Assorted Afflatuses

On Friday, 26 October, insane Apple fanatics once again gathered outside of the Cupertino-based company's retail stores to obtain the first publicly available copies of Mac OS X "Leopard." As I possess some dignity and a certain measure of sanity, I waited until Saturday morning to pick up my copy. No queues of crazy people. No problems.

By and large, I like Leopard. Apple has made a number of subtle, well-conceived changes to key applications, like Mail, iCal and the Finder, that add extra polish to the already stellar Mac OS. QuickLook — the nifty new technology that permits one to open a full preview of common document formats like Word, Excel and Keynote files — makes hunting down documents and photos far less of a chore. iCal no longer keeps event information squirreled away in an awkward drawer on the right or left side of the calendar. Instead, version 3 of Apple's calendaring software implements a rather charming pop-up editor that the software displays inline with the rest of the schedule.

The biggest improvements in Leopard, however, are under the hood. Though clever and thoughtful engineering, Apple has managed to dramatically improve application responsiveness and performance. In large part, they have accomplished this by better leveraging the dual- and quad-core processors that reside in newer Intel-based Macs. Everything — from Safari to Spotlight — responds much more quickly on Leopard than on Tiger with the same hardware.

Developers can also leverage a host of amazing new tools like Core Animation, the visual fireworks behind many of Leopard's visual improvements. Apple has also ushered in the era of Objective-C 2.0 with Leopard's Xcode 3. It finally frees developers from Cocoa's often confusing memory management scheme with garbage collection and, with properties, eliminates much of the monotony of creating accessor and mutator methods.

On the other hand, two integral elements of Mac OS X took a sharp turn for the worse. I speak of the Dock and the menu bar. As many commentators have already noted, the "improved" transparent menu bar is not only a superfluous use of transparency, but also quite detrimental to usability. With some desktop pictures, it is next to impossible to decipher the menu's text composited over the unsightly visual mélange of gradient and photograph.

Apple's decision to make the Dock a pseudo-three-dimensional reflective shelf is, to my retinas, what the Ottoman army was to the people of 15th century Constantinople. Its presence, superimposed on the two-dimensional desktop, is quite incongruous. But, more than the simple visual unpleasantness the new Dock imposes, I really dislike the new Stacks feature of the dock. Where once I could stash folders and files, and click once to open them or click and hold to view a folder's contents, I am now forced to use Apple's ridiculous "Stacks."

Fortunately, I managed to whip up a special, modified version of Apple's once-default Aqua Blue desktop picture (and my neutral desktop picture of choice) with a strategically positioned strip of white at the top, which gives one the illusion of an opaque menu bar. (Interested parties may download a copy from my flickr account).

Nonetheless, I strongly recommend that every Mac user make the leap and upgrade to Apple's latest cat-named operating system. Apple's subtle improvements and the amazing potential of Leopard's new system-level features make Leopard an essential upgrade.

With my vast quantities of free time and the release of Apple's Leopard operating system just around the corner, I thought I would revive my long abandoned effort to build a better piece of computerized recipe organization software.

At some point, as I was debugging a rather troublesome sheet, it struck me that the real coup de grâce of a recipe management program would be the ability to dump a bunch of text into a box and have the software parse it into a recipe. What began as a simple idea has now become a rather bothersome thorn in my side. Despite what some people may think, computers are extraordinarily stupid machines.

My first attempt to teach a computer to decipher a recipe involved a set of fairly simplistic rules, based mostly upon a crude analysis of the first characters on each line. As anyone who knows anything about programming would probably guess, such an approach is more or less useless. My simplistic approach did a fairly good job of parsing ingredients like, "1 cup flour," but it failed miserably when it came to the title, number of servings and just about every other point of data contained in a recipe.

So, I started to analyze recipes from a grammatical point of view, in the hope that I could somehow use grammatical differences and trends in recipes to parse them more effectively. I think I have now analyzed the grammatical differences in about five dozen recipes, and I have found a handful of interesting trends.

When I actually set about programming the parser to test my theories, however, I realized that I had no way to analyze grammar programatically. Sure, Apple added the "hasSuffix:" method to their lovely strings, but hasSuffix: cannot tell me how many words a string contains or whether the string is written in the past or present tense.

Fortunately, Apple has included a wonderful programming paradigm called the "category" in Objective-C. With it, even the most naive programmer can add methods to any existing class without creating a subclass of the class he or she would like to extend. It is absolutely brilliant. And, with any luck I should have some kind of parser working in the next week.

I did not enjoy watching The Wizard of Oz. And that horrible "Over the Rainbow" song tends to give me headaches. But I cannot possibly imagine life without a brain, like that poor scarecrow fellow. Trying to bestow the gift of logical deduction to an idiotic machine is exhaustingly painful.

I feel compelled to feature this word, not because it is particularly esoteric or unique — though I do like the way it sounds — but rather because so many people so frequently misuse it.

I have long held the College Board at least partially responsible for my current situation. After all, it is the College Board who sold me a misleading test prep book that duped me into taking the Mathematics SAT Subject test completely unprepared. The first time I took the test I managed a rather unimpressive 650, or something to that effect. Naturally, I took the test again, which meant I had, at that point, paid the College Board twice to take the test and once for their misleading preparatory materials: certainly more than if I had bought a third-party test prep book and taken the test once. I find it difficult to believe that the College Board actually cares about any facet of my well-being.

But, more than the test prep book incident, I have never entirely understood how I managed to score a five on the calculus BC Advanced Placement test, yet failed to break 700 on the mathematics section of the SAT despite having thrice taken the test. I doubt anyone would — or could — argue that integral calculus is easier than finding the area of two circles.

At the same time, however, I have wondered whether that one small blemish on my otherwise gleaming CV spelled my downfall in the ultra-competitive college admissions race.

So, at my interview yesterday with a University of Chicago admissions officer, I asked about the University's policy vis-à-vis SAT scores in the admissions process. According to her, the University of Chicago does not give students' SAT scores a great deal of weight, which initially allayed my fears.

But, in the ensuing discussion, she also noted that most selective colleges strive to have, as she described it, "the best class ever," in order to maintain their sterling reputation. For obvious reasons, it would be difficult to categorically state that the class of 2011 wrote better essays than the class of 2010. A college would have no trouble, however, in qualifying one class as better than the one before it by citing an increase in average SAT scores.

In other words, some colleges deny admission to highly qualified students simply to ensure their average SAT score continues to rise. Not exactly the most well-reasoned logic. It seems to me that an institution would better attract qualified applicants and maintain its reputation for excellence by citing its students' actual achievements. As my interviewer pointed out, SAT scores are, by and large, terrible predictors of a student's ability to succeed.

Though, perhaps I am deluding myself. I am very bitter.

Nothing makes me happier than a coincidence with a positive results. Last week, however, I encountered serendipity's opposite. As I wrote on Friday, the fine folks at the University of Chicago ran out of positions for prospective interviewers who planned to visit the campus in Chicago. That was something of a minor tragedy because I do not think that my unique presence or personality can be conveyed as successfully to someone through the words of an alumnus or alumna.

As such, I settled for the next best option: an alumni interview. I clicked the link on the U Chicago application to request an interview and waited. As luck would have it, I was contacted by one of the University's assistant admissions directors, who, as it happens, will be in the Portland area to do interviews with applicants this weekend. Given that I do not suffer from any severe mental handicaps, I leapt at the opportunity, and, fortunately, I will, in fact, do an interview on Saturday.

Hopefully, the fact that I will speak directly to someone in the admissions office — who may make the final discussion regarding my application — will increase my chances of gaining admission. I have long believed that, had the schools I applied to offered interviews with the actual admission committee, I would have been able to stand out much more easily (and perhaps more successfully) from the mass of other highly-qualified people seeking entrance to America's top schools.

Come December, I shall either be vindicated or, not for the first time, thoroughly disappointed. This time around, however, I do have a fail-proof plan. Depending upon the decisions I receive in December, I may or may not re-apply to Princeton, Pomona and Northwestern and apply, for the first time, to the University of Rochester, Carnegie-Mellon University and, as a last, but very certain, resort, the University of Oregon honors college. The Stanford Sticker Paradox, as I call it — the strange phenomenon whereby the Stanford admissions office loses far more application material than other schools despite their overly persnickety rules about envelops, staples and labels — combined with their less-than-stellar reputation for undergraduate education, when compared to their graduate programs, removed that institution from my list. My interest for Dartmouth has waned to the point that I no longer see the point in applying. I may apply to Yale or Columbia in addition to the other schools, but I have yet to make a decision in that regard.

All in all, the stage looks set for at least some measure of fortune in my future. And, if the Chicago interview coincidence is any indicator, everything may turn out rather splendidly.

As I write this, I am watching the second half-hour of some absolutely ridiculous self-help program on Rupert Murdoch's new Fox Business Network. I hate to sound patrician or snobbish, but I can only describe the Fox Business Network as the "low-rent" version of CNBC. Candy coated, easily to digest business news for the flag waving set, one might say.

Their 5 PM programming epitomizes the difference between the two networks' philosophies. At the same time the Fox Business Network airs its peculiar self-help program, CNBC is airing "Fast Money." Put concisely: two shows, one time, worlds apart.

Whereas Fast Money features a panel of four or five investment gurus, the Dave Ramsey Show (as I just discovered this strange program is called) features one somewhat overweight pundit who barks out advice to his audience. And, while Dave Ramsey groans on about the best way to eat an elephant — as some kind of perverse metaphor for escaping from credit card debt — the folks on CNBC are probably discussing the best way to put $10,000 of disposable income into a risky, but potentially rewarding stock.

This must be what Mr. Murdoch and the network's executives meant when they said the Fox Business Network would make business news "more accessible." Instead of providing business-related investment advice to the tiny group of people who have tens of thousands of dollars to invest for fun, Fox Business offers helpful hints to the growing segment of America's population in serious debt. Very attractive.

Network executives also like to say Fox Business is not "CNBC-lite." Nevertheless, the style employed by the Fox Business Network makes me think more of its sister channel — the Fox News Channel — than it makes me think of CNBC.

Like its sibling, Fox Business features lots of gold and red, as if to put its viewers into a state of readiness for some vaguely threatening disaster. The Fox Business Network also seems to enjoy featuring headlines with a decidedly sensationalist flavor. "More Treats, But Fewer Seats: Who Pays?" reads one about trends in the entertainment industry. "CEOs with Extreme Hobbies Should Give Investors Pause," proclaims another. It makes me think that business scandals will take root on Fox Business the same way strange stories about lost spouses and missing children eat up time on FNC.

Unlike its sister network, however, the Fox Business Channel does not have a niche to fill. When Mr. Murdoch and his ally Roger Ailes launched the News Channel in 1996, the Fox News Channel captured viewers who considered MSNBC and CNN too élite or simply craved news that could be called (perhaps undeservingly) "patriotic." But a business channel caters to people who do business. And, as far as I can tell, CNBC is the most pro-business network on air. Each and every one of their anchors and pundits has a very pro-trade, anti-tax ethos.

Alas, I see the Fox Business Network succumbing to the same fate as TimeWarner's failed CNN Financial Network. Their programming tackles rather mundane and unimportant topics, rather than focusing on subjects that impact people who do business. Instead of adopting a clean, corporate, business-oriented editorial philosophy, the folks at Fox Business have chosen to take the more Joseph Pulitzer-esque sensationalist route. And, most importantly, the Fox Business network has no niche to fill. I give it two years, at the most.

About one week ago, I came to the decision that I would apply to the University of Chicago. Apart from the many academic and social benefits offered by the university, the fine folks in the windy city offer a non-binding early action program. That would, in theory, give me two choices come December, assuming that both Bates and Chicago accept me.

Initially, the Chicago application, which has somehow managed to earn itself a reputation for being extremely long and rigorous, presented no substantive challenges. Thankfully, their two short-answer essay questions dispensed with excessively flowery language and esoteric literary allusions designed to project an air of prestige, making the questions a cinch to answer. Some of the long-answer essay topics, on the other hand, seemed overly philosophic. Essay option number three, for example, ends with, "Write a page. Who has written it?" I would share my essay here, but given my Google PageRank, there is a high probability that someone looking to cut corners might find it and make my life even more unpleasant.

Unlike the essays, however, managing to schedule an interview was next to impossible. I called the admissions office yesterday, thinking that I would be able to schedule an interview. But, almost as soon as I had finished stating my purpose for calling, the woman on the other end of the line informed me that the interview schedule was, "completely booked," to use her words.

I thought gaining admission to the University itself would be a challenge. But it seems that even obtaining a coveted on-campus interview is rather difficult.

Admittedly, I do deserve some of the blame. Early action candidates must complete their interviews before 2 November and, given that a great many people apply to the school, I probably should have called to book an appointment as soon as I had committed to applying, rather than three weeks before the deadline.

I do have some hope, though. About an hour after I was categorically denied the chance to interview, I called back and asked the lovely woman to whom I spoke whether it would be possible to put me onto some sort of ad hoc waiting list, should someone fall ill, die or find themselves otherwise incapable of interviewing. She did not commit to the idea, but said she would, "Keep me in mind."

Hopefully someone forgot to schedule an appointment for their flu shot. Otherwise I will have to schedule another utterly ineffective alumni interview. On principle, it does seem rather cruel to wish suffering upon another person, but given the amount of suffering that I have been subjected to, I think a moral exception ought be made.

Watching the Republican presidential candidates in their quasi-debate Tuesday was, in a word, painful. CNBC billed it as a debate about economic issues, which remained the case until Chris "Softball" Matthews spontaneously decided, "We're branching out into other topics," about forty-five minutes in.

For all I could tell, none of the candidates had any idea how the economy works. Representative Duncan Hunter, for instance, seemed to think that the United States should revert to mercantilism, an economic theory debunked in Adam Smith's 1776 bestseller, The Wealth of Nations. Hopefully he realizes that most of Europe abandoned the policy a few centuries ago before he becomes the president of the world's largest economy.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, proved he does not understand the purpose of trade. Asked whether or not he supported trade, Mr. Romney immediately responded with:

Looks like someone should have paid more attention in Economics 101. Imports, not exports, make Americans wealthier. By importing certain goods — like toys, tables and those delicious little Swedish fish candies — the United States benefits from the fact that other nations can produce those goods more efficiently and at a lower cost. That means Americans can purchase the product at a lower price. Anyone who has visited an IKEA store could explain that concept: a table made in China costs far less than the same table with a "Made in USA" sticker affixed to the leg.

But Mr. Romney's incomprehensible economic ignorance does not end there. He also seems to think that imported products should not have an advantage over goods produced domestically. That, of course, would completely defeat the purpose of the trade he so wholeheartedly endorsed. He who proclaimed, "I understand the economy," needs to open a basic economics textbook to the chapter marked "comparative advantage" and read.

Popular CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo was the debate's one bright spot. Unlike Chris Matthews, she came down hard on the candidates who gave facile or non-responsive answers. At one point, Ms. Bartiromo asked Senator John McCain whether he thought the tax system treated the middle class fairly. Mr. McCain, like any good politician, launched into some tirade about outsourcing and Medicare instead. But Ms. Bartiromo cut him off and, in a very lawyer-esque way, repeated the question:

Like me, Mr. McCain was taken aback by Ms. Bartiromo's forcefulness. He struggled and stammered as he sputtered out a response. It was incredibly refreshing to see someone challenge the candidates from time to time rather than allow them to cleverly dodge the inquiries.

Sadly, I doubt the Democrats will manage a better showing. Everyone from Hilary Clinton to Dennis Kucinich seems to think that free trade will damage, not improve, America's economy, which is absolutely ludicrous.

America is a strange place. Black tie means no tie. "That's hilarious!" has been supplanted by "lol." And college applicants now send formal thank you notes to interviewers and admissions officers. According to an article published today in The New York Times, it has now become common practice for students to send formal thank you cards to interviewers and admissions staff in the hope that gratitude will somehow secure them a position at one of America's top schools.

A thank you note, from what I understand, is meant to communicate one's gratitude to someone who has performed an extraordinary service: something above and beyond the norm. For example, I doubt whether most people send a thank you note to their dental hygienist after a routine dental appointment. On the other hand, I can easily see a delighted couple sending a thank you note to their contractor after he or she exceeded their expectations by completing work ahead of schedule and under budget, a small miracle in the world of remodeling.

I see a college admission officer as doing the former more than the latter. Most colleges charge students anywhere from forty to seventy dollars to put their application into the pool because the people reading the applications — the admissions officers — are paid to look at and evaluate applications. The admissions officers are not going out of their way or doing anything particularly extraordinary by doing their jobs.

Alumni who interview students on a volunteer basis, however, might merit a thank you note. Unlike the admissions officers who are paid to review applications, they take the time out of their schedules to do something more exceptional. At the same time, those people do make the active decision to join their school's alumni association, which is a commitment to do work on behalf of their alma mater. And, of course, college staff or student who conduct interviews fall into the same group as the admissions staff who review applications; they are doing their jobs.

But even if the sending of thank you cards can be justified, the notion that it can make a difference in the application process should alert the public to the need for change. Sending a thank you note is far from the most genuine encapsulation of a person's character and ability.

Test scores or grades can be positively attributed to the applicant. Most application forms force students to vouch for the fact that their essays are indeed their own work, which gives those some degree of provenance. A thank you note, on the other hand, could easily be sent to a school or interviewer in the student's name by a counsellor, a parent or any other party. I hardly think it genuinely differentiates one candidate from another. Just as many extremely intelligent people forget to tie their shoelaces or walk into a shower with their clothes on, some lovely and talented people do not send out thank you notes as diligently as perhaps they should.

If this is not a sign that the system needs help, then I don't know what is.

The Wall Street Journal ran a very interesting piece on its front page today detailing the decline of Wal-Mart's puissance in the retail industry and in the American economy as a whole. It was an interesting analysis of Wal-Mart's current struggle to continue its success in a market that has, in many respects, moved to become less homogenous and more quality-centric. I found one statistic particularly interesting: according to the article, Wal-Mart has scaled back its plans for expansion in the United States, "because its new stores were stealing too much revenue from existing ones."

I have the sense that Wal-Mart has caught Affluenza — the highly contagious retail virus that possesses retailers to move up-market — from some of its other low-price competitors. Admittedly, Affluenza does not necessarily condemn the infected company to a slow painful death by share price decline. With the right treatment, it can be — and has been — a boon, not a bust for the infected company.

Target, for one, has been enormously successful in its quest to seduce more affluent consumers. Their clever advertising campaigns have won countless awards and high-praise, and partnerships with well-known designers, like Michael Graves and Isaac Mizrahi, have imbibed the brand with a more hip, design-centric aura. People now associate products at Target with relatively high-quality, low prices and thoughtful design. Target has also gone to great lengths to promote their philanthropic efforts, which helps lend a façade of kindness to their ruthless corporate efficiency.

Wal-Mart has fared less well, due in large part to their insane obsession with ultra-low prices.

They have made attempts to change their corporate identity. In January 2007 alone they worked with — and later fired — three advertising agencies. Wal-Mart also tried to lend their image a touch of class by piloting a program to outfit employees in navy blue polo shirts, rather than navy blue vests. But neither the ad campaigns nor the more polished uniform resonated with more affluent consumers because Wal-Mart did not back up their claims.

I cannot name a single notable designer whose products grace the hallowed shelves of the Supercenter, nor can I name a single product available exclusively at Wal-Mart that has sparked interest among the aesthetically-concerned. Instead, I think of low-priced, low-quality merchandise manufactured in China by underpaid employees in a factory that wreaks havoc on the environment.

The age of Wal-Mart may be drawing to a close. My inner-investor hopes that Wal-Mart will put its act together and improve. But the good neighbor and environmentally-conscious consumer in me hopes that Wal-Mart will finally stop overtaking the now-dead American Main Street.

Green products and services have come a long way. In 2001, when Toyota introduced America to the Prius, it was necessary for a New York Times article to help readers pronounce the name of the then-unknown quantity. Six year later, home design magazines and blogs have gone so far as to declare that, "green is becoming the new neutral color for home decor," as one GreenDaily.com blogger put it.

But, in its journey from niche-market to mass-market, a radical change has taken place in the world of green products. Unlike the Prius die-hards who immediately sought to purchase the first mass-produced hybrid gasoline-electric car in 2001, the Prius buyer of 2007 views the car more as the automotive equivalent of a Fendi clutch than as an instrument of social and environmental change. Today people buy green, think green and do green to be "Eco-Chic."

Solar power firms regularly outfit the curb-facing gables of drab suburban McMansions with a smattering of cells. Celebrated handbag designer Anya Hindmarch launched the "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" tote bag — a white leather tote emblazoned with the aforementioned phrase in highly conspicuous brown script — to great success. Even NetJets Europe, the company that pioneered the idea of fractional private jet ownership, has announced plans to be "carbon-neutral" by 2012.

It is fitting to see the same forces that popularized the gas-guzzling Chevrolet Suburban ignite sales of more environmentally-friendly vehicles, like the Toyota Prius. At the same time, however, I cannot help but wonder whether the Eco-Chic phenomenon detracts from the true goal of green products and services.

After all, it would be far more environmentally sound for someone to travel aboard a commercial jet than to charter their own Glufstream V through NetJets, regardless of whatever "carbon-offsets" NetJets intends to offer. And the idea that a leather tote bag — which requires a cow to be raised, killed and skinned before the hide is treated, dyed and fashioned into a bag — has less of a carbon footprint than one two-gram plastic shopping bag seems perfectly ludicrous.

I have no complaints that the environmentally-sound practices of 7 for All Mankind and Paul Smith add a touch of Eco-Chic to my wardrobe. But people should think of the environment first and their vanity second. Offsetting a flight from Dallas to Milan on a private jet with the purchase of an acre of protected wildness still dumps an extra ton or two of carbon-dioxide into the atmosphere.