I was on a family vacation for the past several days, was offline and stuck with only cable news for information. This was the first time I’d watched any cable news since the 2004 election. My general strategy is to change channels whenever any of them run a commercial, so I got a substantial sampling of all three networks.

MSNBC seemed to be doing a better job than their competitors. The primary exception being Keith Olberman. MSNBC’s discovery of the forgotten NO Convention Center and resulting suffering doubtlessly saved a number of lives.

FOX was dependable for trying to find any positive story in the disaster, focusing on what was being done without ignoring what wasn’t. Their producers seemed out-to-lunch at times, showing the same clips over and over while failing to bring up the shots their on-air people were talking about. Geraldo Rivera is a nerd and often hard to stomach, but he is sincere.

CNN was just horrible. They were hellbent on ginning up a racial angle to the tragedy, going so far on Saturday that they had only black anchors for most of the day. I could be wrong since I haven’t watched CNN in a long time, but it seem that somewhere in CNN, someone made a decision to call in any anchor with dark skin. I would love to hear that decision explained while trying not to sound like the blazingly racist thinking it was.

Several of the networks, perhaps all of them, were guilty of running days-old footage of suffering even after evacuations had been completed.

All of the networks had Touching Montages With Sad Music. I can’t begin to explain how much I hate those, how exploited they make me feel and how trite they make the victims’ suffering seem. The photos should be shown, but silence would be so much more effective and respectful.

There was little coverage of the damage in Mississippi and Alabama, where whole towns were reduced to little more than foundations. Areas outside of New Orleans have also been largely ignored.

I was able to refresh my newsreader (NetNewsWire) a few times over the weekend. 15 minutes of online reading gave me more information than 5 hours of TV news.

Texans are good people. I imagine there will be something of a ring of refugees and relocations around New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, many of those places won’t be rebuilt for generations, if ever. I have faith in Southerners, they’ll do everything they can to help out. I wish I could do more, or anything. I’m waiting to donate money to relief efforts until it the destruction is better accessed and we can better see where the money is needed and who’s best able to distribute aid. Why does it seem like I’m giving to the Red Cross twice a year these days? Times like this I really wish I was able to go there and help, or was trained or a member of the National Guard or something. I hate these feelings of uselessness. I can give money, what I really want to give are sweat and labor.

All the mentions of this storm being the result of global warming are ill-informed and crassly political. Hurricanes have a 20-30 year intensity cycle. If anything, the last 150 years of records show hurricane numbers trending downwards. The New York Times noted that even advocates of global warming aren’t claiming this was related.

Because hurricanes form over warm ocean water, it is easy to assume that the recent rise in their number and ferocity is because of global warming.

But that is not the case, scientists say. Instead, the severity of hurricane seasons changes with cycles of temperatures of several decades in the Atlantic Ocean. The recent onslaught “is very much natural,” said William M. Gray, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University who issues forecasts for the hurricane season.

The disruption of Lousiana oil production seems like good reason to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. A far better reason than the discomfort of expensive gasoline. A disaster like this, which is one of the reasons for having the SPR, also reflects on the level of irresponsiblity in recent calls to tap it.

What I’m afraid to say out loud is that this seems normal from a natural perspective. It’s the bayou refreshing itself. This makes me wonder about long-term natural history of swamplands. It also makes me concerned that swamps want to be swamps, noting that Washington D.C. and my neighborhood (the East Village) were both swamps.

Also thinking about Mississippi’s massive Indian Mounds. If the area is historically prone to flooding, anyone who made a habit of creating higher ground had the right idea.

I’ve never seen anything like this advisory:

URGENT – WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA 413 PM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

…EXTREMELY DANGEROUS HURRICANE KATRINA CONTINUES TO APPROACH THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA…

…DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED…

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS…PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL…LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE…INCLUDING SOME
WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY…A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD…AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS…PETS…AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS…AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING…BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.

AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WATCH IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR HURRICANE FORCE…OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE…ARE POSSIBLE WITHIN THE NEXT 24 TO 36 HOURS.

Wikipedia’s Hurricane Katrina page is proving to be an exceptional resource for additional information.

(Via Jeff at Shape of Days)

Updated Feb 16, 2007, after a reddit link: Fixed formatting and pointed the first link to NOAA archive thanks to CB’s comment for the url, though a quick quick Google Search finds this text all over the place.

Yesterday I stumbled across this logic puzzle.

What always drives me crazy about stuff like this is that no one ever discusses the answer. I’ve never liked the implied wink wink smarty-pants attitude (see here). I want to know how someone arrives at the answer. What fascinates me is thinking, not trivia or secrets.

Here’s how I found the answer.

I don’t recall ever seeing this puzzle before and did not google it until I’d proven the results to myself. The puzzle is difficult, but I’ve posted answer at the end of the post, so you’ve been warned. The three little dots (∴) is the “therefore” symbol.

First I set up a 6×5 matrix of attributes then started highlighting and crossing out relevant details.

Then I got stuck.

Intuitively, I knew it all came down the Norwegian. This because we know he has only one neighbor. Everyone else can have one or two neighbors. Eventually, it came down to coffee (consumed and in clue 5).

The Puzzle:

There are five houses in a row in different colors. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. The five owners drink a different drink, smoke a different brand of cigar and keep a different pet, one of which is a Walleye Pike.

Who owns the fish?

The 15 clues:

1. The Brit lives in the red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets and gets their products from http://petstop.com/ all the time.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The green house is on the left of the white house.
5. The green house owner drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Malls keeps birds.
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhills.
8. The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk.
9. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
10. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the one who smokes Dunhills.
12. The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Princes.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.

The end of this puzzle will have five units, each with 6 attributes: {address, house color, nationality, drink, pet and smokes}

The data seems to break down into two types: Definitive data, that which defines an attribute directly within one unit. And relational data, which defines an attribute relative to another unit. Relational data often acts as a negating definition as well, showing what isn’t in a unit by describing what’s nearby.

Now stepping through the clues, definitive data related to nationality first:

1. The Brit lives in the red house.

Brit == red

2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.

Swede == dogs

3. The Dane drinks tea.

Dane == tea

10. The Norwegian lives in the first house.

Norwegian == 1st house

13. The German smokes Princes.

German == Princes

Next comes the secondary definitions. These can be used to reveal data which eliminates possible units based on what is already known:

5. The green house owner drinks coffee.

Coffee == Green ∴
Brit != coffee
Dane != Green

6. The person who smokes Pall Malls keeps birds.

Pall Malls == birds ∴
German != birds
Swede != Pall Malls

7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhills.

Yellow == Dunhills ∴
German != Yellow
Brit != dunhills

8. The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk.

Milk == 3rd House ∴
Norwegian != milk
Dane != 3rd House

12. The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.

Bluemasters = beer ∴
German != beer
Dane != Bluemasters

Many of the relational data clues reveal additional information about what a unit doesn’t have:

4. The green house is on the left of the white house.

Green = White’s address – 1

9. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.

Blends = Cat’s address ± 1 ∴
Blends != cats

11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the one who smokes Dunhills.

Horses = Dunhills’ address ± 1 ∴
Dunhills != horses
Horses != Yellow

14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.

Blue = 2nd house ∴
Brit != 2nd house
Norwegian != Blue

15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.

Blends = Water’s address ± 1 ∴
Blends != water

The fourteenth clue is one of the most important. Since we know the Norwegian lives in the 1st house (clue 10), we know that the blue house is number 2. Number 4 is a tricky one, there is no reason to believe that the green house is the first house, all we know is that the white house is on it’s left. Also, clues 9 and 15 could be referring to one or two neighbors.

It’s interesting that the clues sort out into three quintuplets.

Here’s where it starts to get really hard. All that is known for certain is what was defined in questions 1-3, 10 and 13. There remain three or four unknowns for each unit. What I’m looking for is the first link in a causality chain. Of course it’s probably not so much a chain as a loop, so looking for an end is futile. How about an onramp?

After several minutes of staring, and re-reading the clues, I got the chills (really!)

WARNING: THE ANSWER IS REVEALED BELOW

The green house drinks coffee. The center house drinks milk. So the center house is not green. But the Green house is on the left of the white house. Since we know the second house is blue, we then know that the first house is not green either. So the only place the green house can be is fourth, making the 5th white. Now is the first yellow, or is the first red?

The elimination steps above provide the answer. We know the Norwegian is in the first house, and the Brit is in the Red house. That means the Brit is in the red house in the middle, drinking milk, and the Norwegian’s house is yellow and he smokes Dunhills.

Whoa, more chills.

At this point, the whole things starts to fall together.

Clue 11 puts horses in the blue house.
Clue 3 means the Dane is not in the green house
Clue 15 puts Blends in the second house, and, with clue 9, water and cats in the first house.
etc. etc.

The Answer

Here’s the final breakdown:

The German has the fish and drinks coffee in the green house, which is fourth on the block.

That was fun.

I hate puzzles.

Update: Here’s a programmatic solution to “Einstein’s Riddle” and another walkthrough by James Yates.

Tuesday afternoon, the south facing wall of the building at 13th St and First Avenue buckled. A phalanx of NYFD trucks were onscene through the evening making sure the building wouldn’t collapse. I didn’t find out what happened until late this evening on my way back from the ECFCPUG get together. A construction crew was scaffolding the building while one police car stood by.

This corner is home to Mee Noodle Shop & Grill, an East Village institution. There were two handwritten signs posted about them being closed, their awnings were in a heap near the construction.

I’m somewhat heartsick about this. I’ve been eating at and ordering from Mee since probably sometime around 1998 (shortly after Ginsburg died) when Dave insisted I experience Chinese take out which didn’t suck. I know the waiters and the delivery men; the cashiers and cooks are all familiar and have been there for years. Those people all work as hard as I’ve ever seen anyone work. I’m worried about them and hope they’re able to absorb what will hopefully be a very short loss of income.

Every year for the past decade I’ve felt that I managed to accomplish more than I did previously. Throughout most of those years I couldn’t see how I could possibly do more than I was doing. But every year I did more. Until now.

The Laffer Curve has been in the news recently after the recent surge in US tax revenues. The Laffer Curve is a simple economic theory which shows that government revenues decrease when taxes are too high or too low. It points to a sweet spot where revenue is maximized by a tax rate that isn’t too low or too high.

The Laffer Curve of my life looks something like this:

Currently I’m on the right side the hump and have Too Much Going On. Time’s not being wasted, but my productivity, as measured by accomplishments, has fallen off a cliff.

Getting back to the place of maximum accomplishment will take some time, because I’ve got a lot of stuff I want to finish. So, the slogging will continue for now.

As I type this, Noemi is sleeping on my chest. Michelle is back at work full time and for the summer I’m taking care of the girls. Noemi five days a week, Lila and Noemi three days a week. When Noemi’s a little bit older she’ll join Lila on babysitter days. So until school starts again I’m doing my best to cram working time in between full-time daddy duties.

FCP 5 broke my FXScript compiler and I haven’t had a chance to fix it yet. While fixing it, I’m also porting it to AppleScript Studio, since that satisfies a near term and long term goal simultaneously. Once that is functional, which should be soon depending on available time (of which writing this is taking away from) I’ll release an updated beta of Joe’s Filters which will remove watermarks for registered users.

There’s plenty of other stuff dragging on me as well which I don’t want to waste time enumerating. Identifying demands helps a lot, but it’s still frustrating how long it takes to get anything done and how tired I am at night.