Things to learn

Yesterday was a day of lasts:

• I went to my last undergrad class (CS 431, compilers, with Dr. Mercer).
• I turned in my last undergrad homework (a EE 380 problem set on the z-transform).
• I turned in my last undergrad lab (a EE 380 lab on elliptic filters).
• I turned in my last undergrad project (a peephole optimizer for my compilers class).

Next week I'll take my last undergrad final ever, and, with that, I'll be done with college.

I feel like I've just started learning, though. There are lots of things that I'd like to learn but haven't had time to because of school. Well, now's my chance.

Here's a sampling of things that I'd like learn about:

• Global poverty and public health, and ways to improve things
  
• Programming stuff: Cocoa programming in Objective-C, Android development, Haskell, AVR programming, MapReduce
  
• China, India, and Africa
  
• Spanish. I think I might take a class. I'm getting rusty.
• Trad climbing
  
• Medicine. I'd like to become an EMT or wilderness first responder.
• Algorithms (especially graph algorithms) and algorithm analysis.
  
• Maybe join a search and rescue team. Maybe.
  
• Child development
  
• Literature. I've learned a lot in college, but I've been too busy to read as much as I'd like. Time to get back to the books.
  
• Cooking
• Psychology
• Probability, Bayesian statistics, and graphical modeling
• Economics

That should keep me busy for a while.

Pride and Prejudice

I read Pride and Prejudice while I was in Europe this summer. Contrary to my expectations, I really enjoyed it. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that John wanted to read it too. The characters were vivid, the story was interesting, and Jane Austen is an excellent writer. I had to watch the BBC movie production of the book in high school, and couldn't stomach it; the book was much better. Who knows—maybe I'd even enjoy the movie now.

This isn't a well-conceived essay on the book; rather, it's a few quotes and words that stood out to me while I was reading. Maybe something will stand out to you, too.

First, some new words I learned:

• supercilious: disdainful
  
• profligacy: extravagance
  
• querulous: full of complaints
  
• panegyric: a formal public speech
  

And now, a few of my favorite quotes:

...more than commonly anxious to please, she naturally suspected that every power of pleasing would fail her.

—the narrator, on Elizabeth

"You might have talked to me more when you came to dinner."
"A man who had felt less, might."

—Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, on why he didn't do more earlier to win Elizabeth

I was happy to find these two quotes, because they very eloquently describe how I feel so much of the time. It's easy to be myself around everyday friends, but it's hard when I'm around girls that I'm interested in—which is when I most want to be myself. Cruel irony, isn't it?

It is a compliment which I never pay to any place if I can avoid it.

—Mr. Darcy, on dancing. He and I agree. :)

To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of either.

—Mr. Darcy, on agreeing just because a friend wants you to.

It was not in her nature, however, to increase her vexations, by dwelling on them. She was confident of having performed her duty, and to fret over unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was no part of her disposition.

—the narrator, on Elizabeth. I wish that I were more like her.

Her father captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humor, which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind, had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence, had vanished for ever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown.

—the narrator, on Mr. Bennet

I think this last quote is one of the saddest, and yet most insightful in the book. The relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet is obviously humorous, but it's also obviously emotionally dessicated. They survive together, but there is an invisible wall between them. In contrast to Mr. Bennet, I want to marry someone amazing—someone with a vibrant mind, self-confidence, insight, and compassion. Youth and beauty may catch the eye, but thoughtfulness, maturity, happiness, and spirituality catch the heart. Perhaps more importantly, I want to be that kind of person for my wife.

The Prince

Last summer I decided to read a book a month for the next year. It's now several months later, and I haven't done as well as I would have liked. Here's my current score:

• July: The Tipping Point
• August: Mere Christianity, 1984
• September: The Kite Runner
• October: Um...
• November: Uh...
• December: Yeah...
• January: The Prince

You may notice a correlation between the school semester and my lack of reading. My plan at the beginning of the semester was to be in bed by 10p.m. so that I would have time to read before I went to sleep. However, that plan was foiled by something I hadn't planned on: I ended up liking my roommates. I mean, I didn't expect to dislike my roommates, but as it turned out, I apparently like hanging out with them more than I like reading.

In an effort to redeem myself a little, I stole a dusty, yellowing book from my parents' bookshelf over Christmas: Machiavelli's The Prince, a book considered by many to be one of the world's most influential political works. I read it over the last month, and I finished it just before the end of January.

Niccolò Machiavelli, a 15th century Italian statesman, wrote The Prince as a treatise on how leaders should obtain and maintain kingdoms. The book is startling in its frankness and practicality. Machiavelli is firmly planted in the realist camp. He makes occasional references to deity and morality, but he clearly eschews idealism and moralism for what he considers more practical tactics.

One of the most interesting ideas that Machiavelli presents is that a leader must be esteemed as an exemplary person by his people, but that he must sometimes commit contemptible acts in private. He lauds successful hypocrites and double-crossers while faulting simpleminded, morally-driven leaders. In Machiavelli's eyes, results are all that matter, no matter how they are obtained.

I firmly disagree with many of Machiavelli's stances, mostly because I disagree with his definition of success. In my view of the world, acting morally is success, no matter the outcome. In other words, the success is in the journey, not the destination.

Next up: Hamlet. I've been reading it on and off for a few months, and I'd like to finish it this month.

The Kite Runner

I bought The Kite Runner in audiobook form a couple weeks ago to keep me busy on a couple upcoming road trips. I finished it last Saturday somewhere in northern Utah on the way back to school.

The Kite Runner tells the (fictional) story of Amir--a man who grew up in Afghanistan during the 70's and later moved to the U.S. The story focuses on Amir's relationships with other Afghans, especially a boy named Hasan, who he grew up with. It is a sometimes heartwrenching, but always engaging and interesting narrative.

I feel like I understand Afghanistan a little better now. The author explores the political situation, racial tensions, traditions, and social structure of Afghanistan. He doesn't explicitly address any of these topics; they just kind of fell out of the story. If you're looking for an easy way to get a rough picture of some aspects of Afghanistan, I'd definitely recommend the book. It's obviously not an exhaustive treatment of any of these topics, but it will give you a general idea and feel for the country.

Next up on the reading list: Hamlet.

1984

I finished reading George Orwell's 1984 last night. Somehow I made it thorough middle school and high school without reading it, so this was my first time. It made me think a lot about government. A few key points from the book that I think are especially salient today:

• Constant warfare provides a way to control popular opinion and protect the status of the upper class. (War on drugs, terror.)
  
• Doublethink--believing something that you know is false--destroys people's sanity and rationality.
  
• Mindless entertainment (produced for and distributed to the proles in 1984) keeps people from making any meaningful intellectual achievements. (MTV, anyone?)
• Constant surveillance restricts free thought. (NSA warrentless wiretapping, NYC surveillance.)
  

Orwell was remarkably insightful. 1984 is almost sixty years old, but the world it portrays seems to be closer to reality now than when it was written. I don't think that the world will ever become like Oceania, but I do think that it's important that people think for themselves and participate in government to keep it open and free. It's too easy for those in power to grow too fond of it, at the expense of the rest of us.

Mere Christianity

As part of my goal to read a book a month, today I finished Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis. The book is Lewis's explanation of "mere" Christianity: the simple subset of Christianity that everyone can agree about. He adapted the book from a series of BBC radio talks that he gave during WWII.

Lewis is an interesting expositor of Christian belief because he claims no special authority for doing so. He writes not as the Pope or an ordained minister, but as a common layman, explaining his religion to his common friends. If anything, Lewis makes it clear that he is as much of a sinner as anyone else. The humble position from which he writes gives his words an authority more powerful than a scholarly title.
I enjoyed Mere Christianity. It was interesting to read from my perspective as a Mormon. I found that, true to the book's goal, there was very little that I disagreed with. I even realized that Ezra Taft Benson's well-known Beware of Pride talk, which I have read many times, was based on Lewis's analysis of the topic, and it quoted his words and ideas at length.

A few favorite quotes from the book (citations from the HarperCollins 2001 edition):

• Becoming: "We might think that God wanted simply obedience to a set of rules: whereas He really wants people of a particular sort." (p. 80)
• Heaven: "The point is not that God will refuse you admission to His eternal world if you have not got certain qualities of character; the point is that if people have not got at least the beginning of those qualities inside them, then no possible external conditions could make a 'Heaven' for them...." (p. 81)
• Charitable giving: "I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.... If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charities expediture excludes them." (p. 86)
• Faults: "The devil loves 'curing' a small fault by giving you a great one." (p. 127)
• Humility: "Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call 'humble' nowadays: he will not be a short of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all." (p. 128)
• Faith vs. works: "Christians have often disputed as to whether what leads the Christian home is good actions, or Faith in Christ. I have no right really to speak on such a difficult question, but it does seem to me like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary." (p. 148)
• Those pesky facts: "We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about." (p. 165)
  
• God's plan for you: "Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps you can understand what He is doing.... But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of.... You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace." (p. 205)
• Thoughts vs. actions: "Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in 'religion' mean nothing unless they make our actual behaviour better; just as in an illness 'feeling better' is not much good if the thermometer show that your temperature is still going up." (p. 207)

Summer reading

I wrote in my last post that I had a goal to read at least a book a month for the next year. In an effort to start on that goal, I visited the bookstore tonight and picked up a few volumes:

• Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis
• 1984, by George Orwell
• Hamlet, by Shakespeare
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling
  

Three books of substance, and one book of fun.

First up: The Tipping Point

I've had my own little personal literary renaissance during the past few months. I read voraciously when I was growing up, but as I entered high school and my life got busier, my appetite for books waned. I'm ashamed to say that I haven't read much of substance (other than the occasional technical book or Harry Potter volume, if that counts) for a long time. Thankfully, that's changed recently.

When I was studying in London earlier this year, I took a British literature class, which forced me to read lots in little time--and I liked it! All of that reading reminded me that I had been missing out on an enriching part of life, and I decided continue when the class ended.

In what I hope will be the beginning (renewal?) of a lifelong habit, I'm planning to read a book a month for the next year. In a nod to keeping myself accountable (to myself, mostly), I'm going to write about my reading here. I'm planning to select from a wide menu of books, from classics to popular fiction to history. If you have suggestions, let me know.

* * *

I started reading The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell, on a road trip last summer, but my reading ended 1/3 of the way through the book when we got to our campground. So when I saw the book in the airport as I was leaving London a few weeks ago, I bought a copy. I finally finished it tonight.

Gladwell's premise is that social phenomena spread nonlinearly. In other words, some ideas and trends don't spread through society at a predictable, steady pace; instead, they stay below the radar for a little while, and then they suddenly explode. Gladwell notes several examples, such as NYC's sudden decrease in crime in the 90's, the surprising resurgence of Hush Puppies a decade ago, or the runaway popularity of the children's TV show Blue's Clues.

The Tipping Point presents several phenomena that have "tipped", and then explores the reasons for their success. His examples come from diverse areas, including government, business, culture, and public health. Gladwell's main point is that little things can have a huge impact: spreading a marketing message to a few key people can be more effective than a huge advertising campaign; slight changes to the content of a TV program can produce huge increases in interest; cleaning graffiti in New York can lead to a sudden fall in crime rates.

While I don't buy all of his arguments (like the ones about NYC crime), reading Gladwell's book made me reevaluate some of my ideas about how the world works. His examples are interesting, which makes the book both enjoyable and informative.