Motivation

The Onion seems to agree with me about irrelevance in education.

In my education manifesto I forgot to mention a third key element of the program. Recall my recommendation: students who are unenthusiastic about education might benefit more from physical labor (of the sort one might get to do for a living without additional academic learning) for as long as they are disinterested in study. The part that I forgot to mention is that students should also be encouraged and allowed to serve as tutors for less advanced students for some part of school time. With good organization, the teachers-per-student required for equivalent progress would fall if students teach each other, lowering the costs for public education.

Decked out

Last night I was dreaming intently when a man yelling through the predawn mist of the Pittsburgh slums transported me into reality, where I languished briefly before returning to my dream.

I woke up for real soon after 6am and decided to get an early start at the office fueled by coffee, but by 2pm I had lost all motivation except for one thing: BUILD THE DECK. The inspector said he'd look at the progress and call me if there were problems. He had not called, and I don't think he ever will. This is Pittsburgh, people.

So I set to work. The first challenge was to install the posts with a temporary support structure. I wanted the support to be simple so that each post could be repeatedly put for measurements and taken down for sawing just by loosening or tightening a single screw. This turned out to be surprisingly easy, thanks to the convenience of the patio railing, which I did not hesitate to exploit:




I used the water level again to mark the posts at the same height that I wanted them to match up with the house. The tube I got is so narrow that surface tension prevents air bubbles from escaping, potentially messing up the balance, so I freakwently held the two ends together to check that the level was level:

I used my new hand saw to cut the posts. I like my hand saw. Cutting once through the 6x6 post, and then ripping it about 10 inches, and then cutting 3 inches into the side took just 18 minutes.


This wore me out pretty good and I took a break to see what I could find to eat in the garden. This, I believe, must be a bonsai watermelon:

I put the posts back in position and nailed them down on the metal brackets separating them from the concrete. Then I pulled out the first of two 16-foot long 2x12 beam boards and threw it up into position. OK, I didn't exactly throw it, I stood on the patio railing and just pushed it into place. To make sure it didn't fall before I got it screwed in place, I had a 2x4 blocking the other side to form a cradle.

Then I screwed everything and added some stability by putting up a couple of joists.


To my delight the joists were pretty much level. I was proud.


My friends will be sick of hearing me talk about my deck.

Freakwenter Hedge Fund: quarterly report

It has been a rather dismal couple of weeks on the stock market, so I decided it's time to take stock of my investing performance.

About 3 months ago I put some funds into a trading account. As of today, the value of that account, after subtracting all the trading fees and future trading fees required to withdraw the money, is up by only about 0.3%, or 1.2% annualized. All but one of the stocks I hold has fallen below the price at which I purchased.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 index, a common benchmark for investment performance, is down by about 2% over the same period. In this regard, it looks like I'm beating the system by about 2%. On the other hand, I would be beating the system just as well with the money in CDs, minus the risk. More time will tell.

When losing weight matters

It may take months before a passage is drilled to trapped Chilean miners, but some may have to wait even longer than that to come out:

To rescue the trapped miners, workers will try to dig a wider 27-inch shaft directly to the men. The men would be raised up one at a time. Two of the miners, however, are obese and it's not clear how they will fit. Rescuers hope the men will lose weight in the mine to fit through the hole.

Hey everyone, I'm frugal (but I didn't just say that!)

Thanks to the New York Times for this sweet picture and commentary on perceptions of frugality in modern romance. Evidently it's OK to be frugal but, especially for men, best not to say so.

The Word

The opening words of John 1 (Bible):
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God."

The CMU student handbook: The Word.

Education

This old favorite Pink Floyd act always gets me riled up. I would be the last to say we don't need no education, but the first to say we could use some major changes.

I think that the failures of modern education to educate and the propensity of modern education to aggravate children are deeply related. If everyone just does what I say then students will be happier and smarter. Before I make my proposals, I should list what I see as the biggest problems in education today.

The Problems:

1. Many students don't want to learn in the current system.
   
2. Many students learn far below their potential.
   
3. Students frequently disrupt each other, making it harder for those who otherwise thrive in the current system.
4. Students are regularly put into courses for which they do not have adequate preparation, and occasionally the reverse, leading to inefficient learning.
5. Students prematurely placed in advanced courses learn to think of themselves as dumb, constantly demoralized by bad grades. The smartest ones, on the other hand, get bored.
   
6. Students are useless. They consume great resources, on the order of $10k per year on education alone, and produce nothing besides, in some cases, slight assistance to parents at home.
   
7. Students are grouped by age, over a 12-year span, and this highly artificial arrangement distorts their perception of "normal" socialization.

My proposals:

1. Eliminate the grouping of students by grade and age. Let students choose the subjects that they want to pursue, in consultation with an adviser.
   
2. Eliminate grades as we know them. Increase the number of "proficiency" exams available, each of which is offered from time to time, depending on the needed frequency. Such exams would range from a timed 1-minute test of times-tables memorization to a practical chemistry skills exam up to AP calculus exams, etc.
   
3. Eliminate diplomas. Already, diplomas are so unequal as to be practically meaningless. Instead of diplomas, let students keep a record of the proficiency exams that they have passed.
4. Replace classroom "learning" and "testing" with classroom "doing" and "consultation." Students work on projects relating to the theme of the class and present their work to the class or discuss it with the teacher.
   
5. Teacher roles: First, answer questions from students, direct them to resources, and make suggestions for study topics. Occasional deliver a brief lecture on a particular difficult concept. Meet with students occasionally to see how they are doing. Remove disruptive or apathetic students.
6. Make school just 7 or 8 hours per day with a long lunch break and NO HOMEWORK. Even most graduate students can't really focus for more than 10 hours in a day.
7. Face the problem of student motivation head on.

The last proposal is the most important and the most difficult. In proposal 5, I said teachers should remove apathetic students. In the current system, there would be precious few student remaining after all the apathetic ones left. Where would they go? What would they do? I think that there are a lot of horrible options to consider, but many of these horrible options are better than allowing unwilling students to waste their lives sitting and waiting for school to let out.

First, students who are sick of learning should be given some counseling and possible referral to solutions for distracting emotional or social problems. All who persistently choose not to study, or who choose to study just a fraction of the day, should be put to work learning hands-on job skills, starting with sweeping the school halls, working on the school farm, or washing dishes, in the school cafeteria, and even taking part-time work for local businesses, with all earnings set aside in a coming-of-age account, to be claimed upon a student reaching legal independence from their parents.

The choice between study and physical labor should have no explicit punitive element. Students are not told what to do, between labor and study, and their decisions are respected. The only completely unacceptable behavior is doing nothing. Such students would be sent to some kind of rehab, set loose, or some kind place of extreme boredom like jail if they're a risk.

Deck Ledger Board

Nearly 16 feet long and quite heavy, the ledger board is now attached to the house. Being just one man, I had to scheme to raise the board into place and nail it in alone. That explains the vertical 2x4's which served as legs to hold the board up for me. The barely-visible length of tube swooping from one end to the other is a water level. The mess of plastic is keeping the house dry now that I've stuffed the top edge of it up underneath the lowest piece of siding.


The part not shown in this picture is the bottom back edge of the board, which I beveled at about 45 degrees so that it would fit over the top edge of the concrete wall. I had no skill saw, so I used my hand saw to cut notches and then chopped off all the unwanted wood using my lawn mower, i.e., my machete.

Wildlife in the Pittsburgh Slums IV

This little guy has been grazing on my watermelon greens. I hope the two melons ripen before he kills the plant. I nearly knocked him out of play in a brief confrontation in the middle of the lawn in which my shovel-fighting technique proved a bit too clumsy for his superior reflexes. Here he perches on the chain link fence, trying to decide whether to dash into his hole in the neighbor's lawn or to drop down on my side for another taste of watermelon:


A lot of people think groundhogs are cute. I do not. They don't even taste that good. And their fur is thin and a bit stinky, if you've ever tried to smell it. The underside of a goundhog in summertime reminds me of my poor balding head.

Raccoons, now they are cute! I could [efficiently] bludgeon a thousand groundhogs to death without batting a single eyelash, but to so much as look sternly at one of these velvety panda puppets would make me feel as though I were pissing on the Christmas puppy, or driving a brand new sports car over a cliff, what have you. Besides, they help to clean up my neighbors garbage, which sits out on their back deck about 15 feet from my bedroom window:


These are the four little ones, the mom failed to make it into the family photo, and I'm assuming that the father is out of the picture these days. And I don't know what is the story behind the little doll-girl that appears to lie unconscious under the edge the trash can lid.

Liberal Media Bias: Obama a Christian?

Update: This post contains a lot of garbage, so read it primarily for entertainment.

I applaud the attempts of the mainstream media to set the record straight regarding Obama's religion. HOWEVER, in stating that Obama is a Christian, I think the media is overstepping its knowledge to reveal a liberal bias. More importantly, I think they are missing the point.

First, let it be established that the mainstream press takes it as fact that Obama is a Christian. The following quotes come from the first three recognizable news sources (excluding Fox) that showed up in Google News for this story (bold is mine):

• ABC: "The percentage of those asserting that the president is a Christian -- which he is -- has gone down ... "
• Washington Post: "The number of people who now correctly identify Obama as a Christian has dropped to 34 percent ... "
• BBC: "Among Republicans, that number was 34%. Just a third of those quizzed correctly identified Mr Obama as Christian."

Second, let it be established that whether Obama is actually a Christian is far from an easy question. Jesus taught his followers to sell all their possessions and take up a life of simple living and nonviolence. By this standard, no recent president, with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, even began to come close to being a Christian.

Granted, a minority of people who claim to be Christian do much better than the presidents, so let me take a step back and suppose that being Christian is more of a cultural affiliation. In that case it proves very interesting to consider the precise brand of Christianity that Obama affiliated with just prior to the presidency: His pastor was Jeremiah Wright, who is widely perceived as anti-American and anti-Semitic.

"Christian" can mean many things, and yet to many of those calling Obama un-Christian, "Christian president" means "George W. Bush." By this standard it is no wonder that some say that Obama is not a Christian, and by their definition of Christianity, they are absolutely correct, contrary to the claims of the liberal media. As one close relative with a capacity for nuance put it, "I think that Obama is more Muslim than he is Christian."

I don't care whether Obama is Christian. I believe in the separation of church and state, and frankly it's fine with me if Obama or any other president calls himself the Devil as long as he performs well in office. His actions define his presidency.

I have to hand it to Fox News for not screwing it up this time [update: the Fox article is less remarkable than I realized]. Nowhere [update: this sentence is actually false/irrelevant] in their article do they pretend to know anything about Obama's soul, and they even quote a guy who says it like it is:

"It's a troubling thing," Wilcox said. "I think it would be good for all of us to stop invading the president's spiritual privacy. We don't know what anyone's true faith is. It doesn't tell us about what their true core values are."

Big day in the garden

Laying to rest the Ground Zero temple

Flurries of discussion on the proposed Islamic Temple near ground zero are sweeping through families, radio, and cyberspace, prompting me to lay the issue to rest with a series of brilliant remarks.

First, as a proponent of freedom and protector of property rights, I hope that the mosque builders are given the same freedoms to use their private land as they choose as much as any other landowner in that neighborhood is given. This is my political position, and I'm guessing that America's future will be stronger if Obama and Bloomberg stick to their guns on this point.

Next, consider the following points:

1. By many reports, a majority of Americans are in favor of prohibiting the planned mosque.
2. Most of those Americans opposed to the mosque would view the mosque as some kind of monument to terrorism.
3. Building the mosque will make those who oppose it even more angry and prejudiced towards Muslims. America learns at its own pace.
   
4. Building the mosque may quell some of the hate that much of the Middle East feels towards America, but this effect is insignificant compared to the hate generated by ongoing American military operations in the Middle East.
5. Americans who already understand that not all Muslims are terrorists will not be made more convinced of this fact by the presence of a Muslim temple.

These points, and especially point 3, lead me to think that is disingenuous at best for the Muslim leaders to using the Temple to win greater acceptance by society.

Another way to look at the situation is to imagine that a muslim mosque is a gay marriage. The marriage, however dignified it may be, stokes anger among its opponents. Does this mean that the gays who want to marry could hasten the coming of a broad societal acceptance of gay marriage by waiting to do gay marriage?

For both marriages and mosques, I think that the answer depends on the extent to which the act (conducting a marriage, building a mosque) is at heart a symbolic act versus a sustained way of being. If a gay couple can achieve most of the benefits of marriage with an informal commitment understood among a circle of friends rather than a bold public proclamation, they may well be doing more good for their cause. If Manhatten Muslims can find a way to worship together without building a highly visible monument to their religion in hostile territory, they might come out stronger in the end.

Oil Re-cap

Now that the well is capped and most the oil appears to have evaporated, news of the BP spill likewise is evaporating, or at least being being diluted by a steady stream of new news.

While the BP spill assuredly created some problems, perhaps justifying penalties against BP in the billions of dollars, the media has done a poor job of explaining exactly how profoundly inconsequential the spill was in the larger environmental picture. According to a Washington Post article, the oil spilled was enough to contaminate the water of the Gulf by about one part oil to 880 million parts water, or about one part per billion. To put this in perspective, the EPA considers water with less than 15 parts lead per billion parts water to be reasonably safe to drink. And unlike lead, oil does not hang around forever. Microbes break the oil down and plants drink it. Many fertilizers are petroleum-based (the same kinds of fertilizers that are used to make car bombs).

America's favorite news source yesterday did an excellent job of reframing the oil spill issue on solid ground.

Squatsburgh

The other day I noticed this cool post on Craigslist. I've been considering becoming a slumlord for some time, and here is an opportunity to grab a live-able 4-bedroom house for a mere 23.5k. Total rent at just $250 a month plus utilities on such a house would cover all taxes and maintenance. It seems kind of like an opportunity for profit.

I decided to sleuth. The county website appears to show the house was acquired by its current owner for a mere $1, and the previous sale was in 1997 for 5k. The county website also shows about $600 in back taxes, and this is probably just a fraction of the back taxes owed. None of this is all that surprising. Deals like this are fairly typical in the Garfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

What I find more interesting is the man behind the house. Sketch Master Flexx, an artist, is profiled at least twice in Pittsburgh city papers, in 2004 and in 2006, due to his experience squatting in an abandoned house on the North side, on which he installed enough solar panels to run his stereo.

The weirdest thing the sale of the house to Mr. Sketch Master was on July 30, 2010. How could he have replaced the plumbing, installed new insulation, new drywall, and numerous other repairs as claimed in such short time? If his past is any indication, probably he was squatting there for some time before the purchase. I should learn more tonight.

Update: I estimate the house needs about 5k to 20k of work and then it would be charming. This investment would be entirely worthwhile in a better neighborhood, but here I'm not so sure ...

The Growth of the Soil

I recently finished reading The Growth of the Soil, a Nobel prize-winning epic novel written in 1917 by an odd man. The novel is remarkable for its lack of a plot. It starts out as the story of a single man moving into the wilderness to settle. It ends up the story of an entire settlement community complete with neighborhood rivalries, family squabbles, and realistically complex romances. Almost everything in between is a chronological account of the growth of the soil -- the growth of a community. I found it oddly satisfying.

Wildlife in the Pittsburgh Slums III

Deer me. A few nights ago a barking dog on the neighbor's balcony kept me awake until I went outside to chase away the deer that was going to bed in the back yard. Late last night I spied a couple deer out by the tomatoes. I managed to shoot this one before it escaped. Doesn't it look like it's sticking out its tongue at me?


This evening as I was setting up to pour concrete I heard a rustle in the bushes, so I threw a rock at it. Out ran Bambi!



I tried to sneak up, but the mom ran out:


Well, she kind of ran out. She seems to be missing half a front leg. I recognize her from last winter.

Wildlife in the Pittsburgh Slums II

This morning I found myself staring down at a big fat groundhog looking back at me from the bottom of a deck footer hole he had wandered into. No time to make quiche today, but I did take the time to fertilize my ailing tomatoes, which have been thoroughly devoured by ... well maybe it was that groundhog. Or it could have been this guy:


He didn't so much as give my veggies a second glance. Instead he at a bunch of weeds and vines. Good boy! He even took a crap in my neighbor's yard. Maybe that will make their tall grass grow even faster:

Recovery Part II

At Construction Junction, a sort of gift-and-thrift for carpenters, I found a short piece of curiously thin-walled 6-inch pipe with factory print on the side that said "PVC Sewer Pipe." Of course it had no price tag. I took it up to the counter and asked the guy how much it costs. The guy though for a moment and said seventy five cents. Had that pipe been more than 2 inches shorter I would have had to pay about $40 for a 10-foot section of PVC, the smallest unit anyone sells around here.

A couple blocks further down the road I found an old-fashioned plumbing supply store where you go up to the counter, place your order, and the guy goes back and gets what you need, which in this case was a couple of Fernco rubber joiners with stainless steel screw-tightening straps.

I used a $30 "angle grinder" with a couple of 1/16-inch masonry blades to make a somewhat clean cut around the sewer pipe where it had broken.



I tightened the last metal strap and turned on the water at a sink in the house. Then I sat looking at my creation, hearing the water run through it and feeling grand.



A while later the plumber who I had been talking with as a backup option called. I told him it was finished and I felt bad. But he's not cheap. In fact I think he needs more competition. Anyone need their sewer fixed?

Recovery Part I

Having broken my 6-inch vitrified clay ( = terra cotta?) sewer line, I set about excavating around it to make way for repairs. First I tie a couple old shirts to a piece of string and stuff them in the pipe on the downhill side to prevent dirt from going down there, and I tie the other end of the string to my railing to make sure the shirts don't go down there too:

As I dig I pretend to myself that I'm working to prevent a major environmental catastrophe. When I hit shale, I think it must be Marcellus shale. As I clean away around the pipe, I'm a BP robot:

Once the dirt and shirts are all removed, I'm tired. I want my life back. I see that the bottom of the pipe is enough intact to function as a drainage trough, so I just cover it up for now with plywood and go back inside to eat and run water all I please:

Disaster!

I broke the tailpipe to my house:

Product Review: Kitchen Knife Sharpener

A few days ago my mysterious merchandise propaganda agent sent me a secret code that would give me $40 to spend on his website, cookware.com. It took me about 5 minutes to hone in on a promising product: A knife sharpener set for about $30 + $7 shipping, costing me not one penny (but harming the environment immeasurably in the production process, I'm sure). It so happens that I am highly qualified to review knife sharpeners, with perhaps a hundred hours of knife sharpening experience in my former life as a woodcarver, butcher, craftsmanboy, and outdoorsmanboy. The quick summary is that this sharpener cuts pretty fast. For more exciting details, read on.


The sharpening system includes three diamond-coated metal sharpening pieces, each about 1.25x6 inches and only about a millimeter thick. There is a rough piece a medium piece, and a fine piece. Each can be mounted on a magnetic handle:


Watch out! This magnet is so strong that you'll pinch your fingers if you're not careful as you put on the metal part of your choice. You could even use the handle as a refrigerator magnet:

For my analysis of the sharpening system, I tested it on three blades: My lawnmower, a machete made in Columbia; a pretty high-quality kitchen knife; and a pocket knife.


I found that the diamond surfaces cut pretty fast compared to other sharpeners I've used before. In just a few minutes with the roughest piece, I got my machete so sharp that it cut into cardboard without bashing it in. Come to think of it, maybe the machete could do this before I sharpened it, I forgot to check.


The rest of the knives sharpened nicely. I was so enthused that I decided to sharpen up one of my butter knives. I got the tip so sharp that I easily stuck it into my rock-hard bamboo cutting board:



Don't worry, as soon as I took the photos I dulled it again, using the roughest piece, so that my dinner guests don't impale themselves.

So, to get down to the technical details: I found this product to be surprisingly good. The main drawback is that even the finest sharpening piece is a bit too rough to make a razor edge. However, in my experience most kitchen knives are not capable of maintaining a razor edge for very long anyway. If you're a regular cook with moderately crappy knives that you don't bother sharpening more often than once every few months, I'm guessing this sharpening set would enable you to achieve all your sharpening aspirations for quite a few years.

The Big Friendly Giant

Thanks to Chris Togneri for a great article in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. The future is brighter for one Pittsburgh slum, with a new restaurant titled BFG set to open soon:

... Edgos is close to opening a Greek cafe on Penn Avenue.

It will be called BFG Cafe, which has two meanings: First, Edgos is of Greek descent, and this is his Big Fat Greek Cafe. But the name also is a nod to its location at the confluence of three neighborhoods — Bloomfield, Friendship and Garfield — Edgos says are on the rebound.

Unfortunately the most rightful meaning of that acronym BFG appears to have been lost. I will have to notify the reporter. I think that the restaurant, set to open on one of Pittsburgh's major art corridors (or "arteries"), should sport a mural of the Big Friendly Giant, one of my favorite childhood tales:

A Beautiful Dream

We all have d---ed dreams, and I think I'm coming to terms with that. I don't expect to find everything in life that I wish for. Maybe I can be happy with far less. But for the record, here is a rough outline of that kind of person that I think would make a good life-partner:

• Is exceptionally thrifty. Sees most spending through an "investment" lens.
  
• Exercises, eats healthy, and is healthy -- being young is a plus, but healthy habits are worth at least a few years.
• Healthy habits are not only enjoyed, but are bolstered by a powerful force of will against tempting unhealthy habits.
  
• Is mentally sound, with a generally positive encouraging attitude. Can be very weird but not to the point of instability.
• Wants kids, and sees child rearing as an opportunity rather than slave labor.
• Has some kind of exceptionally strong skills, for example fast advancement in a challenging career or sweet artistic skills or dazzling home-making skills.
  
• Has lots of energy and intensity about accomplishing whatever is the project of the moment.
• Is gregarious, and likes opening the home for friends.
  

Is it unrealistic? Is the fact that I would qualify - and then some - relevant?

National Debt

Thanks to Mankiw for pointing out an excellent review of the national debt issue by the CBO. This review strikes me as an exceptionally well-written, comprehensive, and common sense introduction to the most important facets of the issue.

In a previous post, I tried to put the size of the debt into understandable terms. In my next post on the topic I pointed out that the national debt figure is often over-stated. In another post I explained how national debt can lead to crisis. In yet another post I explained some of the costs of national debt in a non-crisis situation. It seems I have covered most of the issues addressed by the CBO report, but I think they did a great job at putting it all together and saying it better.

Raccoon Quiche

Last night I hooted at a raccoon from my bedroom window as he was licking garbage on my neighbor's balcony. Unfortunately I don't have a new recipe to contribute, but in this case I don't have to.