On the Art of Programming and Great Programmers

I visited the Computer History Museum in Mountain View yesterday as part of a joint event for Cambridge and SOAS alumni and had a pleasant afternoon. We were given a tour by Dr. John Mashey, one of the museum's trustees, so it was nice to get some interesting insights by someone so closely connected the museum. One of the impressive things I enjoyed was a demonstration of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine. There's only two in the world, the other being at the Science Museum in London.

There was one quote at the museum that I found inspiring.

Computer programming is an art, because it applies accumulated knowledge to the world, because it requires skill and ingenuity, and because it produces objects of beauty. 

- Donald Knuth 1974

On the other hand, when John was describing the talents of Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson (the creators of Unix), he explained that only a few can become masters of this art.

Computer science is one of those human endeavors where those who are good at it are far better than those are who aren't.

Sadly, the skewed distribution of skill involved means I likely won't become a great programmer. Nevertheless, programming is certainly a beautiful art even amateurs can appreciate for its intrinsic enjoyment.

Finally, on a related note, I must say that Programming, Motherfucker—despite its name—is pretty nice beginner's resource.

The Worth of Higher Education

I've just finished reading an article discussing the declining value of higher education in America from this week's Economist. As the topic suggests, it was a sobering and pessimistic read. However, I thought that any discussion was focused too much on higher education not being good value for money and didn't even give mention to the non-financial benefits of being at university.

When I recently told a (much older) Cambridge alumni I had studied international relations for my MPhil but don't use it at all in my professional work, he responded with something along the lines of, "It doesn't matter. We do it because it's interesting." I don't think education can be classified as consumable leisure, but I do think the ability to one's intellectual curiosity and become exposed to a wider world of people ideas is not quantifiable in monetary terms. It's the little things like the friends you make for life and the little pleasures you acquire. As personal examples, I play Halo with my roommates in Berkeley weekly to stay in touch, and my year in Cambridge gave me a taste for choral music that I will continue to enjoy forever.

Of course, despite "party schools" and the many students who spend more time drinking than reading in college, higher education isn't all about fun—we all need to make income as productive members of society, after all. But nor is it just a four-year, leveraged financial product (using student loans) with calculable return on investment. Obviously, this isn't a point that is uncommonly made, and no one can fault The Economist for using the occasional tone of strictly financial rationalization, but I would have thought it a nice touch if they had ended with a more upbeat remark, as they usually do.

I Should Write More

As the title suggests, I really should write more. Hopefully blogging can become a self-reinforcing habit. One article that recently motivated me was this one from the BBC that discusses "information overload" in our contemporary world of easily accessible information on the Internet.

One insight here by the author is that, "A great curator, to me, is someone who takes such bits of information and transmutes them into useful knowledge." It is one thing to be up-to-date on the latest world news and to watch countless TED talks. It is another to be able to articulate one's own opinions and form information into knowledge. One of the things I learned from my undergraduate studies (yet have been failing to practice) is that writing is thinking. So hopefully by writing regularly I will be able to put together all the information I absorb into something more meaningful.

Blog Refresh

I resolve to try writing more on this blog. I think two motivations for this came up recently. I had lunch with a classmate from Berkeley who has an active blog with some interesting (though totally random) content, and it seems like it would be intellectually rewarding to be able to express my thoughts more fully than I can in just a tweet. The other is that the current election has been frustrating me with the amount of misinformation that has been disseminated, and I feel like I should take advantage of what avenues I can to contribute to the battle of ideas.

In the meantime, I've refreshed the blog with a color scheme based off base16. I'm now using the colorscheme in Vim (my text editor of choice), and I've even made a theme for my instant messaging client which I'll probably publish soon.

In the meantime, follow my thoughts on Twitter!

Cambridge to California

Renaming this blog to reflect the fact that I am now home in California. Having traveled to so many different places only makes me ever more convinced that this state is the best place in the world.

19th Century Economic Insight Is More Relevant Than Ever

I was reading Walter Bagehot's Lombard Street today and came across something directly relevant to the budget crises of this past summer.

Those who live under a great and firm system of credit must consider that if they break up that one they will never see another, for it will take years upon years to make a successor to it.

Did the Republicans who thought that it was a good idea to throw away the full faith and credit of the United States ever think about these kinds of things? But then I suppose they were never literate in economics to begin with.

Paul Ryan is a Liar

Update: The NYT link has changed for some reason, so here is the original article duplicated on FrumForum.

Evidence that Paul Ryan is a liar. From the New York Times:

Key Republican Says Companies Can't Bear New Taxes: Wisconsin's Rep. Paul Ryan tells CBS's "The Early Show" that "we are already taxing our job creators and our businesses more than our foreign competitors are taxing theirs."

Not true. The tax analysis group Citizens for Tax Justice published a report at the end of June which shows that the US ranks near the bottom among OECD countries for taxes as a share of GDP. The report also discusses corporate taxes which directly refutes Ryan's claim that "our job creators and our businesses" are taxed more than their foreign counterparts.

U.S. Is One of the Least Taxed Developed Countries: Many corporate leaders have noted that other OECD countries have lowered their corporate tax rates in recent years, but fail to mention that these countries have also closed corporate tax loopholes while the U.S. has expanded them. As a result, the U.S. collects less corporate taxes as a share of GDP than all but one of the 26 OECD countries for which data are available.

Arguments may vary when you look at the tax rates versus taxes as a share of GDP, but I think the extreme position of the US in the ranking is persuasive. Interestingly, it seems that Bill Clinton also supports a corporate tax cut.

Bill Clinton calls for corporate tax cut: President Bill Clinton says the nation’s corporate tax rate is “uncompetitive” and called for a lower rate as part of a “mega-deal” to raise the debt ceiling. 

“When I was president, we raised the corporate income-tax rates on corporations that made over $10 million [a year],” the former president told the Aspen Ideas Festival on Saturday evening.

“It made sense when I did it. It doesn’t make sense anymore — we’ve got an uncompetitive rate. We tax at 35 percent of income, although we only take about 23 percent. So we should cut the rate to 25 percent, or whatever’s competitive, and eliminate a lot of the deductions so that we still get a fair amount, and there’s not so much variance in what the corporations pay. But how can they do that by Aug. 2?”

Clinton is arguing that the conditions now are different from when he raised them during his administration. However, he also proposes eliminating the deductions that are creating the loopholes which, as the CTJ report argues, are keeping down corporate taxes as a share of GDP. Does Ryan propose that?