I got an email from a friend on a research about longterm effects of sugar replacements (aspartame research here) on mice. One of the things that struck me about the research was that the author was going against established, testing practice, and did not use genetically close mice as test subjects, His rational was that it is not life like so why should he experiment on just one type/set of genes. i didn’t understand his reasons well, and judged his research with a little more bias against his methods. I think I finally understand what he was trying to say.
from here:
Like what? Alan Kirman, of the Univerity of Aix-Marseille, France, a much-decorated veteran; and Robert Axtell, of George Mason University, an up-and-comer; laid out the case for a point of view known as “agent-based” modeling. They describe this as a “bottom-up” approach to thinking about economic phenomena, made practicable by modern computers, in which people are heterogeneous and react directly with each other; in which their information is local and their behavior governed by rules of thumb; and in which the aggregate behavior of the system emerges from behavior of individuals rather than a “representative” agent.” Simulations of this sort by Thomas Schelling, which had formally identified the “tipping point” phenomenon (a fairly concrete discovery, after all) and elucidated mechanisms that give rise to residential segregation, had been laboriously worked out on a checkerboard in the 1970s, Axtell noted; with today’s models, 5 million more intricate calculations can be performed in an instant.
With new tools and ever more powerful computers and algorithms at our disposal it is really a shame that advanced techniques in doing experiments and simulations would take a long time before gaining widespread use. It saddens me to think how many lives could have been saved if different fields just communicated more often. Lets just blame our overspecialized world!
Road Less Travelled and an apology
I may be day dreaming, I may be rewriting my story I may be delusional, I’m not really sure. But I’ve always tried to take the road less traveled. I apologize to the people who are hurt along the way. I ask forgiveness for causing you pain, Not for what I have done, but the pain it caused you. I never meant to hurt anyone. It just had to happen the way it did!
Road Less Traveled
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference
– Robert Frost
Revising May 12!
Argh the new Freedom Day May 24!
Longing For May 12!
May 12 is a red calendar day for me. Back to everyday blogging, back to java (goodbye C#, joke lang , C# I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Java, C don’t poke C#’s eyes!)
Short Rant 20080412
Read this article on the newsweek site about the world’s superclass. link here
What hit me the most were the spelling errors and some of the nuances it lacked.
As someone who writes for himself , I’ve been at odds with the rewrite rewrite advice you often get from successful writers, I simply lack the time. But when I read stuff from people who are paid to write, who have editors, fact checkers and, other quality control people helping them, this really irritates me!
People Want You To Care (Wise Words 2008 03 30)
from Seth Godin’s blog:
Do you know what most people want? They want you to care.
I’ve been wanting to rant lately with the the present
Lately this has been on my mind a lot. I’ve always been more aware than the next guy, add to this the fact that I am a self assessed half-assed know it all (KIA for short) that I engender the mockery of some of my friends on a majority of times. I have this trouble of thinking that the problems of most people are just easy problems to solve. My awareness allows me to see that a problem exists and my arrogance is making me believe that If it was me I’d have no problem at all.
The fact is that most of the time what people want is someone to fawn and adore them and a small percentage of the time they want someone to really care. It’s like (this is such an issue for me that I am having trouble composing my thoughts, to prevent a rambling post I think I’ll cut this up to smaller more focused posts.)
But that really isn’t the truth. The truth is that like love, people who really care for you are hard to find. In my life I could count probably less than the sum of the number of fingers and toes that I have, and I am 24 years old, meaning I spent a lot of my years (whole years maybe more) without finding people who truly care. And I think that I maybe a little below average here but not by much (I Hope!), What am I intimating but not quite saying? People have spent boatloads of there time with people who mostly don’t care and when you spend so much time with people who dont care you tend to forget how much more satisfying it is to be truly cared for and we begin to believe the fake caring/fawning/adoration/fame that is given us is the same as the one we are searching for.
In terms of diets or food and nutrition we have been eating junk food for too long that we have forgotten how much more nourishing and sating real food is.
What does this mean fore us ? That we should not settle for anything less than what we really need. We must resist taking the easy path we must persevere for only that way may we reliably find what we are looking for.
The nourishment of the soul and hear that seeks to be loved / cared for so much.
(too be continued….)
Wise words indeed.
Good People Dont Need Resumes (take two)
Follow Up to: Good People Dont Need Resumes (my take)
The fact that in our country the resume is still very important for a lot of jobs even if they barely look at it, or that good people are still required to do this mind numbing task is a good opening for people to do things differently. Be the change. If we want people to judge us by the things we have or have not done then start doing this to ourselves. Judge our lives with what we have or have not done, not through wortless job titles or descriptions but through the websites, programs, designs, writing we have done and not through the high fallutin words that describe resumes in the words of steve yegge wankers.
Good Developers Dont Need Resumes (my take)
followup to got the job:
Seth Godin has a post on Why Bother Having a Resume while people from HedgeHogLabs has their own take based on their experience with their own lead developers: Good Developers Dont Need Resumes
from seth godin’s Why Bother Having a Resume:
Not just for my little internship, but in general. Great people shouldn’t have a resume.
Here’s why: A resume is an excuse to reject you. Once you send me your resume, I can say, “oh, they’re missing this or they’re missing that,” and boom, you’re out.
Having a resume begs for you to go into that big machine that looks for relevant keywords, and begs for you to get a job as a cog in a giant machine. Just more fodder for the corporate behemoth. That might be fine for average folks looking for an average job, but is that what you deserve?
If you don’t have a resume, what do you have?
How about three extraordinary letters of recommendation from people the employer knows or respects?
Or a sophisticated project they can see or touch?
Or a reputation that precedes you?
Or a blog that is so compelling and insightful that they have no choice but to follow up?
and from HedgeHogLabs blog:
There is no surprise then that only 1 of our 3 existing team members actually had to submit a resume to us, which we never read twice. All 3 were hired from our network of influence either because we worked with them previously or because they came highly recommended from people we knew.
The issues is close to my heart right now because I got a job inspite of my resume. I got the job because someone, a friend believed that I can learn fast and have a longer/farther horizon than other candidates.
How Do I Know This? because he told me. He told me they had the perfect candidate that they interviewed the day before. He had all the right years of experience and at all the right tools. As for me I had barely 8 months of experience programming professionally, and my tech stack skill sets was not divergent but I just always seem to pick differently with what is the norm.
Industry norm in the philippines is cvs, I picked svn, eclipse is the java standard IDE, I love using netbeans (I’ve never used eclipse). I’ve no experience using spring framework, I could go on and on.
The fact is it is nice to be counted upon, to be trusted and when you are trusted and you are a nominally trustworthy person you do your damnest not to fail, to let the one who trusted you down. It is a simple yet effective human bias. A human need to be trusted. This is so divergent with company planning of plan A,B,C even upt to Z that we seldom believe this. You better trust me when I say that I am sure not going to let anybody down.
Going back to the topic of this post, I got the job because someone believed in me (My first job was like this but I charge that to being childish and irresponsiple, that’s another post that I am still not ready to do.). By all objective measures bar one I was the riskier choice but sometimes people have to take chances and your resume is not what they are taking a chance on. They are trusting that you will perform not because of your resume but inspite of it. They see what you have done in the past, how well you have done it and they believe you have the capability to learn on the job and think with your feet. I am slowly getting my groove back, thank God!
Illegal Immigrants Rule 20080326 edition
Coming from the philippines where an estimated 1 million Filipino Illegal Immigrants staying in the USA, immigration is an issue I deal with everyday. From family members trying to convince you to be an illegal immigrant (Had a multi entry Visa til may this year), online friends who are illegals, and people who plan to be this is an issue that you cannot fence sit. My take has always been consistent. Opportunity is everywhere and specially in our wild wild west like country. If you are going abroad to study, learn, to work with the best then well and good, But if you are leaving because the children of cowards are better off in so called first world nations. I am being a little harsh, but the fact is most people who have left are the people who the philippines has blessed with the resources to leave. Just think of how many UP and Pisay alumni are overseas and you’d be hard headed to no not understand my frustration.
from Kevin Drum Through Brad De Long:
link here
Bottom line: “This year’s report results in […] a substantial increase in the number of working-age individuals contributing payroll taxes, but a relatively smaller increase in the number of retirement-age individuals receiving benefits in the latter half of the long-range period.” Give or take a bit, it turns out that this shores up the Social Security system to the tune of around $13 billion per year. Thanks, illegal immigrants!
Got The Job!
Whoa,
I just got the job, though I am not proud for the fact that I probably got it because one of the people who decided was a friend.
Can’t think of that right now just have to do my best with this job and make sure the friend doesn’t lose face from his decision!
Been studying the technology stack of the company and I was a little worried that I’d waste my time when monday passed and no one called, better late than never.
Need to make this work! Finally I am an employed CODER/Hacker again!