From the Notebook

A bit of a disruption from the real world hit my life this month, so this will be short.

- Saw Iron Man 3 this month. And mostly liked it. Which is about the best I can expect from a movie nowadays.

- Read Spirits in Bondage by CS Lewis. This book is a series of melancholic poems written after Lewis’ service in WWI. And it’s a remarkable book, very readable. If you’re not sure what constitutes good poetry, start here.

- Also read “How to Archer”, a bit of inventive merchandising from the stakeholders of the cartoon “Archer”. While hilarious, it has no literary value.

Random Link

www.somethingventuredthemovie.com

From the Notebook

English: Martin Buber in Palestine/Israel עברית: מרטין בובר בארץ ישראל (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

- The novel is coming along alright. I’m now doing the final edit, and waiting for feedback from my reviewers. I probably won’t be able to release it before Christmas because of my new job. But I’ll try anyway.

- If anyone wants my pWP data for 2012, I made a pdf of my spreadsheets. It’s there if anyone wants to try to replicate my results. Just email me through my About page or leave a comment in this post.

- I am currently working a new job at Walmart, and while it’s not necessary, I do want to say that anything I post here is my own work and views, and nothing here represents Walmart in any way and that I do not represent Walmart in any way, official or not.

- The futility of blogging: In nine years, I have published nearly 5000 posts and earned an invite to the 2008 RNC. In that time, I have earned $11.80 from Amazon.com’s referral program. I’ve “earned” about 17 dollars from Google ads but I can’t collect it. And I got a huge $175 from a one-time text-ad deal. That’s less than 200 dollars. And the sad part is that’s far more money than most bloggers out there will ever earn blogging. The writing bug is just about the worst ill that could befall a human being.

Some pWP notes that didn’t get published during the election, when they would have made more sense:

- Anyone looking really close at some of my pWP graphs will notice the pWP of any individual poll never goes above 95% or below 5%. This is a product of my general philosophy of statistics. There is always some level of “Black Swan-ness” that erodes the confidence I have in the predictability of something like an election. One candidate can die, or commit a crime, or say something awful, etc. These tail events are more common than you’d think, and when combined with the limitations of polling and just a generic fudge-factor, I made the decision that we can never be more than 95% confident a particular candidate will win an election except in extraordinary circumstances. There have been several polls that would have put Obama above the 95% pWP mark, just so you know.

- The tracking polls, which give rolling averages of five or more days, are my nightmare. They basically make my task of trying to calculate the impact of events on the electorate completely impossible. I don’t know how to properly account for them, and they represent a majority of the polls I use for measuring POTUS pWP. I have a few ideas on how to change things for next election, but it basically increases my workload sevenfold.

Reviews:

- How to think about God, by Mortimer Adler. This short book on “philosophic theology” is really incredible. Adler outlines the traditional deductive arguments for the existence of God, and strengthens them. His argument does not require any religious experience, feelings, supernatural experiences or any other questionable claims that are easily discarded by skeptics. His argument, focused on the idea of radical contingency, is surprisingly strong. Anyone interested in theology, and in particular arguments for the existence of God, should read this book.

- Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel, by Scott Adams. This was an abridged audiobook I got for $1.98. And it was good. Adams central thesis is that we area all weasels, and that’s okay. And I agree.

- Finished the Khan Academy Macroeconomics playlist. Conservatives and libertarians generally object to the methods of macroeconomics, and their criticisms are strong. But the vast majority of conservatives and libertarians, at least among those I know, don’t have a strong grasp of macroeconomic orthodoxy. Sal’s playlist gives a very good starting point and puts those criticisms in proper context.

- 2016: Obama’s America. I like Dinish D’Souza. I do. But he destroyed any credibility he had by making this film. imho.

- The Punisher: Kingdome Gone. This was a shortish graphic novel I found lying around the house. It’s older, and a little tame. There’s some kind of underlying political message that I didn’t entirely comprehend about the invasion of Grenada.

- The Walking Dead; Compendium 1. [It's awesome, just FYI]

- I and Thou, by Martin Buber. I was first introduced to Buber in a Freshman seminar. Since then, I’ve been a big fan.

From the Notebook

English: Salman Khan, famous for the Khan Academy, speaking at TED 2011. Cropped from the original. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Just more boring summer reviews. Nothing else going on.

- Saw the movie ”Prometheus” a couple of weeks back. And it was unwatchable. I would have walked out, but my theater has no pinball machine and I was with friends. It’s a prequel to “Alien” but I didn’t know that going in (and I found myself thinking, almost through the entire movie “this is just a ripoff of Alien”). The plot makes no sense; you have to fill in all the gaps that are left completely unexplained with your own imagination. And my imagination was much more interested in trying to clip my fingernails (which will make you a very unpopular person in a movie theater). I asked for, and got, an apology from the friend who chose this movie.

-Watched the entire Khan Academy MicroEcon Playlist; Sal explains most of the common topics covered in an introductory MicroEcon class. He actually covers more information than what was included in my MicroEcon 1001 course. It’s remarkable this level of instruction is available for free.

-Also got through the American Civics Playlist on Khan Academy. Here, Sal explains some of the basics of American polity, including how we pick a president and what our present budget situation looks like (it’s ugly). Another very good playlist to watch. Some of it will be reivew material for the politically interested, but it never hurts to review the basics.

-At the end of June, I will have been on Khan Academy for a full year, though I didn’t create an account until July 20th. On average, I have watched a video every day, and completed a math skills test every weekday. I can’t describe how edifying the hole experience has been, and how great it is to fill the knowledge gaps left by 12 years of government schooling.

Books Read:

- John Sandford‘s “Silent Prey“; Sandford finally gets back to what made his earlier Prey books so good: a fast moving story filled with real jeopardy, interesting characters, and a dose of humor. 

-Plato‘s “Statesman”; in this dialogue, Plato tries to pin down exactly what is the true nature of a “statesman” and what constitutes the science of statesmanship. There are some fascinating passages, including more material attacking democracy. A true statesmen is like a basket weaver; if you’re wondering. (This text is part of the GBWW 10-year reading plan)

- “Kill Shot” by Vince Flynn; it’s Flynn’s second retrospective Mitch Rapp novel. And it’s not fun. There is a great scene in the first part of the book, as Mitch Rapp gets ambushed by some bad guys. Then there’s almost 200 pages of plodding, boring, uninteresting plot points (mostly scenes of people having meetings). Finally, there’s some gun play at the end. And because we know Mitch Rapp lives to save the US dozens of times later on in the timeline, we know Rapp isn’t going to die. It’s possible to make retrospective novels interesting, but Flynn fails here.

-”101 Golf Tips” by Peter Ballingall; I’ve read it before, but I haven’t reviewed it before. The copy I have is dated, but from what I can tell there’s a newer version available. The tips are somewhat helpful, and I’ll probably pick this book up and review some things on occasion. It’s definitely for true beginners.

 

Related articles

• Taking the . . . Kill Shot (hopeofglory.typepad.com)
• Khan Academy (maverickphilosopher.typepad.com)
• VIDEO: Khan Academy reinvents distance education (news.bbc.co.uk)

From the Notebook

A picture of Russel Kirk (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

- Veteran Preference bills. One passed in Minnesota, allowing companies to create their own veteran hiring programs, giving preference to returning vets for jobs. I don’t believe in artificial preferences, ever. But, I would, if I were a hiring manager, prefer to hire vets anyway, due to their experiences and work ethic. I’ve worked with veterans and they’re great. But, as always, there are individual differences that need to be noted. Also, bills like this don’t solve the problem. Something is keeping hiring managers and HR types from hiring vets; vets face double the unemployment rate as the rest of the population. And that needs to be addressed, and I doubt the solution can come from government; it will have to come from business schools.

- Having a great difficulty writing. For about a decade I could reliably punch out a thousand words a day. The well has dried up. I’m trying to find a way to salvage a hobby I really care about and that has been the focus of my life for so long, but it’s getting tough. Once you get on the wrong side of the age/accomplishment curve, unless there’s real money at stake, your hobbies are going to die. There are a few short stories I’m going to finish, there’s also a novel I’d like to finish. And maybe a series or two of blogposts. But even those meager projects seem impossibly optimistic.

- Like everyone else, I struggle with my weight. I’ve been trying a new way to control my calorie intake. On average, a person needs 2000 calories a day. More, you gain; less, you lose. For an active male, 90 calories an hour is our balance point. So, I’ve been trying to eat 90 calories an hour, for every hour I’m awake. I have a four-hour breakfast, a four-hour lunch, and a four-hour dinner (all around 400 calories total). I allow some snacks to get to about 20 hours. And I stop there. So, I keep my calorie intake above the starvation-point (where your metabolism gets out of whack) and below the static-weight mark. It’s been just two weeks, but I’ve seen good progress. In order to stay full, I avoid dense calorie foods (like candy) and stick to more filling foods (fruits and vegetables and grains) so I don’t feel hungry. Now I’m waiting to see where I plateau, and from there I might adjust the calorie intake again (maybe down to 80 calories an hour). This seems easier than trying to track everything you eat all day in a diary; you only need to remember how many hours you’ve eaten or have left. The only simpler method is to try what Aaron Gleeman did, prepare a giant batch of food (in his case, rice) and eat from that batch all day.

- Watched the documentary “An Inconvenient Tax” (on Hulu) about our country’s income tax system. Conclusion? our tax code is really awful. But what is worse is when you add in state and local taxes, along with regulations. Once you have complicated taxes and regulations at every level, everywhere, you prevent growth. And this is where we are at now. We have a regulatory structure that is unnavigable, a tax structure that is incomprehensible, and an education system that is unreformable. This is a perfect storm for economic disaster. Other countries can reform and evolve (and many have, in fact) and send capital away from us, and impoverish us. And that’s bad.

- Saw “The Avengers” over the weekend. In 3D. And was really impressed. Other than some basic stupid (flying aircraft carriers) and bad physics (how many G’s can Stark take in that suit? 50?), the movie was very enjoyable. And it always pains me to give a movie a good review. In general, the fear of bedbugs keeps me from attending movies at theatres (seriously, research that, scary stuff), this movie is worth the risk.

Books read:

-Douglas Hyde, Dedication and Leadership; Hyde was a former communist who ran a communist newspaper. In this slim volume, he explains the tactics communists use to achieve their goals using the resources they have at hand. Hyde wants these tactics to be adopted by Christians (the ethical tactics, that is). As a manual for leadership, this book is pretty good.

-Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind; This was one of the greatest books I have ever read. It’s a survey of conservative thought since Edmund Burke, but it is also an intellectual and historical apologia for conservatism and a call to action for all conservative-minded individuals to devote themselves to defending and preserving ‘The Permanent Things’. This book will be near me for the rest of my life.

-Chris Kyle, American Sniper; Kyle was a SEAL sniper who operated in Iraq for a majority of the conflict, including the Battle of Fallujah. In his career, he recorded more sniper kills than any other American ever has. But the book is more than just a diary of a successful soldier. Through clear and concise prose, Kyle presents the realities of our war in the Middle East. It’s a brutal affair, no quarter is given by either side. There’s an intensity to this book absent from other war memoirs I have read. I’ll leave it at that. It’s a definite “to read” if you have interest in the subject area.

Related articles

• Bradley Cooper Sets up NAVY Seal Movie AMERICAN SNIPER (geektyrant.com)

From the Notebook

I haven’t blogged in a month? really? who’s keeping track anyway?

– Disney is expected to lose over a hundred million dollars, and possibly up to two hundred million, on the John Carter movie. And let me admit, I had no interest in seeing the film. I was not familiar with the source material, the trailers were awful; the movie looked weird. Not only didn’t it look like a movie I would enjoy, it didn’t look like a typical Disney film either (who goes to a nice Chinese restaurant and orders a burger?). But some friends dragged me to the theatre to see it, in 3D (which didn’t do much for me). And I kinda liked it. And my friends will tell you me kinda liking a film is generally assumed to be impossible. Nothing was poorly done, the acting was fine, the film looked great, my disbelief was fully suspended. Sci-fi movies often travel similar paths, with interchangeable themes and nearly identical gimmicks (I started referring to the princess of [whatever] as ‘Princess Leia’), ‘John Carter’ suffers for it. That said, I’m glad I saw this movie. I think you should go see it too. Disney ventured off the ‘Ghostbusters IV/Star Trek 6^12/Jennifer Aniston/Buddy Cop’ path of least movie-making resistance, and should be rewarded for finding something original.

– Seth Stohs recently ended his blog ‘SethSpeaks’ and moved to a new plataform, a community blog with a few other prominent Twins Bloggers. Which means I won’t be reading Seth Stohs anymore. Sorry Seth, but I’m just not interested in group blogs. Call me old-fashioned, but I liked it when blogs were about personal expression. These group blogs look too professional, too corporate, and the writing is always less compelling than single-author blogs.

– The Twins sent Nishioka to AAA. Of all the analysis on Nishioka, I have not seen any of the other number crunchers mention his BABiP in Japan (except for Aaron Gleeman, in his blog, about three days after I wrote this paragraph in my ‘drafts’ section). What kind of scouting do the Twins do? Seriously. The year he won the Japanese batting title was a statistical fluke. There was simply no vetting, nor any scouting, nor any video analysis, or even any discussion about Nishioka from the front office before they decided to spend millions of dollars on him.

From the Notebook

Cover of Certain Prey

It was a bit of a rough year for me, I can only hope things improve. I can tell you, in the coming year, my goal is to continue to post about once a week. I don’t want the blog to die, but I also want it to take a back seat to everything else I’d like to do with my time. I am working on another novel, I figure I’m about a year away from publishing it. My writing goals no longer revolve around the blog. And I consider that a good thing.

And now on to the notes…

 - The Twins have had a very uninteresting offseason. Every move I’ve seen so far has been sideways. There haven’t been any upgrades, but I can’t point out any major downgrades either. The Twins should be significantly better than last year if only because Mauer and Morneau should be back in the lineup more regularly. And even if they aren’t, everyone else should be healthier. Regression to the mean should provide its own big upgrade for the Twins. But I still don’t see them significantly above the .500 mark this year, or even next year (2013).

- I finished Professor Bart Ehrman‘s New Testament course from The Great Courses (“The History of the Bible; The Making of the New Testament Canon”). This is a short lecture series on the New Testament, from an historical perspective. Ehrman didn’t make any theological claims. Much of the course was spent examining the texts of the New Testament as literature. It was really spectacular, and the conclusions are a challenge to those who see the Bible not as the documents of the early Christian Church, but as the irrefutable Word of God. Even if the original books of the New Testament were the irrefutable Word, those have been lost and major discrepancies exist in the surviving ancient texts.

- Watched through the Khan Academy Banking Playlist. Sal started the lecture series by creating a simple bank and ended the series with a full explanation and commentary on the fractional reserve banking system. Very edifying. With the current banking crisis still causing problems, this is a great primer for those of us who didn’t grow up wishing to be accountants.

- Read Certain Prey by John Sandford. I figured I should read the book after I gave the USA Network movie of the same name a thumbs up. This book was your typical John Sandford, fast-moving, compelling. It’s amazing, no matter how many of his novels I read, I want to read more. The guy is good.

- Read “I, Steve”, a collection of Steve Jobs quotes regarding business, design and management, edited by George Beahm. Interesting stuff. Jobs was very much a genius, and the tidbits of his thinking should help clarify the way other business leaders think. Quick read.

-Read ”Getting it Right” by Bill Buckley Jr. It is a novelization about the early conservative revival, in response to FDR’s New Deal, in the late 50′s and early 60′s. The reader follows a young couple, him a John Birch Society adherent, her an Ayn Rand cultist, through the various trouble spots of the time. As it turns out, the right spot is the mean between the two extremes. Who would’ve guessed? A good novel, and a necessary one to understand how the modern American conservative movement matured.

- Saw the “Sherlock Holmes” sequel starring Robert Downey Jr. I liked it. The pacing seemed a little slow, there were some ridiculous, uh, ‘intuitions’ by Holmes that really took you out of the moment. The plot was dumb and preachy. But I still enjoyed it.

Related articles

• Counterpoints to Ehrman (liturgical.wordpress.com)
• Ehrman/Wallace Debate in Dallas (capthk.wordpress.com)
• Can We Trust the Text of the New Testament? (str.typepad.com)
• A Jewish Perspective On The New Testament (npr.org)
• How Are 400,000 Variants or Errors In the New Testament Explained? (withalliamgod.wordpress.com)
• Writer Laura Lippman on the depiction of dead women in fiction (avidmysteryreader.com)
   

From the Notebook

Cover of Certain Prey

It’s been a busy few weeks for me. There’s been a lot of stuff to do inside and outside the house before winter sets in, and I’ve also been devoting a lot of time to NaNoWriMo. This has been the first time in a while that I’ve been able to devote a lot of time to a major writing project since the last major writing project. For this, the blog suffers.

Now the notes:

-Imagine if Ronald Reagan or Sarah Palin made a gaffe similar to Rick Perry’s in a debate. Reagan would have been labeled a dementia patient and it would have been the overwhelming theme of the media coverage of the election cycle, be it 1980 or 1984. Palin would have to suffer through weeks of constant negative coverage and commentary from the left bordering on misogyny. Which would not have been new to her. Perry is lucky he can give the ‘aw shucks, I’m justa country boy’ response and move on, despite the fact he’s been awful in every debate I’ve seen him in.

-Got to hear Jesse Ventura talk about the dismissal of his court case against the intrusive security measures on George Noory‘s Coast to Coast. And he made a lot of sense. His basic argument was constitutional, searches must be reasonable. And, in his specific case, it is unreasonable to subject a former governor and Navy veteran to either an intrusive patdown or naked images every time he flies (he has a titanium hip, so he can’t get through the metal detectors). He got a lot of negative press, but he’s right.

-I finished ‘Understanding Complexity‘ from The Great Courses, a 12 lecture series taught by Prof. Scott Page. It’s a wonderful course that introduces and simplifies the elements and consequences of complexity theory in a useful way.

-Read ‘The Rake’ by William F. Buckley Jr. It’s a political novel about the rise and fall of a charismatic politician whose aspirations exceed his moral character. A lot of fun, very easy read. I saw John Kerry in the antagonist, but I might be wrong.

-I am continuing to work through the Khan Academy video lists as well as their math exercises. Most recently, I finished Sal’s Currency Playlist. The most important lectures in the playlist deal with the international currency manipulation that China is currently practicing. It’s also short enough to go through comfortably in an afternoon.

-Had some movie recommendations piling up. For those interested in a microcosm of the current disaster that is our public schools, see: ‘The Lottery’ (a documentary about the NY Public school charter school lottery). I also liked Bill Murray’s performance in ‘Get Low’ and Mark Harmon in Certain Prey, based on John Sandford’s novel.

From the Notebook

Cover via Amazon

-Went to see “Moneyball” this weekend. I loved it. It wasn’t what I expected at all. It was a rather intense character study of Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane, not a baseball movie, not a business movie. The two complaints I heard going into the film were its length and the way former A’s Manager Art Howe is portrayed as a dumb and stubborn ignoramus. Whatever. I thought they could have created more conflict there, that’s what I got from the book. And the baseball traditionalists really were as obdurate and arrogant as portrayed. I would say even more so, just from my perspective on the outside looking in. The length was fine, as good movies don’t need to end soon. I highly recommend seeing it sometime.

-Another movie I recently saw and really enjoyed was “Get Low” starring Robert Duvall. The movie is about an old hermit preparing to die, and wishing to do it in a way that engages the local community he has separated himself from for so long. He doesn’t know it, but this process leads to him giving a confession that had been weighing so heavily on his soul. Really a wonderful movie. Bill Murray plays the part of a desperate undertaker in need of money. Another high recommendation. The movie was released in 2009 and should be available on demand somewhere.

-Read  “The Practice of the Presence of God” by Brother Lawrence, a book about the ideal interior spiritual life of those on their Christian Walk. Brother Lawrence was a humble cook who was well-known for his intense spirituality, and after his death his sayings, some letters and a short biography were compiled into this short book. It’s a great text for the protestant or Catholic alike.

-Over the coming months a short-story of mine is going to be published in serial by my friends at MassProLife. Parts I&II are up on their website now. The story is a dystopian vision of the near future where good intentions have led to bad policies regarding healthcare in America. As always, I love feedback on my writing whenever I can get it.

-There is one thing the recession has helped, a lot, and that is financial shows on the radio. What were once dull and dry pedantic lectures on saving money and paying off credit cards has turned into wonderful commentary on econometrics, market forecasting and public policy. I can’t remember the last time I heard a money show on the radio scorn a man for investing in penny stocks or not fully contributing to his 401k. I suppose, once these shows are boring again, the recession will finally be over.

Related articles

• ‘I Found God At Work’ (christianlifehacker.wordpress.com)
• Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane fires back at angry Art Howe over portrayal in ‘Moneyball’ (mercurynews.com)
• Art Howe is angry about how he was portrayed in “Moneyball” (hardballtalk.nbcsports.com)

From the Notebook

Image via Wikipedia

-April jobs report had the US economy adding 244,000 jobs, which closely matched the March numbers. This was celebrated in the media, but the news isn’t as good as you might think. The economy needs to add between 110,000 and 150,000 jobs a month (on average) to keep up with new job market entrants. This means, if the economy averages 250,000 jobs every month, in order to recover the 8 million jobs lost in the recession, it will take 57 months of uninterrupted growth. But there’s another problem,  the unemployment numbers don’t count those people who were never employed in the first place during the three years of the recession. This means, at the 110,000 rate, there are 4 million jobs to make up in addition to the jobs lost. If we add this lost generation of workers to the mix, it will take 86 months to fully recover from this recession. That is seven years from now.

-For those wondering, Twins aren’t dead yet. But they’re close. There are plenty of 13/14/15 games back comebacks in the history of baseball. The Twins have a lot of home games left, and a lot of games against their division rivals. This means they do control their destiny. But Mauer needs get back in the lineup for there to be some hope. Also, Morneau needs to get back into form. And Liriano needs to settle into a rythme. And it’d be nice to get Thome back. And Nishioka. And this all needs to happen in the next three weeks or so.

-I don’t know who started referring to blog posts as “blogs” but everyone needs to stop. A blog is a website with posts in reverse chronological order. A post on a blog is one of those entries. So stop saying “wrote a new blog” unless you actually created a new website. Just say “new post at my blog.” Thank You.

-The more I learn about economics, the less I feel I know. It’s frustrating trying to learn all the Keynesian equations and dissect them. What’s worse, there’s a lot of things Keynes was half-right about. I must say though, this recession validates Hayek and other Austrian thinkers who predict that microeconomic forces misallocate resources, providing the primary cause for recessions. The neo-Keynesians just don’t know as much as they claim, their inability to increase aggregate demand enough to lessen unemployment being a big failure of Obama’s stimulus package.

-Saw Thor the other day. The movie was just not worth watching. Effects alone can no longer carry a film. Thor was a story that went nowhere, nothing seemed to happen, and nothing had a point. I’m having difficulty even remembering any important details of the film. Probably because there weren’t any. Also, this film was a two-hour argument against adoption, which annoyed me. Just don’t see it.

-I finished up the “MBA Mondays” series by venture capitalist Fred Wilson on Dailylit. The series was supposed to be a mini-course for people in business who didn’t go through the expense of getting an MBA. Unfortunately, much of the series focused on elements of mergers and acquisitions, something most people in business will never have to deal with (since most people in business won’t ever be VCs or CEOs). Some of the series posts were awesome. On the whole, I would suggest people who are interested in expanding their business knowledge to go ahead and subscribe on Dailylit.