With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going past them into the impossible.
August 20, 2009 - 1:15 p.m.
I have to get back in the habit of writing my entries in the morning. I've been wasting time. Can you imagine that? Me wasting time? Unheard of. It must be those damn Chronoklepts.
Have I mentioned that I have air conditioning? Have I mentioned that AC is the greatest invention in the history of mankind? I spent yesterday keeping cool in my apartment. I must have actually done something but all I can remember is being comfortable.
Last night I know what I did. I went to the Met game. The weather was threatening but it never rained. Too bad. The Mets could have used it. It was so bad that I left after six innings, the Mets were losing 14-2. If Alan were more adventurous I'd have suggested that we go down to the field level and ask people leaving for their tickets so we could sit in their seats. Alan won't do something like that. If it wasn't so hot and muggy I would have done it by myself. Judging from the view behind them the good seats at Citi Field are amazing. That makes sense as the Field was designed for the luxury boxes and the high priced seats with the rest as an afterthought. As an example. To get to our seats on the top level near the plate we either have to walk to right field to find an escalator or walk the entire way up. There are elevators but you wait forever for them. The Mets' dream is to build a stadium with just luxury boxes and everyone else pays admission buys concessions then goes home and watches the game on TV.
Jake sent me a link to some interesting computers. Anyone else have any recommendations? I should point out that I need an entire new system including monitor and speakers. I want something decent that won't be outmoded in a few years.
When I was coming come from seeing Anthony da Costa on Monday I thought I saw someone I knew standing in Rockwood. It wasn't him but when I went to look closer I saw that Jeff was there. I said hi and he said, "You're coming from seeing Anthony?" I love that he knew that. I love that there is this community and that I'm part of it. When I go to shows or even walk around the Lower East Side and East Village I'll run into people I know. It's an echo, a diminished echo, of the Greenwich Village Folk scene of the fifties and sixties. Does that make me a scene kid? I bet the majority of you, My Gentle Readers know me from music. Let's see how interwoven the community is. I'm going to go down my Facebook page and list how many mutual friends I have with everyone posting. I'll also see how far down I have to go to find someone who isn't a friend from the scene. I'll go down at least 10 people in any event. If I have an automated link to the person I'll give it, otherwise I won't. The last number is a stat I'm naming connectivity. It is 1000 times the product of the fraction of my friends that are mutual with the fraction of their friends that are mutual. For example. Let's say I have 10 friends and my friend has 20 and we have 5 mutual friends. So it is 5/10 * 5/20 = ½ * Ό = 1/8 = 0.125. Multiply by 1000 to avoid decimals and you get 125. The higher the connectivity the more two people run in the same social circles. If all the friends were mutual you' get 1000. Well not quite as I'm my friend's friend but not my own. So there is always at least non-mutual friend on each side.
- Kelly Flint - Scene 79 - 15
- Maura - Scene 161 - 18
- Maura wished a happy birthday to Joe Crookston Scene 89 - 32
- Lena - DVN't 24 - 7
- Joe Iadanza Scene 40 - 8
- Meg Braun Scene 66 - 20
- Kathleen Biggins WFUV 20 - 2
- Jim Infantino Scene 72 - 13
- Kathy Scene 135 - 30
- Joy Frόhead 17 - 1
- Chris - Scene 80 - 36
I gave up finding anyone that I don't know through music. That's how I know everyone who has posted on my front page now.
You can see that there is a fairly clear dividing line. With the exception of Joe Iadanza I have at least 66 mutual friends with each person in the scene. The most from any non-scene friend is Lena's 24 and she was part of another community, DVN'ts and we know each other well enough that we know most of our mutual friends through each other.
On connectivity once again with the exception of Joe Iadanza all the non-scene friends have scores 7 and under and all the scene people 13 and above.
I expected Chris to have the highest score but I'm surprised at the degree of overlap with Kathy and Joe Crookston. I'm surprised at how low the score is of Maura and Kelly as I've known them forever. I think what's going on is that they have so many fans from outside the area that I don't know.
Let's check some more friends. I always joke that Amy Speace knows everyone I do, her score is 36, she ties with Chris for the highest so far.
How about LORi? She blows everyone out of the water with a 60.
Carey scores a 19.
I figured Jake would score high and he did. 43.
OK that's enough for now. You can do the same for your friends. The formula is easiest to calculate as 1000*M²/(F1*F2) where
M=Mutual Friends
F1=Friend 1's Friends
F2=Friend 2's FriendsThis doesn't tell how emotionally close you are to a friend, it shows how much you run in the same circles. Who is part of your crowd? Who is an outlier?
My phone just rang, it was Meryle, my department chairman. I have my teaching schedule for the fall. I won't be teaching nights! I also lost track of a student that wrote me earlier that I never got back to. I've been out of town, sick, or injured all summer and ended up not getting back to many emails. He got over a 70 on only one test all year and was upset that he got a C-. I can't begin to comprehend that though it was not unexpected. I give the students a big break by including attendance as 15% of their grade another 15% being the quizzes where they know the questions beforehand and all they have to do is memorize formulae. I tell them that I am not going to stretch their grades beyond that. All they know is that they want to do better without doing the work.
I haven't been happy with the last couple of entries. The real point of this entry is not the stats but my love of the stats. This is how I understand the world. I feel so much more comfortable when I can quantify things. I loved finding that my gut feeling that Amy and I know all the same people was born out. I loved finding out that even though I didn't know it Joe Crookston and I know so many of the same people.
The thing is that gut feelings are not to be trusted. Everything is filtered through or prejudices. There was a great line on Car Talk. "When you have a 50-50 chance of being right you'll get it wrong 90% of the time." It often seems like that. Some people go the other way and think they are always right. If I ever seem doubtful of your judgment or observations don't feel slighted. I feel doubtful of my own too.
It's too late now, I'm starving but I'm now inspired to write about how this effects the health care debate. I'm going to be very busy the next few days but next time I get a chance that's going to be my topic, "Health Care and Making Rational Decisions."
Jews and Canadian Health Care - August 25, 2009
The True Story - August 24, 2009
R-E-S-P-E-C-T - August 23, 2009
Welcome to Neuroworld - August 22, 2009
Fan on the Run - August 21, 2009
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile August 20, 2009
