Thinkers Without Borders

While reading the Wikipedia article on the website www.BugMeNot.com, I came across a tongue-in-cheek “registration form” that they created to mock the pesky forms on other sites. If you stick around TWB for a while, you’ll find that I appreciate subtle satire and sarcasm, as well as just general mockery. I suppose this falls more in the latter category… With that said, perhaps I should only allow WordPress members to read my exclusive blog…

REGISTER HERE

Here’s a music video with Cat Steven’s/Yusef Islam’s son. The song is great, and the visuals make it even better.

I spent this past weekend in Bear Valley in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The trip was absolutely amazing, and I will be sure to post pictures once I get them (I brought my camera and plenty of batteries, but somehow forget my memory card, so I used a friend’s SD card).

However, the point of this post is actually to share a recent discovery of mine, which some of my close friends would consider an obsession… Basically, on our car ride up to the Sierras, we were out of radio reception for some time, and thus were stuck with three CDs in the van, Rachmaninoff, James Taylor, and Cat Stevens!

As you can probably tell from the title of this post, it is the latter that is now playing on my computer. I understand that I am several decades late to discovering Cat Stevens (now Yusef Islam), but this does not dampen my enthusiasm at all. His songs and lyrics are amazing. This is no small statement for me, as for some time I have proudly advertised the fact that I “don’t listen to music with lyrics” (you’ll usually find me listening to jazz or classical). Cat Stevens has made me reconsider that boast. Some of my favorite songs by him…Wild World, Morning has Broken, The Wind, Father and Son, Peace Train, Moonshadow, Sitting, etc…

This post has reminded me of another topic I have intend to share on TWB, but I’ll save it for my next post.

I would like to apologize for straying from the principles I set out for TWB. By this, I mean mostly reporting on events in my life and providing very little for us to think about. I check the “Blog Stats” every so often, and I see about 3-5 stop by everyday, with occasional dips and spikes. Thus, I feel I should at least post a short update on my situation.

First of all, I should make it clear that my mind is as active as ever, and my silence is not due at all to a dearth of topics. If anything, I tend to think of interesting concepts while on the go, and then forget them once I’m at my computer. Rather, I’ve found that other obligations (research, social, etc) have sapped away all of my time out of the classroom.

I also have not yet found a balance between the temptation  to type out my thoughts as they flow and my obligation to clean up my writing. I would like to introduce an idea that I honestly just thought of a second ago to deal with this problem. If I just want to get my thoughts out and do not want to elaborate or take time organizing it into an eloquent post, I will add this tag to its title to indicate its stream-of-consciousness style… (SOC). These posts will likely either be very short, or be long, rambling, and mostly incoherent. Feel free to contact me if you’d like a clarification or want to discuss the issues further.

That’s all.

I attended a roundtable discussion today with Prince Moulay Hicham of Morocco and Pete Smith, CEO of Al Tayyar Energy (founded by Prince Hicham). This discussion was part of the Energy Crossroads conference held at Stanford. I thoroughly enjoyed the talk in this small setting, and I appreciated the authentic honesty of these two fine gentlemen.

If you click just one link from TWB, please do yourself a favor and click this one. It will take you to one of the coolest, most useful, most educational tools that I have ever discovered. The tool is called Gap Minder, and it was developed by Hans Rosling, a Swedish professor of International Health. Basically, Gap Minder uses the simplicity of circles and their motion to allow the viewer to digest complicated data. By using the size and color of each circle to represent information (respectively the population and continent location of a country), one can have the axes represent everything from child mortality rates to CO2 emissions. Once you’ve set all the inputs (which takes a few minutes at most), click the play button and watch as the circles fly about through time, elucidating complex trends in a simple fashion that nearly anyone can comprehend.

Enough of me. Just click the link.

Gap Minder

I also recommend that you watch this talk given by Hans Rosling at the 2007 TED Conference, which is how I first learned about Gap Minder. It gives you a good idea of the possibilities of this tool.

I spent this weekend in the Sierra Nevadas (Kit Carson Pass) with my Outdoor Education class. It was an amazing experience, and I’ll need some time to reflect before I can do it any justice. Stay tuned for pictures and videos.

I thought I’d share my myriad thoughts about Admit Weekend, an annual Stanford event put on for prospective freshman (ProFros). For a while yesterday I thought this year’s event would be a repeat of last year’s, with abnormally dreary weather coinciding perfectly with the one weekend Stanford wants to look good to outsiders. However, the sun has emerged, and hopefully will stay out for the next few days.

My roommate and I are signed up to be RoHos (Room hosts), which basically means that we volunteered to host a ProFro for Admit Weekend. We won’t be getting any compensation from the university, except for that warm fuzzy feeling that will come from our best efforts to convince our ProFros to attend Stanford.

Time flies, and I remember my own Admit Weekend experience as if it were yesterday. I’ll stop with the cliches now. But seriously, I hope that my peers will also remember their experiences as wide-eyed freshmen, and treat the ProFros not as subordinates, but equals.

On that note, if anyone reading this happens to be a ProFro, feel free to leave a comment or ask a question. I’ll be in FroSoCo (Freshman-Sophomore College) if you’d like to meet sometime.

Hello

I just had a random thought while watching a friend play the piano. As many of you know, certain pianist (ahem, Lang Lang) are amazingly expressive when they play. It occurred to me that perhaps the body rocking, head-thrashing motions may in fact have quite utilitarian origins. Here is my thought process. When pianists practice from those pesky binded books that will not stay still, the pages are liable to stick out at some angle rather than lie flat. Thus, pianists often have to turn their heads to see the notes rather than lift their hands to push the page down. Furthermore, I would also venture to guess that at least one pianist in history has used his or her head to push down an errant page. It would be reasonable to assume that some of these motions would carry over during performances, even when the pianist is playing from memory.

One could always default to the romantic notion that pianists are simply expressing their overwhelming emotions as they play, but why stick to the obvious?

Whether you completely agree or diagree with me, do yourself a favor and watch the video of Lang Lang below.

Leaving now! Pictures and stories to come.

http://yurisnightbayarea.net/2008/

Update: Here are some pictures from an amazing day! I’ll elaborate when I’m more awake.