Newsweek: A Highly Logical Approach

Interview with Barack Obama
Newsweek, May 25, 2009

And the last movie you saw?
Now, movies I’ve been doing OK [with] because it turns out we got this nice theater on the ground floor of my house … So Star Trek, we saw this weekend, which I thought was good. Everybody was saying I was Spock, so I figured I should check it out and—[the president makes the Vulcan salute with his hand].

Very good.
Yes, absolutely.

Did you watch that when you were growing up?
I used to love Star Trek. You know, Star Trek was ahead of its time. There was a whole—the special effects weren’t real good, but the storylines were always evocative, you know, there was a little commentary and a little pop philosophy for a 10-year-old to absorb.

A lot of U.N. stuff.
Yes, exactly, right.

Big ups to Andy Raskin!

Big ups to my buddy Andy Raskin, whose memoir The Ramen King and I: How the Inventor of Instant Noodles Fixed My Love Life has just been released.

I attended a reading of his at Booksmith last night in the Lower Haight.

But don’t worry, he’s on tour in SF and points beyond this month and throughout the summer. Check his site for details.

Andy wrote and produced one of my all-time favorite pieces of radio — on the subject of Ramen Jiro in Tokyo — which aired on NPR’s All Things Considered on January 19, 2004.

Congrats, Andy!

May 12: Cyrus on PRI’s The World

Dear Friends,

I’ve been informed that my radio piece on the Roxana Saberi case is airing today. This piece will focus on the political context of her arrest and release and includes interviews with Omid Memarian, Hadi Ghaemi and Roozbeh Mirebrahimi.

It will be available on any of these stations (and their Internet streams):

NYC – 3 pm Eastern – WNYC – 820 AM – www.wnyc.org
Washington, DC – 8 pm Eastern – WAMU – 88.5 FM – www.wamu.org
Los Angeles – 12 pm Pacific – KPCC – 89.3 FM – www.kpcc.opg
Boston – 4 pm Eastern – WGBH – 89.7 FM – www.wgbh.org
San Francisco – 2 pm Pacific – KQED – 88.5 FM – www.kqed.org

You can also find it on The World’s site later in the day and on my site if you miss the broadcast.

Also, don’t forget about The World’s Tech Podcast, hosted by my boss, Clark Boyd. It comes out every Friday.

Lemme know if you hear it!

Update: Audio is here.

NYT: Iran Releases Journalist Convicted of Spying for U.S.

NYT:

May 12, 2009
Iran Releases Journalist Convicted of Spying for U.S.

By NAZILA FATHI
The New York Times

TEHRAN— An Iranian-American journalist who was sentenced to eight years of jail on spying charges for Washington was released Monday after an appeal court reduced the sentence, her lawyer said.

Saleh Nikbakht, one of the two lawyers who defended Roxana Saberi in an appeal hearing on Sunday, said the court turned down the original jail term and issued a two-year suspended prison term in its place.

“The verdict was given to me in person today,” Mr. Nikbakht said. “The appeals court has accepted our defense.”

Ms. Saberi had been held in Evin prison since January. The court ruling meant that she can leave the country immediately if she decides to, Mr. Nikbakht said as he awaited her release with Ms. Saberi’s parents, who live in Fargo, North Dakota, another lawyer for Ms. Saberi, and a crowd of journalists and photographers.

Mr. Nikbakht gave no further details about her release or her plans. But her father, Reza Saberi, told The Associated Press: “In the next few days, we will make travel plans to return home.”

First week back

Since arriving back on Monday, I’ve done the following:

– Had a burrito at El Ojo de Agua with Becky, Joe, Alan, and Boyk!
– Had a beer at Jupiter with David Sasaki
– Had breakfast with Evgeny Morozov
– Went to an A’s game
– Had post-baseball tacos at Tacos Sinaloa
– Had lunch with Luukas Ilves
– Interviewed Vint Cerf for Wired Italia, where I met Christopher LaMarca
– Saw Nous Non Plus last night at the Rickshaw Stop with Esme, Gary and Damien
– Going to see Star Trek tonight!

Also, I’ve got some stuff for sale: an 12″ iBook G3 and an iPod mini and some other stuff.>

Update: Both items sold!

Adieu, Lyon!

Well, our seven-month contract here in Lyon has finally come to a close. We’ve had ups and downs, like with anything — but overall, Becky and I agree that we’ve had a fantastic time. We’ve made some wonderful friends, and have had a chance to experience a taste of French and European life.

Things I’ll miss about Lyon:

1) People!

Big thanks go out to Wolf, Rebecca, Romix, Lucy, Loïc, Brad, Nicole, Birgit, Clément, Didier, and many others who made our time here unforgettable. We can’t wait to see you guys again soon!

2) Size!

Lyon has the trappings of a big city, but in reality it’s not that big. Wikipedia will tell you that the city itself has a population of under 500,000 — and yet’s it’s the second (or third, depending who you ask) biggest city in France. What that means is I can bike from our suburb of Villeurbanne to downtown Lyon (around five kilometers) in 20-30 minutes or so. It makes the city very livable.

3) Beauty!

Those Romans were some smart dudes. In addition to building lots of awesome stuff all over the place, the Romans were smart enough to found Lugdunum, the city that we now call Lyon. It’s famous for being the place where the Rhône and the Saône intersect. It’s got hills and flatland and everything you could possibly want.

4) Markets! (and Food!)

Back in January I made a Google Map of the street markets of Lyon and Villeurbanne. I couldn’t possibly have hit all of them — the best ones were the ones that I just happened to stumble on at the right time. Definitely though, Croix-Rousse takes the cake. We’ve done our best to sample the local food, from high-brow bouchons, to the low-brow kebab place called “Casa di Tacos.” Not to mention delicious bread and pastries on nearly every corner. Our favorite bakery in town is on the corner of Cours Vitton and Rue de la Tête d’Or (M: Masséna), with our local favorite within walking/biking distance of the apartment is Boulangerie Jacquier. We’ve enjoyed quenelles, sausage, countless cheeses, and an astonishing amount of cheap and good wine. Plus, a few surprises, like Ninkasi beer, and the cha shu bao bought from the Vietnamese grocer on Rue Passet.

5) Vélo’v!

Especially in the last month now that the weather has been gorgeous, I’ve been Vélo’ving everywhere. 5€ got me a subscription to participate in the famed bike sharing program. This type of system only works because there’s about 350 stations all over the city and immediate suburbs. Within a three block radius of our house, there’s four that I can think of without even trying. San Francisco, Washington DC, you guys really need to get on this — and stop dicking around with this 10 station nonsense. Lyon has over 300! You gotta have that many to make it worthwhile.

6) Games!

“Moi, je m’en fous je triche” (I don’t care, I’m cheating) is a fantastic local game club. Among our American circle of friends, we called it the “game bar” (often sung to the tune of this Electric Six tune: “Gay Bar”). Locals just call it “La Triche.” You pay 6€/yr (September to September) for an annual subscription and then you have access to 800 games. The spot, which is staffed entirely by volunteers, is open every day (except Monday) — and it feels like going to your geeky board game friend’s basement.

Just as burritos, beer and Catan are a favorite weekend activity for us in Oakland, this was the next best thing. Catan still dominated, but we also took on Carcassonne, Puerto Rico a couple of times. We’ve also been fascinated by watching people play “Cash N’ Guns“.

La Triche is also the host to Lyon’s famed “Pacman @ Lyon,” which I really hope to bring to California. If you come here to play, say hi to Clément and tell him I sent you.

Oakland, here we come! Becky arrives on Sunday evening, while I get there Monday afternoon.

Lyon WiFi Cafés

Here’s a quick list of my favorite four WiFi cafés in Lyon. At two of them (except Lipstick and Pamplune), you have to ask for the WiFi code at the bar, but it’s still free and it won’t expire after 30 minutes or anything stupid like that. Feel free to leave your favorites in the comments!

1) Le Voxx
1, Rue Algérie
M: Hôtel de Ville

Le Voxx (pictured above) is my favorite WiFi café in town. First it’s got a beautiful view of the Saône. Second, you can’t beat the atmosphere, power plugs (there’s one on the street level, a few in the back, and more in the lower level). During winter they have fantastic mulled wine (vin chaud), and around lunchtime they always have cheap sandwiches and other fancy items like fresh lasagna or salads or whatever.

2) Lipstick
19, Rue Désirée
M: Hôtel de Ville

This café is a close second to the Voxx. There’s a nice little vibe and they have great booths if you’re staying for lunch. If not, they’re happy to let you sit at the bar and check your email or do whatever else. Most of the booth tables have power plugs.

3) Pamplune Cafe
31, quai Victor Augagneur
M: Guillotière

This is a small gem of a café that’s easy to miss. It’s decked out in rugby and bullfighting paraphernalia, and other than the fact that the owner often has the TV on to sports or music channels, it’s not a bad joint. There’s one power plug in the corner by the window.

4) Cafe Carnot
4, Place Carnot
M: Perrache

This place is run by a friendly Corsican dude — scope the Moor’s Head above the entrance — and is a nice place to hang out if you’re meeting friends at the Wednesday evening market in Place Carnot, or waiting for a train, or have just finished walking down rue Victor Hugo. I believe there’s a single outlet in the rear corner, opposite the bar.

Meet David X. Li and the formula that killed Wall Street

So this is the math that’s wreaked havoc on the global economy.

Wired’s got a great story about David X. Li, the Chinese-born mathematician whose formula (above) was largely responsible for the financial meltdown — or at least the global misuse and abuse of this formula and its dangerous assumptions.

From the piece:

[In 2000,] Li wrote a model that used price rather than real-world default data as a shortcut (making an implicit assumption that financial markets in general, and CDS markets in particular, can price default risk correctly).

It was a brilliant simplification of an intractable problem. And Li didn’t just radically dumb down the difficulty of working out correlations; he decided not to even bother trying to map and calculate all the nearly infinite relationships between the various loans that made up a pool. What happens when the number of pool members increases or when you mix negative correlations with positive ones? Never mind all that, he said. The only thing that matters is the final correlation number—one clean, simple, all-sufficient figure that sums up everything.

You can download Li’s paper, “On Default Correlation: A Copula Function Approach,” here.

Other media outlets have been covering Li too:

CBC: Was David Li the guy who ‘blew up Wall Street?’ (April 9, 2009)

Financial Times: Of couples and copulas (April 24, 2009)

The Wall Street Journal: Slices of Risk: How a Formula Ignited Market that Burned Some Big Investors (September 12, 2005)

So where is Li now?

Reports the CBC:

These days Li, 45, is in China, the country where he was born, keeping a low profile. He heads the risk-management department of China International Capital Corporation in Beijing.

The company won’t make him available for interviews. But according to friends, Li is said to be “sheepish” about all the trouble he has caused.