Blogs That I Will Post

I enjoy reading different people's thoughts on a variety of topics. Really, this is more of a reference for myself but it may prove to be a helpful list of interesting blogs for others as well.

* - No one really reads it.
** - Popular!
*** - Very popular!

ART/DESIGN
Aqua-Velvet (alter ego of designer Amy Collier) *


BUSINESS
blog Maverick (the mark cuban weblog) ***
Location180 (build a business, live anywhere, achieve freedom) **
Powazek (IT entrepreneur) **
Sean Johnson intentionally (marketing and design entrepreneur) **

EDUCATION
Audrey Watters (Hacking Education) **
Julian Stodd's Learning Blog (e-learning and learning) *
Living Large (A Bigger View of Education, Career & Life) **
Mind Shift (How we will learn) ***


ENERGY
MasterResource (Analysis & commentary on energy markets and public policy) **


ENTERTAINMENT
はちま起稿 (anime and Japanese weirdness) ***
妹はVIPPER (Japanese weirdness) ***
Podimouth (music, movies and games) **


FUTURISM
FutureTimelines.net (technologies and trends for the future) **
Kurzweil: Accelerating Intelligence (futurism and technology) ***


INFORMATION TECH
Alarming Development (Dispatches from the programmer liberation front) ***
Intechnic (Chicago Web Development Company) ***
OrgSpring (Tech Tips and Tutorials) *


LIFE/PERSONAL
Adam Heath Avitable (humor and life) ***
Clint Johnson *
Erik Unger *
Igor Sestanj (science, culture, and intellectual things) *
Kartoen.be (art, love, and humor) **
The Other Asians (Asian American Blog) ***
Thoughts of Lola (Dennis A. Stone's mother's blog) *


LITERATURE
Omniglot (linguistic musings - one language is never enough) **
Paper Republic (Chinese Literature in Translation) ***
Worlds Without End (scifi) **


LOVE
Dr. NerdLove ***
Uncomfortable Soul ***


MATH & SCIENCE
Math Fail (thoughts on math) **
Science-based Life **


SELF-IMPROVEMENT
Code of Living (Self-improvement & Motivation) *
Dumb Little Man ***
Erin Pavlina (Awaken, Remember, Love) **
Kylie McGirr (A Blog for Bringing Your Inner Wisdom to Life) **
PickTheBrain ***
The Change Blog (On Changing Yourself) ***
Think Simple Now (A Moment of Clarity) **
Thought Catalog (relevant and relatable non-fiction and thought) **


SOCIAL SCIENCE
Ribbon Farm (Experiments in Refactored Perception) ***
KK.org (The Technium/Predictions on future) **


SPACE
365 Days of Astronomy **
Aerospace Projects Review Blog (Unbuilt aircraft and spacecraft projects) *
Dreams of Space - Books and Ephemera (Nonfiction children's books about spaceflight from 1945-1975) *
RocketForge (thoughts on business, space, economics, and politics) *
Spaceflight Chronicles *
Tranquility Base (a small website for a big universe) *
Wired Rocket Shop **

NO LONGER UPDATED
Mike's Ramblings *

Politics: Towards a Better Government

Governments inevitably expand its control over the people with increased regulations, growing bureaucracy, and loss of freedom to its citizens which it is meant to serve. Constitutions and division of power serves as a mitigating factor to this growth in government but it cannot stop this inevitable trend. The growth is not only a consequence of mismanagement and corruption but rather is due to the fundamental nature of governments attempting to solve problems by introducing more regulations. Once a regulation is introduced, its removal is much harder since there are inevitably special interest groups that directly benefits from such regulations and they will fight hard to preserve the status quo. To counter this or to not feel left out, other interest groups also make their case and introduce their own regulations which benefits them. As the years go by, there is a snowball that grows ever larger. A government that grows too large and entrenched will inevitably mismanage its citizens due to accidental negligence or deliberate aim at control.

Such a government will also be extremely hard to reform and revolution does not guarantee any change except for those benefiting the revolutionaries. In many cases, a revolution is a convenient excuse for one group who has not been given power to seize power for itself, sometimes leading to a worse situation than before with even greater control. The solution guaranteed to work is to have periodic migrations and settlement in faraway lands where a new improved government can be built from the foundation with the culture and legislation to ensure its growth into a sprawling bureaucracy is substantially slowed. For instance, the US was built based on many of the enlightened ideas of European intellectuals. Today, currently much of the easy-to-access lands on Earth has been settled which makes it very difficult for new idealistic groups to form their own governments in distant lands. In the future, space travel and ocean settlements will allow new and hopefully improved types of political systems in self-contained societies.

Reform may be possible though if certain action steps are taken. These ideas I present are not original and have certainly been suggested in greater details by libertarians who actually understand American politics much better than I. Nonetheless, the suggestions I offer and the benefits that will happen if the actions are taken seem fairly self-evident to me.

1. Encourage private enterprise not connected with the government. This can come from tax incentives and direct funding. Often, the same service offered by the private company can do a more effective job than the government. In package delivery, FedEx and UPS often do its job more effectively than the US Post Office, delivering goods on time and charging competitive rates. In rocket launch services, SpaceX, a startup company initially funded by the personal checkbook of Elon Musk, provides launch cost at a price potentially ~$50M cheaper than that of United Launch Alliance, a company that's jointly owned by Lockheed Martin and Boeing with a much longer history and political and economic clout.

In the father of all future incentive packages since the inception of President Obama, i.e. the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, $82.2 billion was spent on protecting the vulnerable while $43 billion was spent on energy and only $7.6 billion spent on scientific research. Among the $82.2 billion, about half or $40 billion, more than scientific research and energy manufacturing and research combined, was spent on providing unemployment benefits so that unemployed people can continue to collect paychecks while essentially sitting at home and doing nothing.

If the same funds was reversed and $82.2 billion was spent on scientific research or the energy sector instead, the consequences will have been substantially more positive and greater than that of Joe and Jane sitting at home in their pajamas so that they have more time to look for jobs. This money could have spurred advancements in the space or energy sector, building up the technological infrastructure and advancement that can provide billions of dollars of return in the future while also creating new jobs. A new technological breakthrough can lead to the creation of ten companies worth billions of dollars that can then hire Joe and Jane to get off of their sofa and build the building as construction workers or work at the local bar that just opened due to the sudden influx of lawyers, businessmen, engineers, and scientists in the area from the growth in business. As usual, politicians are often influenced by interest groups that hold the majority of votes but often don't have the vision to see further ahead.

2. Reduce the power of federal laws for local regions by ensuring that local laws supersede federal laws. Often, federal laws are unpopular or not applicable to particular regions or to particular groups of people. To enforce the same law on everyone across a nation often benefits only some and harms everyone else. Furthermore, offering a national government this level of power can be quite dangerous. For instance, the passing of the Patriot Act passed during the administration of Bush gives the federal government almost unlimited powers in detaining people without trial in any US state or territory. Obama has extended this Act in three provisions by continuing US agencies to wiretap its citizens, search business records, and conduct surveillance on individuals.

3. Immigration should be re-opened. America was built by the hands and minds of immigrants giving it the nickname as the land of opportunity. Its gates in the early 20th century welcomed millions to its shores, with many of them being the poor from Europe and Asia that were leaving the turmoils or poverty in their respective countries. Through several generations, many of them developed their education and business to build the America that is today. No one will say that was a bad thing. Yet, now, immigration to the US is very limited and there's only talk on restricting it more with almost no one saying the reverse. Opening up the gates will jumpstart the economy in two ways.

First, with millions of unskilled immigrants willing to work twice as hard and at half the pay, American citizens can dedicate their time to other tasks. For instance, the daycare system for kids is abhorrently expensive in the US but millions of parents will pay the money anyway since there's little choice for someone to take care of their kids at home. Second, with tens of thousands of skilled immigrants, new technologies and companies can be formed leading to increased prosperity for all and technological benefits. From what I have seen, the US university educational system is perfectly willing to offer high quality education to foreign students only to kick them out a few months or a year later since they were unable to secure a full-time job in the US in time to maintain their visa status. This loss of human capital is quite regrettable.

I will put up more thoughts in a future post but for now let me stop here. What do you think?

Sociology: Difference between Art and Pornography

I recently visited the Prado, the world's largest art gallery, in Madrid, Spain. Among the thousands of paintings and sculptures there, a good portion of them with women appeared to show them in naked poses, sometimes quite revealingly with full breasts showing. Yet, they are admired as works of art and not taken down as pornography. Most of these revealing ones were depictions of Greek and Roman goddesses, most notably Aphrodite (Venus in Roman mythology). However, even the Christian ones had a fair portion of naked women. For instance, there was one where a saint was tempted by the lovely bodies of demons disguised as fair women.

In A Pilgrim’s Regress, C.S. Lewis wrote about a man who ordered milk and eggs from a waiter in a restaurant. After tasting the milk he commented to the waiter that it was delicious. The waiter replied, “Milk is only the secretion of a cow, just like urine and feces.” After eating the eggs he commented on the tastiness of the eggs. Again the waiter responded that eggs are only a by-product of a chicken. After thinking about the waiter’s comment for a moment the man responded, “You lie. You don’t know the difference between what nature has meant for nourishment, and what it meant for garbage.”

The only difference between art and pornography is not in its actual form but in its intention. Pornography uses naked figures to stimulate the baser instincts of individuals while art uses naked figures to stimulate the admiration and aspiration. Sometimes the line may not be clear. For instance, in modern days, women look at modeling magazines of women almost as art, i.e. figures that they admire and wish to look like. However,to some men, the same pictures create an different feelings of lust. The maker may have the intention but the viewer is the one who ultimately decides whether a piece of work is pornography or art for themselves.

Some of the following are works from the Prado. Are they art or pornography?

Literature: Some Books

I constantly add new bookmarks to books that I should read. Forgive my description, but I have decided that my bookmarks of my Google Chrome is becoming increasingly bloated like a constipated fat man needing to relieve some gas. I have decided to clean up my original Chrome bookmarks of books and instead re-organize and share the books I'm reading or plan to read here. Have you read any of these? Let me know.

BIOGRAPHY
Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
Frank McCourt

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
Amy Chua

The Glass Castle: A Memoir
Jeannette Walls


BUSINESS
A Gift to My Children: A Father's Lessons for Life and Investing
Jim Rogers


Jump Start Your Business Brain: The Scientific Way to Make More Money
Doug Hall

The Innovation Paradox: The Success of Failure, the Failure of Success
Richard Farson, Ralph Keyes

Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges
C. Otto Scharmer


CULTURE
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Jared Diamond

Into that Silent Sea
Francis French, Colin Burgess, Paul Haney


FUTURISM
The Third Culture Beyond the Scientific Revolution [FREE!]
John Brockman


HUMOR
Dinosaurs by Design
Duane T. Gish, Earl Snellenberger, Bonita Snellenberger

Niubi!: The Real Chinese You Were Never Taught in School
Eveline Chao, Chris Murphy


INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL/SPACE
Emigrating Beyond Earth: Human Adaptation and Space Colonization
Cameron M. Smith

Frontiers of Propulsion Physics
Dr. Eric W. Davis, Marc G. Millis

Going Interstellar
Les Johnson

The Seventh Landing: Going Back to the Moon, This Time to Stay
Michael Carroll

Space Enterprise: Living and Working Offworld in the 21st Century
Phillip Harris


LAW
Getting Permission: How to License and Clear Copyrighted Materials Online and Off
Richard Stim


NOVEL
Alas, Babylon
Pat Frank

The Art of Racing in the Rain
Garth Stein

Deep Winter
Thomas Sherry

Earth Abides
George R. Stewart

Earth's Children (5 Books)
Jean M. Auel

Fifty Shades of Grey
E. L. James

Lights Out
David Crawford

On the Beach
Nevil Shute

One Second After
William R. Forstchen

The Last Ship
William Brinkley

The Postman
David Brin

平凡的世界
路遥


PHILOSOPHY
First Earth Battalion Operations Manual: Reprint of Original Manual from the '70s
Jim Channon

God's Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion
Guy Consolmagno

The Trial
Franz Kafka


PHYSICS
Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality
Dean Radin

The Holographic Universe
Michael Talbot

Wrinkles in Time
George Smoot, Keay Davidson


POLITICS
Letters to the Editor: Confessions of a Frustrated Conservative
Jon Michael Hubbard

The Machinery of Freedom
David Friedman


PSYCHOLOGY
Dangerous Instincts: How Gut Feelings Betray Us
Mary Ellen O'Toole, PhD, Alisa Bowman

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
David Eagleman

In Sheep's Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People
George K. Simon, PhD

Milieus of Creativity
Peter Meusburger, Joachim Funke, Edgar Wunder

The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness
Martha Stout

Out of the Ordinary True Tales of Everyday Craziness
Jon Ronson

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry
Jon Ronson

The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty
Simon Baron-Cohen

Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work
Paul Babiak, Robert D. Hare

The Sociopath Next Year
Martha Stout

Without Consciousness: The Disturbing World of Psychopaths Among Us
Robert D. Hare, PhD


SCIENCE FICTION
2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America
Albert Brooks

Ennatarian Dreams [Kindle]
Peter Saye

Eternity Road
Jack McDevitt

Expedition: Being an Account in Word and Artwork of the 2358 A.D. Voyage to Darwin IV
Wayne Douglas Barlowe

Operation Chaos
Poul Anderson

Orbit Unlimited
Poul Anderson

The Fountains of Paradise
Arthur C. Clarke

The Silk Code
Paul Levinson

Wasteland: Stories of the Apocalypse
John Joseph Adams


SPIRITUAL
A Heart as Wide as the World
Sharon Salzberg

ALREADY READ

Abundance
Dr. Peter Diamondis

Self-improvement: Temporary Inspiration Syndrome

A few months ago, I was swept up in the idea of making a high-altitude balloon with GPS sensors. Then, I realized I had to learn Arduino and some electronics. I stopped after a short while when I decided that my time is better spent on something else. In the past, I have also started and stopped on the flying airship, the social media website, and the calendar tracking website just to name a few.

These are what I will call "temporary inspiration." Creative people often encounter these temporary inspirations where action often does not or fails to continue after the initial idea is formed. Crossing the gap between your imagination and reality takes time and dedication. Yet, man creative types just find the step of taking action to be not nearly as interesting as the original idea itself. Besides, there's always more inspirational ideas which pop up in a creative's mind that takes his or her attention away from the often boring process of action. Unfortunately, temporary inspiration syndrome which creatives suffer results in nothing substantial created by creatives since they never finish what they start.

How can we ensure that temporary inspiration syndrome is not a persistent defect in a creative? The solution here is to not find the most inspiring idea since to a creative, the next new idea is always more inspiring, but rather to consciously create an external environment which will reinforce her efforts. There are several ways to do this but I'll just highlight three:

1. Build a team composed of at least one person who is a hardworking non-creative. A team, especially one backed up by people with more focus, enforces persistent work done on the same project through mutual accountability.

2. Find a client or potential client. Although it may sound counter-intuitive to find a client before even finishing a project, this is actually done quite frequently when the project requires funds you don't have which will require outside investors. By having an external agent which requires a certain level of competence, you're more likely to work on it.

3. Have immediate feedback. For instance, if you wish to write a book, don't isolate yourself in your room and just write page after page if you suffer from temporary inspiration syndrome. Instead, write a page or two and share it on a forum or blog. The people's comments will keep you accountable and inspired to continue knowing that this material is actually worth reading. The same process of breaking down into little steps that's immediately recognizable also applies to writing software or designing a product though these large projects also require having a team for timely conclusion.

If you have more suggestions or thoughts, I'll certainly be glad to hear it.

Sociology: Trust

How can you tell whether someone is a rapist or a murderer? You really can't unless you develop an intuitive sense which comes from careful observation of people. Even knowing their full past won't help if you're their first victim. Many crimes are done by people you've always thought would never do such evil. So how can you trust anyone?

There is no answer for 100% accuracy but developing your perception can help tremendously. Let's consider the case of a girl trusting a guy. How can you tell whether your friend or boyfriend is what he appears to be? If he seems too nice, something may be wrong. If he doesn't tell you much about his background, be alert. If no one trustworthy you know backs up his character, watch out. If the people hanging around him seem to be decrepit, nasty, or ___ (insert negative word), stay away. Though a lotus can come out of mud, there's a good chance he's just a mud pile pretending to be a lotus.

There's many books out there on this topic. It's best to read a few and examine from other peoples' mistakes. Learning from experience is a hard road here.

Entrepreneurship: Bottles for Rockets

While drinking the last drops of the Vittel spring water bottle, I just had a social entrepreneurship idea. Water rockets can be easily built from bottles and some metal, plastic, or even paper fins. These items are common in developing nations but bottle rockets are uncommon.

I saw an inspiring video recently about kids who live in slums that made beautiful musical instruments out of junk. Music brought meaning to their lives that otherwise would be just dirty and miserable. It brought magic. Similarly, space can also bring magic.

Imagination can be fostered in even the worst places. These kids' interest in science and technology are very limited due to lack of exposure to books, videos, and educated peers or parents.Yet, if they can make bottle rockets out of scrap, they can see that the magic power is all around them. This can be an excellent plan for developing nations and even developed countries with slums.

Sociology: Popularity of a Person or a Country

Which is more popular? A country or a person? Consider the country called Sierra Leone located in west Africa.Sierra Leone is known for its diamonds, the devastating civil war which lasted for 11 years, and its role in the slave trade centuries past. Most people have heard about the country but do they know anything more than that?

Now compare with a person's name. Obviously, there's very few people with the full name Sierra Leone*. However, there are people with the last name of Leone. There's two methods here to see who's or what is more popular and both uses Google. The first is a simple Google Image search for 'Leone' which can be seen as follows:

From the first screen, the statistics for each image linked to the country or a person as are as follows for the first 23 images shown:

Sierra Leone: 7
Sunny Leone: 5
Ashley Leone: 1
Pino Leone: 1
Matthew Leone: 3
Rudy Leone: 1
Jim Leone: 1
Jennifer Leone: 1
Donna Leone: 1
Paola Leone: 1
Carlo Leone: 1

Clearly, Sierra Leone does lead but not by much. Combined, from the image relation percentage, the popularity of people with the last name Leone is much greater than that of the country of Sierra Leone. Taking a look with method two of examining number of Google searches for each of the 10 people and the country Sierra Leone reveals the following number of results in order:

1. Sierra Leone: 380,000,000
2. Sunny Leone: 57,400,000
3. Jennifer Leone: 16,500,000
4. Jim Leone: 15,000,000
5. Mathew Leone: 12,200,000
6. Donna Leone: 12,100,000
7. Ashley Leone: 11,000,000
8. Carlo Leone: 9,400,000
9. Paola Leone: 4,740,000
10. Pino Leone: 3,820,000
11. Rudy Leone: 2,800,000

Combined, the 10 people searches amount to 144,960,000 or over 1/3 of the amount of information for Sierra Leone. Clearly, the information for Sierra Leone still dominates but there is much interest in the people as well. As a sidenote, an interesting lineup of the popularity level of these people and what they do highlights what much of society has their minds wrapped around. In the order of the number of results by Google and removing the names Jennifer Leone and Jim Leone which are due to people with a really popular first name, people's minds are focused on:

1. Hot girls (Sunny Leone or Pino Leone)
2. Music (Matthew Leone or Ashley Leone)
3. Crime novels or fictional Venice (Donna Leone)
4. Science or justs Canavian disease (Paola Leone)
5. Politics (Carlo Leone)
6. Horses (Rudy Leone)

This is not very surprising at all given that to most people, politics and equestrian (art of horse riding) are hardly interesting, while almost no one will object to music and no guys will object to hot girls. Still,  the good sign remains that the country information still ranks first. Perhaps this shows that global politics is still interesting to many people but politicians are not since they come and go. *By the way, did you know that there's a town in Sierra Leone named Shen Ge? I plan to go there one day.

Sociology: Encounters with Homeless People

A few days ago, while I was walking around in Little Five Points in Atlanta, I came across a homeless guy who was begging for money. This incident on its own is not surprising nor is it surprising that he stopped me and asked me for money. I have been approached a number of times before. What is surprising this time is what went through my mind. I realized that homeless people have an attribute that many of us should have but lack: a barrier to talking with strangers! Isn't a lack of understanding between people best curable by open communication?

Now, I know that genuine communication is different from begging for money which is why I didn't give him any money but instead smiled and said that I'll buy him some coffee and chat for a bit if he doesn't mind. He said he was fine with that. So I went inside the coffee shop five steps away and bought two cups of coffee, one for myself and one for him. (I wasn't sure what flavor he wanted so I chose something that wouldn't be too strange.)

In our little conversation, I was able to find out that he was originally from South Carolina but came to Atlanta since a relative of his said there's work here. Since he got here a few months ago, he has been out on the streets in the area of Little Five Points. I noticed that he had a limp in his right leg. I asked him what happened. He told me that he got shot several years ago but he didn't seem to want to go into more details.

Our conversation ended rather quickly since he constantly felt like reminding me that I should give him money so he can go buy a baloney sandwich. I don't like to give money since I don't know what they'll do with it and I had no guarantee that I would get better stories from him by buying him a baloney sandwich even after satiating his hunger. I decided to just leave him alone.

Later, I was thinking that if I was with a friend who would be willing to do this though, I would definitely have talked to him a while longer. I was reminded of an incidence several years ago when my friend and I were walking on the streets of Little Rock and a guy we didn't think was homeless asked us for some money. Since he didn't look threatening or crazy, we decided to take him to a nice little restaurant and hear his story. We learned that he suffered learning disabilities and had a terrible family upbringing. I wanted to keep in touch with him with email which he said he had one. Unfortunately, we never got in touch again so I hope he's alright.

It may seem like I have these conversations all the time but it's actually quite rare. Since my conversations with homeless people don't usually happen on a regular basis, when they do, they leave a mark in my mind. While I was talking with this guy, I had another flashback of a really interesting conversation I had with a homeless guy a few years back at a hotel in Arizona.

I was in Arizona for a space conference and on one of those nights there was a party in a crowded hotel room. I did not feel that shouting over the music and chatter was worth it so I went downstairs to cool off. There, while standing outside, a homeless guy came up to me and instead of begging for money as I presumed, asked if he can borrow my phone to make a phone call. Apparently, someone was supposed to meet with him and etc. I told him to come into the lobby since it's cold outside and make his phone call. He did and said that he needed to wait.

We sat in the lobby and talked for a little while before he mentioned Bruce Li. Coincidentally, I had a Bruce Li movie on my laptop and so we started watching it. One of the guards came by a few times and was slightly suspicious but I told the guard that he was cool so the guard left us alone for a while. Ultimately though, it was quite obvious and the guard told him he had to leave. The guy made one last phone call and thanked me before leaving. I hope he found who he was looking for.

I feel like that the more privileged we are, the less open we are towards those who are less fortunate. I watched a documentary called Born Rich before on rich kids and it's apparent that most of these guys never interact at all with people who are not rich. In other words, 99% of the people in this world do not exist for these guys. They have their exclusive parties and getaway vacations. On the other hand, you have homeless people who are willing to talk to anyone to get some money or for those who are more genuine, have someone care about where they come from. Clearly, for society to operate well, the amount of wealth should not be an indication  of how much or how little you talk with your fellow human being. Communication between all parties should be welcome.

Sociology: Why Musicians are More Attractive

The female mind acts more out of emotion than reason. The reason that musicians have much greater sex appeal than most non-musical nerds* is due to music's direct access to the emotional part of the brain. Music, a favorite activity of musicians, is a drug that can create intensely good feelings in the brain. Intellectual conversation, a favorite activity of nerds, on the other hand, is a convoluted and complicated logical process that usually confuses the less intellectual-minded (which happens to make up most of the population).

"Falling in love at first sight" is not a logical response but an emotional one. Even a decent musician who can play some songs can trigger a series of chemicals creating a fuzzy good feeling in any girl's mind except those of the deaf or emotionally comatose variety. However, an intellectual discussion is far less likely to create the same emotions and can sometimes cause argument even if the girl understands the conversational topic. Thus, to reach a girl's heart, it's best to avoid the logical and appeal to the emotional.

The only times when the nerd is on equal footing as the musician for sex appeal is when the girl is a rational being herself or is impressed by intelligence. This will be a rare girl indeed and if a nerd finds such a girl, he has probably found another nerd. Even in such a situation though, too much logic is not good. For instance, consider the first kiss. A nerd analyzes the moment and decides whether it is the moment before doing anything. By the time the nerd does anything the moment has already passed.

In short, nerds rarely get into bed with a girl or have a romantic relationship since the nerd's favorite activity is usually too analytical to have much emotional appeal. On the other hand, music has a direct emotional appeal and enables the musician to be immediately more attractive to the female mind. This truth can be seen all around. While ugly musicians can hook up with attractive girls, even handsome nerds are often single.

I think I may have been too analytical here myself. This analysis is concluded.

Self-improvement: Life is a Banquet

While driving a friend home, he brought up the question that I asked him a while ago: "If your life is a movie, will people want to watch it?" He told me that if the last six years of his life is the same level of excitement as most people's entire lives, he can see why they all think that their life movie is too boring to watch.

He had told me a number of interesting stories in his life that I would definitely pay to watch if it was a movie. Yet, what's sad is that many people think that he's making things up. Those things coulnd't possibly have happened in his life! He couldn't possibly have had the grandest time in Hong Kong just because he knocked out a guy at a bar to save a girl's honor. He couldn't possibly have grabbed a gun away from an idiot rich guy in front of a club and later won a sham court case for his amazing restraint in not beating the guy up. He couldn't possibly have dressed up as a black guy and walked down some ghetto neighborhoods to see what would happen.

I have stories as well but many of the more interesting ones may give me a bad reputation so I'll refrain from telling them here. The bottom line is many people's lives are apparently so boring that they'll rather believe that such tales can only happen in movies. Yet, they watch adapted movies which show ordinary people encountering interesting situations and they believe those stories. I find it funny that many people will rather believe in a story that's probably edited and dramatized for TV production rather than someone who's telling them face-to-face a segment of his or her life.

There's a quote from a character called Aunte Mame in a movie:

"Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death."

My question to you is if you're at a banquet hall with a table full of action, new characters, and plot twists, why are you starving in a corner instead of taking your seat at the table?

Sociology: Double Standards of Virginity

Recently, I was reading an article on Lolo Jones, the track and field athlete who has won a number of awards including the Olympics, which quickly led to reading on her comments on her virginity when she's past 29. I shall quote her lines here from her HBO interview earlier this year:

"If there's virgins out there, I'm going to let them know, it's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life — harder than training for the Olympics, harder than graduating from college, has been to stay a virgin before marriage."

She and others like her who believe in this idealism are following a flawed path without even realizing it. Religion or extreme conservative moral compass has blinded them to logic and truth. The logical reason that you make a vow in adolescence to not sleep with your partner is to prevent the long-term consequences which at that age you're very ill-equipped to deal with. At some point, moving forward by taking the jump into sexuality is a step to do to acquire greater social maturity. By not moving forward, the woman chooses to remain forever at the age of adolescence with her lack of experience. The growth of sexual maturity is one facet in the growth of emotional maturity for an individual.

Consider this scenario. When I encounter a man older than 35 who tells me that he's still a virgin, my first reaction is not of awe or admiration but rather of suspicion. I start wondering whether he's lying or whether he's socially retarded. If he is socially retarded but not overly creepy, I'll feel deeply sorry and offer to hook him up with someone I know. My reaction is not atypical; a man who has not followed his biological drive by that age is considered a deviant.

Clearly, a double standard exists. When a man is past a certain age and still a virgin, you either find him creepy or you feel sorry for him. Yet, when a woman in the same situation is somehow considered "good to have standards". This is especially prevalent among the conservative religious ladies who attempt to model themselves after perfection. They genuinely believe that they should wait out for a prince charming to explore their virgin territory.

Our lives are meant to be filled with experiences which enrich us and enable to to understand ourselves and others better. Choosing not to have certain experiences due to limits placed by an antiquidated social model is severely damaging to proper function in the modern society. Not all sexual experiences lead to stronger emotional bonds but many do. Instead of congratulating the woman for holding out, we should be instead feeling sorry for her level of sadly stunted romanticism.

Research: Proposed Aerospace Papers

Predicting the Fate of Humanity for the Next Century
Much has been said about the Fermi paradox, the paradox on why if there’s supposed to be intelligent civilizations out there, we humans have not observed any sign of life. One depressing but possibly true answer to this paradox is that almost all intelligent civilizations eventually discover weapons of mass destruction and end up destroying themselves before expanding via spaceflight. In Michio Kaku’s book Hyperspace a while ago, the physicist made the statement that the next 150 years will be a pivotal stage of whether humanity will expand into the stars or revert itself to the stone age or become extinct. In this paper, a prediction following the spirit of Drake equation is proposed. This equation is called the Shen equation, i.e. Global Calamity Equation, and it predicts the probability that human civilization will terminate within a given amount of time:

P(civilization termination) = P(Nuclear War)*P(Global Epidemic)*P(Asteroid Impact)*P(Ecological Collapse)

The probability for each calamity is based on best estimates from literary reviews in their respective fields.

Modeling Galactic Civilization Expansion and Encounters
Though alien life has not yet been confirmed, it is interesting to speculate on the state of galactic affairs in the universe. How has galactic civilization evolved over the eons? Does contact between different civilizations necessitate growth or decay? If human civilization provides any indication, contact between human civilizations has seen the imminent collapse of less technologically advanced civilizations when confronting more advanced civilizations. However, this has not always been the case and sometimes both civilizations benefit.

In this model, the galaxy is modeled as a distribution of possibly habitable systems on a three-dimensional grid following the best estimates of recent exo-solar planet discoveries. With the passage of the first time step, i.e. a millennium, each galactic civilization expands by ten light years from its home star system. With the passage of the second time step, i.e. a millennium again, each galactic civilization expands by one hundred light years (to take into account technology advancement). This exponential rise continues indefinitely. Each star system encountered is settled thus unless already settled by another galactic civilization. Upon civilization encounter, a random number is generated which decides whether the star system changes hands between civilizations, remains the same, or is annihilated. The entire simulation is run for 1000 time steps or until the galaxy is thoroughly colonized.

On Piezoelectric Power Generation from Space Debris
With the inevitable rise of space debris in the near future, protection from hypervelocity impacts has become an important issue for any spacecraft launched. Given the high kinetic energy yield of such impacts, an idea is proposed to capture such kinetic energy through piezoelectric materials incorporated into current Whipple Shield designs. Capturing such energy can be used to power components such as onboard batteries. A model and design of such a space power shield is proposed here based on experimental and theoretical models from NASA’s ORDEM2K.

Self-improvement: The Lunge or Leap of Faith

There are times when you realize that you're caught up in the doldrums of daily depressing repetition that you feel utterly chained to its worthless mediocrity. You can find yourself doing the same tedious work, talking to the same people entertaining the same thoughts, and doing the same things before you fall asleep every night. As these mostly irrelevant moments of your life pile upon each other like layers of snow, your embers of life is slowly buried in this frosty entombment.

At this moment, you may realize your sad life and in desperation you go for the lunge. The lunge is the last ditch effort to free yourself from the snow of repetitive nothingness that has buried your embers of life. (Heavens forbid if you find yourself so deeply buried in snow that you can't even move your feet.) A close relative of the leap of faith, the lunge is distinguished from its cousin since it is an act of desperation whereas the leap of faith is an act of free choice.

A few days ago before I flew back to the states, I encountered on the same day two occasions two girls who decided to travel spontaneously. One has taken a lunge whereas the other has taken an act of faith. The girl who chooses to quit her bartending job and travel for months in Europe since she wants to escape the daily mediocrity of her work and life is taking the desperate lunge. The girl who chooses to quit her teaching job and travel for months in Europe to gain experience in her life before she returns to a teaching lifestyle is taking a leap of faith.

If we can take a leap of faith to refresh our lives, that will be ideal. However, that is the ideal world and sometimes in this real world, the lunge, despite its nature of desperation, is the only way to radically rejuvenate ourselves and discover once more why we choose to live. The alternative is to let ourselves atrophy in a sad cocoon of reality where without outside intervention (unlikely), our accumulated apathy towards our own lives leads us to the end of our lives, either literally or figuratively. What do you choose to do?

Self-improvement: Reinventing Yourself

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about re-inventing yourself. Then, today I randomly meet this 38-year-old martial artist/jewelry businessman/pre-med student/father who has been doing it all his life. Reinventing yourself is something that we can all learn to do. Let me give you a short synopsis of his.

Growing up in the states, he never went to high school or even middle school. Instead, he shuffled back and forth between Asia and the states learning martial arts from a Korean monk who was like a second father to him. Later, he joined the army. Then, he got involved in the diamonds business where dirty business is common. Eight times he was followed after leaving the bank with the diamonds. He always carried a gun with him to protect himself from the Korean underworld, Columbian mobsters, etc. that attempted to take the goods from him. Though it was dangerous, it was also lucrative. He managed to earn enough money to buy a nice house in the middle of nowhere in Alaska. That was great but his wife left him and departed with his daughter still in the womb. He followed her to Texas and somehow got custody of the child. Now, he has decided to be a good father and get a college education so he can become a doctor.

Clearly, this guy is very good at continually reinventing himself to have fun and to survive in this world. This is a key life skill which I think many of us never develop, especially for those of us who come from stable families. I can tell you that my personal story so far has been the singular linear path of school. My ignorance of this world is so profound that it's startling.

There's many people, perhaps including yourself, which has followed a similar linear path and have not yet seen how limited your view of the world truly is. You may very well continue the linear path of school to work with a few weeks of vacation every year to retirement without even thinking. Now, I'm not saying that you should go crazy and go rob a bank or overdose yourself with drugs, but I am saying that you should find a way to continually transform what you do since how else can you broaden your view of the world and truly say that you're living life?

To give you an idea, currently, I'm discarding my student entity and reinventing yourself as an entrepreneur but that is just one stage. What's next? I don't know when I'll do all this but I know it will happen in the next few years:

1. Reinvent myself as a world traveler and travel writer/photorapher. I will spend at least a year traveling the world keeping a journal of my days. At the end of my travels, I will hop around different cafes around Europe and compile the book to be published.

2. Reinvent myself as a film director. I really enjoy watching films and I have attempted to write a few screenplays. To film one myself will be awesome. I will spend a year or two interning to learn the basics of film production before going into directing one myself.

3. Reinvent myself as a psychologist or counselor. Many people have told me that I'm very good at helping them see what their issues are. I can go to school, get a degree, and then open my own practice. People can be fascinating and to understand different types of people is quite rewarding. I have decided that I'll do this when I'm old and (hopefully) well-respected.

So ask yourself this:

How will you reinvent yourself in your life?

Business: Generosity in Networking

A network functions because there's recognition of mutual need. The central idea that many people miss in the professional world is the concept of a finite mutual need. In other words, people tend to keep score since they believe the amount of social equity is limited. It's ideas like:

- I won't do something for you now since you can't do anything for me in the foreseeable future.

- I'll do this for you since you've helped me in the past.

- I'll do this for you now so that you can help me in the future when I need it.

What people are missing is the concept of infinite social capital. Instead of thinking like the above and how you can make someone owe you so you can ask them for favors later, you ought to consider your network of exchanges like the Internet, i.e. everyone benefits with more active connections regardless of which direction the flow is going at the moment.

This is similar to how friendships and relationships should work. You should not be thinking of what you can get from the other person but rather what you can give to the other person. Of course, for anything to last, the reciprocal should also be true. The other person will also give to you whether or not you expect a payback.

The ideal is to transform your professional network into a personal network so that the other person can operate on the same level of trust as you. Granted, this doesn't always work but why not try? A consistent lack of generosity is not a display of rugged individualism but rather a display of blatant selfishness. Individualism is merely maintaining your own identity regardless of outside circumstance. It has very little to do with giving or receiving.

Self-improvement: Switching Mental Eyes

Everyone sees the world in different ways. This statement appears very obvious. Let's be more specific. Artists see the world in one way. Engineers a different way. Writers still another way. Entrepreneurs yet another way. I consider myself an amalgmation of those different perspectives. When I observe a scene, I typically see from one of these perspectives. The artist and writer's perspectives come easiest to me but that's probably because I often carry a camera and notepad with me so I have trained myself to see the world like that by default.

Still, I find the world to be quite more of an exciting place when I will my mind to take on another perspective, or the coined phrase "mental eye". The scene is the same but what you see is often completely different. I believe that the ability to adopt different mental eyes may be directly related to creativity.

Though this requires some mental flexibility, if you can do this, you can get so much more from the world. A simple example is just by looking at an old fire hydrant. The photographer side of me sees the paint peeling off in a display of neglect and an odd patchwork of patterns due to it. There is some beauty to that.

I switch to the engineer eye. I see that there is an opening for a fireman to attach a hose to. Instantly, a number of questions assault me as I realize my own ignorance. The engineering mental eye for me is especially good at revealing my own ignorance in how the world works.

I start wondering what the water pressure for these things typically are. Does it vary with the location of the fire hydrant? Say the fire hydrant was 20 feet higher, will it be in a less effective spot due to possible lower water pressure? So is the placement usually in the highest possible spot and closest location to a building? What about the size of the hose? Was it designed just to fit a certain hose radius? It looks like it but of course the hose end can have an adapter that fits the fire hydrant so that probably resolves it. What about its interior? How many valves and pipes are in there and what's the design? When a fireman wants water, he just loosens the cap doesn't he? What's to stop from the water pressure suddenly gushing out and hitting him in the face? That seems a rather stupid design if true. No, there must be a valve that is turned on when the fireman presses a switch on the hose end that will be attached to the opening. I'm imagining something like a gas pump.

I switch to the entrepreneur eye. I see a disused neglected piece of equipment. I'm wondering why it's neglected to such a state. Fire hydrants I believe are maintained by the city government. This here means that the city is lacking some funds to maintain the city's equipment. Perhaps the reason is due to this one's remote location. Yet, the infrastructure supporting this fire hydrant still exists. Is it possible for a private company to renovate these fire hydrants? Of course that's possible but if the city had funds for that it would have done so. How about the reverse? Do they still work Need to investigate lifetime of fire hydrants under state of neglect. If it's over the expected lifetime, a company can remove these since they might pose a public health hazard. What possible health hazards? I'm not sure but it deserves investigation. That's just one business case. Maybe there's others. Considering the out-of-way location of this one and possibly others, they will not be missed here. Is there enough fire hydrants in neglect though to justify a venture here?

That's just one example of a rather mundane object. As you observe in life, there are millions of others. In other words, this world is really cool if you just pay attention and observe.

Self-improvement: Why Do People Seek Trouble and Drama?

Why do people seek drama? A good question and something that's related to the previous entry on Wang Xiaobo's "Extreme Experiences". Wang Xiaobo took his Chinese cultural revolution experience and ancient writings as his lens to see the issue. However, Steven Pressfield, the author of The War of Art, takes another perspective on the individual's need for excitement.

This short book contains small prose passages with a lesson contained in each meant to inspire and guide the artist and writer. One of the central themes is the concept of Resistance and how that prevents us from attaining what we most desire. Steven writes this on the needless drama that some people pursue:

We get ourselves in trouble because it's a cheap way to get attention. Trouble is a faux form of fame. It's easier to get busted in the bedroom with the faculty chairman's wife than it is to finish that dissertation on the metaphysics of motley in the novellas of Joseph Conrad.

...Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance.

Cruelty to others is a form of Resistance, as is the willing endurance of cruelty from others.

The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work. The working artist banishes from her world all sources of trouble. She harnesses the urge for trouble and transforms it in her work.

Literature: Translations of Wang Xiaobo's Prose "Extreme Experiences"

Yes, here you go. If I do some more, I may go ahead and translate his entire book called the Joy of Living. It's actually never been translated from Chinese into English so it won't be reinventing the wheel. This prose is called "Extreme Experiences" and it's a satirical look at how some people tend to go for experiences that are extreme just to get a kick out of it though if you have any common sense, you realize it's stupid and foolish. The link to the pdf is as such:

http://www.mendedreality.com/docs/translations/wangxiaobo_extreme.pdf

Literature: Translations of Wang Xiaobo's Prose "An Unique Pig Who Goes His Own Way"

I really like Wang Xiaobo's prose. Unfortunately, some of his most insightful writings have not been translated into English. With my moderate literary skills I have decided to correct that injustice and allow more people to have access to this man who has the ability to express the profound in such simple terms. Personally, I find his writing style to be similar to that of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's or the prose of Tagore if the reader is familiar with these works, in other words, they are simple stories that express some truth which is most often ignored if someone just says it directly.

I have translated one of his prose since I know you can learn something from it. Like many of his writings, the story is simple but the meaning is far deeper:

When I went out to the countryside back in the day, I fed pigs and herded cattle. If there were no one around, these two kinds of animals would still know how to live. They would wander around idly, eating or drinking when needed. When spring comes, they'll make love. Just like that, their lifestyle is very simple, lacking anything to take advantage of. The arrival of man gave their lives certain arrangements: every cow and every pig now has a purpose. For most of them, this new lifestyle was quite sad with the former working in the fields while the latter growing meat for slaughter...

Read more: http://www.mendedreality.com/docs/translations/wangxiaobo_pig.pdf