We stopped in Qatar/Doha (2 days) and Bahrain/Manama (3 days) on the way to and back from Asia.
1. Things are really brown.
2. Humidity much much higher than expected - even more so than in Penang and Bangkok
3. Hot
4. More flashy cars in Doha than Manama Porsches, Audis, MBs.
5. No solar panels.
6. Security tighter in Manama. Security guards at the hotel waves a metal detector wand over us every time we enter. Parking in front of the hotel was restricted.
Update:
7. More visible American presence in the hotel in Manama - military and construction/oil? worker types.
Stayed at the Hyatt in Doha. In a word - opulent. To the point that I felt guilty. It made me think of Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone for some reason. Most expensive breakfast ever - $100 for some doughnuts, pastry and coffee. The exchange rate was just incredible.
In Manama, we stayed at the Residence Inn - most comfortable bed and pillows ever. (Update: Best scrambled eggs ever as well for breakfast.) It was a large place - more space than we needed although the interior walls and shelves were somewhat spare. Well stocked with dishes and cooking utensils though.
It was Ramadan so things were very quiet. Hard to find food at the Hyatt - only one restaurant was open so it was a good thing we were only there for two days. The plan was to use the stops to gradually adjust to the time difference but it really made no difference. I was just as jet lagged without the stops, if not worse. It was good to recharge though - we would probably not stop for so long next time though I doubt we’d be back in the region.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
Angle of Repose
Managed to wade my way through it during our vacation. My thought was: This is a Pulitzer?!
I have serious doubts that it would ever get published today with plagiarism charges running amok. From Wikipedia:
The novel is directly based on the letters of Mary Hallock Foote, later published as A Victorian Gentlewoman in the Far West.
Stegner's use of substantial passages from Foote's actual letters as the correspondence of his fictional character Susan Burling Ward was and remains controversial among some scholars. The controversy is somewhat tempered since Stegner had received permission to use Foote's writings, implying as much in the book's acknowledgements page.
Still - the acknowledgement was bare. It did not say that it was excerpted from actual letters just that the story was based on her life.
I have serious doubts that it would ever get published today with plagiarism charges running amok. From Wikipedia:
The novel is directly based on the letters of Mary Hallock Foote, later published as A Victorian Gentlewoman in the Far West.
Stegner's use of substantial passages from Foote's actual letters as the correspondence of his fictional character Susan Burling Ward was and remains controversial among some scholars. The controversy is somewhat tempered since Stegner had received permission to use Foote's writings, implying as much in the book's acknowledgements page.
Still - the acknowledgement was bare. It did not say that it was excerpted from actual letters just that the story was based on her life.
Terminal 21
This was probably the only place we visited when we were in Bangkok. It was across the street from where we were staying - convenient for food (Food court and restaurants) and groceries (Gourmet Market). Each level has a different ‘theme’ - e.g. Paris, Istanbul, San Francisco, etc.
The big draw here seems to be the bathrooms, also with its own theme.
The big draw here seems to be the bathrooms, also with its own theme.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Skeptical of skeptical environmentalist and the improving state of the world
I decided to make a go these two books: The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg and the Improving State of the World by Indur Goklany.
My skepticism lies not so much with their presentation nor the statistics. My skepticism is whether I should be skeptical about all the optimism. Lomborg attacks Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute and specifically about how data is presented in its annual State of the World reports. Lomborg claims that the reports presents statistics in a biased manner since it does not take the ‘long view’ into account.
I am sympathetic to this point of view - we can say that things have gotten worse by picking two points in time that make our case for us - the peak and the trough and then hide everything that has gone on in between. Alternatively we can pick some other two points in time that supports the view we are trying to make. Some comments on the web have pointed out that is possible to claim that the earth has simultaneously warmed and cooled by picking out any two points between 2000 and 2010.
I think that both books misses the larger point. (Goklany’s is a more interesting book but pretty much has the same thrust as Lomborg.) The point is not to thump our chests about how great things have been since neanderthal man walked the earth - but how much the recent past says about the future. To paraphrase someone it’s not how much better off you were than your forefathers but how much better off you were four years ago and how much better off you will be four years from now.
So all the points that are made in the books about the warming climate and pollution etc misses the larger view by appealing to the long run view. In the long run we’ll all be dead, the sun is going to go nova and we’ll be swallowed up by a black hole. I don’t care about the long run. I caer about what’s going to happen 5 or 10 years from now.
P.S. I thought the Goklany book was interesting in that it attempted to calculate I = PAT. None of the calculations were very convincing but I thought it was a valiant attempt. It also had a fairly balanced (I thought) coverage of GM crops, although this is because I’m already biased toward GM.
Update (9/4/2012):
Here are some headlines that essentially ask the relevant question - what does the recent past say about the forseeable future:
My skepticism lies not so much with their presentation nor the statistics. My skepticism is whether I should be skeptical about all the optimism. Lomborg attacks Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute and specifically about how data is presented in its annual State of the World reports. Lomborg claims that the reports presents statistics in a biased manner since it does not take the ‘long view’ into account.
I am sympathetic to this point of view - we can say that things have gotten worse by picking two points in time that make our case for us - the peak and the trough and then hide everything that has gone on in between. Alternatively we can pick some other two points in time that supports the view we are trying to make. Some comments on the web have pointed out that is possible to claim that the earth has simultaneously warmed and cooled by picking out any two points between 2000 and 2010.
I think that both books misses the larger point. (Goklany’s is a more interesting book but pretty much has the same thrust as Lomborg.) The point is not to thump our chests about how great things have been since neanderthal man walked the earth - but how much the recent past says about the future. To paraphrase someone it’s not how much better off you were than your forefathers but how much better off you were four years ago and how much better off you will be four years from now.
So all the points that are made in the books about the warming climate and pollution etc misses the larger view by appealing to the long run view. In the long run we’ll all be dead, the sun is going to go nova and we’ll be swallowed up by a black hole. I don’t care about the long run. I caer about what’s going to happen 5 or 10 years from now.
P.S. I thought the Goklany book was interesting in that it attempted to calculate I = PAT. None of the calculations were very convincing but I thought it was a valiant attempt. It also had a fairly balanced (I thought) coverage of GM crops, although this is because I’m already biased toward GM.
Update (9/4/2012):
Here are some headlines that essentially ask the relevant question - what does the recent past say about the forseeable future:
- Summer’s record heat, drought point to longer-term climate issues
- Wonkbook: Climate change may be to blame for extreme weather events now
- Hansen, et.al.'s Perception of climate change study. Also covered in the Economist and Think Progress.
- Cover story of September's National Geographic Magazine.
Friday, August 31, 2012
IOC and game theory
The badminton fiasco at the Olympics would seem to indicate that the IOC and other sports organizations need to learn some game theory:
Eight badminton players have been disqualified from the women's doubles competition after being accused of "not using one's best efforts to win".
Two pairs from South Korea and one each from China and Indonesia made a series of basic errors in Tuesday's matches.
All four pairs were accused of wanting to lose, in an attempt to manipulate the draw for the knockout stage.
MR discusses the game theoretic aspect of cycling and Sally Jenkins writes about how trying to lose also occurs in other sports and leagues such as NFL football where toward the end of the season teams do not necessarily try too hard to win in order to get a better draft pick.
We also watched some canoeing and the strange aspect of some of the qualifying rounds was that out of the 25 canoes going head-to-head six at a time, 24 would qualify. There were also rounds where everyone qualified for the quarter finals.
These two are related by only one thing which should have been obvious to me: Revenue maximization. In the case of badminton, instead of playing a knock-out system the IOC had the players play a round robin type system. There really isn’t any reason to do this unless they were interested in maximizing the number of events/rounds and hence revenue be it at the gate or on TV. Likewise in canoeing, they could have eliminated many ‘meaningless’ races by going straight to 16 instead of 24.
Eight badminton players have been disqualified from the women's doubles competition after being accused of "not using one's best efforts to win".
Two pairs from South Korea and one each from China and Indonesia made a series of basic errors in Tuesday's matches.
All four pairs were accused of wanting to lose, in an attempt to manipulate the draw for the knockout stage.
MR discusses the game theoretic aspect of cycling and Sally Jenkins writes about how trying to lose also occurs in other sports and leagues such as NFL football where toward the end of the season teams do not necessarily try too hard to win in order to get a better draft pick.
We also watched some canoeing and the strange aspect of some of the qualifying rounds was that out of the 25 canoes going head-to-head six at a time, 24 would qualify. There were also rounds where everyone qualified for the quarter finals.
These two are related by only one thing which should have been obvious to me: Revenue maximization. In the case of badminton, instead of playing a knock-out system the IOC had the players play a round robin type system. There really isn’t any reason to do this unless they were interested in maximizing the number of events/rounds and hence revenue be it at the gate or on TV. Likewise in canoeing, they could have eliminated many ‘meaningless’ races by going straight to 16 instead of 24.
Qatar airlines
Named as best airline by Skytrax 2011 and 2012. We flew to Asia using this airline and either standards have fallen tremendously since our last trip two years ago or there is something amiss with the ratings. I compare with our last trip on Korean Airlines.
We flew IAD-DOH, DOH-BKK and back. The cabin crew did not help passengers get their bags into the overhead compartments. Help in the sense of directing passengers to compartments that were empty or partially empty. They either stood at the back or remained mostly invisible most of the time. This is important because the current Doha airport does not have gates so passengers are bused onto the tarmac. Passengers do not board by rows so it can be extremely chaotic.
On the DOH-IAD leg, a passenger had a flat fairly empty bag in a compartment. Another passenger who came later moved it so that he could fit his bag in and got snapped at by her. There was a tense exchange of words which could have be alleviated by the presence of cabin crew. In my mind the first passenger did not have the right to hog the entire compartment just because she happened to have been there first.
When going down the aisles to serve food or drinks or to collect garbage, the crew pretty much marches down the aisle rather than walk slowly turning from side to side to offer the tray they are carrying. I barely had time to put my trash in the box before they were off.
It’s highly doubtful that we’d fly Qatar airlines again for many reasons but the level of service was not really a deal breaker. It’s just a bit of a surprise that they’re considered airline of the year or whatever that Skytrax award is supposed to signify.
We flew IAD-DOH, DOH-BKK and back. The cabin crew did not help passengers get their bags into the overhead compartments. Help in the sense of directing passengers to compartments that were empty or partially empty. They either stood at the back or remained mostly invisible most of the time. This is important because the current Doha airport does not have gates so passengers are bused onto the tarmac. Passengers do not board by rows so it can be extremely chaotic.
On the DOH-IAD leg, a passenger had a flat fairly empty bag in a compartment. Another passenger who came later moved it so that he could fit his bag in and got snapped at by her. There was a tense exchange of words which could have be alleviated by the presence of cabin crew. In my mind the first passenger did not have the right to hog the entire compartment just because she happened to have been there first.
When going down the aisles to serve food or drinks or to collect garbage, the crew pretty much marches down the aisle rather than walk slowly turning from side to side to offer the tray they are carrying. I barely had time to put my trash in the box before they were off.
It’s highly doubtful that we’d fly Qatar airlines again for many reasons but the level of service was not really a deal breaker. It’s just a bit of a surprise that they’re considered airline of the year or whatever that Skytrax award is supposed to signify.
WTF
In Malaysia, the license plates of cars vary by state just as they do in the US. Instead of state denominated plates, each state is assigned a letter of the alphabet so license plates from Penang begin with PA. The first car probably had the license plate PA 1 and on it goes until PZ 9999. Afterwards, it goes to PAA 1 and so forth.
In Kuala Lumpur. the license plates begin with W - and so now we have WTF all over the roads.
In Kuala Lumpur. the license plates begin with W - and so now we have WTF all over the roads.
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