obama in the new yorker

the recent cover-controversy issue of the new yorker has a great article about obama's political days in chicago. to all the obama people who are disappointed with his recent big flops (public financing of presidential campaigns, fisa), get real. he's a politician. running for president. as the new yorker writer puts it:

Perhaps the greatest misconception about Barack Obama is that he is some sort of anti-establishment revolutionary. Rather, every stage of his political career has been marked by an eagerness to accommodate himself to existing institutions rather than tear them down or replace them. When he was a community organizer, he channelled his work through Chicago’s churches, because they were the main bases of power on the South Side. He was an agnostic when he started, and the work led him to become a practicing Christian. At Harvard, he won the presidency of the Law Review by appealing to the conservatives on the selection panel. In Springfield, rather than challenge the Old Guard Democratic leaders, Obama built a mutually beneficial relationship with them. “You have the power to make a United States senator,” he told Emil Jones in 2003. In his downtime, he played poker with lobbyists and Republican lawmakers. In Washington, he has been a cautious senator and, when he arrived, made a point of not defining himself as an opponent of the Iraq war.

on the cover: i think hertzberg's analysis is on point. not the best cartoon, but people are way too sensitive. i think it's quite amusing, but no where near as funny as the recent ahminijad cover:


recall that around this time ahmadinejad claimed there were no homosexuals in iran, and senator larry craig had his unfortunate footsie incident in a public bathroom.

human research: how to

i'm taking an online course about research on human subjects. after each module they administer a quiz. after the 'international research' section they were really grasping at straws.. here's one of the questions.

Question 4 Multiple Choice/Single Answer - select only one answer (1 point)

Which of the following is the LEAST important activity when protecting human subjects in international research?

(a) Assessing local transportation conditions
(b) Considering local customs, norms, and laws.
(c) Consulting with members of the community from which subjects will be recruited.
(d) Determining if the research might present unique risks to subjects given local socio-economic conditions.

oy.

basia bulat

my roommate introduced me to basia bulat, a musician with an amazing voice, supposedly from my high school.

anyway, yesterday i sat down at home, turned on the cd player, and hit play, not knowing what might come forth. it was this song, and i love it. give a listen:

on creativity

i watched a fascinating video from TED that discusses creativity in children, and how schools kill creativity. in a class i took this past semester, we spoke on exactly this problem -- that schools, by foregrounding scores and academic performance, and consistently backgrounding creativity and subjects where creativity is crucial, were destroying the creative spark that exists in all children.

of course, the immediate retort, especially if you're talking about educating children from populations that typically don't have good access to educational resources, is that there is a particular system we live in, and if you want kids to be successful, then they need to play the game. if they don't play the game, you risk putting them in a situation later in life where they can't succeed because they haven't developed the skills that the system expects of them. in the TED talk, which i've pasted below, the speaker, ken robinson, a longtime educator, states that he believes creativity is the skill that's worth something in these times.

party in the castro

i don't have good memories of events in the castro -- hallowe'en two years in a row was a disaster. the first year, i was bombarded by the fumes of burning white sage, which drives my head bonkers and makes me want to vomit. the following year crowding and gunshots made the night a scary time, and not in a "boo!" way.

so, i was a bit skeptical about the pride party in castro on saturday. but i biked over to see what was going on and meet up with people. it was worth it.

first, it wasn't ridiculously crowded. second, the live and canned music was simply fantastic. the freedom band played with gusto and their dancing baton throwers were marvelous. but i want to focus on two stories of sweet obsessiveness. my role as the observer really reminded me of poe's purloined letter, but more on that another time.

the river dance kids

when i first got to the event i saw these two young adults (maybe university students) intently staring at each other as they coordinated a paired river dance, kicking and bobbing their bodies in sync while staring deep into each other's eyes. it was highly coordinated, and very amusing.

what was odd was that two hours later i came by the same spot and they were still doing it! the girl took a big swig of water this time, and after i told neha that i had seen them doing the exact same thing two hours ago, she thought they were definitely on something more than a dance kick.

perhaps. new people were around them, taking in their hypnotic version of the river dance. i couldn't help thinking that regardless of the condition of their heads today, their legs are going to be in a lot pain.

the tender gay couple

staying power was certainly one of the themes of the night. for instance, between 18th and market on castro a number of people had opened up the windows of their houses and proceeded to put on quite a show. asses shook. bodies flailed. howling was de rigeur.

this one bare chested man, high above the fray, had the most beautiful smile, and forced his chest out the window and implored the crowd, in a boisterous but kingly way, to be happy and enjoy. we were trying, and doing quite well, i think. then i spied the tender gay couple.

two men, late forties or early fifties. they held each other fairly close, and were looking, with sweet, kind eyes, at the bare chested smiley man hanging out the window, high above the throng.

at first i thought: "isn't that cute!" the couple had a shared slight smile, and they looked at peace and quite content. bare chested smiley man and tender couple really made my night.

then, an hour later, i ran into the tender couple. can you guess where they were looking? they had not moved! their legs were like cement and i tell you they were oblivious to me stumbling into them. their eyes were laser-like, focused on bare chested smiley man, who continued to survey his kingdom.

the castro. it felt like a wonderfully fun community. even the obsessive behavior was pleasant. i think i'll make this the yearly event and skip hallowe'en.

omar khan is a common name

at least five people have sent me this story (and here, and here).

it is amusing, no doubt!

but then i remembered how damn common my name is. so, to give you a sense of this, i did a google search for omar-khan (the hyphen forces the words to appear together, kind of like quotes). anyway, i get 93,000 results as of 6/21/2008. i then googled the names of everyone who told me about this story. no one comes close. go ahead, google your name, see how it goes.

my name is pretty damn common. it's not john smith levels, but now you perhaps know why my name was on a list of suspected terrorists.. ie, it wasn't me, just someone making my life miserable :(

correcting my vision

in new zealand, i went bungee jumping. what a thrill! but the unfortunate part was that i couldn't wear my glasses, and so couldn't clearly see the rock face below getting precariously closer with each passing millisecond. tragic! more generally, there are moments i just wish i didn't have to deal with my cumbersome glasses.

and i hate contact lenses. i hate putting them in. they feel sort of funny in my eyes, and while i'm sure i can get over that, i just don't like the idea of constantly putting my finger in my eye.

so i went and did a lasik consultation at a place my eye doctor considers "ethical," in her own words. and it really did seem nice. but now i need to decide if i will take the plunge...

anyone have thoughts?

elbow

my friend chris recommended the band elbow to me, and i've been eating up their stuff. this tune, "grounds for divorce," has a slow brewing tension and an easy rock feel. at the same time, it's quite repetitive, and the video emphasizes that fact. i think that repeition is a nice piece of the meditation on a particular time in life.

plus i just like the lead singer's voice.

hillary clinton and stupid blog comments

i am sad that it's almost surely over for hillary's presidential run.. i really think she would've been the better candidate. so i was reading news stories and blogs and calming myself and i just had to write this:

i, like many people, enjoy reading the comments that appear after news articles, blog entries, etc.. but when you go to a highly trafficed blog or news story that accepts comments, you often have to filter through just pure trash, like the first comment on an LA times article concerning hillary clinton's likely concession event this saturday:

Those who would seriously think of not supporting Obama because he beat Hillary are being emotional and not very analytical. ........women!
Submitted by: David
6:22 PM PDT, Jun 4, 2008

i want something that can just filter this and other insulting, stupid comments. now, don't misread me: i am perfectly happy to read comments that go against my opinion, that are by respectable commenters.. but as for the stupid comments, i wish they could be compressed into one bullet that says "500 stupid comments" and i could read them if i wanted to revel in the stupidity of those around us.

sigh.

the san francisco budget

sf requires the mayor to issue a balanced budget, and that budget came out today, and it makes some tough decisions, cutting 150 city jobs and reducing certain services (also increasing spending for things like cops, the roads, etc..). anyway, i won't go into the details here, you can read more at the chronicle site.

what galls me is all the reader reactions i'm seeing. newsom either cut too much or not enough. or not the right thing. or spent too much on X. what i find so startling is that i have yet to find one response which says something to the effect of: "man, maybe the voters passing a ballot measure which guarantees money to X (say, the library system), handties our politicians needlessly." no one seems to trust the politicians very much here, and they'd rather put the budgeting decisions in voter hands. well, if you do that, you have to realize the consequences, because voters aren't going to produce an entire budget. they just impose constraints.

here's a bewildering reader comment that the chronicle actually printed, for some bizarre reason:

There are so many ways to cut costs. One would be having a database of interpreters who are paid only when they are called out. Or a database of people who will volunteer their time. Then again, everyone that is from another country who chooses to live here should only be allowed to do so if they can read, write and converse in English.

- Mary French, 52, Lower Nob Hill, San Francisco (see here)

new zealand sheep shearing

you can't help but wonder about the lives of sheep when you visit new zealand. i must have already seen tens of thousands of them. there are roughly 40 million sheep, and only about 4 million people on this island!

now, every year lambs are born, and we can all guess their fate. but what about those tens of thousands of sheep i've seen roaming the countryside? why, they are used for wool, of course! we wanted to see how they shear sheep, and boy did we... check out the two videos below.





sheepy doesn't look too happy, but she was bouncing about afterwards. getting all that extra hair off might be nice.

fine fine dining in beautiful sydney

hi all. i know i haven't posted in a long while. i was finishing up the semester at berkeley, and then immediately off to sydney and new zealand. i've only now got a bit of time to finally post something. so here it is:

daniela, lori and i had a wonderful food overload at tetsuya’s, a french-japanese restaurant in sydney. i have seen tetsuya’s near the top of some “best restaurant in world” lists, and some people had mentioned it to me, so it seemed only natural that if i could get a reservation, i should go. here we are:

tetsuya’s serves an n-course meal (n > 10) that is, quite simply, superb. the signature dish, Confit of Petuna Tasmanian Ocean Trout with Konbu, Daikon & Fennel, is to die for. just the right amount of fishiness, a nice spiciness on top, wow. the other dish I strongly remember is a palate cleanser apple sorbet with apply jelly that lead into dessert. it tasted like granny smith apples, transported me back to apple picking in ontario in the fall, and put a big smile on my face. here are pictures:

of course, there were other good courses, but these two resonate.

in addition to the meal, we matched it with the “you will drink about a bottle of alcohol” wine pairing. of course, that wasn’t the name, but that’s how the server described it. well, pairings are good, and though i can’t remember anything too fantastic about the wine, other than a cab and dessert wine that I thought were excellent, the wine certainly put lori a bit over the top, and we had some interesting arguments/conversations.

here are two discussions that i think you, dear reader, will appreciate.

the first involved a painting in the women’s bathroom. we disagreed on what it depicted, with omar and daniela in one corner, lori in the other. i actually saw this painting by briefly going into the women’s bathroom, because i had to understand the controversy. daniela was kind enough to capture it with the camera, and so you too can join in the discussion. what does this painting depict?

the second controversy erupted over this dish, comte with lentils:

now, in my mind, food can make a statement about food. this dish was perhaps trying to make a statement about what dessert is, and how flavors can be paired (the red beans, traditonally sweet, were not so sweet and the cheese was a different touch). but just like art can make a statement about other art, the form of that statement, and how it appeals to the visual sense is of the utmost importance for the statement to be very successful. so, in my mind, i thought this food statement fell on its face because it just didn’t work at all in my mouth.

this is not to say that i wouldn’t appreciate a food that doesn’t taste good. i would, if it really did something else that was quite profound. same with art.. i’ve seen some pretty “bad” art that i nevertheless liked because of the connection i thought it made. but i guess i have a really high bar when it comes to food that tries to make that movement. i can’t even remember what lori was arguing but notice a picture of her below… clearly she’s having a good time :)



finally here's a fun video of a required dunking we had to do to make the taste just right:

paper or plastic? how about both

while shopping today i observed the most annoying and interesting thing in the checkout line. the cashier asked the patron "paper or plastic?" she thought for a moment, and then said "both." both! the cashier looked at her funny and then she said "you know, paper inside the plastic." -- ah it's for ease of carrying, very nice.

oy.

waste -- we don't even think about how much we waste. today while shopping i thought "huh, it's sort of dumb to use these new plastic bags for my vegetables when i have the same ones just sitting at home." well, at least i took a canvas bag to the shop -- ease my conscience a tad.

oy.

on my birthday my net stuff accumulation was +12 toy horses - 10 marbles.. give or take. oh, and of course gifts of wine. and a poster.

oy.

looking around my room now, i realize i have so much junk, and i wonder if anyone would find much of it useful. like, what the hell is that easter egg basket with the frizzy pieces of string going to do to improve anyone's life? waste. though, maybe i can get raja to ride in it.

hmm... maybe it is better that it just inhabits a spot in my room -- who knows, it may end up in the landfill otherwise.

oy.

on a sustainability campaign in my building

"they" are running a sustainability campaign in my building. it's an interesting idea, but the execution could use some work. anyway, "they" posted all these papers around the building giving information to inquisitive people. in the elevator, you can see that the info sheet was defaced:

in fact, on the left hand side "they" write that consuming less (just not buying) would be best if it were possible. someone scrawls "recession" around that point. another person hits them for a grammar mistake. lots of "wasting paper" comments. this is tough work!

in the bathrooms, "they" put stickers near the lights which attempt to encourage you to turn off the light if you're the last one inside. our lab discussed these stickers briefly, and i've been watching this one. i wander into the bathroom at various times of day just to see if the switch is off when i go in. it hasn't been off for the past few days. this campaign has been ignored.

what would i have changed in their campaign? first, i think they've have a great start. they've got the building manager behind them, which is fantastically important. next they need more people from the lab spaces in the building to come on board. they need to consider whether the messaging is appropriate for the audience -- are those blank white sheets with tear-offs in the elevator actually appropriate? why not make the whole thing a bit more fun and irreverent? undergrads and grads love that.

well, i'm just happy they are trying. as they say in industry: "ready, fire, aim"

finally, i love the "they" construct

baby mama, videoblogging and chompin the bit

tonight i saw baby mama with some friends. all the friends were women. i went to a chick flick with a bunch of women. warning bells? meanwhile, men all around me were cozying up to iron man, which looked far more appropriate for me.

but i baby mama'd anyway. and instead of typing up my thoughts, here's me, video blogging! what? yeah!



i have to work on my delivery. could use some plants behind my head. i'll work on presentation and the set, i promise, if you think this is worth doing.

finally, i chose a wolf parade song that i thought was an appropriate contrast to this one-shot, easy-does-it-margaret culture.

earth week and me

it was a busy but productive earth week for me. lots of things happened at berkeley. last semester i worked with a group of students to help identify areas where the campus could improve energy efficiency and lower its greenhouse gas emissions (see our report here). last monday, i presented those results at the chancellor's sustainability summit. you can read about the summit here, but let me tell you one story that really resonates with me.

the doe library reading room is a beautiful place to study on campus. here's a picture:


notice the skylight at the top of the picture, it's a bit hard to see. what's harder to see is that there are actually lights all around the skylight. and those lights, until very recently, were on, 24 hours a day. why? well, the switch for those lights was up a ladder, through a room, and behind a locked cabinet. would you want to be the one to turn them on and off?

that just shows you how different a time it was, even only a few years ago. the completely needless waste of energy just wasn't important. but that has changed. a campus group fixed the library lights by installing wireless controls that made it very easy to turn the skylight lights on and off. similar measures are popping up all over campus, not just for lights but for all kinds of energy inefficiencies.

TGIF Grant

in other news, me and my friend sam borgeson won the flagship grant from the green initiative fund at berkeley for our project titled UC Berkeley Campus Dashboard. we're going to make a centralized store for consumption data, broadly construed, for all the berkeley campus. electricy, water, steam, waste, etc.. all in one place! don't you want to get your hands on this data? then we will create some compelling person-facing applications that use the data. we're very excited!

finally updated my academic page

i've had a filler page in place for my academic page for quite a while. i finally threw something together on the plane back from boston. see here. let me know if there are little things you'd do that would drastically improve it. NOTE: little things! i know lots of big things could be done :)

undulating hand skin

last night in boston i encountered the most power hand drier i have ever used. the way it man-handled my skin made me want to film it. and i did! WARNING: the video is a bit disturbing.



after making this video i realize i need more powerful video editing software. there were things i wanted to do that just aren't easy or possible in windows movie maker. i'm learnin..

the paradox of choice

the trader joe's in back bay is ridiculously tiny. it has 2 full aisles and then two sort of half aisles. but i would choose to go to that trader joe's almost always over any other one, or any other grocery store. why? because it has mostly what i need, and because of the paradox of choice. before getting into this, let me tell you what inspired me to write this post. neha and i were walking back from the trader joe's and she told me that she had tried the shaws grocery store, which was also nearby. she said it was huge and had everything but it took her over an hour to navigate all the aisles and she just became so miserable with all the choices. she said she thought that was strange, but in fact it's not strange at all, and it's well-known in psychology that if you give people "too many" choices they can become overwhelmed and paralyzed, and may not make the best decision or any decision at all.

this leads to barry schwartz, the author of the book "the paradox of choice," a layman's guide to the problem described above. here's a short blurb from the intro to his ted talk:

In Schwartz's estimation, all that choice is making us miserable. We set unreasonably high expectations, question our choices before we even make them, and blame our failures entirely on ourselves. His relatable examples, from consumer products (jeans, TVs, salad dressings) to lifestyle choices (where to live, what job to take, whom and when to marry), underscore this central point: Too many choices undermine happiness.

if you find this topic interesting, i highly recommend that you watch either the ted talk (which is short) or the google tech talk given by barry, which is much longer and embedded below:



i also recommend an nytimes article describing some of the basic research in this subject.

omar to the duomo

i took pictures along a small street as i approached the duomo in florence. then i quickly put it together with my favorite song of the moment, crimewave by crystal castles. check it out. notice that the duomo, the large red-domed building, approaches and falls back to the music (or, at least that's what i wanted!)



now i should go to sleep :)