Thought of the week

Responding that you are doing "well" rather than "good" is the secret handshake of the educated.

Where I see God

I've never been a very religous person. In high school I briefly flirted with the idea of joining a church. However, as I mulled the descision I could not supress my misgivings at the fact that these organizations were responsible for centuries of war and persecution, for rationalizations of slavery and sexism, and for repressing such dangerous notions as the belief that the world was round. I found myself disgusted that an organization that was founded on a visionary man's novel idea that maybe we should all try being nice to eachother for a change could pervert his message to that extent. These misgivings, combined with a skepticism that makes it hard to trust the literalism of words written millenia ago, effectively turned me off from organized religion.

Despite this cynicism, I cannot deny the phenomenon of spirituality. I believe that there are two sources of spirituality: first, a humbling recognition of the magnitude and capacity of the universe, and second, the awe inspired by the serene example of another person. The first source of spirituality is the reason that religion was initially created: to explain the wonders of the natural world. The second source is the one which I would like to talk about: the inspiration one derives from the sublime action of another. I think of this type as a social spirituality, derived from our ability to empathize. It is responsible for the foundation of most monotheistic religions--while the other sort of spirituality brought about the polytheistic, nature-worshipping religions, this sort of spirituality breeds the worship of certain special persons. While several people have been a source of this sort of spirituality to me, the most profound by far is His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

My admiration for the Dalai Lama is best summed up by this anecdote:
When asked how he would respond if science were to prove some facet of Buddhism impossible, the Dalai Lama responded: "If science were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims."
This man is the leader of church that has been around for thousands of years, and is based a set of beliefs that he has dedicated his life to protecting from repression. Despite this, he has the serenity to change his convictions if it is determined that science does not support them (Aside: for an idea of how another major religion might react to such a challenge, check out the reaction to James Cameron's recent excavation of a tomb that may contain Jesus' family).

Bear in mind that this open-mindedness belongs to a man who was born the fifth of nine children to a family of rural Tibetan farmers, who was named the head of a major religion within a year after saying his first word, who was 23 when his country was invaded and its inhabitants brutally repressed by China, who has spent the rest of his life in exile from the land that his countrymen had made their home for millenia and is considered to be the sacred ground of his religion. By all rights, he should be surly and world-weary, not gentle and wise. What's even more amazing to me is that he became the Dalai Lama by correctly picking the previous Dalai Lama's cane and glasses from an assortment of other items when he was two years old.

As you might guess, I'm not the sort of person to believe in superstitions, but the fact remains that a seemingly random process picked perhaps the one man in a million that could emerge through such turmoil and remain the beacon of wisdom that he is. This is a phenomenon that I cannot explain. This sublime coincidence inspires the the first type of spirituality, but that's not what gets me the most about the Dalai Lama. I am awed by the second type of spirituality, by the ability of this man to remain so righteous, so magnanimous even after a lifetime of persecution and hardship. If I were to point to someplace that I see God in the world, this is it.

I believe that religion is the pursuit of this sort of spirituality. People wish to find a way to connect with that feeling, and create a system of rituals that is designed to help them to access it. I am not trying to disparage religion, just to define it. If it is a ritual that allows you to achieve spirituality--believing that you are consuming your deity's blood and body, or prostrating yourself towards an important city, or covering your head to show humility--then more power to you. Where I get lost, and I think that this describes many other people as well, is when the ritual itself supercedes the spirituality it is meant to access. I think that this is a common misinterpretation, prioritizing the form over the function. It seems to be present in all religions, and results in people attempting to force the way that they find spirituality on others. I believe that it is the misunderstanding that it is the spirituality that is the important part, not the vehicle, that leads to the bastardizations of religions that instigate war or justify tyranny.


Update:
I've decided that the best definition for the quality that inspires spirituality in me is a resistance to situational ethics, or people whose ideals remain uncompromised by adversity.

Hold or fold?

Introduction
"Keeper leagues" are becoming increasingly popular among fantasy sports enthusiasts. In a keeper league, instead of starting over and drafting an entirely new team each year, a manager has the option of retaining some of his players. This poses a problem at the end of every season: should you hold on to a player, or take your chances in the draft? To help answer this problem, here is my attempt at a Bill James-esque formula to determine whether you should hold or fold. Please note that I've never actually taken a class in statistics, so forgive me if my format or method is not kosher...


Variables
A: Rank at begining of the year
B: Rank at the end of the year
C: Player's age
D: Games played
E: Total games in a season
F: Player's value rating
G: Player's rank among other players on the fantasy team
H: Teams in the league
I: Keeper value rating
J: #1 overall draft pick's F value

Formula
If: D/E < .75, then:
F = A + |C - 26|^1.25 + (2xE/D)^3 - J

If D/E > .75, then
F = (4xA + 3xB )/7 + |C - 26|^1.25 + (2xE/D)^2 + [(B - A) x (10/A)] - J

Once F is determined:
(GxH - H/2) - F = I

Make a list of your player's keeper value ratings. Add them up, starting with the first player on your roster. Find the point at which the combined I value is the highest, and keep all the players up until that point.


Explanation
I'm sure that just looks like gibberish, but if you're interested in the formula's derivation, read on.

The goal of the Bill James' theory of statistics is to identify and properly weight different statistical catagories to come up with a numerical representation of value. In my attempt to do this, I first identified several statistical catagories of particular interest in a keeper league. They were:
1. The player's rank the year before.
2. A player's age.
3. Whether that player tended to miss a lot of games from injury.
4. Whether that player tended to exceed expectations or not.

My goal was to make a ranking system that would rank the player in order of their keeper value (Variable F). To find that number, I had to decide how to weight the four catagories I mentioned above. Here's what I decided, in terms of each catagory. (Note: the player's value rating, or F, is designed to be a list from 1 up of the best to worst keeper players, so the lower the number the better).

The categories
1. Last year's ranking: (4xA + 3xB )/7
The player's rank from the year before will be the major determining factor. If a player was injured for more than 3/4 of the year (D/E > .75), then the ranking was left as-is. A player who played all year, however, has his ranking from the beginning of the year and the end of the year averaged. I weighted the original ranking as a third more important as the end of the year ranking, which is a little more fickle. For example, a player who enters the year ranked 67th overall and ends the year ranked 81 has a 73 rating for this variable.

2. Age: |C - 26|^1.25
The player's age was the next statistic considered. In most cases, a player's prime fantasy years occur between his 26th and 30th birthday. I made the optimal age 26 because this puts a player in the begining of his prime, with good years in front of him and enough experience to be productive. I took the absolute value of the age difference, and raised that number to the 1.25th power. This means that a player has a a progressively larger penalty added to his value rating based on how old he is. A player who is 31 adds 7.5 onto his value rating, reflecting that he will be of progressively less value in future years. A 22 year old adds 5.7, a penalty for the years that the owner will have to wait before the player hits his prime.

3. Succeptibility to injury: (2xE/D)^2
To take into account how injury-prone a player is, the total games during a season are divided by the number of games that player has played. This number is doubled and then squared to weight longer absences more than short ones. For example: a baseball player who misses 20 games out of the 162 games in a season adds 5.2 to his value rating. Furthermore, a second eqution is used to ensure that a player who misses most of a season due to injury still retains some of his value.

4. Tendency to exceed expectations: (B - A)x(10/A)
I used the change in rankings over a season to measure whether a player tends to play beyond or below expectations. Their change is measured in the (B - A) part of this term. Because an improvement of a player who is already ranked highly is more difficult to come by than a lower ranked player, the second part of the term weights the player's improvement/regression by where they stood initially. Example: Players 1, 2 and3 have initial rankings of 5, 20, and 100 respectively each improve 3 positions by the end of the year. Player 1 reduces his F value by 6 points, Player 2 by 1.5 points, and Player 3 by just 3/10ths of a point.


Other parts of the formula explained
1. The two different formulas resulting from: If: D/E > .75, then:
A player who misses a significant portion of the previous season will throw off the methods of the longer equation, so a smaller equation was used which still penalizes him somewhat for missing games, but does not also dock him for not improving during the season.

2. - J
Once each of these statistical categories are accounted for, #1 overall player's value rating is subtracted from all the other players total value. After all the other categories are added onto the player's F value, the ranking begins at a number higher than 1. Subtracting the absolute value of the #1's position restores a numerical ranking.

3. (GxH -H/2)
Once the players are ranked in this system, they must be listed in terms of the rounds of the draft. Multiplying the player's ranking on your own team by the number of teams in the league gives you the number of the last pick of that respective round of the draft. Subtracting half the teams in the league then gives you the median pick of that round. For example, the 5th best player on your league in a league of 10 players would be kept in the 5th round, whose median pick it the 45th player chosen in the draft (10 teams x 5 rounds= 50 picks, 50 picks -half the picks in a round= 45).

4. (GxH -H/2) - F = I
Once you have determined the pick you would have to surrender to keep a player, you can compare it to your player's ranking according to the player value rating (F). If that player is ranked higher (thus having a correspondingly smaller F value), their keeper value (I) will be positive. We now have a number that represents whether it would be worth it or not to keep a player in the round that you would take him.

5. Final analysis: Player 1's I + Player 2's I + Player 3's I.....
You may find that your 7th and 8th round picks have a good keeper value rating, while your 6th round pick does not. To help make the decision on when to stop retaining players, I chose to add the player's I values together and keep the players whose combined I total is greatest.


Notes:
1. This formula assumes that the draft order is determined after each manager submits his list of players-to-be-kept.
2. Formula also assumes that the league has a Yahoo! style ranking system.
3. The constants in the equation are somewhat arbitrary, picked by plugging in values to see what might work. A sophisticated version of this system would determine those numbers by looking at a whole field of players together to figure out what constants best described the results.

Additional note: despite the unresonable ammount of time I was willing to put into this, and my equally unreasonable love for keeper leagues, there is almost no chance I will actually ever bring myself to applying this method to one of my own teams.

State of the Brew-nion: what's up with beer?

Introduction
This is a contradictory moment in the history of beer. It's hard to decide whether we are observing the death of beer or a triumphant revival. How can this be? Read on.


The Two Cases

1. Resurrection: Rejoice, for beer is back from the dead
Prohibition effectively bankrupted and wiped out most of the microbrewery traditon in the country. Once it was repealed, a select few companies who were financially prepared for the event quickly stepped up. The result was a dearth of variety; to the average person, the only readily availible beer consisted of a scant few, similar-tasting beers.

Fortunately, people grew weary of the lack of selection, and, over the last few decades, microbreweries began springing up across the country. These brewed a variety of different tastes, and their market share increased so dramatically. In many cases, "microbrews" became a misnomer, and the term "craft beer" was invented to describe these successes (Sam Adams is the best example). So, as you can easily see, beer has been saved, proliferating in many tastes and styles throughout the land.


2. Sunset: The end of beer as we know it
On the other hand, the taste that has defined beer for centuries is under seige in America. A beer's strong flavor is given to it by the hops flower, which were probably added to brewing for their antibiotic effect. Most people find the hops flavor to be very bitter at first, but after drinking it for some time grow very fond of it. Beer, and ales in particular, were defined by this strong flavor for years.

However, in the aforementioned Prohibition aftermath, the breweries that survived almost all manufactured very light lagers, with little to no trace of hops (Budweiser, Miller, Coors). Furthermore, as time went on, these companies continued to use less and less hops flavoring. Because people often do not like the bitter taste of hops at first, these companies elected to take away the hops to create a product that could appeal to more people, be produced at less cost, and be consumed in larger quantities.

Though the microbrewery revolution helped a little, it also has exacerbated the problem in a way. Included among the variety of microbrewery beers are many terrific wheat beers, trappist ales, and other exotic flavors that use little or no hops in the brewing process. Unfortunately, the availability of these excellent beers means that is easy to avoid developing a taste for hops even if you are drinking really good beer.

The affinity for the hoppy flavor of traditional ales seems to have lasted over the centuries because if you wanted to drink beer, you had to drink beer with a strong hops flavor. This meant that people were almost forced into developing that hoppy taste. Unfortunately, as it stands now it is easy to avoid that taste, as thus less and less people are discovering how great the hops flavoring can be once you get used to it. As a result, the flavor that has defined beer for a millenia may be on its last legs.


Conclusion
So should we administer the final rights, or celebrate the revolution? In the end, no matter what happens there still will be a alcoholic beverage derived from fermented grains that will be called "beer" for many years to come. Whether it will have the same qualities that have traditionally defined beer is not as certain. The real question is on of perspective. If you are a traditionalist sort of beer epicure, you should probably be worried. If you see beer's flavor as something that's fluid and evolving, then there's nothing to fear.



UPDATE 4/17
I have an update to this article, as more information has come to my attention while I was watching the evening news. While watching Larry King I learned that Coors has a special "flavor seal", which was revealed during a commercial. This gives us valuable insight into of the above discussion: apparently this is how Coors prevents any outside flavor from getting into its beverages. This is an important technological innovation in the quest to make beer into water. Will continue to update this story as more information becomes available...

English: a Carefree(less?) Language

I've always found it funny that the words "carefree" and "careless" have such divergent meanings despite the fact that both can basically be defined as "without care". It's a great example of eccentricity of our language; context dictates meaning.

Prohibition, or pot for all?

Something needs to happen with our policy on illegal drugs. Consider the evidence:

The Problem of Definition
Criteria for determining what constitutes an illegal drug (as defined by the Controlled Substances Act):
1. Has a high potential for abuse,
and meets one of the following two requirements:
2. Has no currently accepted medical use and a lack of accepted safety,
or,
3. Has accepted medical use, but abuse may lead to severe psychological or physical dependency.

Well, fair enough, but why then are alcohol and tabacco excluded from the list of illegal substances? Do they not meet requirements 1 and 2? Basically, the answer to this question is that alcohol and tobacco are grandfathered in because they are are substances that have a long tradition of recreational use in Western European culture. Had the China or India colonized America, perhaps opium have been excluded from the list, or maybe peyote would be legal if Native American tribes had retained cultural control of the continent. Basically, it's subjective and hypocritical to set a coherent definition, like the one above, and then allow other substances that fall under the definitions to be exempted because our ancestors were in the habit of openly consuming said substances.

So, what should happen?
There are two solutions, as I see it:
1. Remove all exceptions from the rules,
or,
2. Rewrite the rules to relax the definition of and illegal substance

Let's take a look at each of these options.

Option 1: Prohibition, take 2
So what would happen if we applied the current rules fairly to all substances? Here is a point-by-point look at the consequences.

Cons
• Alcohol and tobacco become illegal. This is very bad for various sectors of the economy: bars, liquor stores, various agricultural companies, liquor and cigarette companies. Many jobs are lost
• While alcohol and tobacco consumption are reduced, a major blackmarket is opened up. The quality of the products are unregulated and therefore have the potential to cause health problems.
• The government is unable to tax the money spent on the blackmarket, and loses a lot of money in tax income that it received from taxes on tobacco and cigarette sales.
• People generally become more resentful towards the government.
• The secession of Kentucky (or is this a pro? Kidding, of course).
• Billions more dollars for the enforcement, prosecution, and dentention of offenders.

Pros
• The standing law is applied fairly, and does not place a particular culture's substance of choice above any other's.
• Addiction to tobacco and alcohol do not disappear, but are reduced
• Less deaths caused by drunk driving, other intoxication-related crimes
• A major financial foot-on-the-throat of the working class, addiction to cigarretees, is at least partially lifted.
• Less disease from second-hand smoke; cleaner dining establishments
• Billions of dollars in health care saved
• Millions of acres that are now taken up growing tobacco could be put to use growing grains to help supply food to the world and fuel to our engines


Option 2: Bong hits for all
I won't advocate that the Controlled Substance laws be removed entirely; I do believe that some protection from extremely potent psychoactive drugs is neccesary. However, perhaps criteria 2 and 3 could be redacted to read just:

2. Abuse may lead to severe psychological or physical dependency,

The legal defnition of "severe psychological or pysical dependency" would have to be explained as "causing a level of incapacity to as to prevent the user from performing such and such an activity", or maybe be defined in scientific terms as "a psychoactive negatively altering normal brain function to such and such a standard." This would create a clearly defined, no-exceptions definition that would legalize tobacco, alcohol, marjuana, peyote, and other mild substances while continuing to prohibit more dangerous drugs. A look at the benefits and drawbacks of this plan:

Cons
• Moral wrong? Some perceive marijuana to be on a different moral plane than alcohol or tobacco.
• More crime? This depends on how it's enforced. Crime related to drug dealing should go down, but it is possible that crime related to being under the influence would go up. This depends on the system for ensuring that the substances were sold in a manner that prevented them from being consumed in a dangerous way (ie, making sure there was a limited for potency), or if the system did not have an effective strategy to discourage the substance usage before operating a car, for example.
• Drug dealers out of work may need to turn to more violent sources of income
• More people using substances. This probably would not increase dramatically, but it would certainly go up some.

Pros
• Billions of government dollars saved in cost to enforce, prosecute, and detain minor drug offenders. Consequently, millions of people out of jail and able to help feed their family and bolster the work force, which would help the economy and decrease the need for welfare for the families who have a member incarcerated
• Less crime? See the discussion in the cons section.
• Billions of dollars made on taxing transactions that previously occured on the blackmarket.
• Regulation of currently-controlled substances lead to better standards of sanitation for the products--reduction in health problems from tainted or drugs
• The money that is currently flowing out of the country to fund various militias and cartels will be cut off.




So there it is. In summary: the system as it stands is hypocritical, and to ameliorate that problem would require adopting one of the two methods detailed above.

Don't trust Iowa

Introduction
You've probably heard some talk recently about the shuffling of state primary dates. While this is a hot topic, I'd like to make a short plea: can we please remove the yoke of responsibility from Iowa's shoulders?

The Iowa Caucus: Background
As you may know, because of its early primary, Iowa is considered to be a major player in choosing a nominating a presidential candidate. In 2000, for example, Iowans launched George Bush to a lead that John McCain would never overcome. In 2004, they picked John Kerry out of a field of 9 candidates, propelling him to the the Democratic candidacy.

The Data
Before I get into my argument, let's look at the data for some background. Even though Iowa became famous for catapulting Cater to the presidency in 1976 (even though he lost to "Uncommitted" 37% to 28% ) I'm going to begin with 1980 caucus.

Year__________Republican winner_____________________Democratic winner
1980_________George H. W. Bush*____________________Jimmy Carter
1984_________Reagan, unopposed____________________Walter Mondale
1988_________Bob Dole*_____________________________Dick Gephart*
1992_________George H. W. Bush, unopposed___________Tom Harkin*
1996_________Bob Dole______________________________Bill Clinton (unopposed)
2000_________George W. Bush________________________Al Gore
2004_________George W. Bush, unopposed______________John Kerry

* Did not win nomination


Why I think Iowa's done a bad job
So why am I down on Iowa? Let's look at its track record...

On the Republican side:
Iowa has had four chances to pick a candidate from a field (as opposed to an unopposed candidate). Twice their support failed to win the candidate the nomination (1980, 1988). Of their two picks that made it through, only one was elected president, George W. Bush, who at the moment has an approval rating well below 40% in Iowa. The numbers: Iowa Republicans have converted 1 of 4 chances to pick a president, and that choice turned out to be one they did not like once he became president.

On Democratic side:
Iowa has had six chances to pick a candidate from the field. While the Democrats have much more success choosing the eventual nominee (four out of six: 1980, 1984, 2000, 2004), their candidates have done miserably in general elections. Absolutely zero have won a general election (with the arguable exception of 2000). In fact, the only Democrat to win the presidency over this span occured in one of the few years in which the Democratic nomination went to someone Iowa did not choose!

Looking to the general election, Iowa has failed to choose a candidate to unseat an incumbent five out of five chances, and succeeded in picking a winner in an open election only once out of three chances (that one being the president that they've liked the least in the last 27 years). Neither Reagan, nor George H. W. Bush, nor Clinton ever won a contested caucus in Iowa.

One final, more specific example: in the 2004 election, the Iowa Democrats seemed to be specifically looking for a candidate that would displace George Bush. Basically, they were voting for electability. Their choice, John Kerry, turned out to be pretty unelectable.


My preemptive Mea Culpa
Before the angry e-mails start rolling in from my Iowan (is that the right adjective?) friends, here's a defense of Iowa: Iowa's notoriety as the picker of presidents create a maelstrom of media attention and advertising. Iowans are innundated by this flood of propaganda, as quite understandably have a hard time seeing the candidates as the rest of the nation sees them. Furthermore, the other party generally waits to see who the front runner will be in Iowa before starting the opposition research and attack ads.

Speak for yourself

As promised a couple posts back, I'm going to pick the appellation that best fits our generation from all of the names that have been suggested so far. Here goes:

First, I'm going to dispatch a few in large chunks.

Too narrow/specific:
• The My Space Generation
• The Grand Theft Auto Generation
• The Nintendo Generation
• The MTV Generation
• The MyPod Generation

Focused on time period rather than character
• The thirteenth generation
• Regan Babies
• The Millenials
• Echo Boomers
• The Second Baby Boom

The rest I'll deal with individually.

Generation Y: Nah, I don't want to be defined simply as the ones that came after Generation X.
The Boomerang Generation: This refers to our apparent tendency to return home after college. While it may be something we have in common (and probably a sign of a poor economy), I don't think that it says much about our character.
The Next Generation: Star Trek is more a Generation X thing. This name has little else to offer.
The DARE Generation: Certainly a common theme of our childhoods, and probably had a lot to do with our cynicism. Not terribly applicable now, even less so in the future.
GenerationNext: Too unspecific.
The Google Generation: I think google does embody a lot of what I see in our generation, though it was formed by Generation Xers. Still, while google certainly has staying power, its novelty will eventually wear off and it will become less appealing.
The Einstein Generation: This certainly piques my ego. Refers to our ability to multi-task. A little too narrow a scope, though, and we should resist the pandering for posterity's sake.
The Me Generation: Comments on our tendency to keep to ourselves, communicate online, etc. A little insulting, easily misinterpreted.

Second Place
The iGeneration (or internet Generation): Hard to cross this one off. We certainly have been shaped in large part by the ability to communicate instantaneouly, and to access information at will. Still, while the internet does have a big effect on our lives, I am going to refrain from pinning our identity to a technological innovation.

The Winner
So, my pick of the suggested names for our generation:

The Cynical Generation
We were born into an era of polemics. The older generations are sharply divided on many issues, and every where we turn we are confronted with their angry rhetoric. We see their unwillingness to compromise and win-at-all-cost outlook, and are understandably turned off. There is no unchallenged authority in our lives.

We are skeptical of just about everything. As far as entertainment goes, we gravitate towards the satirical and irreverant--just look at the success of South Park, or The Daily Show, or the resurgence of Monty Python. The first style of music completely our own was the super-cynical Emo, which, of course, immediately created millions of super-cynical Emo-haters. Even in the world of sports, we root against anyone who enjoys too much success, no matter how good their backstory (see the New England Patriots, the San Antonio Spurs, etc.). As far as movies go, we have a predilection to the conspiratoraial (The Matrix, Fight Club) and the one-man-against-the-system (Enemy of the State, Shooter, anything Denzel Washington, may, many others), which hints at our displeasure with the status quo.

This evidence having been considered, I think that The Cynical Generation speaks to our character pretty well, or at least better than anything else that has been suggested to date.

Choose your adventure: Global Warming

When you hear about global warming, you have one of the following three responses:

1. Skepticism

2. Indifference

3. Sphincter-tightening terror


If you chose # 1:
Think of a good argument, then refer to this site to find out why you are wrong.

If you chose #2:
Please refer to this site to find out why your brain fails to grasp the problem: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-gilbert/if-only-gay-sex-caused-gl_b_45242.html

If you chose #3:
Please visit this site to find out how you can make a difference.

I'm an energy Superman

I saw a pretty amazing statistic the other day: The average household uses about 70% of the energy it consumes on appliances that are plugged in but not being used.

This is an eye-opening figure, but I've discovered a simple solution: just leave your appliances running all day! With the appliances no longer consuming energy on stand-by mode, you have cut 70% of your house's power usage! Think it over while I go restart my microwave again...