Category Archives: Life

Symphony Live

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Last November, I gave into a very effective telephone solicitation and bought a series of concerts at the Disney Hall in Los Angeles. It sounded good and I felt a desire to support the LA Philharmonic, just as I support the public radio and TV stations I listen to or watch.

The salesman was excellent. Perhaps I should say representative, but he was a salesman in the best meaning of the word. He had complete knowledge of the program, the seats, the other benefits. I bought. And I am happy with my purchase. Very happy.

This last weekend we went to our second concert (we missed the first, but since it was a minimalist presentation, we were OK with missing it). It included a performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

I first heard Beethoven’s Fifth when I was 11 and my parents bought a reel-to-reel tape deck and locals provided tapes of the Fifth, the Brandenburg Concertos, and other works. I listened to this music many times over, so it holds a special place in my memory.

The performance was amazing. Our seats are behind the basses, looking across the stage toward the conductor. I love watching the music move around the orchestra. Feeling the sound of the basses playing as you hear and see it.

The seeing it with hearing it is the real key. To see how a single oboe fills an entire concert hall. To be confused and then realize how a an element has moved from the woodwinds to the horns. WOW. I am hooked. And you see how the conductor interacts with the orchestra.

When I listen to the Fifth now I have a whole new perspective that has added tremendous depth to my appreciation. Whenever you have the chance, see music performed!

What’s With the Hotmail Spam Filter?

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I maintain a Hotmail account. It is convenient for those subscriptions, registrations, and other sign-ups that, should my account get inundated by spam, I could easily abandon.

Over the last month, I have noticed that the spam filter consistently misses obvious spam. Misses it even after the offending topic and approach have been marked as spam and reported. Are these spammers paying a premium for delivery? Or are the Hotmail coders just missing the boat?

My Yahoo! and gmail accounts work fine. If anything, their spam filters are a tad too aggressive. But once marked, a spam approach never succeeds again.

The Internet Makes You Smart

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I read a good article in Scientfic American the other night. The point of the article was that social learning among great apes (orangutans in the article) was critical to learing higher level skills. And that without social interaction, these skills were not learned. The key hypothesis in the article is

My own explanation, which is not incompatible with these other forces, puts the emphasis on social learning. In humans, intelligence develops over time. A child learns primarily from the guidance of patient adults. Without strong social–that is, cultural–inputs, even a potential wunderkind will end up a bungling bumpkin as an adult.

The core learning method is interaction with others. The area they studied had a high number of orangutans, causing more social interaction than is normal among these apes. The apes they studied used tools much more than other apes.

One of our first finds in this unlikely setting astonished us: the Suaq orangutans created and wielded a variety of tools. Although captive red apes are avid tool users, the most strik­ing feature of tool use among the wild orangutans observed until then was its absence.

The increased use of tools does not represent a higher intelligence among this group of apes.

We doubt that the animals at Suaq are intrinsically smarter: the observation that most captive members of this species can learn to use tools suggests that the basic brain capacity to do so is present.

In looking at this behaviour, they looked at a number of reasons why it would occur in this group. In an well presented analysis (you need to read the article), they show that the reason is clearly cultural learning. The orangutans learn from interaction with other orangutans. Social interaction increases intelligence.

So I draw the conclusion that the internet increases human intelligence. Why?

  • The internet is primarly a means of interaction between people
  • It enables interaction without regard to geographic separation
  • Communities develop that allow people with similar interests to share their skills
  • My own experience in astrophotography is that my skills are better because of what I have learned from others in internet newsgroups

I wrote about the benefit of newsgroups in an earlier post. This Scientific American article gives a scientific basis to the benefit for all of us of collaboration enabled by the internet. So surfing and chatting and blogging and newsgrouping makes you smarter! Almost an invitiation to do this at work.

I like a Rainy Day

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Today was a rainy day in Los Angeles. A fairly rare event for April. We are about to have our 8-10 month lack of rain (not a drought, because it is normal), so it every day of rain is nice.

In fact, I think that no Southern California resident should ever complain about rain. We really don’t get that much. And any day of rain provides the wonderful background noise, clean air, rushing storm drains (remember this is LA — no streams), and the onrush of green. With this late season rain, we can expect great desert wild flowers, green hillsides, and a fire season that doesn’t bother us until Fall.

I have always loved inclement weather. Thunder storms watched on the porch in Washington, DC. Hot and muggy, with sudden cool blasts of wind and big booms of thunder. The UP, with the roar of the lake, cold, cold, cold days, snow flocking the forest, and big thunderstorms.

LA weather is tame.

So I love each weather event. The best thing to read is the forecast discussion. This is a write-up prepared by all National Weather Service offices explaining how they developed the forecast. You could be the local forecaster using this content alone. Reading how they develop the forecast with input from computer models, satellite, and radar makes one understand the upcoming weather much better. And I truly enjoy reading the results of their analysis.

What is probably the last major storm over our area this season is passing overhead. I hear the rain in the background. Murphy’s law says we’ll have another minor rain this weekend, just enough to postpone the star party.

$100 Laptops

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It was Spring cleaning today at work.  The company was selling old computers, laptops, and audio-visual equipment.  I thought it would be nice to get 1 Ghz laptop for $100, so I showed up for the sale about 15 minutes before it started.

Way too late.  There were 300 people there.  40 people into the line was someone who told me he had shown up at 6am.  I got there at 7:45.  So no laptop.  I did buy a similar laptop from E-bay for $300.  Not quite as cheap, but OK.

I noticed an unanticipated benefit for the company.  All around the office there were people at work very early.  Like I had, they showed up early for the Spring clearning sale, but gave up when seeing the long line.  Perhaps the gain in productivity from an early start offset the loss from all the people waiting in line at the sale.

We’ll Be Hosting a Star Party

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St. Monica Elementary, my daughter’s elementary school, recently sponsored a wine tasting and silent auction fund raiser. Based on the article on the web site, it was quite successful.

We donated a night at Observatorio de la Ballona.

We did not attend. I had just returned from a two week trip to the Far East, arriving from Singapore at 4pm with the event starting at 5:30pm. Note that the flight from Singapore is 16 hours with a 16 hour time difference. Essentially, I arrived at the same time and day I left. Ah, free time. But I digress.

The night at the observatory was bid upon and won by someone. I was so happy to find out that someone was enough interested in astronomy to bid on our offer. Many thanks to them. Now the pressure is on, I need to put on an excellent night of observing and learning. It will be a lot of fun.

Travel to Tokyo

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As I mentioned in the last post, I have recently arrived in Tokyo, the first leg on an extended business trip to the Far East. I’ll be visting Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Singapore.

The trip started off with a twist. I had put in a request to be upgraded to First Class with frequent flier miles and had made the waiting list. When I got to the airport, I did not receive a seat assignment as Business Class was overbooked. Everything turned out well. Not only did I get the upgrade, but because they didn’t use the correct “inventory” for issuing my first class boarding pass, I didn’t have to use my frequent flier miles!

The flight was uneventful and long, about 11 hours. Because the flight left as 12:30pm and arrived at 5:00pm, I did not sleep on the flight. My only complaint is that the flight attendant gave me my overcoat and jacket 30 minutes before we landed. I still had my briefcase out, magazines open, etc. I put the jackets in the overhead bin. What is the point of taking your jacket if they are going to give it back to you an hour before you reach the gate?

There was a 45 minute line for immigration. Then a 10 minute wait for currency exchange. Then a 30 minute wait for the bus. So an hour and a half from leaving the plane to getting in the bus into Tokyo. Tokyo’s Narita airport in a long way from Tokyo. It was another hour and a half before I got to the hotel.

The Tokyo Grand Hyatt is a very nice hotel. It is in the Roppongi Hills district, a newly redeveloped area. I met my colleague, Sim Choo, at the hotel and he took me to dinner at Monseiur Ton Ton (I think that is the name), a Japanese steak house. We sat by the grill while the chef made dinner in front of us. The food was excellent. Notable were the very fresh shrimp (so fresh they objected to being cooked) and excellent beef.

After dinner I was able to watch some of the Turino Olympics live, as the time change is my favor with Turino 8 hours behind Tokyo.

This morning, Mount Fuji was visible in the distance as the day broke clear and cold.

My Nishiki

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The Nishiki bike Andy refers to I bought nearly 20 years ago when I worked for a large urban public school district. That bike is about the only positive memory I have from my first year of teaching. My Nishiki is a racing bike and I bought it because it doesn’t weigh very much. I’m petite & I knew that I wouldn’t be able to lift a heavier bike into a car.

Andy is correct about changes in bike technology. My new comfort bike weighs just a bit more than the Nishiki and riding it is easier on my back. I’m not hunched over the handle-bars as I am when I ride the Nishiki. I love the shock absorbers. Carrying a back-pack full of student work, my PowerMac laptop, and lesson plans leaves me with a stiff lower back. I’m trying to exercise more and regain my flexibility.