Jan Troost

Gamble !

2011-06-01T11:48:00.000-07:00

If you're high up in a company largely based on financial interests, you are often rewarded high bonuses when your company makes a big profit. Naively, there's nothing wrong with this. We all know though that one can choose a high risk strategy that can either pay off a lot or make for a large loss. The trouble is that if the first scenario plays out, the strategist gets a big bonus, while if the second option is realized, he loses no money from his bank account. Sure, he could get fired, but that punishment is considerably less direct than the money reward he obtains when his risky move strikes gold. In particular, the punishment is not to withdraw millions of dollars from the strategist's account. It is my claim that this strongly encourages people high up in the finance industry to gamble very heavily.

Moreover, their leverage is huge, which means that the gambles that don't pay off can make their company collapse, and others with it. Their gambles have real consequences for ordinary working people. Yet, when their company and others go bankrupt, there is no real consequence for the top finance people's bank account.

The present reward system for top people in finance benefits the rich, and disadvantages the poor.

We can boil this down to a form of exploitation of the law on business and individuals. An individual will remain responsible for his debt. A company can go bankrupt, and no creditor will see his money back. Therefore, it is advantageous to create a business, gamble heavily, and reward oneself if one wins, and let the business go bankrupt if one doesn't.

Of course, I'm simplifying things enormously, but the basic mechanism at work is real, and destabilizes our financial system. That was evident in 2008, and it is still evident now.

Execution without trial

2011-05-15T11:46:00.000-07:00

The rhetoric surrounding the execution of Ben Laden often links his death with notions of revenge, evil, the old testament, realism and pragmatism, but also with Obama's re-election, the possibility of a shrine and the legacy of Al Qaeda. It is my impression that the left is willing to make an exception to the rule of due process, the right to the sacredness of life, and any given individual to any one of his principles. There is a pragmatic breaking point to anyone's defense of the moral higher ground.

An overpowering force was sent into a foreign nation to kill the public leader of a terrorist organisation. It made it manifest that the execution under any circumstances of key figures in an enemy camp is seen as a viable strategy by any nation. And public support for this modus operandi is broad.

I fail to see the big impact this indivual's death would have on public opinion anywhere. The reading of history in terms of heroes and villains is childlike. Once more, the thousands of newspaper articles that attempt to turn journalism into history seem to have succeeded in making children of us all.

To my mind, the execution of Ben Laden testifies to the fact that we are not yet far removed from barbarism. Perhaps the manifest violation of principles that are defended publically, both at the scale of nations, and in our circle of friends will serve as a useful reminder as to our primitive nature.

Fukushima

2011-05-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

The integrated yearly radiation tens of kilometers away from Fukushima is tens of milliSievert. One CT scan will expose you to a few mSv, which is also the typical yearly dose in a random place.

Slowmo

2011-03-31T11:24:00.000-07:00

WTF by Marc Maron

2011-03-31T11:10:00.001-07:00

The podcast WTF by Marc Maron is a delight. Marc Maron is a stand-up comedian with lots of experience, contacts and friends in the comedy world. He interviews celibrities, friends, and comic geniuses, and digs into their personal lives. His interview style is up-close and personal which is made possible by his own disclosures and self-analysis. Maron is a very talented figure who might have missed the best opportunities in his career by being psychologically challenged. It is possible that it took him too much time to straighten himself out for him to succesfully make the best of his many talents. In any case, that does not stop him from being fantastically entertaining in his interviews, his telephone calls to family and friends, his comments on regional peculiarities in the States, on recent political developments, and on his relationship to life, work, love and comedy. His podcast aims, amongst many other things, to paint a landscape of comedy, american and international, stand-up and otherwise. He also informs the listener of the various professional steps necessary towards success and points out many pitfalls of varying type.

Indeed, Maron's podcast becomes extremely interesting when listened to as a guide to mistakes one should not make in attempting to be succesful in any enterprise. It is a perfect illustration to the tragedy of talent, the fading of resentment, and the fruition of an original viewpoint on adulthood, life and how to contribute to society in a most original and uplifting manner.

Poker in France

2011-03-31T11:00:00.000-07:00

France legalized the game of poker on certain sites, on the condition that only French tax payers would play on those sites and that the money that was put in the pot was taxed at a certain percentage. The tax, compounded with the high rake that poker sites charge for the organization of the game have made the game extremely hard to beat. The higher effective rake rate is combined with a reduction of the player pool, which renders for instance the choice of ring game less efficient. For this reason, and because to play poker at a high level one needs to train a sufficient number of hours (as for any other game), I have quit playing. I made of the order of a 1000 euros in total (after subtracting all initial investments). This is not a bad lump sum, but it is ridiculous compared to the number of hours invested. I would have liked to see whether the skills I acquired would have enabled me to increase my hourly wage to a reasonable amount, but in the present French poker climate, this is simply too tough a challenge. I am glad I got to live the pre-Arjel era in which it was clearly possible to systematically beat the game at least at micro and low limits texas holdem.

The Arjel law is ridiculous because of at least two reasons. The first is that not the profit but all money that one gambles with is taxed. The second reason is that it is tragic that the government of nations are slowly but surely dividing up the internet as they did the planet.

Survivor

2011-03-31T10:43:00.000-07:00

The television reality series Survivor has it all. It is a most interesting combination of carefully selected sexy people with communication skills, strategic gambling, social functioning, sports and trash talk. It is fascinating to see how the level of the game increases in a few seasons time to the high level one expects when a million dollars are at stake. Less endearing to notice is the mistakes being repeated over and over again. Let me name a few : standing out makes you a prime target for elimination. Therefore, one cannot get caught into a fight, one must not have strong opinions, one should not take up a leader roll, etcetera. Other common mistakes are to believe one has control over the game, to say at random point in time that one is sick of the game, or to claim that one has made the team loose a challenge. Near the final stages of the game, all participants are so fed up with the fake interactions mediated by the money and the articifical environment, that it no longer makes sense to claim integrity, honesty, and other finer qualities. The most painful human mistake in the game is to assume that those qualities are what it takes to win the million dollars, or even worse, to assume that within the game, everybody should value those qualities as they should in real life. It is telling perhaps that so many american participants confuse a million dollar reality tv show with ordinary life. The isolation, deprevation, fatigue and hunger are valid excuses though for baring one's soul to the silent cameramen that professionally register the idiosyncrasies of some participants and the stupidity of others. All of the fascinating antropology of american-tv-tribes threaded with wonderful wildlife pictures of the most isolated and exotic places on earth, makes for a most remarkable and wonderful product of the entertainment industry.

University teaching Britain

2010-11-20T04:09:00.000-08:00

Britain moves towards excluding less advantaged people from quality higher education, thus blocking upward mobility. In about thirty years, they will realize that in the present global economic context in which the West has few trumps, but their well-educated workforce, their short term political decision was a mistake.

Facebook

2010-11-20T04:07:00.001-08:00

The accountability regime

2010-11-20T03:25:00.000-08:00

Tuchman's "Wannabe U, inside the corporate university" is an attempt to describe how the American public university has been taken over by administrators and external pressure via the installment of an accountability regime. The sociological viewpoint that Tuchman takes allows for telling observations on who talks to whom after the board meetings, and other astute comments on detailed social interactions and hierarchy. Overall though, the book lacks structure, global vision, global data and a clear opinion on what is cause and what is effect. It also fails to make a clear argument on what is wrong with a pure accountability regime, and the takeover of education by administration.

She does mention the example of a first year's course invented by a central administrative facility (posing as an institute with a pedagogical purpose) in which entering students learn how to write a check. What's wrong with this, is that is an attempt to give students credit for wasting their time, or being lazy. Writing a check can be learned in five minutes, from any acquaintance. Inventing a course for this, paying people to lecture on it, renting a classroom, filling pieces of paper with grades for writing checks is a total waste of education and research money.

Let me just make one argument against the accountability regime which fits within its own logic, and nevertheless always escapes from its proponents vision. Let's literally look at accounting practices at universities. They have become extremely strict of late, and require lots of man hours to put into place, and simply to keep them up. One has to justify in detail for instance the buying of pen and paper, via competing offers, etcetera. It is generally argued that by making departments accountable for money spent on office supplies, the money spent on office supplies will diminish.

Unfortunately, this argument doesn't take into account that academic practice has always been to be careful about spending money on goods that don't matter. Beside the point, the accountant will argue. Fine. So, the secretary spends some more time getting competing offers from several companies (instead of just leafing through the brochures she has on her desk as she always did). The offers agree with what's in the catalogue, and she buys what she always bought, except now she's a little more tired, since she has the feeling she wasted time. Her boss is irritated since she has no time to do important work. Next, she fills in what she did in a centralized accounting program, programmed for that purpose by programmers, and analyzed and read by a central accounting office.

In the end the accounting office announces proudly, say, that (very optimistically) twenty percent has been saved on the department's spending on office supplies.

Meanwhile, they had to hire a programmer, extra secretaries, as well as accounting agents in order to come to this spectacular result. And, of course, in the final count, these extra wage costs, let alone extra irritations, demotivations, and general effects of the terror of an accountability regime are not factored in.

I am absolutely sure that many of the savings associated to a strong accountability regime are more than compensated by the cost of installing it, and keeping it alive. And this is an argument purely within the logic of accountability.

Needless to say, there are other and stronger scientific and psychological arguments against the logic of accountability as applied to for instance merit raises, and the closure of departments or universities. It is well-known that a market or efficiency logic simply does not apply to certain commodities. It is not sufficient to count when judging. It is not correct to imagine that individual actors always choose their own best interest. It is not correct that all group dynamics can be understood in terms of the motivations of individuals. It is wrong to think one can invent practical metrics for measuring merit. Etcetera, etcetera. I will not get into a systematic analysis of all that's wrong with accountability logic here.

Tuchman does a reasonable job in sketching a worrisome evolution in the corporate public university. It would be good to systematically enumerate counter arguments for the political evolution she describes, both at all national as at the international level. In any case, it seems that for now we academics are powerless, and that politicians fail to see their own failure. This does not exempt us from attempting to educate. It may well be though that academia always has to await devastating societal repercussions before its organization is readjusted to a workable model.

Anachronistic locality

2010-11-07T10:48:00.000-08:00

The practice of hiring only local candidates for university positions is still widespread. Often the bias is justified by the argument that the candidate has to speak the local language. That argument has traditionally been considered most powerful within the humanities. It goes without saying that this practice is self-destructive, and that this will be proven in the near future. The argument is based on a nineteenth century romantic and nationalistic mentality that has become anachronistic in a world dominated by a global economy. It limits the field of candidates to such a degree that it opens the door to large statistical fluctuations in the quality of qualifying candidates, as well as to local politics. In fact, I would argue reversely, that academic positions for which no approximately qualified outsiders apply should simply not be filled in.

These anachronisms are still surprisingly widespread (and for sure not limited to the humanities). Academia itself, the universities concerned and in particular the departments concerned should be extremely proactive in avoiding these types of practices, based on local politics and nepotism, for they will be detremental within a fairly short term, given the present pressure on universities to be accountable. To withstand the perverse effects of the drive towards accountability, we should make sure that we have a clean house.

On Philosophy at the Universities

2010-11-04T06:19:00.000-07:00

Schopenhauer's On Philosophy at the Universities is an enjoyable attack on the instutionalized university. Although his arguments are meant to apply almost exclusively to professors in philosophy, it is useful to consider his thesis that true philosophers are not paid professors while professors in philosophy cannot be true philosophers in a broader context. A contemporary and broader interpretation of his attack could translate into the dictum that too much time spent on thoughtful grant applications interferes with top research. Or that adminstrative piloting of research through the generation of numerical data renders academics slaves to these seemingly objective criteria, interfering with their creative freedom. The degree to which Schopenhauer's old critique applies to contemporary academia, and the way it is ignored in the rapid evolution towards hollow accountability, is worrisome.

The Last Professors

2010-10-30T12:23:00.000-07:00

The Last Professors by Frank Donoghue is a must-read for all humanities professors in the US. And, the story of their demise is so telling that it should be recommended literature for all academics. It is interesting to learn about all those books published and never read, about the debate on tenure (while it slowly disappears under the eyes of the debaters), about the companies that will soon own every bit of what universities produce, including their temporary staff, about the difficulty to defend certain intellectual values, and about how the better education will slowly but surely only become affordable to the rich. It is scary how the evolutions predicted in this book are rapidly coming true. (Example : Cameron in Britain, autonomous universities in France, rationalization in Flanders, ..)

Hygiene Freaks

2010-10-30T12:13:00.000-07:00

Since hygiene is so high up on the list of worries of the westerners that surround me, it has become politically incorrect to say anything about the excesses that this leads to. Perhaps my fellows in culture will allow for the following comment though. Can the people that wash their hands in public bathrooms please close the fosset afterwards ? The running fosset in public bathrooms is becoming so frequent that I was forced to ponder what was at the origin of this widespread forgetfulness. Transforming myself into a hygiene freak for a second, I immediately came to the conclusion that the reason is that people wash their hands and then go to dry their hands, never to touch the dangerous bacterial environment of the fosset again. I recommend the movie [Safe] (by Todd Haynes) to those who insist on environmental evil.

The Ruins of Analysis

2010-05-02T03:34:00.000-07:00

Though the University of Ruins is an excellent book, with interesting ideas, reviews and analyses, it does share the annoying feature with many learned books of lacking accuracy on many levels. In the chapter that argues that literary culture (and the canon in particular) are not at the core anymore of the nation state (while literary culture was at the core of the definition of the anglosaxon University within the nation state), we find more examples than we can discuss. Let's give a few.

"I am merely noting that the possibility of Hirsch's fixed list of facts represents the replacement of a highly suspect organicist notion of culture by a set of information, exactly the mechanical or technological specter of mere lifeless facts against which the idea of culture was supposed to protect." It is difficult to enumerate even all the aspects of this one phrase that are bothersome. One is that it argues with an idea of culture that is not defended by the author. Another is that it ignores that one can make arbitrary choices for a literary curriculum, and live with it. Another is that a particular and temporary choice of a curriculum would be lifeless. Another is that technology is lifeless, in contrast to literature. And so on.

We find on the same page: "By contrast, the administration of knowledge means nothing more than that it is helpful to future employers for students to know a very few things, although the development of information technology makes the number of those things ever smaller." One can forcefully argue against a functional approach to university education, and I would. But one cannot do in the above way. It is wrong to claim that employers want students to know very few things. It is wrong to claim that information technology makes the number of things that students need to know smaller. The argument is ridiculous.

The examples abound. Though the book is correct on many very important issues, it lacks any standard of critical analysis. I am making this point since this problem is annoyingly widespread.

The University in Ruins

2010-04-29T07:47:00.000-07:00

The University in Ruins by Bill Readings is an interesting analysis of how the university might still function after it has lost its role in the nation state as the instrument that defines and spreads national culture. He argues that the present day university is rather dominated by an idea of excellence that is empty enough to allow for a purely administrative interpretation.

Though Readings makes several big mistakes, especially in attempting to heed the credo of postmodernism, in which relativism dominates, and which renders most interesting arguments impossible because one or another minority, or one or another context is not properly taken into account, he does succeed in succinctly depicting a few important historical sources for the ideal of the university that still dominates many discourses.

Readings underestimates that academics could globally unite, and teach and research in a planetary framework, and that they should be the most important players in administrative decisions. Arguments that academia becomes self-referential then, and that many academics are not suited for administration, for instance, are entirely correct, but should not be seen as decisive in this debate, just as administration should not be judged as inherently evil.

Clearly, there is an open road that stretches far beyond academic nationalism, and the application of empty administrative criteria. Academics have to take their fate into their own hands, instead of sheepishly implementing national and international administrative criteria, while simultaneously attempting to satisfy them in order to gain research grants. Academics should concentrate on what they know to be higher quality research, and they should honour those that attempt to do so persistently.

Black spot

2010-01-03T06:27:00.001-08:00

Ok, so I should have locked the screw in a clamp while attempting to remove the point with a hammer. Anyway, the result is a little black bruise on the end of my thumb. It wouldn't be so bad if we didn't live in the Parisian appartment that was known as the cockroach terror under its previous owner. Although we eradicated at least ninety nine percent of the little creatures, they still tend to pop up in my sensitized field of vision, right near the edge. Haunted, I now sometimes mistakenly smack my thumb in the believe that a roach dares attack me.

The origin of specials

2009-12-25T09:33:00.000-08:00

Most cultural, sociological, philosophical and other currents that are discussed superficially in contemporary Western European texts can be traced back to Greek society in the fifth century BC, or further. The reason for this is the fact that it is the first European society for which a lot of written source material is available. That triviality is often used as a justification for the existence of a current, while it merely states that not all that much changed in these domains in the last 2500 years. The evolution of thinking is rather slow on average.

There is however no reason to despair. We have all the more motivation to concentrate on what is truely contemporary and new. The surprising fact is rather that so much of the details change continuously, and gain at least temporary importance. These facets are fascinating and we must attempt to concentrate on them.

Toys for us

2009-12-19T08:49:00.000-08:00

There are some baby items that work, and others that don't. For ease of future parents, I post a few that do serve a function.

The play mat by Tiny Love is useful from very early on in stimulating the baby's senses. Our two weeks old Alexander had a few minutes of fun attempting to bite the ape's foot and the elephant's trunk, before becoming hysterical either because he did not succeed or because he is addicted to bodily warmth.

The pet by Sigikid (which we have baptized Siegfried) is flat (and therefore manageable to a very young baby) and has nice contrasting checkered and striped panels. The material is soft enough to be pleasant to the baby, yet rough enough to make itself felt as a definite presence.

Financial rip-off

2009-12-13T07:44:00.000-08:00

The bail-out money spent by (mostly western) governments was a rip-off for a majority of the population. The right course of action would have been, in my rough naive estimate, to have financial institutions go bankrupt for a total value of about half the amount of the bail-out money. The net effect of such politics would have been much more beneficial. A few more banks should have sunk.

Recall that it was argued that the bail-out money would benefit the little man. The immediate fear of the common man was to lose the savings he had in the bank. However, the fast government guarantees of savings up to a certain amount (depending on the country) alleviated that fear immediately, although it lingered irrationally. That guarantee was necessary and sufficient, in a first instance. At that point, in a crude first step approximation, only people with a lot of money in the bank had to worry. And they did, and pressured governments to save all the money they had in their bank, by saving their bank. And guess what the government did.

Therefore, the tax payers money went to saving the surplus savings of the very rich.
The little man's guarantee never came into effect. The limit of the guarantee of savings never came into effect. And that says it all. The rich remained rich.

Really, they became richer. Banks faired well, and bonuses were paid, not only for good results, but also for the most disastrous year since the great depression. You have to wonder how the word bonus applied to those financial specialists who guided their institution to bankruptcy, only saved by the lobbying power of their clients.

Anyway, that was a first step crude approximation. There is no doubt that in the middle term, banks needed to be saved. But only after a few rich had paid, and after a few ordinary people had reclaimed their guaranteed savings. Because the banking system is in effect important, as was correctly argued, to make sure the market is fluid.

This illustrates well how purely ideological left or right reasoning did not apply to the crisis. One needed ideas from both camps to act reasonably. Note how during the crisis, the right wing was mightely quiet, convinced as they were that the government should intervene to save their donors, and their party. Their ideological failing was commented upon, but never really became the center of a public debate. It was said however that the left could not profit from the manifest failing of rightwing ideology. I would argue that the reason is that the left did not realize that for once, it needed to use right wing ideology (- let the free market take care of itself for a while -) to clean up after the rich. Exceptionally, the free market was implementing left wing ideology. Sure enough, ideological flexibility is near zero these days, so none of the above points were thorougly debated, let alone implemented by prominent politicians.

The danger, one would argue against my position, is that the whole system would have collapsed in no time. I don't believe this is the case, because the demand for basic goods as well as for a large number of luxury products never went down. No enormous amount of jobs, except in the financial industry, and in industries that were already in grave difficulties were lost, and this is no accident. If we had saved less banks, we would just have lost more leechers from the system. Only the part of the system that was not essential for satisfying the still existing and persisting demand was in danger. Only that part profited from the massive bail-out.

Visionary blindness

2009-10-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

When Louis XIV both dominated land and sea, he did not build a colonial empire. After brilliantly choosing his faithful strategists, and constructing a fantastic kingdom with plenty of richness for decadent wastefulness and impressive theatrics, he failed to execute a winning strategy for the future because he believed military dominance was rooted on land.

Ever since, France has attempted to catch up, with plenty of trumps in hand, and the occasional outburst of brilliant independence (as exemplified especially by the formidable De Gaulle). It is impressive how the country has maintained such vitality and spirit, while keeping its head buried in the ground.

At the present time, one can enumerate tens of themes on which it is trailing the competition (efficient administration, suburban policy, women's rights, integrating science and industry, a global strategy in higher education, language teaching, automotive industry, ...) which could easily be cured with the country's impressive resources and abilities, but which are not because it still seems to be digesting Louis' strategic mistake.

Only when one lives in a great nation can one feel the frustration of the waste of enormous collective possibilities.

French civil servants : to cut, or what to cut

2009-10-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

While the French civil servant mass would seem to be too high (as advocated by the political right wing), cutting in railway, postal service, and especially education public employment is not the way out. Rather, the layered structure of public administration which makes for long pathways from the provincial base to the centralized political top should be trimmed. However, since it is this very backbone that permits the main man to effectively control and gain support from the whole of France, it is not the target of necessary reform. President Sarkozy often does seem to have the right central concept in mind, but too often fails to either be informed well enough, or to overcome political short term strategic reasoning to take the right decision on the ground. He should head the lesson from former shining examples in this department like the Roi Soleil, who managed to govern a country (without rapid means of communication or transport) with a handful of administrators.

Nobel style

2009-10-25T07:08:00.000-07:00

A Nobel prize winner answers New York Times questions in an original style. Frank and humourful, Greider's tone struck me as exceptionally down to earth.

Small cars, sports cars

2009-10-03T03:35:00.000-07:00

The Top Gear team is funnier and more creative than most advertising companies. They make a point of using small cars for what they're built for : soccer.

No censorship ?

2009-10-03T03:06:00.000-07:00

MIT uses uncensored student writing to attract prospective students according to the New York Times. That fact is newsworthy because (externally) uncensored writing is generally frowned upon, even when the writer applies a healthy dose of self-censorship. The internet has influenced modern society in uncountable ways, and it has laid bare some of its nastier habits. Indeed, we have gotten so used to censored inhibited writing that there is a public outcry the minute amateur writers produce short random texts. We sue people over three phrases on Facebook, and we fire them over an exclamation on Twitter. The internet gives contemporary society the chance to adapt its criteria for censorship to much milder ones. Hopefully, the much lower treshhold for producing public discourse will lead to more frank, higher level public debates.

Justification de domicile

2009-09-24T10:14:00.001-07:00

It seems that I have had to copy every single electricity bill I have received from the EDF company in order to prove that I reside at the address where I have lived now for over 3 years to various instances of government, to companies, employers, and other suspicious friends. It is actually a miracle that my name appears on the bill since the electricity is in my wife's name, and otherwise I would not have a single document that is generally accepted as a "justification de domicile". (I will spare you the workaround that one needs to apply if this is the case.) I guess we should be thankful that all these instances do not own a central database with information on our whereabouts and that they do not base themselves on citizenship for every single service that they provide but I can't help but think that there should be an easier way of handling my administration. I wouldn't mind if some information was exchanged between selected agencies, including for instance all municipal services. No, over and over again millions of people need to store their bill, and occassionally go make a single copy of the little form provided by a company of dubious repute to hand it to a town's clerk who files it in our dossier and puts a check mark next to our name. This annoying feature of everyday modern life is shared amongst many great nations. I challenge inventive administrators and tired citizens to come up with an equally (i.e. mildly) secure and less annoying alternative.

F-book

2009-09-17T12:49:00.000-07:00

My Facebook account is history. The non-stop flux of friend requests from members of various social groups to which I did or did not belong at various points in time was a clear sign of the randomness that the internet effortlessly generates. Facebook did not allow sufficient fine tuning to organize the whole into a reasonable format, nor did it allow flexibility in choosing to receive one message in three say from enthusiastic babblers. My old friends also regularly defended ridiculous political positions either explicitly, by referring to their favorite political party or by repeating party slogans, or implicitly by describing in detail a very limited aspect of society, or their own environment. Moreover, reading random discussions that are made up of two word phrases is annoying. The fantastic finds by good friends or acquaintances of interesting videos and links did not make up for the constant influx of noise generated by people who believe that internet makes the earth flat. Too much time is wasted in wading through crappy posts to find a gem. Self-censorship seems contradictory with contemporary internet usage. Moreover, taking into account all sensitivities of every single acquaintance that I made over a lifetime too often lead to silence. Blog posts have the clear advantage of having as a default setting that they are not randomly sent to people who may be involved in more interesting activities.

French Higher Education

2009-08-29T08:36:00.001-07:00

French higher education is good, especially the Grandes Ecoles. That is normal since they get 30 percent of the budget for 5 percent of the students. The elite that makes it into the Grandes Ecoles, after passing entrance exams, is very well trained.

There are various problems with the present system. Since the entrance exams are very competitive and extremely important for the future careers and lives of the students, children need to be prepared to have very high problem solving capabilities at eighteen. That requires that children enter very good schools at an early age. That jeopardizes the otherwise democratic nature of the entrance exams. The influence of the direct environment on the children's far future is big.

The Grandes Ecoles are separated. They are not universal (as universities are) in that they usually have a single department with a single vocation (e.g. electrical engineering). That compartmentalizes the elite and makes for little cross-discipline and cross-professional fertilization. That takes its toll on the flexibility and creativity of French administration, technology, research and industry, etcetera.

The university students (which remain an important resource of talent) suffer badly from the fact that the head of the student body is chopped of by the Grandes Ecoles. The university degree is devalued in the presence of the close knit Grande Ecole elite.

Long term the only solution that one can envisage is the joining of Grandes Ecoles to form elite universities within France. Or the joining of Grandes Ecoles to universities in such a way that they retain their exceptional quality.

Grandes Ecoles cannot disappear since they are of the highest level. They must however allow their elite students to communicate more freely with students from other domains, and they may take the task of leading the whole of the French higher education body closer at heart. Universities should aspire to cooperate and compete with the Grandes Ecoles, with the conviction that they are expected to find talent in numbers, or in latebloomers or disadvantaged youngsters.

These are changes that can only be implemented gradually and in the long term, through careful and informed planning, by both the higher education community and central administration. There is no easy changing of more than 200 years of impressive history.

Poppin'

2009-08-10T11:00:00.000-07:00

Its always refreshing to see new kids on the Parisian block poppin' up some unseen dance moves.

It seems that the US both has the impressable critical mass as well as the educated sensitivity for youth pop culture to continue to produce the most innovative variations of superficial styling. Lil Mama gives an example in Lip Gloss which combines a teen theme with teen dance music, and new dance moves copied by cheerleaders all over the country, reminiscent of popping, in turn reminiscent of breakdance, vogue, crumpin' and movements popularized by Michael Jackson. The producing of the music shows great talent and industrial control.

The education of postponing judgement

2009-08-10T10:35:00.000-07:00

Freedom of expression is limited in Alabama, as experienced by the Top Gear crew in their famous caricature of the US.

There is no doubt that one can paint slogans on cars that are experienced as insulting in any given place, while claiming their place in the global debate. However, it has struck me multiple times that most locals at least seem to have the acquired ability to postpone judgement during a brief encounter. Exceptions may be triggered by the construction of a sharp artificial local identity in the face of economic hardship, strong cultural pressure or other extreme strains. Postponing judgement should be an integral part of education in a just society. A debating culture, a mix of expressed identities at school, the surprise experience of learning any type of new fact may add to feeling that postponement and deliberation are useful reflexes.

Paris Prizes 2009

2009-08-05T08:01:00.000-07:00

The traditional Paris prize per square meter per arrondissement for non-new appartments.

And the prize evolution. The crisis has made itself felt.

Copper and flexible plumbing (PER)

2009-08-05T05:54:00.000-07:00

To move my sink, I used flexible tubes. Since I live in France, I used PER (Polyéthylène Réticulé) but I bet you can find a local equivalent without much trouble. Those flexible tubes came in diameters of 12 and 16. Since I was only moving my sink, the twelve diameter tubes sufficed. I bought tubes which were inside strong protecting tubes (which therefore look as if they are much broader). Using a slide caliper - use google images do determine what I'm talking about if necessary; this hint applies to all words that you do not understand - one can determine the thickness of the copper pipes. Mine turned out to be 14 mm thick (in some places, but in others they were 10 mm and 12 mm thick, so be careful in attempting to determine the thickness without proper measuring instrument). Therefore, I needed pieces connecting my 14 mm thick copper and 12 mm flexible tubes. The difficult part is identifying the right pieces. Make sure you go to a do-it-yourself shop with qualified employees and a huge collection of components. Don't bother to attempt to solder copper. The american/instant or biconal connections will do the job just fine.

To extend my copper network, I closed the relevant fossets, checked that no water was running through anymore, and opened up the copper network. To do that, it turned out that my 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23 as well as my adjustable wrench came in handy. I removed all that was on the end of the copper tube, and used my connection. To put it on, I first pushed/screwed it on the flexible, the one the copper (respecting the direction of all the individual components). The hard part is to make sure you pushed it far enough. (I removed part of the protective layer, cut it along the length, and put it back on after the connection was made.) All the rest is an easy exercise in screwing tight all components, and tighter still when you see that the connection leaks.

On the other end, I connected my PER tubing to the fossets. Again, the hard part is only to identify the right connecting pieces. My fosset came with a flexible feeding tube that ended in a female unidentified end. A good trick is to bring the flexible tube along to your local shop and either ask for help, or when the relevant components are in plastic bags, you can attempt to screw them on in the shop, even with the plastic bag still on them. The relevant connection turned out to be PER 12 to 12/17 (in French nomenclature). Again, after identifying the right connector, the only further annoying part is to push the tubes far enough up the connector, and the rest is an easy turning of the wrench.

The PER site http://plomberie.per.free.fr/ was useful, but not exhaustive.

Blocked drain pipes and PVC

2009-08-05T05:32:00.000-07:00

When your drain pipes get clogged, first determine at what point the blockage resides. One can determine this by knocking on the tube, or by letting the tube empty out, then fill it again. Estimate the point where the water doesn't run through anymore by the volume of water necessary to fill up the tube.

Typical causes of blockage are hair, plaster, chemicals that solidify and tooth picks. Do not ever throw these down your drain.

It is easy to mechanically remove a blockage if it's nearby the end of the tube, or a point where the tube is easily opened up. I have found that a metal cable with a pin at the end that one can twist to increase the tension is a very useful tool to open up drain pipes.

When you cannot reach the clog, opening up the drain pipe is necessary. Try to make sure on beforehand that you open it up at the right spot. If the drain pipes are copper than just get rid of the copper part all the way to the sink (for household plumbing) and replace it by PVC, which is much handier. A 40 mm diameter drain pipe will do the job. The old copper draining may well have the same diameter, in which case it is easily connected to the PVC replacement at the end.

When putting in a PVC drain pipe, make sure that you realize that angles are never straight (but 87 degrees point 30), and that T-elements typically have to be put in in accord with the directions of the flow. Take your time to puzzle together an effortless and tensionless connection between the points you need to connect. Make sure the tube does not run through a place that you need for some other purpose.

When gluing your PVC connections, mark them first both for depth and connecting angle, by a line parallel to the end of the tube, as well as a line orthogonal to the section (which runs over two pieces to be connected at a given angle). Use sufficient glue. Spread it out with a brush or your fingers, evenly over the two pieces to be glued. Push them together hard, and do not twist.

PVC drain pipes are easy.

Should leaks still occur, then you can resort to a paste that is made of two components which after mixing becomes hard after a period of time. This is a last resort.