Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here.

Two months in Ottawa

Unibrou glass

Today, it seems like a good idea to provide a brief personal update, rather than a few hundred substantive words on a random topic. Life at the moment is quite heavily dominated by work – which is proving to be interesting, as well as important. I have finished one big project already, and have moved on to a collection of smaller things. At the moment, I am digging out my hazy recollections of parabolic functions and calculus. My co-workers are engaging and helpful and, while I remain largely ignorant about the mechanisms by which this organization functions, much of what I studied as an undergrad and master’s student is directly applicable to the work we do. There seems to be a reasonable chance of converting my one year contract into an indefinite position, on the basis of a competition taking place during the next few months.

My level of integration into Ottawa life is roughly where it was a month ago, though I will hopefully be getting a bike on Saturday and I have joined the Ottawa Hostel Outdoor Club. Once my membership materials arrive, I am hoping to start doing some weekend hikes with them, with the possibility of cross country skiing later in the year. Having met so few friends here thusfar is frustrating, though it has been as much a product of my time usage as anything else. Until I have a reasonable circle of Ottawa friends who I didn’t know before coming here, I don’t think I will really feel like I live in this city.

In mid-October, it seems as though Tristan and Meaghan will be coming to visit me, which should be excellent. Having Emily here back in August was amazing. At the end of the October, I am going to a conference in Montreal, then staying for the weekend. For Christmas, I hope I will get the chance to spend a reasonable amount of time in Vancouver. It seems unlikely that any substantial quantity of work is going to be ongoing at that time, anyhow.

Unlocking cars with computers

Back in the day when the original Palm Pilot was a hot new piece of technology, I remember BMW and a number of other car companies started selling cars with a keyless entry system based on an infrared transmitter in a key fob, just like a television remote control. Unfortunately, whatever sort of protocol the system used for authentication was quickly undermined and the Palm Pilot’s infrared transmitter suddenly became a key to all manner of expensive new automobiles.

Something similar has happened again. The KeeLoq system, used in the keyless entry systems of most car manufacturers, has been cracked by computer security researchers. A PDF of their research paper is online. The attack requires about one hour of radio communication with the key, which could be done surreptitiously while the owner is in an office or restaurant. The cryptographic analysis involved takes about a day and produces a ‘master key’ that can actually open a number of different cars. Having collected a large number of such master keys, it would be possible to intercept a single transmission between a key and a car (say, when someone is parking), identify the correct master key, and open the door in seconds. While this will not start the car – and there are certainly other methods available for breaking into one – it does create a risk for theft of objects inside cars in a way that shows no signs of forced entry. In many such cases, claiming insurance compensation is difficult.

Of course, mechanical locks also have their failings. One important difference has to do with relative costs. Making a physical, key-based access control system more secure probably increases the cost for every single unit appreciably. By contrast, improving the cryptography for a system based on an infrared or radio frequency transmission probably involves a one-off software development cost, with negligible additional costs per unit. As such, it is especially surprising that the KeeLoq system is so weak.

Not so jolly: the economics of gift giving

Victoria Island, Ottawa

As anyone who has ever been disappointed by what they found under the wrapping paper knows, gift-giving can lead to the misallocation of resources. Gift givers misanticipate the value a particular thing will have for the recipient, and thus devote more resources to the purchase than the recipient would. Joel Waldfogel, writing in The American Economic Review back in 1993 discussed this and other related economic issues in a notorious article called “The Deadweight Loss of Christmas.” (Available through JSTOR and Google Scholar)

Imperfect knowledge and non-ideal choices

The paper includes the gloomy conclusion that “gift giving destroys between 10 percent and a third of the value of gifts.” On this basis, the paper estimates that the deadweight loss of holiday giving in the United States in 1992 was between $4 billion and $13 billion. The article does note one possible saving grace: when recipients are ill informed about the existence of things they might enjoy, a gift can be worth more than a transfer of the equivalent quantity of cash. Of course, providing the cash and the information would achieve the same effect, without the risk that the choice will be different from what the recipient would have done with the money themself.

Gifts from friends and significant others are most efficient (largely because they know the preferences of the recipient best), while “noncash gifts from members of the extended family” are most likely to be valued by the recipient at less than their cost of purchase. Recipients value gifts from friends at 98.8% of their actual value, while those from significant others are valued at 91.7%. Parents and siblings give gifts worth 85% of their cost, while aunts and uncles manage only 64.4% and 62.9%, respectively. These conclusions were reached largely on the basis of surveys given to Yale undergraduates (favourite targets for psychological and economic experiments). Waldfogel notes that a social stigma can exist against giving cash gifts, but it is weakest where aunts, uncles, and grandparents are concerned – not coincidentally, the least effective choosers of gifts.

The thought counts

I have a more wide-ranging response of my own. Thankfully, there is a phenomena that partially offsets imperfect gift choice losses: the extent to which the very status of something as a gift increases its value in the eyes of the recipient. I can think of scores of cases where a product or service that would not have been particularly gratifying if purchased for myself was especially welcome and meaningful when received from someone else. In many cases, this creates utility significantly greater than that which could be achieved through personal spending of an equivalent sum.

I was reminded of all this when I saw Waldgofel’s article mentioned on Marginal Revolution, an interesting economics blog.

Some respite for bluefins

As of today, the European Commission has banned the fishing of Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus thynnus) in the Mediterranean and Eastern Atlantic. Good for them, though it is a bit late. Stocks of this impressive and long-lived creature have already been decimated globally.

[Update: 21 September 2007] Jennifer Jacquet has more about this, over on Shifting Baselines.

[Update: 2 December 2007] Shifting Baselines has even more on this.

A (very) partial response to David Suzuki

Last night, I saw David Suzuki speak at a conference on health and the environment. To my surprise, I was far from impressed with most of what he said. He essentially presented a false binary: conspicuous consumption on the one hand, or the preservation of pristine nature on the other. While I certainly acknowledge that a lot of consumption is unnecessary, that doesn’t mean that all sacrifices are of the same moral variety as him choosing not to fly to Australia.

The view that pesticides should not be used in farming was broadly echoed. No doubt, there can be abuse of pesticides and there is a human and ecological cost associated with employing them. That said, it hardly seems that we can take a message of pesticide abandonment to a world of six billion, in which one and a half billion live in extreme poverty. Calling for an end to economic growth means something rather different in Canada than it does in Brazil or Bangladesh or Bolivia. Likewise, not everyone in Canadian society can switch to more ecological (and expensive) options while making only trivial sacrifices.

As a public relations figure, Suzuki obviously has to simplify his messages and present things in a form that is fairly easily repeated and absorbed. That said, the parks-versus-SUVs form of environmentalism doesn’t have much chance of being relevant outside the thinking of a privileged global elite.

The God Delusion and god is not Great

War Museum stained glass

Comparing Christopher Hitchens‘ new book god is not Great with Richard Dawkins‘ recent The God Delusion seems only natural. Hitchens engages in much more direct textual criticism – an activity that Dawkins equates to discussing the history and habits of fairies with well credentialed fairyologists. While Dawkins’ book is a reasonably comprehensive attempt to rebut what he calls ‘The God Hypothesis,’ Hitchens’ is more concise and impressionistic. Dawkins explains early in the book that he aims to rebut the claim that:

there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us.

Note that this aims to rebut deism as well as those faiths that presume that god is still actively involved in the workings of the world. The most concise summarization of Hitchens’ work are his ‘four irreducible objections to religious faith:’

  1. That is wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos
  2. That because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum of servility with the maximum of solipsism
  3. That it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression
  4. And that it is ultimately grounded in wishful thinking

The degree to which any particular reader thinks they succeed in these aims probably has as much to do with their prior beliefs as with the arguments presented by Hitchens and Dawkins but, whether you agree with them or not, it is quite possibly a good idea to subject your existing view to some fairly rigorously structured criticism. It does apprear to be increasingly difficult to retain a literal interpretation of the scripture of any major faith, given evaluations of internal consistency, historical examination, and scientific inquiry.

What is often more interesting than the ontological claim made about the non-existence of god are the practical claims about what should be done in a world where the vast majority of people do believe in higher powers of various descriptions. Here, both writers are on shakier ground, though the question is an extremely difficult one. It is easier to condemn religious conflict and repression than it is to come up with practical mechanisms to reduce either. Within states, at least, there is some hope that a secular government can act to reduce such problematic manifestations of faith. Internationally, or in areas of active and religiously motivated war, relatively few such options seem to exist.

In an age where religious conflict, the question of tolerance, and multiculturalism have so much salience, both books are well constructed to make you think. Dawkins’ book is more comprehensively argued and systematic. Unless you have read a good sample of his work already, it is probably the better of the two volumes to read in isolation. That said, while his work is characterized by academic contemplation (and isolation), Hitchens has a more immediate perspective on some aspects of the operation of religion in the contemporary world.

I suspect people will get more from the volume written by the author with whom they are less familiar. Having read most of Dawkins’ prior books, relatively little in The God Delusion was a surprise. Having never before read Hitchens, the style of god is not Great was as novel as much of the content.

$5000 video contest

Loyal readers have helped my brother Mica win video contests before, and their efforts have been much appreciated. Now, Mica is in the final ten for the Molson Canadian contest mentioned here earlier. If he wins, he gets a nice contribution towards reduced student loans.

This one is a bit more of a pain to vote in than the previous competitions. Firstly, you need to have a Facebook account. Secondly, you need to join the group ‘Molson Canadian Nation.’ Thirdly, you need to sign up as a ‘Molson Insider.’ Unfortunately, this needs to be done with a real email address, since they send you a verification message. By now, everybody probably has a secondary account used for such spam-inviting registrations.

Each Molson Insider can vote once per day, and the final round of the contest runs until Friday. Once properly registered, you can vote here. Only those in Canada can vote. Any support would be much appreciated. More of Mica’s videos can be viewed on his website, where he really ought to put some kind of post about this contest.

[Update: 28 September 2007] The results are back and Mica finished second. As such, he will be getting some sort of prize pack instead of $5000. Thanks to all those readers who voted for him. I think this is the first video contest he has entered that he did not win outright.

Chernobyl gets a new hat

At the same time as enthusiasm is growing for the use of nuclear fission as a non-greenhouse gas emitting energy source, the crumbling concrete tomb around the Chernobyl reactor is to be encased in steel, at an approximate cost of $1.4 billion. The doomed reactor will be covered by “a giant arch-shaped structure out of steel, 190 metres (623 feet) wide and 200m long.” Of course, it is only a matter of time before the new carapace will need to be replaced, in turn.

The Chernobyl disaster occurred back in 1986. Despite causing widespread contamination, about 95% of the radioactive material initially present remains within the site of the reactor complex. A motorcycle-riding photographer named Elena has put some haunting photos of the abandoned area on her website.

Just yesterday, Dr. Patrick Moore (co-founder of Greenpeace) urged the more widespread use of fission to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As ever, there are three big problems with nuclear fission: waste that will be dangerous for a span longer than the existence of civilization thus far, the possibility of catastrophic accidents, and the connection between civilian nuclear capability and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. It is certainly becoming less clear-cut that nuclear is a worse option than the alternatives. For one thing, new reactor designs like the South African pebble bed promise to reduce the chances of accidents. On the proliferation side, there is talk of fuel supplier countries taking back spent rods, as protection against their plutonium being extracted and used for bombs. Of course, that just worsens the nuclear waste situation. The fact that it is all sitting in ‘temporary’ reactor ponds and that no state has constructed a permanent geological storage facility for radioactive waste should continue to give us pause.

Standing offer from the international community to the US

Chateau Laurier lobby

At the next UNFCCC conference of the parties (COP-13 / MOP-3), in Bali this December, the focus will be on devising an international agreement for the period after 2012. Obviously, an agreement that incorporates the United States would be a lot more viable than one that does not, though it is unlikely that the current administration would sign on to such an undertaking. As such, I wonder whether it might be possible or desirable to come up with an agreement that basically has a USA shaped hole in it: an open invitation for the United States to become involved after the 2008 election, with space having been set out for US participation.

If such an approach were taken, the choice about whether or not to bring the US ship into the port facility provided could become a significant political factor in the next election. The willingness of various candidates to accept or reject the offer could be one characteristic upon which the populace could evaluate them. Furthermore, having such an option from the outset would help avoid a situation where an agreement gets crafted – say – from 2012 to 2020, excluding the United States, and it then proves necessary to wait for the end of that commitment before an international regime including them may be devised.

I am just thinking off the top of my head here, but it seems like a potentially valuable strategy. Of course, the feasibility of any such approach depends upon a substantial proportion of the rest of the world being able to reach agreement on what ought to be done post-2012. It is difficult to predict, at this point in time, whether such consensus is likely to emerge.