A traditional programmer's joke says that, if a problem must be solved in four hours, a real programmer will spend three hours and fifty-five minutes writing a program that can solve the problem in five minutes. We had a vacation from Danish class last week, and I spent most evenings working on my vocabulary training tool. I finished it last night at 11:30 pm and put in some sample data from lesson 8 - I may or may not have a test on lessons 8 and 9 tonight.

As any mathematician can tell you, now that I've demonstrated that a solution for learning Danish exists, the problem is solved and I can stop work. At least, that's what I'll say if I fail the next test.

"'Gabe Heaven' consists of a barren world, devoid of life, populated by yourself and an army of robots whose behavior you control. Is that about right?"

The second surprise was that the brain areas active in love are different from the areas activated in other emotional states, such as fear and anger. Parts of the brain that are love-bitten include the one responsible for gut feelings, and the ones which generate the euphoria induced by drugs such as cocaine. So the brains of people deeply in love do not look like those of people experiencing strong emotions, but instead like those of people snorting coke. Love, in other words, uses the neural mechanisms that are activated during the process of addiction. “We are literally addicted to love,” Dr Young observes. Like the prairie voles.

We got back from the Berlin OpenACS Bash (pic) and spent Monday morning moving from our office space near the door to the front end of the building, facing the harbor. If you look at this picture, we moved from partway down on the right to the far end. If you look at this picture, I'm looking at you from the top-left-corner window. We can see water, and the Havnebus (the coolest artefact in Copenhagen), and lots of government buildings, and a few nice church spires. Quite an improvement for us.

Smoking is forbidden in our building, so smokers congregate on the pavement by the rear door, and the real stairwell always reeks of cigarette smoke. But this is an intolerable distance for some schmuck on our floor, who has been taking cigarette breaks in the bathroom every afternoon. Today there is a nasty note in Danish in the bathroom - nice to see somebody else doesn't care for drug addicts getting their fixes and leaving their messes in shared office space.

Also, I now know what U2 was talking about re: Zoo Station on Achtung Baby. Downtown Berlin is basically one big railway station after another. When the main train station was caught behind the Berlin Wall, the pretty little Bahnhof by Zoologische Garten got promoted into being the main station for West Berlin. It's called Zoobahnhof, or Zoo Station, and both the intra-city and long-haul trains share one big platform. They're finishing up a new cross-shaped central station so that the long-distance and international trains will have a platform of their own. Counting the former eastern stations, there are four major urban-center train stations in a row in downtown Berlin.

A couple of months after the war ended the US army started blowing up UXO’s (unexploded ordinance – it took me forever to figure out what those three letters meant). They issued a warning saying that explosions on the top or half hour were controlled explosions. Just so that we wouldn’t freak out. Almost half a year later I still look at my watch every time I hear an explosion. I noticed my cousin does the same thing.

In 1900, a mathematician named David Hilbert addressed the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris and delivered what was to become history's most influential speech about mathematics. Hilbert outlined 23 major problems to be studied in the coming century. In doing so he expressed optimism about the field, sharing his feeling that unsolved problems were a sign of vitality, encouraging more people to do more research.
...

By putting forth our own "Hilbert problems" for baseball analysts of the future, Baseball Prospectus is outlining our philosophy for how and why this kind of work ought to be done--our attempt to provide inspiration and guidance to the baseball community at large.

Hilbert Problem in Math	"Hilbert Problem" in baseball
3. The equality of two volumes of two tetrahedra of equal bases and equal altitudes. In two letters to Gerling, Gauss5 expresses his regret that certain theorems of solid geometry depend upon the method of exhaustion, i. e., in modern phraseology, upon the axiom of continuity (or upon the axiom of Archimedes). Gauss mentions in particular the theorem of Euclid, that triangular pyramids of equal altitudes are to each other as their bases. Now the analogous problem in the plane has been solved.6 Gerling also succeeded in proving the equality of volume of symmetrical polyhedra by dividing them into congruent parts. Nevertheless, it seems to me probable that a general proof of this kind for the theorem of Euclid just mentioned is impossible, and it should be our task to give a rigorous proof of its impossibility.	3) Measuring the catcher's role in run prevention. In Baseball Prospectus 1999, Keith Woolner presented a compelling case that catchers do not have a noticeable effect on a pitcher's performance. If there is no "game-calling" effect, what impact does a catcher have? Is it primarily controlling the running game? If so, how much of that is attributable to the pitching staff? Is it in preventing wild pitches and passed balls, thus giving the pitcher more confidence to keep the ball low? What about reading a pitcher's physical state and helping to keep his pitch count low?
10. Determination of the solvability of a diophantine equation Given a diophantine equation with any number of unknown quantities and with rational integral numerical coefficients: to devise a process according to which it can be determined by a finite number of operations whether the equation is solvable in rational integers.	10) Projecting minor league pitchers accurately. One of the holy grails of sabermetrics is creating useful projections of major league pitcher performance based on minor league performance. While strikeout-to-walk ratios and other means of assessment can give us rough guides to good and bad young pitchers, we're nowhere near the level of certainty we want to achieve. ...
17. Expression of definite forms by squares A rational integral function or form in any number of variables with real coefficient such that it becomes negative for no real values of these variables, is said to be definite. The system of all definite forms is invariant with respect to the operations of addition and multiplication, but the quotient of two definite forms—in case it should be an integral function of the variables—is also a definite form. The square of any form is evidently always a definite form. But since, as I have shown,37 not every definite form can be compounded by addition from squares of forms, the question arises—which I have answered affirmatively for ternary forms38—whether every definite form may not be expressed as a quotient of sums of squares of forms....	17) Determining the value of draft picks, Rule 5 picks, player-to-be-named-later arrangements, and other non-specific forms of compensation in transactions. The more esoteric forms of compensation in trades are usually ignored, but they must have some real value if teams continue to exchange talent for them. What does a team give up when it signs a Type A free agent? How much is that draft pick worth? Is a typical Rule 5 pick worth the $50,000 and the roster spot? Are teams taking full advantage of the Rule 5 draft? What kinds of PTBNL deals make sense for both teams?

Selected Hilbert problems from Mathematical Problems, Lecture delivered before the International Congress of Mathematicians at Paris in 1900. By Professor David Hilbert

I've added a new feature to the site, a compendium of songs (mostly pop, jazz, and country) which are not in 4/4 time. Please use this list for those purposes which you see fit.

David Brooks recently claimed in the New York Times that only "full-mooners" believe that neoconservative institutions like the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) have any influence on Bush Administration policy because PNAC "has a staff of five and issues memos on foreign policy." But PNAC disseminates the views not of its paid staffers, receptionists and interns, but of powerful Administration insiders like Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld,

...

Unfortunately for [neoconservatives], a political ideology can fail in the real world only so many times before being completely discredited. For at least two decades, in foreign policy the neocons have been wrong about everything. When the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse, the hawks of Team B and the Committee on the Present Danger declared that it was on the verge of world domination. In the 1990s they exaggerated the power and threat of China, once again putting ideology ahead of the sober analysis of career military and intelligence experts. The neocons were so obsessed with Saddam Hussein and Yasir Arafat that they missed the growing threat of Al Qaeda. After 9/11 they pushed the irrelevant panaceas of preventive war and missile defense as solutions to the problems of hijackers and suicide bombers.

They said Saddam had WMDs. He didn't. They said he was in league with Osama bin Laden. He wasn't. They predicted that no major postwar insurgency in Iraq would occur. It did. They said there would be a wave of pro-Americanism in the Middle East and the world if the United States acted boldly and unilaterally. Instead, there was a regional and global wave of anti-Americanism.

Jackie (from Pomona) made it to the final stage of the Fulbright application process this year... almost. UC Berkeley was supposed to mail her application to the State Department, but FedEx never picked up UC Berkeley's applications due to a 'software error'. Usually, half of the students from Berkeley who make it to this stage end up with Fulbrights. The State department chose to not consider the 30 applications from Berkeley and has been exceedingly unsympathetic towards the students and undiplomatic with UC Berkeley. The Fulbright board has wanted to consider the students, but the State department has refused to change its position--until today. Now it seems they will let the Berkeley applications go through, as long as Berkeley pays for the awards. I think everything will work out for Jackie and the rest of the applicants, but this episode highlights two repeating themes of my existence: the mean spiritedness of the Bush admin towards California, and the incompetence of UC Berkeley’s administration. I’m contributing to Kerry’s campaign, and I’m going to graduate as soon as possible.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/02/10/state2150EST0165.DTL

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/02/05/BAGJE4PFAM1.DTL

One must hope that American soldiers leave behind a functioning democracy in Iraq--rather than the dysfunctional autocracies and kleptocracies that were the legacy of US military occupations in the Philippines, Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Mexico.

In the United States, we spend more than $250 billion each year on IT application development of approximately 175,000 projects. The average cost of a development project for a large company is $2,322,000; for a medium company, it is $1,331,000; and for a small company, it is $434,000. A great many of these projects will fail. Software development projects are in chaos, and we can no longer imitate the three monkeys -- hear no failures, see no failures, speak no failures.

The Standish Group research shows a staggering 31.1% of projects will be canceled before they ever get completed.

Here's Standish Group's table on the build vs buy decision. Build seems to be the winner.

Developed from scratch using traditional languages and methods	33%
Purchased application & modified	15
Developed from scratch using an object model	13
Developed some components & purchased others	13
Purchased application & modified extensively	12
Purchased components & assembled the application	9
Purchased application & performed no modifications	5

But it was only the fifth most important factor in project success rates.

Each factor has been weighted according to its
influence on a project's success. The more points, the lower the project risk.

Executive Support	18
User Involvement	16
Experienced Project Manager	14
Clear Business Objectives	12
Minimized Scope	10
Standard Software Infrastructure	8
Firm Basic Requirements	6
Formal Methodology	6
Reliable Estimates	5
Other	5

The active participation of the bosses, the users, and the manager are much more important than anything else to making a software project succeed. The reason, I'm guessing, is that with those parties involved, any other problem can be overcome, but the inverse is not true.

Denmark's creation myth includes the flag's origin story: it fell from the sky on June 15th, 1219, landing on or near the king, who was busy liberating Estonia (from the Estonians, presumably.) English speakers learning Danish tend to invent similar creation myths for the language. My own theory is that Danish is the result of Vikings spending a few too many seasons in Albion, learning Old English while drunk, and bringing the result back. The most recent piece of evidence is this sentence from Lesson 9:

OK, så send mig en e-mail.

An alternate theory is that there is no such thing as Danish: They all speak English and they just fake this stuff to seem more exotic to British/American/Australian tourists' daughters.

Dawkins has spent much of his career defending a particular view of Darwinism. This so-called selfish gene view grew out of work in the 1960s by George Williams and William Hamilton. While Darwin argued that evolution involves a kind of survival of the fittest, Hamilton, Williams, and their heirs argued that it's the fittest gene that matters, not the fittest organism. To see what this means, consider an example. When a small bird spots a hawk overhead it will often issue an alarm call, warning its flock-mates of the predator's presence. The odd thing is that this behavior—which we'll assume is instinctive, that is, genetically based—is "altruistic." By sounding the alarm, a bird may well save its flock-mates but it simultaneously calls attention to itself, increasing the odds that it will be attacked by the hawk. How could such a behavior evolve?

If you think of Darwinism in traditional terms—as competition among different organisms—the answer isn't obvious. A bird who sounds a call (and so perhaps gets eaten) is unlikely to have more offspring than a bird who keeps quiet (and so probably avoids getting eaten). And having more offspring is what Darwinism was supposed to be all about. But if you think of Darwinism in selfish gene terms— as competition among different genes —the answer is clearer. A gene that makes a bird emit an alarm may decrease the odds that the calling bird survives but it can increase the odds that the gene for alarm-calling survives. The reason is that the flock-mates who are saved by the alarm are, like all flock-mates, likely to be related to the caller; and relatives, by definition, tend to carry the same genes, including the gene for sounding the alarm. In effect, then, the alarm-call gene is warning—and saving— copies of itself. Those copies just happen to reside in other organisms. The counterintuitive conclusion is that a gene that sometimes causes an organism to sacrifice itself can increase its frequency by natural selection. The alternative kind of gene—one for not emitting an alarm call—can decrease in frequency, since such genes are on average less likely to be passed on to the next generation.[1]

To Dawkins and other advocates of the selfish gene view, such examples reveal something deep about Darwinism: natural selection acts at the level of competing genes, not competing organisms

But, when the first flood of orders started coming in for the Expedition, the factory was entirely given over to S.U.V.s. ... By the late nineteen-nineties, it had become the most profitable factory of any industry in the world. In 1998, the Michigan Truck Plant grossed eleven billion dollars, almost as much as McDonald's made that year. Profits were $3.7 billion.

... Bradsher brilliantly captures the mixture of bafflement and contempt that many auto executives feel toward the customers who buy their S.U.V.s. ... internal industry market research concluded that S.U.V.s tend to be bought by people who are insecure, vain, self-centered, and self-absorbed, who are frequently nervous about their marriages, and who lack confidence in their driving skills.

... In a thirty-five-m.p.h. crash test, for instance, the driver of a Cadillac Escalade--the G.M. counterpart to the Lincoln Navigator--has a sixteen-per-cent chance of a life-threatening head injury, a twenty-per-cent chance of a life-threatening chest injury, and a thirty-five-per-cent chance of a leg injury. The same numbers in a Ford Windstar minivan--a vehicle engineered from the ground up, as opposed to simply being bolted onto a pickup-truck frame--are, respectively, two per cent, four per cent, and one per cent.

... "Then there's this notion that you need to be up high. That's a contradiction, because the people who buy these S.U.V.s know at the cortex level that if you are high there is more chance of a rollover. But at the reptilian level they think that if I am bigger and taller I'm safer. You feel secure because you are higher and dominate and look down. That you can look down is psychologically a very powerful notion. And what was the key element of safety when you were a child? It was that your mother fed you, and there was warm liquid. That's why cupholders are absolutely crucial for safety. If there is a car that has no cupholder, it is not safe. If I can put my coffee there, if I can have my food, if everything is round, if it's soft, and if I'm high, then I feel safe. It's amazing that intelligent, educated women will look at a car and the first thing they will look at is how many cupholders it has." During the design of Chrysler's PT Cruiser, one of the things Rapaille learned was that car buyers felt unsafe when they thought that an outsider could easily see inside their vehicles. So Chrysler made the back window of the PT Cruiser smaller. Of course, making windows smaller--and thereby reducing visibility--makes driving more dangerous, not less so. But that's the puzzle of what has happened to the automobile world: feeling safe has become more important than actually being safe.

I'm digging through bits of SCORM. The first 18 pages of a 57-page document are the typical waste you can expect from DoD-related projects, but by page 19 there are some words that suggest what SCORM might actually be:

The speed with which different individuals can progress through instruction varies by factors of three to seven ­ even in classes of carefully selected students [8].

On average, a student in classroom instruction asks about 0.1 questions an hour
[9].

In individual tutoring, providing increased opportunities for direct student-to-instructor communication, students may ask or answer as many as 120 questions per hour [9].

The achievement of individually tutored students may exceed that of classroom
students by as much as two standard deviations - an improvement that is roughly
equivalent to raising the performance of 50th percentile students to that of 98th
percentile students [10].

SCORM is a framework for storing educational data, like tests and lessons. Or it's a framework for a framework. Or a standard for a mechanism that might potentially exchange frameworks that might implement an environment containing content that could conceivably be relevant to education. I swear they must have used Java just to write the spec document, it's got so many buzzwords. Anyway, I'll see if I can figure it out.