Sid in Uganda: November 2011

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Great visual - facebook

China is all dark and so is a lot of Africa. Interestingly, the right half of US seems to be much heavier users that the left.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Have a read of this article: http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/7274. Let us assume for a moment that the results of the study are correct. Is stealing music ok if it doesn't hurt the things we value? Are somethings inherently unethical or does the most probable result of an action determine if it is unethical? Is it unethical to drive a car drunk? Is it more unethical if you drive a car drunk and hit a person?

Is "music illegally downloaded" just a market variable? As downloading increases, profits decrease and the incentive to produce music decreases. That's the theory. Inferring from the article, it seems that the incentive to produce music might be something other than pure profits. In a world that downloads music, we will have the same number of artists and the same quality of music but fewer rich producers and giant record labels. If we are happy to live in such a world, does it mean that the act is ethical?

Framed another way, is there a value in ethics above and beyond the utilitarian?

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Education pays

As someone on Hacker News said in relation to this article: "correlation is not the same thing as causation". Nevertheless, it's very interesting:

SOURCE: http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Excerpt from Rushdie and Terry Gilliam interview

Two of my heroes!

On Don Quixote:

There’s a great translation of Quixote. Most translations ofQuixote into English suck. They make the book seem about as deadly dull as it’s possible to be. And then at one point, a couple hundred years ago, the novelist Tobias Smollett translated Quixote and his Spanish is not perfect. If you’re looking for a literal translation, it’s not. It’s the only translation in English that feels as rambunctious as the original feels in Spanish. It opens up the book completely.
There’s a wonderful sentence at the end of Don Quixote the novel, where Quixote, old and dying, has come to his senses and understood that he’s been nuts all his life. And the phrase he uses to describe his madness is: “I’ve been looking for this year’s birds in last year’s nests.” Which seems to me a wonderful description of both insanity and the movie industry.
On arriving in US for the first time:

There was a time when I had hair, too. And about the time you came to Europe, I made my first visit to America. Actually, on an advertising gig. I was being asked to write travel advertising, encouraging people to take their vacations in the United States. But I had never been in the United States. So the American government, I guess under Nixon, kindly sent me on a free trip around America to have a vacation so I could go home and write about having one. I arrived in San Francisco with long hair, no beard, but a Zapata mustache—remember those? I mean, that’s how long ago it was. And there was a sign in the immigration office saying [mimics flat American accent] “A few extra minutes in customs is a small price to pay to save your children from the menace of drugs.”

We’re standing in line, and in front of me there’s this kind of classic, American redneck guy with a very red neck about this wide. [Holds out hands almost a foot apart.] He turned around to me, and with a complete change of heart, he said, “Buddy, I sure feel sorry for you.” And he was right. I mean, I got taken to pieces. I got strip searched, I got everything. And I arrived in America, you know, for the first time, trembling. There was this tiny lady standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus, and she saw that I was trembling. She said, “What’s the matter, dear?” and it kind of all poured out. And—this was the other side of America—she did this amazing thing, she apologized on behalf of the United States. She put her hands in the elocution position. [Holds out hands in front of chest, fingers interlocking, pinkie to thumb.] She looked like Grandma Clampett, this tiny old lady. And she made a formal apology on behalf of the American people. And it fixed it, you know. Then it was all right. Then I could go and enjoy America.

Here's the full article if you're interested: http://www.believermag.com/issues/200303/?read=interview_gilliam

Sunday, November 20, 2011

The hardship assignment

I find it very awkward when I'm the subject of adulation for the 'sacrifices' I am making by living in Kampala. Usually I mumble something about it not being that much of a sacrifice but stop myself as it is often misconstrued as false modesty. I would like to talk about the joys of Kampala in the hope that people realise that I don't really need to fend off man-eating lions and bloodthirsty gorillas on my way to work everyday.

Life is Kampala is easy and comfortable. Here's how yesterday was spent.

I woke up late. Thursday and Friday were spent at the Rainforest lodge in Mbira forest for the CHAI retreat which were two long exhausting days. I had earned myself a sleep in. I joined Ann Marie, Liz, Lorne and Leah for breakfast at 11. Leah works in Burundi as a Global Health Corp Fellow and is in town to sit for her GMAT and the rest work for various NGOs around Kampala. We did a quick swing past the ATMs at Lugogo Mall and had breakfast at the Farmer's market. Zack makes the best bread and cheese in Kampala. I bought a baguette, some ricotta and home made hummus and sat down for a full english breakfast with a side of loose leaf tea and a glass of freshly squeezed juice. I met Nora and Hugo there who were relaxing on the grass after their Yoga class and Shira dropped by to pick up some supplies.

We split up after breakfast. Few of us went to Endiro cafe to do some work while the other went to check out this new second hand book store in Kisamente, which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Next, we drove to the Bahai temple since none of us had been there. We relaxed at the beautiful parks surrounding the temple for an hour or so before meeting the rest of the group and going to FashionCore. An expat had this brainwave of buying the choicest clothes from Owino, the biggest and most congested second hand clothes market, doing a few alterations and re-selling them out of the her more muzungu friendly house in upper class Kololo Hill.

Frankie, Noorin, Lindsay, Ally and Faith met us at FashionCore and we made dinner plans. We met at Mamba Point Pizzeria at 8 and were joined by the Swiss crew, Lena and Alikhan's friends. Pizza and a few bottles of wine later we decided the night was still young. We dropped off Ann Marie's car at her place and went to Mayfair Casino. I walked away 10 bucks under from the roulette table but the free drinks got us all jiving. We moved the party to Cayenne at around 1AM. Everyone was there! Christoff, Emily and Aneri were all there showing some good form. We gave the floors a good polish with our badass moves before calling it a night at around 4AM.

Sacrifice? You're the ones missing out.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Who Wrote Shakespeare?

My main man Eric Idle(*) has something to say. From New Yorker : 21/11 edition

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2011/11/21/111121sh_shouts_idle

While it is perfectly obvious to everyone that Ben Jonson wrote all of Shakespeare’s plays, it is less known that Ben Jonson’s plays were written by a teen-age girl in Sunderland, who mysteriously disappeared, leaving no trace of her existence, which is clear proof that she wrote them. The plays of Marlowe were actually written by a chambermaid named Marlene, who faked her own orgasm, and then her own death in a Deptford tavern brawl. Queen Elizabeth, who was obviously a man, conspired to have Shakespeare named as the author of his plays, because how could a man who had only a grammar-school education and spoke Latin and a little Greek possibly have written something as bad as “All’s Well That Ends Well”? It makes no sense. It was obviously an upper-class twit who wished to disguise his identity so that Vanessa Redgrave could get a job in her old age.
Many people believe that Richard III not only was a good man who would never hurt a fly but actually wrote “She Stoops to Conquer,” and that the so-called author, Oliver Goldsmith, found the play under a tree in 1773 while visiting Bosworth Field, now a multistory car park (clearly an attempt to cover up the evidence of the ruse). Oscar Wilde’s plays were written by a stable boy named Simon, though Wilde gave them both a good polish. Chaucer was written by a Frenchman on holiday, while Simone de Beauvoir wrote all of Balzac and a good deal of “Les Misérables,” despite the fact that she was not yet born when she did so. Beau Brummell wrote nearly all of Jane Austen, and two men and a cat wrote most of Charles Dickens, with the exception of “A Tale of Two Cities,” which Napoleon wrote while visiting St. Helena. Incidentally, Napoleon was not Napoleon but a man named Trevor Francis, who later turned up playing for Birmingham City.
Thomas Jefferson produced the Declaration with the aid of a ghostwriter, a woman of color named Betty Mae, who was a non-voluntary worker. “Moby-Dick” was written not by Herman Melville but by Herman Melbrooks, who wrote most of it in Yiddish on the boat over from Coney Island. “The Shorter Pepys,” a Penguin paperback, was actually written by the taller Pepys, a man named Doris Pepys, who was no relation but worked as a candle cleaner in Wapping (home of the Liar). Henry James did write all of his own works, because nobody else could be that boring, and, more significant, no one else has ever bothered to claim them.
Mere lack of evidence, of course, is no reason to denounce a theory. Look at intelligent design. The fact that it is bollocks hasn’t stopped a good many people from believing in it. Darwinism itself is only supported by tons of evidence, which is a clear indication that Darwin didn’t write his books himself. They were most likely written by Jack the Ripper, who was probably King Edward VII, since all evidence concerning this has been destroyed.
Paranoia? Of course not. It’s alternative scholarship. What’s wrong with teaching alternative theories in our schools? What are liberals so afraid of? Can’t children make up their own minds about things like killing and carrying automatic weapons on the playground? Bush was right: no child left unarmed. Why this dictatorial approach to learning, anyway? What gives teachers the right to say what things are? Who’s to say that flat-earthers are wrong? Or that the Church wasn’t right to silence Galileo, with his absurd theory (actually written by his proctologist) that the earth moves around the sun. Citing “evidence” is so snobbish and élitist. I think we all know what lawyers can do with evidence. Look at Shakespeare. Poor bloke. Wrote thirty-seven plays, none of them his.

* (Most likely Michael Palin, really.)

Sartre in Fort Portal

I spent another weekend in country Uganda in a town called Fort Portal. Though it didn't do enough to dislodge Lake Bunyonyi from it's recently earned position of "most beautiful place in Uganda", it excelled in some of the categories. On Saturday, we did a bike ride to a waterfall, which we swam in, and followed it with a trek in pouring rain (which made it all the more fun) to some crater lakes and then biked back to town for pizzas.

On Saturday, I got some time to get into Words by Jean-Paul Sartre. Though I have read books and essays referencing his works, I have never actually picked up any of his books. How does a man get so bitter and cynical? There is the scene where he, as a young boy of maybe 6, is greeted by his grandfather at the train station with the expected exuberance. Sartre dissects this interaction to small pieces exposing the ugly innards. He spares no one. From his dead father, whom he did not know, to his grandfather, who brought him up. He even criticises the actions of his 6 year old self.

Though vaguely aware of Sartre contribution to existential philosophy, I didn't know that he was such a gifted writer. He writes with dispassion and insight. He narrates like it is chore and he tell his own story like it has nothing to do with him and he is weary of talking about it. Hhis bare-knuckled honestly is startling and refreshing. His words have an undercurrent of anger, at the lack of self awareness, and frustration, at being a victim of habit and circumstance.

Sid in Uganda