I do a lot of programming in my job. Well, actually right now, that's about all I do.
My code can take some time to run, like, weeks, even after I managed to parallelize it. I was writing up my results for a technical report, and noticed I had made some inconsistent assumptions in the specification. I was reviewing the code to help me write a description of the model, when I noticed this error.
God damned it. I'd been analyzing the results of the simulations for the last three weeks, but now I realized this mistake. It probably won't change the results, and I learned how to analyze this model which was a valuable exercise. Still, I need to re-run the analysis. Mother of God.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Easy chair mount
For Xmas I got the ultimate in a lazy person's computer desk. Have been spending the last few days setting up my spanking new computer on it. It's proven quite challenging but I think I'm almost there. Go me.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Book Review on "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?"
I recently finished this book by academic Beverly Daniel Tatum.
All in all it was a worthy read. It articulated a lot of ideas I've been having about how white Americans just don't notice race. It also provided a plausible account about why black adolescents seek out the friendship of other blacks. Tatum also sought to provide concrete solutions.
But the book had some serious short-comings. For instance, Tatum's quantitative evidence for the persistence of racism is ambiguous. She sites a study that notes that black ethnicity or hispanic origin is the single greatest predictor of socio-economic well being. This is reasonable. Although we can agree that genetics is probably not part of the equation, Tatum pays mere lip service to other hypotheses such as cultural differences. Instead, she uses this to argue that it is evidence for systemic, institutionalized racism. I don't necessarily disagree with Tatum's conclusion, only that she fails to rule out other hypotheses. Another problematic case of discussing statistics is when Tatum gives a statistic that about 40 some percent of white college juniors say their social group involves members of other ethnicities. What is not said is to which ethnic groups these friends belong. Indeed, it is reasonable that in many college campuses in America (especially the elite schools on the East and West Coasts as well as the Midwest and New South), such cross-racial friendships that whites have are almost certainly Asians and perhaps Hispanics, but probably not blacks. And that is assuming the respondents are honest - as Tatum notes, whites frequently underestimate their own racism. A Honduran lab partner or Jewish student might qualify as a friend "from a different ethnic group". That she fails to analyze this statistic in greater depth, or quote a result of a rather vague study, at best suggests Tatum is, inspite of her efforts, naive about the extent of black-white segregation, and at worse is selectively using the empirical evidence. This makes her argument come across as highly selective.
Indeed, the author's selections of quotes by whites seem to belie her claim that whites, too, have a role in the anti-racist struggle. She seems to quote the most egregious, nonsensical diatrabe of white people short of interviewing a neo-Nazi.
Moreover, although she acknowledges that bigotry exists in communities of color, she persists in painting people of color in the role of victim, empowered or not. This blindness, if it can be called that, extends to her other passages. She entirely neglects the fact that whites in majority-minority communities tend to be among the most virulent racists. No doubt her analysis would have been more interesting (and believable) had she analyzed how white students behave in schools that are overwhelmingly black. That a proposed scholar of identity development fails to explore, much less even mention, this rather under-studied demographic (whites who grow up in predominantly non-white neighborhood) makes one wonder about if the author is interested in identity development per se or in the experience of blacks in America.
Tatum's black-white focus is increasingly obsolete. Tatum suggests as much when she has a chapter on "racism beyond black and white." But here again Tatum rather unconvincingly tries to force the experience of other ethnic groups to align with the experience of blacks. For instance, she repeatedly emphasizes how Native Americans and Hispanics, like blacks, been forced to deal with the American mainstream. There is a kernel of truth to this view, but this analysis fails completely when she ignores it when it comes to Asian Americans, most of whom came, and continue to come, to America by choice.
Another problem with Tatum's analysis of "other races" is her disingenous conflation of (mostly East Asians) with Pacific Islanders. From issues as diverse as child mortality to college degrees, the two groups have starkly different demographics. That Taylor persists in lumping them in "Asian Pacific Americans" betrays, inspite of her cursory discussion, a superficial understanding of this group of Americans.
Perhaps no where else is Tatum's failure to go beyond the black-white divide more clearly illustrated than her cursory treatment of the experience of Americans of middle eastern descent. Arab Americans have a scant two paragraphs (in the context of being "Asian American"), whilst Jews are subsumed as white. Of course, in a book written before 2001 this is to some extent understandable. But in light of the fact that both groups have assimilated so well, Tatum's curosry treatment of them also suggests, once again, that Tatum projects her own experiences as a black American unfairly onto the experience of other groups. Tatum avoids examples of overwhelmingly successful assimilation (also experienced to a lesser degree by South Asian, white Hispanic, and Japanese Americans) like the plague throughout her book. Clearly this makes the work incredibly "black-centric".
As a multiracial person, I found Tatum's discussion of multi-racial families artificial. I am simply unconvinced she understands the complexity of the problem. For instance, only in passing is reference made to black children teasing mixed race children for their wavy hair or non-African features. Although I have repeated problems with her reference to the empirical literature throughout the book, by the time she gets around to discussing the empirical literature on the problems of mixed-race Americans, I am disinclined to trust her summary of the empirical literature that mixed-race children turn out generally fine. Worse, Tatum's focus on the offspring of black-white relationships is unjustified. Tatum herself should recognize the reason for this - namely, the one drop rule. As Barack Obama's experience illustrates, offspring of black-white couples are black first and foremost. As such, their experience with the sort of racism pervasive in society is only marginally different from that of lighter skinned blacks. A really interesting examination would have been the offspring of white-Asian, white-Pacific Islander, or white-Amerindians, because both groups have offspring that really are neither white nor Asian/Pacific/Amerindian. Disappointingly, and unsurprisingly, Tatum largely ignores such cases.
Finally, Tatum fails to confront the central reasons why racism persists - namely, class society. She does seem somewhat more cognizant of gender and sexual orientation issues. But perhaps because Tatum herself is an academic bureaucrat of middle-class extraction, she is blind to the central role of poverty and capitalism in perpetuating racism. Either that, or she is astute enough to understand that complaining about race is acceptable within bourgeois discoure, but complaining about capitalism is not. I suspect the latter is the case.
Indeed, the strength of one's argument is often tested only when confronted with the most direct, seemingly contrary evidence, not when abetted with the most friendly evidence. Regrettably, Tatum's important message about the persistence of institutionalized racism is muddled by her having chosen the latter course.
All in all it was a worthy read. It articulated a lot of ideas I've been having about how white Americans just don't notice race. It also provided a plausible account about why black adolescents seek out the friendship of other blacks. Tatum also sought to provide concrete solutions.
But the book had some serious short-comings. For instance, Tatum's quantitative evidence for the persistence of racism is ambiguous. She sites a study that notes that black ethnicity or hispanic origin is the single greatest predictor of socio-economic well being. This is reasonable. Although we can agree that genetics is probably not part of the equation, Tatum pays mere lip service to other hypotheses such as cultural differences. Instead, she uses this to argue that it is evidence for systemic, institutionalized racism. I don't necessarily disagree with Tatum's conclusion, only that she fails to rule out other hypotheses. Another problematic case of discussing statistics is when Tatum gives a statistic that about 40 some percent of white college juniors say their social group involves members of other ethnicities. What is not said is to which ethnic groups these friends belong. Indeed, it is reasonable that in many college campuses in America (especially the elite schools on the East and West Coasts as well as the Midwest and New South), such cross-racial friendships that whites have are almost certainly Asians and perhaps Hispanics, but probably not blacks. And that is assuming the respondents are honest - as Tatum notes, whites frequently underestimate their own racism. A Honduran lab partner or Jewish student might qualify as a friend "from a different ethnic group". That she fails to analyze this statistic in greater depth, or quote a result of a rather vague study, at best suggests Tatum is, inspite of her efforts, naive about the extent of black-white segregation, and at worse is selectively using the empirical evidence. This makes her argument come across as highly selective.
Indeed, the author's selections of quotes by whites seem to belie her claim that whites, too, have a role in the anti-racist struggle. She seems to quote the most egregious, nonsensical diatrabe of white people short of interviewing a neo-Nazi.
Moreover, although she acknowledges that bigotry exists in communities of color, she persists in painting people of color in the role of victim, empowered or not. This blindness, if it can be called that, extends to her other passages. She entirely neglects the fact that whites in majority-minority communities tend to be among the most virulent racists. No doubt her analysis would have been more interesting (and believable) had she analyzed how white students behave in schools that are overwhelmingly black. That a proposed scholar of identity development fails to explore, much less even mention, this rather under-studied demographic (whites who grow up in predominantly non-white neighborhood) makes one wonder about if the author is interested in identity development per se or in the experience of blacks in America.
Tatum's black-white focus is increasingly obsolete. Tatum suggests as much when she has a chapter on "racism beyond black and white." But here again Tatum rather unconvincingly tries to force the experience of other ethnic groups to align with the experience of blacks. For instance, she repeatedly emphasizes how Native Americans and Hispanics, like blacks, been forced to deal with the American mainstream. There is a kernel of truth to this view, but this analysis fails completely when she ignores it when it comes to Asian Americans, most of whom came, and continue to come, to America by choice.
Another problem with Tatum's analysis of "other races" is her disingenous conflation of (mostly East Asians) with Pacific Islanders. From issues as diverse as child mortality to college degrees, the two groups have starkly different demographics. That Taylor persists in lumping them in "Asian Pacific Americans" betrays, inspite of her cursory discussion, a superficial understanding of this group of Americans.
Perhaps no where else is Tatum's failure to go beyond the black-white divide more clearly illustrated than her cursory treatment of the experience of Americans of middle eastern descent. Arab Americans have a scant two paragraphs (in the context of being "Asian American"), whilst Jews are subsumed as white. Of course, in a book written before 2001 this is to some extent understandable. But in light of the fact that both groups have assimilated so well, Tatum's curosry treatment of them also suggests, once again, that Tatum projects her own experiences as a black American unfairly onto the experience of other groups. Tatum avoids examples of overwhelmingly successful assimilation (also experienced to a lesser degree by South Asian, white Hispanic, and Japanese Americans) like the plague throughout her book. Clearly this makes the work incredibly "black-centric".
As a multiracial person, I found Tatum's discussion of multi-racial families artificial. I am simply unconvinced she understands the complexity of the problem. For instance, only in passing is reference made to black children teasing mixed race children for their wavy hair or non-African features. Although I have repeated problems with her reference to the empirical literature throughout the book, by the time she gets around to discussing the empirical literature on the problems of mixed-race Americans, I am disinclined to trust her summary of the empirical literature that mixed-race children turn out generally fine. Worse, Tatum's focus on the offspring of black-white relationships is unjustified. Tatum herself should recognize the reason for this - namely, the one drop rule. As Barack Obama's experience illustrates, offspring of black-white couples are black first and foremost. As such, their experience with the sort of racism pervasive in society is only marginally different from that of lighter skinned blacks. A really interesting examination would have been the offspring of white-Asian, white-Pacific Islander, or white-Amerindians, because both groups have offspring that really are neither white nor Asian/Pacific/Amerindian. Disappointingly, and unsurprisingly, Tatum largely ignores such cases.
Finally, Tatum fails to confront the central reasons why racism persists - namely, class society. She does seem somewhat more cognizant of gender and sexual orientation issues. But perhaps because Tatum herself is an academic bureaucrat of middle-class extraction, she is blind to the central role of poverty and capitalism in perpetuating racism. Either that, or she is astute enough to understand that complaining about race is acceptable within bourgeois discoure, but complaining about capitalism is not. I suspect the latter is the case.
Indeed, the strength of one's argument is often tested only when confronted with the most direct, seemingly contrary evidence, not when abetted with the most friendly evidence. Regrettably, Tatum's important message about the persistence of institutionalized racism is muddled by her having chosen the latter course.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Irish lamb stew
So I tried a recipe for Irish lamb stew. It didn't go over too well, in part because the pot I cooked it in was really shallow (about 7 cups water max I don't have a dutch oven or a real pot).
The other problem was that I used lamb shanks, which yielded very little meat. A lot of effort for something that was only so-so. My advice to people who cook Irish stew in the future? By pre-cut lamb in chunks for stew. It's worth the extra couple of bucks a pound.
The consolation was in the soda bread. I made it with lime yogurt, which made it really sweet. Other additions were carraway seeds (an terrifyingly expensive spice), a store-bought mixture of chopped nuts (mostly peanuts), and sunflower seeds. It was sweet, delicious, and easy to make.
The other problem was that I used lamb shanks, which yielded very little meat. A lot of effort for something that was only so-so. My advice to people who cook Irish stew in the future? By pre-cut lamb in chunks for stew. It's worth the extra couple of bucks a pound.
The consolation was in the soda bread. I made it with lime yogurt, which made it really sweet. Other additions were carraway seeds (an terrifyingly expensive spice), a store-bought mixture of chopped nuts (mostly peanuts), and sunflower seeds. It was sweet, delicious, and easy to make.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Keep bananas from going brown
I made a fruit salad last week. It's pretty tasty, and I've kept it in the fridge, but the bananas went brown after like the third day. This is somewhat annoying, as I'd hoped to serve it to guests. I can only guess that the ripening was accelerated b/c of the sugars from the other fruits??? I guess one needs to wait until the last minute to add them in.
Linux v. Windoze 7
Maximum PC had an interesting article today comparing the supposedly new and improved Windows 7 with "Linux." And by "Linux", I suspect they mean Ubuntu, because it is by far the best platform for the sorts of folks that entertain using Windows 7.
The article pointed out that netbooks are the future for Linux, because consumers can save about $80 on a $330 laptop - and between $250 and $330, people can start to appreciate the glory of free software. The theory goes that once people become accustomed to the Linux environment on their netbooks, they'll be more eager to try it out in other areas of their life. This, I thought, was a really interesting point. It's kind of like how Apple hooked people with their ipods.
Nevertheless, Linux is not easy to use for anything but standard browsing, coding and office type apps. It's multimedia support is still shaky, especially it's audio. Another persistent problem is that gaming is fickle at best with Linux, and often maddening. Until these kinks are worked out, Linux won't be able to expand past the netbook market - people who use their computers precisely for browsing, coding and office type apps.
So the theory is is that by promising superior (or at least more user-friendly) performance on netbooks, Windows 7 can outcompete Linux. I doubt this will be the case, and the folks at Maximum PC seem to agree. Most people aren't expecting more from their netbooks than a bare-bones lightweight laptop. In that context, Linux works just fine. Of course Linux is getting better and better, and it's only a matter of time (albeit a few years) before they get the multi-media and gaming kinks worked out.
The article pointed out that netbooks are the future for Linux, because consumers can save about $80 on a $330 laptop - and between $250 and $330, people can start to appreciate the glory of free software. The theory goes that once people become accustomed to the Linux environment on their netbooks, they'll be more eager to try it out in other areas of their life. This, I thought, was a really interesting point. It's kind of like how Apple hooked people with their ipods.
Nevertheless, Linux is not easy to use for anything but standard browsing, coding and office type apps. It's multimedia support is still shaky, especially it's audio. Another persistent problem is that gaming is fickle at best with Linux, and often maddening. Until these kinks are worked out, Linux won't be able to expand past the netbook market - people who use their computers precisely for browsing, coding and office type apps.
So the theory is is that by promising superior (or at least more user-friendly) performance on netbooks, Windows 7 can outcompete Linux. I doubt this will be the case, and the folks at Maximum PC seem to agree. Most people aren't expecting more from their netbooks than a bare-bones lightweight laptop. In that context, Linux works just fine. Of course Linux is getting better and better, and it's only a matter of time (albeit a few years) before they get the multi-media and gaming kinks worked out.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
seafood medley
I had to go to 4 supermarkets before I could finally find it. This frozen, about 1 lb bag of seafood mix composed of all sorts of shellfish and imitation crab, used to be really easy to find. Now the last supermarket I went to didn't have it frozen, which was kind of sketchy.
What gives? Well any how I finally have it and just threw it in the paella. What a pain.
What gives? Well any how I finally have it and just threw it in the paella. What a pain.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Book review on "My Name is Red" by Orhan Pamuk
What I liked about this book:
- Language is soooo rich
- Multiple narrators
- Historical allusions to 16th century Istanbul
- The love story
- The murder mystery
- Shevket
- Esther
What I didn't like about this book:
- Random digressions: OK, I get it, you're good with words. Now can we move on?
- WTF is a "miniaturist"???
- An insertion or two of one of the pictures would have been nice.
Overall grade: A-
- Language is soooo rich
- Multiple narrators
- Historical allusions to 16th century Istanbul
- The love story
- The murder mystery
- Shevket
- Esther
What I didn't like about this book:
- Random digressions: OK, I get it, you're good with words. Now can we move on?
- WTF is a "miniaturist"???
- An insertion or two of one of the pictures would have been nice.
Overall grade: A-
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