gibbston valley and veritas

I never seem to keep my handwritten notes about wines that I try, so I figure I'll start logging them here so I don't lose them. In addition, I'll be more inclined to share the positive reviews for anyone who is looking for a good wine to try :)

Gibbston Valley 2004 Blanc De Pinot Noir
I actually picked this bottle up while I was on travel in New Zealand last summer. Alicia and I stopped into the vineyard, which is outside of Queenstown.

Gibbston Valley Vineyard
(Photo courtesy of Gibbston Valley Wines)

The tasting experience was really nice as they had both a wine tasting (with a tour of the wine cave) and a cheese tasting (where I tried NZ sheep's cheese for the first time). I finally opened my bottle last night while enjoying a Memorial weekend barbeque with my fam and it was excellent. The tasting notes from Gibbston Valley describes it really well:

This rosé wine has been made using the highest quality pinot noir grapes. The delicate salmon colour is the result of leaving the juice in contact with the skins overnight before gently pressing. Ripe peach, watermelon and candy floss flavours are evident in the finished wine and the complexities of this combination make it an extremely pleasant summer drink. Serve slightly chilled.

All in all, it was an excellent wine with simple summer grilled foods (asian-style hamburgers, andouille chicken sausage). I could definitely taste the watermelon element in it, really smooth, clean finish. I don't think one would be able to find this wine easily here in the states, but if you do see it, it's well worth a try.

Veritas 2003 Kenmar Late Harvest Dessert Wine
Over finals weekend in Charlottesville, I stopped into Veritas Vineyard and Winery in Afton (where Skyline Drive meets the Blue Ridge Parkway). I tasted three of their wines with Alex and Jessica while I was there: 2004 Chardonnay, 2003 Rose, and the 2003 Kenmar Late Harvest. Tasting notes for all three:

2004 Chardonnay
We grow every last drop of our delightful fruit friendly Chablis–style Chardonnay. The aroma is bursting with fresh fruit, citrus, apples and pears. Fruit, acidity and sweetness are in harmonious balance as the full mid-palate gives rise to a tangy finish Goes with anything from apples to nuts or even Zebras for that matter! $16.99/bottle

2003 Rose
Cabernet Franc and Merlot sit on the skins for a day to produce this lovely pink drink. Then we whisk it away to ferment on its own, leaving just a touch of sweetness. Enjoy this carefree Rosé that is respectably semi-dry and simply elegant. $14.99/bottle

2003 Kenmar Late Harvest
A panoply of aromas; honeysuckle, rose, melon, orange, muscat, pears, cloves and honey promise an opulent sweet yet fresh mouth-feel that finishes with a zing of crystallized ginger. A wonderful wine for dessert, or even as an aperitif with cheeses or almonds and figs. $24.99/bottle

Although the chardonnay and rose were really good, the Kenmar Late Harvest is definitely something to rave about. The Kenmar Late Harvest is by far the best Virginia dessert wine I've ever tasted. It wasn't syrupy sweet in the least, just lightly sweet, and just a sip of it it made all three of us smile and say "wow." The tasting notes describes the aroma really well, and the wine smelled amazing. Although flowers themselves probably taste horrible if you eat them, when I tasted the wine, I got the feeling that this is what a butterfly garden would taste like :) My sister and I also noticed that it tasted like there was an element of lychee in it too.

I really enjoyed the experience at the winery itself. Veritas is at the base of Afton Mountain so sitting on the patio, we could look up and see the mountain towering above us, but we could also look out and see the rest of the mountain range too. I couldn't ask for a better experience after hiking -- relaxing on a patio, warm sun, cool breeze, nice view, excellent wine, great company.


View from Humpback Rocks, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Afton, VA

debacle

Ouch. I'll let the pictures say the rest...
Passenger side (normal):

Driver side (busted):

Passenger side (normal):

Driver side (busted):

writing style and human perception/cognition

I was looking something up in Strunk and White, The Elements of Style, and I ran across my favorite example of how important writing style is:

If you doubt that style is something of a mystery, try rewriting a familiar sentence and see what happens. Any much-quoted sentence will do. Suppose we take "These are the times that try men's souls." Here we have eight short, easy words, forming a simple declarative sentence. The sentence contains no flashy ingredient such as "Damn the torpedoes!" and the words, as you see, are ordinary. Yet in that arrangement, they have shown great durability. Now compare a few variations:

Times like these try men's souls.
How trying it is to live in these times!
These are trying times for men's souls.
Soulwise, these are trying times.

It seems unlikely that Thomas Paine could have made his sentiment stick if he had couched it in any of these forms. But why not? No fault of grammar can be detected in them, and in every case the meaning is clear. Each version is correct, and each, for some reason that we can't readily put our finger on, is marked for oblivion. We could, of course, talk about "rhythm" and "cadence," but the talk would be vague and unconvincing. We could declare soulwise to be a silly word, inappropriate to the occasion; but even that won't do -- it does not answer the main question. Are we even sure soulwise is silly? If otherwise is a serviceable word, what's the matter with soulwise?

Again, I think it's one of these things that the human perception and processing system is so good at. In just one sentence, there is an intense amount of information laced within: the words the writer chooses, the order the words are placed in, the linguistic sounds of the words, the connotations that surround the meanings of each individual word, the context that surrounds the sentence as a whole, the tone the sentence is read in, and the ever mysterious style component, just to name a handful. A good amount of the information is all already stored in the brain. Reading that one sentence triggers all of the retrieval mechanisms to pull all the meaning together to create one particular impression in our minds, and it all happens faster than we can blink. I can't even fathom how much work it would take to get a computer system to do anything close to that.

Reading that one passage out of Strunk and White and thinking about perception and cognition reminded me about a new book I hope to get a copy of and read soon, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things can Make a Big Difference, which I really enjoyed).

On a related subject, I found out recently that Emotional Design by Don Norman (whose work on human-centered design I really respect) is out on paperback now. I really enjoyed the sample PDF chapters (Prologue: Three Teapots, Chapter 1: Attractive Things Work Better, and Epilogue: We Are All Designers) last year and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of his book soon.

Just as an aside, White from Strunk and White is E.B. White, essayist for The New Yorker, and author of three children's books: Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web, and The Trumpet of the Swan. I'll leave you with one of his quotes: "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority."

rafting and comedy

UVA Club Goes Outdoors
Last weekend, we went hiking in the Bull Run Mountains in Broad Run, VA (photos). Next weekend (Saturday 21 May), we'll be going whitewater rafting and kayaking in Harpers Ferry, WV. Check out the event page for more details and to register.

Daniel Tosh Comes to Washington
You might have seen him on Comedy Central Presents: Daniel Tosh and a host of other cable programs on MTV, VH1 and E!. Alright, I know those aren't really quality channels, but I hear he's pretty funny. You can find more information on Daniel Tosh on his website and more information on the upcoming performances (28 June - 3 July, $17 plus surcharges) at the DC Improv website.

Patton Oswalt Comes to Falls Church
A native Northern Virginian suburbanite returns to his stomping grounds after making it big on the national scene, being featured as Spence in The King of Queens as well as appearing in movies such as Starsky and Hutch, Blade III, and Zoolander. Patton Oswalt will be appearing at the State Theatre in Falls Church on Friday 1 July at 9:00 PM. Tickets are $18 plus whatever Ticketmaster fees (ergh) are involved. Yeah, I actually work down the street from where he went to high school: Broad Run HS in Ashburn, VA.

Brian Regan Comes to Washington
Brian Regan brings his "Take Luck" tour to the Warner Theatre on Friday 4 November, 8pm. I'm not sure what to say about Brian Regan other than he makes me laugh -- and he can do it with a clean act, which is a little unusual for the stand-up comics. Ticket prices are $37.50 orchestra, $33.50 balcony. If you're wondering what "Take Luck" means, here's Brian Regan to explain it:

Do you ever start to say something and in the middle of what you’re saying you decide to say something else completely? There's already words out there. These friends were leaving the other day and I started to say "Hey, take care," and I decided to say “Good luck” instead like half way through, so it came out neither.

Take... luck! Take luck and care. Take care of the luck. Good luck taking care of the luck that you might have... if you have luck, take it, care for it. Take luck care of in it when you take luck care of in it.

You’re sure to see them [your friends] again.

bill moyers speech

I was listening to the radio on the way home today and caught this amazing speech by Bill Moyers at the National Conference on Media Reform (sponsored by Free Press) in St. Louis, Missouri this past Sunday 15 May and I was hooked on every word. Strangely enough, a speech addressing the weakness of "Beltway Journalism" was not carried live here in the nation's capital. No outlet in Washington carried this event, although most other major cities in the U.S. provided some form of coverage. I had to catch this on Democracy Now, which played on Pacifica Radio, WPFW 89.3 in Washington (the only station here in DC that plays the jazz I like, not that "weather channel jazz" they play on WJZW 105.9).

The text of Bill Moyers's speech is on the Free Press website. Alternatively, you can listen to audio of the remarks or watch video of the remarks. Below is a portion of the remarks that I found particularly strong:

I wore my flag tonight. First time. Until now I haven’t thought it necessary to display a little metallic icon of patriotism for everyone to see. It was enough to vote, pay my taxes, perform my civic duties, speak my mind, and do my best to raise our kids to be good Americans.

Sometimes I would offer a small prayer of gratitude that I had been born in a country whose institutions sustained me, whose armed forces protected me, and whose ideals inspired me; I offered my heart’s affections in return. It no more occurred to me to flaunt the flag on my chest than it did to pin my mother’s picture on my lapel to prove her son’s love. Mother knew where I stood; so does my country. I even tuck a valentine in my tax returns on April 15.

So what’s this doing here? Well, I put it on to take it back. The flag’s been hijacked and turned into a logo -- the trademark of a monopoly on patriotism. On those Sunday morning talk shows, official chests appear adorned with the flag as if it is the good housekeeping seal of approval. During the State of the Union, did you notice Bush and Cheney wearing the flag? How come? No administration’s patriotism is ever in doubt, only its policies. And the flag bestows no immunity from error. When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao’s little red book on every official’s desk, omnipresent and unread.

“But more galling than anything are all those moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag in their lapels while writing books and running Web sites and publishing magazines attacking dissenters as un-American. They are people whose ardor for war grows disproportionately to their distance from the fighting. They’re in the same league as those swarms of corporate lobbyists wearing flags and prowling Capitol Hill for tax breaks even as they call for more spending on war.

“So I put this on as a modest riposte to men with flags in their lapels who shoot missiles from the safety of Washington think tanks, or argue that sacrifice is good as long as they don’t have to make it, or approve of bribing governments to join the coalition of the willing (after they first stash the cash). I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what Bin Laden did to us. The flag belongs to the country, not to the government. And it reminds me that it’s not un-American to think that war -- except in self-defense -- is a failure of moral imagination, political nerve, and diplomacy. Come to think of it, standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country.”

I only wish I could write and speak this well. Finally, to set the record straight, although I firmly believe in exercising my right to vote, I am not a member of any political party. I think my friend TH put it best, "I believe in effective government."

computer programming typography

As you probably know, software engineers spend a significant portion of their time at work programming. Unlike in word processing, which uses proportional fonts (like Times New Roman or Arial), most computer programs are written in text files with monospaced fonts. That is, each letter is the same width -- think typewriter-like fonts. In most of the Microsoft development tools, Courier New, 10 point is the standard. The problem with Courier New (see sample) is that the '1' (one) looks a lot like the 'l' (lowercase L), the '0' (zero) looks a lot like the 'O' (capital O), and the '}' (curly brace) looks a lot like the ')' (parenthesis) -- especially at eight to 10 point font. This of course leads to both eye strain and the occaisional very frustrating error while debugging.

A while back, I took a class with Brendan Hall, a Flash ActionScript guru who lives and works right here in Washington. He introduced me to a relatively new monospaced font that works really well for coding: Andale Mono (see sample). Andale Mono significantly enhances readability and clarifies the letters to avoid the ambiguities described above. The trademark of this font is the dot in the center of the zero -- and I can't mention enough how many times it's helped me out. After using Andale Mono in my daily work for several years now, going back to Courier New is a strain to say the least. Steve Matteson designed this font in 2000, specifically for on-screen readability, as most other fonts out there are designed for typesetting or printing factors (like print readability and ink bleeding on a micro scale). It was originally part of Microsoft's core fonts for the web, which was a free download, but discontinued in 2002. Today, you can buy Andale Mono for $30 from Steve Matteson's company, Ascender... Or, you can download Andale Mono from SourceForge or from Andrew Ho for free (no worries, it's legal). Just look for andale32.exe, download, scan for viruses (always a good habit no matter what), install, and enjoy.

Finally, just to show you how much I've looked into typography, I'll share my favorite serif (letters with little hooks) and sans-serif (without hooks) fonts for typesetting and printing with you. Designed by Herman Zapf (famous type designer) in 1948, my favorite serif font is Palatino (see sample). Edward Tufte introduced me to my favorite sans-serif font, Gill Sans (see sample). Designed around 1930 by Eric Gill, it was originally used for all the signs, advertising, and timetables for the London and North Eastern Railway. Today, it's probably one of the more popular fonts out there for design, and most recently, it was included as the standard font for Mac OS X. Talk about lasting power though -- designing something in the 1930s that would still be popular in 2005. Compared to other typefaces though, Gill Sans is rather young. Some of the fonts still in use today were created back in the 1500s! That's ok though, I like my fonts for print classic and classy, which is just not all that prevalent in modern fonts. On the computer though, it's all about readability. We read slower on a computer screen than we do on paper, so I'll take any font on the computer that will help close the gap.

Never underestimate paper -- it has a higher resolution than any computer screen available and it's a lot easier on the eyes because light reflects off of paper and into your eyes, versus the screen which blasts the light directly into your eyes. I'll leave you with one example where paper just can't be beat: the street maps in your car. Forget those computer maps where you have to futz with zooming and panning then printing out tiny squares of maps. One fold out paper map contains megabytes upon megabytes of information and detail and can provide something the computer map just fails at, context. I even claim the directions you come up with on a paper map are better than the computer's about 90% of the time as you know better than the data in the database as which streets are flooded with traffic at certain times of the day.

There's a reason why I'm the anti-technology technologist...

highway sign typography

Even prior to the invention of the printing press, page design and lettering were important in the production of books. When monks were producing books by hand, the quality of the lettering was a huge issue. Letters had to be consistent in form, spaced evenly, and each line on the page was fully justified, by hand! Soon after the Gutenberg brought us the the printing press in 1450, typeface design, page design, and typesetting (setting the wooden or metal blocks of type for each page) became an art and a very important skilled trade that lasted until around the 1970s when computer-based printing appeared on the scene. These days, we've forgotten a lot about typography and how quality books used to be, especially when we think that the horrendous output that our word processors produce looks just fine. Fonts (lots of horrible ones) are available a dime a dozen, but I feel that most people underestimate how important typography is -- mainly because the human visual system is so sensitive to minor details. Just as an example, facial expressions are millimeter differences on a person's face, but we can notice a change in facial expression just as fast as it changes.

In recent news, albeit news only I and a couple other geeks read about, the Federal Highway Administration approved of a new highway sign font, the first time this has happened in 30 years. No big deal to the general public, but it's a huge deal for people who are interested in typography. So, without further delay, I'll introduce this new typeface with a few samples and comparisons.

Introducing ClearviewHwy:


Clearview is intended to replace the in-house Federal Highway Adminstration (FHWA) letterforms. Here is FHWA standard first, then ClearviewHwy below it:


The difference is obvious with this example, again FHWA standard first, ClearviewHwy after:


If you're approaching these signs from a distance, three design elements in the new sign will help, (1) the better shape of the letterforms, (2) the use of mixed-case letters, (3) providing a consistent background. With all capital lettering, each letter looks like a block from a distance. Mixed case lettering provides more shape cues (varying letter heights and widths) to our visual system. Also in the new sign, using one background relaxes our visual system from having to jump between nine background shapes (WEST, EAST, TO / US-23, US-23, US-40 / up arrow, right arrow, right arrow). If you don't believe me about the letter forms, take a look at this example of less than ideal driving conditions where contrast is reduced:

Although the difference appears to be relatively minor,

the increased effectiveness is measurable. Based on studies conducted at the Pennsylvania Transportation Institute, they found that changing the font from FHWA to ClearviewHwy, nighttime sign reading distance improved by 16 percent, or 80 extra feet, or 1.2 extra seconds at 45mph. By changing signs that were in all-caps to mixed-case, they found a 29 percent increase in nighttime recognition, especially with older drivers.

june festivals

I found these listing for the upcoming wine and beer festivals in the latest issue of On Tap. I'm going to miss the wine festival this time around (for Reunions Weekend), but you'll probably see me at the beer festival.

Vintage Virginia Festival
Vintage Virginia is holding the 24th Annual Virginia Wineries Festival June 4-5 from 12pm-6pm. The festival will host over 50 Virginia wineries and many area restaurants. There will also be live music featuring rock, blues, jazz and reggae. In addition to the wine and food, there will be crafts and activities, seminar tents, and a children’s area with a petting zoo, train rides, face painting, and more. Admission is $20 in advance and $22 at the gate. There are also special rates for designated drivers, children, and larger groups. For more information call 1-800-277-CORK or visit www.showsinc.com/vvwine.

Old Dominion Beer Festival
The trip is well worth the beer at Old Dominion Brewing Co. in Ashburn, VA. The annual Old Dominion Beer Festival is one of the best in the country. The Old Dominion Beer Festival will presenting beers from Allagash Brewing, Baltimore Brewing Co., Rogue Ales, Left Hand Brewing Co., West Virginia Brewing Co., Blue & Gray Brewing Co., and many more. The festival runs Friday, June 24, from 5-11pm, Saturday, June 25, from 12-11pm, and Sunday, June 26, from 12-7pm. Admission is $12 and beer tickets are $1 per 6 oz serving of beer. There will be vendors, food, and music, along with the beer! Performers include: Last Train Home, Gonzo’s Nose, The Crawdaddies, Chatham County Line, and more. For more information, visit www.olddominion.com.

waterfront freeways

I've read a number of articles lately about certain groups in DC leading the charge to dismantle the Whitehurst Freeway, which is the elevated roadway (US-29) over K Street in Georgetown that connects the Key Bridge with K Street, NW (at 27th St). The opposition to the existence of a waterfront freeway seems to be the trend nowadays, but with reasonable cause as waterfront freeways disconnect the waterfront from the rest of the city. There's not much happening in terms of culture or commerce on K Street, the city's waterfront street, because there's the incessant clacking of cars on the freeway overhead as well the waterfront always being in the shadows, literally. There is some new development along K Street though: a movie theatre, condos built at eye-level with the freeway, and a new hotel. However, the new development is quite limited compared to the buzz that is M Street, just two blocks in from the water.

In recent decades, waterfront freeways in other major cities have been met with campaigns and projects to tear them down. Boston has the Big Dig, meant to replace the Central Artery that cut off the North End and Waterfront from the rest of downtown. San Francisco recently tore down the Embarcadero Freeway, an elevated freeway (I-480) running along the waterfront, originally intended to connect the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge. A group in Seattle is pushing to tear down the Alaskan Way Viaduct, an elevated freeway that carries State Route 99 along the waterfront, also disconnecting the waterfront from downtown. Coincidentally, both the Embarcadero Freeway and the Alaskan Way Viaduct were damaged by earthquakes. The dismantling of the Embarcadero Freeway was precipitated by damage from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Recent action on the Alaskan Way Viaduct is in response to damage from the 2001 Nisqually earthquake.

In all of these cities I've mentioned, the waterfronts were (some still) dilapidated, despite the amazing views of the water. I think this is from two major, but dependent causes: the decline of heavy industry along the waterfronts and the subsequent disconnection of the waterfront from the post-industrial growth in the downtown districts. When the freeways were built in the 1950s, waterfronts were still very industrial. For instance, the Embarcadero in SF was still a major shipping port. (It seems like all the shipping ports have since moved to Oakland.) Even here in DC, the area around the Whitehurst Freeway consisted of a trash incinerator, meat packing companies, a lumber yard, and a cement plant. Needless to say, heavy industry isn't pretty, so putting a freeway above it all seemed pretty inconsequential at the time. As the country moved out of the industrial age, most urban downtown areas experienced a rebirth and revitalization, starting in the mid-1970s and booming in the 1980s and afterwards. However, on the waterfronts, heavy industry declined, but the growth downtown didn't transfer over to the waterfronts now that there was a freeway blocking new buildings, not to mention anything under the freeway just looked dingy in the shadows.

Nowadays, we're realizing that the value of the waterfronts are not for industry anymore, but rather the view. Developing a waterfront combines the elements that city goverments (and their citizens for the most part) dream of: mixed use commercial, residential, retail, and a little park too, just for good measure. (Personally, I'd enjoy it better if the entire waterfront were a park, but I know that the power of money won't let that happen.) Hence, with all this potential value on neglected, undeveloped waterfronts, the only thing standing in the way is the freeway overhead. You figure the hard part is building the freeway, not dismantling it, right?

The remaining question is where will all the traffic go? Boston spent decided to spend several billion dollars to move the traffic into underground tunnels, while San Francisco went with a cheaper option: just take the freeway down and let the drivers deal with it. Although people predicted pure gridlock on the SF's surface streets, the drivers, surprisingly, found a way around, and traffic on the surface streets is not much worse than it was before. My question to the transportation engineers who are reading -- are there good models that can show how current and predicted traffic flows work? Like the voices in SF that predicted pure gridlock, there are voices in DC that are predicting the same.

integrity of financial information

I take issue with the quality and the integrity of the financial information made available to the public, especially when it comes to financial graphics.

Issue 1: Most plots of prices over time are not adjusted for inflation.
Everyone knows that a dollar in 1985 is not the same as a dollar in 2005 because of inflation over time. In fact, something that cost $1.00 in 1985 now costs $1.77 in 2005. Or, if you want to look at it the other way, something that you buy for $1.00 in 2005 used to cost $0.56 in 1985. Most graphs you find in print and on the Web are not adjusted for inflation. For example, if you look up the 10-year history of a stock price on your favorite financial website, the prices plotted on the graph are nominal prices. That is, they plot the 1995 price in 1995 dollars, plot the 1996 price in 1996 dollars, etc. I can't see how anyone can make an informed decision like this. Instead, they should plot all the prices on the chart in 2005 dollars. In other words, they should plot the real prices. It's the only way you can get a frame of reference to make an informed decision. One quick example, let's say you bring up a stock chart and you see that the stock price was $0.56 per share in 1985 and the stock price is now $1.00 per share in 2005. The summary tells you that the price increased by 79% over 20 years, or is growing by an average of 3.9% a year. Not the best return you figure, but at least you didn't lost money, right? Well actually, you didn't gain any either. Adjusting for inflation, the stock price in real terms stayed the same over 20 years. So, imagine this in a graphic, all of the trendlines would be shifted up more than they should be, giving an impression that the stock is better than it really is. I wish I had some side-by-side examples to show, and I'm surprised that I couldn't find any on the Web, but I'll try to get some data to plot and make an example to post for everyone. In the meantime, here's a factoid: in real prices, gasoline at the pump today is cheaper than it was in 1980. In 1980, the nominal price of gasoline was $1.26 per gallon. Adjusting for inflation, the real price of gasoline in 1984 is $2.87 a gallon. You're still paying less for gas today than you (or your parents were in 1980). Don't get me wrong though, I still wince when the price of gas spikes to $2.50+ a gallon, and it's only natural. When consumer prices are increasing faster than wages are, you definitely feel the pinch of your shrinking purchasing power.

Just remember, when you are looking at a financial graphic being plotted over time (stock prices, mutual fund returns, gas prices, etc.), ask yourself whether or not the prices have been adjusted for inflation. The caption will always note if the graphic is "adjusted for inflation" or in "real prices." Only one publication I read consistently plots real prices, and that's The Economist.

Issue 2: Government (or group) spending is not reported/plotted per capita.
When people report on government spending, they first fail to adjust for inflation, then they fail to adjust for population. That is, they should report spending as a dollar per person amount, not just as a pure dollar amount. I'm not one to support the ballooning of government spending, but I see this tactic used by groups who have an interest in cutting a program. It's easy to publicize a 20 percent increase in spending, but if the population increased by 20 percent, spending per person remains constant. Again, only after figures and charts are adjusted for inflation, then for population, can citizens make informed decisions on how they want their government to spend their tax money.

Issue 3: It's not easy making your inflation-adjusted plots.
I only wish there were a preprogrammed formula in Excel to adjust for inflation. To make a real plot, you have to get the Consumer Price Index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and enter your formulas in from there. For the simple calculations, The Inflation Calculator is pretty helpful.

Issue 4: Narrow stock indexes are used to measure the entire stock market.
In almost every investing primer I've seen, they show a plot of the S&P 500 index for the past 50 years while the narrative describes it as the performance of the U.S. stock market in general. The S&P 500 represents the 500 most widely held companies and each of the 500 stocks in the index are weighted by market capitalization. Although the S&P 500 is a good measure of large-cap stock performance, large-cap stocks only account for about 70% of the U.S. stock market. Even worse is the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA or "Dow") that gets reported daily on the radio and television. The Dow Jones Industrials are 30 companies picked by The Wall Street Journal, all large-cap (GE, Microsoft, etc..) and the DJIA is a weighted average of their stock prices. The "Dow" is sort of a tradition as it's been around since 1896, but it doesn't really measure the performance of the U.S. stock market as well as it measures the performance of the top "industrial" stocks in the U.S., well according to the judgement of the Wall Street Journal. But somehow, the Dow is perceived as a reflection of how all stocks are performing in the U.S. So if the S&P 500 measures about 70% of the stock market, and the Dow measures even less, what measures the 30% of mid-cap, small-cap, and hodgepodge of other stocks? The Wilshire 5000 index (officially known as the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Total Stock Market Index) is an index calculated using all publicly traded stocks in the U.S. stock market, weighted by market capitalization. At the index's inception in 1974, there were about 5000 stocks in the market, hence the name. Today, there are well over 5000 stocks in the market. The Wilshire 5000 index tracks every stock on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, and the American Stock Exchange. So, hunt around for information on the Wilshire 5000 index if you're interested in tracking the total performance of the U.S. stock market or if you're interested in investing in a U.S. index fund with maximum diversification.

asian pacific american heritage month

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and as far as I know, there aren't too many events on the calendar to mark the month here in Washington. However, WETA 26 (our local PBS affiliate) celebrates by showing a number of programs about the Asian experience in America this month. Their APA Heritage Month program guide has a full listing, but I wanted to highlight a couple of my favorites on the list: Globe Trekker: New Zealand showing on 12 May at 10:00pm (highlights Maori culture), Globe Trekker: Hawaii showing on Thursday 19 May at 10:00pm, and Becoming American: The Chinese Experience (a Bill Moyers special from 2003) on Sunday 29 May at 11:00am.

I've seen the Bill Moyers special before and I think it's really well done. The part of it that I found a little surprising was how blatant the prejudices were in the 1980s when Maya Lin's design was selected for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall. Opinion pieces and political cartoons in the press expressed outrage that an Asian person's design could be selected for that particular memorial. The cartoons were downright racist in their portrayal of Lin. Veterans asked, "How can you let a gook design this? How did it happen that an Asian-American woman was permitted to make a memorial for American men who died fighting in Asia?" (Iris Chang, The Chinese in America, 2003) Even some politicians joined the chorus, with one of the more prominent examples being Ross Perot calling Lin an "egg roll."

Outside factors aside, I think the design of the memorial is amazing -- minimalist, but so powerful. I'll let the professionals describe what makes it so powerful. First, Robert Campbell, "An Emotive Place Apart," A.I.A. Journal, May 1983:

As you descend the path along the wall and reach this angle, you realize that one wing of the black wall points straight at the tall, white Washington Monument a mile or so off, and the other at the Lincoln Memorial, visible through a screen of trees about 600 feet away. In making this descent you feel you're entering a cloistered space, set off from the busy surroundings. Streets and skylines disappear to leave you alone with the wall and its names. Then, as you pass the angle and begin to climb, you feel yourself emerging again into the world of noise and light after a meditative experience.

Next, Edward Tufte in Envisioning Information, 1990 (I have an autographed copy).

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. achieves its visual and emotional strength by means of micro/macro design. From a distance the entire collection of names of 58,000 dead soldiers arrayed on the black granite yields a visual measure of what 58,000 means, as the letters of each name blurs into a gray shape, cumulating to the final toll. When a viewer approaches, these shapes resolve into individual names. Some of the living seek the name of one particular soldier in a personal micro-reading; more than a few visitors touch the etched, textured names. We focus on the tragic information; absent are the big porticoes, steps and stairs, and other marble paraphernalia usually attached to grand official monuments. Walking on a slight grade downward (approaching from either side), our first close reading is of panels no higher than a few names. But looking forward, the visitor sees names of the dead rising higher and higher, a statistical blur of marks in the distance with micro-detail at hand. The context is enlarged by calm reflections off polished black granite, reflections of the living and of trees, and, at distance, of the Lincoln and Washington memorials toward which the walls angle.

Maya Lin, the designer, in her own words:

It was while I was at the site that I designed it. I just sort of visualized it. It just popped into my head. Some people were playing Frisbee. It was a beautiful park. I didn't want to destroy a living park. You use the landscape. You don't fight with it. You absorb the landscape... When I looked at the site I just knew I wanted something horizontal that took you in, that made you feel safe within the park, yet at the same time reminding you of the dead. So I just imagined opening up the earth...

If you are familiar with landscape/garden design philosophies, you will know that the traditional garden designs of the west (particularly British and French) have a philosophy of shaping the land into a neat man-made order with a meaning while the traditional garden designs of the east (particularly Chinese and Japanese) have a philosophy of letting the natural surroundings provide the meaning while letting man highlight the meaning. Both of these philosophies are evident in Lin's design, which makes sense because Lin expresses, "My voice is very much coming out of a bicultural experience." Which goes to show what I've been saying for a while now, that every designer's (regardless of their field) work is a function of their life experiences, which is why I really value being on teams (especially engineering and design teams) composed of people with diversely varying views of the world. Plus there's my personal goal of enriching my own life experiences, a little at a time, by dabbling in fields I wouldn't otherwise know about, meeting people of all sorts, trying to travel as much as I can, not to mention read insane amounts of random stuff in bookstores, libraries, and the Web.

I want to highlight one more element of the design: the ordering of the names on the wall. The names appear on the wall chronologically, by date of death, not by alphabetical order, that way veterans would find their friends and remember their stories in the panel that corresponded with their tour of duty. Consider the case if the names were listed alphabetically instead: the wall would have the appearance of a phone book and it would remove the sense of uniqueness and memory associated with each name. So as Tufte says, "... the names on stone triple-function: to memorialize each person who died, to make a mark adding up the total, and to indicate sequence and approximate date of death. A directory-book (located at the end of the wall) alphabetically lists all the names and serves as a finder, pointing viewers to the location of a single engraved name."

Truly, Lin's design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a masterpiece of information design. Take a moment to think about all of the design elements above and how each one represents some sort of information -- it really is amazing (and this is the stuff that really excites me). Sinking the memorial into the ground instead of building it up out of the ground, choosing polished black granite as the material and color, listing the name of every loss instead of engraving quotations, ordering the names chronologically instead of alphabetically, setting the angles of the walls, etc... Each one of those design decisions convey some piece of information on its own and conveys a theme when put together, so powerful that when you are standing at the memorial, you hear nothing but silence from the people around you (without a "quiet please" sign in sight), you see tears of sadness and loss, your head sinks in contemplation but you can't remove yourself from the loss as beneath you are the things people have left behind, you nod at the veteran who remembers his friend, and you really feel something. The design, combined with what it stands for is powerfully moving. That's why I think it's a design masterpiece.

i'm back

It's good to be back from my one week blog hiatus, although I almost didn't make it back today. The house cable modem failed this weekend and there was no Internet access here for 48 hours. Whether or not this is a good thing depends on who you ask :) Alright, so I'll start with some shorts today and work my way back to some more meaty content.

UVA Stuff
Finals Weekend 2005 will be on 21-22 May. Valedictory Exercises will be on Saturday 21 May with Ron Suskind (College '81, author of The Price of Loyalty, George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O'Neill). Final Exercises will be on Sunday 22 May with Vivian Pinn, M.D. (Medicine '67, director of the Office of Research on Women's Health at the National Institutes of Health) as the Commencement Speaker. Congrats Jessica! (I wonder if they will play the Star Trek music again at the Engineering School's diploma ceremony...)

Reunions Weekend for the class of 2000 (as well as 1995, 1990, ..., 1960) will be in Charlottesville on 3-5 June 2005. Registration is due by 25 May.

The UVA Club of Washington has a plenty of upcoming events as usual, so check out their website for the official word and for event details, but the Bull Run Mountains Conservancy Hike is on Sunday 15 May and the Spring Happy Hour at Clarendon Ballroom is on Thursday 26 May.

Edward Tufte Course
Edward Tufte returns to Arlington on 24-26 May to offer his one-day course, Presenting Data and Information. If you haven't taken this course, take it! I've convinced six friends so far to take the course and they tell me it was well worth their time. I came out of this course with a fresh perspective on design and to some degree a fresh perspective on the world -- and it's reflected in my work :)

Upcoming Entertainment Events
Super Diamond: The Alternative Neil Diamond Experience (a Neil Diamond Tribute band), Saturday 14 May, 9:00pm at the 9:30 Club. I don't know why it makes me grin every time I see their listing when they come through town, but it's surprisingly popular as I hear the shows sell really well. Here's David Segal's review from the Washington Post:

When Randy Cordero worked a cover of "Sweet Caroline" into his acoustic act at a Tempe, Ariz., club in 1989, he figured he'd get booed into oblivion and pelted with Bud bottles. Instead he learned a life-altering truth: People love Neil Diamond. He eventually quit his job as an engineer, and for more than a decade Cordero has been serving up zirconium versions of Diamond originals in his highly un-ironic tribute band, Super Diamond. Now known as "Surreal Neil," Cordero dons sequins and slaps an alternative-rock spin on Diamond's canon. Among those who've seen the act and said "I'm a Believer" is Neil himself, who has performed with the group on a few occasions.

I can attest that people really do like Neil Diamond as every time I go to Cafe Japone to watch people sing karaoke, someone sings Sweet Caroline and everyone joins in.

Kevin James (from The King of Queens) performs stand-up comedy on Sunday 5 June, 7:30pm at the Warner Theatre. All seats $45.00, tickets available through Ticketmaster (ergh).

Lewis Black (from The Daily Show's "Back in Black" segment) comes to town on Friday 17 June for his "Nothing's Sacred Tour." He'll be performing his stand-up comedy routine on Friday 17 June at 8:00pm in the Warner Theatre. Orchestra seats $45.50, balcony seats $40.50. Tickets available through Ticketmaster (argh).

Les Miserables returns to the National Theater on 7 December 2005 through 21 January 2006. I'm not sure what happened to Chicago -- they were supposed to return to Washington later in 2005, but the latest news tells me they will be back in 2006.

short hiatus

I will be on hiatus this week. My rants will return next week, the week of 9 May. Thanks for your patience, and thanks for reading :)