Posted by James
Thu, 29 May 2008 04:47:00 GMT
Today I was repeatedly asked the question: why are men assholes?
First of all, perhaps this rhetorical question is best not asked to a man, unless she is ready with the answer to why are women bitches? The flippant answer would be: we're assholes because the women in our lives made us so. Of course, this is just a cute (or not so cute) deflection of the real question. Even though the question may not have been asked with the expectation of a serious answer, I thought I might attempt one anyways.
Some men are assholes. If you fall for one, then you have no one to blame but yourself. It might have been his faux confidence, flashy car, sweet words, or any number of things that attracted you to him in the first place. Underneath all that, is a shell of a man, filled to the brim with bitterness, anger, and hatred, not only of women but of himself. So, when a girl falls in love with this type of man, I have no sympathies for either. As Forest Gump says, "stupid is as stupid does."
Most men are not assholes. But what we're also not, is an expert with emotions, especially our own. Women are good at eliciting emotions from us, even when we don't wish to admit it. When things are good, well, they're good. But when things fall apart, we fall into the trap that we set for ourselves. We fooled ourselves to believe that we couldn't be hurt by emotions. But when it inevitably happens, we're shocked and surprised.
Emotional pain hurts like physical pain. When a man gets hurt, the instinctive response is to hurt the person who inflicted this damage even more. In the hundreds of thousands of years since we rose upright in the African savanna, this instinctive response served us well. Until now. Now it just makes life unbearable for everyone, us and the women we loved (and perhaps still love).
When the world flips upside down, inflicting pain on the woman also gives him a small measure of grounding. If he can't make her feel love for him, he at least can make her feel pain because of him. It's not much of a consolation prize, but at this point, any bits and pieces of pride and ego that he can salvage, he'll gladly take. When there's no more love to speak of, power is the only thing that matters. As long as he still have the power to make the woman feel something, anything, even if it's pain and misery, he will likely use it.
Sometimes we act like assholes. Not because we are, but because it's the easy way out. It is the fastest way for us to heal and come to terms with our emotions. The alternative is too difficult and too painful. Not many of us knows how to take the high road. And sometimes, not even me.
For the woman, I have only one advice. Ask yourself: is he a good person? If the answer is yes, then forgive him. Even if he acted foolish and hurtful in the worst of times. He did it because it was the only way he knew how to get through the darkness.
Posted in Random Ramblings, The Best Of | 4 comments
Posted by James
Fri, 11 Apr 2008 08:04:00 GMT
On Wednesday, the Olympic torch arrived in San Francisco. My roommates and I decided to skip out of work and went to the Embarcadero to see the torch relay.
The advertised start time of the relay was 1pm. We arrived at Pier 5 a few minutes past 1:30pm and the torch was nowhere to be seen. We walked towards the Ferry building and as we got closer, we saw hundreds of demonstrators and they completed blocked off the street.
The demonstrators, most of them white, held up various signs. Some printed before hand, others, hand-drawn. Most were protesting human rights abuse in Tibet, but some others were about Dafur and Myanmar. I decided to take a stroll in the middle of the demonstration and I was quite taken with the energy and the passion of the crowd. A few people were yelling slogans into the bull horns, like the classic, "Shame, Shame, China Shame", or the crowd favorite, "No Freedom, No Olympics". There are a small contingent of counter-demonstrators (as I predicted there would be), waving Chinese and Olympic flags. However they were vastly outnumbered by the Tibetan demonstrators and were relegated to the corner.
The street was completely blocked off, and there was no way for the torch to pass through the original route. My roommates were using internet on their phones trying to figure out the precise location of the torch and no one knew what was going on. Both sides of the sidewalk was lined with police, but they made no effort at directing the crowd or clearing a path for the Olympic torch.
Sometime after 2pm, we had enough. We got back to the car and headed back to work. However, we made a wrong turn and went through the Broadway tunnel. As we came out of the tunnel, we saw that Van Ness avenue up ahead was blocked off by police. Suddenly we realized that the torch had been diverted. And guess what? Our apartment is on that very same street.
We quickly parked the car, and I ran into the apartment and grabbed my camera (I had forgotten it earlier). As I came out, the torch was just passing in front of our door.
We had time for a group photo before the torch came and you can see the spectators gathered all around us.
The torch (on the left side of the picture) flanked by police on both sides as it makes its way down Van Ness avenue.
The torch was carried right past our front door, with only one protester in the background with a "Free Tibet" sign (probably drawn 5 minutes before the torch arrived).
Afterwards, the news was filled with reports about the torch relay and how the organizers completely deceived the demonstrators. I think my roommates and I are probably the only people in the city that got to see the demonstration on the Embarcadero and the Olympic torch (and have it come to our door steps).
It is unfortunate that the Olympic torch relay had to be conducted this way, but I also experienced the full power of the freedom of speech and assembly. My personal feelings about this issue aside, I'm glad I got to see both events. And I still can't get over the fact that we're just too damned lucky.
Posted in Cool Beans, My Life, In Depth, The Best Of | no comments
Posted by James
Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:54:00 GMT
Recently I've been thinking a lot about prostitution. No, I'm not about to change careers (thanks for asking). But recent events in the news with Eliot Spitzer together with my recent trip to Las Vegas, where hookers run amok, and my upcoming trip to Costa Rica, where prostitution is legal, has given me some time to think about this complex issue.
First, street prostitution is just bad. Steven Levitt and Sudhir Venkatesh did the now famous study of street walkers of Chicago. The Economist has a pretty good summary of the findings. These hookers only get paid $27 an hour, endure horrible working conditions, and forgo their health all for only $20k per year. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see not only is this type of prostitution morally reprehensible, but also puts an enormous cost on society.
But the problems become murkier when we start thinking about high-ended escorts like the one employed by Spitzer. Is prostitution bad, if the prostitute is voluntarily employed, healthy, well paid, and well regulated (as it is in many countries)? Slate has a decent article discussing some of the issues, but never actually explains why prostitution is illegal. I for one, don't buy into the moral argument. If done correctly, prostitution hurts no one, and can be a win-win.
I actually find it somewhat easy to defend Eliot Spitzer. The only people he hurt is perhaps his wife and his children, but even then it's assuming that his wife didn't actually know about it (or even condoned it). The media's coverage probably hurt more people than what Spitzer did. The charge of hypocrisy can be seen in a different light. As attorney general, it was his job to prosecute the law and the law in New York makes prostitution illegal (regardless if he agreed with it or not). So when he busted prostitution ring, he was performing his duties to the best of his ability. But what he did on his own time, is subject only to his moral judgment. Unfortunately, as a public figure, he didn't have the luxury of privacy the rest of us enjoys. No one is perfect and it's sad to see the career of a good man being cut short by as silly as paying for sex.
My personal belief is that prostitution should be legalized and regulated. This, however, is not to say that I will want to use this service. I don't oppose prostitution on moral grounds (as I am not religious), nor do I oppose it in terms of economics or biology. What makes me pause is a much more personal reason. I simply won't do it because I hold myself to a higher standard. This is not meant to be snobbish or accuse prostitutes of being less valuable than myself. It is just that at the end of the day, I want to be able to say that all the women that I had sex with, at one point in time, actually liked me. It makes me more valuable and gives more respect to the women that I do have sex with (past and future) because I treated them as I would want them to treat me. Unfortunately, at the current rate, soon it would be more economical for me to obtain sex through escort services than to build and maintain meaningful relationships. But as long as I still value the non-sexual components of male-female relationships, I can still keep the balance tipped away from prostitution. For my sake, let's hope it stays that way.
For everyone else, I say: to each his own.
Posted in Random Ramblings, The Best Of, Internet People | 3 comments
Posted by James
Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:19:00 GMT
When I was 9 years old, I dreamed of being a fighter pilot (I still do). As I got older, I dreamed of other things. But ever since my junior year of college, all I dreamed of is to be an entrepreneur. I wondered what it would be like to start something that would change the world and being my own boss. That dream has finally transitioned into reality.
Being an entrepreneur is a bit strange. It's not a job. People don't go around with business cards that say Entrepreneur on it, and even if they do, it really doesn't mean anything. And it's also not a very good career. Most successful entrepreneurs move on to different things and those who stay don't become more successful with time (more on that later). It's hard to explain to average people what we do, even those who can spell the word correctly. Do you not have a job? We hear that a lot.
To me, entrepreneurship is a lifestyle. It's all encompassing. We're doing our startup the right way. My co-founders and I live together, work together, exercise together and play together. This is a total immersion and requires complete commitment from us. Life can be hard sometimes. We work a lot and there's lots of tough decisions to make. We're always strapped for cash and there's never enough time. But paradoxically, it's fun, much more so than any job out there.
Recently, I've come to realize that as entrepreneurs, we're not judged by our failures. Of course, other people may judge us by our failures, but their opinions don't count for much. The important thing is that we don't judge ourselves and other entrepreneurs by those failures. We may criticize the idea, the technology, or the execution, but failures, that's just part of the learning experience.
A few days ago, I read a very good article on tech crunch. It basically questions the successes of so-called serial entrepreneurs. It turns out, serial entrepreneurs are only marginally more successful than first-time entrepreneurs. Even more interesting, very few (if any) of these experienced entrepreneurs hit it big the second time around. It's almost like a curse.
Anyways, achieving your dreams is important, and finally finding your passion is pretty cool. The thing with living your dreams is that you never know when you might wake up from it. But since I'm still young, time is on my side.
Posted in My Life, In Depth, Business & Economics, The Best Of | 2 comments
Posted by James
Mon, 30 Apr 2007 02:57:00 GMT
So I had an interesting talk with my friends today, and I came up with a simple criteria for my future wife (not that I'm looking, mind you). We were watching this TV show on ABC and this couple were having a huge nasty argument because the husband kissed another (much hotter and much younger) girl. Anyways, what I learned from that is I need to marry someone who I would never feel the impulse to cheat. She need to be absolutely the best and no one else could possibly compare to her.
So, I came up with three simple criterias for my future wife. She must be:
- Super fun
- Super smart
- Super sexy
Actually, when you think about it, that bar is pretty high. Which is good, because I'm liking being single right now.
Posted in Random Ramblings, The Best Of | 2 comments
Posted by James
Wed, 14 Feb 2007 21:39:00 GMT
I was somewhat disturbed to learn that Americans are projected to spend almost $17 billion this year on Valentine's day. To give you some prospective, the entire operating budget of NASA for 2007, is slightly less than $17 billion. NASA puts shit in space (it's as difficult as rocket science) and yet it still costs less than Valentine's day. In the light of this comparison, our government doesn't seem so wasteful anymore. That's not a good thing.
Also, increasingly, there's this backlash against Valentine's day. People, single people in particular, are bitter about being alone on Valentine's day. This day only reminds them of the dark, lonesome and gloomy existence that is their life. So, now we have Single Awareness Day or Quirkyalone Day (a friend sent me that yesterday). This is also totally bullshit.
I'm single this Valentine's day. There's nothing good or bad about that. Having a special someone to spend time with on Valentine's day is a pleasure. But it's the same pleasure spending time with that someone on any other day. It doesn't make it more special just because it's on a particular day. It's only more special because it's that particular person (okay, I'm done playing with italics). So really there's nothing to be bitter about on Valentine's day. If you're alone it's because you haven't found that someone yet. There's really no need to be all snobbish because you fooled yourself to think that being single is somehow "better". It's not. A duet sounds better than a solo any day of the week. But don't be all depressed either. Silence is always more preferable to a duet with a leaky saxophone (okay I'm also done with music metaphors).
Now the real key to remember is that Valentine's day is a celebration of love. Love is not the flower that shows up at your door nor is it the chocolate that melts on your tongue. Love is the way you look deeply into her eyes and seeing her soul staring back at you. Once you get there, it really doesn't matter what day it is. The best day to celebrate love is every day and the best place to celebrate love is in the bedroom (since I live in a studio, it's also in my kitchen and my study and my living room... you get the idea). So, what about buying stuff on Valentine's day? Well, let's just say that nothing I buy could ever rival my love. So if you get a flower from me on Valentine's day, it means I like you but the flower probably is worth more than my feelings for you. I gave you whichever I felt was worth more. I'm nice that way.
So, happy Valentine's day.
Posted in Random Ramblings, The Best Of | 4 comments
Posted by James
Fri, 26 Jan 2007 02:14:00 GMT
Yesterday, I learned something about myself. Anyone who knows me, know that I don't drink alcohol. And if you really know me, you've seen me drink. The explanation I give to most people is that I go from stone cold sober to throwing up in half a beer (give or take). So finally, yesterday, I dug around and found some information on the internet about my condition.
My condition is known as alcohol flush reaction or more commonly known as Asian Blush (I personally dislike the latter term). It affects about half of the East Asian population. To those afflicted, drinking even moderate amounts of alcohol will cause the face and body to burn red and heart rate to soar. And for me in particular, I get nauseous which naturally leads to vomiting.
As far as molecular biology is concerned, this condition is caused by two gene mutations. First, ethanol is decomposed into aldehyde by alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) enzyme. Many Asians have a mutated form of ADH that causes this reaction to occur 400% faster than normal. This sounds great right? Well, no. It turns out that aldehyde is more toxic than ethanol in the blood. But we're not done yet. The second reaction, aldehyde gets converted into acetic acid (vinegar) by the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH). About half of Asians have a mutated form of ALDH that functions an order of magnitude worse than the normal enzyme. So these two put together ensures that when I drink alcohol, my body fills up with aldehyde. It is aldehyde that causes those adverse reactions causing me to throw up violently. I suspect that I have the homozygous mutated form of the gene, thus leaving me completely unable to handle alcohol (those with heterozygous mutations have it much easier). It's not that I get drunk on ethanol really fast, it's just that I get poisoned by aldehyde.
Unfortunately, there is currently no cure. There are a few ways around this, but none of it is recommended by current medical practice. For example, taking heart burn medication such as Pepcid AC somehow causes the first reaction to take place slower. Therefore less aldehyde is produced initially. However, this is somewhat unsatisfactory since aldehyde is still metabolized at the slower rate in the second reaction. Since aldehyde is much worse than ethanol, the ideal solution is to ingest something that rapidly metabolizes aldehyde. Yet, this second part doesn't yet exist.
There's not a lot of study out there on this subject, and I don't know if any big pharmaceutical companies are working on a aldehyde metabolism drug. But I think the potential market for this is huge. This is one lifestyle drug that I would buy.
Posted in My Life, In Depth, The Best Of, Math & Science | 5 comments
Posted by James
Sun, 17 Dec 2006 00:48:00 GMT
Well, I'm back in Texas now.
My friend and I drove to the airport, where we found a diner and had lunch. She has this thing with "diners" and wherever we go, she always says, "lets find a diner"... very strange. Lunch was great (it had bacon) and I didn't realize how hungry I was. Then she dropped me off at the airport and the circus began.
I hate AmericanWest/USAirways. I don't know why I still fly with them... probably because they're the lowest bidder. They had only two people working at the check-in counter (make that two incompetent people). I had to wait in line for 20 minutes and there were only a dozen passengers and at least four self-help kiosks. Finally I got my bags checked and then went to security checkpoint. They made me take off my sweater for some strange reason (yours not to make reply, yours not to reason why...); all this time I thought that metal detectors detected metal underneath clothes (stupid me). Then we're into the climax of the story. I checked the screens and saw that my flight was leaving from gate 3. So I sat down and started making phone calls. Then it was 20 minutes before departure, but no plane, no gate agent, nothing. Good thing I was staying alert and saw other people fussing about this too, then it was discovered that the gate had changed (without any hints on the departure monitors). The AmericanWest people kindly placed a handwritten note indicating the change on gate 4 (apparently counting to 3 was a bit of a challenge for them). I got off the phone and ran to the correct gate and caught my plane.
That, however, was the worst of it. On the San Antonio leg of the trip, I saw the cutest girl I've ever seen. She couldn't have been more than 3. Big brown eyes, big curly light-brown hair and very red cheeks. She was in the row in front of me and I first noticed her when she got into the aisle to play. She would half cling to her father and sheepishly peek over the seats to look at me. I smile at her; she smiles back. The more I smile and wave, the bigger she smiled. At that moment, I realized that I'm old enough to be a father, but for some reason that realization didn't bother me (as it would've before). But then she went poopy in her diapers and her dad had to change her. She made my day.
I was reading V.S. Naipaul on the plane. I read his short story One out of Many (which was in the First Vintage Books edition of his Booker Prize winning short novel In A Free State). The story was very interesting, not quite dark enough but also not quite uplifting enough. My favorite passage from the story was:
Still, I felt I owed something to the senses, and I thought I might frolic with these women. But then I was frightened of the responsibility. Goodness, I had learned that a woman is not just a roll and a frolic but a big creature weighing a hundred-and-so-many pounds who is going to be around afterwards.
That sentence alone was Nobel Prize worthy (sure, I have lower standards, but it was funny).
Mom and dad came to the airport to pick me up. It was really good to see them again. Mom made me a chicken sandwich when we got home... yummy... I really missed those HEB rotisserie chicken.
Posted in Random Ramblings, My Life, In Depth, The Best Of, Arts & Literature | 11 comments
Posted by James
Tue, 12 Dec 2006 00:27:00 GMT
Today I went to a lecture given by Patrick Moore at the Nuclear Engineering Department's weekly seminar. Patrick was a co-founder of Greenpeace but left because he became disillusioned with them. In the lecture, he strongly advocated a combination of using renewable energy (wind, solar, geothermal) with nuclear energy as the only way to remove fossil fuels from our energy repertoire. And I agree with him 100%. He is an advocate of sustainablility, which mean that we should continue to provide for our needs at the same time reducing damage to the environment (in this case, CO2 emissions).
Patrick, early in his presentation, lamented that the environmental movement has been taken over by extremists (what I call environmental fascists). He summarized these people as: "anti-human, anti-science and technology, anti-trade and globalization, anti-business, and in general, anti-civilization." The story he told was that he once saw a protester with a sign that said, "join the global crusade against globalization" (the joke is obvious... but apparently that protester never got it). These neo-environmentalists aren't really pushing an environmental agenda, but pushing a neo-marxist or even a neo-anarchist one disguised as an environmental agenda. They oppose all things fossil fuel, but also oppose nuclear and hydroelectric energy. Together these consists of 99.2% of the world's energy production. No amount of solar panels can make up for the rest (besides, the production of solar panel themselves causes a lot of pollution).
I have a friend who buys into the whole environmental fascism ideals and it's incredibly frustrating talking to her about this kind of stuff. She believes that nuclear energy is the devil, and that we should go back to living in the 19th century (for some reason she doesn't think that's an extreme position). She thinks that we have disturbed the balance of things (which is probably true), and wants us to go back to what is "natural". But really, what is natural? Living in caves, with an average life expectancy of 15? She believes all life has equal value, which is a fine concept until you really sit down and think about it. Is a human life worth the same as that of a spider? Is it really?
I consider myself an environmentalist. I really believe in reducing greenhouse emissions, clean water, better conservation, and all that. But I care because of a simple (and selfish) reason: if we don't take care the environment, the human species will be wiped out. This is the most logical and most rational reason. I don't care about some random beetle in South America whose name I can't even pronounce. But it is possible that type of beetle (or some type of archaebacteria) holds the key to our survival, or they can tell us something about our place in the world. In that case, their continued existence becomes my concern. It's not that I place the same value on that beetle as I do a human child... absolutely not. Every organism is selfish in that they're only concerned with self-preservation and we should be no different. It's just that since we hold so much more power we need to be intelligent enough to look a few steps beyond the immediate future and do things that don't hurt us in the long run. But this absolutely doesn't mean we must forfeit progress to save the environment.
Nuclear power is in fact extremely safe (it's safer to work in the nuclear industry than it is to work in financial services). This is because safety is built into the nuclear engineering culture and so much engineering has gone into it. Everyone thinks about Chernobyl, but only about 50 people died as an immediate result and only about 9000 are expected to get cancer. Compare this with Bhopal where 3000 died immediately and 15,000 died subsequently. But for some reason nuclear energy has a worse reputation. Chernobyl happened because of bad engineering (the reactor wasn't designed for civilian use) and bad operators (all safety features were disabled for a reactor test). The newest generation of nuclear reactors are nothing like that. With nuclear waste reprocessing, we have basically found a perpetual energy source (nuclear waste isn't waste at all... 95% of the energy remain in them, and with reprocessing they could be put back in the reactor).
I'm most excited about small reactors like the Toshiba 4S. I think we can completely decentralize energy production and eliminate the wasteful practice of transmitting power over long distances. This way, not only will we have more cost effective energy, it will be reliable and fault tolerant. I can't wait to live in that future.
Posted in My Life, In Depth, The Best Of, Math & Science | 6 comments
Posted by James
Wed, 29 Nov 2006 00:33:00 GMT
I hadn't planned on writing another Sex as Science column so soon, but today I came across this news article that got me really excited. Basically, some British scientists are working on a non-hormonal male contraceptive pill that works by preventing the ejection of sperm, but doesn't otherwise interfere with normal sexual activities. However, since I don't trust the mainstream media to write accurately about science, I did some research of my own.
It turns out, the key to preventing the ejection of sperm is to inhibit the smooth muscle cells in the vas deferens. In case you're not familiar, the vas deferens is a tube that connects the epididymis with the prostate gland. More commonly, it is the tube that gets cut in a vasectomy (hence the name of the procedure... ah... it's all coming together). The smooth muscle cells in the vas deferens has two types of receptors. One is the P2X receptor which fires in response to ATP and the other is the α-adrenoreceptor which fires in response to noradrenaline (also known as norepinephrine). Apparently both chemicals are released during orgasm and it appears both are needed to stimulate firing of the smooth muscle cells (I'm still a little vague on why that is). I learned all of this by reading two papers I found on the web.
The first paper is about a study done on the P2X1 receptor in mice. The researchers created a strain of mice that had the P2X1 gene knocked out, and the ones with homogeneous (-/-) knockout showed a 90.4% reduction in fecundity. Using various techniques the researchers demonstrated that these mutant mice were healthy, had normal sperm count, and had normal volume of ejaculate. The only difference was that sperm wasn't being conducted out of the vas deferens.
The second paper was written by the same team that was featured in the MSNBC article. Unfortunately, this paper is a lot less readable than the first one. In this case, the research was done on the α1-adrenoreceptor in human vas deferens. However, the study was performed on vas deferens tissue extracted from men, not in a clinical trial setting. Basically they tried a bunch of drugs and showed the effects of these different drugs on different types of the vas deferens muscle tissue.
Extrapolating to the news article, it seems they are beginning phase I clinical trials currently with the α1-adrenoreceptor blockers and are expecting the drug (if it passes the necessary hurdles) to be available in 5 years. However, the article claims that with this pill, men will experience orgasm as usual, except it will be with "dry ejaculation" (or "shooting blanks" as it is known on the streets). I very much doubt that the orgasm will be "dry" since semen is produced separately in the seminal vesicle just before the prostate gland and takes a different route from sperm. I believe (although not positive) that the ejaculate will be the same, just without sperm (kind of like what happens after vasectomy).
The most exciting aspect of this type of male contraceptive is that it's not hormone based. You really don't want to be taking hormones just to control your sperm production, it's just not natural for a man and can have other unintended consequences (after all, hormones are used for many different purposes in the body). Also this pill is great because it will work like Viagra: you can take it 30 minutes before sex, and the effects wear off after a few hours. Its effectiveness is expected to be about 90%, which is less than that of condoms, but roughly in the ballpark of diaphragms or contraceptive sponges (with spermicide). Lastly it's non-invasive. There are other methods that require injecting something into the vas deferens (uh... no thanks). So, this sounds like a miracle pill and I'm totally trying it when and if it become available.
Unfortunately, like most other contraceptives, this pill will not prevent against STDs. So it's definitely not appropriate for sexual encounters between strangers. However, if you're in a stable long term relationship, this will probably rock your world.
Posted in Sex as Science, The Best Of | 4 comments
