For those of you who read my blog but not Ashley’s, go check out her latest post to read about our adventures this past week. I thought about writing a travelog, but decided Ashley’s done a more-than-adequate job for the both of us.
I became aware of Steven Buckner’s album through an online music website called mephtik netlabel. The website provided several of the songs from the album for free, so I checked them out, and really liked what I heard. So I bought the album. On a 10-point scale, I’d give it an 8 or 9. I had to listen to it about a dozen times before I started to want to listen to something else.
To me, the album can be broadly classified as having two styles — the first half of the album has a sort of jazzy, piano new age feel, while the latter half sounds a lot more like electronic, ambient stuff that Vangelis would’ve put out back in the day.
Actually, it sounds like the entire album was made with synthesized instruments. I’m not sure which of the instrument samples are from real instruments, if any. That’s not to say the quality is bad; in fact, the quality is quite good! Despite being synthesized, the music is very enjoyable and the composition is definitely above average. I merely wonder if it wouldn’t have sounded better with some real orchestration.
If you enjoy artists like Vangelis or E.S. Posthumus, or if you’re generally a fan of new age or jazz piano style music, you’ll probably like this game. Video game music lovers will also probably enjoy it. Luckily, you can download about a third of the album from mephtik for free, so check it out before you buy.
And lo, he sprang before me as the flash of a turquoise tornado. As if to dare me to attempt murder, he sang a song. Calling, beckoning. The menace of his voice was unnerving, but I remained unwavering. This was not to be a moment of hesitation: nay, but a moment of decisive victory. It would be the time of his ignominy.
My course of perquisition, having lasted past years three, had landed me on his trail fewer times than that a man has fingers on his hand. Yet I endeavored, persevering in hope that my avocation would prove fruitful. And indeed it had, as the elusive Green Hornet was thus before me.
Perched upon a branch of such beauty as to cause bemusement to even the most thoughtful of creatures, he stared, peering as it were into my soul. But many long moons of study and rumination had prepared me for this chicanery, and I withstood his piercing eyes.
As we gazed across the space, it was I, who, seizing the proper opportunity, sprang forward in such a perfect grace as to immediately receive recognition from the gods. Yea, the fiercest, most noble lioness fighting for the defense of her den of cubs could not have compared to the power and agility with which I bared down upon the Green Hornet.
And it was with the Strength and Promise of the Heavens that I struck him down with all my might, banishing him from this world and the next, never to haunt the souls of men again.
Thus was the end of the elusive Green Hornet, and this is the tale.
(Click to enlarge the image of the elusive Green Hornet.)
(UPDATE: The following image is a better shot, taken of a live Chlorion aerarium. Thanks to Mike Treat and Natalie Delgado for help in identification. Turns out he’s actually a wasp, which I knew, but “green hornet” sounded cooler.)
Today in Las Vegas, a 5-year-old found a gun in his dad’s car’s glove compartment, pulled it out, and accidentally shot himself in the head. His dad was sitting in the car right next to him.
Oh and by the way, it’s the gun’s fault.
I didn’t even want to watch the “news coverage” on this one, but I’m almost sure that was the diagnosis.
In other news, I started to look up gun laws in Virginia. I found some gems of information.
For example, you are only permitted to buy one handgun per month (unless you’re a cop, or), unless given a Multiple Handgun Purchase Certificate, obtainable by filling out a Multiple Handgun Purchase Application. Naturally, you must justify needing to buy multiple hand guns, and there are no guidelines as to what constitutes justifiable.
Not that I’ll be buying multiple handguns anytime soon — we’re too poor. But it really makes me wonder what sort of illogical mind games people (ahem, politicians) must play with themselves for that to make any sense. What purpose does that serve?
Virginia has an “informal” agreement with the state of Utah to accept its CCWs (I have a Utah and Nevada CCW, so I’m ok, right?)… I wouldn’t count on being ok, though. Really, what is an informal agreement? What does that even mean? So, I’ll probably be getting a Virginia CCW as well. Wee!
On the plus side, I found out I can at least take my gun onto GMU campus… so long as I leave it in my car in the parking lot. It’s not that I’m worried about a crazy person shooting up a school in Virginia or anything, I just like to have my gun close to me at all times, if possible.
Maybe someone can explain this to me. Why is it that every Asian home I go into (in America) has several giant geodes placed decoratively around the house?
Am I making an over-generalization from too small a sample size (I think n = 3 or 4), or is this really as common as I believe it is? Asian friends, help me understand.
Where to begin?
First, this post contains spoilers of both the book and movie, so this is your warning.
Second, I didn’t jump on the Harry Potter bandwagon til just recently. I whisked flew the 7-part series this past December/January. I had meant to write up my feelings on the series, but never got around to it, because, well… it would’ve taken forever.
At over 4,000 pages, reading the series is no small endeavor, and once you have finished, you can’t help but feel like you’ve just been on an incredible journey. I have only felt such an incredible sense of varying, strong emotions after finishing a very few number of books… such emotions as accomplishment, sadness (of coming to the end of the journey), pure bewilderment and elation (“I can’t believe how amazing that was…”): Harry Potter belongs on my short list of this type of book.
And within the series, one can rank the books in order of enjoyment. My favorite book in the series? Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
At the beginning of the story, Dumbledore tells Harry they are going to have private lessons throughout the year in order to better prepare Harry for his destiny — to defeat Voldemort. The instruction taught during these lessons is primarily about Voldemort’s upbringing and past. Thus, at least in my mind, the two main purposes of the sixth book are to 1) develop Voldemort’s character and 2) develop the relationship between Harry and Professor Dumbledore. Both of these are done through the lessons.
Along the way, other events occur: for example, the romance between Harry’s best friends Ron and Hermione begins to flourish; also, Harry and Ron’s sister Ginny also start to hit it off. However, this is mostly an appendage to the story. The romances are similar to the game of quidditch, which shows up in almost every book, and helps move the story along, but is certainly not the focus of the books. The movie would have you believe otherwise.
In the process of developing the romances, the movie makers brush off the aforementioned two main purposes of the story. As a result, in the last half hour when Harry and Dumbledore travel to the cave, it really doesn’t even make sense: a surprised Dumbledore admits he had no idea Voldemort had created horcruxes to immortalize himself, and moments later, they’re whisked away to a cave where Dumbledore believes a horcrux is hidden. This makes a lot more sense in the book, as Dumbledore knew about the horcruxes, he just didn’t know how many there were until Harry retrieved Slughorn’s memory.
Within the cave, either the acting or the directing of Dumbledore was terrible. He didn’t convey any real suffering. The one time he screams “Kill me!” at Harry, he sounds like an angry maniac, not like a man in the throes of abjection. And in the next minute, he’s conjuring huge fireballs. This is probably the coolest part of the movie, and it only lasts for about three seconds.
Since relationship-building between Harry and Dumbledore is virtually non-existent during the movie, when Dumbledore is killed in the next scene, I didn’t even care. It was almost as bad as when Cedric was killed in the fourth movie. “Who cares? He wasn’t even that important of a character.” (this next sentence was added hours after I originally posted this blog; thanks to Ashley for the reminder…) After the movie, Ashley remarked that she felt sadder when Hermione was crying over Ron than she did when Dumbledore died, and I completely agree.
The movie ends with Harry, Ron, and Hermione hanging out in the tower where Dumbledore was murdered, discussing how they must go out and search for the horcruxes. Ashley noted that the ending was very similar to the ending of The Fellowship of the Rings, with Frodo and Sam committing to one another to finish the mission they are destined to complete. But whereas FOTR made you feel emotions of friendship, loyalty, and hope, Half-Blood Prince made you feel… nothing.
Actually, if I felt anything, it was irritation: irritation that the movie was so lacking in epicness. Despite having so much epic potential (arguably the most in the series, since Dumbledore is killed with no explanation), it had none.
In addition to my main complaints, a few others include:
- The scene where the Burrow (the Weasleys’ home) is destroyed was completely pointless and a waste of time. Its absence could’ve allowed for more ending awesomeness or more development of Voldemort or Harry/Dumbledore.
- The lack of mystery. Throughout the book, another theme/conflict is that Harry is suspicious of Draco, and spends a lot of his free time trying to figure out what Draco is up to. None of this kind of suspenseful mystery is present in the movie; not with Draco, nor with any of the other mysteries in the movie. “Who is the Half-Blood Prince? Oh, I don’t really care, since obviously the main plot of this movie is the romances among the teenagers.”
In conclusion, I have a very strange feeling of ambivalence for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I sit there and watch it and I generally enjoy it… but then I leave feeling like I missed out. I think what it really comes down to is that it’s a decent/good movie, but it’s not a great movie, even though it totally had the potential to be.
For those of you who have read Atlas Shrugged, tell me this doesn’t sound like something straight from the book…
“We received threats against our employees by people who are in the American public. There is a tremendous amount of stress involved in the job that we do,” said Social Security Administration (SSA) Regional Commissioner for San Francisco Peter Spencer.
Claiming they needed to learn how to reduce stress because of a growing number of death threats being made against them, nearly 700 executives from the SSA gathered for a lavish three-day conference in Phoenix, AZ last week, costing taxpayers about $700,000.
Read the rest of the story on ABC News.
I saw an ad on some website tonight (Facebook, I think) saying something along the lines of, “Obama wants you to go back to college!” Like many political promises, it sounds appealing… but of course, I’m always skeptical. My gut reaction to seeing the ad was something along the lines of “Oh jeeze… how stupid.” But I wanted to work through my thoughts and write them in a semi-formal format. Thanks go to Larson and Vince for letting me type at them my initial speculations.
Before we delve into this topic, I should let it be known that I am a strong believer in the law of unintended consequences, so my evaluation may be skewed in the direction of skepticism. Moreover, I have no data to work with, so this is an entirely theoretical discussion.
Since the motivation for providing more people to get a college education is that college-educated individuals generally earn more money, the main question we should ask is: If the government offers free college education to all citizens, what will happen to average wages?
First, we must assume everything else remains the same; the only thing that has changed in the world is that people who previously had no college degree are now relatively more educated. If you were to draw a graph showing the supply and demand for educated workers, an increase in the number of college-educated people would simply shift the supply to the right, causing wages for college-educated people to fall.
The green line shows the work force before everyone gets an education; the blue line shows the increased number of people in the educated work force. Looking at the left axis shows that wages will fall.
However, wages for the previously uneducated will rise. Thus, by educating everyone, the wealth is more evenly distributed; at least in the short run, the poor will get richer, and the rich will get (relatively) poorer.
But education is not the only factor that plays a role in how much one earns in wages. Since everyone is equal as far as education is concerned, other sifting processes will occur. I speculate that, on average, people who are currently less educated are also less skilled and capable overall. As the more adept individuals find other ways to progress and advance, while the less adept remain merely “educated,” wages will tend to return to how they were prior to everyone being educated.
In the short run, as the relatively less productive (albeit equally educated) new employees take jobs that would have previously been filled by more able individuals, total output for the nation may sag. After the above-mentioned sifting process begins to occur, output will again return to its previous state. In fact, now that people are more educated, it is likely that total output will actually increase in the long run, since all other things equal, people are generally smarter.
Unfortunately, this potential long term output increase would probably be offset by the cost of the government program to educate the masses. Our increased long term productivity would be gobbled up by the increased taxes and interest we would have to pay off. My guess is that, for various reasons, the costs would end up far outweighing the benefits.
In conclusion, it seems that a government program to subsidize college for society would, at best, put us in the same situation we are already in (inequality between the rich and the poor) or at worst, would cost incalculably more than any benefits we would hope to reap.
(My assessment may be completely incorrect, so I welcome any comments/critiques.)
My sister Jori sent me this post from someone else’s blog. The premise: a Mormon economist critiques LDS ward activities (aka the regularly occurring non-religious, social gatherings of congregation members). Not only does he hit Mormon culture dead on with a listing of common activities, but he then goes on to explain why they almost invariably are of substandard quality. Very good stuff.
Read it here.
This weekend in Las Vegas, Bally’s Casino hosted the FreedomFest convention. I’ve gone in several past years, but I was unable to secure free admission this year, so I didn’t attend. A note to individuals interested in FreedomFest in the future: you can get in for free — no one checks your badge. I found this out too late for it to really do me any good.
Yesterday, I went to Bally’s to meet Robert P. Murphy for lunch (read his blog Free Advice). Bob is probably one of the most normal, easy-to-converse-with educated people I’ve had the opportunity to meet. It was just the two of us sitting for an hour over lunch, and, despite having never met before, it never felt strange or awkward. We primarily discussed economics and the Austrian school, but we also talked about our backgrounds, families, etc. It was a great experience.
After lunch, since I was already near the convention, I figured I’d “test the waters” and see if I could get in. And I did. No problems. I ran into a few old LP friends (Debbie and Nate) and was tempted to buy hundreds of dollars of books from Laissez Faire Books, but I resisted.
For dinner, I went to Lotus of Siam with Tyler Cowen of GMU (his blog Marginal Revolution). My old friend/co-worker Jacqueline and her husband Neal met up with us there. The three of us were treated to Tyler’s style of food ordering, something none of us had experienced before. Jacqueline already summed up the experience, so I’ll just steal her words:
Instead of reading the menu and deciding ourselves what to order, Tyler told to the waiter to bring us “good stuff” and that we were “very serious” and to “bring us what you would eat for the last meal of your life.” He asked where the chef was from, and said he’d been there and had high standards. Basically, he let the waiter and chef decide what we were going to eat.
Bob and Tyler are both “economics-field heroes” of mine, so getting to socialize with them yesterday will definitely go down as one of my highlights for the summer of 2009.
or 
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