Table of contents
Biography
After a long and productive career in software engineering (which I'm still doing part-time), I decided that it wasn't my true purpose. So now I'm at San Jose State University to get a Master's in Economics, hoping to eventually work at a think tank like the Cato Institute (where I recently interned). Why San Jose State? Well one, it means I can continue to work as a software engineer part-time. Secondly, SJSU kinda specializes in the Austrian School of Economics, which has been highly influential in the libertarian (or classical liberal) movement (although I'm not sold on it yet).
School has put a crimp on my blogging, but I tend to update elsewhere more frequently, most notably Twitter, Flickr, and LiveJournal. I'm a Taiwanese-American, born in Atlanta (of all places), though my family moved around alot on the East Coast before settling in California.
If you've ever read any of my stuff, you probably noticed that I love to write... a lot. And that I have strong opinions on a variety of subjects ranging from politics, economics, film, philosophy, television, music, and sports. I don't claim to be an expert on any of these topics, but I give most of my positions a fair amount of thought and research, and I'm always open to hearing other views and learning more (thus the whole sponge thing). Hopefully that makes me at least as qualified as the next blogger or Op-Ed columnist. My hope is to gain as much knowledge and understanding as possible (which is one reason I'm going back to school) and then translate that knowledge (such as it is) into language that everyone can understand. And I'm a little too fond of parentheses (in case that wasn't ridiculously obvious (indeed, I sometimes even nest them)).
Politically, I'm a moderately conservative Libertarian. I find myself about equidistant from the Democratic and Republican Party, which I think makes me about as nonpartisan as it gets in the blogosphere (and indeed, one of my biggest issues is electoral reform, along with campaign finance).
If you're wondering about the fling93 moniker, fling was my e-mail address at my last company (yes, first initial and last name), and a few people just started calling me that. I added the '93 when creating a Yahoo! ID as it was the year I graduated from Cal (with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences). Yes, it's terribly uncreative, but I was eager to jump into a message board discussion and didn't want to spend a lot of time thinking up a username. If you want to know my real name, just ask. I'm not secretive about it. I just don't want potential employers to be able to Google it and find my blog, so please do not use it online.
I used to debate politics on message boards a lot, and I made the leap to blogs per the great advice of my sister, Alvina. Not surprisingly, I tend to be a pretty prolific commenter, which hopefully makes up for my sporadic blog updates (which is why I highly recommend subscribing to my RSS feed or Atom feed, both of which are full-post feeds).
Anyhow, thanks for bearing with my verbosity (hey, I warned you that I like to write a lot), and I hope you find something interesting to read here.
Contact Info
Yahoo! ID: fling93
You should be able to figure out an e-mail address from that. I've got a Gmail address too, which shouldn't be hard to guess. And of course, feel free to just leave a comment.
Elsewhere on the Internet:
- My Flickr photographs.
- My Twitter updates.
- My del.icio.us bookmarks. Of particular note are all of my comments, but if that's too much, you can try the ones I publish to my sidebar.
- My LiveJournal account. Here's the RSS feed. If you're also on LJ and I've "friended" you, you might want to use this feed instead to see the friends-locked entries, but you'll have to specify your LJ username and password.
- My Facebook profile.
- My MySpace profile (for those of you who haven't yet moved to Facebook).
Blogger Code
B9 d+ t+ k+ s u-- f-- i-- o++ x- e l c
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Greatest Hits
Here's a sampling of what I think are my best posts so far:
- The Case Against Bush - not a shrill, liberal rant, but a carefully-assembled rational and nonpartisan case. If you like it, you might also like my post on Rumsfeld, Iraq, and Troop Levels.
- Electoral Reform, Part I: The Problem with Plurality - a graphical explanation of what's wrong with our voting system (another problem is that it marginalizes third parties). Check out Part II on IRV when you're done with those.
- Comparative Advantage and Opportunity Cost - I explain David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage that argues for free trade, and for my example I use... Lisa Simpson and Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes.
- Supply Side Economics - Art Laffer had some things right, but not everything.
- The Factors Behind a Country's Choice of a Multi-Party or Two-Party System - Self explanatory, I hope. This was a term paper for my Comparative Governments night class. I think I went a little overboard in thoroughness.
- Congressional Over-Raich - I dabble in law as I explain all the issues behind this Supreme Court decision regarding medical marijuana.
- Suburban Nation - my take on a great book that explains that the sprawl issue is less about environmentalism and more about designing efficient communities for people instead of cars.
- Lefties in Baseball - ever wonder why there aren't any lefty shortstops?
- Analysis of The Matrix Revolutions (Spoilers!) - no, it wasn't a great film, but there's a lot more going on than you might think.
- Blogging vs. Journalism - why journalists should be very afraid.
- On Marriage - what makes a good marriage vs. a bad marriage?
- From Beneath You... - a rare humorous anecdote.
- iTunes visualizations & G-Force - I don't know why, but this is my most widely-read post. G-Force is a great visualization plugin that runs on more than just iTunes.
- CommentBlogging Ahead of My Time? - I stumble upon a practice that is somewhat innovative, and I didn't even realize it.
- Review: The Brown Bunny - A lot of reviewers praise almost everything. Since I'm usually very selective on the films I watch, a good many of my reviews are also positive. Here's a very notable exception.
- Media Bias? - how can bias exist in a free market?
- One for the Gipper - my tribute to Reagan.
- Microsoft and Bundling - bundling itself isn't the issue here.
Interests
economics & politics, blogging, photography, Burning Man, baseball (Giants, Mets, and I love scoring games), Natalie Portman, hockey (Sharks, Rangers), writing, flirting, drawing, music (here are a couple samples, such as they are), kittycats, films, redheads, billiards, bobbleheads, MP3s, TiVo, science fiction, Formula One (Lewis Hamilton and McLaren-Mercedes), playing basketball, sex, drugs, and (most of all) CHOCOLATE AND PEANUT-BUTTER COOKIES!
Favorite Musical Artists
Tori Amos, Radiohead, Rush, Tool, Dar Williams, Poe, Peter Gabriel, Shawn Colvin, Dream Theater, Pink Floyd, Aimee Mann, Jill Sobule, Allette Brooks, Death Cab for Cutie, the Flaming Lips, Infected Mushroom, Liz Phair, Joe Satriani, Led Zeppelin, Jonatha Brooke, Tara MacLean, U2, ELP, Ani DiFranco, Yes, Alanis Morissette, Prodigy, Jewel, Sarah McLachlan, Foo Fighters, Suzanne Vega, Feeder, Smashing Pumpkins, Kate Bush, the Who, They Might Be Giants, and bad 80's music.
Better yet, check out my Last.FM profile.
Favorite Movies
I have a complete listing of my movie ratings here. But here's a short list:
Finding Nemo, Shawshank Redemption, L.A. Confidential, Godfather, City of Lost Children, Aliens, Brazil, Fight Club, Immortal Beloved, Being John Malkovich, The Incredibles, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, My Fair Lady, Braveheart, Schindler's List, Garden State, Dark City, Monsters, Inc., American Beauty, Contact, Rear Window, Princess Bride... and anything with Natalie Portman.
Favorite Brain-Suckage Television Shows
Grey's Anatomy, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, thirtysomething (argh, that describes ME!), Firefly, Carnivale, Lost, Weeds, Battlestar Galactica (the new one), Robot Chicken, The L Word, Bleach, Mythbusters, Cowboy Bebop, Six Feet Under, South Park, How I Met Your Mother (Alyson Hannigan!), The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, My So-Called Life, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, That 70's Show (surprisingly, not for the redheaded Prepon, but for Mila Kunis, go figure), Family Guy, The X-Files, The Sopranos, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Relativity, Party of Five, Dharma & Greg, Farscape, Who's Line Is It Anyway?
