Vox Populi Vox Cani

Oct 31

Day is night, up is down, yet this doesn't really bother me. Time and space are there, but your frame of reference is definitely not trivial. As I'm writing this, the events so far on this flight include four full podcasts, ranging from ten minutes to an hour, a movie, an hour of sorting through data for work, some messing around with iPhone games, a rather drawn-out dinner (at effectively 9 am), and that brings us to hour six. The flight isn't even half over yet. My hope was to stay awake and force circadian silliness along a little, but that may be asking too much since other than a few snatches of sleep on the Portland-Newark flight I've been awake for 34 hours. Even with a long nap, I'll have little trouble sleeping in Mumbai. Pity that the flight to Indore is at 0620 and my flight arrives at 2030 and is getting in late.

Nov 1

India may be diverss in styles of dress, and it does have that "multicultural" vibe, but just looking at faces, they're all rather similar. The best approximation that comes to mind is Hispanic, but voluntary unification here is still just one or two generations back. Colonial south America had a caste system, though it was much more racial, and despite the rigidity of the Indian system, it appears to be as obvious as octaroons and whites in Pudd'nhead Wilson.

Nov 2

Namaste! Pronunciation of cities in India: one simple rule, accentuate the bad! Internet connection here is not so good, wifi doesn't work. It recognizes the router but no data is transferred. This is unfortunate, as the all-knowing Internet is my cure to looking like a fool. Ah well, I guess it's unavoidable. On a more serious note, the recent fire in Jaipur has some similarities to one that happened just to the west some years ago. This time it's an Indian company, but the basic problem remains: dangerous industries near residential areas without "defense in depth" engineering.

Nov 3

26/11, which was the coordinated attack in Mumbai last year, may happen again, or so the Indian gov't alleges. What's bizarre is that the news directly accuses Pakistan (aka "Pak"), not any sub- or international group like al-Qaeda. Ah well, if they choose the anniversary I'll be out of the country. Interestingly, November has a significance I hadn't thought of for India-most international travelers come around now: it's after Diwali and after the wet season when the weather is nice and cool.

Nov 4

Despite being the swankiest hotel in Indore. this place isn't exactly all of the comforts of home. The power goes out every so often, and the a/c is a little overenthusiastic. Nothing major, just little annoyances. Despite my wacky preadjustment, I still find myself going to bed early, typically without dinner since lunch tends to be a fairly big meal.

Nov 5

There's a typo on the business cards I had made for this trip. It's really quite embarrassing, and I wish I had more of my normal cards. Bah, I might actually try to have some sent. $75 minimum, and they won't get here until next week. Vanity, I guess, but I hate that unprofessional look. I guess I can't lose a sale, but especially overseas appearing that you know what you're talking about is crucial to FDA's buzzphrase "voluntary compliance."

Nov 7

I'm reminded of a blog post on the BBC about a shopping trip in New York: they were surprised that they saw no shootings, and that overall they felt safer than they did in the UK. The US obsession with guns definitely doesn't help. That the shooter survived is unusual, that this kind of shooting takes place is not. There was a smaller event at Ft. Lewis when I was there just a few months ago, though that was not a religious dispute. The military probably isn't big on being PC, and that the man was exposed to hotheaded kids who were treating this as a new Crusade isn't unlikely. "Obama half Muslin" may be a joke to me, but there are definitely Americans who think that way.

As a side note, Cambodia hiring Shinawatra is one of the most... unusual choices in political news I've seen in a while. It'd be like Iran hiring Bush.

Nov 8

Still not feeling all that great, between a little sunburn, and some gastrointestinal fun. It's probably not good that I'm taking an NSAID a day, plus meclizine plus malarone plus loperamide. I should probably get out and do some shopping, considering that this is the one of two "free" days I have in the three weeks here without travel or work (though I'm poking at doing some work right now). Given that I'm charging most things, I might actually end up with almost all of the rupees I walked in with.

This day is almost over, and it feels somewhat wasted, TV and reports and such, things I can do in the US, but I don't have a good sense of what to buy if I were to do my Xmas shopping here. Other than Indian style clothes, which would be put in a closet and forgotten, the things you can buy in India are the same things you can buy in the US and there's no point dragging them around the world. Bangkok had silk and gems and awful jokes, but I'm basically coming up blank for India.

Nov 8

Week two begins, Not much to say, other than "second verse, same as the first,"

Nov 9

Hospitals in India just don't work at the same standards US hospitals do. For one, they tend to be rather dirty places, and they don't give the impression of meticulous sterility that I associate with US hospitals or even just your average office. Then again, much of India seems that way, with no shortage of litter in the streets.

Nov 13

Haven't been taking much in the way of notes, but it's Friday the 13th, so something noteworthy has to happen, right? There was a bit of a cyclone that's persisting, so weather in Indore looks like weather in Portland, apparently very unusual. Mumbai was apparently hit worst, with the cyclone proceeding north toward the Bay of Bengal.

Nov 14

I'm taking a "milk run" flight from Indore to Hyderabad, with two stops including Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh. The 25th anniversary of the infamous events there has been in the news lately, and reports are that the site is still dangerous, though exactly how dangerous is debated.

Here's to hoping that Hyderabad isn't quite as depressing as Indore.

Nov 15

Hyderabad is a little bit more like Bangkok: there is obvious poverty, but there's also some obvious wealth. The airport is about a year old and about the size of OMA or BOI though Hyderabad has a much larger population. The airport in Indore, commercial, medical, and education hub of Madhya Pradesh, was similar to the Ithaca airport, maybe smaller. The other thing that is striking about Rajiv Gandhi Int'l is that none of the advertising space has been purchased, there are just a lot of "filler" ads that read "your brand here." Immediately after you leave the sprawling gardens of the airport grounds, there are three massive billboards with ads for cement, followed by a few ads for fashionable clothing, one with an elegantly dressed woman in a seductive pose accompanied by a mistake in English grammar. English may be a common language here, but the number of spelling and grammar mistakes even in formal documents makes it clear it's not a primary language. I was particularly amused that cardiovascular and urogenital were spelled right but cigarette was spelled wrong. It never devolves to the point of Engrish, but given that it's an official language I have some expectations.

There is a road, a "flyway" in the local lingo, that was recently built from the airport to downtown. It's an elevated highway that doesn't allow two and three-wheeled vehicles (90%of the road traffic I've seen so far). Cows and dogs were also absent, but maybe they haven't discovered it yet. The road is made of joined sections with rough connections and there are several sets of speed bumps, so I'd hesitate to use the term "expressway."

Did some touristy things today, some of which were pretty cheap. Bought some things, probably got a bad deal, but it won't break the bank. This whole haggling thing is frustrating, but I guess that's just my stinginess rearing its ugly head. The 1k rs tour wasn't worth the price, for sure, and meals at the hotel are actually more expensive than at the US, but I guess this is expensive for Hyderabad.

Nov 17

Raining here now as well, I must have brought Portland weather with me. Not sure why I've been so tired lately, but I'm definitely looking forward to some vegetable time when I get back. I should probably start thinking about adjusting back to US time, but work first. There's something about this latest audit that seems unusual. Maybe I'm just getting paranoid.

Nov 18

Rain again, though I've been in a windowless room all day and haven't really noticed. Work is still bothersome, but not catastrophic.

Nov 19

As I was riding back to the hotel, shuffle on this device picked up what might be one of the least appropriate songs possible, Jesus Bleibet Meine Freude. That song, or really anything by JSB, is the antithesis of anything that resembles traffic in India.

Then again, the "hero" of Bizet's Carmen (another selection on this device) is probably not something to talk about in this particular country.

Nov 21

Last day in India, and I should probably get out and do some more touristy things, but I'm eager to get home. Then again I won't be staying long, since I'll be leaving for Iowa shortly afterward. There's something draining about being here that I can't quite place a finger on.

Dumb observation #974: the part of the moon that is lit with a less than full moon is different closer to the equator.

Nov 22

As I'm writing this, I am 35,000 feet above Afghanistan, passing Kabul according to the in-flight map. The flight took a rather indirect path through Pakistan, and I'll have to look at a map to see what's north-central to north-east of Pakistan. China, maybe? All else equal, I'd rather crash in Tibet than in Afghanistan, but the Himalayas are sort of in the way. Not crashing at all is, of course, a better choice.

Nov 22

Since 3 PM IST yesterday, I have spent 10 hours in airports and 19 hours in the air. I have flown over the border between two unhappy neighbors with nuclear weapons, over one of the most war-torn countries on the planet, over Borat's homeland, over Russia and the arctic circle over Greenland and just east of the Hudson bay. In short, I have all the frequent flier miles that I want for a while. Too bad I'm leaving again in less than two days.

(transcribed from iPhone notepad function)

One of the main downsides to the iPhone's interface, and really the interface of most mobile devices, is that the keyboard is small and not particularly helpful when attempting to enter large blocks of text.

It might be interesting to have a glove-like interface system that was able to understand sign language. Nintendo's 1989 power glove more or less proves that the technology exists to do it, it'd mostly be a question of getting people to adopt the technology. Given that texting using a number-pad interface took off in a generation, that's not an incredible leap of faith, and there's already a well-connected community that knows sign language so a market exists to buy the first generation devices.

If nothing else, it'd be an amusing premise for a SFish story, in that it would create a world where deaf people have an advantage over normal people, if only in a specific area, but if mobile computing becomes the "norm" it would be meaningful. The problems with interface are all that stops portable computers from being totally replaced by handheld devices, and the "glasses as screen" option largely covers output.

One unusual quirk to the system would be that people could watch a user signing, and it would became as private as speaking.

Vertigo leads to some strange analogies.

Sit: what I wish the world would do.
Lie down: what I have to do when these episodes kick in to avoid a thorough review of any food I may have eaten recently.
Roll over: What the world is doing right now.
Off the furniture: On the floor in the hallway by the bathroom (tiles are too cold) so that I'm in easy reach of the porcelain deity.
Don't chew on that: Given the other symptoms, a lack of appetite seems appropriate, no?

Stay!

Stay!

Bad dog!

Today's music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWg3b15ITS8&feature=related

The office had a Thanksgiving potluck, so I was motivated to attempt to cook something.  My sister gave me a Moosewood cookbook which I've been slowly experimenting with, and it had a recipe that involved pumpkin,  the "Pumpkin and Porcini Soup" , so I figured I'd give it a whirl.

On the first point, finding porcini mushrooms required a trip to the "fru fru" (is that even slang?) grocery store, since they're rather a specialty item.  They're apparently always dried, which is important since the boiling water used to reconstitute them becomes quite flavored.

The second point is that a pumpkin-based soup with mushrooms is a rather unusual taste.  It's not bad, but it's not... what I expect to taste from soup?  I don't really have a benchmark of whether to like it or not.  It wasn't a big hit at the potluck, but there were logistics problems with things like bowls and spoons.

An interesting experiment, but not one I think I'll repeat unless someone has a hankering for it.  Porcini have a very unusual (and very strong) flavor.

The black bean soup was much simpler and came out better, even if I used a bulb of garlic rather than a clove (insert facepalm here).  Oh well, I've never claimed to be an expert cook.

Four (and a half?) travelers on a trip from Bangkok to Sydney:

1. An elderly and wealthy businessman from the tin industry who was in Bangkok on vacation, was diagnosed with a serious heart condition and is going to Australia to see a specialist recommended by a friend.
2. A young Thai cardiologist, accompanying the businessman because he was headed to Sydney anyway for a conference and also has to pick up some pathology specimens for a neurosurgeon friend.  Maybe called the Thai translation of Dr. Crane for an obscure reference.
3. A ne'er-do-well who won the lottery and is taking a big tour of the world, looking for the courage to propose to his girlfriend, even though he knows that she's just after the money.  He hears that the Australians have a thing for the liquid variety.
4. A young girl from Kansas, just trying to get home, but all of the more sensible flights to the US (i.e. Shanghai, Tokyo) are sold out, and the airline offers to send her on a slightly less direct trip in business class.  The girl could also be somewhat older and Toto (Thomas Torvindal or something) could be a baby.  Either that or Toto is a dog, on the plane but not in the passenger cabin.  Alternatively, Dorothy is a Hiltonesque ditz with a chihuahua.

I'll have to reread the original for actual plot and events to make reference to, but some ideas on an overall story:

Serious:
Plane is held hostage by terrorists who just want ransom (they got on the plane to assassinate some undercover CIA guy) or have some beef with the political situation in Thailand and have demands or simply want some of the King's money to their revolutionary or otherwise zealous cause (otherwise the Emerald Buddha gets it, 9/11 style).  Could vary from the Thai version of "Let's roll" (told by an American so that I don't have to learn that much Thai) to just a standard "we got hijacked no heroism" story (botched rescue attempt optional).

Can also be heavily subverted: Ditz Dorothy could find a brain, the cowardly lion a heart and spend his fortune in philanthropy, the tin man could find courage facing down the hijackers (assuming no crash and burn), and the cardiologist go and visit Kansas.

Possibly serious, possibly silly:
Standard "airplane crash" scenario.  Drama from the Tin Man's worsening heart condition is available.  Toto-as-a-dog can die and Dorothy can go and do what people do.

A little silly:
Mostly faithful retelling of the original.  Would need a wizard.

Very Silly:
Snakes on a Plane II: Monkeys on a plane!

After a discussion on the internet, someone challenged that paper ignites at 451 degrees Fahrenheit, as Bradbury alleges.

After placing a shred of paper in my oven which was set at 550 degrees Fahrenheit, it did not ignite or burn.

Maybe the thermostat on the stove is wrong, and maybe there's a deeper philosophical meaning to books not burning at that temperature, but I think the answer came up in the discussion, which is that the title of the book should be Celsius 451!

These are essentially blog posts from my three weeks in Thailand.

( Week the first )

( Week the second )

( Week the third )

The first two are true, the third... I guess that's not possible anymore.

Despite the temptation, I will not delude myself into getting into NaNoWriMo, even though it is a great challenge.  That I'm spending a good week and a half of the month away from home and I'm going to lose a few days right here and now to utter confusion about what time I should be sleeping or even how long ago I left Thailand.

Excuses, excuses.  Maybe next year.

Plots briefly considered:

( Ramblings and ideas... )

I should probably post my notes from Thailand, but not tonight. 

This is far more complicated than it has any right to be, so I'm writing it down.

Target: Shift from 2300 PDT to 2300 THA as "bedtime" before starting work in Bangkok on Monday.

Local Monday ("Tuesday")- go to bed by 1100 THA (2100 PDT), a 2 hour shift
Local Tuesday ("Wednesday")-go to bed by 0900 THA (1900 PDT), a 2 hour shift
Local Wednesday ("Thursday")- go to bed by 0700 THA (1700 PDT), a 2 hour shift
Local Thursday ("Friday")- go to bed by 0600 THA (1600 PDT), a 1 hour shift
Local Friday ("Saturday")- go to sleep on plane at 0400 THA (1400 PDT), a 2 hour shift
Saturday (really Sunday morning) - go to sleep on arrival at approximately 0200 THA (1200 PDT), a 2 hour shift
Sunday- go to sleep at 2300 THA (0900 PDT), a 3 hour shift

Just as a random musing, HIV is often stated to be a disease of poverty.

Part of the question in my mind is "to what extent?"  Is risk of HIV infection a function of poverty, or do other factors dominate?

CDC just published a new set of data for HIV risk in the US.  As expected, men are far more affected than women, and blacks are affected more than any other ethnic group.  Gender and poverty I don't have data for, but the census bureau does publish data on race and poverty.  It's no great secret that more black people are poor (given that they've only had a generation or so of not being second-class citizens by default), but does this alone explain the higher HIV rate?

Five minutes with Excel:

Black (any combination): 14 people below the poverty line for each HIV infection in 2006
Hispanic:                            35 " "
White (non-Hispanic):      36 " "
White (any combination): 45 " "
Asian (any combination): 77 " "

It appears that, in the US, poverty and HIV may be associated, but they are by no means synonymous.  Some further explanation is needed.

This is obviously dubious data since it combines multiple studies with different methodologies.  I'm assuming that all race data is "self-identified" race, so it shouldn't be that far off.  CDC and census data do not match in the categories, but there are broad parallels (White in CDC data, all white and white, non-hispanic, in the census data).

I read this comic, and I disagree with it: Mathematics is applied logic, which is applied philosophy, which is applied morality, which is applied sociology...

A much more profound statement, in my opinion.

Math, like any other form of human knowledge, is just an illusion in the mind.  It is, by a long syllogism, just the physics of the chemistry of the biology expressed in the thinking of a group of monkeys.

I was listening to El Presidente, and for a while I was actually agreeing with him.  Then he gets to the "regulation should not impair growth."  Sounds tautological, right?

Nope.

To compare the economy to a human body, the desire is to have an economy of muscles and organs and bones and brains: stuff that does stuff.  Fat isn't the Great Satan, but it should definitely not be grown in the absence of actual structure.

What our friendly investment banks and our old friend Enron gave was a different kind of growth: cancer.  Sure, it's growth, but I think the analogy is obvious enough.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdkBDjtsURo)

So I decided I'd sign up for the international inspection cadre.  First stop: Thailand.

Never mind that I don't speak the tonal language, can't write the alphabet, and they're having... civil disturbance issues (apparently standard operating procedure for the country), but that's what translators and the US Embassy are for.

I knew I should have volunteered for the Canada trip instead, but that would be too easy.

I will admit that I have descended into that pitfall of geekiness, editing Wikipedia.  I will also admit, with great shame, that I have actually gotten into discussions about Intelligent Design on the internet.

I was reviewing an article about a fossil and noted that the date given was 555.3 million years ago.  Reading more closely, the radiometric dating put it as 555.3 plus or minus 0.3 million years.  I edited the summary of the article to change it to 555 mya, with the comment "what do a couple hundred thousand years matter anyway?"

There are not many contexts where that's a reasonable statement.

Wikipedia's article on Edward the Confessor lists him as the patron saint of difficult marriages /and/ the British Royal Family.  Given the troubles they had in the last generation, why does that seem ever-so-appropriate?

Also from the Internet, I'm seeing people spell maté as if it were French.  The actual Spanish doesn't have an accent there, the accent is on the first syllable.  I don't know why this bothers me, but it does.  Then again, the old saying about Argentines was they were Italians who spoke Spanish, dressed like Englishmen, and wanted to be French.

This image always comforts me when something on the internet doesn't make sense, though.

In Montana on the 11th, it was snowing.  From there I left for Iowa, which has been really battered by floods lately.  I was in the western part, where it was mostly just crop damage, the eastern part of the state was mostly under water.  The west didn't exactly escape damage, though, a tornado took out a boy scout camp less than 50 miles from where the relatives live (4 dead, 20+ injured).  We went out and rubbernecked a bit at the site, and it looks like a massive hand just drew a line directly into the camp and hit nothing else.

Irony is that the weather is nice here in Portland, though my grandmother reported that her house has been hit by lightning for the third time in as many years.  We're wondering if "someone" is getting back at her for some of her outspoken religious views.

Montana, then Iowa.  Be back on the 18th or 19th.

Back from the Big Easy.  Red beans and rice, gumbo, check.  Beignet and substantial excess of powdered sugar, check.  I passed on the Hand Grenade and the Hurricane and the strip clubs on Bourbon Street.  New Orleans, especially the French Quarter, is pretty gritty, and the impression I got was that Katrina didn't really change that fact.  I can see why Mardi Gras is the big holiday there, even in May the place is pretty hot and sticky.

I was there at a course for international inspections.  The main impression I got was that senior management is really intent on making this a priority and that middle management is more interested in making sure the beans get counted.

That and don't swear at Grandma in Kenya.

Junta "provides" disaster relief by putting their name on international aid.

Quoted from a New Orleans newspaper for maximum frustration value.

Brownie was doing a heck of a job compared to these two-bit hooligans.

Helpful hint from our local power company, PGE:

"Gardener's tip: stay away from power lines when pruning."

No, really?