Charles R. Carr was an infantryman; in this story, he details his first helicopter assault. He nervously jumps off, and proceeds to run the opposite direction of the assault. They position to move in, and, suddenly, are ordered to pull out (for political reasons), and congratulated for killing 24 enemy soldiers at the cost of only 5, despite not actually doing anything. After describing this experience, he details the experience of being sent home early due to his return date falling during a planned campaign.
Carr doesn’t really share any traumatic experiences. His tale of a helicopter raid is the tale of an inexperienced and disoriented rookie who never got on his feet before the thing was over. He doesn’t mention what exactly he did, but more what he didn’t do. His whole tone seems detached and overly objective; surely the attack wasn’t as simple as land, shoot a few people, pull out, and get steaks as a reward. From here, there’s two possibilities: Carr has either been lucky enough to avoid the horrors of war, or isn’t using writing about said hypothetical trauma.
I think the case is the latter. He mentions that no one in the squad had been killed since February, hinting that someone perhaps was killed later. From O’Brien’s depiction of Vietnam, one year is more than enough to see messed up things. At the same time, though, he might fall somewhere between; he does mention that his platoon leader says that “the object here is to leave the place the same way you came,” and that Carr thought to himself that he had found himself the right platoon.
This article is short, but hugely consequential. And yes, it’s about CS:GO.
For those unaware, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a first-person shooter released in 2012 that is the (my opinion here) up and coming esports title:
(Peak) Viewership of Valve-sponsored majors (the biggest tournaments of the year) is steadily increasing.
Other esports games, in my opinion, despite in many cases having both higher viewership and higher funding, have deficiencies that make them inferior to what I think is the esport of the future. Professional League of Legends functions, as Riot admits, as basically a huge advertisement for the game; furthermore, the scene is closed; that is, lack of competition against LCS gives teams literally no options. Professional Smite, while impressive in its high prize pools and funding, virtually doesn’t exist: the sport is largely top-down, with the professional scene created solely by the game’s publisher. Maybe Dota 2 has a chance; the pace of the scene, however, is disrupted by the sheer scale of The International, against which no other tournament can even come close to rivaling.
CS:GO, on the other hand, enjoys many structural advantages. The game is easy to understand, and has both a low barrier to entry and a high skill ceiling. The scene is open; while two majors are sponsored by the game’s publisher, Valve, each year, other tournaments can easily at least get close to the hype that each event can command. There is a large and growing player base with investments in the professional scene to match.
So, what is this news that has me so interested?
ELEAGUE have just revealed that they will organize the next $1 million Major, which will take place from January 22-29.
During the summer, TBS ran a $1.2 million tournament that was nationally televised (unfortunately in the Friday night death slot). They did many things right: they brought production quality superior to any other tournament, they broadcast the games on twitch in addition to through TV, and hired the best casters, analysts, and observers in the professional scene.
It just so happens, though, that cord-cutting is a bit of a thing; furthermore, those who follow the esports scene are disproportionately cord cutters — if I only follow CS:GO, what reason do I have to pay for traditional pay TV anyways? In effect, then, TBS is betting (season 2 is due to air sometime soon) that they will be able to get audiences of traditional sports into esports. While I don’t think that this will be a profitable venture for TBS, the exposure of esports to a more diverse audience is definitely a good thing for the professional scene, if not for TBS.
Only the last three days, supposedly reserved for playoffs, will be open to the public
Problems already! This won’t count too much against them though; most majors haven’t opened group stages to the public. I’ll forgive them for this one.
The event’s venue will be the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, which has a capacity of less than 5,000 seats, the lowest amount since DreamHack Winter 2014.
This, on the other hand, means trouble. Audience is a bit part of the experience; compared to the 14,000 people who attended the previous major (ESL One Cologne) and the 10,000 who attended the one before that (MLG Columbus), 5,000 is nothing. The deafening hype that crowds build is a huge part of the experience; a definitive part of each major is the teams that its attendees support. Swedes support NIP; Poles, Virtus Pro — when majors are played in any of these locations, local favorites are given deafening chants. With a mere 5,000 in attendance, though, in a theater hardly optimized for large-scale chanting, the hype will be a lot less real.
ELEAGUE have also revealed that the grand final will be broadcast by TBS as well as Twitch.
This poses a lot of questions. Majors are long; ten hours of games each day, depending on the lengths of each scheduled game, is not unheard of. Thus, it is hardly feasible for the entire major, or even half of it, to be broadcast. What, then, will be broadcast?
I, however, do not get pay TV. Thus, I, and many others following the esports scene (and especially those watching from outside the United States who thus don’t get TBS), wonder instead what will be broadcast to twitch during the pay TV broadcast. Eleague, during the summer, was broadcast on twitch; the group finals and the tournament finals, on the other hand, were primarily broadcast on TBS. Due to agreements with the networks that carry TBS, Eleague could not be fully broadcast to twitch; rather, a cut-down ‘observer feed’ without any of the editing and production value that Eleague was lauded for was broadcast for those outside the US or otherwise unable to watch TBS. If the Eleague Major Finals were broadcast in a similar manner to twitch, without the full broadcast, there would be significant protest. This, after all, is a Valve Sponsored major; the full broadcast should remain free!
In conclusion, the ELEAGUE Major is a great opportunity for the scene to expand, yet does lack some of the improvements and innovations that have been implemented and suggested recently. The major has the potential to be innovative and creative, grand and impressive, eye-opening and epic. Yet, at the same time, we must be wary lest this major turn out to be a corporate disaster.
EDIT: I just read through the reddit thread. Eleague employee bump confirms that the full broadcast will be on twitch. Also, the event is scheduled for 8 days, which points to a best-of-3 group stage, a widely sought innovation that we have been yet to see at a major.
First, I commented on Bzhao’s take on the school system in which he asserts that while the system may not be healthy, it certainly is possible to be healthy within the system:
So: Let’s start by talking about Feynman. Ever since I read his autobiography, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman, he’s been a bit of a personal hero to me. He’s a serious physicist, but, at the same time, manages to appeal as an ordinary person, albeit with eccentric interests. With an elementary understanding of the things he references, his autobiography is a really interesting read. This comic describes part of an encounter detailed in the chapter But is it Art, after meeting, after playing bongos at a party, some Zirayr Zorinthian (“Jerry”):
Phantasmagoria of Military Intelligence Training, Jirayr Zorthian (Mural)
They quickly became friends, and, after many discussions about art and science, they came up with a deal:
“Listen, Jerry,” I said, “the reason we have these arguments that never get anywhere is that you don’t know a damn thing about science, and I don’t know a damn thing about art. So, on alternate Sundays, I’ll give you a lesson in science, and you give me a lesson in art.1” (from Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman)
And so discussions like the one depicted in this comic happened.
I appreciate this comic in every way that I appreciate Feynman; in a sense, this quote and this comic embodies Feynman’s philosophy. It seeks to make science more accessible while refusing to dumb down its complexity; it seeks to show ordinary people that not just art can be beautiful: math and science can be beautiful too. Every component of the quote and this comic addresses this fundamental misconception the general public has about math and science.
… but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing.
Science is only dull to those who don’t understand it. In part due to the inadequacies of math and science education in American schools, students never learn to appreciate the beauty of science. Especially in mathematics, we have a sense of scientific and mathematical beauty; we prefer elegant solutions — simple solutions that do not do a lot of “dirty” computations — that in themselves are a form of art.2 For the forced observer of science, an elegant proof is just another set of symbols on a page; for the experienced practitioner, it is a work of creativity and hard work that transcends the page that it resides on.
I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean, there’s not just beauty at this dimension […] there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes.
In the flower, at the cellular level, we look at tissues and cellular specialization; at the molecular level, structural synthesis and metabolism.3 The things we can neither see nor accurately picture have their own natural beauty comparable to the artificial beauty of mathematical proofs. In this way, nature isn’t just beautiful because it is aesthetically pleasing: at it’s fundamental parts, the mechanisms that make nature natureare elegant in their simplicity and their complexity; DNA is simple in the sense that a mere 26 long base four strands that are all encoded through the same processes, following through the same mechanisms; DNA is complicated in that this one simple mechanism gives rise to all the complexity that is life.
It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic?
One can divide science into two separate, but always intermingled, methodologies: what I would call “top-down” and “bottom-up” science. Top-down science seeks to explore natural phenomenon and explain them; bottom-up science seeks to create phenomena from understood properties. In this way, even art can be science: Art, as Zorthian sees it, is the top-down discipline of creating visually aesthetic works that cannot be explained by words and equations, and comes from feeling; Art, as Feynman describes it, should not just include that, but also a bottom-up analysis of why we find things aesthetically pleasing starting from their fundamental components using those words and equations that Zorthian and the many artists that his ideology represents despise.
IT ONLY ADDS. I DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW IT SUBTRACTS.
Feynman, of course, ends it with an A+ pun. You know, because Feynman. How else would he end it?4
Of course, the art is also worth noting. The illustration emphasizes the points of Feynman’s argument (and even does a pretty good slightly caricatured depiction of Feynman and Zorthian), and do a good job of making the quote more interesting than lines on a page. In the end, though, Feynman is what makes this comic distinctly representative of the art of science.
1 Another reason I admire Feynman is for his attention to not just art, but music and language. His interests in art, music, and literature are obvious. For his interest in writing, I present none other than his autobiography: reading through it for this post, I noticed that not far after the quote above, he uses an em dash.
2,3I didn’t want to italicize the sentence patterns since italics are already used for quotes and names.
4 See Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman,in which he steals a door and almost gets away with it (Who Stole the Door?),breaks into important peoples’ safes (Safecracker Meets Safecracker), pretends to be insane (Uncle Sam Doesn’t Need You!), and engages in other equally interesting exploits of a pre-internet troll.
This article, by Patricia A. Alexander largely summarizes my experiences in school.
In AMCHS, the separation between good students and good learners, as described in the article, is painfully obvious. I agree that it is completely a product of the American education system from standardized testing that cares not if one understands what is being regurgitated to grading systems that disincentivizes the taking of AP classes. I concur that, especially in more average students, the “products” of education are really all that matters. Where I disagree, though, is in how this problem can be fixed. I believe that this fundamental difference between knowing and learning can only be corrected through cultural change; I believe that the perversion the American education system is product of the American cultural climate.
Alexander proposes that the use of standardized testing be toned down, that teachers and schools should move to teaching to understand, and that students be given the opportunity to explore topics that they are interested. None of these proposals, however, are implementable in the real world. All three proposals are fundamentally flawed in that they ignore the fallibility of people, and do not provide for a mechanism to enforce those very suggestions.
First, standardized testing exists for a reason; after all, it is better that a teacher teach to the test than not teach at all. Don’t think about firing teachers who don’t teach either; how is one with limited resources to judge each teacher without some easily administered, objective litmus test mostly correlated with teaching success? Especially with the current seniority-based compensation scheme that disincentivizes the most talented from teaching, most noticeably in mathematics, one might not even be able to easily find a teacher who can teach to understand. For example, to be able to teach calculus to at least some level of understanding, one must in turn understand real analysis, which refers to the mathematical framework behind calculus, and is, from what I understand, a 3rd year math class for A&M Math Majors. From what I understand, though, A&M Math Majors have better things to do like computer science or statistics which are both currently in high demand. Compared to the rigors of modern mathematics, your run-of-the-mill aspiring teachers doesn’t stand a chance. It’s really no surprise that a middle school Geometry teacher can find themselves being bullied by future USAJMO winners who are simply straight-up smarter. They never had a chance.
Now that I’m done ranting about math education in public schools, back to the article.
Allowing students to explore topics they’re interested doesn’t really work unless students are interested in the right topics. For every engineer, writer, and musician, the current cultural climate in the US will give you ten football stars:
Texas is REALLY INTO HIGHSCHOOL FOOTBALL. The parents and residents are willing to vote yes on these bond issues because everybody is so into not just the games, but the whole culture around it. Their taxes go up a few dollars for a few year, but what do they care? Little Roy JR is going to play at a top of the line facility and get national exposure.
Of course, once these football stars realize they’re not special, they’ll go right back to following their incentives.
Part of the problem with incentives, as covered above, is that one can’t easily design incentives that promote understanding. You can’t objectively or easily test people on their understanding of things; there is a reason why an AP test costs $92, and why only 250 students are permitted to take the proof-based USAMO each year. One class of incentive that can accomplish this, though, is social incentives. In my high school at least, there exists a tight-knit community of self-described intellectuals — “good learners,” if you will — who kind of keep each other in line through peer pressure. After all, if I can form a logical argument, but you can’t, you sound stupid, giving you a powerful incentive to, you know, not sound stupid.
It is very possible for a culture of learning to encompass not just a niche community. In China, thanks to millennia of promotion by merit, advancement through education is a common theme. While that system has it’s own problems –intense competition for a national standardized test leads to nation-scale studying-for-the-test — it does lead to a culture of learning. In the end though, cultural inertial can’t be easily changed; during the cold war, the arms race against the Soviet Union spurred a generation long cultural shift in favor of intellectuals, but, after the Soviet Union fell, the United States went right back to blowing their education budget on stadiums.
In an interesting coincidence, the United States gets many of its Engineers from China.
The embedded italicized sentences are not for emphasis.
One song that I’ve really enjoyed recently has been Slow Motion, by Supertramp. I was going to analyze this song in this post, but apparently,
“It’s all about sex … “
and I didn’t really feel like writing a long post explaining how this song is obviously about sex, so I decided instead to look at
“… Except Sex.”
Fine. I’ll give it a try.
1 Slow motion, slow motion baby
We want our love to last
Everything’s so right, why try to go so fast
It’s easy to lose sight
and then the moments passed
6 Go easy, go easy baby
You know there’s time for us
Even though this world seems to be speeding up
Maybe we can try to slow things down
10 Because we need to draw the line
Because we need to make the time
Because we need to sip the wine
13 Because the clock is running,
and it’s going so fast
The future’s coming but it’s soon the past
It’s here today and there’s no turning back
17 Go lightly, go lightly baby
In time we’ll find a way
It’s never over ’till it’s over
Why rush it through?
Never pausing to admire the view
22 Slow motion, well if we get tired
then we can rest awhile
If we’re gonna go, we’re gonna go in style
Isn’t that what life is all about?
This song is clearly about some sort of relationship. In it, we see two differing points of view. The narrator seems to be an older man; he follows a more matured stereotype, advising that the relationship slow down, and emphasizing enjoying the finer points of life like wine (line 12), and advocating going “in style” because that’s “what life is all about” (line 24-25). On the other hand, the narrator’s lover is assumed, through the narrator’s assertions that they should slow down (line 6, 17, etc), to be rushing through the relationship, and thus fits the stereotype of a younger person.
This relationship, as a matter of fact, seems to possibly even be an affair. In addition to the man’s implied age as compared to the woman’s implied youth which fits the stereotype of an affair, the man suggests that they draw lines and ground rules for their relationship (line 10), suggesting that this relationship isn’t the most important thing for him. This is further supported by line 18 (“in time we’ll find a way”), which could be an assurance that the narrator would try to find a way out of his existing marriage.
The literal meaning behind this song thus falls in place: an older man with a lot to lose is in an affair, and has some desire to get out of his existing marriage, but first and foremost simply wants to enjoy the affair and take it slowly and carefully. On the other hand, the young woman with youthful (and possibly misguided passion) wants to move much more quickly and formalize their relationship. The man wants the love (sex) to last, whereas the woman wants what I think is marriage.
What, then is the deeper meaning in this song? For one, the relationship certainly fits into the pattern of a vampire. The narrator’s carefree description of their relationship makes it appear as if this woman isn’t the most important thing to him; yet, the woman described in the song loves him regardless and wants to further their relationship as much as possible. As such, this song could fit in as just another critique of vampires.
The obvious initial reaction to this song is that one should slow down and enjoy life; however, this advice is somewhat tainted if one notices that the narrator is just a bit creepy. So then, should we go slowly or quickly? In the end, it’s still probably worth slowing down; after all, if the narrator’s lover slowed down, she might realize how bad of an idea this all was.
Of course, there is a possibility that the subtle creepiness was entirely on accident.
Oh, also, this song has a catchy tune and makes good use of a slow tempo and syncopation to accompany the theme of “slow motion.” It also makes good use of the electric piano (which does dock some points for being electric) and the saxophone to create a slow jazz like feel. That’s mainly the reason why it’s stuck in my head.
Given the constant, day-to-day occurrence of significant action during war, it is inevitable that most wars contain something for the humble 29th of April.
For the American Civil War, this was the capture of New Orleans by Union forces towards the end of the war as part of the Union’s Anaconda Plan. This much I knew from APUSH. What I didn’t know before was circumstances of this capture.
Unlike Vicksburg, Atlanta, and several other confederate strongholds, New Orleans surrendered virtually without a fight. With only two incomplete ironclads and a few steamboats, the Confederates did the smart thing and simply abandoned the city. Despite the displeasure of the city’s inhabitants towards the advancing Union forces, one can imagine that at least some were relieved. Compared to the apocalyptic conditions – starvation, disease, and death – of prolonged sieges (most notably Vicksburg), 20/20 hindsight knowledge that the Confederacy did not, in fact, win the war suggests that the citizens of New Orleans were actually quite lucky. Sure, they lost, but so did the rest of the confederacy.
The real challenge for the Union was passing forts Jackson and Phillip. To get past, Union forces under David G. Farragut apparently just decided to run past the forts without attempting to take them. First, union mortar boats attempted to disable as many confederate guns as possible through heavy shelling; this, however, was mostly unsuccessful. Instead, the fleet was split into three divisions. The first ran right through. The second, however, had more trouble, when Farragut’s flagship ran aground. Nevertheless, Farragut managed to free his flagship, and all three divisions proceeded past the forts with minimal losses. After passing the forts, the Confederacy’s last ditch losses met little success. The CSS Manassas attempted to ram the USS Pensacola, but missed. Next, the ship was accidentally fired on by friendly forces. Then, it successfully rammed the USS Brooklyn, but failed to cripple the ship despite hitting its coal bunkers. Finally, having blown past the entire Union fleet, it ran aground and was destroyed by Union forces.
One would say the art of ‘knowing’ is a great resource, and this, in no way, would be wrong. A deep understanding of mathematics can help us in turn grasp the fundamental structures underlying the digital age; mastery of basic concepts of statistics can help us resist similarly basic pseudo-statistical deception. Similarly, knowing the basis of modern Physics and Biology will equip us well for the rapid scientific development that characterizes the future from now. On the other hand, the appreciation of literature and proficiency in writing, as well as a grasp of the History of the United states, its many blunders, and the world around us, will prepare us to apply for leadership, take leadership, make decisions, and, ultimately, enjoy life.
However, mastering all these facets, however beneficial is not necessary. A scientist need not understand past impacts of similar discoveries, nor a writer understand the science he criticizes. More so, one need not understand neither side; one can live well enough in complete ignorance of both arts and sciences (Trump 2016).
Thus, while I’ve learned much through my classes and experiences this year, none alone can match the impact of their indirect combination: a very busy year. Between Robotics, in which we competed in BEST and FRC, Science Olympiad, in which I competed in Fossils, Fermi Questions, and Experimental Design, Various Olympiads – Physics, Chemistry, and Math, the dreaded SAT, and of course the course load of my classes, I may well have been crushed to death by this work load. Thus, in the end, I would call myself much improved by this experience; now, I will be far better prepared for any rigors life can summon.
Naturally, as an intellectual, I value the sum of all knowledge learned this year – Engineering, Math, Physics, Biology, US History, and English – as of far more importance than a mere increased resistance to stress. But, individually, the benefits of no class, club, or competition can surpass this importance. This, however, raises an important question: for each activity, is the value of learning to deal with stress, scaled by the relative stress of that activity in how it contributed to the net total of the year, still greater than the value of the raw knowledge and understanding gained through a course?
With this consideration, yes, the act of learning pulls through. Especially in English, the amount of coursework gained cannot compare to the benefits of greater understanding of literature and writing; after all, the value of BS-ing – or maybe even, as a bonus, writing legitimately – an essay as quickly as possible cannot be understated.
Finally, one might ask, why does this even matter? I am literally comparing the benefits of coursework in one aspect to that of another; they both add to the value of a good high school education. As such, was this worth it?
The thing about ‘random’ blog posts is that more often than not, they do not align with one’s interests. Well, I did put down BS-ing an essay as quickly as possible as a strength.
Opposing XKCD’s “Book that portrays workings of common things,” I will portray how computing contraptions work without using many most common words.
A CPU is an important part of a computing contraption. On it, many tiny doors of silicon allow or disallow small things without significant mass and minus attraction to pass through. As inputs to a tiny door imply its condition, small things without significant mass, if passing through, go on to a tiny door that follows, which again can stop or not stop small things without significant mass. Through up 10^9 tiny doors, a CPU can clarify a radically difficult inquiry.
A CPU plugs into a controlling board that contains not only a housing for a CPU, but also housings for computing contraption parts such as RAM and GPU. A controlling board additionally has junctions that allow a computing contraption to join to input and output contraptions.
RAM stocks information that a CPU must summon following computations. A GPU draws graphical information that a computing contraption displays for a human to look at.
An important part is also a part that is a stash for information. Two kinds of information stash parts occur now: flash (SSDs), and non-flash information stash parts. Common non-flash information stash parts that apply spinning disks can stash up to 8 x 10^12 bits of information for low costs.
Computing contraptions spawn much atomic vibration; thus, aluminum or Cu (s) vibration-sinks and fans in computing contraptions shift vibrating groups of atoms away from a computing contraption. Not all computing contraptions spawn thismuch atomic vibration; many computing contraptions such as smart calling contraptions do not spawn that much atomic vibration; as such, cooling from a computing contraption’s box and air around it can cool a computing contraption amply, so it has no fans and big vibration-sinks.
Junior year has been quite a struggle. Between Robotics, Science Olympiad and other competitions, and AP coursework, I’ve seldom had extra time during the school year. However, as all my competitions have passed, AP teachers have stopped leaving homework, and the year winds down, I don’t actually have anything to do. Given the stresses of the year behind me, one would expect this to feel relaxing; however, after going through a long period of time in which I had little spare time, the vast amounts of idle time in which I aim to relax, almost feels empty and pointless.
As such, to describe the feeling of wanting to relax, but nevertheless feeling empty inside without pressure and work, I would like to coin the adjective ‘relaxless’ and adverb ‘relaxlessly’,a haphazard mashup of the word ‘relax’ and ‘pointless:’ “He relaxlessly browses reddit.”
Now to spend the rest of my spare time finding something to do.
The Null Alephant 