The Adventures of Sam Sogin

Private Money for High Speed Rail in the U.S.

2011-07-28T00:22:00.001-05:00

As I understand Representative Mica’s latest proposal, ownership of the Northeast corridor would be transferred to the U.S. Department of Transportation and then sold to a private operator. (This is essentially the current system with Amtrak!). The bill also goes on to make it easier for private companies to run parts of the current and future U.S. rail market.

This is not a terrible idea. It’s well intentioned in an fiscally constrained environment. Ultimately, the success of such a program is in the details. I propose some general guidelines to make privatization a success.

Firstly, the Federal Government should underwrite any debt that the private entity issues. The U.S. government has the history of being the best entity in the world to hold financial risk. This will keep costs down for the private entity and reduce the chance of an operating subsidy in the future.

Secondly, the Federal Government should expedite the planning review process. High Speed Rail is Green technology and is much better to the transportation alternatives of building highways, and airport expansion. Too many people have a voice in the decision making process for transportation projects. Anyone from a private railroad, local government, state government, regulator, or congressman has the potential to halt or delay the project. While more democratic and fair, our infrastructure planning process is very slow and expensive. A private entity should be able to respond to concerns of these interested parties, but still be able to make decisions in a cost effective manner.

Next, the private entity must have supplemental income to cover its construction costs beyond ticket sales and advertising revenue. This can be covered by giving land grants to the private entity to develop new shopping, residence towers, and entertainment venues around the HSR stations. Nearby buildings to HSR do not need to be demolished; the private developer should own these properties such that any increase in the land value due to the HSR station is captured to the HSR private entity. If land near the station area is too political, than perhaps the private entity can be given land somewhere else to develop.

Lastly, the Federal Government needs to be a stable partner to whoever takes on the project. If government support and funding becomes a political issue, the private entity will have less incentive to take on the project and be assured of success.

Netflix:

2010-07-11T12:03:00.001-05:00

I bite the bullet and signed up for Netflix two weeks ago. It’s a lot of fun filling up the Netflix Que list. So many movies and TV shows that I haven’t seen and would like too! I’m a little disappointed that it really seems that movies need to be placed in the mail by Thursday Morning in order to receive the next movie on Saturday. This means that getting movies lined up for the weekend means a Thursday or Wednesday morning drop off of the previous DVD.

So here’s what I’ve watched so far:

Milk: Interesting biographical movie about Harvey Milk, a gay rights activists, and eventual San Francisco City Supervisor. Sean Penn plays Milk and he deserved the Oscar he received for that role. Movie does a good job portraying on how intolerant the religious right can be.

Ghost in a Shell: This anime is well regarded in top 10 lists of Anime or top 50s of animation. I thought I would give it a shot. The movie is about cyborg cops who are investigating another cyborg that his more than he seems. Basically, it’s Bladerunner meets the Animatrix. (Not a fair comparison since I haven’t seen either of those two movies.

Get Smart: Not to be confused with Ellen Page film, Smart People. Get Smart is the Steve Carell spy comedy. Need I say more? Not great, not too terrible. Meh….wish I had put Smart People up there instead.

The Shawshank Redemption: Fantastic Film! How could I have missed it? Excellent prison movie with Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. The Film emphasizes friendship, hardship, leaderships, ships, and the importance of an education. This movie deserves the #1 spot on IMDB. I don’t really have a favorite movie but I can say that this was the best movie I have seen in the past year or so. (Okay, Star Wars is probably my favorite movie, but that’s more me loving a fictional universe)

Seven Samurai: This movie is not timeless. It did not age well. It’s a little bit too long, and the plot comes to a crawl a points. I don’t see this as the ultimate “Team-Up” movie. The movie does touch on the Samurai-Farmer caste system well, and the score was really good though. I just feel that there have been better films since then and this movie is probably overrated. I thought The Last Samurai was more entertaining to watch.

Some old films that are overrated: Citizen Kane, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Seven Samurai. I’m sure there’s more on the AFI list that need to go.

Some old films that stand up to test of time: 12 Angry Men, and Lawrence of Arabia.

Netflix:

2010-07-11T12:03:00.000-05:00

So here’s what I’ve watched so far:

Some old films that are overrated: Citizen Kane, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Seven Samurai. I’m sure there’s more on the AFI list that need to go.

Some old films that stand up to test of time: 12 Angry Men, and Lawrence of Arabia.

Blackhawk Summer Sale:

2010-07-09T22:27:00.001-05:00

Hey everybody, the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup! Chicago sports pulled through. Unfortunately, the Blackhawks now have to pay Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane their actual value and have pretty hefty contracts with Brain Campbell, Hossa, & Huet. This past month, fans have seen their favorite role players and supporting cast be shipped out. No Lad, no Byflugien, no Versteeg, and we might not get Hjalarmason to come back either since the Blackhawks need to match the San Jose offer. Niemi’s salary is under arbitration, so he is still up in the air. While I believe that the hawks have handled the situation very well. No player has taken more salary cap than necessary, and we’ve acquired many draft picks and prospects. This is an organization looking to become the next Detroit Red Wings. We have our core of players and grow our supporting cast around them. It was a blast watching the 2010 playoffs as each night a new team member would step up under the pressure and bring home the win for Chicago. I’ll miss these guys next year, but I’m sure the Hawks will have a great supporting cast for years to come. Coach Quenville has been great! We may not be the Chicago Bulls, but winning hockey teams in Chicago should be here to stay.

Also, on Chicago sports, the Bulls are looking to be a great team next year with Boozer, Kyle, Rose, Noah, and maybe even Deng? LeBron said “no” to the Midwest to go play with his friends in a smaller media market in Miami. I personally think that the Bulls, Celtics, Magic, and Heat will run over everyone in the Eastern Conference and loose to the better teams in the Western Conference. I don’t see this changing with some talent heading East or agglomerating in Miami.

Update:

2010-06-04T18:41:00.002-05:00

Weather is still very hot and humid in Jacksonville. But everyday is hot and humid so there's not much surprise at this point. I have patched together various computer simulation studies in the Northeast and in along the I-95 corridor. Still no live test yet whether this database of railroad infrastructure is up and working, but we will see. I have remodeled Washington Union Station twice! I am about to finish inputting the signals along the CSX line between Buffalo NY, and Cleveland. It's double track and signaled in both directions, so that's alot of signals that need to be inputed in. The issue with the signals is that the CSX maps do not do a good job of indicating which moves are signaled and which aren't especially sidings.

On another note, I saw the Prince of Persia movie yesterday. Critics said it was very "meh" and not Pirates of the Caribbean. I disagreed. The movie lived up to everything it promised to be. It featured many acrobatic flips, wall runs, jumping, falling, and dicing enemies. The movie opened up with a desert sunrise as clear hommage to Lawrence of Arabia. I approve. I wasn't a fan of the ending, but I'm not a fan of most endings. (They're either to sappy, cliche or predictable). Hopefully they won't make a sequel...sequels are unnecessary

Blackhawks are up 2-1, and have yet to loose two in a row this playoff series. Here's to hoping they win tonight, so they can win the cup in Chicago! We need Jonathan Toews to solve Pronger and fix the powerplay. The flyers have gotten away with alot, the Hawks need to convert.

Jacksonville Day 6:

2010-05-20T20:08:00.002-05:00

I'm almost there for settling into a daily routine at CSX. I'm biking to work again! I'd like to say I'm saving money by not paying the monthly rate at the garages downtown. But honestly, I love to bike. I now have a badge! I'm Intern #7. Now, all I need is access to track charts, and showers in the health club. It's a fun and diverse group of people with whom I am working with. So I have a firmer idea of what my project at CSX will be. I'm standardizing the parts of the CSX railroad network that have been coded for simulations. The idea is that the track, signals, and trains can be placed into one database where an external program can re-create any part of the network for future study rather than rebuild from scratch all of the time. The freight network for CSX is much more complicated than anything I've delt with at Illinois, but I guess that's industry versus academia.

I've found a local bike club that meets pretty much any day of the week for rides just 1 mile from my apartment. Yesterday I went out with the "B" group who were pacing at 22-23 mph. I can't imagine what the "A" group did. I was so concerned about keeping the pace up and drafting properly, that I I ended up pulling a few times. I did not even notice that the "B" group split into a fast group and a slow group after reaching the half-way mark. I came back exhausted! Today, the club did "Bridge Laps" on the Acosta Bridge. It's ad-hoc where anyone in the group meets at this arch-concrete bridge over the St. John's river and does laps. Each lap is two 90ft climbs and descents. Surprisingly, this is a highway with highway speed limits but bicycles are allowed on the main lanes. This get's interesting deceivingly down on these off-ramps over 30mph while having to cross two lanes of traffic, but it works out due to the "safety in numbers" mentality of group riding.

Weather-wise: It's sunny, it's 90 degrees. End of story. No change since I've been here

Jacksonville Day 2:

2010-05-16T19:53:00.002-05:00

Somewhat big day today. Woke up around 8am. Kinda went back to sleep watching Versus cover the Giro Tour. (Cycling racing in Italy) By 11am my Dad and I were up and on our way to Jacksonville Beach. First thought: buy sunscreen! So I bought overpriced sunscreen. I don't want to burn here in Florida. Last time I got seriously sunburned, it was at an Obama Rally...I burned for Obama. I was dedicated. Day after, not a happy camper. Anyway second thought about beach: there are alot of people in swimsuits who probably shouldn't be. Third Thought: The whole beach resort/line of condo lines isn't as nice as the beach with a natural setting or a beach with a kick-ass architectural skyline. (Yea Chicago!). It was nice though, good sand, good people watching. My dad and I had a good walk.

After the beach, we watched some Carmen (The Opera) on TV and the beginning of the Blackhawks game. 5 minutes into the 1st period, dad announced that it was time for me to drive him to the airport. The drive was easy enough for me, except on the way back. My Garmin GPS fails at the I-95 & I-10 interchange. So ignored it and followed the signs to where I needed to go. Imagine that?

I caught the last two periods of the Hawks game and we won with epic goal tending by Niemi! After the game I put on my Illinois jeresey brought out the bike and biked to the CSX tower and then down towards Riverside. I did 21 miles in the heat and did not get lost! Well I did follow a bike lane that took me across the bridge I wasn't intending to cross but it ultimately was a shortcut to where I was.

I start work tomorrow so I might just blog about that tomorrow giving you, dear reader, three consecutive daily blog posts! OMG!

Summer

2010-05-14T20:55:00.002-05:00

I know I have been pretty bad about updating about my adventures lately. (There have been quite a few!!!) Now that school is over, I might just have time on my hands.

I'm currently just Southeast of Atlanta at a Holdiay Inn. My dad and I are moving most my possessions from Urbana to Jackonsville FL. I will be working for CSX Transportation (a railroad) doing capacity analysis with RTC. (Simulation Software) I landed this internship on the last week of April and only had three weeks to complete finals and prepare to move to Jackonsville. As far as I know I might be working with their data on trains or I might be simulating 110 mph trains on the freight network to see how they conflict with standard freight trains. I'll know more on Monday once I start work.

The car ride form Urbana to Atlanta was not too bad. We had Garmin GPS and Google directions. Garmin wanted us to take I-57 while Google wanted us to take some U.S. highways. Naturally, we went with Google, even though Google does not currently sponsor any cycling racing teams. There were heavy rain storms in Nashville, so Chicago traffic was with us in spirit. Afterwards I took over the driving from my dad. Eastern Tennessee was very lush a green with rolling hills, and nice cliff cut sections. We crossed a nice steel truss bridge over the Ohio River and there was also a nice tall steel railroad deck plate bridge about 75 ft above the highway.

Tomorrow we aim to hit my new residence in Jacksonville around noon. I'm renting a condo from a professor in Jacksonville who is spending her summer in Europe. I initially was emailing roommate wanted ads on Craiglist but I wasn't have much success. I eventually created my own Craigslist ad and found what I wanted within 12 hours of posting it.

So I plan to keep my dear readers up to date with my adventures in Florida. I might even fill you in about what's been going on this past semester.

Red Light Cameras

2010-02-10T22:06:00.003-06:00

Red light cameras are a good idea and not big brother watching you. There are 24 different ways for two cars to collide into each other at a standard traffic light. The yellow phase of a light is designed to the speed limit. The yellow light is timed for reaction time and gradual acceleration/deceleration. We have traffic laws and the mindset of many drivers is simply to get from point a to point b as quickly as possible without paying a ticket. The mindset should rather be how to get to point a to point b as safely as possible. With cash strapped local agencies, it is fair to ask people to obey traffic laws rather than raise the sales tax. (Revenue is probably not that much) These cameras are not Big Brother. Speeding and hitting a pedestrian is just as bad as DUI, and driving on the cell phone.

Transportation Question?

2009-09-13T22:36:00.001-05:00

Is the long term cost of transportation going to be lower than it is today?

Will convenience be substituted for efficiency?

Suburbs!

2009-08-24T21:24:00.002-05:00

I engaged in Suburb to Suburb bike commuting this summer. I started off small. In the morning, bike from my house to the Braeside Metra Station on Lake Cook RD. (1.5 miles ish). I would wear my work clothes and bike clothes in a back-pack. I would pedal slowly as to not break up a sweat. Next, I would put my bike on the bike rack of the Discover Financial Shuttle Bus, operated by PACE. It was $1.50 fare. This shuttle bus takes Discover, Baxter, and other workers from the Union Pacific North Metra Line to office barks furter west on Lake Cook RD. To get to my final destination, I would get off at the Discover Campus and cross Lake Cook RD on Saunders. This intersection is terrifying as a pedestrian since each direction has a right turn lane, two left turn lanes, and two-three straight lanes. On the bike I would go to the right most straighward lane, cross, and then turn into my office building once traffic would clear. I would work my 8 hours, change into my bike clothes, and bike the 6-7 miles ish home. Contrary to what some might think, biking on multi-lane suburban artials is not that terrifying. Having that 2nd lane allows for Cars to easily pass me. However, these cars are moving fasts, and god help me if a truck passes at 50 mph, while I'm doing 18! On this commute home there was a bike path being contructed over the I-294 tollway. At first I thought that this piece of bike infrastrucutre would be a benefit for my commute. What it ammounted to, was crossing Deerfield RD on Sanders to get to the bike path. The bike path was a glorified concrete sidewalk so it is not that comfortable to those riding road bikes. Worse, the bike path dumps me on to a sidewalk with lots of driveways and faulting slabs. So, I have to cross Deerfield RD again to get back in the Eastbound lane. The next issue is going under the Milwauke North Metra Line, where the RD narrows to the point where a car could not pass me safely. I learned, that at sections of road like this, as a cyclist, I take up the whole lane to prevent autos from passing me until I get out of the overpass. Overall the Northbrook commute home was a great introduction to biking on Suburban Arterials and getting comfortable with idea when there are multiple lanes, cars will naturally pass me on the left w/o much fuss/congestion.

My Job switched from Northbrook to Schaumberg 23 miles from house. Still desparate to keep my sustainable transportation options open I looked online for bus routes that would get me to Schaumberg. The best solution turned out for me to put on the lycra and leave the work clothes in my filling cabinet in Schaumberg. I would bike down the Cook County Forest Preserve Trail to Dempster. (12 miles) and throw my bike on a Pace bus that would take me to Des Plaines in roughly 20 minutes. Then I would throw my bike onto another bus that would take to me Schaumberg in 20 minutes. This would result in about 45 minutes of biking 10-15 minutes of waiting and 40 minutes of biking all before 8am! I would turn on zombie/morning mode on the bus, and just wait for myself to magically be in Schaumberg. I would work my 7-8 hours and then reverse my way home. Problem: Pace busses run much better/on time at 7am then at 5pm, and by 5pm I'm no longer in zone-out-zombie mode, I'm in "I want to get home be off this stupid bus" mode.

The next iteration of the Schaumberg commute was to replace the afternoon busses with more bike riding. I would parallel Golf RD or Dempster to the best I could until I got to the Forest Preserve traill and then bike home on the trail.

Next iteration was that I was tired from waiting for the busses in morning so I started leaving a little bit earlier and biking down Golf RD. I was now putting around 50 miles each time I opted to Bike to work instead of drive.

My final and optial route did away with the Cook County forest preserve and did it all on streets paralleling major arterials. (Sunset Ridge-Glenview RD-Central-Golf RD-Ikea)

Some observations by doing all of this:

lights that are tripped by sensors are anoying for bicyclists since they won't change. If you're luckily another car will show up to trip the sensor or there might be a pedestrian crossing button.
Bike Paths have a tendancy to end in the middle of nowhere and don't tend connect well with other bike pats. There's a 2-mile bike path that parrallels Golf RD in Schaumberg, and there's a bike path in the IKEA development, however they are only 1/4 mile apart and impossible to get from one to the other without going onto Golf RD. Bike paths that turn into sidewalks are no good either. I'd rather see a bike path turn into a residential street.
Again, bikeing needs a solid grid network just like automobiles. Bike routes should be signed on the pavement. Trails should be connected by bike lanes
Don't let right turn lanes throw you off. Just stay in the right most lane in your direction of travel.
A french shower in a standard public restroom will work. You need the right "equipment" and a change of clothes.

Six Flags and Highway Capacity?

2009-04-16T20:44:00.002-05:00

Commuting by car is awful. If only there were more lanes and less interchanges so there wouldn't be this many cars stuck in traffic.

Going to Six Flags on a nice summer afternoon can be quite miserable. The lines and the heat are unbareable. If only Six Flags built more roller coasters so everyone wouldn't have to wait so long to get on one.

Induced Demand exsists!

In other news, Obama and Transportation Secretary LaHood released their high speed rail plan today. My initial reaction is that states that have pro-active on upgrading their reagional rail system, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Washington, and California have much to gain by the intial funding phase of appropriation since those states are furthest along with near ready projects. The next phase is more towards corridors who aren't quite as ready such as the 220 mph line from San Fransico to L.A. Maybe they'll get a test track? The last phase is for future planning which is geared towards to states who don't have their act together right now that may want to jump on the band wagon. (Texas)

Rail Map!

2009-02-25T15:29:00.003-06:00

This map has been flooding the transportation blogs lately:

Golly, the Federal Government wants to build to High Speed Rail in America! We can finally have those technological marvels that run in Europe and Japan!

That's not quite the case. The $8 billion of HSR funds passed in the stimulus are going towards upgrading current track and crossings for trains to go 110 mph. The U.S. vision of High Speed Rail is simply Amtrak working like it's suppose to. Faster 110 mph means that time will be made up from stopping at stations and waiting for trains to past compared to the current Amtrak System. The uncertainty of Amtrak would be taken out of the equation. 110mph will not be your average speed between O/D pairs but moving from somewhere at 45 mph to 75 mph would be a great improvement.

(The California coridors are the excpetion. Their state plans on putting up $10 billion to fund 200mph trains using state of the art equipment)

While I think it's great Amtrak is getting an upgrade. True High Speed Rail is going to require a shift of priorities. Maybe less transfer payments, high gasoline taxes, maybe a vmt tax, public-private co-ops.

Transportation Finance

2009-02-20T18:19:00.003-06:00

Obama is against taxing how much you drive. (Taxing vehicle miles traveled)

Ray Lahood is trying to jump in the Obama spirit of thinking outside of the box on how to finance transportation. Most Federal transportation funds come from the gas tax (18 cents a gallon). Both Obama and Lahood are against raining the gas tax during the recession.

Taxing VMT is a new conept. It'd be around the lines of having GPS responders in cars that would be able to charge a rate on how much a car is driving. There's talk of having variable rates between Urban Highways, arterials, off streets, etc. While adding in the congesion pricing into the equation is a step in the right direction, I feel that taxing VMT ignores fuel consumption. An SUV would be charged the same as a prius even though it taxes up more space on the roadway and uses less foreign oil.

Puting GPS responders is also a political issue. Who would have acess to where you are? Big Brother? Maybe this would be a transportation engineer's dream of a real time data jack-pot?

The gas tax infrastructure is already in place and not the difficult to collect. Putting satelites in space and gps redponders on cars seems quite costly. The gas tax failed this past fall because it was simply too low. It hadn't be raised in over 15 years to keep up with inflation. When $4 gas hit us and the economy plummeted. People drove less and used more fuel efficient cars. Naturally the gas tax revenue disappeared. While taxing gasoline is certainly part of the solution, there needs to be other sources as well.

There is a correlation between transportation and land use. I think the challenge of years to come is figure out how to capture gains from land development due to transportation into transportation revenue.

Unusual Riders

2009-02-09T22:20:00.002-06:00

Coyotes need to get around Portland OR too!

The Cabinet

2008-12-17T21:12:00.002-06:00

the U.S. Congressman Ray LaHood from Peoria Illinois will join Barack Obama's cabinet as Transportation Secretary.

So far I've been impressed with the Economic team and the green team. I was displeased with Hillary Clinton, but we'll see.

I'm on the fence on Ray LaHood. It's clearly Obama throwing a bone towards bipartisanship. He has good record of working accross party lines. In the past he's advocated towards fiscal repsonsibility when funding tranpsportation projects, so with luck we'll see less bridges and highways that are not cost effective. What's disapointing about LaHood is that he is not one of the many urban pioneers in the transportation sector. There's good work being done New York City, Minneapolis/St. Paul, San Fransico, Portland and Seattle. The people associated with those cities are providing leadership on fighting congestion. The transportation issues in this country are air/rail/road congestion in cities and maintenance.

So my main issue with LaHood is the opportunity cost of Obama not picking someone more exciting and innovative. LaHood still has the opportunity to prove himself. We still have Joe Biden in the vice-presidentcy. I hear he takes the train to work.

Highland Park's Federal Stimulus Demands:

2008-12-12T16:20:00.002-06:00

City	State	Program	Project Description	Funding Required	Jobs
Highland Park	IL	Energy	Energy Retrofits for All Government Buidlings	1,000,000	12
Highland Park	IL	Energy	Energy Retrofits for All School Buildings	1,000,000	12
Highland Park	IL	Energy	Energy Retrofits for Public Library	1,000,000	12
Highland Park	IL	Energy	Electrical upgrades in Central Business District from 110V to 220V electric to reduce energy consumption for public lighting, traffic signals and other electrical systems.	500,000	19
Highland Park	IL	Streets/Roads	Improvements to Route 41 pedestrian/bicycle overpass.	300,000	12
Highland Park	IL	Streets/Roads	Ravine Drive bridge improvements.	800,000	22
Highland Park	IL	Streets/Roads	Repaving of Sheridan Road and minor sewer repairs.	1,500,000	24
Highland Park	IL	Streets/Roads	Repair of existing City sidewalks and extension of greenways. Installation of extensions or new paths for pedestrians and cyclists, providing alternatives to motor vehicles.	1,000,000	32
Highland Park	IL	Streets/Roads	Resurface 12 - 14 miles of City thus raising streets with pavement conditions of poor/fair to good (75+ PCI on a scale of 0 - 100).	3,000,000	37
Highland Park	IL	Water	Sanitary sewer main and sanitary manhole lining	2,000,000	12
Highland Park	IL	Water	Targeted sanitary sewer main "spot' repairs	1,000,000	12
Highland Park	IL	Water	Ravine improvements such as check dams or other erosion control measures where public infrastructure systems are located in the ravine.	400,000	17
Highland Park	IL	Water	Replace residential water meters with smaller, radio head technology to reduce waste and encourage conservation.	3,800,000	17
Highland Park	IL	Water	Installation of micro-filtration membranes for City's Water Treatment plant serving 65,000 customers.	7,400,000	22
Highland Park	IL	Water	Storm sewer priorities	3,000,000	27
Totals:				$27,700,000.00	289.00

Overall I'm pleased to see that Mayor Belsky is interested in improving the water/energy Infrastructure in Highland Park. Compared to other cities, we're not asking for that much road work.

Ahh Yes, the SUV

2008-12-08T12:58:00.002-06:00

The auto industry in Detroit will exsist in the future. There will be strings attached. But let's keep a separationg of church and state/SUV.

Obama & the Gas Tax

2008-12-07T14:42:00.003-06:00

This summer there was a crazy debate between Obama, Clinton, and Mcain. Obama basically said that lowering the gas tax/eliminating it is poor policy. He said that we needed that money for our intrastructure. So the next question is what's the opposite of the "poor policy" of lowering the gas tax? Raising the gas tax!! Yes, a higher gas tax is good policy. Now for the moment of truth...is Obama in favor of raising the gas tax?

MR. BROKAW: Let's talk for a moment about consumer responsibility when it comes to the auto industry. As soon as gas prices began to drop, consumers moved back to the larger cars once again, to SUVs and the big gas consumers.
PRES.-ELECT OBAMA: Right.
MR. BROKAW: Why not take this opportunity to put a tax on gasoline, bump it back up to $4 a gallon where people were prepared to pay for that, and use that revenue for alternative energy and as a signal to the consumers those days are gone.
PRES.-ELECT OBAMA: Well...
MR. BROKAW: We're not going to have gasoline that you can just fill up your tank for 20 bucks anymore.
PRES.-ELECT OBAMA: Well, keep, keep in mind what's happening in--to families all across America. Yes, gas prices have gone down. But, in the meantime, maybe somebody in the family's lost their job. In the meantime, their housing values have plummeted. In the meantime, maybe their hours have been cut back. Or if they're a small-business owner, their sales have gone down 50, 60, 70 percent. So putting additional burdens on American families right now, I think, is a mistake.

Noooooooooooo!!!! The gas tax has stayed the same for nealry twenty years! It's time for the U.S. Government to put the financial incentive on its citizens to save the environment and this is the easiest and most effective way to go about it.

I understand that Americans have been given relief at the pump. Environmental policy should not be dependant on the business cycle. Obam has said it himself that he doesn't plan on doing all of his infrastrucutre investment by deficit spending. Maybe there can be a compromise by increasing the gas tax incrementally.

Box Store Pulling Out?

2008-12-03T19:35:00.003-06:00

http://www.slate.com/id/2204599/slideshow/2204910/fs/0//entry/2204911/

Some clever uses of old K-Marts and Wal-Marts as box retailers close stores.

Taxes: Leaving local govs to fend for themselves

2008-11-25T14:53:00.003-06:00

The federal government has abandoned state and local governments. The country's infrastructure needs modernization. We need public transportation, structurally sound bridges, roads, new energy generation areas. Earmarking and pork barrel spending have now gained a negative reputation. (Not a bad thing, but it still hurts the money flow towards infrastructure) Many communities this past election have increased their sales tax on their constituents to pay for new infrastructure. Unfortunately, a flat sales tax is regressive does not capture the externality of driving. In the primaries, economist united against Hillary Clinton threatening to create a gas tax holiday. The gas tax does an excellent job of taxes those who use the roads the most and provides an effective incentive to conserve more fuel. Using gas tax money to fund public transportation is also effective because the road users pay to keep less cars on the roads. Now, the gas tax hasn't been raised for over 15 years. The tax needs to be a raised and become a percentage. OPEC should not have the power to raise oil prices causing us to cut back on gas and then our Department of Transportation has no money. A higher gas tax gives more power of the price of gas to the federal government and not to the Middle East. I beleive that if the price of gas went beyond a certain level, then the revenue from the tax should go out as a energy rebate and not to the DOT budget. Also, I beleive that there should be an exception to freight in some way.

Point being: Increase an economiclly efficient gas tax so communities don't have to raise consumption taxes. Frankly gas is now cheaper than Milk.

Too Much Benefits?

2008-10-22T12:53:00.002-05:00

We have an aging population. There's going to be a significant burden on my generation to work the economy to take care of the baby boomers. More social security, more medicare, and simply more old-folks industry. Hospitals, retirement homes, vacation homes, nursing homes, etc. Now taking care of the elderly has aways been the responsibility of the youth. We're a free market society but we do have compassion. The ultimate question is will everything be fair. Honestly, my generation is not going to see the same entitlement benefits that our parents did. Even if we do, we'll end up paying more taxes for the same benefit. According Robert J Samuleson, we young people should start protesting now.

Open Season: A little Understanding

2008-10-16T15:46:00.002-05:00

Peggy Noon wrote this piece awhile ago.

"Democrats in the end speak most of, and seem to hold the most sympathy for, the beset-upon single mother without medical coverage for her children, and the soldier back from the war who needs more help with post-traumatic stress disorder. They express the most sympathy for the needy, the yearning, the marginalized and unwell. For those, in short, who need more help from the government, meaning from the government's treasury, meaning the money got from taxpayers.

Democrats show little expressed sympathy for those who work to make the money the government taxes to help the beset-upon mother and the soldier and the kids. They express little sympathy for the middle-aged woman who owns a small dry cleaner and employs six people and is, actually, day to day, stressed and depressed from the burden of state, local and federal taxes, and regulations, and lawsuits, and meetings with the accountant, and complaints as to insufficient or incorrect efforts to meet guidelines regarding various employee/employer rules and regulations. At Republican conventions they express sympathy for this woman, as they do for those who are entrepreneurial, who start businesses and create jobs and build things. Republicans have, that is, sympathy for taxpayers. But they don't dwell all that much, or show much expressed sympathy for, the sick mother with the uninsured kids, and the soldier with the shot nerves."

Both parties are right and many people are coming from compassionate points of view and do want to make this country better.

Gas Prices too low?

2008-09-29T22:01:00.002-05:00

Chief Scientist at BP thinks that Gas Prices are too low? Surprise?

High gas prices have done wonders to automobile safety, conservation, and public transportation use. The free market will push us to be better stewards of the environment.

The Obama Plan

2008-09-28T19:59:00.002-05:00

This map was taken from Realclearpolitics.com's map tool on 9/28/08. What the Obama plan calls for is taking the John Kerry Map and adding one of Colorado, Virginia, or North Carolina. Perhaps Ohio and Flordia won't mean as much as they usually do in this year's elelction.

Mortgage Solutions?

2008-09-05T15:25:00.002-05:00

This economist from Yale has a long term suggestion for fixing the mortgage crisis. He wants continuous workout mortgages.

Since I spend my past summer drowning in the subprime crisis this seems like a good idea. A workout currently is when a borrower falls behind on his mortgage and tries to work out a deal with his lender that would keep him in in his home. For example a workout might be postponning the mortgage payment 1 month and tacking that month on the back of the loan. Or it could be paying a back payment over 3 months. The point is that the borrower and the lender come together in a way to stop the foreclosure.

What the professor from Yale is suggesting that the next generation of sub-prime loans need to have a coninutuous workout clause. What this would mean is that there is already a plan and procedure in place to cure a delinquency and let the borrower stay in house and prevent the foreclosure. So ideally, these defaulting loans would be spotted easily and problems could be small problems could be solved before they become bigger problems. The theory is that these mortgages would also be bundled and sold as securities on the secondary mortgage market to help banks diversify the risk.

Trains are Dangerous

2008-09-01T14:11:00.002-05:00

I'm a fan of trains but maybe this person has a point. Perhaps Amtrak should be responsible for drunk people climbing on their cars and touching electric wires with high voltage. How could Amtrak not give enough warning to this poor drunk fellow?

MIT Hackers

2008-08-12T11:50:00.002-05:00

A group of computer science majors at MIT decided that it would be great to do a class project on hacking the Boston Subway system. (Known as the "T") They did an excellent job of it. A federal judge decided to block a presentation at the Defcon conference in Las Vegas. This order came following a complaint by the MBTA. The MBTA said that they weren't given enough time to fix the flaws. Meanwhile, our three hackers clearly explained their presentation was purely for educational purposes and would never encourage personal gain by cheating the fare system on the Boston subways.

Full Story Here

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Bailout

2008-08-02T11:19:00.002-05:00

Due to my sudden submersion into the Subprime lending crisis, I have to say that the mortgage woes seem more interesting.

Anyway, The federal government decided to bailout Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. (Yea!) Not that there was much choice in the issue. However, congress rejected a proposal to prevent Fannie and Freddie from paying dividends to it's shareholders. So the United States Tax Payers are paying to bail out two mortgage giants and those same mortgage giants are going to pass the money right back to the shareholders. (Transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich???) Fannie Mae paid $2.5 billion in dividends while Freddie only paid $1.6 billion.

I understand the importance of the secondary mortgage market. But, hindsight being 20/20, perhaps Fannie Mae should not have bought/endorsed these mortgages that the borrowers were eventually unable to afford. The idea that the borrowers were simply going to refinance when the mortgage was going to adjust, was a VERY poor assumptions

Summer Update

2008-05-15T22:01:00.003-05:00

Well I thought I was going to do Summer School. However, I took up a job offer as a customer service call center. I'm now battling the home foreclosure crisis from the front lines. I have a job in Northbrook answering phone calls about a personal loan offer to people close to home foreclosure. Basically this loan brings someone's mortgage current and puts them back on track to repaying their mortgage. Most people I talk to are enthusiastic about the program. I do get a number of sob stories as well. It's nice not to deal with angry people. The people at the other end of the line are very nervous, but the loan offer to them at 5% really is a great deal.

I have a headset, and by Monday I'll have a cubicle!

John Edwards

2008-05-14T21:53:00.003-05:00

John Edwards decided to endorse Barack Obama. That was awfully nice of him considering it took him 4 months to make up his mind.

Anyway, the Obama campaign immediately sent out one of their emails asking for donations.

"Samuel, I have some very exciting news. My good friend John Edwards is endorsing our campaign...Make a donation...include your own note to Senator Edwards. I'll make sure he gets them. https://donate.barackobama.com/johnedwards"

I rather enjoyed the url with "barackobama.com/johnedwards.

That's Not Nice

2008-05-06T10:32:00.002-05:00

The Hillary Campaign does not respect my major. (Economics...Architecture transferring into Economics) First off, Hillary Clinton said, "Said, I'm not going to put my lot in with the economists." However the Clinton Campaign didn't stop there. Terry McAullife was on MSNBC news yesterday and said: "Well first of all, I’m not going to sit here and quote economists, because I don’t think that’s what matters … This is personal to people, they either buy gasoline, or they buy groceries. This is temporary relief for people in this country who are desperate for help…"

So, my major and choice of study has been attacked. That's okay, apparently branches of knowledge are fair game this election cycle. Mike Huckabe said "I don't believe in mathematics, I believe in Miracles."

I think it's important to respect all professions because we are all hard working people with different interests. Let's not criticize other majors as being less difficult or a blow-off. There's work to be done, and let's respect one another. See Dan Berbgren's post on the subject:

Update:

2008-05-01T16:57:00.002-05:00

What's going on with that Sam Sogin kid?

Classes for year 1 of college. Overall I'd say it's been a huge sucess. I quickly learned that I didn't want to be an Architect and I'm transferring into Economics. I've adapted to the college style of learning versues High School. I explored different departments at the University. I've meet a variety of new people who I'll miss over the summer.

I have four finals and then I'll return home to Highland Park the evening of 5/8 unless there's a significant packing error.

I'll be working at Ravinia for summer #4. Feel free to drop by and say hi. Let me know ahead of time about tickets.

I'll be taking a class a Universtiy of Illinois Chicago. It might be Econometrics, and it might be computer science. There's a registration issue that I have sort out with the Computer Science department. Hopefully I'll be taking C++/Matlab.

Next Year I'm taking lessons from the Bassoon Professor at UIUC and will be in the studio! I'll attempt an Orchestra audition and hopefully I'll make the 2nd orchestra! Summer, I'll be taking lessons and making reeds. If ANYONE wants to do ensemble playing just call me. Quintet anyone???

Other Summer Plans: Rollerblading...anytime...anywhere. Some swing excursions would be great. I'll get my bike into working condition and I'll do some biking. I'm going to jump into developing some cooking skills. Maybe I'll swim.

I hope to cut down on my driving this summer as well.

I look forward to coming home!!!

An Intelligent News Cycle

2008-04-30T18:48:00.002-05:00

I was watching CNN today and there was a panel on debating the gas tax. There was actually an energy policy debate on TV instead of a debate on the Obama-Clinton personality machines.

Harvard Economists and Mitt Romney Adviser, Greg Mankiw, gave his kudos to Obama today for his advocacy against a gas tax holiday.

The NY Times reports:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton lined up with Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, in endorsing a plan to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for the summer travel season. But Senator Barack Obama, Mrs. Clinton’s Democratic rival, spoke out firmly against the proposal, saying it would save consumers little and do nothing to curtail oil consumption and imports.

I don't know any prominent economist who favors this McCain-Clinton proposal. More common is the reaction of a friend of mine (a veteran of the Clinton administration) who calls the idea "ludicrous."

Stop it!

2008-04-10T00:42:00.003-05:00

I've been disturbed to see that many democrat leaders including Barack Obama, Clinton, Pelosi and others are calling for George Bush to boycott the opening Olympic Ceremony. The democratic party apparently believes that China is failing on the human rights agenda. China has been violently crushing protesters in Tibet and not doing enough with genocide in Darfur.

George Bush should go to Beijing. It's wrong to boycott the Olympics. It doesn't matter if it appears as support to the Chinese government. The Olympics are about setting aside political differences and competing in the world's favorite sports. (Not football) In 1936 we sent Jesse Owens who cleaned up the competition in Germany. He was well regarded there by the German fans and was able to experience a black segregation-free world. China today is nowhere as scary as Germany 1936.

Every year China releases the "White Book" which is their allegations against us for human rights violations. They usually site our treatment of prisonors post 9/11 and wire tapping are own citizens, and white-black-brown relations. It's all kinda of silly finger pointing among us and the Chinese. Rather than screaming why don't are leaders get together and solve these problems?

The Olympics mean a lot to the people in China. To turn this sporting event into a political hot button issue is appalling. China-U.S. relations are hostile enough as it is. Maybe we should consider a friendlier approach with China. It's been 20 years since China has really been a communist country. Our political rhetoric still needs to evolve beyond the black and white of the cold war. We need to choose our battles and the Olympics is inappropriate.

Unpopular Good Policy

2008-04-03T20:56:00.002-05:00

Sometimes smart policy ideas just won't fly. As an economists, I love the idea of congestion prices where people have to pay to use road networks during rush periods. The current system reaches market failure every time traffic comes to a crawl. The prices for using the roads is to low given what the supply is. Solution: raise prices and use that money to build infrastructure to correct the failure. Possibilities include public transportation, ride-sharing, light rail, buses, more lanes, HOV lanes, etc.

Fall 2008

2008-03-30T17:23:00.004-05:00

I have this bad habit of looking through the course catalog at University of Illinois. It's a bad habit because sometimes I'm looking at the classes for next semester instead of doing the homework I have due the next day. I'm so glad that I'm at a large university that has so many opportunities for me and that there are plenty of courses to span my interests. My problem is not that I'm clueless with what I want to study. Rather that there's only 24 hours in a day and I can only do so much. If I had it my way, I'd have a degree in Economics and Transportation Engineering and minor in Urban Planning and Geography. But there's no way I can do all of that!

So what do I do? I scale it down. I know for sure that I want to major in Economics. I like applied math, and I enjoy mathematically modeling society. (Unlimited wants with limited number of resources) I'm going to pursue the transportation engineering as much as I want to with the classes I want to take. I don't need the degree in engineering. If I wanted that degree, I would have to take chemistry, more physics, more math, environmental engineering, etc. So I'm going to only take the "fun" engineering classes. I'm going to tryout Urban Planning next semester. I know a little about the subject but hopefully it will complement my interests in urban economics. I also expect geography to compliment my interest in regional/urban economics.

Jeff Wear was visiting for the weekend from Stanford, and he showed Dan and I mind-mapping software. So naturally we had to map our minds! So here's the gist of what my economics, and "imaginary minor" mean:

So what's the run down of Fall 2008?

GEOG 205 Business (Location Decisions)

I'm in engineering decision making classes, and I enjoy it so I'll continue with the decision classes. I might learn something about regional market analysis.

MUS 191 (Bassoon Studio)

Bassoon performance and reed making! What could be better?

ECON 303 (Macroeconomic Theory)

The next class I have to take for Economics. It should be more math based than the last time I went through Macroeconomics

UP 101 (Intro to Urban Planning)

This class is in the same room I took Architecture 101. The department is in the same college as Architecture. The odds are against me. I might enjoy this class and decide to minor in Urban Planning. I might not.

CEE 202 (Engineering Risk Analysis)

I liked Economic Engineering Systems so I'll continue on this course track.

TAM 251 (Solid Mechanics)

Physics of bending, and flexing. Should be more fun than statics. In the sense that just about anything is more fun than 8am statics!

MUS 133 (World Music)

I need a literature/arts credit since playing bassoon doesn't count towards general education requirements. Friends are taking this class for a non-western credit so I might as well join them. Besides I like music!!

???Orchestra???

we'll see!

This puts me at 20 hours of classes. Orchestra might bump me up to 21 hours. If it becomes a problem, I'll just drop MUS 133, GEOG 205, or UP 101.

UPDATE: GEOG 205 has been put on hold. I'm currently planning only taking 18 hours. 6 of which would be music classes. It's warm and sunny in champaign in the fall. No sense spending all of it indoors...I mean ONLY 18 hours.

More Politics : (

2008-03-18T11:33:00.002-05:00

So according to the Obama campaign cheat-sheet, the only upset has been Maine since February 5th. So assuming their excellence for predicting American democracy continues, at the end of June, the results will not be all that different then they are today. That's a lot of money and infighting democrats.

What's a Hillary Clinton to do? Win the popular vote of course! Can she do it? It's a possibility. She can't win the most pledge delegates and states won. So her way to victory is to say that she won the popular vote and important swing states such as Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio and Michigan (2 of those currently don't count technically).

Unfortunately March has showed us a rather nasty trend. Obama is no longer winning the republican vote. In Ohio, Texas, and Mississippi, more republicans are voting for Hillary than they were in February. Republicans just love Hillary Clinton? Right? Maybe it has to do with Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk show hosts telling their constituents to go vote for Hillary and stall the democratic primary season.

Worst case scenario: Obama has the most pledged delegates by about 100-125. Hillary has the popular vote. Except that the margin of victory within the popular vote is wihin the the new post-February republican trend. Imagine if Rush Limbaugh and company choose the Democratic nominee? That'll be a problem come convention time.

The Oldest Profession

2008-03-12T21:35:00.002-05:00

I'm very curious now to get the next Freakonomics. When Steven Levitt came to U of I, he told his about his story of having a call girl teach is class at U Chicago. Well in light of the Elliot Spitzer scandal, the Freakonomics gang posted an interview with their "subject". It's worth reading and kinda of interesting. Once again I'm surprised at the stereotypes that I have.

Anyway I have Steven Levitt's Autograph!

Update on Florida and Michigan

2008-03-12T15:23:00.002-05:00

It seems that the current plan for Florida is to have a mail in primary. I'm not against it the concept. Most Economists believe that mail in voting produces a smaller turnout than actually voting. The benefit of going to the polls is that you display to your neighbors that you are doing your civic duty. As long as Florida can make the case that they can do it accurately that's fine. If the Democratic National Committee deems it valid that's fine. Who pays for it? Hopefully, Florida soft money could pay for it. Campaigns should never have to pay for their own elections. The phrase "foxes guarding the hen house" comes to mind. I think that Hillary's 50/50 offer towards the Obama campaign is shear political tricks. The campaigns need to worry about their message, and the contests at hand. The logistics of elections need to be solved by the party and the states in questions. The campaigns clearly have a biased opinion and should be kept out of the solution process as much as possible.

I'm a fan of what the republicans did with respect to Florida and Michigan. They halved the delegates as punishment. I feel that the Florida and Michigan primaries should be halved. In school, you mess up an assignment, you can often negotiate to turn it in later for half credit. Same policy should be applied to Florida and Michigan. You break the rules, you suffer the consequences on the 2nd go around. Florida and Michigan violated the rules. Now they might be financial compensated to re-do the vote and even matter more to the nomination process than they would before. What does this message say to states next time around? Push your primary up, get paid to do a re-vote, and be more important to the process than ever. We're a nation of laws and rules for a reason.

The Fun of Music

2008-03-11T00:11:00.002-05:00

The Really Terrible Amateur Orchestra

There's nothing like brutal honesty and the sheer joy of playing music for what it is. Music is fun end of story!

Florida & Michigan

2008-03-10T00:02:00.003-05:00

Misrepresentation in Florida and Michigan Democrats.

Discount those contest because they violated the rules willingly. State democratic officials voted to move those primaries forward. We're a country of rules and laws.
Hold caucuses which cost money.
Hole primaries that cost even more money
Seat the delegates 50/50 such that those races don't effect the overall outcome of the election.

I guess my greatest fear is that democrats raise the $40 million to correct a mistake that should have made. A mistake that should have been taken care of 6 months ago. To not have foreseen this possibility is just poor judgment on the DNC's. Worst case senerio: Hillary wins Florida 54-46 and Obama wins Michigan 56-44 and thus Hillary nets only about 5-10 delegates. That's alot of money to slightly change the delegate lead.

Citizen Kane

2008-03-07T23:21:00.003-06:00

When I went home 2 weeks ago, my dad gave me a copy of "Citizen Kane". I finally got around to watching it. Supposedly it is the greatest film ever made. It's always on the top of AFI's 100 greatest films. Unfortunately, I don't think that this film is timeless. This film was ground breaking in terms of cinematography and special effects. This movie is one of those one man show epics. I good modern equivalent would be "The Aviator". Orson Welles does a great job portraying the life of Charlie Foster Kane. I though it was good tale of fthe all from idealism to power craving in terms of a newspaper tycoon. The movie begins with Kane muttering the word "Rosebud" and dropping a snow-globe. The rest of the movie is told by interviewees of reporters desperate to find out what "Rosebud" meant. Guessing what Rosebud means is impossible since it is not revealed until the end. However if you know that this movie is referenced in pop-culture all the time, it's not too difficult.

I also recognize that much of the film is lost if you aren't familiar with the historical New York newspaper tycoons. I am glad that I choose to watch this movie myself rather than have it be forced down me. It's not the greatest movie of all time, but I could see why people think so.

Junior Super Tuesday

2008-03-04T23:38:00.004-06:00

So as of 11:40 Central Time:

Clinton probably nets 3 in Rhodes Island
Obama nets 3 in vermont cancling out the smaller states.
Clinton nets 5-9 in Ohio. (I'm kinda of sad to see that this race wasn't as close as the polls would seem)
Obama could net Hilliary's Ohio lead but loose the popular vote slightly.

Texas Caucus results will come out later in the week.

Hillary Clinton finally has a winning night after loosing 11 straight. I appreciate that Barack Obama congratulated Clinton in his concession speech versus doing his stump in front of national ad. Ever since February 5th, Hillary Clinton has not publicly congratulated Barack Obama. Manners matter. How can we expect our leaders to work navigate through murky foreign affairs without being polite?

I'm troubled with the results. It seems that the Clinton campaign has been reinforced with the idea that these negative campaign tactics worked. I hate negative politics regardless who does it. I hated it when Blagoiavich(sp?) did it and I hate it when Clinton does it.

Obama and Clinton have different view points on where their fights are. Hillary feels that her current task at hand is to take down Obama and heal the damage done later. Obama feels that his fight is with Campaign and that he should stay out of the fray.

Everyone should stop talking about momentum. It's entirely meaningless. Candidates are winning some states and losing others. We're used to seeing a Candidate winning Iowa, New Hampshire and then being catapulted into the nomination. The term is essentially archaic when it comes to trying to predict who's going to win the next election. So far, the only reliable source is the leaked Obama campaign projections. Polls are all over the place, and the pundits are just filling air time. (Kudos to the statisticians in there)

The prospect of taking this to the convention is quite frightening. On one hand, the democrats receive free press coverage of the campaign. Democrats finally proved that they can raise big money quickly. Spending all the resources to fight each other seems self-destructive. Also, only having 2 months to go against McCain does not seem like enough time to run a National election.

Anyway as Economics major I would like to point that Barack Obama has a team of high caliber economists from the University of Chicago on his campaign while Hillary's economic advisers aren't even Economists. Unless you count Paul Krugman who hasn't endorse either candidate and is eagerly awaiting the end of democratic in-fighting but sides with Clinton more often than not.

For those who majored in math and not miracles here are a few links:

Delegate Calculator
The Powerful Prediction Machine of the Obama campaign that has predicted everything pretty damn well since super Tuesday except that Obama would own in the Main Caucus.

Yellow Plates

2008-02-29T01:26:00.002-06:00

The state of Washington is considering putting yellow license plates on DUI offenders' cars. This would seem like a good idea at first. Other drivers on the road would be able to identify a potential hazardous driver and drive more safely. Police would be able to spot multi-DUI offenders. DUI kills around 20,00o people a year.

I however am not sure about this law. How much more debt to society do these people have to pay? Do we live in the stone ages, where we have public stoning? How would it feel for a kid to be dropped off at school and have his peers instantly know that his father has had a DUI? Wouldn't cops be more inclined to pull over cars with yellow license plates for other offenses? Is public humiliation cruel and unusual punishment? Perhaps the state of Washington is asking for the law of intended consequences.

Why DUIs? Why sex-offenders? (More on that later) . Why not just make a law saying that all ex-murders wear a shirt that says "I killed 3 people, served 20 years in prison, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt." Perhaps that's a bit a extreme. But why should we punish people more after they served their debt.

Our government seems to do a better job tracking sex-offenders than terrorists. Ex-offenders are second class citizens. They are restricted to live outside a school radius even though that there is no evidence that proximately to a school and #of child offenses are correlated. These people have trouble getting jobs. The biggest problem that the label Sex-Offender can cover a broad range of sin and perhaps the treatment these people receive isn't just. Point being is that these people are often treated worse than criminals after prison.

Evil People

2008-02-25T23:48:00.002-06:00

English teachers hate it when we deal in stereotypes. I however disagree. I believe that stereotypes are the brain's natural way on labeling and classifying data. Unfortunately sometimes these classifications are quite nasty. Economists are often stereotyped as overly, objective, cynical, cold, and even evil. This seems a little bit unfair for an economics student. I wouldn't describe myself like that. However, this stereotype does seem to fit when the underlying prinicple of economics is assumed to be: "People are greedy and only act out of self interest". I'm a fan of this definition: "Economics is the study of allocating a limited amount of resources to an unlimited amount of wants". That doesn't sound so bad. Mathematically modeling human behavior isn't such a bad thing.

Either way, I don't appreciate books like this:Economists come in different breed. Most are always pro-market. Some are laissez-faire. Some believe in planned economies. Some believe in monetary policy. Some believe that the government doesn't have control of the economy at all. However there is one unifying principle of economists and all science. They want data. The Bush administrating is cutting the $6 million Time Use Survey. This is a treasure trove of data that shows annually how 14,000+ Americans are spending their time. http://www.saveatus.org/

Delegates

2008-02-21T00:33:00.002-06:00

So Obama goes 10-0 since February 5th. Wisconsin was his smallest margin of the 10 states...17 points. According to MSNBC, Hillary Clinton would have to win about 58% of the remaining pledge delegates to match Obama's pledged delegate lead. However, if you give delegates to Obama for states he's likely to win such as Oregon, South Dakota, Montana, North Carolina, she has to win 65% of the remaining delegates. On-top of the winning his winning streak, Obama has net about 20 superdelegates since Feb. 5 and Hillary has actually lost about 3.

Recently there's been delegate debate between the two campaigns. Obama is advocating that it would be problematic if the superdelegates override a canidate that had won the most pledged delegates, states, and votes. He also suggest that superdelegates vote the way their respected region voted. Granted he would technically loose the votes of John Kerry and Edward Kennedy. However overall he would gain, and it's not like he would loose their vocal support. Hillary Clinton points out to the DNC rules saying that superdelegates could vote anyway they want to. At her recently launched propaganda site, the Clinton campaign charges Obama of trying to change the rules of the DNC nominating process. This attack is 99.99% false. Obama isn't the one trying to change the rules. He is merely suggestion that super delegates vote the way the people the vote.

Hillary Clinton on the other hand is the one out to change the rules. The primaries in Michigan and Florida were punished by the DNC for moving their primaries past Feb 5, and were stripped of all their delegates. The democrats made an agreement to not campaign in Michigan and Florida. Hillary won Michigan against the legions of uncommitted voters, and managed a majority of 55%. Barack Obama and John Edwards removed their names from the ballot to appease the DNC. Hillary conveniently missed the deadline. Many of Edward's and Obama's supporters deciding to vote uncommited to show support for their respected canidate. For Florida, all three names were on the ballot where Clinton won 50% against Obama's 33% and Edward's 14%.

Roger Simon reported in his blog at www.politico.com that the Hillary campaign could go after PLEDGED delegates. In reality, pledged delegates don't have to vote for who they're pledged for.

My take:

The Decision to overturn the DNC's decision should have been made at least 3 months prior to when those elections take place. It is plain naivety to not realize that the democratic party was disenfranchising those voters. Michigan should not count with the current results. It is impossible to tell which uncommitted voters voted for Obama and which for Edwards. Florida should not count with the current status because voters were told their votes wouldn't count so why bother voting.

There are plenty of potential solutions. One is to apply the national popular vote to allocating those delegates. Thus, representing those states at the convention will not change the balance of the primary results. Another possible solution is to hold caucuses in those states as a do-over. Another solution is too ignore the whole delegate process and decide the decision completely on the national popular vote!

The Colbert Report - Interview With Philip Zimbardo

2008-02-12T22:53:00.003-06:00

Phillip Zimbardo, the creepy guy from AP Psych videos, is owned in Christian Mythology by Stephen Colbert.

He deserved it too. The Stanford Prison experiment was so poorly designed. He was actively engaged in the experiment as "The Warden." For all we know, he was pushing the kids down this direction. His experiment is the epitome of poorly designed psychology experiments. This experiment was unethical, and the environment was not controlled.

"I teach Sunday School...."

Update: Apparently, the link is broken : ( hopefully this one works. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z4PuNpXbSg

Good Bye Ron Paul

2008-02-10T21:58:00.000-06:00

Ron Paul announced today that he was no longer going to be actively campaigning for President of United States. He after all has to worry about his congressional district and the math for winning republican nomination just doesn't work out. (Mike Huckabee doesn't believe in math but believes in miracles)
I'm sad to see him drop out. I personally felt that Ron Paul's message is worth listening to. Ron Paul was the only true fiscal conservative running. I felt that Ron Paul's rhetoric was at a higher level than traditional campaigns. He seriously understood economic policy and the Austrian School of Economics. He was not spitting back party rhetoric or headlines. Ron Paul ran on a non-interventionist foreign policy. Ron Paul knows his U.S. history, and had the most experience out of anyone running. The congressman stands for what the constitution says not what it could say. Ron Paul recognized that our problem starts with the $. We need a sound US$, a balanced budget, to stop burrowing from China, and bring our troops home. Ron Paul was definitely for every right described in the constiution. He is against the patriot act and surveillance programs as much as he is against gun legislation. He's pro-life and wants to make abortion a state issue. He is also against capital punishment. He advocates for peace and en end to the Iraq war. He simply was pro-human life everywhere and anti-death. This kind of political consistency is almost unheard of.

I seriously hope that Ron Paul is the future of Political campaigns. Ron Paul managed to get many people enthusiastic about his message. People ran their own political ads on YouTube, and did their own fundraising. Everything was word of mouth. Ron Paul was the true grassroots campaign. How awesome was it to have public financed blimp fly up the east coast? I laughed every time I saw that Ron Paul had won the internet polls on who won the debates.

I couldn't bring myself to get on board the Ron Paul Revolution. I couldn't see myself cutting government programs from the Department of Energy , to the Department of Education, even the FED. As an Econ Student, I believe that monetary policy is x10 more efficient than fiscal policy. Maybe if Obama wasn't running I would have been on board the revolution. I felt I helped in a small way simply by telling people to listen to what he had to say.

Happy 100th!

2008-02-08T18:51:00.001-06:00

Today would have been my grandfather's 100th birthday. I always marvel at what my grandfather accomplished. I'm wondering what my grandfather would think of the person who I am today? I'm not on my way to becoming a doctor, nor a professional bassoon player. I don't think he would have cared. I'm sure that my grandfather would be happy with the choices that I've made. Somehow though, I pretty sure that he would have predicted that I would not stay in Architecture. My grandfather intrinsically knew how to read people.

Usually writing about my grandfather comes easily. However, today I feel a little overwhelmed. I always thought my grandfather would live to be 100. I always remember the adoration I had for grandfather. Whether it was his stories or playing bassoon, I loved every minute of it.

I don't seem to be able to get my thoughts togethter...so Happy 100th Birthday Pop!

Chimps: The New Traders:

2008-02-06T00:34:00.001-06:00

In a study done by Georgia State and UCLA, researchers pondered the question: Can Chimpanzees trade commodities. You know, give the chimp a funny colored suit and teach him crazy hand gestures. And when a storm hits, the chimp goes crazy over corn! Well no. Bartering for goods is considered the most basic form of an economy. These chimps were trained to trade grapes for apple slices. This behavior had to be taught but once taught they were willing to engage. More often then not, the chimps were content with what they were given. Chimps don't have quite the sense of property rights, and ownerships principals. Also, Chimpanzees aren't bound by the social norms when it comes to be making deals. The chimps don't mimic humans completely in this regard.

Maybe one day they'll be chimps in the Chicago Board of Trade.

Here's the link:

Lobbyists

2008-02-05T00:26:00.000-06:00

Lobbyists has become a loaded term. Many democrats and a few republicans are out pointing fingers that so and so is more entrenched with the lobbyists. Small special interest groups and large corporations are controlling the U.S. government instead of the American people. At this moment in time, it is not reasonable to accuse candidates taking more donations from special interest groups than another. Frankly, not all of the candidates have fully disclosed who exactly is financing their campaigns. The best source on the issue that I found is Bloomberg/Yahoo news which currently reports that Hillary has more lobbyists than anyone. Either way, lobbyists are part of the current system for all campaigns.

Another loaded term is pharmaceuticals. The drug companies are not evil despite their high prices. We have high prices because most of the R&D spending in the world takes place in the United States. Unfortunately, this results in U.S. citizens subsidizing the rest of the world's health care programs. The simple nature of R&D spending on drugs is huge. They take years to produce and are often fail. Most of these people are working to help Americans everywhere.

Corporations are not evil. They provide jobs to thousands of Americans and are some of the biggest suppliers of health insurance and technological innovation. Wal-Mart has providing savings on par with government welfare programs.

As far as the experience argument goes: We have a history lately of putting state governors to the White House. This isn't such a bad idea since many of the federal agencies exist at the state level. State governements don't have the perk to run a deficit and printing money like the federal government. It's assumed that governors know how to be fiscally responsible. Foreign Policy experience does not mean anything anymore because we have no credibility on foreign policy since Vietnam. It doesn't make sense what we do. Sometimes we support democracies, sometimes we support "nice" dictators. Sometimes we supported people who hate soviets. Maybe we support some groups because of their oil. (I seriously hope not) We invade countries that aid terrorists and countries that don't. We invade Iraq to remove a ruthless dictator and not darfur. We have military basses in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Europe, and we are peace with all these countries.

I would love to be a non-interventionist. I like the idea that we mind our own business and concentrate on our problems before the problems above. However, I'm also torn with the acknowledgment that pain, injustice, and violation of basic human rights happen all over the world. The holocaust happened on our watch. Roughly 20% of the world lives below $1/day. Poverty kills. Dictators kill. AIDS kill. Nuclear Bombs kill. Cancer kills. Car Accidents kill. All of these atrocities happen and the U.S. government does have the power to stop them. These are all world problems and should be solved by the world.

U.S. foreign policy is a joke until we have a doctrine that clearly defines what we do and why we do it.

The Future

2008-01-31T22:47:00.001-06:00

Dealing with digital age, exponential growth and increasing competition will be the challenges of the 21st century. Terrorism, and the economy aren't the center point but merely components of the new world. Education, Energy, Science, Water, and Competition are our issues.

The St. Charles Air Line

2008-01-29T21:29:00.001-06:00

This is almost the view from the train from Champaign overlooking the south entrance to Union Station in Chicago. (This is actually the view from Roosevelt Road from Google-Maps which is under a 1/4 mile north of the railroad overpass) The real question is why would a train heading towards Union Station be going west at this point? Passenger trains from Carbondale, and Canadian National come into Chicago right next to the Metra Electric corridor. These tracks lead straight into Millennium Station. Obviously, there can't be 3 Amtrak trains in a Metra only terminal??? These trains are diverted to Union Station via the St. Charles Air Line. This is surprisingly not an airline but rather a two mile stretch of elevated track from McCormick Place to the Halsted Metra station. The Amtrak trains from Carbondale traverse west through the South Loop, and continue to go over the Chicago river, pass Union Station, under Dan Ryan, and to the Metra Halsted station. Once the train is off the St. Charles Air Line, it is facing the wrong way to go to Union Station! No problem, it simply backs into the station.

Rerouting from the Metra Electric line to Union Station currently adds 15-30 minutes on average to the trip. Many freight trains use the route, and the track is mediocre condition forcing lower speeds. I have been on a train that has been stuck above the train yard looking into Union Station for 30 minutes! This view can get old real fast. We were waiting for "track clearance" and there was "a slow freight train ahead". I personally wish that the trains simply pulled into Millennium Station but apparently this isn't an option. Millennium Station supposedly can't handle diesel locomotives and there's no Amtrak infrastructure there.

The bizarre routing of trains isn't the current problem. Mayor Daley is eager to develop the land that the St. Charles Air Line occupies. The owner of that stretch of track, Canadian National, is also interested in selling that property and bypass down town Chicago using an alternate route, the EJ&E line. The desire to abandon the St. Charles Airline could mean the end of passenger trains to Champaign, Carbondale, and New Orleans. I wouldn't panic. There's a lot of red tape to go through, and there is a wonderful solution to the problem. Rather than rerouting Amtrak trains through the St. Charles Air Line, trains could be rerouted into Union Station by another way. Currently Amtrak trains go under the Norfolk Mainline atGrand Crossing. The Norfolk Mainline goes directly to Union Station, and are well maintained with higher speed limits than the current route. A multi-level connection would have to be built. However the right-of-way already exist! If this connection is built, it could officially shave 20 minutes off the current trip, but if you add in the extra delays, this could actually save 40 minutes!

The red is the current route and the blue would be the route with the connection at Grand Crossing. The blue route is only 2 miles shorter but could shave 20 minutes off the trip down south.

Grand Crossing with the old and new proposed routes

Although there's the possibility that down south service could be cut. I think the C&N abandoning the St. Charles Air Line will be the incentive to build the connection at Grand Crossing. The right of way is there and the support is there. The Carbondale trains have experienced rapid growth, and Amtrak isn't going to abandon it's success story. Various groups are lobbying for the reroute, such as the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, The Champaign City Council, The Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce, The National Association of Railroad Passengers, and other organizations. Most likely, these changes will take a few years to complete, so now's the time to start pushing Amtrak, and the Illinois Department of Transportation for the Grand Crossing connection.

The Federal Surface Transportation Board will make a decision by April 25th on the issue and it will go into affect 30 days after that.

More Info:

Colbert Report

2008-01-24T22:48:00.000-06:00

Tuesday night, I was expecting Stephen Colbert to put on hilarious show following the mud slinging democratic debate. I was however surprised. Colbert had very little to say about the debate. He had a psychologist on the show weighing in on the IQtest. A rather interesting subject on how we measure intelligence. Although not necessarily the medium to turn for that sort of thing, but it was funny. Colbert was determine to prove that Abe Lincoln would be considered retarded by current IQ tests.

Colbert than took the show to a different direction. Colbert opened with a short documentary about the South Carolina Hospital workers strike in 1969. Black nurses went on strike advocating for union recognition and higher pay. The strike lasted 100+ days and what finnaly ended was some clever negotiations behind the scenes from the less iconic leaders of the strike. Stephen Colbert's father was instrumental in getting the hospital to come to terms with civil rights leader Andre Young.

Stephen ended the documentary and introduced his guest...Andrew Young! It was a facinating interview. Ambassador Young explained that the key to ending strikes was to get both sides to feel like they won and do it behind the scenes. People just become to heated and close minded to listen to reason. He and Stephen talked about the writer's strike as well. Even Stephen Colbert couldn't hold his character when the disscussion turned to Young's view on Stephen Colbert's father. For the conclusion, simply watch it below!

Other Parts of the Show:

Republican Debate/Economic Adviser

2008-01-24T20:55:00.000-06:00

I'm currently watching the Republican debate on MSNBC in Florida. I'm honestly jealous of the republicans. Obama's right, they are the party of ideas. There's diversity in their ideas and so far less bickering. The republicans seem to do a much better job of covering more material in the debate. They have talked much more about China, the fair tax, and basic infrastructure. I think it's important to listen to what other have to say and respect their ideas. Republicans are not evil and they're not out to ruin America. My favorite moment of the debate is when Ron Paul asked whether John McCain would maintain financial groups under Bush that aren't being transparent with their workings. This was after John McCain defending a quote of his that he didn't know much about Economics. He claimed that he didn't say it...but he did. Anyway McCain could barely answer the question and just cited that he knew good people. After watching McCain dodge the question I remembered this quote from his economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin:

"Let’s be honest. The first thing that the economics adviser brings to any campaign staff is a hip coolness and bling. Economists want to be valued for their minds and respected for their command of policy proposals and impacts, but it just doesn’t work that way. A typical staff attracts only extremely attractive twenty-somethings; wealthy and accomplished advisers; proficient, media-savvy managers; and suave, fast-talking fundraisers so attention almost immediately gravitates to the economists. It’s a burden.

The other big contribution to the campaign is pithy, quick-response messaging. Suppose you are asked the question: “Why does your candidate favor lower marginal tax rates?” Nothing cements your status like, “His review of the labor supply literature –- focusing on the joint labor supply model of married couples –- suggests that the substitution effects (which are best identified using tax-based natural experiments) are far larger than the income effects, so that in addition to the welfare (in the utilitarian sense) gains from lower tax-based distortions we are likely to see expansions of labor supply in the dimensions of effort, hours, participation and occupational choice.” Let’s see the press people match that."

If only politicians talked like that

Sam v Architecture

2008-01-24T00:56:00.000-06:00

It's Over!

Round 1: I sign up to take 18 hours of classes for the Spring 2008 semester. I still wanted to take Bassoon lessons which would be another 2 hours. I checked the Architecture policy on overrides and it told me to send in an electronic application for overload permission.

Round 2: My overload was denied over concern that I was transferring into Engineering without telling anyone based off of my math classes.

Round 3: I go into to ARCH 110 to set the record straight. I told my academic adviser that I wasn't sure if I was going to stick with Architecture. I told him that I talked with the Economics department and that I didn't have to make a decision until Fall 2008. However, he told me to talk with the Dean to see about getting the overload override.

Round 4: The Architecture dean did not give me the override to take bassoon lessons. He felt that I had to prove myself as a strong academic student. He wouldn't let me use my AP scores at proof. The decision was postponed until after my 1st semester grades came in. It was the first time in my life that school authority conflicted with my bassoon playing. I'm sure they just wanted to know that I could manage my time. But how many rock climbing, sailing, swing dancing, swimming, bassooning architects are there? Just me! (Actually as I write this I seriously consider myself an Economics major. I admit I tell people that I'm still an Architecture depending on the situation)

Round 5: My grades came in! All good! I popped an email towards The Dean....no response

Round 6: I throw an email towards my academic advisor explaining the situation and that The Dean hasn't given me a response back.

Round 7: Yea, I got my override! Adviser went to bat for me! Oh wait....I only have an override for 19 hours instead of 20. :(

Round 8: I get a nasty letter in mail saying that I was in a transition semester saying that I wasn't on track for pursuing my architecture degree. I”d be drop from the college of fine and applied arts if I didn't transfer into another college within the university. I was confused and somewhat frightened. As far as I knew, there were no required Architecture classes for 2^nd semester freshman year.

Round 9: I go into see The Dean. I set him straight! I managed to get off the transition semester and I explained that I needed another hour for Bassoon. The Dean apologized for the letter and told me he'd get on fixing the override.

Round 10: I registered for MUS 191! Much to my surprise, I have a 22 hour allowance! Whatever!

This game is over...or is it? Transferring into Econ at some point?

Killer Bunnies!

2008-01-19T23:28:00.000-06:00

Shit! Another game of Killer Bunnies and I had the winning carrot! I was doing well! I had 8 carrots out of the 20 and there were only 4 people playing! So the odds were on my side! However, towards the end of the game, my 3 bunnies were killed by the hornet jet, the Ebola virus, and starvation simultaneously. I needed a bunny to win the game so so I used the magic fountain. I rolled a 4 and revived a bunny. However one of my opponents threw down a card that made me redo my turn nulling my 4. S I rolled again and got 6. I did not have a bunny when the game ended. When the number of the magic carrot was revealed, I had the winning carrot, #16. I did not win since I did not have a bunny. Therefore who ever had the most money won. Unfortunately, that was Lisa. That's the second time in a row that I had the magic carrot and lost the game to Lisa.

I guess I shouldn't complain, I played an aggressive game. Killer Bunnies is a fun game and I shouldn't be down on myself for loosing. I'm mostly angry that it's happen to me twice! Lately I just feel that my luck hasn't been that great. : (

UPDATE: I won yesterday guessing the magic carrot for the third time running! So I'm over my loosing streak!

2nd Place

2008-01-19T20:25:00.001-06:00

Ron Paul gets 2nd place in Nevada caucus! Congratulations congressman Paul and getting your message out!

Meanwhile Barack Obama takes 2nd on the democrat side. Clinton beats him by a delegate making Obama and Hillary tied as the front runners. With luck Obama will win South Carolina which has more delegates!

Obama on Regan:

Regan is not the devil and Bill Clinton isn't Jesus. It's perfectly okay to respect the optimism that a republican president brought. A republican could feel uplifted by JFK saying we're putting a man on the moon. The world isn't black and white. Stop letting republicans and democrats being absolutists.
This random blog that I read explains the controversy elegantly.

Over at Freakonomics they made the observation that besides Mayor Gilliani, nobody is talking about crime? Has crime rates fallen enough that it is no longer an issue? The democrats said last Tuesday that gun-control is no longer a major platform of the party. Maybe most people believe that crime is a city issue and not a federal issue. Maybe we're too concerned about terrorism to think about crime. Either way it's a non issue apparently.

Phrases I don't want to hear:

Change! (it's old)
Ready to Lead (what does that mean? experience? Who would run for president if they didnn't think they were up to the challenge?)
I don't know what he/she stand for (These candidates write books, and have extensive websites. Don't expect to know the issues by listening to 30 second sound bites on CNN or watching the debates. Three minutes isn't always enough to explain complicated policies. There's also unfilitered speeches such as youtube and C-SPAN

All Aboard the Train to Depaul: The Sogin Take

2008-01-14T20:15:00.000-06:00

Over at “Wondering with Purpose”, Mr. Bergren has composed a rather elegant post about the infamous exodus to DePaul. This is the Sogin side of that story

At the start of last week, most people were back to school starting 2^nd semester. University of Illinois was still on break for another week. It could get boring real fast. I called Dan Monday night asking if he'd be game for invading DePaul. He said that he would be down for it. I recommended taking the train since parking at DePaul during the week isn't all that easy. Oddly enough, the Highland Park train and the Park Ridge train both stop at Clyborn!

Dan reached Clyborn a little bit earlier than I did. Apparently it was quite intriguing for him since he has a shnazzy post completely devoted to the Clyborn experience. When my train arrived, I couldn't find Dan. I called him via cell phone. Like usual, Dan finds me immediately as soon as I call him. We started trekking our way over to DePaul in the rain. I must have done that walk from the Clyborn Metra station to DePaul numerous times. The most memorable was rollerblading from DePaul to the Metra station carrying a backpack and an overstuffed duffel bag.

The current plan was for me and Dan to meet up with Patrick Stevens and Sasha Johnson. Patrick and I have been friends since 2 years old. Dan and Patrick have both heard stories about each other through me. I somewhat knew Sasha from swing dancing once at Willowbrook. Dan and Sasha have known each other since freshman year in high school and are currently married. Now Patrick Stevens had no clue who Sasha Johnson was. I came back from swing dancing one night and told Patrick that he should find Sasha Johnson and start a swing dancing club. Patrick would always respond by calling me crazy. But I was persistent.

“Patrick, find Sasha Johnson and start a swing dancing club”
“Swing dancing is gay”
“Your gay”
“Your mom's gay”
“Hey, you should swing dance”
“Whatever Sam”

I don't even want to count the number of times we've had this conversation. Oddly enough, Sasha had no clue that Patrick existed.

Over break, I went swing dancing with Geneva (The Girlfriend) and we meet up with the Main South group. So once again, I meet Sasha Johnson. I told her that I had a friend at DePaul who lived at Clifton.

“Clifton? I live at Clifton! What floor does he live on?” She said
“The Third”
“I live on the second”
“You've lived under Patrick Stevens this entire time?”

As Dan and I were walking to Clifton, I called Patrick to let him know we were coming...no response. I left a message and called 5 minutes later. I couldn't understand why he wasn't picking up. He knew Dan and I were coming. I call again, and a groggy voice answers. He said that he was sleeping and he'd come and get us. Dan and I chilled out in Patrick's room for a while. A Southie recognized Dan in the hallway and they hung out. Sasha eventually finished her classes and came to Patrick's room. We hung out for a while exchanging college stories. Not quite adventurous to eat DePaul dorm food, we went out to Clarke's. I ordered a milkshake and gyros. I'd like to think that I inspired Dan and Patrick to order chocolate milkshakes. Later, we walked around the DePaul campus and went to the ATM. Good times. We crashed in Sasha's dorm once Dan felt that he had an adequate amount of cash. We played numerous rounds of President/A-Hole. I colluded, and that's just slightly ileagal.

At around 9:15PM Dan and I called it quits and departed for Clyborn. We thought that we had just amount of time. But two blocks away from the station, I tell Dan that he has 2 minutes until his train leaves! We run as fast as we can towards Clyborn. Dan runs up the stairs towards the incomming train. Only that he was on the wrong platform. He dashes down the stairs and runs to the other side. I could not see if Dan had gotten on the train or not. My phone rings:

“Sam I made it”
“nice”

And that's the first tale of the Wandering Adventures of Sam & Dan. Be sure to check out Dan's more brief telling.

Energy News!!!

2008-01-14T13:15:00.000-06:00

China and wind power:
Currently, China is set to become the new leader in wind turbine production!China is set to produce 10 gigawattas of wind power per year by 2009 which would be over half of the current anual production. Currently there are about 90 gigawatts of power being produced cumulatively. China hasn't yet exported wind turbines yet to the rest of the world. In 2010, expect China to start undercutting the rest of the market. Wind power is the fastest growing part of energy sector and currently produces more power world wide than solar and biofuels. (Hydroelectric power is still going strong except we're just about maxed out in possibles damns)

China bans plastic bags!
Plastic bags aren't that recyclable despite what most people think. Paper bags aren't that recyclable either. USE YOUR OWN CLOTH BAGS! It's better for the environment and uses less energy. China is clearly taking drastic measures to prevent it from surpassing the United States as Lead Polluter. On the plus side, our cities have cleaner skies than China.

2007 has been a great year for wind power in the US

Hold Your Horses Corn Fans:
Yea, ethanol feul from corn sounds great! Right? Wrong! According to the swiss, biofeuls are not created equal. Some are more damaging to the environment than others. Burning Corn is not the friendly and would drive up food costs as an unintended side affect.

Magnets for Electric Cars
Iowa state has done some excellent work on extending the temperature range that magnets in electric motors can operate in. Electric motors are definitely in the future be that in 100% electric cards, feul cells, and plug-in hybrids. (I'm a big fan of the plug-in hybrids)

Ron Paul

2008-01-14T00:05:00.001-06:00

For those who don't know what the gist of Ron Paul is please check out this link. There's probably not going to be another person running for president who has been this rational. Even if you don't vote for Ron Paul. At least hear his message and question what the role of the US government should be. Are we advocating personal responsibility or overly protective government. What's our role in the big world. Are we provoking terrorism? Should we take a step back?

I'm still voting for Obama because I'd rather see Obama as the Democratic nominee and not Hillary. But listen to what Ron Paul has to say and think what you define for yourself what government should be.

Update on Newhampshire

2008-01-12T02:16:00.001-06:00

Okay, I was a little upset/surprised that Hillary beat Obama last tuesday despite all the polling. First off, I'd like to appologize, it's unfair to call New Hampshire voters racists. I believe the polls for the most part were right for the democratic side. Obama's and Edwards' numbers were dead on. Hillary managed to get an extra 10% points. What's going on is that there were many undecided voters going into Tuesday and there was the margin error of the polls. These two factors means that there's a chance that the statistics will change. So Hillary getting an extra 10% was a longshot and longshots happen. Anybody who has played poker knows that 1/13 odds do happen. I believe that demographics in New Hampshire favored the Clinton machine.

I do not believe that Hillary's real/fake "tears" last Monday was a major factor. I felt it was mostly over-analyzing by the media and over-exaggeration. I also didn't find that Howard Dean was not screaming in his "scream speech" in 2004. The main stream media has got to tone it down and learn how to recognize human emotion like the rest of us.

Fuzzy Math

2008-01-09T15:56:00.001-06:00

We can not deal with uncertainty. There’s an entire industry devoted to scientifically predicting the future. People want to know when the weather is going to turn south. We want to know what the stock market is going to do. We want to know future housing prices. We want to know the election results before they happen. We speculate. That’s just it. Maybe we over speculate. Senator Barack Obama has was leading Hillary Clinton in the polls as high as 13 points in some. Everyone agreed the New Hampshire would go Obama/McCain. The Iowa polls had the results just about dead on. The Republican side of the polls had it dead on. What’s interesting is what went wrong in Iowa. Could it be pure statistics and chance? The chance of Hillary winning was not favorable. I’m sure every poker players has experienced a hand where the odds are in your favor but just sometimes someone is lucky. On the other hand maybe there’s something more sinister than probability going on. Maybe New Hampshire voters are racist and are voting against what they are saying. In Steven Levitt’s “Freakonomics” he mentions that voters are more likely to say they’d vote for a black candidate on the phone to appear politically correct and vote something else. Or it’s simply voter demographics. There’s simply not that many black people in New Hampshire. Either way, the polls were wrong quite drastically.

Anyway Barack Obama’s speech following the New Hampshire is one of his best. He’s an excellent orator and I truly recommend giving it a listen. Right now, we have an opportunity to vote for something truly different and inspirational. I think we have something special with Obama. It’s an opportunity we should not pass up. The second part of his speech is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qo5ZAyaZk8

Books of 2007

2008-01-07T00:01:00.000-06:00

Most people see me as a science fiction-fantasy epic person when it comes to books. This past year I felt that I diversified a little. Here's a list and some thoughts on some of the books that I read.

Deception Point
Devil in The White City
Freakonomics
Harry Potter 7
Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6
1984
Naked Economics
Red Storm Rising
Economics of Terrorism
Why the World is Flat

I decided to give Tom Clancy a shot. I picked up “Rainbow 6” which I assumed would cater to my interest in high tech soldiering. This book was repetitive, too long, and has poor characters. Everyone was the best at shooting their gun and taking down terrorist. There was no room for development. At the end of it all, the ultimate masterminds of the various attacks were corporate eco-terrorist. Overall it was a let down. I was in shock. How could such a famous author be so terrible. I was in denial. I gave him one more chance. Amazon.com reviews said that “Red Storm Rising” was good so I gave it a try. “Red Storm Rising” suffers again from weak characters. The book does a great job portraying a fictional war for oil between the US and the soviets. The plot was good, but that's all that could be said. I did not come away from the book feeling that I had a better understanding of the world or that I learned something. Tom Clancy=poor writer=action flicks. Unfortunately I haven't learned my lesson. I'm currently reading “The Bourne Identity” because I told myself I'd read the book before I saw the movie. So I'm still in the action flick mode.

I did a lot of readings about economics this year: “Freakonomics” by Steven Levitt, “The Economics of Terroism”, by Alan Krueger, “Naked Economics” by Charles Wheelan, and “Why the World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman. All are great reads, I would recommend them to anyone who is as crazy as I am. Freakonomics is probably the most interesting of the 4 and Steven Levitt is not your average economist. Levitt covers everything from cheating teachers, to crack dealing, to baby naming. “Naked Economics” gives a basic overview to basic economic terms without fancy statistics or charts. Friedman's books is a leftist view for free trade and the growing international competition we face. “The Economics of Terrorism” shows the micro and macro side to terrorism. Krueger says that the terrorist are coming from wealthy/middle class families and are Anti-America because of our foreign policy, not our freedoms and our way of life.

I read 1984 while I was in China. What a fascinating world George Orwell created! Newspeak, throwing away economic surplus through war, and the concept of infallible Big Brother. This is truly a classic. I reconomend to everyone. Great ideas, characters, and still holds true to this day.

I would state that I am sorry for the loss of Rober Jordan, author of “The Wheel of Time” fantasy epic. He said that he was 1 book away from finishing the 12 book epic. He said that he had the rest of the story planned out in his notes should the worst happen. Us fans, will eventually get a conclusion to his life's tale. I would not recommend “The Wheel of Time” books to anyone. But for your information. Books 1-3 are good. 4-8 are terrible. The second half of book 9 is on par with the first three. Book 10 is the worst thing I ever read. Book 11 was decent and a good turn around. I did not have a strong opinion about the prequel.

“A Song of Ice and Fire” is my favorite fantasy series of all time. Book 5 did not come out last year. George RR Martin said on his website that he's still working hard on it and we'll be the first to know when it's done. As long as he's working on the book, I'm okay. As a consumer, I know that I'll always prefer a high quality product to one that was rushed. Keep on writing GRRM!

Your Green #

2007-12-30T18:33:00.001-06:00

The United States Green Building Council has an elaborate check list for rating buildings on how “green” they are. There are three levels of LEED certification: basic, gold, platinum. Points are awarded to the building if they meet a certain criteria. Points are awarded for areas such as siting a building near a train station, using less energy, providing solar heating, use less water, clean power, etc. I however think that such a national system is terrible. A building in Seattle Washington should have a much easier time being certified than one in Phoenix Arizona. Phoenix is a high energy city, all water must be brought in and has very little green power sources. However Seattle Washington has a significant portion of its water supply come from hydroelectric power. Is conservation of water in Chicago equivalent to conserving water in Las Vegas? LEED offers a point for having bike racks and 1-3 points for on site energy sources. If 15% of the building occupants bike to work, that is significantly better for the environment then savings from 1 solar panel. Contrary, a bike rack could be build and not even used by the occupants.

Green is a lifestyle not a checklist. Perhaps rather than rating buildings, the government could rate people and companies. Are people using public transportation? Where are you getting your water and power from? Environmentally friendly ones? Quibbling over taxes at the moment is outrageous. The rich are taxed significantly more than the poor. We HAVE a progressive tax. Even George Bush couldn't defeat the progressive taxes. Perhaps there should be a green number attach to individuals and businesses that calculates their cost to society and the environment. This green number would mean tax credit. If people choose to live in high energy cities in the middle of the desert, they should pay the price.

State Rail

2007-12-27T23:46:00.000-06:00

Amtrak is an interesting entity. The federal government created the institution to “save” passenger rail. The railroad companies were getting fed up with carrying passengers. Routes were closing and service was degrading. Amtrak saved these routes from extinction. The real question today is whether passenger rail needs to be a federal monopoly? States such Wisconsin, California, Michigan, Illinois, and Michigan have become proponents for intra-city rail for distances under 500 miles. Illinois doubled service to Carbondale and St. Louis and started a new route to Quincy. The new routes have experienced 10% yearly increase in ridership.

On the federal end, routes spanning across the country are declining. The route between L.A. And New Orleans is so expensive per person, that Amtrak could save money by buying their passengers on that route an airline ticket. Many routes exist just because the existed 40 years ago. There has been little assessment on whether or not there's enough public demand for such routes. Amtrak simply does a poor job identifying strengths and weaknesses. If a route is stagnant or losing ridership and costing a lot of money, Adam Smith's invisible hand should be slapping it off the face of the Earth.

Going through the airport process will just about aways take at least four hours regardless where you are going. Therefore the true niche for passenger rail is for distances under 400 miles. That distance makes sense for States to figure out where to put rail routes. States should decide where the ridership is and create the route and have Amtrak run the route. However, states shouldn't be bearing the full expenses for new projects. Like highway construction and maintenance, the federal government should help states with financing their rail projects.

The Os

2007-12-11T23:13:00.001-06:00

Oprah just started campaigning for Barack Obama just three weeks before the Iowa Caucus. O & O are filling stadiums! I remember after the 2006 election was over, the speculation for potential 2008 presidential candidates began. Barack Obama's name was thrown around along with Hillary's, Al Gore, and among others. I however remember Barack Obama saying that he was unsure if he was going to run for President. He said he sill had plenty too do as the junior senator from Illinois. He was essentially too modest to feed the media. Oprah had Obama on her show and the Obama buzz takes off. In February, he announced his intent to run for president just under two years before the actual election. Obama has trailed Hillary for most of the year. I'd pick Obama over Hillary anyday. But what if it's Oprah who gives Obama that final push over Hillary. Has the American public handed another power over to Oprah. Oprah currently makes books bestsellers, starts trends, and is the undisputed queen daytime TV. Now she can apparently choose the presidential candidates of the United States. I just feel that People should think for themselves. Oprah is great don't get me wrong. I just wished that our political systems was based off ideas, not money, not parties, not competition, not character, not celebrities, and not stubbornness.

Tis The Season

2007-12-10T23:40:00.000-06:00

Applied economics is amazing. Seven Levitt is at it again with the economics of gift giving and gift cards.

Basically 19% of all money on gift cards is not used. When you buy you're $100 gift card, you might as well have handed $19 to Best Buy and handed $81 to your friend. Except that Cash is such a cold gift. Which is worse? Handing money over to retailers or you your friend? (Economists are cold people apparently) Supposedly $8 billion spent on gift cards will never be redeemed. This is surprisingly bigger than debt and credit card fraud. Anyway, supposedly this whole gift giving season is all a dead weight loss on the economy. Giving a gift to a child is always nice since not all children have the means to buy something that they want. But an adult? What makes a giver believe that he or she knows the receiver's utility and indifference curves better than the receiver? The ideal gift is something that the receiver didn't expect to enjoy or didn't the courage to get it himself. Naturally guessing is a rather inefficient way to make the receiver better off compared to handing them cash.

Economics aside. I'm all for gift-giving and altruism!

Bassooning and Hide and Go Seek

2007-12-10T22:51:00.001-06:00

The bassoon situation for me at school is pretty good for the most part. I'm taking lessons once a week and I'm practicing every day. I'm taking from a doctoral student who is the TA for the Bassoon studio. Since I've done more etudes than he has, he hasn't been pushing that side of my playing. Stu decided to tackle my musicality. We've spent more time on phrasing, micro-phrasing, and general dynamic issues. It can seem boring at times, but it is currently a weakness of playing. I don't mind the criticism. I can already hear the difference in my playing. My only complaint is that I'm not playing with other people. No chamber music, no band, and no orchestra. I've been in a band/orchestra for the past nine years. That's half my life! With luck though I'll be able to audition for orchestra sophomore year.

Now where do I practice? I'm in one of the smaller dormitories on campus. It's all guys (Boo!) and it's connected by a tunnel to the all girls dorm. In this tunnel there's a small practice room that nobody uses. Actually, I should say that nobody practices in the practice room. I have kicked out people doing homework and other suspicious activities. In this practice room, there's a piano, and three chairs. I figure that 5 flights of stairs for a practice room is significantly more convenient than 4 flights of stairs and a bus ride.

I currently don't have a Tupperware container for my reed-water. Solution: I use a coffee mug and soak my reeds before I practice. Now taking a coffee mug filled with water plus a bassoon down 5 flights of stairs is just slightly awkward. I've taken to leaving my coffee mug in the practice room. Now all that I have to do is hide a coffee mug in a 50sqft room. My first attempt was in the corner, and pushing one of the chairs into that corner. Well, it was found and put in the garbage can the next day. Where next? I tried under the piano. It was found there too and placed in the garbage. Someone must seriously hate my Ravinia Mug. Where to hide it next? I left it in the corner again assuming, that mug-hater wouldn't expect to have be in the same place again. (Yea, not the greatest logic) If I find it again in the garbage, I'm going to pull a ceiling tile out, and hide it there. I'm open to ideas.

The Netflix of Car Rental!

2007-12-07T14:27:00.000-06:00

Zipcar is a fascinating emerging internet business. This might be the best thing since Netflix. At the core, Zipcar is simply a car rental company. But this isn't your grandfather's car rental! This is the car rental of the future! Zipcar is revolutionizing the car rental industry. Everything non-related to driving is done online. No waiting in line and no forms to fill out. All that it takes is a simple reservation online, and the car is yours for that time period. Zipcar has many cars spread out over urban areas such as San Fransisco, Seattle, Chicago, New York and various other cities. You search for a car via a Google map interface. There could be a civic, a Ford Expedition, or a Prius in your neighborhood. Select your desired car and make the reservation. You are charged per hour or per day. You'll be charged a late fee if you don't bring the car back on time. Once you sign up online at Zipcar, they'll send you your member card in the mail. This card lets you into the Zipcar and pays for your gas! With Zipcar, gas and insurance are covered! Since Zipcar is in 12 major US cities it can act as your rental car too!

Zipcar's daily rate is significantly higher than standard rental car companies. However, you don't have to pay to leave the car with a full tank. Zipcar starts accepting drivers at 21 instead of 25. Zipcar wins on convenience with over a hundred cars scattered across the city and its online interface. Reservations can even be made using a mobile phone. What Zipcar truly offers is an alternative to owning an occasional use car. Zipcar says that one of their cars removes 20 cars off the road. While I'm sure this isn't entirely true probably because most people use Zipcar don't own a car. I personally see Zipcar as a form of privatized public transportation. Zipcar is definitely part of the solution to the US energy crisis. It helps those without cars and those who occasionally need an additional car. Beyond a doubt using a Zipcar is cheaper than owning a car if you aren't doing serious commuting.

I'm currently trying to convince my parents who have two kids off at college to sell the third car when I turn 21. Three cars for two people for 8 months out of the year is ridiculous. Even when my sister and I are home, it's a rare occasion for all 3 cars to be in use at the same time.

Your Grandpa's Trains!

2007-12-07T01:03:00.000-06:00

So my last post on Champaign trains was kinda of crazy. So I have a few more points to make. Amtrak messes with their schedule to give some time allowance for late trains. Actually in most cases the time allowance is not enough. So just looking at how late a train is doesn't quite tell you how fast the train is going. When you factor in the “schedule fate” the average speed of the trains is 49 mph over the 130 mile distance from the Champaign train station to Union station. Considering the technology that's out there 49 mph is LAME! 49 mph is how your grandpa drives! America doesn't need your grandpa's trains! It needs something fast and shnazzy. Actually I can't really say if the Midwest needs high speed rail rather that I would love to have high speed rail. Those trains in Europe, Japan, and China are pretty damn shnazzy!

Back to 49 mph trains between Champaign and Chicago. When I get a cheap fair for $11.50 or $15 I think that it is totally worth taking the train over paying for gas. However when you add more people to a car, it becomes worthwhile driving. On the other hand, I really enjoy the fact that I can plug into my laptop in on the train and watch a movie. The train also gives you the opportunity to meet someone completely random. Using a car cuts down on these chances at random friendship. Also if you hit Chicago traffic and average less than 49 mph it's still worth taking the train. I value the environment and the train is significantly more energy efficient than an automobile. Trains in general have a significantly lower social cost than airplanes or cars in terms of noise, pollution, and congestion. Please don't make your parents drive down and pick you up and drive back. That's an additional one-way trip that doesn't serve any purpose! The train is going to go to Chicago whether you use it or now. Take advantage of it! Don't hurt the environment just because you can't carry all that you need when you go home! With more people using the train from Champaign to Chicago, it will be easier to lobby for better service. Maybe we could eventually get to 80 mph trains or better! (that's the current plan)

By the way: For you impatient people the fastest trains between Champaign and Chicago are the Illini trains! The fastest is the 353 leaving Chicago at 4:05 PM. It averages 56.5mph!

Guide to Champaign Trains

2007-12-04T18:21:00.000-06:00

There are numerous ways to get from Chicago to Champaign. There are plenty of bus services and there's the train. Only a few buses go all the way up to Northbrook which would be the most convenient place for me. Most of the buses drop people off at suburban malls where public transportation is quite limited. So far I've always opted to take the train. Maybe it's my inner 5 year-old. Maybe I'm just supporting the United States passenger rail with hopes that one day it will be comparable to Europe, China, and Japan.

Where do I catch the train in Chicago?

In Chicago the train leaves from Union Station which can be accessed by the north entrance at Adams St. and Canal St. There's a west side entrance on Canal with curb side pick up/drop off. There might be a south entrance that I just don't know about. Union Station can also be accessed by the SE corner of Canal and Madison. At that entrance you'll go down the stairs and reach the north end of Union Station's North Concourse. Just keep walking south down the platform and you'll reach the main part of Union Station? As far as getting to Union Stations, there are numerous Metra routes. The El station on the loop is Quincy which is three blocks East of Union station. Just head West on Adams.

Where's the train station in Champaign?

The train station in Champaign is essentially at 1^st and University. It's a large building and the waiting room for the train is on the 2^nd floor.

When should I get to the train station in Chicago?

Amtrak's website says that they would like their passengers to be 30 minutes early before the train is scheduled to leave. In Chicago that's a fairly good time to shoot for in case something goes wrong in getting there. The train WILL leave on time from Chicago. They'll start boarding the train about 20 minutes before it leaves. So definitely get there early.

When should I get to the train station in Champaign?

Champaign is a completely different story. The train will most likely be late. How late is the question? It depends on the train.

The Saluki (10:15)

Averages at being 26 minutes late

70% chance that the train will be in by 11:45.

The Illini (6:45)

Averages at being 20 minutes late

76% chance that the train will be in by 7:15

Not to fret, the train makes up time ; ) So my personal recommendation is to check on line at www.amtrak.com to see if type in your train under “Train Status” and see if it's going to be late. Sometimes nothing will show up so try typing in a stop closer to Carbondale. Now realize that train might be averaging 26 minutes late, it's just an average. For the statistical people out there the standard deviation is 22.93. For you non-stats people, that means that the Train is pretty sporadic when it will arrive. Also keep in mind if you're cutting it close, you still have to pick up your ticket at the ticket window. My general experience is that the line gets rather long 10 minutes before the train is suppose to arrive. So check online if the train is going to be significantly late! If online the train is more than 30 minutes late I'll try to aim to be at the station by the time it was suppose to be in by.

Will my train be on-time?

Define on time? What the schedule says? 15 minutes late? 30 minutes late? The following is the percentages that trains will be in by that particular time.

Trains from Champaign to Chicago

Saluki (10:15)

On Time: 25%

15 min late: 47%

30 min late: 70%

45 min late: 87%.

Illini (6:45)

On Time: 33%

15 min late: 57%

30 min late: 79%

45 min late: 92%

Trains from Chicago to Champaign

Saluki (9:15)

On Time: 5%

15 min late: 19%

30 min late: 45%

45 min late: 74%

60 min late: 92%

This is generally is as late as you can go in order to make a 1:00 PM class

Illini (4:00)

5 min early: 6.5%
On Time: 16%
15 min late: 73%
30 min late: 99%

I didn't collect data on the New Orleans trains because those are often always charged full price. I have slightly more data for the Saluki trains than the Illini trains. My percentages were obtained using a normal distribution.

I get it, my train will be late will it make up any time?

When going from Champaign to Chicago trains average making up 10 minutes. Trains have made up as much as 34 minutes and lost as much 62 minutes.

How much does a train ticket cost?

Amtrak is like a mini-airline. They'll charge tickets based upon demand. Tickets bought in advance are usually cheaper than waiting to the last minute. Lowest I've seen fare is $13. The highest fares go is $35 which is equal to the City of New Orleans fare. The Illini and Saluki trains are subsidized by the state of Illinois.

There is a student discount card that can purchased at www.studentadvantage.com. It's something like $50 for 4 years. It saves 15% on Amtrak rail fares among other place

So the Train isn't perfect. Don't expect the reliability of Metra or anything. Just be ready for the unexpected similar to accidents happening on the highway and backing up traffic . Give yourself 45 minutes of leeway time and remember that by taking the train you're helping the environment. (Trains are the cleaner than buses, planes, and personal automobiles)

Shocking Economics

2007-12-03T19:05:00.001-06:00

The United States GDP is huge! This video has got it right! The United States is the strongest economy in the world. States have higher GDPs than those of other countries. Single corporations in the US have profit margins higher than GDPs of small countries. The United States produces a large amount goods and service and it's going to take more than China and India to bring us down! Besides GDP, we are a fantastic place to do buisness. It's easy to start up a business, It's easy to hire people and easy to fire people. Filling for bankruptcy doesn't take that long. We are very efficient at moving monetary capital towards profitable ends and removing it from inefficient locations.

However, despite what these YouTube watchers think, there's more to an economy than GDP. (Also China is #2 now) First off there's GDP per capita. India has a higher GDP than Israel. However does that mean India has a better economy than Israel? Over 70% of Indians are living below poverty. The GDP per capita in Israel is significantly higher. Are people happy with their economies? What is the average standard of living like? Infant mortality? Literacy rate? Live expectancy? Is the country polluting the environment? For most of these statistics we are right in the middle of the pack with the rest of developed world.

Now when people throw out figures such as the national debt, and military expenditure. This numbers are huge and there's no denying that. But the United States is a large country of over 300 million people and we have a wonderful $13 trillion economy. Our numbers are huge because we are huge! Our national debt as a percentage of GDP is actual on par with the developed world. Japan is the big spender of the world not us! Our military expenditure as percentage of GDP doesn't even make the top 16. We are not the most militarized nation out there! North Korea takes #1, Israel at #7 and Syria at #13. Granted the US accounts for nearly half of the global expenditure on military of the World when we're only 19% of the World's GDP. It's all relative!

Yea our economy is great! We even produce the highest amount of Nobel Prize winning Economist. The US is an expert at running its economy. And don't let anyone tell you that the US economy is falling behind. Maybe others are catching up. But mostly realize that are many ways of measuring an economy, and the US for the most part is pretty damn good.

Carpools

2007-12-02T17:41:00.000-06:00

So I get ideas every now and then. Often crazy but that's okay. Imagination is quite possibly the greatest human attribute. Anyway my thought process started off with how I was going to get home for Thanksgiving. I took the train but it did occur to me that I could ask around and see if anyone was driving to North Chicago suburbs. The train is a simple online process and it's relatively cheap. With a large string of tests before thanksgiving I really didn't have the time to ask around. Then I thought, wouldn't it be great if all the people driving from Champaign to Chicago could post online the number of open seats in their car and some rate. Then I could just search for people driving to chicago and see that Sally has an open seat to Northbrook, and I could just giver an email and arrange the details.

Why just limit it from Champaign-Chicago? Why not the whole country? What about just simple rides to the grocery store? What about just forming carpools? Despite, my ingenuity, a web service already exists. (www.erideshare.com) It's okay but the selection isn't quite great and the amount of service the site provides is sup-par. What is needed is something like ebay. What I picture is people posting where they are going in their car. So if I wanted to travel from Highland Park to Hawthorne mall. I could type in my origin and destination and hopefully 5+ ride options for that day. Price could be done at a certain percentage of the cost per mile of the car or just a flat rate. Similar to ebay, a buyer-seller rating system would need to be put in place. If you're a pervert you'll get a bad rating and people will know not give you rides! Transactions could be done using paypal just like ebay. Everyone would have a profile as well it would have required information such as name, address, email, phone #. Option information would be driver license number, and personal references numbers. Just simply search, buy, and make contact. With rising gas prices, car owners could split costs with their guests.

On top of ride sharing there could be a carpool organizing software. It would be similar to yahoo and google groups. First people would input their origin and destination address. Then, google or some other mapping software could map out the most efficient way to pick and drop people off. People could input onto an online calendar which days they'd need the carpool. The calendar could also show who's driving on which day. The group website would send out an email to the designated driver around 4am. The email would say who the driver is picking up and where he is taking them as wells as a link for directions. A given carpool could have as many cars and participants as needed. There could be something as complex as 4 cars serving 20 people averaging 12 carpoolers a day. Costs could be determined by the group moderator where it could be done by a monthly rate or by a demand basis. Such as each ride costs $1.50.

Basically, share the wealth. 5 cars going from Point A to Point B could be done with 1 car and that's efficiency!

Going Green : Part I:

2007-12-01T20:23:00.000-06:00

So energy conservation has been on my mind a lot quite recently. So I'm going start a series of post that have to deal green movement:

Green Archies:

I think the green architecture movement is an interesting approach to a complex problem. Green Architecture aims at reducing energy usage and making buildings more sustainable. However my grief with going green is that cutting energy efficiency by let's say 20% in the large scheme of things it's probably quit insignificant. Building one coal power plant would probably negate the efficiency of I don't know how many green buildings. Say, 10,000. Cutting corners and building smarter buildings is an excellent idea for change. Every building should be built to increase energy efficiency but the real solution for helping the environment is not building green buildings but by building green power plants. We need to bite the bullet and go for nuclear power, wind, solar, and even clean coal. If the state of Illinois managed to get maybe 40% of it's power from green means, that would probably be the same effect as building X number of green buildings. (I'm not sure on my numbers since I'm not an energy economist...yet) So rather than fighting for green buildings, we need more green power sources. The energy crisis must be solved at it's source first and the conservation side.

Green and Sustainable buildings are marketable. A building advertised as green can have increased rent rates by 10%. Architects say that 70% of their clients are demanding sustainable design practices. The market is going green. However there's a problem with how green buildings are rated. The LEED system is a check list. Using a nearby metal supplier can earn you as much points as installing solar panels. Even adding a bike rack earns the same amount of points as a wind turbine. LEED should be rating buildings on their overall energy and related energy efficiency. Are people using alternate modes of transportation to get to work? Is the power source green? Lower operating costs for the building should be so much more worth while than a bike rack that nobody uses. LEED certification should apply to the efficiency of the design, the construction, the operation, the user efficiency, and the eventual recyleability of the building.

Hard @ Work

2007-11-26T22:49:00.001-06:00

Architecture 101 at it's greatest! The dude on my left in class took my sudoku so we compromised by me copying it. I know I shouldn't let him walk over me but I stole fruit snacks from him early so we became even. Mostly in class today we got handouts back, sketchbooks, etc. The professor went on to talk about resumes for a while. A useful skill considering I'm interested in applying for internships. Anyways, we weren't learning about architecture...as usual.

Quirks

2007-11-14T21:09:00.000-06:00

Phrases I've picked up:
-"and what not"
-"I'm not going to lie"
-"ugh!"

Things that irritate me:
-Chalkboards
-People who talk too loud on their cell phones
-Stairs
-carrying laundry up stairs
-the Architecture department
-people who can't lecture
-people who can't give a good power point
-US cable news channels
-The South Carolina Democratic Party
-Professors who waste paper
-people who get a plastic bag to carry 1-3 items

Caught!

2007-11-13T16:21:00.001-06:00

I've been caught! Despite remaining incognito, the Architecture department has caught on that I might actually be transferring out of Architecture. I'm not worried, I still have a trick up my sleeve. The ARCH department thinks I'm going to transfer into engineering. Oh, how wrong they are. I'm going to throw a curve ball at them. I'm really transferring into Economics. How did they make such a silly assumption? Well let's look at my classes next semester:

Rhetoric, Stats, Multi-variable Calculus, Linear Algebra, Statics and the economics of engineering. Which amounts to 18 hours and 9 of them are math! And granted Statics and Econ of Engineering are engineering classes. So I'll cut them some slack. On paper it would be a logical conclusion that I would transfer into engineering.

I'll admit that I made mistake and drew attention to myself. 18 hours of classes is the limit at Illinois before you need permission to take more. Bassoon lessons are cheap if you take them through the University. So I sent in the petition to take 20 hours of classes by adding bassoon. My course selection was forwarded to the Architecture department. I received an email that states basically asks: "Sam, are you transferring into Engineering without telling us? We're not going to give you permission to take bassoon lessons until you tell us what you're doing."

I don't mean to be angry. I'm just laughing inside.

Monday Issues

2007-11-12T18:34:00.000-06:00

Today I had a double-header in intro to gender studies. In Eastern Asian History we were finishing up a lecture on the 1989 Tienanmen's square protest. In Architecture we had a guest lecturer speak to us about women in architecture and spatial behavior.

My history professor was finishing up her lecture on the 1989 student protest movement in China. She was talking about the international backlash, and how it was still a taboo subject in China today. I'm listening through her Asian accent, and I think to myself: wait! She's Chinese! She might have still been in China in 1989. So I did something that no normal college history student would do. I raised my hand during her lecture to ask a question. Like most professors, she's happy to see someone raising their hand to ask a question. (proof that someone is listening) I asked her if she was in China during the 1989 student protests. She responded that she was a high school student at the time and continued on with the lecture. I was disappointed in her response. Being taught by a Chinese professor, here was a real opportunity to soak up the benefits. Recent history is often controversial, but I still would have liked to know about how she felt about the movement. Living primary sources are rare in history classes. Did you feel pressure to join in the protest? Did you know anyone who was at Tienanmen's square? What were your parent's views of what was going on?

However, my disappointment turned to curiosity. Why didn't she give a more detailed response? Should I have given up a follow up question? Did she miss my cue that I was asking for her opinion on the student movement? Was it that her English is very literal and didn't pick up my real question? Perhaps it is taboo for her to talk about it at the personal level. Maybe something happened that she did not want to talk about it. Right now, I feel that her response was just strange and I shouldn't be too bothered about it.

Lecture #2 in architecture was hideous. How could a woman be given a topic on gender issues in architecture and only talk about herself? She began the lecture introducing ourselves to her credentials. Where she went to school, what awards she has won, and where she has been published. This part of the lecture took up a good 10 minutes. She claimed that women and minorities were underrepresented in Architectural history and modern recognition. That's a valid claim in my opinion. But she quickly moves onto inequality of restroom design. Male restrooms have shorter lines than women's restrooms...wonder why? She later moved onto studies she has done and classes she has taught. She then names organizations that she's apart of. Point is that she spent more time talking about herself and toilets than women in architecture.

Architecture has got to be one of the most gender biased professions out there. There just aren't that many world renown female architects. I don't know why, I'm not the one with the PhD. She is! I was expecting to see modern works of architecture done by women. Show me why women are lacking credit that they deserve. I felt that she totally missed the ball on this one. Gender equality in architecture is a very serious issue. I don't want to have some egotistical person in front of me talking about herself instead of dealing with the real issues.

Some other issues with this women's talk

“We took a fiaeld trip to the firm Ross Barney + Jankowski Architects. All 3 of them are U of I graduates.” First off, Ross Barney + Jankowski is only 2 people not 3. Second, the firm is just Ross Barney Architects since James Jankowski left the firm in 2006.
She did a study on spatial usage of architectural education buildings. She stated how high U of I rated, and put a huge picture of the architecture building on the cover of her book. As a U of I professor, she has no business conducting a study that ranks schools and include U of I in it. That's called a bias!

Krannert

2007-11-11T01:56:00.000-06:00

For those non-University of Illinois people, Krannert Center for the performing arts is one bad-ass building. It's brick. (no surprises there for a U of I building) Krannert is like a mini Lincoln center. It has four indoor venues and one outside amphitheater. Beneath the performance halls, there's a bi-level parking garage. Krannert center was a fancy donation by Herman Krannert and it was designed by an alumni from the architecture school. When it comes to the design of Krannert, one adjective comes to mind: layered. There's two levels of parking and the roof or Krannert has three levels each one has a six foot differential. This semester I have found two uses for the Krannert center: Classical music concerts, and capture the flag.

Krannert center is a perfect capture the flag venue. It's highly symmetrical so both sides have equal territory. There's multiple levels, and areas for running, and areas for stealth. The boundaries are simply the city block that Krannert takes up. On the night of the last game, I was a little late practicing Bassoon and did not give myself enough time to walk over. Naturally I switched to my preferred method of transportation, my Rollerblades. I made it to Krannert just as they were picking teams. I switch into my gym shoes and hide my Rollerblades under a 6 foot stairwell. I was picked for the south team and the game began shortly after.

My first strategy was running under Krannert on the first parking level. I then popped out on the north end of Krannert behind the enemy flag. I was still down one of those 6 foot differentials to get to the flag. I climb up the differential and get with 15 feet of the flag without ever being seen. But despite my stealthy tactics, the other team was puppy-guarding their flag, and I was tagged. I repeatedly this stratedgy about 4 times with a few variations. We tried having two people climb the differential at time from different points. We tried distractions, but unfortunately, the flag was at a choke point. The south team fell behind 0-1. I took a break from offense and switched to defense. I was going up the stairs where I had stashed my Rollerblades, and I smell the famous odor of burning THC. I double back and check under the stairs. Of course, there were three pot-heads there with my Rollerblades. I asked them how my Rollerblades were doing. They said that they were guarding them for me. I thanked them, and I returned back to flag guarding. I let me my team know about my Rollerblade situation, so they all kept an eye on those stairs. We lost the 2^nd game do to some questionable offensive tactics.

On the third game we had a change of strategy. We were going to come at the flag from three directions. Two people were going to go through the parking garage and climb up the height differential onto the flag level. Another was simply going to make a run for the flag at the flag level. I was going to be one level higher than the flag level. Now one of the three runners on the flag level was going to steal the flag and toss it up to me and I would have a clear retreat back to my side.

All plans go wrong no matter how perfect they sound. The third game was a draw. I returned to that stairwell and the pot-smokers had gone leaving my Rollerblades just where I left them.

Besides playing capture flag, Krannert is one of the most acoustically superior concert halls in the country. Listening to an orchestra there is breathtaking, and I recommend it to anyone. I heard Brahms 4 there and saw the opera, La Boheme. Brahms 4 is a beautiful symphony and one of my favorites. Brahms was so meticulous with every note, and every dynamic. La Boheme was the first opera I've ever attended. I'm not a fan of opera music. It's in a different language, and it can be irritating. However, there is something powerful and moving about how an opera singer can sing with such resonance. I went to the opera to support Dan Bergren playing Bass in the pit-orchestra. I didn't hate “La Boheme.” The music was beautiful and the singing was exquisite. However, the story was slow, and the second act could have been done away with. I'd say that I would go to another opera if the opportunity presented itself.

Only 5%

2007-11-07T21:54:00.001-06:00

Is a simple majority the wrong way to go? I HATE the two party system. I feel that issues aren't as black and white as the politicians and media make everything seem. Often times complex issues are generalized into simple terms when the simplified version doesn't represent the original view point. Is the two party system inevitable? There's the political spectrum right verses left. About a year ago, I came up with a drastically different way electing officials that could quite possibly eliminate the two party system.

For my example, I'll use Illinois US congressional seats. Illinois has 19 seats in the House of Representatives. For simplicity sake I'll call that number 20 since I'm prejudiced against prime numbers. Basically under the current system, two candidates run for one congressional seat derived by a certain geographical region within Illinois. Unfortunately, most of these geographical districts are defined to go one way or another. This process is called gerrymandering and I think it’s downright low.

What if there were no geographical regions? I believe that regional issues are becoming to mean less. The world is shrinking, and people become more informed and interconnected. I believe that regional issues are becoming less meaningful to people comapred to the national and international issues. So I want to do away with districts and end gerrymandering. Instead of winning more votes than the other guy, Candidates would be elected to one of Illinois' congress seats simply by winning 5% of the vote in Illinois. You would vote for the person who best represented your personal beliefs and values. What would happen if someone won 20% of the popular vote? That person would occupy 4 congressional seats in congress and would be able to vote 4 times on legislative acts. Hopefully campaign costs would be driven down and all that would be required would be finding likeminded individuals. So If I ran a campaign on making social security optional. I would only have to find 5% of the people in Illinois to support me.

Is there a downside? For a start, the electorate would have to seriously research multiple candidates. Well what if the 2 party system just simply adapted to this new system? Instead of Illinois having maybe 20 people occupying congressional seats, there are only 2. One democrat would represent 10 votes and one republican would represent 10 votes. The House of Representatives would turn into a senate that's weighted on population size. However, I believe that Achieving 5% of the vote is highly achievable for an independent, and perhaps total dominance would not happen.

Just a crazy idea.

Death Dealing

2007-11-05T22:26:00.000-06:00

Last night I saw “The Green Mile” with the ever so charming Tom Hanks. I could write a formal review of the movie, but I'm not going to. My problem with film critics is that they basically state the obvious about the film and all that I really wanted to know was whether it was good or not. Anyways, “The Green mile” is about lives of prison guards on death row. The film features three executions by electric chair and each one is increasingly more upsetting. Besides almost crying myself to sleep last night, I realized that I have no opinion on capital punishment.

My first gut reaction towards capital punishment is taking the moral high ground. By killing the perpetrators, are we bringing ourselves down to the same level morality of the criminals? In general I'm against human beings killing human beings. It is archaic and medieval. After 2 million years of evolution, I'd hoped that we would have a more humane way of treating with undesirables. I'm reminded of a Gandalf quote: “Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends.” Like Frodo, I too believe that there are those who deserve to die. There are crimes that are so terrible that these people clearly have no business on this Earth. When do I have the right to say who lives and who dies?

My next gut reaction is towards economics of capital punishment. Criminals should have an appropriate sentence that does not burden the tax-payer. If Joe Smith shoots 10 people and is imprisoned for life, the tax payer should not pay Joe Smith's cost of living. Society already had to pay for Joe's crimes. Why should society pay again? However simply lethally injecting criminals is not cheap. In America, we do our best to make sure that the condemned are truly guilty. Supposedly, the cost of going through appeals would be greater than paying for life imprisonment.

Well my third reaction is that capital punishment is only part of the problem of the US prison system. Prisons are getting overcrowded, and paying for imprisonment is only increasing. Chances of parole are greater and prison sentences are getting shorter. I believe that nobody in this county should live at the expense of the tax-payer. (I guess that's an argument against Universal Health Care.) Prisoners should live at the expense of themselves. They should pay for their housing, their food, and other basic needs. How could this be done? Simply the prisoners should work. Human capital is the greatest resources in this country and surely 1.5 million people behind bars have something to offer towards society. I'm not talking about labor camps. I would like to see prisoners earning half their pay which would be set aside for when they're free. The other half would pay the cost of incarcerating them. If the prisoner had family, his half could help support that family. The labor options don’t have to limited to unskilled. I'm positive that there are also skilled individuals out of 1.5 million behind bars.

So apparently after all that writing I haven't really said my stance on capital punishment. I'm against people in all forms. However, I think that death dealing might be necessity even although we may not be qualified to deal it. Ultimately, I'm not against the death penalty. (What a newspeak way of putting it!) I can say for certain that I'm for reducing the costs of the incarcerated.

Every adventurer comes to a fork in the road

2007-11-04T19:48:00.000-06:00

A year ago, applying to colleges, I thought I knew what I wanted to do. I was going to study Architecture. I was flirting with idea of being an engineer for a while. At some point in high school I realized that engineering may not have been what I wanted. Engineers are heavily math and science oriented. I had the idea that engineers spend more time on figuring out what's working inside rather than what is the overall picture. I felt that I needed something with a little more creativity. At the beginning of junior year, I was introduced to industrial design. Basically, industrial designers create products to be shnazzy looking, and people friendly. Industrial designers don't necessarily care about the inner workings of what they are designing.

University of Illinois was the first School that I visited. I told the admissions department that I wanted to visit the Architecture, Engineering, and Industrial Design departments. Surprisingly I enjoyed my experience with the Industrial Design department the best. I spoke with a professor who was not involved in the recruiting process in anyway. He felt like a natural part of the university. Tour guides, and academic advisors, are there to sell school. Talking to a professor gave me the chance to see behind the recruiting garbage. However I learned that industrial design is heavily art based. For a year I would be in classes with sculptors, painters, and other artists. Me? An Artist? Musician maybe, but I would have never considered myself an artist. After the U of I trip, I looked at the three professions that I had picked out, and developed a spectrum in my head. On one end there was Art and industrial design, and on the other there was science and engineering. I saw architecture as the perfect blend between art and science. I always had an interest in the subject, but never gave it serious thought until after that trip to Champaign.

I applied to Illinois, Minnesota, Cornell, and Washington Seattle as an architecture major. I also applied to Madison as an economics major. Why econ? Madison did not have an architecture program. I was taking AP Econ at the time and I enjoyed the subject. If I had to choose an academic field to be in, I would choose economics. My story continues, and I enrolled at U of I in the school of architecture.

The problem with my decision to become an architect was that it was made by a logical process rather than inner passion. I wanted something technical and creative and I saw architecture as the field that achieved both. There was no "I want to be an Architect in 9 years!" I would say “Architects practice my desired blend of creativity and science.” This past summer, I read Freakonomics and Naked Economics and I knew that I should pursue economics in some form. I didn't know if I was going to double major in architecture and economics or minor in economics. There is no economics minor at U of I, and doubling major would be close to impossible. At summer registration I signed up for the required Architecture classes as well as econ classes figuring that I could put the decision off to later.

Life in ARCH 101 is not what I expected. Most days we don't learn anything. Some days we have to look up words in a dictionary and spit them back on a quiz. Other days we listen to guest lecturers speak about random topics related to Architecture. We had an academic integrity lecture, solar decathlon lecture, and a universal design lecture. Sometimes we watch videos. Either way, the class is loosely held together by the professor. He tells us stories about architects he's taught or about himself. He took 8 years to finish a 5 year program for architecture. It took him a while to get over the sketching hurdle. Now that story is meant to give us non-artist some hope. ARCH 101 is simply an introduction to the U of I school of Architecture. Now, I'm not sure I want to be on this path.

Architecture majors are notorious for spending all their time in studio. The classes are completely project oriented. On top of 6 years of education that's 90% devoted to Architecture classes there's 3 years of internships and then the licensing tests. Now that's a challenging path ahead with a lot of work. The question that's on my mind is do I have the passion and drive to plow through the hard times? I don't think that I do. Compared to my architecture piers, I feel like their passion and creativity is greater than mine. Every day, switching to economics becomes more and more appealing. It pains me to doubt myself. I know that don't want to be a coward turning away from a challenge. Or is it that I can't stand the thought of me being wrong about my career goals? Could it be that I'm that embarrassed with trying to learn on how to sketch?

Economics comes naturally to me and I'm excited ever time in class. I wouldn't say I'm 100% sure that I want to be an economist, but I know in economics I'll have the opportunity to span my interests. I'll be already half way to completing the major by the end of my freshman year. That doesn't me mean that I'll just take 12 hours of classes every semester. Each semester, I actually plan on taking 15-18 hours of econ classes and classes in random areas that spark an interest. I'm going to take classes in sociology, energy, transportation engineering, and project management. On top of everything, I'm going to pick up an informatics minor. I feel much more excited at what I can take and what's out there for to learn. I'm not dreading anything. Maybe I'll find something that is worth devoting all my energy towards. If not, it's okay. Economics is a very broad field and applicable to just about everything. The question is what can't I do with economics?

"Where do you see yourself in 10 years?" I might be an energy economist, a transportation economist, or even in the CIA. Most importantly, I don't know yet but I know for certain that I'm going to enjoy the journey figuring it all out.

Global Adventures

2007-11-02T21:35:00.001-05:00

The adventure this past week was me deciding to venture into the world of visiting lecturing academics. I attended two lectures about globalization. The first one was conducted by a Harvard Professor of Economics about deep global economic integration. I learned about it through the front page of the uiuc website. I get there, and I'm clearly the only freshman in the room and everyone else is a grad student or some shnazy alumni in a suit and tie. Feeling slightly out of place, I sit off to the side and listen. It was lofty. Big words, long sentence, and slight foreign accent. Here's the jist. There's a “trilema” with globalization. On one corner of the triangle there's deep economic integration. Another corner has nation-states. On the last corner is democratic politics. His “trilema” is that globalization, democratic politics, and nation states can't all be achieved. One corner of the triangle must be sacrificed. He claimed that the current level of globalization is the limit, and that we should focus on maintaining national barriers and democratic politics. I however disagreed. I think that there's so much potential in the human race and that mankind can only reach its highest potential if all 6.5 billion people are put on equal footing and world peace is achieved. As much as I love the nation-state. Eventually national barriers will not be able to hold a shrinking and flattening world. (Everyone should read why the world is flat by Thomas Friedman)

So the other lecture: Last night I went to talk by Professor Perez from Pakistan. He was a physicist and an international commentator on nuclear weapons. He spoke very elegantly and I was listening to him word for word. Once again I feel like I'm the only freshman in the room since everyone seemed to be much older. Naturally there was a higher percentage of Middle-Eastern and Indian people in the audience. Considering that this man came 7,000 miles to speak to this Audience, I was kind of let down that the auditorium was not full. I took my seat in the third row and waited for the lecture to start. This lecture room didn't have the folding desks and it really bothered me. I kinda of wanted tot take notes. But I guess I'm just that used to College

Professor Perez begin his lecture by explaining the Checkov effect. If there's a gun on the shelf in the first half, then by the end of the 2^nd half of play, that gun must be fired. Well consider nuclear weapons. Will just having a nuclear weapon guarantee that the bomb will go off at some point? Well it's been 62 years since a nuclear bomb went off, and by some divine intervention we have not destroyed the world. Shared mutual destruction kept the US and the Soviet Union from using such weapons. After the Berlin Wall fell, why are there still nuclear weapons in the world? Why is it when we disarm, we only separate the nuclear core from the weapon? We could be go back to cold war levels in a matter of days Why is the US expenditure on military 2/3 of the world expenditure? What is the threat to American people? Terrorism? Rogue nations? (I should note that the US expenditure on military per person is on par with other developed countries)

To address rogue nations. Negotiations and even threats work. Iraq disarmed when we told them to, except we didn't believe them and invaded to the country for ourselves to see if there were nuclear weapons. Distrust is expensive. North Korea through negotiations started to take the first steps in ending their nuclear program. (Yea!) Were they scared that the same fate will happen to North Korea as Iraq? Possibly. In 2003, Iran offered to dissolve its nuclear program if the US paid war reparations for the Iran-Iraq war. Naturally that would probably cover the cost of developing the nuclear knowledge to be capable. That option was simply rejected by the Bush administration, and the option is long gone. However, I see a reason why Bush ignored the Iran reconciliation letter. If we were to pay them to disarm, then they would have had developed nuclear potential for free. Other countries could do the same thing. Then developing nukes would have no costs, and everyone would have that capability.

Professor Perez argues that all fissile material shall be disposed of. There should be no nuclear reactors. Disagree full hardly. Nuclear power is pretty awesome. It's clean and rather efficient. We have the hallowed out mountain. Nuclear power is a good semi-long term solution until solar power becomes hyper efficient. Now another issue, is that process of creating nuclear power is awfully similar to creating a bomb. How do you tell the difference? Can you really trusts your enemy's intentions?

Both lectures addressed the issue of a strong unifying international governing body. We have the U.N. But that isn't entirely fair where or effective. The UNSC has 5 permanent seats where all 5 of those countries have the power to veto any resolution passed by the security council. Thus, not much is done. In the United States,when shit happens economically in Louisiana, we have federal fiscal policy and monetary policy to correct the down shift. The US is actually very effective at responding to the business cycle. The problem with free trade has the same deal as in the US. When shit isn't going so well in Mexico, there's no international fiscal or monetary policy to help out.

This blog was not edited by Lisa Pearson because she it tired and apparently can take a nap anywhere, and anytime. This entry is a little more political that I would normally have liked, but this has been on my mind a lot recently. Plus reading The World is Flat by Thomas Freidman isn't helping.

Disembark

2007-11-01T21:11:00.000-05:00

So today I'm going to disembark on my adventures. I'm supposedly going to write about my daily adventures. But they're things like homework, bassoon, swing dancing, clubs etc. that could get in the way of my documentation of such adventures (Lisa Pearson 11/1/07) However, I know that writing is an essential skill in life, and that I suck at it. In theory writing everyday will make me a better writer and when it comes to getting a PhD, I'll be able to write a damn good dissertation. Along with my adventures I'll keep everyone up to date with what's going on in my mind. So people who know me will truly understand how random and distracted I can be.

So a few events recently:
Last Tuesday I went to the career counselor for advice. As many of you know, I'm switching from Architecture to Economics. So what do you do with an Econ Degree? So I did some research on my own and what not. So I come to her office and I play the confused student who doesn't know what to do with my life. However she didn't really know anything specific to Econ majors. She pointed me towards various online resources that I already knew about. So I start to get bored and change tact. I tell her that I want to study Econ, and that I'm interested in transportation economics, energy economics, project management, and even a job at the CIA. Then she starts pointing me towards the Illini Alumni association and recommended that I start conducting informational interviews with people from the fields that I'm interested as well. She also said that I should start working on my resume. So this talk wasn't so bad.
Wednesday: Illini-Quincy Basketball game. It was pretty intense. We were in the last row at Assembly Hall, but luckily half the stadium was empty. Naturally, we moved up 30 rows. The game was intense. We were up 30 at the half, but Quincy made a huge comeback in the 2nd half finishing down by 21points. Pretty exciting ; )
Thursday: I slept in Material Science today. We had a guest speaker on using Hydrogen as an alternative fuel. Well I missed about 4 of slides. I remember him saying that the Hindenburg blew up because of paint coating on the outside and not because of the hydrogen. Well for those of us who watch Mythbusters, we know that the coating of the zeppelin was not the single cause of the explosion and that the presence of the hydrogen was key for making that awesome fire ball. So Thursday, I also spoke to the Econ academic adviser. She said that I should have no problem switching into Econ next year, so that's good news. I also don't need to talk to the Architecture department about switching, so I can avoid that awkward conversation: "Hi, I don't want to take your classes anymore...."

Awesome first blog post thing. I would like to thank Dan Bergren for convincing me to do this. Lisa Pearson did an awesome job reading over my shoulder as I type and correcting my grammar, spelling and other English related shit. (Yea Bio major!)