THE OMNIPOTENT PENGIUN

Ergo proxy

2006-11-11T17:07:00.000-08:00

Another anime to definitely watch. Some people find it pretentious, I find it immensely interesting. Yeah the lead female, she has the hot goth going for her. She is badass too, reminded me of ghost in the shell. This is one of those mind fuck genre series like Lain. I do think Lain was hopelessly fucked up and incomprehensible. Anyway, watch Ergo Proxy, wow!

Oh anime!

2006-06-21T15:50:00.000-07:00

I have not posted about anime in a while. So yeah I have seen a lot to the detriment to my life. I spent the whole night watching madlax did not get to bed until 7:30 am.
Madlax is a lot like noir but a less annoying. It still a bit repititive like noir and the music is not as great as in noir. I prefer madlax nonetheless.
Tenjou Tenge that was a guility pleasure, nothing I like best than seeing women with huge boobs in voluptuous clothing kicking ass. Although the anime is stupid.
Jubei chan is funny, although jubei herself is one annoying chick.
Bakuretsu Tenshi, this anime sucks. Ok Gonzo officially sucks. They can't come up with a good story or at least good characters but we are treated to women in voluptuous clothing acting like little girls. Even worse, the nipples show through the clothing, I think this is first anime I have seen that have nipples shown. At least we have a tomboy kicking ass but she goes on saving Meg rapages. Meg SHOULD JUST DIE ALREADY, USELESS BITCH
Azumanga Daioh. Ok this anime is cute, but it is annoying. I can't watch more than 3 in a day without feeling like I am doing die from death of a 1000 cuteness.
Absolutely lovely xxxHOLIC anime. this is new but the colours in the anime are beautiful, the story line is great it is basically like hundred stories but a lot less macabre and a lot more cuteness thrown.
Blood+, start watching this if you haven't with I think is going be 50 episodes. This show is great. Basically revised vampire action, it is supposed to a creative take on Blood the last vampire movie.
I am tired but I have seen many more. Maybe I should start learning japanese, maybe not!

that Go thing again

2006-06-21T15:44:00.000-07:00

Ok I spent time in the go club last night. Still not getting a hang of Go. I played 13X13 game with 3 stone handicap. I lost spectacularly. It was a fighting game. I spent a lot time being led around the the board. I do not give a lot of sente moves. I always get sucked in the life and death fights that involve large groups. I think life and death is fun, it is like a race. You feel so proud that you have secured life but that usually comes at the cost of the whole board analysis. Anyway, so I have a long summer ahead of me then.

bumming around the music department

2006-05-21T21:37:00.000-07:00

It is almost the end of the school year, which means there are a lot of senior and DMA recitals going on the in music department. I am fortunate that the music school is right next door to the physics department, wtf planning is that? Needless to say I have been going to a lot of recitals lately. I go largely because of free food afterwards. Yeah I am a shameless bum but free food is free food. Of course the food is not substantial, mostly wine and cookies but if you pick the right recitals, it could be a treasure trove.
White people do not know how to throw a party. I guess all they know is beer kegs. Their receptions tend to be wine, cookies and veggies. I am a bum, I am hungry, I cannot survive on cookies. Exception, if the recital is done by a graduate student, the receptions tend to be a little more lavish I guess it is a lot work preparing a graduate recital.
Asians especially koreans throw a good reception, especially if they bring all their church people along even better.
How do I navigate the awkwardness of being a reception where I know nobody and everyone else seems to know each other? I don't. Food can be quite engrossing, concentrating on finishing of plate of sushi, chicken wings and strawberries is a lot of work.
And yes I do care about the music except when the student decides to play some modern indigestible crap. Piano can get boring except if it is Bach, Bach is God. Female voice is fine as long as they do not spend the whole time singing Strauss lieder and german art songs, schubert lieder is tolerable. I do not care for woodwinds that much unless piece is baroque or the piece is jazz inspired. One of these days I have to go to a percussion recital. I love classical guitar but recitals in guitar quickly degenerates into playing modern art crap that borders between rock music that the industry rejected and music that the avant garde vaguely accepts.
I am an elitist when it comes to music, the more classical it is, the better!

Go musings

2006-05-21T00:43:00.000-07:00

Ok, Go is hard. Much harder than I thought it would be. The other day I got caught in the dreaded ladder in a 13X13 game. My thoughtless was such that I did not realise that I was in a ladder until 6 stones into the ladder. You can imagine my shame. Nowadays I prefer to solve games than play games. I am afraid of losing games. That fear is actually preventing me from games on KGS. I am going to have get over the fear some how.

Go

2006-05-07T22:37:00.000-07:00

I am rather ashamed to admit that it took watching Hikaru no Go anime to get me interested in playing. I remember playing a game a couple years ago. The game did not make an impression on me. Besides I have had bad experiences playing chess. I have never won a chess game before. I have been dreadfully afraid of playing chess. For some reason I like Go. I guess it is because it is conceptually simpler and yet so full of possibilities. Chess struck me as too complicated.
I especially like being chased in Go game. My heart races, as I feel cornered and the eventual euphoria of living.
No word yet how good I can be in this game.

Brave woman criticising muslim protests of the danish cartoons on Al-Jazeera

2006-03-02T21:37:00.000-08:00

This is a rather electrifying video clip of a woman named Wafa Sultan with no hijab and with short hair giving a daming critic of the muslim reaction to the danish cartoons. Watching it gave me goose pimples, I was elated. I wish we had more people like her, not excitable childish muslim organisations that see islamophobia in the cartoons blind to the intolerance in their own religion.
I can't get over how muslims in colleges expect not to be offended and we are supposed to cave in to their childish demands not to be offended. We have to be "sensitive", I mean this is bullshit. There is always some story of some college muslim organisation protesting islamophobia in the cartoons, so much so that no one can have a debate. Multiculturalists are such pussies, even worse self-serving relativistic pussies who are willing to sacrifice civil liberties on the altar of sensitivity.
People keep saying freedom of speech is not supposed to insult other religions or groups which of course is the stupidest thing I ever heard. If freedom of speech can't allow for burning sacred cows, why do we need freedom of speech? To talk about how lovely islam is ? It is the conservatives are defending the cause of freedom of speech. The left critique is always prefaced with a "but", but muslims are being discriminated against in Europe, but Europe generally has hate speech laws, but noone is allowed to deny the holocaust in Europe. Sure, does of any the caveats invalidate the principle of freedom of speech? The left will stand for everything except the core principles of civil liberties because there always has to be nuance. It is this nuance that irritates people because it is seen as spineless. You can't even defend your principles.

What I like

2006-02-14T21:30:00.000-08:00

As you all can see I prefer shounen. I am a sucker for swords or samurai crap. I am a sucker for blood. The only Shoujo I tried was Ayashi no Ceres, that left me with a bitter taste, never again! I do like some cute stuff, Zettai shounen and Rozen Maiden comes to mind. Given my perchant for shounen, I am tired of the typical anime male hero, I do not like how women are portrayed. I do not like brash people who shoot their mouth about saving the world and people. I like a bit of a hard-ass quality. People who do not care so much for saving world but following their own internal ethic. I can't stand supposedly strong anime females who are useless in a fight. I know they are supposed to give spiritual support or healing. Damn it, I want to see some bitches kick ass. Just give me BLOOD!

Peace maker Kurogane, Hellsing

2006-02-14T21:21:00.000-08:00

I have gone through all of Peace Maker Kurogane, it is okay, people compare it Kenshin. I kind of prefer it to Kenshin. It has only 26 episodes, and it ended with a lot of undeveloped lines. Clearly it was intended to be a longer series. The main characther Tetsunuske is the typical shounen male, the annoying brash guy who tries to save everybody and fight above his ability. He would have annoyed me greatly, another naruto or worse another now and then, here and there. But he grows, which is important. He grows and learns unlike naruto. Fuck naruto never learns or grows.
I saw Hellsing. I want more, I want more, I want more. The series was damn good. I am starting to like the vampire genre incredibly.

Berserk anime

2006-02-14T20:53:00.000-08:00

Okay found another anime that is equal to the gore fest to basilisk. This anime is relatively old, 25 episodes, from 1997. Be warned the anime only covers 12 vols of the manga, and ending in the anime leaves you wanting more. Although there is a lot of violence, unlike basilisk, the violence is not senseless, it does not leave you feeling empty. The main characther Gutts who carries a long-ass sword is a very good fighter. The anime is set in medieval Europe, Gutts is a mercenary who has had a life. The first episode is really the last episode in the series. Gutts gets himself part of mercenary band led by a charismatic guy, Griffith and assisted by a female commander Caska. Griffith is filled with visions of greatness, he feels he can ascend the heights, he uses his mercenary band to help win a 100-year war. In the beginning, Gutts is a loner who does not believe in anybody, towards the end, he is very much his own person, but he accepts friendship and companionship. Caska spent half the episodes trying to win the best groupie award for Griffith which is quite annoying. Caska hates Gutts at first because Griffith places an inordinate amount of trust in him which makes her jealous. But Caska grows, she becomes more mature and I liked her very much in the end. Being the only female in war band, the anime does a nice job of showing her physical strenght. But she does cry a lot actually but she gets her shit together. Griffith is of course the pretty boy commander whom everyone likes. I have to say there are couple of gay moments in the series . Particularly when Gutts leaves Griffiths after 3 years in the war band, Griffith seduces and sleeps with a virginal, naive princess, to placate his broken heart. I thought to myself, that is so gay, hell, it is cute too.
There is a rape scene in which Caska as a young girl is about to be molested. Griffiths the knight in shining amour comes to her defense. You would think he would smash the molester to bits. Get this, he throws a sword to Caska, and tells her, if she has something to protect, she should fight for it and of course she goes on to kill the would be rapist, her first kill, shaking with fear. I liked this particularly because this is a very unique angle on the whole guy saving the virginal girl angle. I cannot recall any anime or film in which the would-be rapist is not beaten to a pulp by the male hero. But here, Griffiths gives her the sword, leaving her to decide her fate in effect he treated her like a man. I was pleasantly surprised.
Yes there are disturbing rape scenes in the series. But I would say watch the anime because the characthers change and grow. This anime is seriously badass.

Saiyuki

2006-01-22T19:33:00.000-08:00

When I started watching saiyuki, I thought the show was stupid. Cliche characthers, bad drawing, plot development was harried and syrupy. The four main characthers grow on you. The only reason i watched it was because it was funny and bad. A monk, sanzo who is a royal asshole, a pretty boy, gojyo with red hair who likes to flirt and drink, a young boy, goku who likes to eat and is brash, another guy, hakkai who could pretty much pass for your mom are traveling to west to India to save the world so to speak. You can already see that the characther are overused cliches. The fights are not great, there is a noticeable lack of blood. The main bad guy is a woman who is a bitch but seems rather weak. There is nothing worse than a bitch who is physically weak in my book. The interaction between the foursome is great but repetitious. Between Goku endlessly proclaiming he is hungry and fighting with gojyo, and the monk ever so slightly come close to kill the two, out of frustration and hakkai being the mom, the show is funny. Of course being all anime guys, they excel in everything except being able to talk about what they feel towards to each other. It is an art, being able to show that one cares about someone and still being an asshole at the same time. I would say watch the anime for fun and don't be too critical about the artistry and the plot development.

real reason why people prefer subbed vs dubbed anime

2006-01-22T19:23:00.000-08:00

While I was watching a noir dub, I figured out why people prefer subs. The real reason is ANIME IS STUPID, plain and simple, anime is stupid. The dialogue is stupid. Listening to anime in english, only reminds us that anime is stupid. Stupid things sound cooler in japanese simply because we do not understand japanese. This rather dawned on me especially while I watched a Saiyuki dub where you hear lines like "Let us haul some demon-ass!". Watching a sub of saiyuki was not nearly as entertaining as watching the dub. The dialogue was stupid but fun. The dub was probably not a faithful translation but the liberties taken with script was funny because it was so retarded. Of course, I ask myself the question why oh why, me an adult would watch such a show. Lesson of the day, stupid things sound better in japanese.

Food blogging

2006-01-05T11:23:00.000-08:00

I like to see pictures of great food. I do not care much for elitists in like the LA Times write a rather disrespectful article about food blogs. Seriously what would the writer rather have, a Chef of a five star restaurant writing about food which by the way there are blogs like that. If people want to write on how they much love bacon on their personal website, all power to them. All the more power, if people read the blog. Wondering about the personalities of people who go gaga for bacon, or weird food or about vietnamiese food is silly. The one thing that the internet has reminded us is that everyone is unique. I know it is cliche but it is true, we are all unique. Before the internet, this fact was not brought to light often except for the weird stories now and then in the media. The internet has allowed people to express themselves uniquely, that is hardly something to complain about in my book. That is human nature for you. I would rather people expressed themselves in their choices of food than some other unsavoury means.

Noir

2006-01-04T19:40:00.001-08:00

Who here is tired of wimpy women? of weeping women perhaps? or girls who supposedly are strong but keep getting their arses kicked or raped? maybe women who are in constant need of saving? Then Noir is the anime for you. Dude, the main characters in Noir, Kikura and Mireille are cold-hearted bitches, just way the I like it. Though it is mostly gunplay, more in the style of John woo but with no blood at all. People seem to complain that there is lack of blood in the series, yes true. But people die like flies in the series not only that the series does not have a happy ending. And Mireille's legs are too die for, hmm, hmm imaginations, imaginations.
A lot of flashbacks are used, which get annoying especially when they are the same flashbacks. The soundtrack is superb. I do not care much for the beginning and ending song. The music is haunting, the mix of an operatic voice and techno is exquisite. For all ya opera singers out there, may I suggest you mix your voices with metal or techno, it would sound hauntingly beautiful.
The action is great, these women are COOL. Note that is not something you can say for anime females in shounen a lot.
The pacing is slow and the backstory is tortuous . I just say sit back, relax and enjoy the scenery.

Noir

2006-01-04T19:40:00.000-08:00

Trinity Blood

2006-01-03T13:37:00.000-08:00

Marathoned Trinity blood. I have to say I did not like the beginning episodes. The main character Abel was trying to be like Vash the stampede of Trigun, that is completely turn off. If you are going to be badass, be badass, don't be cute and badass. Besides Abel could not pull the act well. At least Vash was believable. The series got better, a lot better, although the development is uneven. There are vampires, nuns, priests, a pope, a badass vampire that feeds on other vampires and a host of characters with cool abilities. The ending was not great, it left more questions than answers.

Abel does try to be like Vash in the "no killing ethic" which works for a couple episodes and then completely falls apart. Personally I find the ethic repulsive, it betrays a certain arrogance. Note, I hated Trigun towards the end for that reason. Characters who believe such an ideal do not grow. As they find that such beliefs do not work because more innocent people die as a result, they become more and more tortured, take Vash for example. I am not sympathetic at all to their suffering, because I believe the suffering is misplaced. When someone decides to be "evil", he has forfeited the right not be killed in my book. When someone like Abel decides not to kill the evil person, that person places an impractical ideal over people's lives. One can say that the evil person may change because of kindness like in Trigun, so mercy is a good thing. I say, when you are rampaging lunatic, all measures need to be taken such that you are not threat anymore. Seriously, Abel does not think of crippling the opponent, you could shoot the arms or the legs, stop them in their tracks. His ethic allows to them to leave scot free, to destroy again. Of course the reason, such people can hold a worldview is because they think they are some God-like figure that saves everybody and protects everybody while everyone else are just cogs in the wheel with not ethical duties. With a view like, there is no room for belief in others and belief in the responsibility and free choices of other people.

random assortment of anime

2006-01-01T01:10:00.000-08:00

Rozen Maiden: cute anime, about dolls and a frightened middle school boy. It is cute and nice.

Now and then, Here and there: it is okay. I was not fan of it. A boy gets sucked into a hellish world of psycho villains, child soldiers and lack of good water, what is it with the lack of water theme in dystopias? The boy is stereotypical anime male, brash, courageousness, protector of women, and has to save the day. The main female character at least does not cry, but she does need a lot of protecting. The bad guy is annoying, he should have been drawn and quartered. The series was not boring.

Hundred Stories, Kosetsu Hyaku Monogatari: This is the series I was rather happy with. It is a horror series, the drawing is very stylish, i liked it. My complaint, the series last 13 episodes, which is too short. Not because I needed more, but there needed to be more background and development. It features a young man who decides to collect a hundred stories, as a change from writing children's riddles. He is not strong physically, but he is not a wimp, he can be an idiot sometimes. He falls into the company of 3 strange people who go around punishing people for their misdeeds. Misdeeds is a rather weak word here, it is more like the people are royally fucked up. They tend to be serial murderers with fucked up psyches, hence the horror element. I liked this series a lot, it is not for the faint hearted like basilisk.

basilisk final

2006-01-01T01:09:00.000-08:00

Ok, the series ended badly, I was simply not impressed with the ending.

Otogizoushi, tokyo arc

2005-12-19T19:35:00.000-08:00

I finished the tokyo arc. Ok Hikaru is annoying. Good thing Mansairaku bitched slapped her, that was the most satisfying slap ever. The arc is ok, I prefer the Heain-Kyo arc, it was at least pretty to watch.

Basilisk

2005-12-19T19:27:00.000-08:00

For all ya anime watchers out there, you better get your hands on Basilisk. If you enjoy hack and slash, you will like this one. The anime is rather hard to find too. Seriously, someone dies a horrible death every 1 or 2 episodes. If you care about any character in the series, they will die. It will not end well, I can promise that much. At the start of each episode, there is a great line, "My beloved, prepare to die!" 2 ninja clans are in a bitter feud. There was a covenant of peace imposed on them, the covenant has been broken because the head guy Ieyasu Tokugawa of all people, wants the strongest among them to succeed a title. He has 10 ninjas from each side kill each other, which clan remains standing, is the winner. Of course the clans Koga and Iga couldn't have been happier, they are seething with hate for each other, now is their chance to obliterate their enemies, a little like battle royale. But the heirs of the respective clans love each other and it seems that the heirs are the only ones strong enough to kill each other. Good stuff, not for the faint hearted.

Otogizoushi

2005-12-14T21:38:00.000-08:00

I just saw the heian arc of the anime. It has a nice story, Hiraku female takes on the quest of her sick brother to retrieve all the magatama. She pretends to be male with her adventure companions. She is not weak, she weilds a japanese style long bow. The series weak on developments, stories line go too fast. Hiraku who calls herself Raikou. She can be annoying. At the end of the arc, she finds that her enemy was man she loved. And as you guess, stupid woman can't even bring herself to kill him even though he is the cause of millions of deaths and the deaths of some of her companions. Stupid woman! She resorts to emotional appeal, which results in the death of both her lover and her. Yep, can't kill him, so you kill both yourself and the guy, and you wonder why some people don't want women in the military. I am sure some women will find this ending perfectly touching and something to swoon about. I find it disgusting. Don't go about saving the world if you can't even commit everything in your disposal. Suicide is stupid, suicide for a bad guy because of love is even stupider.
So yeah I will go on to watch the rest of the episodes.

Tales in physics

2005-12-09T20:07:00.000-08:00

Did I mention I hate book on relativity by Weinberg? If you looking for books to read on relativity, read Schutz or Carroll not Weinberg. String theory, eh polchinski sucks, the book I mean. The book sucks, it is so obtuse. Man! I wish Zee wrote a book on String Theory.

From literature to American foreign policy

2005-12-09T19:57:00.000-08:00

So do you connect the dots between plays in literature to how screwy american foreign policy in a speech? Ask this guy , Harold Pinter giving a noble prize speech for literature. This guy talked about how literature is good to how America sucks. Some people do not understand that there is a time and place for everything. Using the platform of the noble prize for literature to criticise American foreign policy makes you look like a bombastic ass. Harold Pinter, you are an ASS.

Ayashi no Ceres

2005-11-19T23:36:00.000-08:00

Ok I watched a shoujo anime called ayashi no ceres today. That was bad. I realise now that I do not want to watch shoujo anime ever again. The storyline was compelling, but I did not give a fuck about the main characther, Aya. She cried a lot, she cried and cried and cried. Then of course, when she is not crying, she is getting herself all twisted in rather complicated romantic situations. The men going around forcing themselves on women because "oh I am a man, I need to show my feelings, so I am perfectly entitled to surprise kiss a girl without consent", such bullshit. And of course there is the fact that Aya has two personalities, she is celestial being. Her family tried to kill her after realising that she has magical powers. Some manly men stay by her side to "protect her" from the evil family that want to use her powers. There is a robe thing that keeps the celestial half of aya from leaving earth. Half the series is the celestial half of aya, her name is ceres asking for her robe. At some point, you just wished, she got her robe and left. By the time I finished the series, I was saying to myself, "die bitch die' bitch here referring to Aya. I wished all the manly men just died and went to pretty boy heaven. Oh yeah, this Aya girl gets herself pregnant at 16, she is so fucking naive about it. Aya was so fucking naive, it was annoying.
All in all, the story is compelling, a celestial being forced to be reincarnated over several generations because her husband hid her celestial robe. She wants to wreak vengeance on the family, which would be her descendants. But the family for obvious reasons, kill off any of the female children at their 16 birthday if they show signs of being the reincarnated celestial being. Obviously Aya managed to escape. I could not stand the emotional bullshit in the series. I guess that is why the anime is shoujo afterall.

constantine

2005-10-29T13:19:00.000-07:00

I saw the film constantine, for all its hole, I have like the movie. It held my attention, I do not see why people give this film such low reviews.

very busy.

2005-10-08T23:02:00.000-07:00

School is full swing. I have taken on a lot. In general, I never admit to myself that I take on too much, but this semester, I readily admit that. Anyway I am attempting to read polchinski's string theory book. I do not recommend the book to anyone to read. It is obtuse. Although, this book is somewhat the standard text, I do not like it. I am still trying to understand chapter 1. And chapter 1 is just basic general relativity, but you would not know it if you glimpsed through it. Well there are other books out there. This is the sort of thing, one takes time to try and understand and not try to rush through things.

at last some physics

2005-09-20T19:23:00.000-07:00

So everytime the air conditioner blows, the drapes that I thumbtacked to wall blow away from the window which is really weird. I have been thinking what processes are going on, to cause that. There is a couch by that window too. One has to consider what sort of air currents must be happening in order for the drapes to blow away from the window. The vent is quite far from the window. I can only imagine that as the cold air reaches the window, since it is more dense, it displaces the warmer air, these set up current by the edges of the drapes. Behind the curtain, warmer air is trapped as opposed to the front of the curtain where the warmer air can reach the ceiling.

sloth is my name

2005-09-17T21:57:00.000-07:00

I just watched 4 8-hour marathon sessions of naruto. If you guys are into anime, this is one, you definetly should watch. It is that good. On a more serious note, the main female characthers are wimpy and crybabies and that pisses me off.

more on katrina

2005-09-08T18:27:00.001-07:00

I started thinking about my disaster preparedness, what I would do if sudden calamity struck. I am not prepared at all. Anyway, katrina bring individualist in me. Be prepared. You are responsible for yourself and your family. Waiting for other people to bail you out or *gasp* the government to help you is doomed for failure. Besides if one is prepared, he or she is in a position to help other people. As much as the government failed the people in New Orleans, the people are still very much responsible for their demise. No one should go through life, without thinking for themselves and being resourceful. One needs to be aware of their station in life and their surrounding. It is one thing to be aware and it is quite another to be resourceful.

2 cents on Katrina

2005-09-04T22:01:00.000-07:00

I think Katrina has convinced me of massive tax cuts, massive federal tax cuts that is. And of course massive state tax hikes. The federal government is a black hole in terms of money, efficiency and accountability. Katrina proves that the state of Louisiana cares more about the flooding in their state than the federal government. I think it should be that way, giving more and more control to Washington over the things like disaster planning and relief is a very, very bad idea. Have you noticed how much easier and effective it is to express discontent at your state and local rather than the federal government? The state of Louisiana start around and waited for the federal government to respond. I think the state of Louisiana were lax about their preparedness because they thought the federal government would take care of it. The state wasn't prepared, the federal government was inefficient and slow.
Cutting the bugdet of the federal government, allows the federal government to be leaner and keep their functions spare. Raising state taxes would allow more work on what is most important to their constituents. More importantly, it is easier to see the flow of money on the state and local level.
I am just afraid that after Katrina, more and more people are willing to give more control to their lives to the federal government. You will start to hear more calls for more funding and to make the federal government more and more responsible for disasters. This I think is the wrong direction.

claptrap on men being smarter than women

2005-08-28T17:50:00.000-07:00

There is lately a buzz on the latest scientific evidence for the men being smarter women. You get conservatives saying "we told you so" and of liberals and feminists going on about sexism. People fail to realise that intelligence is a cultural ideal in America. Once you make supposed scientific evidence showing men are smarter females, you are denigrating a section of the population. Research like this matters. It was not long ago that women were refused from studying in universities or studying science. It was generally thought that women had the mental acuity of a child, they had the legal status of children. And I am sure there were lots of scientific research during those times supporting the status quo.
Men are probably smarter than women on average, sorry women. One cannot discount the fact that thinking like this does prevent women from excelling in science and math. And why not, if women are expected to be dumber than men and the people who are in positions of real influence are men. "Scientific evidence" does lead to cultural expectations, scientists should not pretend to be in a cultural vacuum. Controversy over topics like these do show that intelligence has greater cultural currency than nuturing or maintaining social networks or supposed feminine skills. So maybe the answer to this problem is for society to value more feminine assets. That isn't going to happen if the so called liberal feminists keep denigrating the more feminine assets and want to achieve equality by claiming the more masculine assets. Women should be able to be housewives without being looked down upon. Women should be able to be scientists without being thought of as unwomanly. In short women are not all the same. Alas human beings find it easier to deal with generalities and women have the short end of the stick in terms of stereotypes.
The important problem seems to be that how can we as a society both encourage women to study science and math and still think that men are more likely to be genuises than women? We have never been able to do it; there is 1000 years of western history to prove it.
To all you women out there, you should do whatever the fuck you want to do. If you want to stay home and raise kids that is your perogative. If you want to study math and learn all about the measure theory and lie groups, that is your choice. One simply cannot let cultural expectations dictate one's place in life.

2005-08-27T23:08:00.000-07:00

I do not get it. For all our tolerance of homosexuality it seems to me that heterosexual males are deathly terrified of being seen or even remotely perceived as gay.

2005-08-23T18:27:00.000-07:00

Summarises my views perfectly

spending spree

2005-08-10T22:17:00.000-07:00

It seems Bush has decided to sign into budget the new highway bill . And the Alaska the third least populated state according to msn gets the fourth largest share of the bill thanks to their representative Don Young. Apparently he is going to have a highway built in his honor in Alaska. The bill seems to be a whole lot of pork. Bush should have vetoed the bill, but of course he is spineless and he isn't going to veto it, so much for being a fiscal conservative. Somehow he thinks that it will be provide more jobs and stimulate the economy. Oh yeah last I heard, the economy needs more highways. And of course, having the public sector provide more jobs in transportation will stimulate the economy. Oh wait, he has not vetoed a single since he came in office, if I am correct. Well I hope at least some of the money goes to building an efficient railway system like in Europe but that is just wishful thinking. But we will get more useless highways to comfortably pad our growing number of vehicles and increasing urban sprawl. I can't believe how much our taxes pay for so much bullshit.

grand plan to eliminate world poverty

2005-08-07T14:36:00.000-07:00

I was thinking, the only thing that keeps world moving is the profit motive. Every time people complain about world poverty and the massive amount of aid needed to deal with it, the american government would always claim in response that despotic governments are responsible for poverty. Even with the massive amount of aid being poured into Africa, corrupt officials manage to siphon off the aid to off shore bank accounts or to reward sympathisers of their governments.
Here is an idea, many countries in Africa need basic infrastructure. Rather than the aid money going through the local governments, the money only flows through the foreign government and the foreign company that builds the infrastructure. No one then complains about corruption. The only corruption to deal with is within the foreign governments. One would have to be careful that the contracts to build the infrastructure are competitive. In addition, one has to make sure that one large private company does not have the monolopy on the government contracts like the case of Haliburton in Iraq. The contents of the contracts would have to be open to the public, the progress on the construction would have to be open to the public especially to all these private interests group that are keen on monitoring progress in Africa. One bypasses the World bank. Of course you do not want a situation in which the construction is done but there are no skilled native workers to maintain or no funds with the state governments to pay skilled native workers to maintain the infrastructure.
This is complicated, already one sees the need to develop a plan that both builds the economy and build the framework needed to sustain the economy. One can start small, with the construction of water treatment plans, roads and the like.
I guess the idea is that the American government gives their aid money to its companies, allow competitive bidding on the contracts and so the profit motive.

QFT in a nutshell

2005-08-05T20:29:00.000-07:00

Not had much time to read QFT lately, I have been too caught up in the research I am doing. We'll see.

a veritable mess

2005-08-05T19:47:00.000-07:00

I was reading arts and letters daily earlier this morning. They have a link to an article on Saudi Arabia and terrorism in The Atlantic. It is a very depressing article to read. It certainly shakes your faith in the american government. There are too many interests to protect, and it seems that Bush government or that matter any elected official are too interested in protecting their special interests rather deal effectively with terrrorism.
We were cajoled into Iraq under shady reasons. And it turns out we have created yet another unstable country which was otherwise stable before we went it. We are stuck there, we can't leave because that would leave Iraq in chaos. But with our charactheristic short attention span, we have to leave. Then we realise our armed forces stretched way too thin. There is China and North Korea to contend with, the mess that we have allowed to fallow in Saudi Arabia is still breeding all the terrorists that Osama wants. And surprise, surprise after the government lying to us, nobody in their right mind wants to join the military, the recruiters are having a hard time filling their quotas. This is a veritable mess, we can't deal with the real terrorists, we are stuck in Iraq in what really is a diversion, a smoke screen.

QFT in a nutshell

2005-07-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

I am slowing but surely trying to read QFT. I found a great book Griener. Personally I find Greiner to be disorganised and verbose. This book is ok if you want to see the math worked out in its gory detail but one can get lost in the math in that book. I am still reading Ryder and Peskin and Schroeder. I am going to start reading about path intergrals. I have had enough reading of QED.

Blogging

2005-07-19T09:13:00.000-07:00

People blog for various reasons. I have found that I do not like blog about my personal life. It is private, unless I have something to say that is insightful I won't blog about my personal life. Some people write basically online diaries which is fine, unless they forget the social contract. The boundary between private and public domain is increasing blurred. Before one goes throwing away the artifice of private and public domain, one has to know why it was there in the first place. I am reminded of a NYT article I read in which a women wrote about reading her babysitter's blog and was shocked to read to about her sex life. Obviously the babysitter didn't only blog about her sexlife, she blogged about other things but the mother only bothered to write about the scintillating parts. She writes also that babysitter gave her the blog address. After reading people responses to the article, everyone seemed preoccupied that the mother only cared about her babysitter's sex life. I say why not? Yes the babysitter has a right to have sex with whomever she wants but I have a right not know about it and when I do know about it , it will freak me out. And of course the mother kept reading the blog, because she became a voyeur. Maybe not a voyuer, afterall it was published on the web. And of course the mother was equally as shameless as the babysitter in writing about the blog in the NYT and firing the babysitter when she had enough to read, well maybe not she still reads the blog.
Details of our personal lives cannot simply be put for whole world to see and expect that the world understand. Or worse that now we talked about our lives without the confines of public and private domain, we have an aura of friendship and understanding. If you want to someome to understand you, take the time to be their friend which only works some of the time. That does not mean giving them your diary the first day you met them, you will freak them out. One sees movies nowadays, e.g the film sunset with ethan hawke. These people are complete strangers and they spill their guts to each other. Who in their right mind does? One cannot take simply take shortcut to trust and understanding. You have to earn the trust, you have to show me in your deeds that you are a worthy person to have as a friend.
Those who write personal blogs should think of their blogs as paper diaries. They should imagine themselves carry that good old fashioned diary giving it to their parents, give to their boss, give to their enemy.

summer school

2005-06-24T20:09:00.000-07:00

What do physicists do in their spare time? Go to summer schools. Well I am in summer school learning about crap I do not want learn, no actually want to learn, perhaps. Haven't gotten around to my field theory yet, spending too much time pretending to learn crap and watching tele.

last final

2005-06-13T23:44:00.000-07:00

Well I had my last final in Quantum Mechanics. It sucked, I guessed I should have studied more. Oh on a good note that is last serious final in my schooling. And now I have to read some quantum field theory. I have taken a year long course in QFT and I cannot talk intelligently about anything in that subject. I was thinking that as I reread QFT, I would write short vignettes on what I have studied. "QFT in a nutshell" the vignettes would be called after the textbook by Zee. I would be reading Ryder and Peskin though.

With the final done, my first year as a grad student is officially over. Supposedly the first year is the hardest, personally I have had fun. The one good thing about grad school are the people one meets especially in physics. Now my colleagues will be scattering to the four winds as they get to work on their respective projects. The years get lonelier though.

Let's see if I am going to follow this through

2005-06-08T21:37:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a physics blog most of the time and of course with some rant and raving interjected. It is probably going to be more ranting and raving and less physics as time goes on. I am very lazy so postings will be sporadic.