Byung Kyu Park's Personal Website

The Poland trip this summer, I think, turned out to be relatively fruitful. Of course, how fruitful it was will be … apparent in a month or so, when the products of last two trips to Krakow will be finished. Here’s the abbreviated itinerary and impressions of various places visited during this trip. A fuller version with illustrations might be coming over the weekend (depending on how much free time I get).

The main thing about this trip is that it was scheduled in a series of round trips. Round trip from SFO to FRA. Round trip from FRA to KRK, and finally, round trip from KRK to LED. It was done to get the cheapest tickets available, and although now I think scheduling them in a somewhat different way might have been cheaper and gotten me home earlier (i.e. round trip from FRA to KRK, returning early enough for another round trip from FRA to LED for the UCN conference which was ostensibly the main purpose of this summer’s eastern European trip, I am satisfied with the result, given that it gave me an extra half-day in Krakow, my favorite city in Europe.

The trip to Krakow was mostly uneventful. I didn’t like the layover in Frankfurt as the airport appeared to have been designed specifically to eliminate power outlets that people might use for their laptops, but it was only a few hours. And my week and a half in Krakow was also mostly uneventful. It was productive, and no sight seeing was done at all at least this time around. Then, June 7th came along, and it was time for the UCN conference in St. Petersburg.

I have to say that I am rather surprised by my St. Petersburg experience. I liked the place, and compared to the reputation of, say, Moscow being one of the most expensive and dangerous place to live, St. Petersburg appeared safe—with cheap and good food (if in meager servings, at least compared to what I get in Krakow). There were some quirks, of course (the water smells funny, which I am told is due to the chlorine in the tap water, and the pollution … makes walking around unpleasant, at least in the eastern part of the city where we were staying), but overall, it didn’t look like a communist hell hole. The newspaper I read on the plane (St. Petersburg Times, English version) even had inklings of real free press.

The workshop, which went relatively well, ended in the dawn of June 14th, so I had a full day to explore the city on the Sunday, as I had assumed that we would have a full day of schedule on the 14th and scheduled to leave for Krakow on the 15th. I tried out the colonnade on the St. Isaac’s Cathedral, and then walked around the city following the rivers and channels. I have to say the river Neva (and her many channels) is my favorite thing in the city.

On returning to Krakow on the 15th, I stayed at a place called “Mama’s Hostel”. Again, this was done mostly for reducing travel expense (as hotels are, I think, at least 5 times more expensive), but I also wanted to do it for, well, the experience—if it turns out to be unpleasant or unsafe, at least it’s better done while I’m still young.

But the place turned out wonderful. It was one of the old buildings in the city square which I liked very much, the bed was clean and the room I was staying in was only half-occupied, and the common area was lovely. Oh, and when I checked in, a very cute girl was staffing the front desk, so that was nice.

I didn’t have much time to do anything on the day I arrived, but on the next day (I had to leave for airport at around 12), I took a walk along the river near Wawel Castle and managed to accomplish my personal objective for these trips since the first time I was in Krakow: to obtain the plastic “expanding ball” toy. And I finally did it this time.

And then I flew to Frankfurt for my final return trip. While this segment of the trip was mostly uneventful, this day (and the morning next) was the most … unpleasant part of the trip and will be detailed in an illustrated entry which I’ve tentatively titled “Frankfurt, the toilet of the Europe”.

And then was my 15-hour journey back to U.S. I was very tired by the end and the little kid crying in the seat behind me was extremely annoying, but at least I was glad to be in the U.S.A. again (oh, and to have bought the T-shirt that says “I love my country; it’s the government I am afraid of” during my 1-hr layover in Washington D.C.).

Anyways. Pictures with fuller story of each segment of the trip will be coming, hopefully over this weekend.

On BankDeals:

With all the talk of Ally Bank being pressured by the ABA to cut deposit rates, I was hoping that Ally Bank would hold steady on its rates for a while. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Ally Bank made some sizable rate cuts today. The savings account rate fell from 2.25% to 2.05% APY, the 12-month CD rate fell from 2.80% to 2.49% APY and the 9-month no-penalty CD rate fell from 2.50% to 2.30% APY. The largest rate cut was on the regular 9-month CD. That rate fell from 2.60% to 1.90% APY. Now there’s no reason to choose this classic 9-month CD when the no-penalty version has a higher rate.

And if an anonymous commenter who couldn’t provide specifics is to be believed, the pressure to cut interest rates on savings account and CDs is coming from Mr. Bernanke, the wise regulator who couldn’t see the housing bubble that everyone with half a brain was screaming was coming for years.

Do you need any more evidence that regulations are bad? Some regulations might be necessary, but they are necessary evil—it’s like bandages and scabs on your wound. You need those things at the moment to stop the bleeding, but if you always have bandages on your arm and have scabs here and there, well, something’s wrong with you, buddy. If we actually need regulation anywhere, then regulation is at best a treatment for symptoms and will only get more and more expensive with time. The problem has to be dealt with at the fundamental level.

An example people keep bringing up is the environmental issues. Sure, factories dumping wastes into the local air and water are terrible. Sure, regulation could help with these issues. But it doesn’t fix the underlying problem—that there are people who stand to benefit by being a little less careful with their surroundings and they have no incentive to be careful. But if you look more deeply into the issues, the government created these underlying problems. All that a government is empowered to do and is necessary to do is protect the sanctity of property (and by extension, lawful contracts). When it failed to do that, for whatever reasons, it created the problems that it is now somehow entrusted (by statists and leftists, anyway) to solve it. Talk about leaving the fox with the chicken!

Well. In any case, it looks like if Obama and his minions have their way, the middle class families with a little bit of income to save (but not willing to risk it in stock or even bonds) will be left with no option other than to watch their savings diminished by inflation, which is only bound to grow with the reckless spending that Obama administration has shown to be far too willing and able to do. As it is, even at the historical inflation rate of 1%, the current rate of about 2% at Ally Bank is barely enough to keep your money’s value at the exact some worth. If every bank was offering rates like 0.2% (that offered by many banks and even credit unions), you would be better off buying gold and burying it in the ground, rather than keeping the money in a bank and in circulation.

What would regulators do then? Outlaw buying of gold? Punish those trying to sell gold? Apparently your imagination is the limit.

On Slashdot:

Coryoth writes “The widely held belief that there is disparity in the innate mathematical abilities of men and women has been steadily whittled down in recent years. The gender gap in basic mathematics skills closed some time ago, and recently the gap in high school mathematics has closed up as well, with as many girls as boys now taking high school calculus.

Oh yes. This is a very good news—that is, the fact that the media is finally acknowledging that gender gap hasn’t existed for years—I would even argue that even at my generation there was no such thing as a “gender gap” that put women at any disadvantage from men. Every opportunity available to a man was available to a woman.

Is it possible that we can now expect some attention on the problem that boys are the ones who seem to be falling behind these days? Is it possible that people will now pay attention to the seeming problem that more boys drop out, more boys get worse grades, and more young men commit crimes? Equality of result is of course not what we should strive at—but at least we should examine if we were all so focused on encouraging women and emphasizing that everything a man can do a woman can … that we neglected boys were being discouraged and neglected.

Because the future of UC Berkeley (and the whole UC system) is in private funding.

In the last 20 years, private gifts, grants and contracts have increasingly accounted for a larger portion of campus revenues. In 1990, private funds accounted for 7.7 percent of total campus funds, a percentage that jumped to 15.8 percent in 2007-08, according to data from the UC Berkeley Campus Budget Office.

And in fact, private funding from willing donors is the only ethical way to fund an education system—if the system isn’t paid for by its direct beneficiaries in its entirety.

As for what they propose to do with tax dollars stolen from the people, I can’t say I agree with their goal.

Yudof said the reduction in the state’s General Fund commitment, which totals almost $800 million for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 fiscal years, would place in jeopardy its historic commitment to provide access to all eligible high school graduates and would force UC to rely more heavily on higher student fees.

Why should UC, as a government institution, actively distort the labor market by giving diplomas those who neither deserve it or want it strongly enough? If there are too many people “eligible” for UC attendance—so many that after accounting for those who go out of state or go to private colleges, UC cannot accept those who want in (if it’s cheap)—then it probably means that the bar for “eligibility” is too low. After all, it’s an arbitrary bar set at an arbitrary percentage of GPA with no mechanism for self-correction. I would say lack of funding should play the role of that self-correcting mechanism. Is there not enough funding to accept expected student enrollment next year? Raise the bar now—so we are not changing the rules in the middle of the game, and we are not over-committing our system to those who shouldn’t have 4-year college education (or at least haven’t proven that the public should fund their education) anyway.

Raise the fees, and in fact, publish fee increase schedule for next 4 years, at a slight overestimation. Those to whom the education is worth it (and cannot pay out of pocket) can take out loans to get the education—their post-graduation salaries would presumably be worth it. If not, then they made stupid choice not dissimilar to running up a credit card debt.

Those to whom the education is not worth it will go into the society and be productive—until they feel that additional formal education is worth it, if ever.

No natural law of society says that every productive person has to have a college degree—in fact, some of the most successful people became successful after dropping out of Ph. D. program or even bachelor’s program.

Physics Today gleefully notes:

On 18 May, however, the science and research minister’s plans to quit CERN were quashed. The country’s Social Democratic chancellor, Werner Faymann, said that the ministers of his party would not vote to withdraw, which means that the necessary unanimous vote would be impossible, and that the issue would not go to Parliament. “If an agreement can’t be reached, things stay as they are,” Hahn acknowledged after meeting with the chancellor. He added that the debate would be a stepping-off point for a close look at the country’s participation in international projects.

Indeed. It is time for Austria (and other countries) to look at these international projects from more objective, calculated point of view. “Solidarity” is an excuse statists and communists use to get others to act against their best interest. The one moral question anyone should be asking is, “What’s in it for me?”

Let’s see what’s in it for Austria. As the article notes, Austria is contributing only 2% of CERN’s budget. Let’s suppose CERN accomplishes everything it promised and more. It finds Higgs boson before Fermilab. It finds the massive supersymmetric partners. And it finds additional data and particles that existing theories and proposals cannot explain, jump starting second golden age of particle physics. It is the greatest success of the 21st century physics.

How much of that accomplishment will be credited to Austria? After all, Austria only contributed 2%. Will anyone from Austria be getting a Nobel Prize for that work, when Austria’s only contributing 2% into the effort?

On the other hand, the money that’s going into CERN is 70% of Austria’s funding for international collaboration in science. If you ever had a choice, would you rather commit a majority of your investment portfolio to become a minority stockholder in a startup company that could just as easily fail as succeed? Or would you rather commit that resource in another, perhaps smaller effort where you could at least hold a controlling stock?

Austria contributing to CERN has everything to lose and nothing to gain. Austria contributing to CERN makes even less sense than US propping up UN (US at least gets a publicity front for all those internationally-minded morons). Austria, if her leaders were not complete morons, should pull out of CERN. Solidarity be damned.