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I think my full-fledged India write-ups will likely wait until I’ve sorted through all the pictures I took (I was shooting at 3MP and filled up all my memory cards twice. I’m pretty sure I took somewhere north of 500 pictures) and jogged my memory. But there is an interesting story from my trip back home yesterday.

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First, a bit of background: Livermore, where I currently am, is about 30 miles away from SFO, which is the airport I was using. Since I don’t have a car, I was going to rely on public transportation to get from the airport back home. This isn’t as bad as it sounds at first. BART runs from the airport to Pleasanton, where I could catch a bus from the station to pretty much right in front of my apartment. So it’s workable, but it takes a while. The BART journey is about 70 minutes, and then another 45 minutes or so on the bus.

So it turns out that a lot of what you learn in kindergarten might actually be wrong. I should talk to strangers more often. While still maybe half an hour away from my BART stop, I overheard a man who appeared to be a BART mainenance technician talking on the phone to his wife. Something along these lines:

“Hi dear, I’m going to be a little late.” “Yeah, I have to drive a train back from Dublin. There was a mattress on the tracks, the train ran over it, and it caught fire. I’ll be home around 1:30. Bye.”

At that point, I couldn’t resist: “Did the mattress catch on fire? Or the train?”

Turns out a mattress somehow flew off the freeway and landed on the tracks, near some massive resistors. These resistors are there to “soak up” excess voltage. As a train stops, the motors turn into generators to slow the train down (think breaks on gas-electric hybrids) and dump the produced electricity back onto the third rail. But the third rail can handle so much load, so once that limit is reached, the generators dump any excess onto the resistors. As a result, the resistors get very hot. So as the train slowed down, the mattress caught fire.

It apparently took a while for them to put the fire out, at which point they split the train up and sent the working half back down the line, and the non-working part to the end of the line (Dublin/Pleasanton), with the burned up mattress now in the train. So the technician I was sitting across from was going down to get the burned half (which was apparently still drivable) and take it back to the yard while making sure nothing went wrong.

By the time the story wrapped up, we had made it to Dublin, and myself, the technician and another passenger had progressed to discussing how the BART systems worked in general. Definitely a pleasant way to spend the last half hour of the journey. But now I was faced with waiting half an hour for the bus to arrive. Ugh.

While I was standing out there, the other passenger from the train passed by. He said he was from Livermore, and he offered me a ride. Throwing out yet another one of my kindergarten lessons, I took him up on it. There was a voice in the back of my head saying “Don’t. You shouldn’t do this.” But I after seeing Bowling for Columbine, I decided that Americans as a whole are just too scared for no good reason. That, plus being quite tired and ready for bed, meant that I got into his truck to head home.

I think that a lot of times, we forget that people are fundamentally nice. We’re predisposed to view everything offered with some amount of suspicion, especially when the offers come from strangers. It’s possible that this suspicion just feeds on itself. People are less willing to offer help because it’s met with distrust, and soon the only people offering help are those for whom the cynicism is justified.

If this were a fictitious story, about now would be where I say that, in this case, I should have been suspicious. But it’s not fictitious, and Tom, the guy that drove me home, is a genuinely nice contractor from the Livermore area who drove out of his way to drop off a guy that he’d known for a grand total of 5 minutes.

As I got to my apartment, maybe an hour earlier than I would have otherwise, I thought to myself: “I should talk to strangers more often.”

Well, there it is. I’m back from India, having spent approximately 40 hours in transit. There is much to write and much to see, but that will probably wait until I’ve gotten over jet lag.

And I’m off to India for three weeks. I’ll catch up with everyone when I get back!

This may be possibly the most “Journal-like” update in quite a while. For those of you who don’t know, I’m out in Livermore, California for the summer, working at LLNL. I’d tell you what I’m working on, but then I’d have to kill you. Ok, not really – I’m working on source-to-source compilers. But that’s not nearly as cool.

I’m staying in an amazingly barren apartment. It’s unfurnished, and since I flew here, there’s no furniture. I bought an airbed from Target, so I’m sitting on that while typing this. But, if you scan to the right a bit on the above map, you’ll note the grayed area on the map; that’s where I work. The proximity makes the apartment situation better. My roommate has a car, too, so I carpool in to work with him.

But I wanted a bit more freedom, and, since work is pretty close, I decided to buy a bike. I got me a Trek 7200FX from a local bike store. I haven’t actually ridden it to work yet, but I ride it pretty much every day when I get back. It’s awesomely fun. I needed to start doing this earlier; I by the time it’s about 3 or 4 at the Lab, I start anticipating getting home so I can go for a ride. Crazy, huh?

I figure a lot of you have more experience with bikes and whatnot than I do (Eric and Arun – and Chethan, when you get back – I’m looking at you), so any tips about riding, stuff to do, stuff to get, etc. would be appreciated. So far, all I’ve got is the bike, a helmet, and a cheapy chain lock (there’s not much risk of it’s getting stolen at the lab, and otherwise it just sits in the apartment, so I’m not too worried). I shoot for riding maybe forty-five minutes to an hour a day (when it’s not raining… stupid rain). But I don’t ride all that fast. Would it be better to ride faster but for less time? Or should I ride for even more time than I am now? It’s pretty flat around here, but my legs do get tired when going uphill. Hopefully with more time riding, that’ll get better. Anyway, this is pretty much what I’ve been excited about for the past week or so, and I thought I’d share.

Oh, also, I’m leaving for India this weekend. Go me! I’ll be back in three weeks or so. Maybe I’ll get a chance to ramble on while I’m there, too (exciting, huh?). Take care, everyone!

RIP, PowerPC Macs.

It occurs to me, after writing the post immediately prior, that I often start out on posts/essays/ramblings/rants like that with great momentum, and a sense of purpose. Eventually, though (by paragraph 4, or so), I run out of steam. It’s not that I get bored with the topic. I just get bored with writing in general. I no longer feel like putting in the effort to put together well structured and coherent sentences. Instead, I begin to write more like in this post. Lots of short, stubby sentences, with questionable grammar and comma usage. That’s usually my sign to wrap things up toot-quick.

I wonder if Neal Stephenson is like that. Not that I would compare my writing in any way to his, but he, too, seems to lose interest in a story after a while (although recently, it takes him about 900 pages), so that he eventually just wraps things up quickly, without a well-wrought coda.

Sort of like this.

Today, Wachovia apologized because a couple of banks that eventually became part of the company used to own slaves. Leaving aside whether or not an apology was appropriate (I’d have to say it is: your company accepted slaves as collateral. That’s some sick stuff), it actually set me to thinking, as I am wont to do, on a bit of a tangent.

An issue that comes up from time to time is slavery reparations. Basically, the government, or perhaps companies that dealt with slaves, would pay money to black Americans by way of apologizing for, you know, treating their ancestors as chattel. I’d wager that most people in the country think this is a bad idea. Sins of the father, and whatnot. And to some extent, they’re right. Why should Americans now, the majority of whose ancestors didn’t own slaves, pay? But what about companies? Would it be appropriate for Wachovia, for example, to pay reparations? They, after all, did directly profit from slavery, and just because those profits were realized long ago doesn’t mean that Wachovia isn’t still responsible. I’d still lean towards “no.” I’m not as sure as I was, however.

I don’t think many but the staunchest Holocaust deniers have any problem with Swiss banks and businesses who dealt with the Nazis paying money to people who had their livelihoods stolen from them during World War II. But there also is not much debate about paying reparations to descendants of Holocaust victims, and families of the survivors; it just seems to be the right thing to do.

Here is where I potentially run off the rails and over a cliff, though. What’s the difference between Swiss banks’ paying reparations to Holocaust survivors and Wachovia’s paying reparations to descendants of slaves?

Lets leave aside the logistical issues for now (how would you know who to give the money to, etc), since if that’s the sticking point, then the main point (the justice of reparations) is already conceded. Is the only difference between slavery reparations and Holocaust reparations time? When the Civil War ended, there were plans to provide reparations (40 acres and a mule), but I believe that ended with the end of Reconstruction (so the ending of reparations was a purely political ploy, which unabashedly pandered to the former slave owners). Why would it be ok to provide slavery reparations then, but not now? Why is it ok to give the relatives of Anne Frank reparations, but not the great-great-great-great-grandchildren of Nat Turner or Harriet Tubman? Is it just because the Holocaust happened in many people’s living memory? And the Civil War has become essentially romanticized national mythology?

I’d hate to think that the reason slavery reparations aren’t being given is simply because nobody had the chutzpah or political will to propose it and push it through 60, 70 or 80 years ago (which leads, if one continues down that garden path, to the conclusion that there are no slavery reparations because of continuing racism in the US – at least up until Civil Rights Act). I’d certainly hate to think that the reason there aren’t reparations now has similar roots. But maybe there are other reasons for not providing reparations. I don’t know of any principled ones, though. Mine, at least, do center on the cast-aside logistical issues, which perhaps isn’t principled, but is pragmatic. Not such a great liberal, am I?

Anyway, just more of Milind’s everyday ramblings.

Have you ever wanted to listen to celebrities expound on their political views? (Sidebar: Ron Silver excepted, does answering “yes” to the previous question automatically make you a Democrat?) Because if you have, then do I have a doozy of a ‘blog for you: The Huffingon Post, run by everyone’s favorite conservative-suv-driver-turned-card-carrying-greenie, the Grecian Arianna Huffington. She’s managed to bring together a bunch of A-, B-, and even C-list celebrities (and, I’ll grant, a few noteworthy commentators as well) to wax philosophical and political on her website. Despite being only up for one day, it’s already got more posts that I really want to read.

But there was a more salient reason for my bringing this up, which hearkens back to the title of the post. Among the guest contributors to the blog is Hilary Rosen, nee “RIAA Queen Bee,” who contributed this gem of a post, wherein she berates Steve Jobs for allowing the iPod to work only with songs from the iTunes music store, something that she considers an unfair restriction.

I ask you, is she just completely off her rocker? Is she completely immune to irony? I’ll give you a second to spot it. Another contributor took a stab at it, offering up the “How can Hilary Rosen complain about consumer choice when the RIAA has absolutely no consumer street-cred” argument. To this, I will give the “close, but no cigar” award.

What’s truly baffling about Ms. Rosen’s post is that the iPod is perfectly happy to play unrestricted music in the form of MP3s. So as long as any music you have is in the MP3 format, it will play merrily on your iPod. So why aren’t the songs from other music stores (not to mention the iTunes Music Store) playable on your iPod? Why aren’t they MP3s? Why the “anti-consumer” behavior of the iPod? Because of the RIAA! The DRM restrictions on iTMS and the other music stores are entirely because of Hilary Rosen’s merry band of lobbyists and lawyers. Without those restrictions, any music bought from any store (as long as it is in the widely accepted MP3 format) could be played on the iPod. Echoing the other link, I want some of what Hilary Rosen is smoking.

Advocatus Diaboli is Latin for Devil’s Advocate. Its original use (which persists to this day) was to describe an official of the Catholic church whose job it was to argue the case against canonization (here’s hoping the one for JP Duece is a good one). The more common use, these days, is to describe someone who takes the opposite position in an argument, often simply for the sake of opposition.

The hardest part of playing Devil’s Advocate is when you don’t actually agree with the position you are taking. I think that in some ways this is the truest test of one’s argumentative skills; it’s much easier to argue from passion than it is to argue simply from facts, and it’s nigh impossible to generate passion for a position you dislike (unless you just happen to like arguments). Taking the Devil’s Advocate position can also be beneficial: by arguing the other side, you can often discover flaws in, or better counter-arguments for, your own position.

It’s something that I used to like to do (because hey, I like arguments). But I’ve noticed something troubling. I’m having a harder and harder time playing a good Devil’s Advocate. Which is to say, I am no longer able to argue against a position that I support.

This bothers me because I think this indicates that I can no longer argue dispassionately. If I have a strong position on an issue, I can’t distance myself from that position; when I try to take a position counter to my beliefs, I spend most of my time thinking, “Man, this is a stupid argument,” or something similar.

A good example of this is the Social Security debate. I can’t come up with a good argument for privatizing Social Security that doesn’t seem either to have an obvious counter, to be a simple strawman or to be plain dishonest. Maybe it’s because the arguments really are stupid. Or maybe it’s because I’ve just become dogmatic. That second option worries me.

Given that it doesn’t really happen for issues that I don’t care strongly about (I am perfectly willing to argue both sides of a gun control argument), that second option seems like it could be the truth. I think it may be a consequence of becoming more politically aware, and at the same time becoming more strident in my defense of my positions. I’m so tied to my position that I can’t countenance arguing against it.

So, is dogma bad in and of itself? Or is it only bad when it’s obviously flawed? Or is it ok for me to have this problem? Is it even a problem? I don’t know. It’s (obviously) something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and something I’ll keep thinking about.

Quoth the President during todays Press Conference:

“There’s a lot of gas reserves around the world. Gas can only be transported by ship, though, when you liquefy it, when you put it in solid form”