Mike Laursen

Talks at Google

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Laursen) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 04:40:00 +0000

If you're looking for something thought-provoking to watch on the Web, check out Talks at Google. Google has hosted hundreds of well-known authors, musicians, politicians, etc. to give talks at the Google campus, and put them all up on YouTube.

Some that I've watched lately: author/curmudgeon Christopher Hitchens, magician/debunker James Randi, author/smartass Anthony Bordain, and author/geek Neil Stephenson.

Plucky Political Predictions

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Laursen) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 06:33:00 +0000

Barack Obama won't reveal a secret plan to turn the country into a Marxist state. He won't organize gangs of "civilian national security force" goons to beat up anybody who criticizes him. He won't even appoint Jesse Jackson as Secretary of State. He won't do any of the scary things I've heard right-wing radio talk show hosts claim he will do.

Sarah Palin will co-author, with a ghost writer, two books, which will sell well on conservative web sites and in bible book stores.

The Proposition 1A high-speed rail project will not be completed by 2030, as promised. There will be at least two more ballot initiatives asking for more funds.

Same-sex couples will eventually win the right to marry in California. Sometime in the next two-hundred years, we will elect the first gay President. Well, openly gay President -- James Buchanan will always be the first gay President.

Nate's First Vote

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Laursen) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:15:00 +0000

Nate helped Daddy vote this morning. Best of all, our polling place was at a fire station, so we got to see a FIRE TRUCK.

You can't see it clearly in the photo, but Nate thinks it is important to bring along a helium balloon when one votes.

Walking home, I was thinking about how he's going to be the kid who keeps getting in trouble at school because he has a contrarian libertarian nut for a dad:

"Today we are going to learn about an important civic duty -- voting. When you all get older, you will have a sacred responsibility to participate in our democratic form of government. Yes, Nate?"

"My daddy says that each California voter gets roughly an 80-millionth share in the decision of who becomes President of the United States. And that the President in turn gets to exercise vast emperor-like powers that impact every one of those voters lives."

Yes, my wife agreed. He is going to be that kid. And she's going to be the one that gets all the phone calls from the principal.

Hurray for the House, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Laursen) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 05:16:00 +0000

The mainstream press' coverage of the bailout has been what I have recently heard described as an "echo chamber". Mere repetition of the talking points coming from the politicians, with no follow-up questioning or skepticism. I image a lot of reporters don't feel qualified to question confident declarations from experts.

A few days ago, I read an article (wish I could remember where) about a psychological experiment where it was shown that most test subjects would not dissent from the unanimous opinion expressed by a test group. However, as soon as one other person expressed a dissenting opinion, many test subjects would feel freed to express their own doubts. This is hardly a shocking scientific finding; we all know the story of the "Emperor's New Clothes."

I'm hoping that one of the best effects of today's No vote will be that the press will start presenting more dissenting points of view on the idea that we need a huge, hurried bailout.

Hurray for the House!

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Laursen) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:18:00 +0000

The House did the right thing by voting down the bailout plan today. The hasty, ill-conceived plan (has Bush ever met a hasty, ill-conceived plan he didn't love?) was built around two bad ideas:

First, that we can mitigate the effect this credit crisis will have on "Main Street" Americans by having the government borrow an amount of money, in one mind-blowing orgy of spending, equal to the on-the-books cost of the Iraq War. (The actual cost of the Iraq War is a few hundred billion more than the figures Republicans like to quote.) This is money on credit that will have to be repaid, with interest, either through inflation or higher taxes -- either way, "Main Street" Americans would suffer.

The plan has been sold with a bit of intentional misinformation: a claim that the mortgage-backed securities would be bought up at a deep discount. Not necessarily so. Paulson's original write-up proposed to buy up the assets at their maturity price. Furthermore, one of the factors making this mess such a huge mess is that nobody knows what the securities are worth. They are very difficult to value.

Second, the misconception that the $700 billion asking price is based on some kind of in-depth analysis of the economy. The truth is that the $700 billion figure is arbitrary. Paulson took the value of all mortgages held by U.S. banks, then multiplied by 0.05. Why 5%? No particular reason. Paulson has never claimed otherwise, and has never claimed by the way, that he knows whether the plan will work or not.

It's unlikely that he came up with just the right plan or the right amount. You can make a pretty good case that the economy will bounce back after its own after a downturn, in which case the bailout isn't really needed. At least not a bailout of this size. You can also make a pretty good case that we're heading towards another depression, in which case the bailout isn't going to prevent it.

So what can the government do? Just a few ideas better than what has been proposed:

1. Cut spending. A good place to start would be bringing the troops home from Iraq. Cutting spending is the only way our heavily indebted government can put real money back into the economy.

2. Require banks to hold larger reserves. A lot of the current short-term stock market crisis is driven by lack of confidence. Reform of the weak regulation that allowed the financial sector to get into this mess in the first place will help restore confidence.

3. If we must spend money, be prepared to spend it on a possible failure of FDIC guarantees. Or to help folks who are at risk of defaulting on their payments.

The best thing about today's vote-down may be that it has damaged John McCain's credibility. In this tough economic situation, the last thing we need is a war-loving President.

Nate & Daddy's Weekend: Day Three: Undamaged Kid

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Laursen) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 01:47:00 +0000

Thing went pretty smoothly today. For the most part. At the start of Nate's meal last night, I kicked off my shoes under his high chair. This morning when I inserted my foot into my sneakers, big piece of squashy banana in the toe!

I'm getting more confident with his new bike seat. We went on an hour and a half bike ride from our house, through Palo Alto, just up to the point where we would have to cross the train tracks and El Camino Real to enter Stanford University. We'll leave that adventure for another day.

We were both so glad to see Mommy!

Nate & Daddy's Weekend: Day Two: A Walk in the Park

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Laursen) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 04:24:00 +0000

Nate is starting to miss his mommy. Right before his nap, when he was getting tired and fussy, he pointed at her picture on the mantle and shot me a look like, "What did you do to her?!" He calmed down after some cuddling. Every once in a while he would point to her picture or walk around the house looking for her.

Today's big fun was a walk at Shoreline Park with fellow Geek Scout, Oliver, and his daddy, Greg.

Here's a photo from our regular morning outing to the neighborhood play park:

And here's Nate reading all his books:

Nate & Daddy's Weekend: Day One: Fry's Made My Child Cry!

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Laursen) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:56:00 +0000

My wife is in Seattle for a long girl's weekend with my sisters, so it's just me and the boy for three days. Really makes me appreciate all she does to take care of him all day while I'm at work. He's in bed, and the last of the going-to-sleep noises have faded on the baby monitor, so it looks like I've survived the first day.

Today's only tantrum was at lunch time when I tried to put on his Baby Bjorn bib. He has been starting to rebel against the hard plastic collar that holds it around his neck. But it was resolved quickly by my giving him his way: we just bought a soft bib that goes over his entire upper body, but we hadn't had a chance to try it yet. I felt like a bad parent giving in to a tantrum, but I had to balance that against his actually having a legitimate grievance. And I don't think he has the communication skills at his age to complain about something like that without throwing a tantrum.

After his mid-day nap, we headed to Fry's. Nothing to buy, we were just geeking out. Nate used his special balloon-dar sense to immediately spot a bunch of balloons attached to a line of clearance sale bins. There was one sort of runt-of-the-litter balloon that was only half inflated. An employee was about to throw it away, so I asked if Nate could have it. By the time we had driven half way home it had completely shriveled.

(One could argue that I played some part in this tragedy by selecting a known defective balloon. But it's just too much fun to hate on Fry's. Did I mention that he didn't really cry. He just looked kinda disappointed.)

Finally, we went on a bike ride around the neighborhood. We just installed a Topeak carrier on my bike. We've only test ridden it a couple of times, so I'm still not comfortable doing anything other than a slow ride on quiet streets. It makes the bike very back heavy, so I have to be cautious not to let the bike get out of control when stopped, and I have to avoid sharp turns. Plus, right now, I stop every couple of minutes to make sure he hasn't figured out how to unbuckle the safety harness -- he's always trying to figure stuff like that out.

The Seventies Get What They Deserve

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Laursen) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 06:03:00 +0000

If you didn't spend your teenage years living in L.A., tuned into 70's FM radio, you might not get the stupendously awesome catharsis that is Yacht Rock. If you did, here's your chance to be an eyewitness to the approximately-true history of how Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald fought their way to the top of L.A's smooth rock scene. (Warning: Extremely crude humor)

Half A Book Review: Noble House

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Laursen) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 05:32:00 +0000

Noble House by James Clavell

I got through about one-hundred fifty pages. Just couldn't finish it.

I thought it might be full of anecdotes about the history and culture of Hong Kong. I now have in-laws there and from there, we've visited once and we'll be visiting again one of these days. I was fascinated by the place and would like to learn more about it.

That, and my original plan was to read my wife's old paperback copy of Shogun, but the print was too small for my middle-aged eyesight. Noble House looked like the best pick from the hardcover Clavell novels on the shelves of our local library.

Turns out it is like an especially tedious episode of Dynasty set in Hong Kong. Ayeeyah! The main characters aren't even Chinese -- they're bloody, boring Brits.

Three Little Book Reviews

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Laursen) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:51:00 +0000

Herman Melville, "Moby-Dick"

Despite the impression you may have gotten from the movies, Captain Ahab spends most of his time off stage, below deck, and Moby Dick doesn't appear until the last few pages. Melville once admitted that he tacked on the Ahab story so that there would be a story, and it shows.

It's best to ignore all the academic b.s. about "Moby-Dick" being the great American novel. It was panned by critics (not without good reason) when it first came out, and was nearly forgotten until the aftermath of World War I, when a novel about hubris yielded insight into the minds of the leaders who had gotten the world into such a devastating mess.

What we actually have here is a weird, rambling natural history of whales and whaling. With a subplot about a crazed, obsessive sea captain. And another subplot about a gay romanc -- err, deep friendship between an observant Yankee sailor and a cannibal harpoonist. Often fascinating, often tedious, with poetic, but sometimes incoherent, language that must be read out loud for full effect.

Eckhart Tolle, "A New Earth"

I have to apologize to my wife for marking up the margins of "A New Earth" with all my comments. I've never read a book that gave me such an overwhelming urge to talk back to the author. After reflecting on it, I realize I was reacting not to Tolle's basic message, but the tone of his writing.

Eckhart Tolle is a lot better at communicating his ideas through speaking than writing. In his series of online seminars with Oprah he comes across as a moderate thinker, humorous and likable. [Note: I don't know how to link to the archives of the online seminars, but you can find them by going to iTunes and searching for Oprah.com's Spirit Channel.]

In "A New Earth", he is often harshly judgmental, following a pattern of making a very black-and-white condemnation of some aspect of unenlightened humanity on one page, then admitting to a more moderate view a few pages later. I sometimes wondered whether the book's tone was the result of his editor over-urging him not to be wishy washy.

To give a balanced review, I have to say that Tolle's best moments in writing are the little illustrative stories he tells about zen monks or people that he has counseled. It's in these passages that the same personality he displays in the Oprah conversations shows through.

So, what is Tolle's basic message? The power of stilling one's mind of counterproductive, habitual thought patterns by learning to be in the moment. (His previous bestseller, which I haven't read, is called, "The Power of Now".) Tolle is primarily a popularizer of Buddhist thought. And I walked away from reading "A New Earth" with an intereset in reading the Buddhist source materials that influenced Tolle.

Matt Welch, "McCain: The Myth of a Maverick"

This book may seem like a hit piece on the presumptive Republican candidate, but Welch actually wrote it back when it looked like McCain's campaign was barreling towards failure.

This portrait of McCain, largely drawn from carefully reading McCain's own confessional autobiographies, shows a career politician who doesn't care about, and freely flip flops on, issues conservatives are supposed to care about: abortion, immigration, gay marriage, etc. Meanwhile, what does McCain care about? The military life, and national greatness in the vein of Teddy Roosevelt's vision of America.

I doubt this book will have much influence on the upcoming elections. Although McCain has flip flopped on all the big issues in the past, his latest positions on all the big conservative issues are "correct".

Matt Welch, the new editor of the libertarian magazine, reason, wrote "McCain: The Myth of a Maverick" while he was still on the editorial staff at the Los Angeles Times. There's a lot in the book that would turn libertarians off to voting for McCain, but few libertarians are fans of McCain or Obama, anyway.

Playground Project

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Laursen) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 20:19:00 +0000

By keeping an eye on garage sales and mailing lists, we've accumulated a world-class collection of little tikes® play structures. We now have a table, a picnic table, a big slide and a little slide -- and the crown jewel of our collection: a blue octopus merry-go-round.

We decided that my big "stay-cation" project would be to build a playground in our backyard. The yard was thoroughly torn up when we remodeled our house, so there wasn't any good place for Nate to play outside. I spent every morning for the last two weeks working on this area just off of our living room and mommy and daddy's offices, where we will be able to keep an eye on him when he is old enough to play outside on his own.

Yesterday, Nate got his first chance to try out his playground. Although we're going to continue taking him to the playground at our local park, he enjoyed these smaller play structures. They are just the right size for him to learn how to climb all over them without getting hurt when he falls off. And he's already fallen off all of them, with daddy hovering nearby but restraining himself from coddling too much.

The hardest part of the project was prepping the 16' x 16' area. The scraggly remains of the old lawn were full of construction trash, roots and weeds, old sprinkler pipes, and that annoying green plastic netting that they use to strengthen rolls of turf. So, I decided to completely clear the topsoil. I think I found nearly a hundred old nails, many that must date back to when our house was built in 1954.

Here, Frances helps out by cutting a bunch of roots that were growing through one corner of the area:

I had originally drawn up plans to do a more elaborate frame around the area, with a bench built in along one side, but I scaled back the plans to fit the amount of time available (and then spent a week more than I thought it would take). The simplified redwood frame is lightweight, but should be stable since it is half-buried in our nearly-hard-as-brick clay soil. Getting the frame square was the hardest part, but the contractor working on our hall bath gave me some tips. (By the way, the hall bath remodel is the reason for all of the trash piled behind the playground.)

Once I had the frame built, I graded the ground, adding back about half the topsoil, carefully raking through it to get out all the crud mentioned above. If you look carefully, you can see that there's a shallow ditch running across the grade. After I had started removing the topsoil, I realized that one of our downspouts has a drain pipe that runs under the sidewalk and drains into the play area. I'm hoping that the ditch will help the water drain to the down-slope side of the frame.

The frame is filled with about four inches of "playground fiber", a mulch of soft wood that doesn't splinter. And is very good at being tracked into the house.

When we were about to try out the playground yesterday afternoon, it was getting hit with some strong sun. So, we decided to move the canopy that we bought for Nate's first birthday party over the play area. It cooled it down nicely.

For Posterity: Barney's Butt

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Laursen) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:35:00 +0000

So, my sister goes to Washington, D.C. and visits all of the typical tourist sites. Animal nut that she is, most of her pictures of the White House feature Barney the Dog, on a brief romp while he evades the staff member in charge of watching him.

Here, recorded for future Presidential historians, sort of with my sister's permission and definitely without the White House's permission, Barney's posterior:

A Tour of North Korea

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Laursen) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:36:00 +0000

I'm not sure who these Vice Guide guys are. Their style is too reckless for anyone to confuse them with mainstream journalists. I can say that they had some major balls to bribe their way into North Korea on a Chinese tourist package, risking repeated threats of criminal prosecution to re-emerge with lots of video. I don't think they ever fully explained how they got away with it: Bribes? Secret compartments? Tour guides full of empty threats?

The entire series is long, but here are a couple of episodes that convey how surreal their tour of North Korea was:

Episode Five -The Tea Girl
Episode Thirteen - Arirang

Here's the entire series:
The Vice Guide to North Korea

Cookie Monster Sets The Record Straight

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Laursen) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:10:00 +0000

Did Cookie Monster betray America's children? Stephen Colbert gives him a chance to set the record straight:

Cookie Monster

Stephen's Missing Peabody

(via Ender's Review of the Web)

If you know what's good for you, you'll blog and you'll blog often!

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Laursen) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 06:13:00 +0000

The software product I've been doggedly working on for the last year and a half is about to ship. This is the first evening of a long-awaited six-week vacation. I haven't had a summer vacation like this since ... high school?

No better time to kick off my new blog. As I explained in the last post on my neglected political blog, Issuefish, I've been meaning to make the switch to a general-topic blog.

Why unleash another blog on the world? Well, it's not about you guys, it's about me! Scientific American says blogging is good for you! Even so, I hope you'll all find my posts here to be interesting (and, no, this one doesn't count).