. Tsao).
Alarm signals that the US was in trouble with regard to leadership in science & technology innovation were raised in at least three books:
- Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future (2005)
- Rising Above the Gathering Storm Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5 (2010)
- The Perils of Complacency: America at a Tipping Point in Science & Engineering (2020)
The CHIPS and Science Act of 2023, a major accomplishment of the Biden administration, is a good start, but other countries are responding with their own programs of supporting microchips manufacturing.
It is imperative that we view science & technology, or research & development, as parts of a whole that cannot be divided, what was accomplished by the Bell Labs, which was nicknamed "The Idea Factory" in its heyday.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] The Mayans, the Incas, and the Aztecs all mastered hydraulic engineering to provide running water, irrigation, and sewage centuries before the Europeans did. [Center] Facebook memory from May 11, 2021: Persian love couplets by Ghaa'aani (top) and Haatef Esfahaani. [Right] Tonight's Talangor Group talk on the Persian language (see the last item below).
(2) Telecom relay service: The 711 number is now available free of charge in all 50 US states, DC, Puerto Rico, and US territories to assist hearing- or speech-impaired callers with placing text-based phone calls.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Donald Trump on CNN town hall (better described as a campaign rally): January 6 "was a beautiful day."
- You don't let a con-man spread lies and then scramble to fact-check him. All of Trump's lies were predictable.
- Why a car cannot accelerate from 0 to 60 MPH in less than 3 s if its movement forward relies on friction.
- Facebook memory from May 11, 2019: Celebration of my daughter's 25th birthday.
(4) Tonight's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Hossein Samei (Emory U.) spoke under the title "The Persian Language in History." The main talk was preceded by Dr. Kamiar Alaei's short presentation entitled "MAHSA: Medical Alliance for Health Services Abroad," introducing an organization that is trying to document the violence of Iran's security forces and has successfully assisted victims of such violence, including a large number of young men and women who lost one or both eyes to pellet guns targeting street protesters. There were ~70 attendees.
During the 5th & 6th centuries CE, Pahlavi and Persian languages co-existed, with the former being the language of government/bureaucracy/religion and Persian being the conversational language of the people of the Sassanid era. Zoroastrian religious texts were written in Avestan, but it wasn't used by ordinary people.
With the Arab invasion, Arabic took the place of Pahlavi for official/religious/scientific communications during the 7th-9th centuries CE, but Persian continued its life as people's colloquial language. Because of the need to record communications, the already familiar Arabic script was adopted to create a written form for Persian.
Around the same time, Jews had created a Hebrew form of writing for Persian, but with the official adoption of Arabic script, the Hebrew version fell out of favor. Ironically, the adoption of Arabic script saved the Persian language. allowing poetry & literature. as well as translations of Quran, to flourish.
Persian became established, spreading to India, Anatolia, Central Asia, and Afghanistan between the 9th and 19th centuries. In other words, it was transformed from a colloquial language to a written language used in government, bureaucracy, commerce, literature, and even religious texts. In this new role, Persian began interacting with regional languages, borrowing and supplying words from/to these languages. As a result, Persian was referred to as an imperial language without an empire.
Beginning with the 19th century, Persian gradually lost its influence, as the Ottoman Empire used Turkish, India converted to English as the official language, Central Asia fell under the influence of Russia, and Pashtu prevailed in Afghanistan.
With the 20th century neo-nationalism, in which language played a key role, three different forms of Persian emerged: Modern Persian (with elements of European languages) in Iran, Dari in Afghanistan, and Tajiki in Tajikistan. Dari is essentially Persian, but is given a different name for nationalistic reasons. Tajiki is also the same as Persian, with a different script. The spread of literacy transformed Persian and gave it more diverse, local flavors.
What will become of Persian is anyone's guess. As one of the world's six classic languages and a language possessing a vast treasure of poetry as well as literary & philosophical writings, Persian has a strong position.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] UCSB Reads 2023 Program lecture (see the next item below). [Center] The end of programming? (see the last item below). [Right] Tonight's Socrates Think Tank talk by Dr. Rasoul Sorkhabi, entitled "Oil: Black Gold or Black Calamity? Has Oil Hampered Democracy and Progress in Iran?" I did not attend this interesting talk due to conflict with another talk. here's a full recording of the talk.
(2) Tonight's UCSB Reads 2023 talk at Campbell Hall: Award-winning author/journalist Charles Montgomery talked about his book Happy City. The talk was one of the most-enjoyable I have ever attended, intermixing serious ideas about city planning, personal stories, and humorous references. A lively Q&A period and a book-signing event ensued.
In Happy City, Montgomery looks at the intersection between urban design and the emerging field of "happiness studies." The book draws on the work of behavioral economists, psychologists, neuroscientists, and city planners to explore how city planning and personal decisions can have profound implications for social equity, sustainability, and our overall well-being. The book asks us to explore the question: "What kind of living environment makes us happy?"
Emphasizing the importance of living a "connected life" and feeling connected to others is especially relevant as we return from the isolation of the pandemic. Montgomery's references to the positive and negative aspects of life in Santa Barbara and Isla Vista (as well as a sneak mention of Munger Hall) were refreshing, because they showed that he had studied the community in which he was delivering his talk.
Connectedness requires having compact cities, with most of our needs within walking or biking distance, which is the polar opposite of the suburban sprawl afflicting American cities. It doesn't make sense to have to take a 20-minute car ride for shopping, visiting the library, watching a movie, or attending a social function. Suburban sprawl also increases the cost of building/maintaining roads, snow-plowing in cold climates, and utility and transportation networks. [My 4-star review of Happy City]
(3) "Large Language Models and the End of Programming": This was the title of Tuesday's ACM professional-development webinar by Matt Welsh (Founder & CEO of Fixie.ai). There were ~1700 attendees.
A large language model can be viewed as a virtual machine that is programmed in English. The core of computer science is translating ideas to run on a machine. Humans actually suck at this task; fifty years of programming-language research has done little to ease the programming effort. We still write buggy, inefficient programs.
We are close to having AI produce code for us. We already have the CoPilot AI-powered coding assistant; anyone not using it is likely 30-40% less productive. CoPilot reads your mind; you just start typing and it finishes the job. The next wave of AI-powered programming tools will be 10x better. AI-powered coding is the next logical step in the historical progression from hand-coding in assembly language, through writing code in high-level languages, to AI-assisted high-level-language programming.
In the near future, humans will teach AI models how to solve problems directly; we become teachers, not programmers. An estimated 30 million people in the world know how to write programs; AI can bring this skill to everyone else. Writing code sucks, so maybe we should leave it to AI.
[A previous version of the same talk: 64-minute video]
(1) UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran: Dr. Mehrdad Amanat (trained as a civil engineer and later earning a PhD in history from UCLA) presented a hybrid talk (in-person, at UCLA's Dodd Hall 121, and via Zoom, with poor audio/video quality) on Sunday under the title "A Historical Perspective on Violence and Urban Unrest in Modern Iran." The lecture series is directed by Dr. Nayereh Tohidi (Cal State Northridge), who introduced the speaker and moderated the ensuing Q&A. [Recording of the talk (110-minute video)]
The following report is derived from expanding the author's abstract.
During the Qajar era, urban riots were often popular uprisings rooted in social grievances such as famines and grain hoardings. Women responsible for feeding the family were often at the forefront of bread riots. In many other cases, riots were instigated by the powerful who used their lutis for dominance of the urban scene.
According to Encyclopedia Iranica, the term "luti" was first mentioned by the tenth-century poet Kesa'i, who equated the lutis with catamites. For Jalal-al-Din Rumi (13th century) and Obayd Zakani (14th century), lutis were pederasts, and the related word lavati (sodomy) is still used as such. Not every text offers this negative sexual connotation.
Colloquially, the word "luti" has been used in a positive sense to mean "generous" or "selfless" (exemplified by the popular wrestler Gholamreza Takhti) and in a negative sense to mean "thug" or "ruffian" (a prime example being Sha'ban Jafari, who played a role in reinstating Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power in the CIA-directed coup of 1953.
Chivalry has a long history in Iran, and in the pre-modern era, lutis played a role in defending cities against foreign invaders. In this role, lutis were selfless men with a strict code of honor to serve and protect or to carry out divine justice. However, during the Qajar period, this social group underwent a decline and often became an instrument for oppression and tyranny.
Provincial governors, who mostly bought their positions from the central government for economic gain, appointed lutis as their agents and often for extortion. As private militias at the service of rival Shi'i clerics, the lutis fought for control of neighborhoods and mosques or harassed and looted dissidents. Landowners often settled disputes over water and property in the urban scene with the help of lutis. The main victims were the urban poor, women and children, non-Muslims, and nonconformists.
Under Iran's Islamic government, lutis have undergone a transformation into basijis and other paramilitary and extrajudicial oppressors and enforcers of the clerics' wishes, whenever such aims cannot be achieved through lawful means.
Dr. Amanat aimed to draw the boundaries between popular riots and those manipulated by the powerful, both rulers and religious leaders, to protect their interests.
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Former populist Prime Minister Imran Khan arrested in Pakistan.
- Sal Khan's 16-minute TED talk on how AI can transform education.
- Cartoon of the day: Hollywood writers on strike! [Image]
- Baran Nikrah speaks and recites a Persian poem about the importance of self-reliance and solitude.
(3) Why Iran's economy is in tatters: Iran's Islamic government is sabotaging the worth on the country's national currency by selling assets & instituting misguided foreign exchange policies. [Interview in Persian]
(4) Useful info for readers who are AAA members: Trying to watch one of my favorite Sunday morning news programs, I chanced upon a AAA infomercial; has the writers' strike affected news shows as well? I learned from the infomercial that: (1) The AAA phone app helps you summon roadside assistance and then track the location of the service vehicle sent to help you. (2) AAA covers you, not just your car, so you can receive service while driving a different car or even as a passenger in a friend's car.
(5) #WomanLifeFreedom Revolution art-projection: This 3-minute video is from the projection show at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum. The projection was done tonight at UCSB, but unfortunately, I could not attend.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] MIT's Mohammad Alizadeh honored by ACM as the recipient of the 2022 Grace Murray Hopper Award. [Center] Iran's college campuses aren't open to the public (see the next item below). [Right] Samuel Johnson's A Grammar of the English Tongue (see the last item below).
(2) College campuses as public squares: We take it for granted in the US that anyone can go to a college campus to use the library, attend lectures, or participate in cultural/sporting events. In Iran, college campuses are surrounded by high walls/fences and can be entered through gates guarded by security officers. Only those bearing appropriate ID cards are allowed to enter. Recently, Sharif University of Technology Alumni Association announced with glee that members of that association can enter the university's main campus by presenting their membership cards. In the same announcement, members are warned to obey university regulations to avoid the imposition of future restrictions.
(3) More on Teachers' Day in Iran: Iran's Islamic regime confiscated May 2, originally honoring teacher Abulhassan Khan'ali, who was shot to death in front of the parliament building on May 2, 1961, to honor Islamic cleric Morteza Motahhari, who was assassinated on the evening of May 1, 1979. Despite its original secular intent, Iran's Teachers' Day is now officially a religion-specific observance day, which I refuse to honor. World Teachers' Day on October 5 commemorates the anniversary of the adoption of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO recommendation concerning the status of teachers, which sets benchmarks regarding the rights and responsibilities of teachers, and standards for their initial preparation and further education, recruitment, employment, and teaching and learning conditions.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- At summit of tech leaders with Biden administration, the White House signals support for AI regulations.
- Writer Roya Hakakian responds to a tweet accusing her of being a hired agent of Iran's Islamic regime.
- Actor Richard Dreyfuss laments over the lack of governance knowledge among American youth.
- Thirteen-year-old autistic magician dazzles on "Britain's Got Talent." [8-minute video]
- Frank Crane: "You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you'll live in torment if you don't trust enough."
- Facebook memory from May 7, 2021: A deserted UCSB campus under COVID-19. [3-minute video]
(5) I like CNN's Kaitlan Collins: I have watched with delight her rise over the past few years, from a reporter to a popular anchor on the network. Then came her decision to sit down with Donald Trump in a forthcoming CNN Town Hall. Collins was banned from attending an open White House press event, after she asked a couple of tough questions earlier that day. And she was insulted by Trump, like many other female reporters.
(6) Book review: Johnson, Samuel, A Grammar of the English Tongue, unabridged 2-hour audiobook, read by Matt Montanez, Authors Republic, 2018. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Grammar, defined as the art of using words properly, comprises four parts:
*Orthography, or the conventional spelling system of a language; the forms & sounds of letters
*Etymology, or the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed over time (articles; nouns; adjectives; pronouns; regular & irregular verbs; derivation of new words)
*Syntax, or rules for arranging words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language
*Prosody, which comprises orthoepy, rules of pronunciation, and orthometry, laws of versification
This compact grammar of the English language is difficult to take in with just one reading or listening. So, I have bookmarked the volume on Project Gutenberg (free, in multiple formats) for future reference.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Hair slide in the shape of Iran map, worn by some Iranian women protesting compulsory hijab laws. [Center] Iran-related news memes from IranWire. [Right] Expressive book spines.
(2) As Seditionist-in-Chief walks free and even aspires to become US President again, four of his Proud-Boys January 6 foot soldiers are convicted of seditious conspiracy, which carries decades of jail time.
(3) We just had the eight warmest years on record, even though we had a cooling La Nina for the past 3 years: With El Nino on the way, even warmer years are ahead of us.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Despite threats by authorities & security forces, Iranian women continue to defy compulsory hijab laws.
- Mass-shooting at a Texas outlet mall leads to fatalities and nine people sent to area hospitals.
- Quotable: "Student is not a container you have to fill but a torch you have to light up." ~ Albert Einstein
- Facebook memory from May 6, 2019: Coronation hype vs. "royal baby" arrival of 4 years ago.
- Facebook memory from May 6, 2018: Family picnic in the park, the day after the wedding.
- Facebook memory from May 6, 2015: A super-funny joke, in English and Persian.
(5) "The Environmental Footprint of Global Food Production": This was the title of Thursday's hybrid (in-person/Zoom) webinar at UCSB's Institute for Energy Efficiency by Dr. Benjamin S. Halpern, who is a faculty member at UCSB's Bren School and also directs UCSB's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis.
While Dr. Halpern's focus was on the environmental impacts of food production, there are also other considerations such as animal welfare, nutrition, social justice, and impact on local communities. We can all help mitigate these environmental impacts by taking small steps such as eating less farmed meat, eat more mussels/oysters/clams, or eating invasive species where possible.
Here is the same talk, given in mid-March 2023 at UBC (57-minute video).
(6) I recently learned of Google's Quantum AI Campus in Santa Barbara: The SB operation is centered on hardware and architecture, with software operations being in Los Angeles. [Virtual tour]
(7) Apologists for Iran's brutal Islamic regime infiltrate US academic institutions: Mohammad Jafar Mahalati, former mullah and UN Ambassador of Iran's Islamic regime, is now a professor of Middle East and North African Studies at Oberlin College in Ohio. He is being accused by families of victims of mass executions of political prisoners in the summer of 1988 of helping to cover up the Islamists' human-rights abuses and crimes against humanity. A petition to be sent to Oberlin College's President on behalf of academics around the world asks that Mahalati's role in Islamic Republic of Iran's crimes be the subject of a robust and transparent third-party investigation.
[Petition for signature by academics]
(8) Execution spree in Iran: Over the last 10 days, 42 people, including 22 Baluchi minorities have been executed. Many of these were accused of drug smuggling, but Iran's Islamic regime is known for manufacturing drug-related charges to get rid of dissidents.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday cartoon, carried over from yesterday: Early acupuncture. [Top center & right] Talangor Group talk (see the next item below). [Bottom left] A talk on the joy of math (see item 3 below). [Bottom center] Late-night talk shows go dark as a result of the first Writers Guild of America strike since 2007. [Bottom right] John L. Hennessy's interview at Cal Tech (see the last item below).
(2) Thursday night's Talangor Group talk: Dr. Hashem Etminan (retired senior researcher, Geoscience Australia) spoke under the title "A Tale of Two Mines: From Sarcheshmeh to Sungun." There were ~75 attendees.
Copper was instrumental in starting human civilizations as the first metal. In Iran, copper objects of age 5000-7000 years have been found. With increased use of electricity, particularly from renewable sources, copper is assuming greater importance. Iran became a major player on the world stage with the discovery of Sarcheshmeh copper mine in the 1960s.
Sarcheshmeh in the southeastern Kerman Province and Sungun (aka Songon) in the northeastern East Azerbaijan Province are Iran's most-important copper mines. Deposits in each of these two mines are estimated to be 1-2 billion tons of ore, of purity grade 0.6-0.7 percent. Both of these major copper mines are located along the Zagros Mountain Chain, which includes many other copper mines as well.
Dr. Etminan described the above two major copper mines in Iran and his personal involvement in exploration and extraction operations at the two sites. As large as Sarcheshmeh and Sungun are, the Chuquicamata mine in northern Chile is 10 times larger. The latter is now the second-largest open-pit copper mine in the world, after the Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah. [Speaker's Facebook page]
(3) "Mathematics for Human Flourishing": This was the title of the 11th Annual SciTrek Lecture at UCSB by Dr. Francis Su (Harvey Mudd College). SciTrek promotes the synergies between science inquiry, language arts, and the Next Generation Science Standards.
According to Dr. Su, math is more than just a way to describe the world, a theme promoted in his book by the same title as today's talk. Math is a deeply human enterprise that fulfills basic human longings, and when properly engaged, it builds virtues like persistence and creativity. Reframing math around these virtues offers a way to see math as an intrinsic part of life, and to teach it in a more inclusive way. An incarcerated friend has helped Dr. Su see this more clearly.
(4) A Conversation with John L. Hennessy, Chairman of Alphabet, parent company of Google: An ACM Turing Award winner & former President of Stanford University, Hennessy talked this afternoon with physicist & Cal Tech President Thomas F. Rosenbaum.
After a brief introduction to Hennessy's illustrious career in academia and industry, including effortless moving back and forth between education and technical leadership, Hennessy was asked questions about his efforts on behalf of the RISC architectural concept, which included founding of MIPS to commercialize the ideas and to quiet the nay-sayers.
Hennessy also opined on the ongoing research on generative AI, which he characterized as a fast-growing technology, even overshadowing microprocessors, personal computers, the Internet, and the Web. The technology has far exceeded what we thought it should be able to do, which has necessitated reflection on whether or not we should continue the current development pace.
Another topic was the importance of ethics in educating our next-generation leaders in science, technology, health care, and politics. The most-challenging ethical problems are on slippery slopes. Few people do something that is obviously unethical. The industry is highly competitive today, so any pause in research must be done in the framework of "trust but verify."
Hennessy is an avid reader, often going back to door-stoppers such as Les Miserables. He said that one tends to appreciate great books more as one gets older. We read many books as high-schoolers, but they don't resonate with us at that age. Hennessy has written the following book, which I look forward to reading.
Hennessy, John L., Leading Matters: Lessons from My Journey, Stanford Business Books, 2018.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday cartoon: The dinosaurs' last supper. [Center] Equity for Women in Science (see the next item below). [Right] Cover image of Science (see the last item below).
(2) An analysis of research papers finds differences in article production and recognition for women scientists: Compared with men, women are underrepresented in authorship lists. On average, women publish about one fewer article per year than men. When women appear in authorship lists, they tend to be underrepresented in first-author (primary writer) and last-author (senior conceptualizer and resource provider) positions. Articles with women in dominant authorship positions (first, last, or solo author) receive fewer citations than do articles with men in analogous roles. [Harvard University Press, 2023, 272 pp.]
(3) Here comes the expected push-back against the suggestion that we should pause AI development for six months: Microsoft Chief Scientific Officer says AI development must be accelerated, not paused.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Science magazine editorial: Judicial interference with mifepristone (or anti-science activism gone too far).
- Science magazine opinion piece: Research universities hurt students by undervaluing teaching & service.
- A ceremonial winery for Rome's nobility featured wine fountains & private rooms, perhaps for dining.
- Words of wisdom: It is better to be an optimist who is sometimes wrong than a pessimist who is always right.
(5) Science magazine's special section on the Zoonomia project: "Mammals are one of the most diverse classes of animals, ranging both in size, across many orders of magnitude, and in shape ... Understanding when, how, and under what selective pressures this variation has developed has been of interest since the dawn of science." The special section's table of contents within the issue of April 28, 2023, follows.
- Genomics expands the mammalverse
- Seeing humans through an evolutionary lens
- Mammalian evolution of human cisregulatory elements and transcription factor binding sites
- Comparative genomics of Balto, a famous historic dog, captures lost diversity of 1920s sled dogs
- Relating enhancer genetic variation across mammals to complex phenotypes using machine learning
- A genomic timescale for placental mammal evolution
- Evolutionary constraint and innovation across hundreds of placental mammals
- Leveraging base-pair mammalian constraint to understand genetic variation and human disease
- Integrating gene annotation with orthology inference at scale
- The functional and evolutionary impacts of human-specific deletions in conserved elements
- Three-dimensional genome rewiring in loci with human accelerated regions
- Insights into mammalian TE diversity through the curation of 248 mammalian genome assemblies
- The contribution of historical processes to contemporary extinction risk in placental mammals
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Teachers Day in Iran (see the next item below). [Top center] US bank failures over the past two decades (NYT chart): Are we headed for a repeat of 2008 and its ensuing Great Recession? [Top right] Last light at the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm, Woodburn, Oregon (Andrew Martin Photography). [Bottom left] A lagoon island in western Greece: Aitoliko is a small, densely-populated island which is connected to the mainland by two 19th-century stone-arch bridges. [Bottom center & right] A California dry lake is coming back to life: Tulare Lake, once four times the size of Lake Tahoe, had several ports and a ferry before it was converted to farmland decades ago. Now floodwaters are rushing back to fill it.
(2) International Teachers' Day is on Oct. 5: In Iran, Teachers' Day is celebrated on May 2 (Ordibehesht 12), coinciding with the anniversary of the passing of Ayatollah Morteza Mottahari (in 1979). I appreciate my former students sending me thank-you messages today, but choosing religion-specific dates for such honors is against my beliefs. I observe secular, international occasions.
As Iran's Islamic regime pays lip service to the high stature of teachers, Iranian educators are protesting their low pays and repression of both staff & students at schools, not to mention mass poisonings at girls' schools.
(3) Worldwide Web turns 30: When Turing-Award winner Tim Berners-Lee persuaded Switzerland's CERN to release the Web idea into public domain, a revolutionary communication tool was born which is being used today by 2/3 of the global population to visit many millions of sites daily.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Turing-Award winner Geoffrey Hinton, "a godfather of AI," quits Google to speak freely about the risks of AI.
- May Day and Teachers Day in Iran see widespread labor strikes and protests against economic hardships.
- Facebook memory from May 2, 2015: Rene Descartes on the need for scientists to build up from scratch.
- Facebook memory from May 2, 2014: Beautiful instrumental tar-and-tombak Persian music.
(5) How fast does electricity travel in a wire? Electricity travels at nearly the speed of light, which is 300,000 km/s or about 1 billion km/hr. However, if the question refers to the speed of electrons moving along a conductor (drift speed), that speed is significantly less and depends on the conducting material. A typical drift speed is about 0.01 cm/s or roughly 0.4 m/hr. When you connect a light bulb to battery terminals using 0.4 m wires, it doesn't take the bulb an hour to light up. Rather, it lights up almost instantaneously (after about 1 ns).
(6) Explaining some of the buzzwords of AI: It's hard to follow the day's news without hearing or reading something about GPT 4, the latest version of a Generative Pre-trained Transformer, designed by the private research laboratory Open AI. Google's version of the same concept is named "Bard." A transformer in AI speak is a deep-learning model that adopts the mechanism of self-attention, differentially weighting the significance of each part of the input data. Introduced in 2017 by a team at Google Brain, transformers are becoming favored for natural-language-processing (NLP) problems.
[Introduction] Coming back from San Diego, I took the train from Van Nuys, arriving in my hometown around noon, with plans to attend Santa Barbara's Earth Day Festival in Alameda Park, downtown. Just before arriving in SB, I shot this 2-minute video from the train's window.
[Top left] Sponsored by Commuity Environmental Council, the 2023 SB Earth Day was back at Alameda Park, with its usual diverse programs, activities, and, of course, food offerings.
[Top center] The two-day program included performances and ceremonies on two different stages.
[Top right] One exhibit that caught my eyes featured a company marketing beehives and local natural honey.
[Bottom left] Many different kinds of e-bikes were on display, both recreational & transportation models.
[Bottom center] A large variety of electric cars were on display, including severl Teslas. The exhibits included a couple of the earliest models, that were ahead of their times.
[Bottom right] Besides electric cars, an electric bulldozer and an unusual personal vehicle were included.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] This afternoon at Carlsbad Flower Field. [Top center] Finally, a new emoji for parents! [Top right] Photos from my niece's birthday party at Sadaf Restaurant in Encino. [Bottom left] Parking area for FedEx planes in Victorville, California. [Bottom center] Explaining the debt ceiling: In about a month, the US government will run out of cash to pay its bills. To raise money, it must sell new treasury securities beyond the current debt ceiling of $31.4 trillion, which it's not authorized to do. [Bottom right] Yours truly, in front of wall art at Sadaf Restaurant in Encino.
(2) Iran's corrupt economy: Companies under direct supervision of Supreme Leader Khamenei are making a fortune by selling communications services to Iranian citizens, as the government bans or restricts access.
(3) Crocodile tears: Sergey Lavrov, the hypocritical foreign minister of a country that makes journalists disappear or sends them to chill out in Siberia, doesn't like Fox's firing of Tucker Carlson, a media darling in Russia, famous for his pro-Russia, anti-Ukraine rants.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Neighborly Texan: A man killed 5 neighbors & injured 3, when he was asked to stop firing a gun in his yard.
- Colorado, Washington State, and Maryland are poised to enact major gun-control laws.
- The climate crisis may resurrect sailing ships: Today's cargo ships are some of the dirtiest vehicles around.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 29, 2021: Anoushka Shankar's Zoom webinar.
(5) Royalist & Islamist cults: Many Reza Pahlavi followers call him King Reza II, despite his repeated claims that he does not want to become king of Iran. The claims are obviously insincere, or he would have disowned such followers. Meanwhile, anti-democratic Islamist forces are talking openly about Khamenei's son, Mojtaba (Khamenei II?), as the next black-turbaned. Supreme Leader. A few mention the clueless President Raisi as Khamenei's successor. Neither option will improve democracy, transparency, or human rights in Iran, currently near the bottom of world's nations, according to published indices. [Images]
(6) No laughing matter: The White House Correspondents Dinner was filled with jokes, including Biden making fun of his own age, but he also raised the serious matters that the press is a pillar of democracy, not people's enemy, and that he is working hard to earn the release of Americans wrongfully detained abroad.
(7) Zoonomia Project: A collaboration of more than 100 scientists has yielded insights into evolution and other processes by analyzing the genomes of 240 mammals. The findings can reveal how long-ago populations diversified. The data may also predict extinctions to come. Even a single organism's genome contains traces of its species' past population size; that information can be used to assess which animals are at risk today.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Kayaking at San Diego's Shelter Island Marina. [Center & Right] Hiking this afternoon at San Diego's Torrey Pines State Nature Reserve.
(2) The horrors of war & earthquake in Syria: Earthquake-damaged regions came under artillery fire 4 days after the devastating quake. [13-minute CBS News video]
(3) The AI Dilemma: Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, co-founders of Center for Humane Technology, update their earlier warnings about dangers of social media, presented in the documentary "The Social Dilemma," extending them to AI. This important presentation was given on March 9, 2023, shortly before the launch of GPT-4.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Abortion-ban legislation fails to pass in Republican-dominated South Carolina and Nebraska legislatures.
- Grid-connected energy storage systems: State-of-the-art and emerging technologies (Proc. IEEE article).
- Persian music: A wonderful rendition of the song "Darya, Darya." [3-minute video]
- Math puzzle: What is the limit of f(n) = (1 – 1/2^2) (1 – 1/3^2) ... (1 – 1/n^2) as n tends to infinity?
(5) Social Processes of Online Hate: This is the subject of a full-day conference at UCSB's Mosher Alumni House on May 11, 2023, under the auspices of Center for Information Technology & Society and the Arthur N. Rupe Chair in the Social Effects of Mass Media. [PDF program]
(6) Solar power stations in space: On January 3, 2023, SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched a small experimental satellite into a polar orbit, where the spacecraft is always in sunlight. Funded by California real-estate developer Donald Bren & built by Cal Tech, the spacecraft will demonstrate the feasibility of collecting solar power in space and beaming it to Earth. A part of the spacecraft's assembly contains samples of 32 types of photovoltaic cells intended to determine which one is most-efficient and robust. The emergence of cheaper and more-efficient photovoltaic cells and the reduced cost of space launches make the scheme competitive for the first time.
(7) Company builds facility that lifts 24-ton bricks to store energy: Switzerland-based start-up Energy Vault has broken ground on two facilities in Texas and China (near Shanghai) to test whether we can store energy by raising hundreds of 24-ton bricks made of compressed dirt and releasing energy by lowering them. This type of mechanical energy storage isn't new, but Energy Vault is convinced it can make the scheme work.
(8) A rare unanimity: There's no conservative-liberal divide on the US Supreme Court when it comes to opposing calls for a new, enforceable ethics code.
(9) Humanity at its most-important fork in the road: This 168-minute conversation between MIT physicist/AI-researcher Max Tegmark and Lex Fridman is both depressing and exhilarating. Tegmark is one of the initiators of a letter that urges tech leaders to pause the training of AI models larger than GPT 4 for six months to give us a chance to think about ways to avoid possible negative consequences of super-intelligent AI that worry many researchers. [My review of Tegmark's Life 3.0]
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Throwback Thursday: The popular Shemshak Ski Resort near Tehran, Iran, 1971. [Center] Best-preserved 17th-century ship: The Swedish warship Vasa sank in 1628 less than a mile into its maiden voyage and was recovered from the sea floor nearly intact after 333 years. [Right] Wednesday night's talk on Charles Darwin (see the last item below).
(2) Margo Seltzer of UBC named 2023-2024 ACM Athena Lecturer: Initiated in 2006, the Award, with a $25,000 honorarium, celebrates women researchers who have made fundamental contributions to computer science. Seltzer is recognized for foundational research in file and storage systems, pioneering research in data provenance, impactful software contributions in Berkeley DB, and tireless dedication to service and mentoring.
(3) RIP Harry Belafonte [1927-2023]: The legendary folk singer, actor, and civil-rights activist died at 96 of congestive heart failure. [13-minute CBS News interview/bio from 1997]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- A partial listing of financial corruption cases in Iran's Islamic government. [5-minute video]
- We need plans to allow people to enjoy our super-blooms, without destroying them.
- Forget about opioid addiction: The stealth campaign to get kids addicted to chess seems to be working!
- Quote of the day: "Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of mind." ~ Robert G. Ingersoll
(5) A comprehensive report on why a Concorde supersonic passenger plane crashed in 2000, after 30 years of spotless safety record, killing 109 on board and 4 at the hotel which it hit on the ground. [30-minute video]
(6) Socrates Think Tank Talk: Last night, Dr. Hessam Nowzari, DDS, talked about "Charles Darwin." Dr. Nowzari is a highly-sought-after speaker, with numerous talks and other material on his YouTube channel. There were ~115 attendees.
Much has been said and written about Darwin, arguably one of the most-influential scientists of all time. His scientific contributions are well-known, but Dr. Nowzari placed greater emphasis on his humanity, kindness, generosity, and meticulousness.
Darwin's 10-year-old daughter suffered greatly before dying from illness, which affected him greatly and made him wonder about the purpose of life, famously saying that there is no justice, no morals, and no logic in nature. He was raised in an enlightened family, a fact that contributed to his world view: His grandmother encouraged everyone to pursue education and his grandfather declared that there are no differences among individuals.
Darwin was only 22 when he embarked on a 5-year journey of discovery. At the time, the world was believed to be only ~4000 years old. When he saw the diversity of existing life, noticed the large number of extinct species, and found evidence of marine life atop mountains, he concluded that at least millions of years would have been needed to go through so much change. Millions of years proved to be too conservative, but it was a major improvement over thousands of years!
Darwin noticed similarities among a multitude of species, coming to believe that all beings have a common root. The term "evolution" predates Darwin, but he formulated the notion of "natural selection" after Alfred Wallace got in touch with him in the late 1850s. The two began exchanging ideas and Darwin later wrote On the Origin of Species, one of the world's most-important and most-read books. It is noteworthy that genetics did not yet exist at the time.
Darwin philosophized that he wanted to be taught how to think not be fed information. He disputed the existence of distinct races and believed that all forms of life are connected. His last book was about the "lowly" earthworm, which he praised and basked in its magnificence. Darwin was universally loved for his work and personality, so much so that upon his death, a large number of individuals from all walks of life wanted to offer fawning eulogies.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Hall-of-Famer James Taylor is back on the road for his 2023 US Summer Tour! [Center] New Yorker cartoon of the day: Suggested use for Bed Bath & Beyond discount coupons, now that the chain is closing due to bankruptcy. [Right] Talk on "Iran Earthquakes" (see the last item below).
(2) Leave the science to politicians: "Leaders take the bull by the horns and make decisions for themselves. They don't subcontract out their leadership to health bureaucrats like Dr. Fauci." ~ Gov. Ron DeSantis
(3) Feminist Assessment of Charters and Women's-Rights Bills Put Forward After the #WomanLifeFreedom Panel discussion, featuring Mahdieh Golroo, Nayereh Tohidi, & Mansoureh Shojaee. June 3, 2023, 11:00 AM.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- The five Lagrange points & their relationship to where James Webb Space Telescope is positioned in space.
- Soccer fans in Tehran praise Reza Shah and curse the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
- An explanation of why Airbus A380 was a flop: In part, because the hub/spokes model ceased to work.
- English for Persian speakers: Some common and useful English idioms. [16-minute video]
(5) "Privacy, The Backstory": This was the title of a UCSB informational webinar, held this morning, with instructors Becky Steiger (Campus Privacy Officer) and Sara Cook.
Privacy isn't just about data, it's a human right, whose roots can be traced back to ancient philosophers. It is mentioned both in the US Constitution (9th and 14th Amendments, in particular) and in California's Constitution. [The Periodic Table of Amendments]
First, some history. Roe-v.-Wade (1973) confirmed the right to privacy implied in the 14th Amendment. Five decades later, Dobbs-v.-Jackson (2022) reversed some of the earlier interpretations of "unenumerated rights" and redefined the scope of privacy protection under the 14th Amendment. A 1927 Virginia law allowed psychiatric patients to be sterilized, which served as a model for Nazi Germany's eugenics laws.
A common question regarding privacy is: If I have nothing to hide, why would I care about data collected on me? This is the wrong question. One should ask if s/he would be comfortable with the most intimate aspects of his/her life being monitored and logged. Location data, in particular, is sensitive data and its is highly prized by commercial entities. FTC-v.-Kochava dealt with the sale of geolocation data.
Another set of sensitive data appears in educational records. FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974) is the most-commonly applied to UC. It covers educational records, including secret dossiers, invisible to students and parents, assembled by some schools. These include secret admissions files, which schools tend to destroy nowadays, rather than risk having them being requested by students and parents. Any school that receives funding through the US government is required to comply with FERPA.
Here are some of the other applicable laws/procedures:
IPA (Information Practices Act of 1977)
ECP (Electronic Communications Policy), which arose from faculty concerns that their e-mails were monitored
PISI Report of 2013 (UC Privacy and Information Security Initiative)
GDPR & other international regulations (commonly apply to EAP and to a lesser extent admissions)
(6) Socrates Think Tank talk of April 5, 2023: I was unable to attend the talk of three weeks ago by Dr. Manuel Berberian entitled "Iran's Earthquakes," so I asked for and got a link to the 205-minute recording, based on which I prepared this brief report.
Dr. Berberian began with the question of why Iran's quakes are so destructive and lead to massive casualties. He then wondered about the vulnerability of key installations (atomic power generation facilities and the like) to earthquakes, given that they all happen to be on fault lines.
Earthquakes are caused by the movement of tectonic plates, with quakes occurring at the plate boundaries. Weather forecasting and prediction of volcanic eruptions, difficult as they are, can be done today with some precision. Earthquake prediction is still in its infancy. A quake's first shock wave travels at 6 km/s. The second shock wave travels at 4 km/s. The difference of shock-wave arrival times allows scientists to figure out the quake's epi-center and also be able to issue early warnings in some cases.
The behavior of a fault line is like a rechargeable battery. The fault line is charged, and after pressure is built up, it releases part of the stored energy. Three well-known historic quakes are: 1906 in San Francisco (7.9); 1923 in Japan (est. 7.9-8.2), with an accompanying tsunami; 1925 in Santa Barbara (6.5-6.8). The first building regulations to ensure strength and safety appeared 3773 years ago as part of Hammurabi's code. It envisaged penalties, up to and including death sentence, for an inadequately built structure causing deaths. In 1927, the US developed the first modern building code for quake safety.
Mass casualties in recent Turkey/Syria twin 7.8-magnitude quakes in an area with ~15 million residents make us wonder about the fate of the city of Tehran with about the same population in a much smaller area. Based on extrapolation from past major quakes near Tehran, the next major one is overdue. No one knows how the numerous residential towers and other high-rises built in Tehran over the past few decades will fare in a magnitude-8.0 quake.
In Turkey, too, based on a major quake in 1822, such a strong quake in the same region was fully expected. Corruption and favoritism led to building codes not being enforced, which produced the catastrophic results. Specialists from many world countries are at work in Turkey to assist the survivors and to study the quakes with regard to lessons for the future, given that 52,000 died, tens-of-thousands were injured or displaced, and 100,000+ structures were destroyed. In a comparative assessment, Turkey fares better than Iran with respect to several indicators, including GDP, corruption index, year of enacting the first seismic code, and number of revisions to the code.
Over the past four decades, Iran's rulers have not learned any lessons from quake destructions and have not developed an understanding of how to deal with such disasters. Crisis management skills are totally lacking. Destruction caused by minor and medium quakes indicate that building codes have not been followed. Iran continues to build structures on fault lines, despite recommendations to the contrary.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] This example of Persian Sassanid art in Kermanshah, Iran, has endured ~1700 years of wind and rain. [Center] Fort of the Narin Castle in Meybod, Iran, built between 2000 and 6000 year ago. [Right] Stone carving depicting the triumph of Shapur I in 260 CE, Naqshe Rostam, Iran.
(2) Major shake-ups in network news media: Fox News fires Tucker Carlson, its host with the most viewers. Don Lemon is ousted at CNN after 17 years.
(3) Math aversion in the US: In some countries, elevator control panels use the numbers –1, –2, etc. for floors below the ground floor, which is floor 0. The notation is unambiguous and makes perfect sense. In the US, we use vague designations such as B (basement), BB, B1, B2, P (parking), P1, P2, G (garage), and similarly uninformative or confusing labels, because we are afraid of negative numbers. So afraid, in fact, that in B1 & B2 or P1 & P2, we have essentially replaced the minus sign with the letter B or P. We also have floor 13 missing in many high-rises, but that's a different story.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- China reverses earlier statement and accepts that ex-Soviet states are sovereign nations.
- Late-night talk-show hosts have a field day with the firing of Tucker Carlson at Fox and Don Lemon at CNN.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 24, 2020: These women will never have to take another group photo!
- Facebook memory from Apr. 24, 2017: Today is Holocaust and Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 24, 2016: Google's automatic photo-indexing capabilities are scary.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 24, 2015: Elizabeth Warren's journey from a janitor's daughter to Senator.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 24, 2012: The state of a quantum-computer prototyping project (humor).
- Facebook memory from Apr. 24, 2009: Parhami Family whitewater adventure, August 2007.
(5) Is Mount Everest really the world's highest point? It depends on how you define "highest point." Our common measure is "relative to sea level," but sea level is not the same around the world; it is higher (more distant from Earth's center) at the equator and lower at the poles. If we use "relative to Earth's center," then Mount Everest will rank 10th, with 8 of the 9 taller mountains being in South America and one in Africa.
(6) Iran lobbies in the US: This article and its embedded 31-minute video are about a year old, but they provide an excellent overview of Iran's lobbying arms in the US. Unfortunately, these lobbies have been quite popular in the US media, academia, and think tanks.
(7) Final thought for the day: This year's changes in baseball are expected to make it competitive with other sports and a host of entertainment alternatives. Because of the introduction of a pitch clock, which limits the time available to the pitcher between pitches, the average game duration, which had been growing from 2:35 hr in 1980 to 3:08 hr in 2022, is down to 2:39 hr. A host of other changes has increased the batting average from 0.231 to 0.247, making the games more entertaining. [NYT]
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Intricate paper sculpture by @juliaibbini. [Top center] We should all send checks in the amount of "thoughts and prayers" to politicians who ask for campaign donations, but do zilch to enact common-sense gun laws. [Top right] Before computerized traffic control: This photo from the 1970s shows a street in Chernivtsi, Soviet Ukraine, where a person sitting in a traffic booth controlled the traffic lights. [Bottom left] Cover feature of CACM (see the next item below). [Bottom center] Vehicles driving/parking on UCSB campus walkways (see item 3 below). [Bottom right] Tonight's wonderful performance by Artemis jazz group: Comprised of pianist and musical director Renee Rosnes, clarinetist Anat Cohen, tenor-saxophonist Melissa Aldana, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, bassist Noriko Ueda, drummer Allison Miller, and vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant, the acclaimed jazz group performed at UCSB's Campbell Hall tonight (8-minute video).
(2) Protecting autonomous cars from phantom attacks: This cover feature of CACM, issue of April 2023, asserts that distinguishing between real and projected/perceived objects is a limitation of AI models, particularly object detectors. This limitation can be exploited by attackers to mislead object detectors embedded in commercial driver assistance systems to induce an undesired/dangerous reaction from an autonomous vehicle.
(3) Vehicles abusing UCSB campus walkways: I used to document on my "Pet Peeves" Web page abuses of UCSB campus walkways by vehicles of all kinds (courier services, vendors, campus vehicles, and faculty/staff/students parking near buildings, when authorized parking spots were all taken). I essentially gave up on reporting these violations, when they led to little action on the part of the campus administration. I photographed this car on the sidewalk between UCen and Music Building, on Friday, April 14, 2023.
(4) [Notes from UCSB ECE Summit 2023] Technology and healthcare:
Nearly 22 years ago, on September 7, 2001, a momentous transition occurred in the application of technology to health care. Using Computer Motion's Zeus robot, a team of surgeons in New York removed a 68-year-old woman's gall-bladder as she lay thousands of miles away in Strasbourg, France. Dr. Yulun Wang, a founder of World Telehealth Initiative
and a serial-entrepreneur who earned a PhD from UCSB, was an active participant in pulling off this first robotic surgery. He gave a keynote talk at the 2023 ECE Summit under the title "An Entrepreneur's Perspective on the Convergence of Surgical Robotics & Telemedicine," painting a rosy picture of the outcomes.
I share in the view that such a convergence is indeed inevitable, technically feasible, and socially desirable. I am, however, quite pessimistic about the role of humans in the loop. Experience from electronic health records in use today indicates that the most-advanced technology cannot compensate for disengaged, impassive, or poorly-trained healthcare workers. Currently, a patient must remind his/her doctor or nurse about medications, history of illnesses, allergies, and other personal details that are all recorded in the healthcare provider's database and can be accessed with a few clicks.
Part of the problem may be the poorly-designed interfaces in use, which complicate access. Text-based data entry into healthcare records is also at fault. Technophobia possibly plays a role as well, although this latter problem is fixable by standard, friendly interfaces whose features are taught in medical/nursing schools.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Was Fox News dumb to settle Dominion's lawsuit? (see the next item below) [Top center] Letter from Islamic Republic of Iran's Revolutionary Court, dated March 5, 1980, summoning ten music stars to Evin Prison for questioning (credit: Dr. Farzaneh Hemmasi). [Top right] Useful gadget: I bought this set of coasters & jack as tools for moving furniture and other heavy items. [Bottom left] Built around 1459, Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur Rajasthan is one of India's largest forts. [Bottom center] Iran art & architecture: Golestan Palace in Tehran. [Bottom right] Another beautiful California super-bloom (photo by Ryan Resatka).
(2) Pundits opine that Fox News was stupid to agree to pay Dominion $787 million to settle the latter's defamation lawsuit: I'm not so sure that the settlement was dumb. Remember that Fox News resorted to lying because it was afraid of losing its audience to Newsmax and OAN. Well, Dominion has pending lawsuits against the latter two, who, unlike Fox, do not have deep pockets to settle and will likely go bankrupt as a result of damages they will have to pay. So, in a single action, Fox settled its own lawsuit without apologizing or admitting guilt and buried its main competition!
(3) US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse discloses Justice Clarence Thomas's financial entanglements with Republican billionaire mega-donor Harlan Crow, without appropriate, legally-required disclosures.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Congressman Salud Carbajal responds to my request for support of Iran's #WomanLifeFreedom uprising.
- Oxygen gives us life, but there's a lot more to know about this vital gas.
- Spectacular snow flow: Bijan Pass on Dena Mountain, Iran. [2-minute video]
- Math puzzle: What is the maximum number of regions formed by 6 straight lines on a plane?
(5) "Safari Dar Pish Ast": This is the title of a 120-minute documentary film about the funeral of the Iranian singing superstar Hayedeh on January 28, 1990. This film was mentioned by Dr. Farzaneh Hemmasi in her ethnomusicology talk at UCSB on Wednesday, April 19, 2023.
And here is a holographic re-creation of the late Hayedeh for a Manoto TV Nowruz program.
(6) Book bans are on the rise in the US: According to new research, there was a 28% increase in banned books over the second half of the 2022-2023 school year compared with the first half.
(7) India will overtake China as the most-populous country by mid-2023, according to UN data: India has a wide gender gap and a significantly lower per-capita GDP, so the role-reversal in population may not reduce China's power or influence on the world stage.
(8) Jericho is the world's oldest walled city: Currently situated in Palestine, Jericho contains evidence of stone fortifications that are ~9000 years old as well as 11-millenia-old traces of habitation.
(9) The wide-bandgap wars: Whichever candidate technology, gallium-nitride or silicon-carbide, prevails, the winner will cut greenhouse gases by billions of tons per year.
(1) Tonight's Talangor Group Talk: Dr. Saeed Paivandi talked under the title "The Failure of Iran's Educational System." There were ~80 attendees. The main talk was preceded by a brief presentation by Saeed Ghaffari, introducing the Yaran Group, which has members in the US & Iran and is active in social/educational NGO projects in Iran (yaranculture.org).
I heard Dr. Paivandi speak on this topic as part of UCLA's Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran (my report of January 8, 2023). Another previous talk by Dr. Paivandi was in the context of Iran Academia's MOOC on Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality (my report of August 30, 2021).
Dr. Paivandi observed that Islamization efforts began soon after the 1979 Revolution, but they weren't successful at all, as admitted by many of the regime officials, including the Supreme Leader himself. Internationally, education has the triple goals of transfer of cultural/scientific traditions, participation in societal order/institutions, and preparing the youth for entering the job market. In Iran, these goals take a back seat to Islamic indoctrination, with the aim of training obedient citizens.
Even before the Islamic Revolution, there were actors who criticized secular education, which they viewed as spreading the Western influence. Iran's new educational system was born in the 19th century, in direct conflict with traditional religious schools, leading to strong opposition from the clergy. Compromises were made to appease the clergy, but modernization continued unabated.
Closed governments such as Iran's view their educational systems as tools for controlling and brainwashing the next generation to be loyal to the regime. Their systems infuse the goals and curricula from above. Keywords and key-phrases in the discussion of Islamization of education include Islamic society, Islamic culture, religious morals, countering the Western influence, preventing deviance resulting from the Western culture, establishing religious norms (e.g., hijab, prayer rites, and textbook revisions).
The so-called "Cultural Revolution" of 1980 brought with it only superficial changes in clothing and behavior. Ideological revisions based on a new law passed in 1987 prioritized religious devotion over knowledge acquisition. A fundamental-changes document issued in 2012 enumerated all that the regime aspired to implement in the country's educational system.
As a remedy to the admitted defeat, the regime introduced a new course and textbook entitled "Islamic Lifestyle." School textbooks in Iran do not promote peace, but encourage conflict and fighting. Almost every textbook contains omissions and misinformation. For example, some heroes of the Constitutional Revolution are painted as villains or dismissed as "Westoxified." Textbooks and curricula are regressive, emphasizing old history and Islamic personalities, with the clergy emerging as heroes.
Currently, there are two schools of thought about what to do. Conservatives believe that Islamization has not gone far enough and that more Islamic content must be added. Moderate forces assert that too much pressure on the youth can backfire and more subtle forms of Islamic education are called for.
The latter group cites resistance by students, particularly girls, who want to get rid of restrictions on clothing (style & colors). The emergence of open international communication, facilitated by technology, is bound to deal the Islamic regime's Islamization plans for education additional blows in the coming years.
Related book: Women, Islam, and Education in Iran, Routledge, 2019.
Related article: "Seven Questions on the Meaning of Islamizing Social Sciences in Iran," 2015, in Persian.
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Gun violence: Man shoots little girl & her parents after he got mad that a basketball rolled into his yard.
- This 4-minute video clip showing fissure among Iran's ruling class is 2 years old, but it's still relevant.
- An interesting discussion on free will: Is it real or an illusion we humans invented? [10-minute video]
- The secret of life in just six words: Before middle age, do not fear; after middle age, do not regret.
- English lesson for Persian speakers: Five English words, explained in a fun way. [15-minute video]
(3) Imagine knocking on the wrong house door and getting shot in the head: This self-defense obsession has gone too far. Sixteen-year-old Ralph Yarl went to pick up his younger siblings, but knocked on the wrong door. The house's owner shot him in the head through a locked glass door, claiming that he did it in self-defense.
(4) Not giving exams saves lives (humor): The Grandmother Syndrome refers to the fact that grandparents are 10 times more likely to die (actually, to be reported dead) the week of their grandchild's midterms and 19 times more likely to die during finals! It is interesting that when exams are imminent, grandmothers are 24 time as likely to die as grandfathers. There is also a correlation with the student's grade. Grandmothers of F students die at 25 times the rate of those of A students.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] The city of Erbil, capital of Iraq's Kurdistan region, is at least 8000 years old. [Top center] Americans are losing confidence in their institutions (NYT chart): The Supreme Court fares poorly, with its approval rating halving, from 50% to 25%, over the two decades 2002-2022. The presidency and Congress have done even worse. [Top right] eBook published by IEEE Spectrum: Charette, Robert N., The EV Transition Explained, 49 pp., 2023. [Bottom left] Ethnomusicology talk at UCSB (see the next item below). [Bottom center] Silly photos we took at the wedding ceremony of my niece on Sunday 4/16. [Bottom right] IEEE Central Coast Section technical talk by Dr. Nina Miolane of UCSB (see the last item below).
(2) Ethnomusicology Forum: In today's UCSB Music Dept. forum, Dr. Farzaneh Hemmasi (U. Toronto) spoke under the title "Live, Die, Repeat: Burying and Resurrecting Iranian Pop Stars in Southern California."
After Iran's Islamic Revolution, most women and quite a few men pop singers left the country, many of them settling in the Los Angeles area, where a Persian music industry flourished. As famous pop singers of the Pahlavi era started new careers in the West without any hope of someday returning home, they remained as celebrated as ever, although the quality of their music suffered due to lack of resources comparable to what was available to them in pre-Revolution Iran.
Dr. Hemmasi examined a series of diasporic cultural productions involving deceased Iranian pop musicians of the Pahlavi era to explore how practices of memorialization and performance and media-enabled resurrection are used to counteract the finality of death and embed national heritage in California. These practices are entangled with expatriate business & settlement in exile, diaspora politics, and pervasive, productive nostalgia.
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the "Tehrangeles" Iranian pop music and media industries, Dr. Hemmasi examined practices and sites including celebrity impersonators, a hologram of Hayedeh, and Southern Californian Iranian gravesites (Hayedeh's in Westwood being a most-popular shrine, with many visitors) as creative responses to open-ended separation.
A lively and informative Q&A session followed the talk.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Fox News settles Dominion's defamation lawsuit by paying $787.5 million, right before the start of trial.
- NYC parking garage collapses: Amazingly, only one person is dead. The garage had years of code violations.
- Historic rainfalls bring super-blooms to California and other parts of the southern and western US.
- Be careful where you recharge your phone: Dangers lurk in public juice-jackers.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 19, 2018: Remembering a friend, Fakhteh Borhan, 10 years after her passing.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 19, 2013: Iranian parents not showing affection at home hurts their children.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 19, 2010: The Persian "Putting watermelon under one's armpit" taken literally.
(4) IEEE Central Coast Section technical talk: Dr. Nina Miolane (ECE, UCSB) spoke tonight under the title "Geometric Learning for Shape Analysis from Bioimaging Data."
Advances in bioimaging techniques have enabled us to access the 3D shapes of a variety of structures: organs, cells, proteins. Since biological shapes are related to physiological functions, statistical analyses in biomedical research are poised to incorporate more shape data. This leads to the question: How do we define quantitative descriptions of shape variability from images?
Mathematically, landmarks' shapes, curve shapes, surface shapes, or shapes of objects in images are data that belong to non-Euclidean spaces, for example to Lie groups or quotient spaces. In this context, Dr. Miolane has introduced "Geometric statistics," a statistical theory on non-Euclidean spaces. In tonight's talk, she presented studies showing the theory and applications of Geometric Statistics to the analysis of biomedical shape data.
Other aspects of Dr. Miolane's research, which she discussed, include using data that is less costly to obtain (e.g., characteristics of a person's gait) for predicting the onset of Alzheimer's and other diseases in future.
[Speaker's UCSB page]
[Speaker's personal page]
[IEEE CCS event page &
Technical Talks page]
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Young Kurdish woman with traditional clothes. [Top center] UCSB Library's excellent idea of showing the availability of study space on various floors and in different areas. [Top right] Poetry, art, and fashion: A formidable combination! [Bottom left] Every one of the Islamic Republic officials lied to the Iranian people by assuring them that hijab won't become mandatory. [Bottom center] Iranian women & girls: Government propaganda vs. reality. [Bottom right] An unusual shot of Tehran's Azadi Tower.
(2) Oklahoma governor wants a rural county's top officials to resign: They were recorded talking about beating, killing, & burying local reporters and lamenting that they could no longer lynch Blacks.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Arab Winter: Fight between rival military groups in Sudan leaves scores dead and hundreds injured.
- Iran copying the Taliban's playbook: A 2015 story about chemical attacks at girls' schools in Afghanistan.
- FBI arrests two men for setting up and operating a Chinese police outpost in New York City.
- The longest-running show in history, "Phantom of the closes after 35 years and 13,981 performances.
- A middle-school named after author George Dawson banned parts of his book, Life Is So Good, last year!
- Persian poetry: A wonderful verse from Pejman Bakhtiari (old spirit in a young body & vice versa). [Image]
(4) [Notes from Mind & Machine Intelligence Summit 2023] Why we are easily fooled by fake videos: Two mechanisms are at work. First, we are evolutionarily programmed to attach great weight to realistic images. We put too much trust in our eyes relative to other senses, hence the saying "seeing is believing." Second, we're disadvantaged by positive machine stereotypes. For decades we've been told that machines are both accurate and impartial. Research results showing that algorithms can be biased and way off-base are fairly recent and have not yet propagated to the society at large.
(5) [Notes from Mind & Machine Intelligence Summit 2023] Not only race, but other aspects of a person's physical appearance affect how s/he is treated and opportunities presented to him/her. Here is a striking example. In the US, 14.5% of people are 6 feet or taller. Of Fortune 500 CEOs, 58% are 6 feet or taller.
(6) [Notes from Mind & Machine Intelligence Summit 2023] Indian WhatsApp lynchings: We talk & write a lot about potential dangers of misinformation & disinformation on social media. Few people know that some of these doomsday scenarios have already materialized. Two-dozen people died in India, when false rumors about child-abduction & organ-harvesting were attached to real videos, with the goal of stirring violence to settle old scores. For example, one video, which had been made as a public-service announcement to warn about possible child abductions, was used under the pretense that it depicted a real child abduction.
(7) The world's most-beautiful calendar: Between its covers are 206 sheets of fine calfskin, profusely illustrated by the Flemish Limbourg brothers, Herman, Johan, and Paul. [NYT pictorial]
[Top row] Arriving at the wedding venue, with my children and grand-nephews. The wedding ceremony and reception were held at Spanish Hills Club in Camarillo, Southern California.
[Middle row] My well wishes for the bride & groom, Mina and Babak, and selected verses from a Mowlavi/Rumi poem, which I read during the marriage ceremony. [Recitation of the poem in a 3-minute video]
[Bottom row] The bride with her bridesmaids and the exchange of vows, memorial table bearing a photo of my mom who did not live long enough to attend this highly-anticipated event, and ceremonial first dances.
[Photos from rehearsal day] The wedding venue; My daughter's cupcakes; dinner at Sadaf Restaurant
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Four generations of Iranian women rising. [Center] Mountain retreat in New Zealand. [Right] Cartoon of the day: "Hi, we're here from the place with the God-given right to guns."
(2) A puzzling question: How did we let a bunch of mullahs transform the Iranian culture, which is filled with festivals, music, poetry, and celebration of nature, into an Islamic culture based on mourning, coersion, banning of joy, and destruction of nature?
(3) Sharp rise in executions in Iran: Several watchdog agencies report that the number of executions by Iran's Islamic regime has risen by 75% over the last year and by even more compared with two years ago, concluding that Iran is using executions to scare protesters. Officially, only 4 protesters have been executed, but scores of others have already been sentenced to death or are at risk of being executed. The number of executions for drug offenses shows a sharp increase, raising fears that dissidents are being executed under false drug charges, a less-costly action for the mullahs, following international outrage.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Kettle talks to teapot: Iranian authorities meet with the Taliban in a love fest!
- Women are turned away or forced to wear a headscarf at the entrance to a Tehran Metro station. [Tweet]
- PBS & NPR quit Twitter, after being labeled by the platform as state-backed media.
- How DNA, AI facial reconstruction, and sheer grit cracked a 75-year-old cold case.
- Give or Take? I was inundated with a flood of e-mails yesterday, urging me to donate to various entities.
- The new normal: Panel discussion at today's MMI Summit, with one remote & two local panelists.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 13, 2016: Now that Justice Thomas is in the spotlight, here's a film about him.
- Facebook memory from Aug. 14, 2016: If pregnancy is God's will, then so is erectile dysfunction!
(5) Music is the soundtrack of our lives: Voice of America interview with Sweden-based Iranian musician Rostam Mirlashari, who composes/performs Baluchi and other regional Iranian music. [45-minute video]
(6) Thursday & Friday, 4/13-14, at UCSB: Two major series of events overlapped, forcing me to go back and forth between the two and missing some interesting talks.
- Mind & Machine Intelligence Summit
- Advisory Board Meeting & ECE Summit
I will report on these events and some neat technical ideas in separate posts over the next few days.
[My Facebook post on MMI Summit] [My Facebook post on ECE Summit and its poster session]
(7) Final thought for the day: There's much talk about leaks of classified documents. Here's my recommendation on how to stop leaks. Eliminate the secret and top-secret classifications altogether. Biden and other US officials have indicated that the recent leaks are no big deal. If so, why were the documents classified to begin with? Imagine a world with no such classifications! An no religion too!
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday: San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge during construction (colorized photo from 1934). [Top center] Wednesday's Plous Award Lecture at UCSB (see the last item below). [Top right] Santa Barbara Fiesta 2023 poster design revealed. [Bottom left] Lempel & Ziv of the LZ algorithm fame passed away (see the next item below). [Bottom center] Math puzzles: In the top diagram with 4 unit squares, the 3 red line segments have the same length. Show that the blue and red paths leading from the lower-left corner to the upper-right corner have the same length. Now, delete the part about the red line segments being of equal length and find out, in connection for the bottom diagram, what values of a and b would make the blue and red paths of equal length? [Bottom right] Geniuses all around (see item 3 below).
(2) Israeli computer scientists Jacob Ziv and Abraham Lempel dead at 91 & 86, within a month of each other: The duo developed the Lempel-Ziv (LZ) data compression algorithm, which set the stage for TIFF, PNG, ZIP, & GIF compression technologies and played a major role in developing PDF & MP3 formats. The elegant ideas presented by Lempel & Ziv are still resonant in the research community and many researchers are working on their expansion & development. RIP!
(3) Iranian super-geniuses: When know-nothing individuals are in power and surround themselves with others of their kind, charlatans and opportunists thrive. The image contains flyers/posters for two Iranians with multiple advanced degrees and many other specialties/skills. The language used makes it clear that much of the information is fake. A similar "expert" recently claimed that the Python language will solve all of Iran's problems, from curing cancer to offering accurate political and economic forecasts! These words were uttered in a symposium of "Top 1% Experts," in which President Raisi was present and took notes.
(4) UCSB Plous Award Lecture: The prestigious Harold J. Plous Award is given annually to "an assistant professor or instructor in the humanities, social sciences or natural sciences who has demonstrated outstanding performance or promise of performance as measured by intellectual and creative contributions to the college community." For his research in the framework of his Computational Mate-Choice Lab, Professor Dan Conroy-Beam (UCSB Psychological & Brain Sciences) is the honoree for 2022-2023.
His public lecture on Wednesday was entitled "The Most Important Decision You'll Ever Make," which refers to choosing a mate. Mating is at the center of our universe. Whom we fall in love with affects every corner of our lives, from the mundane to the momentous. Moreover, over deep time, mate choice has been one of the most potent forces responsible for shaping who we are as a species. Yet our understanding of how we choose our mating partners and how these choices reverberate out through our lives is shockingly imprecise. Professor Conroy-Beam illustrated how computer simulations of human mating markets can help us model the complex decision processes guiding our love lives. Describing two schemes, the Gale-Shapley Algorithm & Resource Allocation Model, Professor Conroy-Beam illustrated the surprising effectiveness of the models in predicting relationship success. These simulations shed light on how people choose their romantic partners and how they could be harnessed to help people form happier relationships. The models can be applied in other contexts outside romantic relationships, including friendships.
This paper contains scientific and experimental details, including other models not discussed in today's talk:
D. Conroy-Beam, K. V. Walter, and K. Duarte, "What Is a Mate Preference? Probing the Computational Format of Mate Preferences Using Couple Simulation," Evolution and Human Behavior, in press.
(1) Images of the day: [Left & Center] At Santa Barbara Cemetery, early this afternoon. [Right] Freedom is near! #WomanLifeFreedom (photo credit: @oonparande).
(2) Iran's Islamic regime experiences growing fissures & poor morale internally: A recently-leaked document, if genuine, indicates substantial internal skepticism toward the handling of the current domestic crisis, and perhaps even pressure for limited reforms.
(3) Chemical-gas attacks continue at Iranian girl schools: The regime which boasts about its network of monitoring cameras and makes good use of them to identify and arrest hijab-less women and street protesters has not yet made a single arrest or named any culprit in the widespread chemical attacks targeting girls' schools over several months.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Voice of America Persian interview with Dr. Carina Jahani about Baluchi languages in southeastern Iran.
- Brave Iranian woman dancing at the tomb of Hafez in Shiraz.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 10, 2021: The power of exponential growth in viral infections.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 10, 2021: Photos of my three sisters, on this National Siblings Day.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 10, 2020: Image from a FaceTime chat with my late friend Farhad Mavaddat.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 10, 2013: Elite colleges admit gladiators and turn down qualified applicants.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 11, 2018: Presidential vocab by grade level, from 4.6 to 11.3.
(5) Silly business terms: Nowadays, when you call for service, you get the privilege of an extended wait for talking with a "customer service representative," which is a fancy term for an inexperienced phone/computer operator at a call center, often overseas. Today, I called to make a medical appointment and was asked to wait for a "patient navigator."
(6) Iranian women continue to give the middle finger to Khamenei and his cronies who have issued fresh threats of fines & imprisonment to women who ditch their headscarves.
(7) Rabbi David Wolpe's farewell address at Passover: He advises Persian Jews to be tolerant of different political views and to focus less on money and peer pressure.
(8) Islam does not like open-plan kitchens: According to this Islamic Republic of Iran official, open-plan kitchens should be avoided, because they expose the woman working in the kitchen to guests!
(1) Images of the day: [Left] Math and literature (see the next item below). [Center] Iranian women continue to defy compulsory hijab laws despite dire warnings from Khamenei and security officials; Photo taken at Al-Zahra University, Tehran. [Right] UCLA panel discussion on Iran's foreign policy (see the last item below).
(2) Mathematics and literature: We are conditioned from childhood to think that one is either good at math/science or good with literature/humanities. There is little basis for this dichotomy, which is a fairly recent assertion. According to Sarah Hart, "For most of recorded history, mathematics was part of every educated person's cultural awareness."
The 11th-century Persian scholar Omar Khayyam, known for his exquisite poems, was also a mathematician. So was Lewis Carroll. Other famous authors, such as Herman Melville, Leo Tolstoy, James Joyce, Michael Crichton, and Arthur Conan Doyle have used mathematical metaphors in their writings.
Mathematician G. H. Hardy wrote that "a mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. ... The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's, must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colors or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: There is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics."
I count myself among those with interests in both math/science and poetry/writing. I take delight in a beautiful sentence that twists and turns, before coming to its conclusion several lines later. In composing poems, I tend to view them as puzzles to be assembled.
(3) UCLA Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran: Today's installment of the lecture series featured a panel discussion, in Persian, entitled "Turning to the East: Changes and Continuities in the Islamic Republic's Foreign Policy." Dr. Nayereh Tohidi (Cal State U. Northridge) introduced the panelists and moderated the Q&A session at the end.
*Dr. Mehrzad Boroujerdi (Vice Provost and Dean of College of Arts, Sciences, & Education at Missouri U. of Science & Technology).
Title: "Main Tenants of Post-Revolutionary Iran's Foreign Policy"
Revolutionary regimes are ambivalent about international order. They want to ignore or undermine it on the one hand and they seek international approval on the other. Ideological dogma makes the resolution of this conflict even more difficult. Yet, in some cases, Iran has taken realistic (non-ideological) positions, such as in the India-Pakistan and Azerbaijan-Armenia conflicts, where Iran did not back the Islamic side. Iran considers itself the center of the universe, despite the fact that it controls less than 1% of world trade. Being obsessed with conspiracy theories and using foreign policy to settle internal fights among power factions is another weakness of Iran. The country's Islamic rulers are also delusional, thinking that the West and Israel are on the decline, bound to fall in short order. Any tactical retreat, in terms of reversal of positions or showing "heroic flexibility" on the part of Iran has been the result of failures in its initial ambition of "Exporting the Revolution."
*Dr. Kazem Alamdari (Cal State U. Northridge, Sociology; and prior affiliations with several other institutions).
Title: "Looking to the East and the New World Order"
Iran's "look to the East" is driven for the most part by its hatred of the West. It is also a direct result of the growing rift between the government and its people. Iran's realignment with the East is in part driven by Russia's delusion of returning to superpower status and China's hegemonic plans. The initial "Neither East nor West" slogan of the Islamic Republic gradually turned into "Leaning to the East," which is favored by hardline Islamists and opposed by reformists and pragmatists. It is consistent with the view that the West is on the decline, while the East is blooming. Currently, Khamenei and his main advisors view all anti-America governments as Iran's friends and a part of the Eastern coalition. They justify their alliance with godless regimes by claiming that Putin is highly spiritual and people of Russia are all church- or mosque-goers. These claims conflict with the fact that Russia has been the main cause of the failure of Iran's nuclear talks with the West. Exclusive alliance with the East will lead to Iran getting short shrift, if the East sees no possibility for Iran to do anything with the West. China has significant trade with the West and Arab counties and will not endanger its financial interests for the sake of Iran.
*Dr. Touraj Atabaki (Leiden U. & Senior Research Fellow, Int'l Institute of Social History, Amsterdam).
Title: "Turning to the East in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Both a Strategy and a Tactic?"
Iran's turning to the East began during Ahmadinejad's presidency, with tacit approval of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (Qasem Soleimani, in particular). The thinking went that, along with the US, China, and the European Union, Russia will be one of the four world powers, economically and militarily. However, any strategic relationship requires that both parties formally commit to it. In Syria, for example, the relationship between Iran and Russia is a temporary alliance and not a strategic one. There is a great deal of distrust among Iranians to the actions and plans of Russia. Turkey has much stronger and broader alliance with Russia. For example, in the domain of armaments, Russia is hesitant to give Iran the latest and most powerful military equipment. In short, the Iran-Russia ties are viewed as strategic only from Iran's side. Russia views Iran pretty much as a colony, not a strategic partner.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Native Art Extraordinaire: Digital artist Larry Carlson's "Starry Orange Tree." [Top center & right] Dr. Claudia Yaghoobi's talk on Iranian-Armenians in diaspora (see the next item below). [Bottom left] A belated Passover gathering with the family. [Bottom center] IranWire cartoon of the day: In Iran, it's a matter of time! [Bottom right] Artists dream of peace all the time: When will politicians follow suit?
(2) Book talk, presented by Farhang Foundation and UCSB Iranian Studies Initiative: Dr. Claudia Yaghoobi (UNC Chapel Hill) talked today via Zoom about her forthcoming book, under the title "Iranian Armenian Ancestral Flexibility, Adaptability, and Continuity." There were 71 attendees.
Armenians have migrated, voluntarily or forcefully, many times during their long history. Beginning in their ancestral homeland, spanning northwestern Iran & parts of the Caucasus, many Armenians were relocated to Iran and within Iran. Iranian-Armenians are viewed both as an ethnicity and a religious minority in Iran.
Today, Iranian Armenians are neither entirely a stateless diaspora nor a state-linked diaspora. Despite different origins and dispersal throughout the world, most Armenians see Armenia as their ancestral homeland, some even yearning to "return" there.
After her review of the history and culture of Iranian-Armenians, Dr. Yaghoobi presented a selection of Armenian literature and art, wistful stories & poems and a few paintings. I look forward to examining the book for more samples and analyses.
Farhang Foundation posts videos of the talks it sponsors, so I will provide a link here once it becomes available.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- All-out Israeli-Palestinian war a real possibility in the wake of Hamas rocket attacks & Israeli air strikes.
- Classified US government documents on Ukraine, Middle East, and China have been exposed on-line.
- Two Tennessee legislators expelled from State House for raising their voices during gun-reform debate.
- Right-wing judges are going nuts: A Texas judge suspends 2-decade-old FDA approval of an abortion pill.
- SoT Pete Buttigieg, as articulate as ever, discusses life in America and the general path of jurist prudence.
- Why is America in love with "Top Gun: Maverick," which is essentially a 2-hour ad for defense contractors?
(4) Open Mind Virtual Film Festival at UCLA: The Sunday, April 30, 2023, 2:00 PM PDT, festival features 10 short films on mental illness, chosen from among 130 submissions by high-school students.
(5) Justice served: California women, who was in touch with Iran's Revolutionary Guards and (unwittingly?) helped fund an assassination attempt against journalist Masih Alinejad sentenced to 4 years in prison.
(6) Ignoring hijab laws is a religious & political sin (haram), according to Khamenei: On the surface, this means harsher treatment of hijab-less women and those with "inadequate" hijab. However, there are examples of haram edicts that have been reversed for political expediency. Early after the Revolution, sturgeon fish was deemed haram according to Islamic edicts. Then, the Islamists realized that they are losing a lot of money from banning the fish & its caviar and, soon, Khomeini issued a fatwa that there is no prohibition against the fish. The game of chess underwent a similar transformation from a haram activity to a permitted, even supported, one. At one point, regime agents would climb high-rise buildings using ropes and other military gear to take down TV satellite dishes. Then, suddenly, the Supreme Leader had a change of heart and ordered his goons to leave people's home and private activities alone. The new edict about hijab will likely have the same fate.
Book review: Wright, Robert A., Our Man in Tehran: The True Story Behind the Secret Mission to Save Six Americans During the Iran Hostage Crisis and the Foreign Ambassador Who Worked with the CIA to Bring Them Home, unabridged 13-hour audiobook, read by Mike Chamberlain, Blackstone Audio, 2011.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book is about the former Canadian Ambassador to Tehran, Ken Taylor, who played a leading role in helping six Americans escape Iran, as 53 other Americans were being held hostage at the US Embassy. Declassified documents have revealed that CIA, aided by Hollywood's magic, also played a major role, as told in the book/movie Argo (my review of the book).
While Argo was a sensationalized "good-guys, bad-guys" account (for example, the film version converted the relatively trouble-free departure of the six Americans holding fake Canadian passports via Tehran's Mehrabad Airport to a chase scene in which Revolutionary Guards, realizing they had been duped, pursue the plane on the runway, coming close to preventing it from taking off), Wright's book is a serious account that gives us deep insights into what made Iran's revolutionary cadres tick and how diplomatic missions in Iran operated in the uncertain environment of post-Islamic-Revolution Iran.
The book contains detailed accounts of how the six Americans, having eluded capture, ended up as houseguests of the Canadian Ambassador and Embassy staff, various plans for helping them leave Iran, interactions with Iranian authorities who knew about the six Americans but chose to help them hide from the "student" militants at the US Embassy, and the eventual choice of the exfiltration plan, which involved the Americans pretending to be a Canadian movie-studio crew scouting filming locations in Iran.
An interesting observation is that Iranian authorities were walking a tightrope. While they wanted to play the good guys, who were opposed to hostage-taking and other irrational behavior, their hands were tied, because the "student" militants were really not following their advice to let the hostages go. I have put "student" in quotation marks, because Wright makes it clear that at least some of the hostage-takers appeared to be well-trained in interrogation methods and paramilitary operations. After a while, when Khomeini himself blessed the hostage-taking action, Iranian officials gave up on their plans for a quick release of the hostages and went with the flow, claiming lack of authority and influence.
In what can be characterized as irony of ironies, the hostage-takers raised objections to and threatened Canada for ignoring international diplomatic norms by illegally moving the six Americans out of Iran! Equally interesting, is Iran's government officials, some of whom were aware of the six extra Americans and in fact helped them hide, parroting the same words out of fear of being labeled puppets of the West! One of these officials, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, was eventually executed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Court. Another person, Iran's first President Abolhassan Banisadr, fled the country in drag after he was ordered removed from presidency by Ayatollah Khomeini, but before he could be captured and tried.
Wright's writing is quite engaging. Chamberlain reads the book's English narrative quite well, but he has no clue when it comes to pronouncing the many names of Iranian people and places appearing throughout the book.
Wright's book has been converted to the two-part PBS "Frontline" series, "Our Man in Tehran" [Part 1; Part 2; 115 minutes each], in which NYT correspondent Thomas Erdbrink does a great job of humanizing Iranians for Westerners, who think they have "horns and tails."
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Throwback Thursday (~45 years back): PBS News interview with Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris. [Top center & right] Humorous Persian poetry: I never thought I would write a poem about yogurt, but an Islamist's rage-induced emptying of a large container of yogurt on the heads of two young Iranian women who were shopping sans headscarves was an opportunity I could not pass by! The poem is entitled "The Benefits of Yogurt." The cartoon supports the poem. [Bottom left] Uprooting of a eucalyptus tree at the periphery of my housing complex: It fell outward onto the dirt parking shoulder of an adjacent street, crushing one car and damaging another one. Fortunately, no one was hurt. The tree fell due to a combination of high winds and softened soil as a result of recent heavy rains. [Bottom center] Spring has arrived in Tahoe: Street signs are starting to bloom! [Bottom right] In the US, NASA is looking for water on other planets. In Iran, NAJA (acronym for security forces) is looking for people with water bottles during the month of Ramadan!
(2) Iran's rapprochement with Saudi Arabia is puzzling: Supreme Leader Khamenei has said that Saudi Arabia is run by incompetent, corrupt rulers, while MBS has opined that Khamenei is "very much like Hitler"!
(3) I saw a TV ad for a drug that "is not for people with type-1 diabetes or children": They probably meant that children shouldn't take it, but the ad's statement really implies that people with children should not take it!
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Greek authorities arrest Pakistani nationals with plans to carry out anti-Semitic attacks.
- If Trump's passport is confiscated, his only hope is escaping to Mexico: Luckily for him, the wall is unfinished!
- Borowitz Report (humor): Millions of Americans who have paid off porn stars feel under attack.
- Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife accepted gifts of luxury vacations from wealthy Republican donor.
- Iran's morality police uses 21st-century smartphones to enforce the 7th-century Bedouin social norms.
- Expelled Iranian professor who supported protesting university students now works at a pizzeria.
- Beautifying the community of Alhaurin de la Torre, Malaga, with art (crochet & knitting). #WomensArt
- Mark Twain: "All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure."
- Ernest Hemingway: "It takes two years to learn to speak and sixty to learn to keep quiet."
- Sage advice: No matter what you do, you're totally replaceable at work. You're not replaceable at home.
(5) At today's estate-planning workshop: The instructor was really hyped up & festive, sounding like a car-salesperson! Dial it down a bit, sir; we're trying to plan for my death, not a lavish vacation! The instructor also used many weird phrases, such as "What you need to do on a going-forward basis"!
(6) World's widest freeway: Located in Houston, Texas, the Katy Freeway is said to have 26 lanes, composed of 12 main lanes (6 on each side), 8 feeder lanes, and 6 managed lanes, used mostly by mass-transit vehicles. [P.S.: I count 40 lanes in this photo, which may be due to the photo having been snapped near toll booths.]
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Tonight is the eve of Passover (See the next item below). [Top center] Iran's currency has lost 90% of its value over the past five years, bringing the country's economy to the verge of collapse. [Top right] Mar-a-Lago billboards are popping up everywhere to make it impossible for Trump to pretend he doesn't know that he is being propped up by greedy pants-on-fire liars who actually detest him. [Bottom left] Completed in 1971, Tehran's Azadi Tower (formerly Shahyad Monument) has become a symbol of Iran. [Bottom center] A new morality police is patrolling the streets of Tehran: The new force tells Islamists that morality demands respecting people's dignity, not equating free choice of clothing with spreading prostitution. [Bottom right] Mardavij Pigeon Tower, in Isfahan, Iran: Ancient way of collecting fertilizer.
(2) Happy Passover to my family and Jewish friends! And happy Easter to my Christian friends! This year, Easter Sunday arrives 3 days after Passover. The two holidays have common roots and similar traditions (in fact, there are also some commonalities with the Persian Nowruz). Passover and Easter can be separated by up to a month in some years. Passover, a spring Jewish festival, which begins tonight, on the eve of its first day, is observed based on the lunar calendar. To ensure that the holiday is synchronized with spring, the Jewish calendar adds a 13th month, Adar 2, to some years in order to make up for the 11-day difference between the lengths of lunar and solar years.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Michelangelo's David made an SNL appearance to complain about how he is treated in some US states.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 4, 2019: When Jake Shimabukuro performed at UCSB's Storke Plaza.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 4, 2014: Modern Persian dance at UCLA's Iranian Culture Show.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 4, 2012: "best way to counter [racists] involves not your fists but your mind."
- Facebook memory from Apr. 5, 2013: History of residue numbers in computers goes back 1500+ years.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 5, 2013: The whorehouse that believed in prayers and the church that didn't!
(4) Iranians celebrated the 13th day of the Persian New Year with joy: Men and women played music and danced in traditional nature outings. Iran's security forces attacked many such gatherings, trying to prevent "un-Islamic" behavior. They were pushed back by the people in most cases.
(5) The scaffolding analogy: During the construction of, or major repairs to, a building, we often use scaffolding to allow easy & safe access to its various points or to hold things up while construction material such as concrete gain strength. Building digital hardware or computer software can benefit from similar structures. We can erect the scaffolding first and then hang parts of the system from it. As a part "gains strength" and proves itself, some of the scaffolding can be removed, until, at the end, nothing is left of the scaffolding. However, there is a difference here compared to the building analogy. A building may not look great with the scaffolding in place, so we are motivated to remove the temporary structures. In the case of hardware or software, we may leave parts of the scaffolding in place as aids to testing or future modifications.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] Graphic art: Mamoun Sakkal designed this poster in 1995 to commemorate the 13th anniversary of the opening of Saleh Al-Lago Restaurant in Seattle. Baba Ghannouch is featured on the poster in Sakkal's own typeface. [Top center] Traditional wedding garbs in southern Iran's Bakhtiari tribe: Notice the woman carrying the rifle (photos credit: Amin Nazari). [Top right] Semanggi highway interchange in Jakarta, Indonesia, at the junction of Gatot Subroto Road and Sudirman Road. [Bottom left] Math puzzle: Find the value of x/y + x/z (credit: @Eduard16180). [Bottom center] Math puzzle: Given the placement of seven identical squares inside a 17-by-26 rectangle, find the area of each square. [Bottom right] Math puzzle: What fraction of the square's area is shaded?
(2) March Madness ends in April: On the women's side, LSU defeated Iowa 102-85 to earn its first national basketball title. On the men's side, U. Conn defeated San Diego State 76-59 to win its 5th title since 1999.
(3) Gender and religious apartheid: Samin Ehsani is an Imprisoned Iranian Baha'i woman charged with the crime of educating Afghan children, who could not enroll in regular schools because they lacked identity papers.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Richard Nixon famously said that he's not a crook: Donald Trump says that everyone else is a crook!
- Jews constitute 2.4% of the US population but they are targeted in 55% of all religious hate crimes.
- This Shi'i cleric says that trying to make Iran's economy "Islamic" was a mistake with dire consequences.
- The treatment of women in Iran & Afghanistan is increasingly characterized as Gender Apartheid. [Image]
- Saqqez, the village of my parents in western Iran, now a modern city, and some of its old neighborhoods.
- Three English words to avoid, particularly in writing: Very; Said; Thing. [6-minute video]
- A thought, without prayers: I choose protecting our 2nd-graders over protecting the 2nd Amendment!
- Santa Ynez High School administration wants to paint over rainbow-colored crosswalks at its entrance.
(5) Nowruz 1402 (2023) at Persepolis: Visitors continue to defy Iran's compulsory hijab law, as the mullahs call for stricter enforcement of the misogynistic law. #WomanLifeFreedom
(6) Iran's 1979 Revolution wasn't a mistake caused by disinformation: Iranians shouted on the streets that Khomeini was their soul. Deep down, a vast majority agreed with his patriarchal & misogynistic views. We may have changed, but back then we liked Khomeini's pronouncements.
(7) Iranian mullah Reza Akrami: "When a man sees a woman who is prettier than his wife, he loses his mind, and that's why we need hijabs." Translation: According to Islamists, men are stupid animals who lack morality or ability to think. A man's being is summarized in his sexual organ, which guides him like a GPS device.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & right] Today is lying day for those in the West (April Fool's Day); tomorrow is lying day for Iranians (Dorough-e Sizdah, a lie for the 13th day of the Persian New Year): Be super-careful. On April 1 and 2, believe nothing and trust no one, just like any other day! [Top center] Persian poetry: My couplet welcoming spring, inspired by a superb ghazal of Hafez. [Bottom left] Math puzzle: Given the placement of 7 identical squares inside a 17-by26 rectangle, as shown, find the area of each square. [Bottom center] My afternoon walk on April 1, 2023: Blue skies, warm temperatures, and wonderful views of a reborn nature. [Bottom right] Dan Lyons' book, STFU (see the last item below).
(2) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Happy April Fool's Day: The Guardian's compilation of the best April Fool's Day gags from its archives.
- Humor: April 1 is to be designated as Donald J. Trump Day!
- One trans mass-shooter, and suddenly scores of white-supremacist, xenophobe mass-shooters are forgotten!
- NCAA men's basketball championship game: San Diego State v. U. Conn, Monday 4/03, 6:20 PM PDT, on CBS.
- This year, California's Mammoth Mountain had the most snow ever recorded!
- New form of student housing: Three UCSB students trade their four walls for four wheels. [SB Independent]
- Facebook memory from Apr. 1, 2019: An apt question, in the wake of Donald Trump's criminal indictment.
- Facebook memory from Apr. 1, 2017: The day my mom sent over a lof of tah-chin (a rice & chicken dish).
(3) Book review: Lyons, Dan, STFU: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World, unabridged 7-hour audiobook, read by the author, Macmillan Audio, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The main take-away from this book is that you can accomplish more, earn greater respect, and live a happier life if you just resist the temptation to chime in on every topic, offer analyses for every situation, and respond to every comment. And this message applies to non-verbal communication, such as social-media interactions and text-messaging, as well. Lyons advises us to take it easy, relax more, and, most of all, STFU.
Lyons began working on the book when he realized that he tended to talk too much. Most people who talk too much (talkaholics) know that they talk too much, but they simply can't help it. Talking for explanation and story-telling is an essential skill in today's world. It's not helpful for social acceptance or job advancement to be an under-talker. But there is definitely a limit to how much talking is appropriate. It is much easier to bring an under-talker out of his/her shell than to help an over-talker keep quiet.
Talking less is helpful in all situations, including work, romantic relationships, casual conversations, and social-media interactions. Contrary to conventional wisdom, men tend to be more talkative than women. In the context of first impressions, such as dating, talking too much is a definite no-no. You should try to ask more questions and chop-up long narratives into 30-second doses. Try not to speak more than 60% or less than 40% of the time. If the listener is attentive and explicitly asks for more, you can break the 30-second and 60-40 rules, but be super-careful.
One cause of over-talking is that, in our culture, silence or pause during conversation feels awkward. Quite the opposite: Pauses enable reflection, provide opportunities for questions, and enhance understanding. Our society has become increasingly wordy and loud. Japanese, Native-American, and many other cultures prefer quiet reflection and speaking softly. Author Ernest Hemingway said it best: "It takes two years to learn to speak and sixty to learn to keep quiet."
In this 14-minute podcast, Lyons dispenses the following five nuggets of wisdom:
- How you speak is who you are.
- Someday we may use speech as a form of medicine.
- You should quit social media, or at least dial it way back.
- Most powerful and successful people are under-talkers.
- Listening is a superpower.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left] One way of rendering Michelangelo's "David" okay for displaying in Florida. [Top center] In the wake of Iran's claim of discovering vast deposits of lithium: 25 years of lithium production in the world, 1995-2021. [Top right] Libraries & bookstores are pitching banned books to their patrons/customers. [Bottom left & center] Digital spring cleaning: As we clean up our physical surroundings for spring, let us not forget to clean up our digital life as well. Here's a checklist to help you along. [Bottom right] Circle of life.
(2) March 30 was National Doctors' Day: A belated congratulations! We are grateful to those who save lives every day, be they doctors or others involved in the delivery of health care. Our system of administering health care is broken, but we can count on health care professionals to help us overhaul the system.
(3) Saudi Arabia is building a water-transport "river" longer than the Nile: The project will use anti-corrosion pipes of diameter 2.25 m, laid out in a trench that is 4 m deep, 11 m wide, and 12,000 km long.
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Donald Trump has been indicted by Manhattan Grand Jury on 30+ counts related to business fraud.
- Evan Gershkovich, Wall Street Journal reporter, accused of espionage and imprisoned by Russia.
- Finland's request to join NATO is approved, distressing Russia & changing the world's balance of power.
- In what can be viewed as a reversal, tech execs call for a temporary moratorium on AI development.
- Anti-Semitism on college campuses in the US: Incidents of vandalism & harassment are on the rise.
- NCAA women's basketball championship game: Iowa State v. LSU, Sunday 4/02, 12:30 PM PDT, on ABC.
- Roboticists want to give you extra limbs: They can be controlled by unused bandwidth in neurons.
- Islamic lawlessness: A member of Iran's morality police pours yogurt on two women not wearing hijabs.
(5) Two imprisoned women journalists in Iran win the 2023 Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism: Nilofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi were arrested and jailed for their reporting on the death of #MahsaAmini, the event that triggered Iran's #WomanLifeFreedom movement.
(6) To grade or not to grade: As a professor, grading is the least-favorite part of my activities. I prefer to focus on teaching strategies, course content, and learning outcomes, rather than spend time on evaluations, that are imprecise anyway. But I don't see any way of motivating students to learn without the fear of failing. So, I have mixed feelings about some colleges eliminating grades altogether to facilitate the transition of high-school students into higher education and to deal with growing concerns about student mental health.
(7) UN statement on academic freedom: Issued at a UN Human Rights Council session and approved by the US and 70 other nations, the statement says, "Academic freedom is key to human rights education but also essential for technical and scientific progress and for the development of the creative industries and the arts." It also calls for international cooperation towards strengthening the protection & promotion of academic freedom in the spirit of the Vienna Declaration.
(8) Plants emit sounds under stress: Barely audible at frequencies in the range 20-250 Hz, the sounds are distinctive and can be used to distinguish among different plants and different levels of stress.
(1) Book review: Dehaene, Stanislas, The Number Sense: How the Mind Creates Mathematics, Oxford U. Press, revised & updated 2nd ed., 2011. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The original 1997 edition of this book, written some 15 years before the current edition, had three parts and nine chapters.
- Part One: Our Numerical Heritage (Chs. 1-3)
- Part Two: Beyond Approximation (Chs. 4-6)
- Part Three: Of Neurons and Numbers (Chs. 7-9)
The author has added Part Four, The Contemporary Science of Numbers and Brain, consisting of the single Ch. 10, to review the most-important developments in the field since the book's original publication. The book ends with two appendices and a bibliography. A most-exciting advance in the intervening 15 years is the discovery of single neurons that code for number in the monkey brain.
Numbers are all around us. It's not an exaggeration to say that we cannot live without them. Even poets must be able to count in order to follow the rules of various poetic forms! As early as 5 months after birth, a baby knows that 1 plus 1 makes 2. Animals possess a mental module called "accumulator" that can hold quantities, recognize small sets with a handful of elements, or approximately add two quantities. This accumulator mechanism isn't digital but analog; not dealing with discrete values, but with continuous ones.
The complexities of the various classes of numbers, and all of abstract mathematics, for that matter, arise from and are supported by a small set of features or capabilities in the human brain. Research on animals has revealed an age-old competence for handling approximate quantities, an ability that may be as old as life. Mathematician Richard Dedekind, however, was of the opinion that numbers are "free creations of the human mind."
We now understand that animals will never be able to do exact arithmetic or tell the difference between 49 and 50; such fine distinctions are made by humans, only because of our ability to devise and use symbols, which in turn enable precision and abstraction. One should not forget that the notation for dealing with multi-digit numbers, which seems like child's play now, took centuries to be devised and refined.
Aside from the approximate, analog accumulator that we share with rats and other animals, our brain does not seem to contain an "arithmetic unit" to allow us to perform multiplication and other mathematical tasks. The brain uses alternative circuits, that have evolved for other functions, to do math. The brains of gifted mathematicians are essentially the same as those of ordinary people; the difference is in one group's clever methods to get around the brain's limitations.
The Number Sense is perhaps the most-important book of its kind. Other books that contribute to our understanding of how the brain deals with numbers and mathematics include:
The Mathematical Brain (by B. Butterworth, 1999)
Where Mathematics Comes From (by G. Lakoff and R. Nunez, 2000)
The Handbook of Mathematical Cognition (ed. by J. I. D. Campbell, 2005)
(2) Book review: Kahn, David, The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing, Scribner, 2nd ed., 1996. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This second edition of Kahn's 1967 book about cryptology has a new preface and an added Chapter 27, entitled "Cryptography Goes Public," which deals with new developments over the three decades since its original publication. The rest of the book is composed of an introductory Chapter 1, followed by three uneven parts:
- The Pageant of Cryptology (Chs. 2-19)
- Sideshows (Chs. 20-24)
- Paracryptology (Chs. 25-26)
Much of our knowledge on coding and codebreaking activities during World War II have come from fairly-recent declassification of secret projects, even though Great Britain alone devoted 30,000 people to its war effort in this area. This lack of knowledge distorted the view of why things happened the way they did. This fact, along with remarkable advances in the field, made a revised edition of the book absolutely necessary.
Cryptology was introduced in Egypt some 3500 years ago, when hieroglyphic writings were modified, not to conceal the meanings, but to turn them into simple puzzles to challenge and delight the readers. This playful use of cryptology was nothing like its deadly-serious applications today. For 3000 years, the period covered in Chapter 2, the use of cryptology proliferated but the field did not enjoy significant advances.
China never showed any interest in cryptology, preferring instead memorization and oral delivery of messages carrying state secrets. India, by contrast, developed several forms of secret writing. One of the strangest forms of secret communication occurred in ancient Persia, where a secret message was written on a slave's scalp, who was then sent out to deliver the message when his hair had regrown. The Roman state used cryptology extensively. Two Caesars employed it routinely, so we have a category of substitution ciphers known as Caesar's Cipher.
Applications of cryptology grew with the spread of Western civilization. The pace of progress accelerated, fed in part by the increased contact with the Muslim world. In the 1500s, Venice has three secretaries dealing with ciphers. Subsequently, more staff positions and significant budgets were devoted to codebreaking. Invention and rapid spread of telegraphy made the need for codes more urgent for privacy and security. And, of course, the Internet revolution and cybersecurity concerns further broadened the use of secret codes, turning them into a most-important computing & communication concern.
This book's comprehensive history of cryptology, when combined with a modern introductory textbook on the topic (such as Nigel Smart's Cryptography, 3rd ed.), provides curious readers with an overview of the very important domain of secret communications.
(3) Book review: Pickover, Clifford, Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them, Oxford U. Press, 2008. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Pickover, a prolific author, has produced many books in the popular-science genre. I have come across several of them, including The Math Book, The Physics Book, and A Passion for Mathematics. You can examine a complete list of Pickover's 50 books on his home page.
Fascination with physical laws, aka laws of nature, has been around for many centuries. Archimedes' Law of Buoyancy is one of the oldest, proposed around 250 BCE (the exact date is unknown). Newer examples include Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and Hubble's Law of Cosmic Expansion. These law-producers, quite diverse and sometimes eccentric, oozed curiosity and, more often than not, were polymaths working in many different domains.
In this book, Pickover examines 40+ laws, explaining the science behind them along with biographies of the scientists who proposed them, cross-referencing and relating the laws to each other where appropriate. The book is organized in 4 parts covering the periods 250 BCE to 1700 CE, 1700 to 1800, 1800 to 1900, and 1900 & beyond.
Some of the other scientists one encounters in this book include Bernoulli, Curie, Faraday, Kirchhoff, Newton, Ohm, and Planck. Nearly all eponymous laws date back to the 19th century and earlier. There have been very few eponyms in science since the 20th century.
(1) Images of the day: [Top left & center] I went on a tour & demo of classrooms in UCSB's just-completed Interactive Learning Pavilion this afternoon: My ILP 1203 classroom for ECE 1B during spring features three screens, tied to the same video source for now, but capable of showing three different images/videos by fall quarter 2023. [Top right] Longstanding open math problem solved: At issue was whether the plane can be tiled with tiles having a single non-periodic shape (triangles, squares, hexagons are easily seen to do the job). [Bottom left] Blattnerphone steel tape recorder, an early magnetic-recording technology developed in 1924. [Bottom center] Wonders of math: Palindromic prime tree, with infinite trunk consisting of the pattern 50505 (credit: Danesh Forouhari). [Bottom right] RIP Gordon E. Moore (1929-2023): Best known for Moore's Law, that predicts exponential circuit-density (and performance) growth for integrated circuits, Moore was a brilliant scientist, business leader, and philanthropist who played key roles in establishing two giants of the electronics industry: Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel.
(2) All of Kentucky's problems are about to be solved, now that its legislators have passed an anti-trans law! The state ranks 36th in education, 40th in economy, 48th in fiscal stability, and 44th in health care.
(3) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Fire at detention center in Mexico, used to house migrants turned back from the US, kills at least 40.
- Girl cousins: Daughters of my three sisters and me at a recent family gathering. [Photo]
- Final-4 teams for NCAA women's basketball (3/31, on ESPN): LSU v. Virginia Tech & Iowa v. S. Carolina.
- Final-4 teams for NCAA men's basketball (4/1, on CBS): FAU v. San Diego State & Miami v. U. Conn.
- Everyone is familiar with NYC's Central Park: SF's Golden Gate Park is 20% larger (~3 miles by ~0.5 mile).
- The 10 wonders of Australia: Unusual and horrifying discoveries down under. [23-minute video]
- Facial recognition tech put to good use: You're not allowed into this Danish supermarket unless you smile.
(4) The world has turned on Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations for 250 years: Now, wealth, or the invisible hand of the market, alone cannot solve all of our problems, given six new realities (ecological crisis; geopolitical changes; demographic changes; the rise of social democracies; disruption from technology; post-wealth era, when wealth increments no longer translate to improved well-being). We need a new book, The Well-Being of Nations. [36-minute talk by economist Jeffrey Sachs]
(5) Obamacare is more popular than ever: Just like Social Security and Medicare before it, Obamacare faced harsh criticism early on. And just like Social Security and Medicare, politicians of both parties are vowing to protect Obamacare. North Carolina has become the latest state to embrace Obamacare, along with its expansion of Medicaid, passing a bill 87-24 & 44-2 in its Republican-controlled House & Senate, respectively.
(1) Book review: Williams, Juan, What the Hell Do You Have to Lose? Trump's War on Civil Rights, unabridged 10-hour audiobook, read by Dale E. Turner, Hachette Audio, 2018.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The title of this book comes from one of Donald Trump's statements at a 2016 campaign rally, where he claimed that no group in America has been more harmed by Hillary Clinton's policies than African-Americans, before asking for their votes on the grounds that they have nothing to lose, given the prevalence of crime, condition of their schools, abject poverty, and high unemployment.
I don't believe that Trump's hypocritical narrative produced any significant African-American votes for him, but the few who were moved by his rhetorical question must have been very surprised by his subsequent actions. Trump's twisting of history for personal gain from fomenting racial tensions and ignoring the sweat and blood of countless civil-rights activists was deplorable. Progress in this area didn't just halt under Trump; much of earlier gains were undone.
Overtly racist Trump cabinet members and advisors, such as Jeff Sessions, Betsy DeVos, and Stephen Miller, along with his race-driven claims of voter fraud made progress in the areas of civil rights and race relations all but impossible. In an area where gains have been painfully small and slow, the prospects of losing those gains are very real and troubling. Ironically, we still see some African-Americans supporting Trump, thus a real need for Williams' eye-opening book.
The author's anti-Trump commentaries are devastating, because they are grounded in Trump administration's dismal record in areas connected to prior progress: The 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the 1968 Fair Housing Act. Retrogression in areas of school integration, racial justice, and voting rights threatened the basic freedoms of all marginalized groups, convincing them that they indeed had a lot to lose.
(2) Book review: Franco, Marisa G., Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2022.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
In her best-selling book, Platonic, Dr. Franco (U. Maryland) discusses psychology research on how sustaining friendship is a process, not just of behaviors, but of fundamentally reconciling with how we view ourselves. I was fortunate to hear Dr. Franco talk about her book on January 17, 2023, in conversation with Dr. Elizabeth Laugeson (UCLA). Notes I took during that UCLA Semel Institute webinar have been incorporated into my review.
Let me begin by describing the book's structure. Sandwiched between introductory and concluding chapters are the following eight chapters, the first two of which are categorized as looking back and the other six as looking forward.
- How Friendship Transforms Our Lives (connecting with others makes us ourselves)
- How Our Past Relationships Affect Our Present (the power of attachment theory in friendship)
- Taking Initiative (how to turn strangers into friends)
- Expressing Vulnerability (how to trust friends without feeling weak)
- Pursuing Authenticity (how to deepen friendships by showing your true self)
- Harmonizing with Anger (how to take chaos out of conflict)
- Offering Generosity (how to give to your friends without losing yourself)
- Giving Affection (how to give and receive love)
Dr. Franco tackles how people's underlying psychological architecture sabotages or harmonizes with their ability to attract and keep friends. Our relationships with others fundamentally shape who we are. Attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant) are the same, whether a relationship is romantic or platonic. Lately, we have emphasized romantic relationships, to the detriment of platonic ones.
Loneliness (absence of friendships) kills. We pay a lot of attention to diet and exercise for staying healthy. But making sure we aren't lonely has a much greater impact on our health. Loneliness is a fairly new concept. Before the 1800s, we didn't even have a word for it. In those days, marriages were primarily unions of convenience. Intimate conversations, cuddling, holding hands occurred between friends of the same sex. Nowadays, a lot of people, especially men, have very few or no friends. One reason is the prevalence of homophobia. For most of us, friendship is about occasional happy hours, which makes us miss out on the opportunity of having friends as confidants or soulmates.
Technology, social media in particular, has intensified a trend that began with television, which made interactions with people too much of a burden, compared with lazily watching others. Although social media can be a valuable tool for connecting, its primary effect has been that of disconnection. During the pandemic, social media played a positive role in connecting us. People with disabilities or social anxiety also benefit from connective technologies.
There are proven practices for changing your attachment style. Using the insights of attachment theory and the latest scientific research on friendship, you can improve the number and quality of your connections. We have an unconscious tendency to like people to whom we have had greater exposure. So, one way to find more friends is to increase your interactions and exposure to other people. Our brain has a negativity bias. When we interact with someone, we tend to underestimate how alike we are. We need to correct for this negativity bias, for example, by paying compliments. Take a positive view, always assuming that people like you. Shared activities, such as membership in groups, helps us in overcoming the negativity bias.
The book's most-important message is that we cannot survive on romantic love alone. Intimate same-sex friends play a big role in reducing our loneliness, whether or not we have a trusted romantic partner.
(3) Book review: Machen, J. Gresham, Christianity & Liberalism, unabridged 6-hour audiobook, read by Ray Porter, Christian Audio, 2011. [My 2-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book, regarded as a classic, was first published in 1923, with numerous editions having appeared since then. According to J. Gresham Machen [1881-1937], Christianity is about sins: Everyone is a sinner, except for Christ, who was a supernatural being. He believes that there is a war within Christianity and that Orthodox Christians, the only true Christians, should fight this war to the bitter end. The liberal Church has softened the rules, making them toothless.
What Machen criticizes isn't liberalism as a political philosophy, but Christian Liberalism, which has circumvented the cruel, inflexible laws of Christianity found in Orthodox interpretations of the New Testament. The Liberal Church maintains that God loves all his creations ("God is Love"), the redeemed and those with shaky beliefs. According to Machen, liberalized Christianity isn't Christianity at all, but a different religion altogether; a Satanic trick to corrupt the Church.
Along with dissing Liberal Christianity, Machen also knocks socialism, leftism, public schooling, and many other sins of the modern world. He even dismisses other religions, maintaining that the world should be controlled by Christian men: "[T]he true transformation of society will come by the influence of those who have themselves been redeemed." Machen no doubt thought that he had presented sound, logical arguments for his views, but I found nothing except assertions and circular thinking.
Checking the book's evaluations on Amazon, I was very surprised by its average 4.8 stars out of 5, based on 649 ratings. On GoodReads, the average rating is 4.3 stars based on 4876 ratings and 498 reviews. I expected to encounter many unfavorable reviews and ratings, given our modern world's preference for altruism and cooperation, over individuality and judgment.
(1) Images of the day: [Left] All 6000 residents of Suloszowa Village in Poland live on one street. [Center] The other source of energy consumption in automobiles (see the next item below). [Right] Susanne Pari's In the Time of Our History (see the last item below).
(2) The hidden energy consumption in our automobiles: The sophisticated control and entertainment systems in modern cars have a non-negligible energy footprint. The chart, from an article by Robert P. Dick et al. in the March 2023 issue of IEEE Computer magazine, shows that at low driving speeds typical of urban areas, energy usage for computing can be 50% or more of that used for propulsion, thus making low-power design of digital circuitry, already quite important in mobile devices and supercomputers, also vital for automotive computers.
(3) Comedian George Carlin believes that the list of Ten Commandments is highly inflated and shows how they can be reduced to the more manageable Two Commandments. [8-minute video]
(4) One-liners: Brief news headlines, happenings, memes, and other items of general interest.
- Woman armed with assault rifles kills 3 children & 3 adults at a Nashville Christian school.
- Mass protests continue in Israel (over judicial-system changes) & in France (over increased retirement age).
- World's natural-history museums reveal their inventory of 1.1 B objects, from dinosaur bones to insects.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 27, 2016: People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be.
- Facebook memory from Mar. 27, 2015: Poet Yaghma Golrouee's ode to Iranian women, entitled "Rahaee."
- Facebook memory from Mar. 27, 2013: A remarkable illusion of motion in a stationary image.
(5) Book review: Pari, Susanne, In the Time of Our History: A Novel, Kensington, 2023.
[My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
As 52 American hostages were being greeted in Germany by the just-replaced President Jimmy Carter, after spending 444 days in captivity at the US Embassy in Tehran, Mitra Jahani lay in a New York hospital bed, recovering from a concealed operation to make herself barren and thus unmarriageable. This is the gripping start to Susanne Pari's historical novel about the trials and tribulations of an Iranian-American family, living on the US East Coast: The protagonist, Mitra, her younger sister Ana(hita), their parents, and a host of other characters.
Mitra had become engaged to the first available suitor, reluctantly, because Ana, who had fallen in love and wanted to tie the knot, wasn't allowed to marry before she did. Their father, who had just invited guests to his daughters' double-wedding, was livid when he found out about the operation, but he could not rescind his permission for Ana to get married. Mitra was disowned by her father and moved to the West Coast to pursue a life in which she could be as free as a boy in choosing her future. She did not see her parents until after the death of Ana many years later.
After this auspicious beginning, we read the rest of the story in three parts: Sisters (Chapters 1-11); Julian (Chapters 12-25); Brothers (Chapters 26-29). The numbered chapters are preceded by a prologue in Part 1 and followed by an epilogue in Part 3. Part 2's Julian is Mitra's supportive physician boyfriend. In part 3, we meet two half-brothers, one of them Mitra's father, who were shunned and neglected by their father's primary wife and teased by her sons. The book ends with "A Reading Group Guide" composed of ten discussion questions.
All families carry secrets, big and small. But such secrets, and the lies that accompany them, are wider-ranging and heftier when an inflexible and callous patriarch controls every aspect of the family's life and when women gain agency only by being manipulative. This is quite often the case for old-school Iranian and, to a lesser extent, Iranian-American families. So, even though Pari's novel can be viewed as a run-of-the-mill family saga, the social and cultural references are refreshingly new.
And, of course, the author's elaboration on gender roles is quite timely, in view of the ongoing feminist/youth uprising in Iran under the slogan #WomanLifeFreedom. Imagine a girl feeling so cornered that she sees no way out of the pressure to get married other than making herself unmarriageable (by her family's cultural standard). Other than the tragic lives of women under extreme patriarchy, the story holds other tragedies, again something many families face and try to overcome.
I struggle with stories that jump around in time, but do understand the attraction to authors of revealing the tale one puzzle-piece at a time and for readers to take delight in discovering the causes of some events many pages later. I have always wondered: Do such authors actually write a chronological narrative and then chop it up, or do they write directly in nonsequential order? If the latter, then the task of keeping things connected and consistent is quite immense. The chopping-up approach presents its own problems.
The titular "In the Time of Our History" refers to short introductions to the three parts and the epilogue, exemplified by the following narrative starting Part 1: "In the time of our history when the Songwriter Who Imagined was murdered in New York and the dictator Saddam invaded Iran, there was a girl ..."
(1) Book review: Afary, Janet and Kamran Afary, Molla Nasreddin: The Making of a Modern Trickster (1906-1911), Edinburgh U. Press, 2022. [My 4-star review of this book on GoodReads]
This book explores the birth and life history of an influential weekly published for five years, 1906-1911, by a group of Muslim Azerbaijani and Georgian artists & intellectuals of Tbilisi (modern Georgia). Their 8-to-12-page weekly, Molla Nasreddin, named after a well-known Middle Eastern trickster, offered progressive commentary and advocated for sociopolitical reforms. The publishers used folklore, visual art, and satire to promulgate their message in an entertaining and effective way.
The weekly, which was richly illustrated with color cartoons and other images, reached and impacted the thinking of tens of thousands of readers in the Muslim world. The book, itself richly illustrated with 300+ images, provides photos of key personalities of the time and numerous examples of the journal's contents. Molla Naserdin is still quite relevant and is referenced widely. Several publications in the region, including Iran's satirical & political weekly Towfiq [1923-1971], which I enjoyed during my youth, were influenced by it.
The book consists of nine chapters, organized in three parts, sandwiched between an introduction and an epilogue. The book ends with 14 pages of references and a 16-page index.
Part I: The World of the Journal (Chs. 1-3, pp. 19-160)
Part II: Reimagining the Folk Trickster and Rethinking Gender Norms (Chs. 4-6, pp. 161-280)
Part III: The Influence of European Graphic Arts (Chs. 7-8, pp. 281-360)
I was fortunate to attend Dr. Janet Afary's virtual book talk (Recording), sponsored jointly by UCSB's Iranian Studies Initiative and Farhang Foundation, on February 19, 2022. The event was a part of a lecture series on Iranian Art and Literary Exchange Between Iran, Transcaucasia, Central Asia, and Russia in the 20th Century. Listening to the talk is a good way of getting a synopsis of the book and its many illustrations.
Let me end my review by quoting from the first page of the book's introduction and the last paragraph of its epilogue: "In 1906, a group of artists and intellectuals reinterpreted the tales of the Middle Eastern trickster, Molla Nasreddin, to construct a progressive anticolonial discourse with a strong emphasis on social, political and religious reform. The founder and editor of the new periodical, Molla Nasreddin, was Jalil Memedqolizadeh. Commonly known as Mirza Jalil, he was an Azerbaijani educator and playwright. His wife, Hamideh Khanum Javanshir, was an early Azerbaijani feminist and a philanthropist. ... Mirza Jalil and his colleagues initiated a radical discourse on gender reform and called attention to the plight of women and children. The periodical became a pioneering advocate of women's rights in the Muslim world as it exposed the ramifications of gender segregation, polygamy, easy divorce for men and pedophilia involving both boys and girls. For all these accomplishments, Molla Nasreddin will forever remain a true literary gem of the Azerbaijani-speaking people and the wider Muslim world."
(2) Book review: Sarshar, Homa, Sha'ban Ja'fari, Naab Publishers, 2002.
[ISBN 0-9661291-9-9] [My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
The widely-detested Sha'ban Ja'fari [1921-2006], a sports personality often referred to as "Sha'ban Bi-Mokh" ("Sha'ban the Brainless"), played a key role in reinstating the late Shah to power in the CIA-directed coup of 1953 against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Sarshar writes that she first met Ja'fari in 1986, when a party guest brought him along. Like many Iranians, she was ambivalent about talking to Jafari, but her journalistic instincts took over in deciding that what Jafari had to say was worth recording as part of Iran's history. She approached Jafari, who eventually agreed to talk to Sarshar in 1999, two decades after Iran's Islamic Revolution. Why he waited so long to tell his story is unclear.
Ja'fari ran a club for varzesh-e baastaani ("ancient sport"), a strength & physical-fitness regimen with followers among Iran's uneducated masses, exemplified by people who lived in the economically-disadvantaged South Tehran. To gain Ja'fari's trust, the author promised to truthfully report his views and to help spread information about his beloved varzesh-e baastaani. The book is entirely in the Q&A or interview format, illustrated with many photos from Ja'fari's private collection.
Bearing several photos of Ja'fari and his activities on its front & back covers, the book begins with a 12-page preface, followed by 16 un-numbered chapters (pp. 21-386), 22 short appendices with documents and photos (pp. 387-424), a glossary of varzesh-e baastaani & zoorkhaneh ("house of strength"), the club or gym where it is practiced (pp. 425-442), and a collection of photos related to the sport and its personalities (pp. 443-470).
I enjoyed reading about the life story of Sha'ban Ja'fari in Sarshar's book, which carries some elements of "people's history," the telling of history by ordinary people and how they experienced & lived through transformational events, instead of focusing only on what rulers, politicians, people in power, and intellectuals care to write or say. In the case of Ja'fari, his stories may be self-serving, as he tries to salvage his reputation in the latter stages of his life. Sarshar indicates that she tried to confirm Ja'fari's stories by consulting reference sources and talking to other individuals, but that some of Jafari's claims remain unverified.
Sarshar's Sha'ban Ja'fari is available to read on-line for free.
(3) Book review: Parsa, Asghar (with Ali Parsa), A Child of His Own Character: A Memoir of the National Front (Farzand-e Khesal-e Khishtan), in Persian, Ney Publications, Tehran, 2019, 207 pp. + 16-pp. supplement. [ISBN: 978-964-312-992-7] [My 3-star review of this book on GoodReads]
Asghar Parsa [1919-2007], a prominent member and spokesperson of Iran's National Front, was imprisoned after the 1953 CIA-sponsored coup for siding with Prime-Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Other than speakership of the National Front and participation in its reconstitution in the late 1970s, Parsa held positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at the Parliament's lower house (Majlis).
This 207-pp. book covers Parsa's life in 60 brief essays, mostly 1 to 4 pages long, with titles such as "Birth and Childhood," "Mission to China," "Lunch with the Shah," "National Front Congress," and "Meeting with Hoveyda." The narrative ends in the mid-1980s, when Parsa was arrested by the Islamic authorities, while living in hiding. The 16-pp. supplement, containing material that were disallowed in the original edition, covers his imprisonment and extends to a few years before his death in Tehran.
The book was produced by Asghar Parsa, with help from his son Ali, based on the transcripts of a series of oral interviews conducted by the National Library of Iran, transforming the conversational tone of the interviews to written language and adding material from other sources. The narrative is accompanied by illustrations consisting of personal & official photos and a few newspaper clippings.
Iran's history over the past 12 decades, since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, is quite complicated and an authoritative account is yet to emerge. This is particularly true for the last 4+ decades under Islamic rule. We can glean fragments of the history from books such as Parsa's, which narrate pieces of it from a personal perspective. Reconciling the partial, conflicting, and often self-serving accounts is a task awaiting to be tackled.
(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 a 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.
(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]
(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!
(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.
(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.
(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.
(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!
(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]
(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.
(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"
(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.
(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.
(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.
(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.
(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).
(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.
(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]
(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]
(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]
(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.
(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
(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
(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]
(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."
(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.
(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.
(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]
(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.
(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).
(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.
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.
(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]
(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.
(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 ..."
(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.
(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.
(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.
(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!
(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.
(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."
(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.
(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.
(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.
(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."
(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.
(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.
(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.
(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.
(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).
(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?
(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.
(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]
(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.
(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
(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.
(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.
(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!
(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.
(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.
(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
(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]
(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
(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.
(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."
(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.
(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.
(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)."