67 things I'll miss about Cambridge

This is quite a haphazard post but tonight is my last night as a resident of Cambridge, England so here's a list of things I like or will miss about living here. It's in no particular order other than starting with food and drink and switching into sights and experiences. 

The Free Press * Bruno's Brasserie * 22 Chesterton * The Veggie Van on Market Street * Jacket Potatoes from the Tram Stop * Cheese Toasties from The Pig * The Rice Boat * Friendly service at The Maharaja * The Cheese Shop in All Saints Passage * Indigo * Cambridge Real Ale Festival * The Flying Pig Pub * The Eagle * The Mill *St. Radegund Pub * Tea at the Orchard * Origin8 * Yippee Noodle * Hall at John's * Backstreet Bistro * Troeckle Ulmann & Freunde * Lunch at Lawyers * Kebabs from Effes * Decent Mexican at Manna Mexico * The Little Tea Shop (may it Rest in Peace) * Michaelhouse Cafe * Chelsea bun ice cream at Fitzbillies * Savino's Cafe * Salisbury Arms * Bangkok City * Saffron Brasserie * Cats on Portugal Place * Kettles Yard Gallery * Senate House Passage * Chimney Pots along Trinity Lane * Fellows Garden at Clare * Fitzwilliam Museum * Whale skeleton outside the Zoology Museum * Bridge of Sighs in St John's * Sculpture in Jesus College * Cambridge Botanical Garden * Kings College Chapel * Thatched cottages in Grantchester * Shops in Newnham * Old chestnut trees along the path in Jesus Green * Used Bookshops off Peas Hill * Orchard Street * The arcade and massive gate in New Court (St John's College) * The Heavy Metal bicyclist * Ducks wandering out of Emmanuel College * John's and Trinity Fireworks during May Week * Rose Crescent decorated with Christmas lights * Tourists filming rising bollards * Punting on the Cam * Watching punt traffic jams on the Cam * Crazy hippies going to Strawberry Fair * Roses in May * The busker in the trash can * Graduation processions to the Senate House * Baby Ducklings in the water off Jesus Green * Bumps * Picnics on The Backs * Cows mingling with people outside the Mill * Kissing gates on the way to Grantchester * Daffodils in Peterhouse in March * The Music man with singing dogs * The big issue salesman outside Sainsbury's * The Ivy turning on the back of New Court (John's) in Autumn

And what top list would be complete without a small section of opposites? So here are five things I definitely won't miss!

Tourist throngs * The pathetic Irish Flutist and misplaced Pan Pipe Street Musician * The Crapft Fair across from St. John's * Lion Yard * The country's most jam-packed Sainsbury's

Farewell Cambridge! (But we'll be visiting soon...)

Perils of Principles for Politicians

One of the more dramatic political stories this month was the news that David Davis, a Member of Parliament, resigned in protest over plans to extend detention of terrorist suspects up to 42 days. Whether or not you agree with the disputed legislation or the form of disagreement there's something refreshing about a politician who is willing to step down as a statement of principle. I am aware of a few other British government officials who had taken similar steps; Robin Cook resigned as leader of the House of Commons in March 2003 and a few months later Clare Short resigned from Tony Blair's cabinet over the Iraq war. Although not exactly a model politician, you could possible include George Galloway in the list of MPs willing to take a stand since his openly anti-war rhetoric led to expulsion from his own party. 

I was curious to contrast the resignations from Parliament with resignations from the US House and Senate. A quick Google search tells a very different story between American and British politicians.

• Senator Trent Lott resigned in 2007 over racially insensitive comments made at the birthday of a fellow Senator.
• Speaker of the House Tom Delay resigned in 2006 after being indicted on a charge of conspiracy.
• Representative Mark Foley resigned in 2006 after his raunchy IMs to teenage boys were uncovered.
• Senator Larry Craig submitted a resignation in 2007 after being arrested for lewd conduct in a Minneapolis airport bathroom.

It is unfair to judge a country's politicians by the resignation of a few, but it's hard to deny there is a pretty clear pattern here. Members of the US Congress have a tendency to fall afoul of societal norms and principles and lose their position as a result, while British politicians are keen to uphold a principle at the expense of their position.

Peeking out from under the news bubble

Before travelling to a new country, I like to set a Google alert on the name of the country to get a sense of its big news stories. I've written before about how shockingly little information appears on the web about some countries, but I've finally found some evidence about why this happens. Alisa Miller, head of Public Radio International, gave a great talk at TED 2007 on the subject of news coverage. The image below sums up the essence of her presentation by showing the number of seconds of American network and cable news coverage devoted to each country. Beyond the graphics she also highlighted some depressing stats like the fact that coverage of Russia, China, and India (over 1/3 of the world's population) produced just one percent of the news coverage. More embarassingly, the death of Anna Nicole Smith recieved more coverage than any foreign country except Iraq. 

While it would be easy to blame this on a "dumbed down" audience, Miller rightly highlights that national celebrity stories are a lot cheaper to cover especially as foreign bureaus are eliminated and entire continents (Africa and South America) are left with no network presence. I had assumed that online coverage might be more robust but Miller noted that the 14,000+ stories on Google News homepage only covered 24 unique stories. 

I'm optimisitic that online tools will eventually find a way to present better coverage about what's going on in the world. A company like Silobreaker has made some good efforts to elevate a broader set of news and add more context through visualisations. I supect that meta-analysis of a service like FriendFeed could yield a personalised, but not narrow, news service. I can't object to people wanting lots of news about Anna Nicole Smith but if the existing news services can't produce a more diverse picture then I hope some new companies will.

And the Dakotas fend off kitsch country music from the South…

I was a tad disappointed to discover that I missed the annual rehashing of European alliances through gratuitous key changes and gaudy costumes, better known to some as Eurovision. I was totally uninitiated to this spectacle until I moved to the UK, but I have come to enjoy the absurdity of the event as long as it's consumed along with a generous sprinkling of kind words from Terry Wogan. Despite missing the live show I was happy to discover some quality kitsch entries from this year featuring robot dancing for a live chicken (thanks Bosnia & Herzegovina!), feathered men singing falsetto (thanks Azerbaijan!), and dancing pirates (thanks Latvia!).

One entertaining aspect is the fierce alliances (and enmities) that appear between countries during the voting. Turkey and Armenia are usually loathe to honor each other while Scandinavian and Balkan countries are almost always reciprocal in their vote sharing and Cyprus and Greece have awarded each other the highest number of points in every year of the competition. This has made me wonder what an AmericaVision Song Contest would look like. Would there be bastions of country music voting in the south and would the Dakotas always vote for each other? Would California or New York be punished like Britain for producing a majority of real bands? And if Ukraine can muster a tin-foil wrapped drag queen what boundaries would be pushed by Americans? Who knows if the US will ever pull this off but I would definitely like to see it - especially if Terry Wogan is commenting.

Painting with Gunpowder

This weekend I went to the Cai Guo-Quiang exhibition at the Guggenheim. I had never heard of this artist before but really liked some of his pieces. The entire atrium is filled with an installation that looks like a time lapse photo of a bomb sending a car flying through the air (but is actually real cars suspended from the ceiling). Another installation involved life sized tigers and rocks which visitors walked through as if they had entered the drawing on a Chinese scroll. 

The most notable aspect of Cai Guo-Quiang is his "paintings" where he uses explosives to create images. He works by laying fuse cord against heavy paper and interspersing fireproof layers with gunpowder (video below). I was underwhelmed by his early paintings which, to be honest, sometimes just looked like industrial accidents but his later works were elegant and detailed. One exceptional painting was a bird landing on a pine tree where the needles and feathers were outlined by the fringes of explosive marks. 

Regardless of personal preferences for the explosive pieces it was obvious that Cai was creative and innovative. It was also encouraging to see that he had the opportunity to improve and refine this technique to create some impressive works that were not just production novelties. 

This made me think about entrepreneurs and startups who are innovative and game changing but never get the opportunity to see their creation succeed. It seems almost a rule that the company that develops something totally new will not succeed or profit from their inventions. Everyone knows YouTube, but who remembers ShareYourWorld.com? Or who still uses Friendster in the face of Facebook? Perhaps I'm naive in the world of art and maybe there are artists that develop innovative techniques only to see them co-opted more successfully be others. However, it seems like the art world is willing to place value on brilliant ideas but the business world has a brutal memory that only recalls the financial successes.

Killer Cassette Tapes

This weekend I was at the house of a friend who has an old fashioned vinyl record collection. I got a laugh when I found this insert (photo below) in one of the albums. It's sad that the music industry perpetually hounds its customers not to share products that they enjoy. Can you imagine if publishers included bookmarks in every book warning that sharing novels kills the industry and harms authors? Ironically, it's the tapes that have died and the music industry that keeps thriving. 

Bath, England

Over the bank holiday weekend, Becky and I spent three days in Bath. Here's the quick rundown. Highlights:

• Stonehenge: Big rocks rock. I wonder what archaeologists will think 5000 years in the future when they see a stone circle surrounded by a circular path walked by hundreds of thousands of visitors each year and situated near the crossroads of two highways. Somehow I suspect that "pilgrims" and "tourists" look devilishly similar in the archaeological record.
• Roman Baths: Interesting museum complex with cool catwalks over the excavated temples.
• American Museum: Yes, it's odd for an American to visit this museum in Britain, but it was intriguing to revisit years of history classes in a single museum. It's a stark reminder that any sort of national museum is massively distilled, but the displays were well designed so we still found it engaging.
• Food: Not sure if this is specific to Bath or a fluke of better planning than normal, but we went to some really good restaurants. Two favorites were Demuths (desert: poached pears with lemon mascarpone cheese and sprinkled with crunchy honeycomb and fresh thyme - sounds crazy but the flavor was totally unique and very good) and The Fine Cheese Co (lunch: unpasteurized cheddar and chutney sandwich - simple and tasty).

Other sights included Bath Abbey, The Royal Crescent, Museum at Number 1 Royal Crescent (good), Building of Bath Museum (eh), Great Pulteney Street, various public gardens, and the closed doors of several sights that didn't bother to open on Bank Holiday Monday. This segues nicely to lowlights of the trip:

• Bath Rugby Team Party: The Bath Rugby team had a party in the garden next door to the hotel. And they had a DJ playing outside until 1:30am. And the police showed up but couldn't shut it down because it was the responsibility of the environmental agency to address sound complaints. HUH?
• Manual train switching: I love National Rail when it works. But when it doesn't it's a pain. Immediately after leaving London we were informed the train required "manual switching" which I don't know what that means but it resulted in us driving at about 10 mph and arriving an hour and a half late.
• Bath Spring Water: Healing properties be damned! The stuff tastes like stagnant well-water filtered with dirt.

Sorry I burned your money

The last episode of This American Life concluded with an entertaining bit about the parodies that have been created from William Carlos Williams' poem/half-hearted-apology This is Just to Say.  I'm not normally a consumer of poetry but I found this particularly entertaining.  I think there's something to be said for hearing a poem instead of reading it that really makes it stick.  Or maybe it was that tiny drop of sarcasm.   

Sorry But it was Beautiful by Andrew Vecchione

Sorry I took your money and burned it
    but it looked like the world falling
    apart when it crackled and burned.
So I think it was worth it after all
    you can't see the world fall apart
    every day.

George versus Patrick

If it weren't for the doodle on google.co.uk, I wouldn't have known that today is St. George's Day.  Perhaps I should have figured it out when I saw a throng of guys in faux chain mail sword fighting on my way home.  Come to think of it, I had no idea that St. George is the patron saint of England until I moved here. 

Contrast that with St Patrick, the Irish equivalent, who manages to get extra special attention in Seattle, Cambridge, and just about any city I've been in on March 17th.  Maybe there's something to be said for the enthusiasm of the Irish diaspora but that doesn't explain why St Paddy's day gets more attention than St George's day in England.  Or maybe there's something to be said for the fact Guinness spends millions on ads in the US but you would be hard pressed to find a pint of Carling or Green King.  I'm not quite sure what makes one holiday more celebrated than another but it sure seems that George got a raw deal.

Techno Bedouins

This week the Economist ran an interesting special report on mobility. When I first downloaded the podcast and saw the title "Mobility" I thought this was about social mobility or perhaps even physical mobility (obesity epidemic crimps range of human motion?). The article actually focuses on the impact of pervasive connectivity on topics as diverse as work, architecture, language, activism, and social interaction.

The phrase "digital nomad" was repeatedly used in the article and one variation, "techno Bedouin," struck a chord with me. I was reminded of a friend who spent a season doing archeological work in Petra and lived in a Bedouin village during that time. You may be thinking "Bedouins? In villages? Contradiction!" But the Bedouins in that area were given homes by the government and forced to settle. One unexpected problem with this forced settlement was garbage. The society previously traveled to consume natural supplies where they were produced and disposed of their rubbish as they moved. With settlement, suddenly food needed more packing to be brought to them and the traditional trash disposal resulted in piles of garbage.

So what does this have to do with techno Bedouins? It's a reminder to ask what is the "trash" that no one considers when we switch from a settled to technomadic existence. I think The Economist actually touched on one of the problems: constant connectivity has placed a premium on speed of response over quality. We start spending so much time consuming and acknowledging information that no time is spent to ponder broader trends or think critically about the data we see.

I find the constant connectivity to be maddening at times but there is a silver lining. I suspect there’s a positive impact on the subject that I originally thought this report covered: social mobility. As opposed to one or two decades ago when only a subset of society could be constantly connected (think early cell phones or PDAs), now everyone has access to mobile technology, even in the developing world. More importantly, the real value of information is now about interpretation rather than access. And unlike access to data, interpretation only requires brainpower which is quite an equitably distributed resource.

Two Cents about Three Dollars

Every year at tax time, I happily tick the box to allocate $3 of my federal taxes to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund. I've had a vague idea that this was a valuable bit of support for public funding of the presidential elections. It doesn't cost the taxpayer anything extra and any effort to reduce the tyranny of fundraising on the campaign trail must be positive.

Today I came across an article in slate that gave me second thoughts about this donation. First off, I was reminded that McCain and Obama may reject these funds because they can avoid spending caps if they rely on private donations. That could result in $168 million sitting untouched in a Treasury Department account until 2012 (assuming the next presidental campaign took public money). Secondly, the Slate article suggested that about $16 million would go towards each nominating convention. I'm not a fan of pumping more money into these events which seem to be all spectacle and no substance. Why not adopt the British model of an annual party conference which keeps discussion of issues fresh and makes it harder to forget what was said last time around?

It's a moot point this year as my taxes are already mailed off but definitely food for thought for next year.

The Orphanage

I highly recommend going to see The Orphanage even if you don't typically like horror/suspense movies. The story was solid and it was almost entirely free of gratuitous violence while still delivering some serious shocks. And, it has legitimate movie "credentials" because it's in a foreign language, right?

I do need to thank the man sitting in front of us who broke the tension by delivering a LOUD I've-been-smacked-in-the-gut grunt at one of the scariest moments which sent laughter through the theater.

The Cosmic IQ Test

Yesterday I came across an inspirational nugget while listening to one of Stanford's Entrepreneurial Thought Leader podcasts.  I was about fifty minutes through the discussion of Angel Investing when this anecdote caught my attention.  The only context you need to know is that this guy is speaking to a lecture hall full of Stanford students.  (Note that this is my rough transcription of the speaker so I'd encourage you to listen to the audio version here starting at 50:55)

     A couple months ago I was walking through the airport really early in the morning and the TSA guy goes to me "How are ya doin'?" And I said "Great. How are you doing?"  And he goes "What does it look like?  I'm livin' the dream!" 

     At that point this epiphany came over me that if you go to Stanford University, you're in the rare position of privilege that you'll pretty much get to choose what you do in life.  And that puts you in less than 1% of the world.  And so [those of you in this position] have no excuse in life not to do things that you're passionate about.  There are a lot of people that will never get to and so if you do something you're not passionate about, you're flunking a cosmic IQ test.  You can learn that IQ test now or you can learn it when you're 40 and miserable in a job you don't like -but in the end you know what your passion is.  And when people and forces in the world try to prevent you from doing it turn off the noise and the hype and believe yourself, because so few people do and it's just tragic - anyone who comes out of this experience who is not doing something they're excited about - it's just a tragedy of their own making. 

Given my recent frustrations with work this was a good kick in the rear for me.  It's a bit elitist to say this only applies to students from one particular university, but I think if you were to select any reasonably educated westerner from the total global population it's likely they're in a similarly privileged position.  It's good to have a reminder that not everyone has the ability to pursue their passion so for those who have the ability but don't use it that's a big shame.

Dublin, Ireland

This past weekend we went to Dublin to see my cousin who's at TCD for the semester. Here's the quick rundown of the trip:

Highlights

• National Museum of Archeology and History - You probably think this sounds lame. But you probably don't know about bog bodies. They have a great exhibit with several well preserved humans from over 2000 years ago. If there was any question that life back then was nasty, brutish, and short then the disturbing array of fates these people met certainly proves it.


• Book of Kells - The exhibition is poorly laid out but the book itself is amazing. Thankfully there weren't too many people so we got a good look at the detailing.


• Cabbies - Maybe just dumb luck, but three of the four cabs we took had entertaining drivers. They wanted to talk about everything from the US presidential election to yuppies standing in line for clubs.


• Scotsmen - Not exactly a fixture in Dublin, but we happened to be here for the Ireland v Scotland Six Nations match and kilt wearing bag pipers were out in force. I was surprised how genteel the rivalry was. A Scotland fan crashed a pub we were at to deliver some rugby chants and a brief bagpipe song and he only recieved some good natured ribbing.

Other sights on the trip included the Guiness Factory Tour (naturally), The Chester Beatty Library, St Stephen's Green, and the National Gallery of Ireland.

Lowlights:

• Ryanair - Our 8pm flight didn't end up leaving until about midnight. Let's just say that it's not very fun to wait in a closed airport for four hours.


• Dublin Castle - It's likely you could walk by this building and not even know it's a castle.