Lateral Drift

You know times have changed when NASA’s launching of a rocket makes the back page of the paper.  It is just not big news anymore.  The new mission is to do some repairs to the Hubble telescope to extend it’s useful life for another 5-8 years.  What really stands out about the new launch is not the mission itself but the concerns.  Space around our planet has become riddled with junk.  The shooting down of a satellite by the Chinese and collisions of other satellites have created a deadly web of flying space debris.  NASA was so concerned about the consequences of debris hitting the shuttle that they have another one waiting one standby in case of an emergency.

I don’t think that this issue is getting as much attention as it should.  We must start thinking about the consequences of our actions in space and we need to start doing it as a global community.  I fear that the weaponization of space has already started; although, I cannot prove this because it would be all top secret.  Space is the ultimate high ground but I believe it comes at too great a cost.  To successfully expand and build on the moon and Mars and to further explore the solar system and beyond will be dependent on the fact that we don’t have a meteor field of debris to fly through.  Space junk if in high enough quantities could (my conjecture) halt or hinder our programs for years because of no clear take off points through our upper atmosphere.

I realize that in a world filled with local (Earth) problems it is hard to be too concerned about issues in space but we need to have the foresight to realize the consequences of the actions we are taking now.  Technology will reach a critical point where space travel will become relatively cheap and some private companies have already entered into the market (ie Virgin and Space X).  We need to begin thinking more broadly and less in terms of nation-states.  Space is open to everyone but if we become self-centred we could dramatically slow the exploration process, and if you want to get grandiose about it, the survival of our species is dependent on hedging our bets and colonizing multiple locations.

The young studious scholar

Night and Day honed his craft,

At mechanical engines,

He was exceptionally daft.

It was at the end of his studies,

He saw in vain.

The electric car,

Had made his work mundane.

“If he is going into management, he writes.  If he is an engineer or architect why he paints and sculpts.  He will straddle the line, aware up to the point of knowing he is getting the worst of both worlds, but never stopping to wonder why there should ever have been a line, or even if there is a line at all.  He will learn how to be a twinned man and will go on at the game, straddling until he splits up the crotch and in half from the prolonged tension, and then he will be destroyed.”

V. – Thomas Pynchon

How many of us will suffer this fate?  Pynchon may be speaking a feeling he had during his own life as he originally went to college to study engineering physics but left after two year to join the Navy.  He later returned to school for an English degree thus avoiding the life on both sides of the line.

This week’s recommendation is a unique one.  Gravity’s Rainbow is in my opinion a book you will either love or hate.  It achieved similar attention when it was supported by the board for fiction for the Pulitzer Prize but was turned down by the remaining members.  Their claims as to its unreadability are simply untrue (Absalom, Absalom! to me was unreadable) and although it is a challenging read, it’s depth will inspire readers like myself to pick it up again.   The board members did have a valid compliant about its vulgar tone and for this reason alone I would not suggest it to those readers who are especially distressed by obscenities.

To go into detail about the plot would be an extremely arduous task and my doing so would spoil the fun for the reader.  Thomas Pynchon adds tons of stuff into his books and many include a guide to help decipher some of the hidden messages, whether they be real or not is debatable.

Gravity’s Rainbow is considered by some to be Pynchon’s magnum opus but I have begun reading his first novel V. and so far have found it equally enjoyable.  If you are looking for a little heavier fiction this summer, I highly recommend this book!  I think Pynchon’s works will one day be classics.

Alright, this may be one of my nerdiest posts to date, but I just can’t help the nostalgia of the Diablo series.  For those of you who have played the first two installments of the series you know the massive addiction they can cause.  I know that when I was young I put in countless hours clicking away hoping to find the next unique drop.

News and updates about the game have been appearing very slowly.  Blizzard, the company that makes the Diablo series, has been renowned for this.  In fact, although they have already launched a website, and shown some of the character classes for the new game, I personally don’t predict this game to hit the shelves until something like 2011 or 2012.  It really wouldn’t surprise me.  I do think that although they are historically slow for releasing their games it does explain one of their best attributes.

Quality.  Whether it is Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft, or World of Warcraft, their game series have been instant successes and have gained loyal followers.  There are still people playing Starcraft, released in 1998, at the professional level.  There is even a class at Berkley for discussing the strategy and economy in the game.

Yes, the developers at Blizzard have demonstrated that they will not release a game until it is almost flawless.  Their slow methodological process for perfecting a game is an important lesson for all of us who want to create a good product or service.  I understand that some things are time dependent but others like this blog are not.  In addition, Blizzard’s fans have learned to respect their creation process and except the wait for the next new game because they know that what will be released is sure not to disappoint, and will be of the highest value.

Now that I have finished my rant, lets hurry up with Diablo 3 already, I’m dying here.

This week’s book recommendation, The Black Swan, is a non-fiction book that explores the highly improbable event, or the black swan.  This nomenclature comes from a ancient philosophical argument where all observed swans were white therefore the statement – all swans are white.  A later discovered black swan in Australia in the 17th century demonstrated that one single observation of the contrary can disprove the previous conjecture of inductive reasoning (all swans are white).

Anyway, I am no philosopher, and if I was, I could have most likely made the above statement much more majestically, but I can say that I did thoroughly enjoy this book and most likely will pick it up again in the future as there are many passages worth re-reading.  The Black Swan can be overly critical at times and the views expressed by Taleb are highly contrarian to those of the mainstream but it is precisely because of this I find it such a refreshing read.  The author also has been highly successful in the financial world and therefore cannot be said to be “stuck in an ivory tower”, the accusation sometimes made of those whose only experience has been in academia.

If you have already had the chance to read this book please leave a comment and let me know what you thought.

Tuition prices continue to rise, standard tests are mandatory, and location can sometimes be difficult to navigate but there are opportunities out there to pick-up university classroom knowledge for free with the following caveat — no recognition.  Upon completion of a courses, you will not receive a fancy piece of paper (degree) for your hard work, and you will not have the peer experience granted you by a true classroom experience, but hey its free so we really cannot complain.

I had been for some time been using one of these services produced by MIT called MIT Open Course Ware.  It is a completely free service that MIT provides to Internet users everywhere; however, the most useful courses are those that provide the video lectures of the classes.

I was impressed with these resources and went as far as to plug them on my other blog at Quintessential Finance.  It was in response to this blog posting that I was made aware of yet another program sponsored by Academic Earth which accumulates video lectures from numerous sources some of which include Berkley, Yale, and MIT and organizes them all in one place; although, you will have to return to the original sites to find lecture notes.

Academic Earth is an excellent tool and I encourage anyone who is interested in the knowledge that these institutions offer without the price to give this website a try.  I have found it resourceful as well for improving my mathematical knowledge.  I hope you find this resource as useful as I have and happy learning!

What do these two items have in common:

1) Wordpress stats

2) Owning a investment portfolio

They are massively addicting!  After a few weeks of constant blogging I have realized that I have been monitoring my Wordpress stats like crazy.  I should take a lesson from my finance college experience and set a limit to how many times I am going to take a look at my traffic reports, because when you are scrutinizing your results multiple times a day it can have a physiological effect and can lead to poor decision making.  Investment portfolios and blogging are things we should think about as long term projects.  Wealth creation takes time and so does gaining a readership base for a blog.

Anyway, some days I think I check my stats account over 10 times.  I scares me to think now how much time is wasted just worrying about how many viewers I had instead of just working towards improving my blog!

The lesson: if you are a blog owner, try to limit the amount of times you check your stats a day and instead focus your energy on improving your site or giving yourself a break.