How do you bid in Spades?

Anybody who knows me knows that I enjoy playing games, particularly card games. And when it comes to card game, I'm particularly fond of playing spades.

Spades is a four player game where players pair up on teams and collect "books", competing to reach some predetermined score. A book is a set of four cards given to the team who plays the highest card under the rules of the game, which I will explain later. Teams collect points by bidding [or trying to predict the number of books they will collect]. If a team does not collect the number of books they bid, they will lose ten times their bid. If a team does collect this sum of books, then they gain ten times their bid (I'm assuming a simple version of Spades here with no sandbags to simplify the explanation). 

So we can see the importance of precise bidding. What then should be the standards of good bidding? 

We can start by mathematically describing the rules of the game. 

1) Trumps / Spades beat allother cards (hence the name of the game). 

for all x \in Spades, y \notin Spades x > y

(because there are only four suits, the statement y \notin Spades could be replaced by y \in Hearts \cup Clubs \cup Diamonds). 

2) In every suite, the cards 3, 4, ..., K, A follow their natural order, i,e,

3D < 4D < 5D < 6D < 7D < 8D < 9D < 10D < JD < QD < KD < AD

3H < 4H < 5H < 6H < 7H < 8H < 9H < 10H < JH < QH < KH < AH

3C < 4C < 5C < 6C < 7C < 8C < 9C < 10C < JC < QC < KC < AC

3S < 4S < 5S < 6S < 7S < 8S < 9S < 10S < JS < QS < KS < AS

(There are many ways of playing this game. I'm going to assume the deck is set up the way I originally learned it. This is sometimes called "Joker, Joker, deuce, deuce", which refers to the top 4 Spades - the big joker, the little joker, the high deuce, and the low deuce. Under this setting, there is no 2C and no 2H, and generally the 2D is the high deuce and 2S is the low deuce, but this generally depends on where the game is being played and who else is playing). 

And by 1) we have that AD < 3S, AH < 3S and AC < 3S. This establishes a partial ordering amongst the suits and cards. Note that this is not a total ordering because ther is no comparison between a JH and a 3C. This is handled by the next rule. 

3) All players must follow suit unless a player has no cards of that suit in their hand. This means that the suit of the first card thrown determines the type of cards that all other players must choose from. If a player does not have that suit in their hand, then they are free to play anything, but the only suit that can beat the original suit is a spade (per the partial order). 

4) If a plater does not follow suit (and is caught), it is called reniging and costs that team 3 books. 

5) The first player to play a card in the first book is the player to the dealer's right. The first player to play a card in all successive books is the player who won the last book. 

From this we can see that the only cards that beat Aces are the Spades. One strategy is to play aces first, in which case the only way an ace doesn't bring in a book is if a player on the opposing team has no cards of that suite. What is the probability that an Ace walks then? 

We can set this up as the following fraction: 

number of ways that another player can be dealt a hand without receiving a card of this suite

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

total number of ways that another player can be dealt a hand. 

How many cards are left that are in this suit? Suppose that I have x cards of this suit in my hand. There are 12 cards total in a (non-spade) suit. So this leaves 12 - x cards in this suit that are not in my hand. 

How many cards are left that are not of this suit? Suppose again that I have x cards of this suit in my hand. There are 52 cards total, 13 of which are in my hand (13 = 52 / 4), leaving 52 - 13 = 39 cards remaining. Each (non-spade) suit has 12 cards.  So there are 39 - (12 - x) = 39 - 12 + x = 27 + x cards that are not in this suit and not in my hand. 

If a player has no cards in this suit, then all their cards come from this set of size 27 + x. 

So this equation can be represented as 

(

27 + x 13

)

-------------------------

(

39 13

)

This simplifies to
(27 + x)! 26!
--------------
(14 + x)! 39!

I've taken a basic approach to this game and there are many further questions to be answered about the game of spades. I could continue and find the probabilities for other non-spades, as well as the probabilities for spades. But my time has run out and this has been a fun exercise to play around with one of my favorite games and one of my favorite languages.

Why do we feed the trolls?

I remember when I first got into the internet. I was on two mailing lists. One was for my favorite football team (Go Skins) and the other was for Lincoln Douglas Debate which I did a long long time ago. I remember how much I enjoyed the "chat room" type atmosphere of those things. But every once in a while, a conversation could get out of hand - a racist slur, or a sexist comment, or a sequence of images that just didn't belong there. I can't remember, but I imagine that initially I was probably upset by these types of things trying to get in the way of my Zen and the relaxation that I was seeking by going to these message boards.But I know that somewhere along the lines, the fact that I was more of a reader than a commenter helped me to understand that by commenting on these "internet trolls", all I was doing was giving them more ammunition to come back and get more attention. So ultimately, as my presence in these (and similar) forums grew, I learned to not get bent out of hand about stuff like this.

There's been a lot of talking going on lately about two things in my circle of friends. The first is Fox News reporting about Common as if he's the one who put a target over a congressman's head or something (wait, thats what MSNBC and many liberals said about Sarah Palin in response to the shooting which 6 people were killed and 19 people were shot). The other was an article that was put up on Psychology Today (which was later taken down, but from what I understand the text of the article is available at All Hip Hop: Psycho Today headline: "Why black women are rated less attractive"). Both of these seemed to initiate "riots" on facebook and twitter talking about how bad the journalism was, or the racism, or the sexism, etc. Me personally, I saw these two headlines and just kinda dismissed them as stuff thats trying to bring me down and since I've got enough things that are trying to do that in my own personal life, figured that I didn't need to worry about the articles themselves.

One thing about the Common story is the source of it. It was coming from Fox News. This isn't the first time they've said something thats been taken as racist, and I'm sure it will not be the last. Thats part of their "thing". They like to rile up their base, particularly by making up lies to convince their base that the opposing side is evil, in which case they can get their base to do whatever it is Fox News is promoting (is this what Malcolm meant when he said "By Any Means Necessary"?). Like Jon Stewart said about a year ago in an interview with Rachel Maddow, the thing about Fox News isn't the lies they tell, its more about the fact that they're a well oiled machine at doing it.

The other story about Black women, well thats one that (IMO) is rooted in a lot of racist beliefs and trying to use "science" to back up those beliefs. I find it funny (what else can I do but laugh) that they basically had a survey and called it objective. Yeah, cause I'm sure that if you change the set of people you're interviewing the results won't differ. And I'm sure that if you change the definition of 'beauty' the results won't differ. But this is the type of pseudo-science that is driven for tabloids. Maybe I should be mad that it could be published in Psychology Today, but even that doesn't get me mad. Nothing surprises me any more.

While I still hope for the best in my fellow human beings (and myself), the fact that they (we) don't measure up to the ideal standards we set for ourselves doesn't mean I'll get bent out of shape about it. If I meet somebody who holds these beliefs, I'll probably try to talk to them about it and if it leads to a good dialog, then I'd be happy about that. If not, then at least I tried, but I won't beat myself up about it either way.

This is not meant to discourage others who acted differently. I have a friend who sent a letter to Psychology Today. Jon Stewart went on Bill O'Reilly to talk about the Common issue. I think those are both constructive ways to address this problem. Other friends have written their own blogs about these different issues, and I'm sure that helped diffuse some of the tension (both internally and externally). And this post, in itself, is in some measure inspired by these trolls themselves. But I feel like the more time we spend feeding the trolls, the more ammunition they will have to upset you (us) the next time. I guess its the principle that there's no such thing as bad publicity. I think this is especially true in the case of trolls. Publicity for a troll establishes that they've gotten into your life, into your stream of thought, and thats, is a success for them.

Like I said, there may be other, more constructive ways to defeat a troll, but if nothing else comes to you, I say just ignore them and don't let them bring you down.

Do You Need a "Vacation"?

I can't count the number of times friends have suggested to me that I need a vacation. While I'm inclined to agree, the truth is that the nature of my work is that research questions tend to try to fill any moment where my mind is not already thinking of something else. So the idea of me going on "vacation" is just as much mental for me as it is physical. To me a vacation is a way of relaxing to the point where I'm either thinking of positive thoughts or I've at least found a way to not think about whatever negative thoughts are trying to get me down. So here are a few ways that I take my "vacations".

• Work

In my opinion, my tendency to overwork is not always a bad thing because I sometimes turn to work to provide relief (or a "vacation") from the seemingly unsolvable problems of my life (relationship stuff, employment issues, health related stuff, family matters, etc). When I've got a good lead on a problem, it provides a flow of thoughts that keeps my mind busy for hours at a time and this can be such a relief from those issues that its a welcome "vacation". But then the question becomes why don't I get good leads whenever I'm stressed out? Sometimes, the work can be stressful because I'm not progressing fast enough, or because I find a counterexample to an idea, or for a variety of other reasons. So then what should I turn to?

• Conversations

One of my favorite "vacations" is an ol' fashioned conversation, whether it be with long time friends or somebody I just met at the bar. Sometimes, the procedure of sitting and talking to somebody else can else can seem to relieve a thousand burdens. Sometimes I don't even talk - I'll just sit and listen and hear stories that I can relate to. I think I read something somewhere about this being the human need for companionship, not necessarily on a bedroom sense, but more in a sense that you are not alone in this world, and you are not the only one who sees the world in a certain way.

Conversations, though are not without their limitations. One of the problems with conversations is that you don't really know where they'll lead (I guess thats a good thing and a bad thing). Sometimes a joke is misinterpreted; sometimes the other person will just want to vent (which isn't really a problem, unless you entered the conversation with a "no venting here" attitude); sometimes they want to vent about something you did (which can be really unpleasant, and probably not gonna provide that "vacation" type feeling); or sometimes they're (or you're) just not in a talkative mood. So if talking to a friend won't do it, what else is there?

• Books

Lately I've gotten a lot of relief from reading books. The titles come mostly as a recommendation after a conversation with friends. After talking about whatever's on our minds, the friend will generally follow up with "you know, you sound like you'd be interested in reading ...". I'm not often disappointed, although I do know of one book that was recommended to me where I probably should have been more considerate of the recommender's feelings when I was asked how I liked it. 

I haven't decided the type of books that I like best, though, I do tend to get more of a "vacation" from works of fiction. Aside from taking me from the here-and-now (which most books tend to do), works of fiction (particularly sci-fi) have the ability to take me outside even the laws of the universe. Suddenly I can spend 500 pages imagining I'm the son of a Greek god (ala the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series), or a wizard (ala the Harry Potter series), or that I have mutant powers (ala the Gone series). Most of the nonfiction I read gives me different perspectives and philosophies on life. I find those interesting and use them as good food for thought. MLK's autobiography and book "Strength to Love" are great examples of this. So is the book I just finished, James Weldon Johnson's "The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man". The main thing that interests me about biographies and autobiographies is the sequence of events that (at least in the writers eyes) helped chisel them into the person they grew to be. And again, thinking about their lives allows me to not think about my own.

• Music

Those first three things I mentioned I normally normally take some time. Sometimes I only have a few minutes, if that, and still need to relax. This is especially true when I'm doing something like programming or debugging a program, or even grading. These are tasks that need to get done (hopefully quickly), so its not really easy for me to do work, hold a conversation, or read a book while doing them. So another of my favorite "vacations" is just music. The selection depends a lot on my mood and setting. For example, I try not to listen to Tupac in the office too much (even with headphones) because I don't think my officemates will get the same relief from his lyrics (if they overhear it) as myself, but most of my 70s stuff is fair game. 

I'm sure that others find this relief in different ways. So I'm curious, what provides a vacation for you?

What are you reading?

Over the past two years, I've really increased my reading. At first it was more of a religious thing - reading the Bible and different philosophical books ("If God is Love" and "Critique of Pure Reason" come to mind). Then it turned to historical reading - reading biographies and autobiographies of the of people I respect ("Born to Rebel", "The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.", "Dreams From My Father", etc). And while these first two sets of books were enjoyable to read, they were not nearly as much fun as what I read (for the most part) now - just general stuff generally off the NYT bestsellers list or stuff that my friends are reading. I've really grown to appreciate fiction. I grew up watching movies, which are mostly fiction so this is not surprising to me. But movies are so limiting on our imagination. We can't see the picture in our way because the director/producer gives us a picture and says "this is how you're supposed to see it". The beauty of a book is that there is so much left unsaid in the book that its left to the reader to wonder about (different facial expressions, if the speaker uses hand gestures, how deep the speaker's voice is, etc.).

My reading has really increased over the past few years. Now I can probably get through a good book in a weekend, and another good book if I read during weekdays over lunch or dinner or on a walk. That said, I now get into a lot of conversations about books. A lot of these are of the type, "well if you liked this one, you'd love ...", or "in this book, I could really relate to...".

I recently had a talk with some friends about reading interests. And it kinda surprised me that these friends were more interested in different types of nonfiction than fiction. I don't want to sound like I'm an anti-nonfiction guy, but I do see certain limitations in nonfiction. My main hindrance (and this is kinda why I diverged into fiction in the first place) is that it seems that most of the nonfiction books that I've read have a format of "here's whats wrong with the world and here's how to solve it", or more particularly "here's whats wrong with you and here's how to make yourself better".

This certainly doesn't classify all nonfiction books. I remember when I first moved from philosophical books, I read a lot of memoirs and autobiographies because they seemed more practical. Still, these books are sometimes hard to read as well.

I remember when I was a kid (maybe third grade, maybe younger) and my principal decided to show the movie "Roots" to the entire school in the auditorium. That movie was so hard to watch, yet so hard to turn away. And due to my age, it was hard to discern that these people in the movie are not the people I see in my everyday life. I remember that at the same time, my father had a guy he worked with who would come over and help with his computer. I was young, but I could understand a lot of what he was talking about. He would always compliment me on how smart I was and say things to encourage me. Oh, and this guy was White. Well, I remember when I came home from seeing "Roots", the guy was at my house. I saw him leaving as I walked in the door. I greeted him as he left, then turned, went inside and told my mother, "mom, I hate him".

I realize today how naive that statement was, but watching "Roots" brought up so much pain and anger that it made it hard to channel it correctly. And when I'm reading some of these memoirs of my heroes, I find myself often having to pause, and calm myself down. Normally I see it as a situation where they are faced with racism and have to deal with it accordingly. In my mind, I'll ask, "how would I have handled this situation"? But when I can't come to a conclusion that yields a different outcome, it gets pretty stressful and all I can do is hope that times have really changed as much as people say they have. I even had this problem with "Kindred" by Octavia Butler, a work of fiction which many of my friends love. I thought Dana handled many of the situations similar to how I would, but the outcomes (particularly when she was whipped) just made me pause. That was one of the hardest books for me to read. I feel somewhat bad, because I know I shouldn't discount a good writer in Octavia Butler because I found the book painful, but I have hesitated to read another of her works.

To date, my favorite book is "A Lesson Before Dying" by Earnest J Gaines. This is what I look for in most of my books. I like it so much that I use it as a basis for future books. So far I haven't found anything that touches on all the topics that this one does. In particular, I love the debate about Atheism vs Christianity and saving the guy's soul. Thats such a relevant debate, and instead of telling us how to think the book does a good job of describing both sides of the debate and the conflict that the main character is in. I really wish there were more books on this level. Maybe there are, and thats why I continue my search. 


But I'm curious to know what others are reading. 

Is there a right way to feel about tonight?

So news just broke about the death of Osama Bin Laden. I have many reactions to this, including a sense of a conclusion of the terrorist attacks on America on September 11. But I'm surprised that I don't feel the remorse that some of my friends are showing on facebook. Is it because I never met Osama? Is it because of the thousands of deaths he's responsible for? Or does it mean that I just have a cruel heart?

These are the things I wonder about as my night comes to a close. People are reminding me of Proverbs 24:17, which says not to rejoice in your enemy's defeat. I understand that, but I wonder how these same people would react at similar moments in American history (the death of Hitler comes to mind).

I've told myself and my friends that we are at war, and death is a consequence of war. But is this really the case. Was Osama actively engaged in this war, or had he resigned to a life away from it? I remember having actively different feelings when we killed Sadam Hussein. I thought he was more of a casualty of war than an active participant. But for some reason (media and political influence) I feEl like Osama was actively engaged in this. He continuously released tapes threatening America. His terrorist network was still conducting bombings. Does this mean he deserved death? I don't know.

I had an online conversation about what MLK would say. I have no doubt that he would be against this killing as he preached the power of love in all cases. As much as I'd like to day I believe in the power of love, I am much confused about it. For instance, was David practicing love when he was a soldier for King Saul?

Or a more specific example that bafled me, say there is a burglar who breaks into my house and wants to rob me and my family. What is the loving thing to do? My first thought would be to try to reason with him, or at worse to use physical restraint. But what if that doesn't work? Should I just turn the other cheek, allowing him to kill me as well as my family? And would that be loving him? I'd think that if I were in his position, I'd expect the person I'm attacking to try to kill me in self defense. So would the universal law say that in this case, its okay to kill in self defense?

This is the logic I seem to have regarding war. I do not like war. I do not want to be in any wars. But some say that wars are necessary, and if this is the case, and if we believe that what we're fighting for is the ultimate truth, then its hard for me to argue with the consequences of war. Does this make me a bad person? I do think we need to continuously question if this "ultimate truth" we are fighting for is in fact ultimate, though, as many wars have been fought over unnecessary causes.

They Do Exist!

They Do Exist!

Let me tell you a story about when I was a kid
See, I was confused and here's what I did.
I said "irrational number, what’s that supposed to mean?
Infinite decimal, no pattern? Nah, can't be what it seems."
So I dismissed them and called the teacher wrong.
Said they can't exist, so let’s move along.
The sad thing is that nobody seemed to mind.
Or maybe they thought showing me was a waste of time.

Then one teacher said "I can prove they exist to you.
Let me tell you about my friend, the square root of two."
I figured it'd be the same ol' same ol', so I said,
"Trying to show me infinity is like making gold from lead"
So he replies, "Suppose you're right, what would that imply?"
And immediately I thought of calling all my teachers lies.
"What if it can be written in lowest terms, say p over q.
Then if we square both sides we get a fraction for two."

He did a little math and showed that p must be even.
Then he asked, "if q is even, will you start believing?"
I stood, amazed by what he was about to do.
But I responded, "but we don't know anything about q"
He says, "but we do know that p squared is a factor of 4.
And that is equal to 2 q squared, like we said before."
Then he divided by two and suddenly we knew something about q.
He had just shown that q must be even too.

Knowing now that the fraction couldn't be in lowest terms
a rational expression for this number cannot be confirmed.
So I shook his hand and called him a good man.
Because for once I could finally understand
a concept that I had denied all my life,
a concept that had caused me such strife.
And as I walked away from the teacher's midst,
Excited, I called him an alchemist and exhaled "THEY DO EXIST!"

My Thoughts on the Rally to Restore Sanity

I've seen a lot of people thinking this rally was just a bunch of young folk with nothing better to do gathering together to watch a funny-man perform a skit with some musical interludes. Just because it wasn't a rally against the war, or in favor of LGBT rights, or workers rights, or some other specific cause doesn't make it a rally about nothing.

Jon summed it up in his closing speech. Jon speaks about it on TDS every night. Every skit and all the songs performed addressed it in one way or another. The media has a role in a functioning democracy. And when all the media does is point fingers and preach fear, the media is not doing that job.

There's a quote by Carter G. Woodson from "The Mis-education of the Negro", "When you control a man's mind, you need not worry what he'll do". This addresses a line of thinking that was prevalent in his time that the educated Blacks didn't have a responsibility to give back to their communities. That same quote applies today.

What Jon Stewart's rally was about isn't just one particular issue. It isn't about GOTV, or endorsing the democratic party or progressive issues. IMO, its bigger than all that. Because if we're not thinking, if we're just going to repeat what we've heard, and if the media both promotes and encourages this type of action, then the very foundation of our democracy is questionable.

If, instead of enlightening people's viewpoints on interactions between Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Buddhists, all the media does is say that each group should just fear the others, then it makes it very hard for any agreement to be reached.

If instead of discussing gender equality issues, homosexuality issues, workers rights issues, etc., the media is just a source of propaganda, then the truth has little chance of seeing the light.

In my opinion, the rally was all about this message. And it was delivered to a smart crowd who understands whats at stake, not just in the election, but with the corporations getting rulings like the recent supreme court ruling that they can buy all the ad time they want, or with corporations finding ways to ship jobs overseas, or with wall street finding ways to take greater gambles with their money, all that and more.

To sum this up as a rally to promote couch potato do nothingism sponsored by a corporate giant with a friendly face plastered on front is a very narrow an IMO naive viewpoint.

The Black Church

I've been calling for a reevaluation of the impact of the church on Black America for a while. I think there are a lot of good messages out there that talk about being sheep vs actually willing to challenge the principles of your religion and say "I disagree with the Bible" - shocking, I know. But if we accept what Jesus says that the only way NOT to get into heaven is to blaspheme the Holy Ghost, then that may be saying that what we really need to do is what Jesus did and start going into temples and knocking over tables and challenging preachers.

I read King's autobiography and Phillip Gulley's book, "If God is Love", which both really challenged some of the principles I was taught growing up (a main one being that Gandhi went to hell). So much of the church "conversation" is really repeating a few select scriptures (John 3:16), but rarely do I hear people even willing to talk about what they should do when two verses seem to conflict one another (ex, Jesus saying that anyone who follows his command will be called a follower of Christ vs Paul defining Christians to be those who believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ).

Starting a new religion is kinda pointless to me, but I'd love for the church not to try to appoint people (pastors/bishops/popes/priests/etc) as God's "chosen people" as if their word comes straight from God with an ultimate understanding that we mere peasants couldn't think to understand, so we should just accept it.

Hey Democrats, Dumb it Down

A message that is not getting out to the people because many of the smart/educated/elite democrats seem to think that the democratic way is just common sense, and people will just by default choose whats best for them. The fact that Sarah Palin can connect with so many people about this stuff is a testament to it. Part of it is different conspiracy theories about the President, but part of it is just the inept inability of democrats to get our message across. The only person I've seen doing a remotely good job at that (other than Obama on the election scene of 2008) has been Jon Stewart.

What the Democratic party needs right now is more people who can talk in everyday language about this stuff, and what it means. People seem to be underestimating the importance of presentations. You can have a theory that changes the world (ala universal health care), but if you can't convey that message, you're probably not going to convince anybody. I don't know who the PR person for the democratic party is, and progressives in particular, but they seriously need help. All I'm seeing is talking (even a smuggish laughter at certain sites) where people seem to think that because "we're not the Republican party" and "the Tea Party is sooooooo bad", we're going to win in November. Thats about the most foolish thing I've ever heard.

I mean if a student doesn't understand what I'm teaching him in class, then he'll easily put down an answer that'll leave me scratching my head wondering how he got that, (sqrt(2)/2 = sqrt(), for example). But instead of letting it get to that point, its my job as the teacher to ensure that the message gets across. The Democratic party (and MSNBC, which tries to promote so many of the progressive values) seriously needs a revamp in how they're getting these messages across. I'd have thought that a revamp would have come after what happened with health care, but its just not happening. And I'm just left to wonder "are democrats that dense?"



I mean, I've been pretty pissed lately with the Democrats inability to get a message across. Keith Olbermann's show last night was a perfect example. There was a brilliant segment on small businesses, but nobody's going to watch the whole segment. Unless we can summarize this into an elevator speech that gets the point across, its just useless crap. Instead of just complaining though, I decided to do what I could to help out.

Point of this segment: Small business is not well defined, and is being abused by republicans.

How can we get this point across? Here are a few taglines that I thought of to summarize the message:

- Republicans think PriceWaterHouseCoopers is a small business.

- How can you have 30,000 employees and be called a small business?

- What should we be focused on saving - the mom and pop shops, or the big businesses?

- This is the same cycle all over again. Dems care about main street; Republicans care about wall street.

- They say if they can't save the big businesses the old fashioned way, they'll just start calling the big businesses small and try to save them that way.

I'm sure there are several other(better) ways to say it, probably some with examples and stuff, but the point here is that we need to simplify the message we try to convey so that we can get it to reach more people.

Complexity of Education??

I many friends who are getting PhD's in education. Recently, one of my friends made the comment that so much work is being done to come up with new methods for teaching, and questioned why these methods are not being used in the classroom. I thought about this and responded with the question, "how complex is the problem of education?"

I've been thinking about that for a few days now. I mean, at a basic level, it seems that the problem of educating a group of students can be seen as a transshipment problem. There is a single supplier, the teacher, and a set of demands, given by the students. The item being transported, though, is information and information doesn't seem to meet the standard metrics of this problem.

For instance, how do you know if the information has been passed from teacher to student? How do we know if a student knows the information? One way of measuring this is through a test, but tests have their own biases and its very difficult to encapsulate all the information on the test. Plus, how do we know they learned the information vs just memorizing it? A second metric would be some type of a paper/writeup of what they learned. Again, this has its pros and cons, what if the student learned, but isn't a good writer? What if the student enjoys one part of the material more than others, and thus ignores some part of the lesson? Another metric could be based on the set of questions a student asks, but what about shy students or students who don't know they don't understand the material yet? I've also seen Other metrics such as games and having the students teach class posed.

Assuming that we have some 'black box' which will tell us whether or not the student has learned the information, there is still the concept of passing information. Unlike passing materials (like a box), when I pass information to someone, I do not lose that information. In fact the opposite may happen, where I actually have more understanding of the information. So the standard supply and demand constraints of a transshipment problem do not apply. One could get around this by assuming that the teacher has an infinite supply of information, and thus is able to supply any number of students. It then becomes a transshipment problem where the teacher wants to find the a way of presenting the information so that each student learns the material. This also brings up a second question though about the teacher. If the teacher is limited in how much they know about the topic, then they are definitely limited in how much they can say about it, and the number of ways they can teach it.

But this brings up another difference between education and the transshipment problem, time. Generally, classes have some fixed length, say 50 minutes. So teachers need to find a set of ways to pass information to a classroom of, say 27 students, such that each student receives this information that takes no longer than 50 minutes. In today's world, this is relaxed a bit because in addition to office hours, teachers are able to provide teaching methods by way of the internet and email, but this only works for those who are acceptable to those methods of teaching.

So I'm wondering about this problem. Where is it in the polynomial hierarchy? Is it in the polynomial hierarchy? How much relaxations like "we'll use the metric of tests or standardized tests to judge how much a student has learned" help simplify the problem? What is lost in this doing things this way?

These are just some thoughts on the subject. I'm really curious about how well this has been studied in terms of general complexity though. I do see a journal which has sparked my interest. Its called Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education. I think I'll give a few articles a read in my spare time.

Just Cause I Feel Like Writing Tonight...

I really appreciate these post-college moments of clarity that seem to appear so often in my life right now. I don't mean those high-school-like moments of isolation, where I'm wondering who likes me, who doesn't like me, who are my friends, who are my enemies, what certain people think of me, who I'm going to take to the prom and the hundreds of other questions that seem to invade the adolescent mind who's trying to find a way to fit into the world around him. And in college it seems that I was always either studying or partying or clubbing or getting ready for grad school in so many different ways that I didn't have much time for these moments. But in this post-college, pre-'real' work world, I feel like these moments occur a lot more often. I'm talking about time when I'm sitting alone in my office thinking about stuff, or when I'm driving home from work, just sitting on the beltway, the only car in sight with a lot of time to think.

These moments are the perfect time to sit and reflect on whatever's going on in my life: whether it be different ways to try to pass qualifying exams, determination of what to do in my research, or more complicated problems like my personal life. When its just me and my thoughts, I have an opportunity to just sit back and think about stuff from a few different angles without fear of embarrassment or harassment and without causing an argument (as I often do). Or maybe I can sit and think about (or blog about) an argument I had in the past.

Take, for example, an incident with a young lady I was dating a month or two ago. I'm gonna go ahead and put the incident up on here because its pretty likely that I'll never talk to her again. She did say she'd like to remain friends, but with some of the statements she threw at me, I don't know if thats gonna happen. But in thinking about this, I'm forced to wonder how often this type of incident happens when two professional or career oriented people are trying to date.

Basically what happened on our last supposed date is that she invited me out - asked me to meet her later - but never got back to me. This kinda upset me because at first she was pretty responsive saying it'd be just a few minutes and that she'd keep me posted on what was going on. But unfortunately I never heard back from her that night. So, after about about two hours of waiting, I kinda got frustrated and sent a message that ended with 'holla at me when you've got time for me.'

Now I'm gonna pause in my story right here because I can just hear my friends in women's studies talking to me about the pressure I'm putting on a woman by forcing her to choose between her relationship and her career. In fact, I had had this very conversation while she was studying for the bar, and when she first started her job. There was a time that a similar thing happened in the past, and I tried to be understanding in terms of the stress that her career puts on her (whether I actually was or not is another question, but I really didn't show ANY anger over it at this first occasion).

But what some see as a choice between a career and a relationship, I see as merely respect for another person. On this example I pointed out above, what upset me wasn't that she couldn't meet me. Remember it was her idea to meet up. I would have been just fine sitting in my office and finishing up my work. But instead, I had to get in my car, run home and get in the shower and try to put on some nice clothes, get ready to go out, and THEN basically get stood up. And if she had called me and said, "hey, I'm not going to have that free time tonight after all", then I would have been able to just go back to my work and its all forgotten. But I didn't want to start reading a paper or thinking of a proof and then get a call like "I'll meet you at the movie theater in 30 mins" cause then I'd have all this math on my mind and might not want to leave if I'm in the middle of a good thought, and if I'm in the theater, my mind will start wandering and stuff. So basically, for about three hours (an hour after that text), I'm sitting there wondering if I'm going out tonight.

We didn't really talk again til one day she IM's me. What I found really messed up was that she didn't even mention the situation. I thought that was kinda weird so I went ahead and brought it up. I figured she'd have a legit explanation of what happened (and she kinda did), but she didn't (or refused to) explain why she didn't let me know. In fact, she responded to that by saying that I was "once again trying to guilt her". I don't know exactly what that means, but I was really expecting an apology if we were to ever really talk again. Even with the explanation she gave, which is legit, I just don't see whats wrong with me feeling like a dude who got shitted on. Instead, she takes my desire to have her respect my time as being "needy" and that I couldn't handle her position.

So yeah, that relationship is over. The friendship might be able to be salvaged. But the question on my mind is how common is this. Not with her in particular, but with a lot of my female friends who speak about similar problems with men who can't handle their success. I kinda see what she did to me as a defense mechanism to protect her from feeling any guilt in the situation. I'd be more than willing to say that I was a part of the problem. I mean, listening to her explanation, I can understand her state of mind and thus her frustration with my text. But to act as if I did that because I couldn't handle a successful woman? I just think thats crazy.

Now, that could easily just be her nice way of saying "listen bro, I like you, but I don't like-like you", and if so, then this was all just for philosophical reasons. But if people are going around saying that guys who expect a woman to feel bad for treating them wrong are needy or can't handle a successful woman, then that just might be a part of why you're still single (now if I could just answer that question for myself).

What'd You Just Call Me?

A nice guy is quickly growing to the top of things I don't want to be called. I feel like that places some kind of unnecessary burden onto my shoulders that implies that I'm going to do things that a 'typical' guy wouldn't. For instance, how can I break up with a girl and still be a nice guy? I can try all I want to explain it to her, to consider her feelings, to make it seem like its gonna be okay, but if she still likes me, she'll find a reason to hate me and no matter what I do, she'll explain that reason to herself and spread it reason as why I'm not a nice guy. Then my whole attempt at being nice will have been futile.

There are other things that are assumed about nice guys that I just don't like. One is the assumption of being a pushover. I learned long ago (back when I found out I couldn't fight) that its much safer to just look like you can fight, or even better to have a mean mug on your face that makes people think "I could probably take him, but it wouldn't be an easy fight". In that way, I've managed to survive some dire situations in schools. But are nice guys allowed to look mean? Or is a nice guy also supposed to be the guy who comes home crying to his girl cause he got his ass kicked and then she can play some mommy role and tell him "baby it'll be alright".

That being said though, I'm tired of people thinking that because I'm some kind of "nice guy", that its beyond my character to talk bad about somebody, or even criticize them. I mean, where I'm from we call it jon'in (its so hard to write down words I've only heard spoken) and we used to be able to go at it for hours at a time. Now, I'm in an academic setting and I understand that with this (as with most work environments), there's a lot more of an attempt to be politically correct and not hurt feelings. That I understand. But if you make a statement that deserves criticism, don't think I won't call you stupid just because you call me a nice guy. Not only that, but sometimes trash talk is just the proper etiquette. I mean, how much fun is a game of spades without some trash talk? How can I watch football with a Ravens fan or a Cowboys fan and not make jokes about them?

And thats another thing - the whole need to 'discuss' things. I love a good conversation. Thats how I met most of my friends and how I meet new people. I believe there's an unappreciated art to a conversation that I try to enjoy. But that being said, some people do not enter a conversation to converse (how different of a world would we live in if conversate was a word?). Some people want to lecture, criticize, or spout an agenda. Having a conversation with some people is like trying to convince Rush Limbaugh to vote for Obama. Now the 'nice guy' in me says to show them the flaws in their logic and they'll eventually come around. But the 'typical guy' in me says to tell them to STFU. That may not win me many brownie points but I think it gets my point across that I don't want to hear that and I don't want them ruining an otherwise beautiful conversation.

And the other thing about being a nice guy is that you're only the nice guy until there's an argument. From that point on, just like the girl you broke up with, you'll be that guy who has the wrong opinion on religion, or abortion, or gay rights, or whatever else you choose to disagree on.

I think the term 'nice guy' is really just a new way of saying "I like you, but I don't 'like you' like you". Its that whole "we can be friends, but not boyfriend/girlfriend" talk all over again, but with more implied meaning and less actual statements. Everybody has their flaws and their ways of doing things that aren't so 'nice', but when we generalize and say a person is nice, its like we're asking them to put on a mask and not show that 'bad' side of them. Or maybe, a guy is called 'nice' because he actually tries to hide his 'bad' side.

Either way, it doesn't work for me. So I no longer look forward to being called a 'nice guy'.

(Now I know I'm gonna have friends jumping to the other extreme and thinking that I'm all of a sudden trying to be an artificial bad boy....like I'm Fabulous/Puffy/Ja Rule/etc. or something. I hope you find that as funny as I do)

He's Not Superman

There's a quote from The Princess Bride that says, "Don't rush a miracle. You try to rush a miracle and you get rotton miracles."

Now, this is a quote from a fictional character who was asked to do the seemingly impossible task of bringing the hero back to life. But this is the thought that was going through my mind when Rachel Maddow interviewed Lt. Dan Choi.

I disagree with the policy of "Don't Ask Don't Tell". But I didn't agree with the way Lt. Dan Choi went about with this. I can understand one side of it is the discussion that he may have wanted to get the wheels in motion. But it seems more like he did this in attempt to MAKE Obama hurry up with this legislation. Maybe some feel that President Obama should hurry up with the legislation - I mean he closed Guantanamo Bay immediately, he called back several Bush policies in his first days in office, why not just do this too?

Thats a complicated question in my book and I don't know the answers to it. But I remember in grade school learning that even when I thought the teacher was wrong, or that I was within the rules, its not always best to get into a shouting match or to question their authority. Whether we agree or disagree with a law in question, breaking that law is "breaking the law" and there is a punishment for breaking the law.

Nonviolent resistence is all about not following unjust laws, but its also about accepting the consequences and using these irrationality of these consequences to further make your point. So what Lt. Dan Choi does next will be interesting.

But I think its very important to understand who's for and against gays in the military, and how complicated the issue may be. We already have issues with "coming out of the closet" in the non-military US. I cannot imagine what that would be like in the military. How would the other soldiers treat their fellow openly gay soldiers? How much would need to be spent to prevent hate crimes in the military? What about ensuring that all the generals on the ground are not being biased with things like who's on the front line, who's getting promoted, or even who they will let serve under them.

These are just the issues that come off the top of my head. I understand this is an urgent issue, particularly to those who are risking their lives to protect us here at home but are forced to lie about their sexuality. But I also feel like there is a bit of people buying into the hype about President Obama being able to fix every wrong of this country with the flip of a switch. To paraphrase EnVogue, "He's not our Superman".

Guys and Romantic Comedies??

I just gotta know, do I lose my man-card for this?

I've been bored lately and it seems there's always a decent romantic comedy on. Today I just watched "You, Me, and Dupree". Before that I watched "Good Luck Chuck", Then there's "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", "He's Just Not That Into You", "Just Friends", ... I can go on and on.

But I feel bad cause I only talk(ed) about these movies with my ex-girlfriends/dates. And actually I was using dates as an excuse to go and see these movies.

I think I migit be addicted to them. Is there something wrong with me?

Please. Help me!

Playoffs instead of Primaries??

So I was driving around in my car today and I was just doing some thinking. Right now the talk of the town (at least on radio) is the NBA and NHL playoffs. I'm a big fan of these playoffs matchups (much more than the regular seasons in these sports). I think I'd like college football a lot more if they had a playoff system - its just too hard to concentrate on that many bowl games over a 2 week period.

Anyway, I was switching back and forth between talk about the NHL playoffs and how the Caps are doing (Go Caps!!) and talk about elections in India on NPR. The talk about elections in India reminded me of a conversation I had last week where somebody pointed out the problems associated with a multi-party system - basically that while a majority is still needed in congress, no single party has a majority so its a lot harder for bills to pass. I'm not sure if the elections act in a similar way (I'd think not because they were talking about "round 4 of elections in India"), but this got me to thinking how would the primaries work if we had them set up as like a playoffs type system?

If you think of it right now, its kinda like a playoff system where the Democrats are the NFC and the Republicans are the AFC. The primaries are like the conference championship games and the November elections are like the Super Bowl (I'm going to stick to the football analogy since thats my favorite sport). But how would this system look under a different structure? What other structures are possible?

One thing about the primary system that I don't really care for is that it seems to eliminate third parties and third party candidates. So what if instead of the two round system we have now, we added more "rounds" of primaries where candidates go against some of these lesser known parties or maybe lesser funded candidates? Maybe this would be similar to the "wild card" round of the playoffs. One immediate question that I think of is, "how do we choose which candidates to go against one another"? Or who gets to vote in which primary?

Supposing that we did something like this, and it eliminated political parties all together, then we could adopt something similar to the NCAA tournament where the candidates are all put into some magical box which decides who to put into each primary. Then people would be able to register for the primary of their favorite candidate and go cast their votes.

Another thing about this is should the candidates go in head to head battles (similar to the November elections) or in one vs the rest battles (similar to the primaries as they currently are)? I'm not really a fan of the one vs all battles because again, I think they tend to favor the major political parties. But if instead, we were to engage in a series of head to head matchups, there's more of a chance that a third party candidate could emerge - either out of the public outrage against one of the major candidate, or just because that third party candidate actually represents the public interests better.

I don't know. This is just some stuff that was on my mind as I was driving and switching back and forth through some talk radio.

Why We Arguing?

I love discussions that lead to enlightenment,
not them tit for tat arguments.
But nowadays, its hard to tell them apart from one another.
We disagree and its like I insulted your mother.
Then I start gettin the third degree,
wonderin if I should fight back violently,
vigorously?
Its just rediculuous that it always comes to this -
a heated debate until we both walk away;
neither thinking they're wrong;
and neither willing to just get along.
So since nobody's quiet,
it sounds like a riot,
people lookin strangely at us wonderin whats up.
Is it really that serious?
Does this stuff even matter to us?
Or did the presence of an argument cause us to lose focus?

It Aint Easy

I play around with math to relieve the stress.
Pen and pad in hand wonderin what's next.
I've got friends callin me up - takin sides,
and close family who just died - and I aint even cry.
Just took it in stride, and all those emotions and pain, just held 'em inside.
Its like I aint got a friend in the world.
got a million and one problems I don't even tell my girl.
But thats the game and I'll be damned if a thing changes.
Its no love for a guy from the streets tryin to make it legally,
to I turn to poetry.
I'm tellin you, It aint easy bein me.
Some hear me complain and say I'm to blame or call me insane.
its like its a big game, and me even tryin to win is hopeless
So I sit silent through all the commotion
Occasionally wavin hi to the people passin by.
It aint easy bein me.

I can't sleep cause I'm dreamin conspiracy theories,
wake up sweaty and steamin cause I'm on to what they thinkin.
I'm probably paranoid but I've heard stories of my boys
who've been through it before.
Don't want to go through it again,
so I'm wathin who I'm callin a friend.
I sit and wonder why it is the way it is,
but meanwhile I've got my thoughts on these kids,
cause I don't want them to see me like this,
expectin a life with no happiness.
But it aint easy.
They sit and watch Obama representin
and I'm wonderin about a society that'd rather see em in prison.
Gettin calls from my dad to make sure I'm alive
Although I'm quiet, he tells me to just take it in stride.
But even he's pesterin me about finishin this degree
I'm tellin you, It aint Easy bein me.

Loving Hate (Blinded by Love part 2)

See, we grow up and we're taught these two emotions - love and hate - and we never get to know love, so we just appreciate hate. We thrive on controversy, with emotions raging to the point where we can't stand the calm and patient. If patience is a virtue that leads to long life, then frustration is that ugly cousin vice that feels so right - I mean momentarily mad, but ultimately we glad cause its that emotion we're used to, so we know what to do, and so we never learn about those virtues, and never know that thing called love.

This aint the way it always was, we tried to give love its fair share. We all have those stories of when we first thought we had it, thought we'd found it. This goes back to a simpler time, before corrupted minds, being meddled with by e-harmony ads on the sublime, sayin its so easy to find and time after time after time, or should I say story after story after story, we stop callin it love and resist the emotion, hopin that'll save us from the sadness and the mysery, but instead it sements sadness into our memory. We vow not to ride the roller-coaster of love, so we stay on the kiddy rides of "I hurt you cause I like you", knowin that thats not true, but its much easier to make her mad than it is to have her make you sad. So we grow to love hate.

Alone

Do you know what its like to be all alone? Some people say they do and they play along. But they don't know what its like to really be all alone. They say they do, but they don't know alone. I don't mean alone like losing a girl or a friend. And I don't mean depressed wishing for your life to end. Truth is, these eries are SEEN by others eyes. Some say sadness is just a part of life. So they'll pat your back and say it'll be alright. See, sadness, people can relate to. But what do you do when nobody can relate to you? And I don't mean the teen, "Nobody understands me"

I mean bein the gleam in their eyes, so bright that your very existence is considered right - a miracle of God. Like where you've got a job that's so hard to get that even mentioning it makes you the shit. And even though you love what you do, it makes you miserable cause its stuff nobody can relate to. So you make a hobby outta talkin to yourself. Can't nobody understand your questions so you answerin em for yourself. Its nowhere to go for help, nobody to talk to. There are people who did it before, but even they confused. They provide advice, but they're worried about the problems in their own life.

Its a road only paved for the few, and I've still got some pavin left to do. Picture that childhood dream that seems impossible to pursue, so most just dream different, set their goals on what they know they can accomplish, only to later in their mid-life crisis, wonder if they coulda accomplished this. But I heard about the struggle and still took the hard road - ignored the naysayers tryin to add to my load. It got to the point where I could see the dream clearly, and right there in the center was me smiling happy. But now when I look up, I aint seein the same stuff. That picture done changed to the point where I don't know what's up. And that's the part of the hard road that wasn't in the brochure. Nobody explained that there'd be NOBODY next to you. I never knew there'd be nobody to talk to, nobody to ask whats goin on. So I sit alone.

Changes to Success

These days just aint the same, but I'm resistant to change - like a kid in a new house this world is just gettin strange. So much, so soon, it all seems so new. This stuff I'm not used to: the women the stress, the life, the death, threats in the church of goin to hell, with nobody to tell.

There's no guide, no rules to live by, nobody to ask the when's and why's. Instead we try to make it every day and every way. We listen to what works, who did what, and who got caught. Some stories are true and some just fairy tales, but we still listen like little kids sittin on grandpa's knee talkin about all he had done, and all he'd overcome. We listen to the stories and try to guess the secret to success.

But that secret's like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. So we search and we search and we search until we lose faith in the search and start to question if this secret even exists. We're told to have faith, which makes us wait longer and longer til that day when fate overcomes faith and we say that there's no way that this way will lead to success. So next we try a new way until we've found it, or we realize that there's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and we're left with nowhere to go.