Hey, this guy is tarnishing my good name:
Burglary suspect Kyle B. Dickerson is scheduled to plead guilty to unspecified charges on Oct. 22 in Steuben County Court.

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I've pondered the concept of fear for a little while now. This pondering was also encouraged by reading "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton. He tackles the concept of global warming specifically and lightly touches on the topics I was more considering. For this book he did three years of research, reading everything he could get his hands on about "global warming". Based on his research and the many pages of annotated bibliography that he includes there is little reason to believe that increases in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere due to industrialization will have any meaningful impact on the world's climate.

The topic I was thinking on, which Crichton touches briefly, is that fear is and always has been the controlling factor of society. Think about it. The monarchies of old it was fear of bodily harm that kept people in line, or fear of losing their position in the court. Those monarchies were supported by the churches, so not only was it fear of the State, but also fear of God.
The United States changed all that when we successfully rebelled against the British monarch. The revolutionary army showed that you couldn't scare people into doing what you wanted anymore simply by threatening them directly with pain and suffering. It was clear that the benefits of risking that punishment outweighed the risks. Suddenly the dynamic of controlling a population changed.

We see the replacement fear factors usually as foreign oppressors of some kind. The US had some convenient scapegoats for this purpose, the Indians for starters, and the war of 1812 to hate the British again, then the Civil War, and there seemed to be sufficient residue from that carry through the early 20th century. Then, of course, there was plenty of hate for the Germans all through World War II, plus suspicion of anyone/anything Japanese. Then the greatest thing for controlling society since God-backed Monarchies happened. Communism. The Soviets got to use the evil, capitalistic West to control its population and we got to use McCarthy and the Red Scare to control ours.

Unfortunately that stopped working after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. New dangers were needed. Soon we had to pass all sorts of laws to protect us and fight the "War on Drugs". Killer Bees were going to take over whole cities. In 1995 and 1996 we had domestic terrorism but that wasn't scary enough. We had idiots like Jack Thompson who pushed as hard as the could the idea that video games made kids shoot each other. Eastern Equine Encephalitis was going to bring an epidemic upon the country. Then it was West Nile and Avian Flu. We've also added in the "War on Terrorism" and managed to invade a couple countries to show how serious it was. And, of course, the nebulous threat of "Global Warming".

And at this moment we have "Impending Economic Collapse" unless you let the government do whatever it feels like you're sure to be bankrupt and starving within a year.

We live in a world today where people are afraid to let their kids play outside. Where people are afraid to walk around at night. We're afraid to live near power lines, we're afraid our cell phones will give us cancer, we're afraid to live near water (for fear of storms), we're afraid our water will pump us full of prescription drugs, we're afraid our planes will crash, we're afraid of everything. We're so afraid that we're paralyzed. Everyone's afraid that if they upset the status quo around them that everything will topple into destruction.

Fear is what makes the world go round.

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On the recommendation of a friend I've been reading E. M. Forster's works the last week. In the last week I've read: A Passage to India, Howards End, and Where Angels Fear to Tread. Fairly similar to other prominent early 20th-century British authors, but with some unique twists. The three that I read generally follow the outline of a Shakespearean / Greek Tragedy. The protagonists have some character flaw and they drive onward to their own doom despite having several opportunities to back out and set things right.

The common theme in these three (and likely extends to his other works as well) is that the difficulties stem from class or cultural differences which lead to misunderstandings with tragic results for both sides.

A Passage to India centers around the conflicts arising from the British in India attempting to associate with the native population. The characters that attempt to bridge the divide between cultures end up worse off than they start. The friendship that exists between a British man and an Indian doctor fails and resentment remains. Neither side is willing to give the other any benefit of the doubt and things progressively degenerate. A classic example of the Prisoner's Dilemma where both sides have chosen an "Always Defect" strategy. In such a strategy any side that attempts to make amends only gets burned and ensures that both sides view the other only in the most suspicious terms.

Howards End occurs wholly within England and uses class differences as the focal point of the misunderstandings. What I got out of it was something that Forster brings up in the first half of the novel, but then doesn't elaborate on later. He brings up the idea that places are the important things in existence and drive events. I think part of what he is saying is that Howards End "wants" to belong to Margaret and thus drives the events of the story so that it finally does despite the wishes and wants of all the characters involved. Had the house's first attempt to be given to Margaret after Ruth's death been heeded much tragedy and turmoil could have been avoided. It is a little silly but that was the notion I was drawing out of it.

Where Angels Fear to Tread discusses the cultural differences between the British and the Italians as well as the cultural snubbing which occurs in British society when a member doesn't do exactly as considered proper. Some simple sympathy and compassion from either side of the conflicts could have alleviated the situations before they led to death and heartache.


An interesting trend throughout all of Forster's works that I've read is that he has this odd way of sucking the tension out of a situation well ahead of time if that situation isn't actually one he plans to dramatically build the story line around. He'll take a paragraph discussing how some character wants to do such and such and you see it building to some dramatic conclusion later in the book, but the next paragraph will start with something like, "But that was never to happen and the last desire for her plans were lost the week she died." and you're kind of left going, "oh... hmm".

Another trend throughout is the inklings of a feminist movement. His characters often represent some struggle between male dominance in society and the women trying to emancipate themselves from that dominance. What I liked about it though is that Forster doesn't ever seem to place all the blame upon any one side, whether the conflict is between cultures, classes, or sexes. You very clearly are shown that both sides have kept up the trouble and that either side could help alleviate the conflicts. It is much more balanced in the discussion presented to the reader than a lot of books.

I think what I enjoyed the most was when Forster uses the story to bring about some topic of thought or philosophy and then just takes a couple of paragraphs and elaborates upon the idea completely outside the storyline. During these little asides he gets to say things more directly without trying to finagle the characters into representing the ideas.

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So, here's a good idea:
"NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Bush administration has asked Congress for the authority to spend as much as $700 billion to purchase troubled mortgage assets, according to a copy of the proposal obtained by CNN." -- cnn.com

I can't say that I think it's appropriate for the government to basically be nationalizing banks, insurance, and financial companies. But the best part is at the end of the article:

"Without these bad loans weighing on their books, banks may be more willing to lend. Or at least that's the goal."

So, if the government bails out these banks from the loans they made to people that couldn't be trusted to pay them back, then the banks will be able to start lending money out again to people that can't be trusted to pay it back. Great plan. If there are no consequences for their actions then nothing will stop them from doing it again.

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FYI, if you want to update from Sun-Java5 to Sun-Java6 on Ubuntu you need to run the following command after uninstalling 5 and installing 6:

kyle@lepton:~$ sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-6-sun

If you don't then none of the java, javac, etc files will exist in /usr/bin and you will become very frustrated trying to determine why your java install isn't doing anything.


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It's been awhile without an update here, so I should do that.

Let's see, since hiking Timpanogos school has started again. I'm taking CS 611 - Advanced Computer Theory where we get to learn how to write proofs and then prove things about computability and complexity theory. I'm also taking CS 401R, which will be CS 479 Natural Language Processing. The classes are interesting, 611 is quite challenging, but I've had pretty good preparation by TAing CS 252 (the undergraduate theory course). I'm TAing 252 again this year and it's going well. I get to teach class this week because the professor will be in Spain for a conference. I'll be going over the equivalence of Non-deterministic Finite Automata with Deterministic Finite Automata on Wednesday, and on Friday we'll be discussing Regular Expressions.

I've finished coding the query collection program I'll be using to gather all my data to analyze my Thesis work. So once the headphones and mic stand arrive I'll be getting people to sign up to provide sample query data. So that's moving along.

I'm sure I've read a number of books since I've last written about them, but I'm sure I wouldn't be able to remember them all at this point. Right now I'm reading "A Passage to India" by E.M. Forster based on a recommendation. So far it reminds me of the 20th century fiction we read in high school.

I had my follow up visit with the Ophthalmologist today. The pressure in my eyes is lower than 6 months ago and there is no sign of any damage so currently I am glaucoma free. So that's good news.

The parking garage that was built with the addition to the Tanner building was actually finished for this Fall, which I think was earlier than originally planned. So there is Graduate Parking on the west side of campus again, which is nice since it's closer to the TMCB than the law building lot. It also doesn't seem to be widely known that the garage is open, so there's usually parking available, which is nice.

I went up to the State Fair last Friday. It was alright. I had a funnel cake (which almost did me in) and got to see the photography exhibit. I decided that I should definitely enter something there next year, some of the pictures we saw were exactly the same as some that I've taken, so I could definitely get in.

On Saturday I went up to the Orem Hospital to play Ultimate with Orem Ultimate Fall League. I signed up and paid my fees online, and then never heard anything back and the season started the first weekend in September. So I went up there today and, sure enough, they were playing. Apparently a handful of us had our payment go through, but our registration information disappeared so they didn't know how to contact us. So that's all sorted out and I should have a team assignment before next week. For this week I just played with my captain from Spring League who needed some extra players due to injuries and absences.

I think that's a sufficient update for now.

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Brady and I hiked Mt. Timp on Saturday. I had tried to get a larger group of people together to do it, but no one else ended up coming when it came time to go. We left Provo at midnight and started on the trail above Aspen Grove at 12:40. As we hiked I decided to come up with various epithets for the areas you hike through. We reached the meadow of serenity by about 3:30. Once you're to the other side of the meadow, past Emerald Lake and the shelter you enter into the rock field of eternal damnation. It seems to never end, the path is impossible to find in the dark, there are no comfortable places to rest, and your feet get sore from stepping on rocks and only rocks, so the name was fitting to us. At one point my flashlight caught a white four-legged figure moving about which startled me for a moment even though it was still a ways away. When the sun came up we found that there were flocks (word choice?) of mountain goats that wander about, sadly I forgot to get a picture. We finished that at 4:40.
Then you have to climb the hill of death. It's an extremely steep strip of mostly dirt that connects you to the trail leading to the saddle. After already hiking for 4 hours the hill of death is rough. We got up to the saddle and then pushed right on to the summit. We reached the summit around 5:50 and hunkered down under the East ledge to get out of the wind. We still had an hour to wait for sunrise, but the sky was just starting to lighten and change colors so we got to enjoy the full effect. I actually fell asleep for about 10 minutes while waiting.

Here's sunrise:

The people behind Brady to his right are sitting on the ledge of the summit, directly in the wind. It's much colder right where they are. Where Brady and I are is just below that ledge and the wind goes over us, that's the recommended place to sit for sunrise.

We then started down and took an hour break at Emerald Lake. We got back to the car at about noon. So, in total it was a 11.5 hour hike, 5 hours up, 4 hours down and the rest of the time spent at the top and Emerald Lake.

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Now for something completely different:

I was at Panda Express for lunch/dinner with Megan, Chad, and Mollie yesterday afternoon. I was the only one that got a fortune cookie with an actual fortune. I guess even the Chinese wanted me to go to FHE that night, or something.... :

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