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Slam Dunk


I fail to see why this is news. Everyone was in on this, Mr.Tenet is just trying to sell books I say.


The Future of Car











The BMW Concept CS, unveiled at the Shanghi Auto Show. I think this "four door coupe" looks far more satisfying than the Mercedes-Benz CLS.


Zeitgeist
Don't you just love Web2.0? Ublog now sports my LibraryThing, Last.fm, Flixster and Flickr widgets!! Oh so much fun it is to share exactly what I'm reading, listening to, watching and photographing :)


Happiness


I've been mulling over a post on the inherent inconsistency of the concept of paradise but haven't gotten around to putting my thoughts down on paper yet. Meanwhile, Cato Unbound has an article on the futility of trying to achieve a state of continuous bliss. This is broadly my own view - I don't think it is possible for us as human beings to stay ecstatic for very long periods of time, for, it seems to me that happiness is relevant in context and vivid only when it is juxtaposed with periods of calm or even suffering. The Cato Unbound article discusses this issue at length and I'd recommend reading it in full. A selection follows.
[...]
Thus, one of the most striking developments in Western societies over the last several hundred years is the steady expansion of the hope and expectation of happiness in this life. Concomitant with this expansion has been the steady erosion of other ways of conceiving of life’s purpose and end. If other ways of doing so have not been entirely abandoned — there are those who still live for virtue, honor, one’s homeland, or family name — in a world that places a premium on good feeling and positive emotion, these other ends have nowhere near the power to channel and constrain our choices that they once did. The same may be said of religion — long considered the ultimate end — but which today, even in places like the United States, where religious observance remains strong, is more often than not treated as a means to a better and happier life. The American author of the 1767 True Pleasure, Cheerfulness, and Happiness, The Immediate Consequence of Religion was undoubtedly ahead of his time.[10] And yet only decades later, that famous observer of the young republic, Alexis de Tocqueville, found it difficult to be sure when listening to American preachers “whether the main object of religion is to procure eternal felicity in the next world or prosperity in this.”[11] Today, when not only Protestants, but Catholics, Jews, Buddhists, and Muslims regularly offer their faiths in America as effective means to earthly happiness, it is more difficult still to discern religion’s main object. In a sense, they too serve the greatest of the modern gods, the most uljavascript:void(0)
Publishtimate of ultimate ends: the god of good feeling, who now reigns here below.
[...]


Note Photo from at DaveWard at Flickr

Update 1, April 6 2007 The article link to CATO Unbound no longer seems active and I can't find the essay in the archives either. I'll update the link if I can find it.

Update 2 April 7 2007 The mysterious disappearance of the The Pursuit of Happiness in Perspective has been explained. Thank you Will!

Update 3 April 9 2007 The article I was referring to in this post is now available.

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Book Review: Forbidden Colors by Yukio Mishima



Yukio Mishima was one of Japan's most prolific writers in the past century and is well known for his The Sound of Waves amongst other works. I've just finished reading Forbidden Colors in a translation by Alfred H. Marks.

Forbidden Colors is the story of Yuichi Minami, a young Japanese student whose beauty overpowers everyone who sees him, irrespective of their sexual leanings. Yuichi is gay and harbors a deep hatred for the strictly heterosexual culture he finds himself in. With the encouragement and guidance of Shunsuke Hinoki, a retired novelist, he marries Yasuko, a young beautiful woman Shunsuke was involved with before she met Yuichi. Yuichi's beauty allows him to carry on simultaneous (asexual) affairs with several different women while also enjoying the indulgence of practically every gay man he meets at Rudon's, an underground gay bar.

Shunsuke's relationship with Yuichi and the young man's overall personality is reminscent of Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, and like his victorian counterpart Yuichi is a difficult character to feel any sympathy for. Even though Yuichi feels frustrated about the constraints he finds himself in he never exhibits any tenderness or love for anyone at all. Throughout the length of the book he continues to exploit everyone around him, from Shunsuke, who believes he's using Yuichi to avenge the affronts handed over to him by younger women, to Yuichi's silently suffering wife Yasuko.

If you've enjoyed The Picture of Dorian Gray then you'll probably enjoy Forbidden Colors. I certainly did. Recommended.

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H-1B Cap For FY2008 Reached In One Day
The USCIS announced today that the H-1B cap for FY2008 was reached on the first working day that applications were accepted, Monday April 2nd 2007. From the notice posted on the USCIS site -

As of late Monday afternoon (April 2), USCIS had received approximately 150,000 cap-subject H-1B petitions. USCIS must perform initial data entry for all filings received on April 2 and April 3 prior to conducting the random selection process. In light of the high volume of filings, USCIS will not be able to conduct the random selection for several weeks.


This is incredible, they received a 150 thousand applications on the very first day, and they will randomly select 65000 from the total received on April 2nd and 3rd, which means the probability of getting a work visa is less than 30%. Where are all these applications coming from though? From the various mailing lists I'm on I get the impression a huge percentage of these applications will be filed for contractors. The contractor system is something I've completely failed to grapple with so far. Most big firms hire short term contractors for specialized projects, paying hundreds of dollars per hour for these supposedly highly skilled engineers and analysts. The ground reality however, is quite different. There is an entire ecosystem of contractors and sub-contractors called dallas (slang for pimp) who train fresh graduates for a few months on tools like CrystalReports and Documentum, then create resumes showing several years of experience and get these graduates placed. Amazingly, this crackpot system works - the engineer ends up getting a tiny fraction of the actual billing rate and the rest gets distributed amongst the layers of dallas he's had to go through to get the job. There is no doubt in my mind that the deluge of applications received by the USCIS is driven in no small measure by these very unscrupulous firms.



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