willclarke.net

I got in a discussion the other day with my friend Eli, who is a frequent T9 texter, about words that have the same T9 codes. He was wondering what the longest two words are that have the same T9 code.

For those that don’t know, T9 is a text input method for phones that just have a 9 digit keypad. You can read more about it here on wikipedia. But in our discussion, I realized I could easily use the word database I use for my Scrabble iPhone web app to answer this question. I told him I’d do this; I don’t think he believed me. He was wrong.

First, I added a new integer field to the database table of words. This would hold the T9 value for each word. Then I wrote a script to convert all the words in the DB to their T9 counterparts, e.g. IRREFLEXIVE to 47733539483. Then I searched for words that have the same T9 codes.

Unfortunately a lot of words in the dictionary are very similar - for example “photosensitizer” and “photosensitizes.” Those are both 15 letter words, but they are basically the same word. So I realized what I wanted is long words that are significantly different from each other. I wrote a script that found all of the longest duplicates, and then compared them character by character for similarities. I then eliminated all the words that only have one character that’s different. Here’s what I found.

There are only two 15 character pairs of words with the same T9 code and more than one letter different. They are Repeatabilities / Resectabilities (in T9, 737328224548437) and Defectivenesses / Effectivenesses (333328483637737). There is a 14 character pair that have three characters different, Gamesomenesses and Handsomenesses (in T9, 42637663637737). It starts to get more satisfying at 13 characters, where you have the T9 code 2667874284667 spelling either Compurgations or Constrictions (five letters different). Most diverse is the ten character pair Housemaids / Intrenches, with a whopping eight letters different.

Of course that is just T9 pairs. If you go back and search based on number of matches, you can also find some interesting stuff. For example, it you type 22737 into your phone, it might explode. There are 13 different five letter words for that code: Acres, Bards, Barer, Bares, Barfs, Baser, Bases, Caper, Capes, Cards, Carer, Cares, and Cases. Also, there are 11 words for the six letter T9 code 727437: Parges, Paries, Pashes, Raphes, Rapids, Rapier, Rasher, Rashes, Sarges, Sashes, and Scries.

In T9-speak these are all called “textonyms” - words with the same T9 code. T9 sorts the textonyms by frequency of use in order to give you the best word, but as many frequent T9ers know, it gets things wrong a lot. If I could get a database of word frequency, I could find the longest textonyms with high frequency, and that might be fun.

Or everyone could just get an iPhone.

If you’re interested in the data, here are a couple links to the scripts I used:
Textonym Pairs (only 2 matching words)
Most Textonyms (most numbers of matches for a single T9 code)

It’s been a wonderful three months. I haven’t updated my blog since I stopped working in May because I have been traveling, reading, biking, and generally having a great time. Those following me on Facebook are probably pretty well acquainted with my adventures (if they haven’t completely filtered me out of their feed - sorry guys!) but for the uninitiated, here’s what I’ve been up to:

• Biking 500 miles from central Virginia to New York
• Spending countless hours at the Smithsonian Museums in Washington DC
• Learning about Baltimore with my foxy female sidekick
• Catching up with friends living in New York and performing stand-up comedy with Cody
• Visiting Seattle with the aforementioned foxy female
• Writing iPhone applications and learning Objective-C
• Reading books about finance, politics, and food - specifically, The Return of Depression Economics by Paul Krugman, The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson, The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, and The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

So teacher, there’s my report (albeit bulleted) on what I did this summer. In the process of traveling from place to place, I used almost every vehicle known to humankind, including train, light rail, subway, bike, bus, plane, ferry, kayak, canoe, and of course the ever-pervasive automobile.

I could reflect endlessly on the relative virtues of each travel option. In fact, I plan to do just that in the coming weeks, and tap out my thoughts on our myriad options for people-moving. But for this summary post, I simply want to say this: travel, regardless of the method, is an adventure, and adventure is fraught with peril. Mass transit has delays; mechanical devices break; passengers are different from you and often smell. If you can’t deal with that, stay home. But if you can roll with the punches you’re in for a hell of a good time.

Unfortunately, I noticed recently that I’m running out of money. So I am going to start looking for a job in September. My lease is up soon at the apartment I technically live in, and I’m looking for a place to move. And I’m thinking nine years in Atlanta may be enough.

I have temporarily retired from the working world in order to focus on my tan. In pursuit of this goal, I am going to be traveling up the Eastern United States, mostly by bike and train. I’m planning extended stays in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, Washington DC, Baltimore MD, and New York City.

I’m planning on camping and couchsurfing for the duration of the trip. To any of my friends who live in DC, Baltimore, or NYC, I would love to see you while I’m in town. If you’d be kind enough to let me stay at your place for a couple days, I’d appreciate that too. Send me an email or give me a call.

The plan is to be in DC for the last week of May. Then I’ll be in Baltimore the very beginning of June for a few days, then up to NYC for at least a week.

I’m not sure what I’ll do after that. Perhaps head back to Atlanta, perhaps I’ll go west, and if it’s too hot I may go north. Canada in the summer might be nice.

Last week the House of Representatives expanded the Federal Hate Crimes bill to include sexual orientation as a basis of discrimination which could lead to increased sentences for offenders. This bill has led to reinvigoration of debate over hate crimes legislation in general.

Opponents to hate crimes legislation believe it is inappropriate to increase the severity of criminal punishment because of what the criminal was thinking when they committed the crime. “The motivation for a crime shouldn’t affect the sentencing,” said one prominent conservative.

Okay it wasn’t actually a prominent conservative, it was Token from South Park. But still, non-animated people have this opinion too. And it doesn’t make sense.

The motivation for a crime should always affect sentencing. Crimes committed during a heat of passion are different than premeditated crimes, and are different than crimes committed accidentally. The whole point of a criminal justice system is to provide penalties that suit the crime in order to deter people from committing them.

Let’s say a person is killed. The person responsible for their death could be charged for first degree murder (generally meaning the killing was premeditated or committed during a violent crime), second degree murder (unplanned but intentional killing), voluntary manslaughter (as a result of a violent act, but without the intention to kill), involuntary manslaughter (accidentally, but as a result of come criminally negligent act), and several other less severe manslaughter charges. The resulting penalties for each of these charges varies greatly, and for good reason.

This is a bit of a simplification and statutes vary slightly from state to state. But the point remains that the penalty for a crime varies in order to appropriately punish the person committing it. So the only appropriate legal question when it comes to hate crimes is whether or not it’s worse to kill out of bigotry.

Hate crimes are worse than regular crimes because they attack more than just the victim, they attack everyone in the targeted group. They take away freedom to live as you choose, free from fear of threats to your life and health. In effect, it is a form of terrorism, and the people that commit them know this.

It makes sense to broaden the definition of hate crimes to include those motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation because the fact is that many people are attacked for exactly this reason. The FBI estimates that over 16% of all violent hate crimes are based on sexual orientation based on 2007 data.

Hate crimes are not always prosecuted appropriately. In some cases they are tacked on to cases where the actual motivating factor is just a personal or criminal dispute; the fact that the victim is a different ethnicity or sexual orientation is simply a coincidence. Sometimes they are not used when they should, such as in black-on-white crime where it would be politically inconvenient. But these types of things happen often in the criminal justice system, because prosecutors must answer to elected officials, who must be responsible to voters. Problems with implementation does not undermine the fundamentally sound principle of hate crimes.

I am not a lawyer, but I watch a lot of TV.

When the hip new flu strain first mutated from pigs, they were calling it the swine flu. This has angered both the pork industry, because it has lead to a decline in pork sales despite the fact that you cannot get the flu from eating pork; and animal rights activists, because it has led to the mass killing of pigs in backwards countries like Egypt. Also, it makes people make bestiality jokes (including myself).

So now they’re calling if H1N1, its scientific name. But there has been backlash - people think this is political correctness. And those people are morons.

Calling the H1N1 virus H1N1 isn’t political correctness - it’s just regular correctness. It’s the actual, real name of the virus. And it doesn’t lead to as much misunderstanding.

What’s the problem? It has numbers in it? Oh heaven forbid you have to use a number as simple as one in your daily life. It’s long? Then stop talking about it. After all, it’s less severe than the regular flu, and statistically it is hardly a risk. The whole scare has been manufactured by the media. Just call it H1N1.

It’s not a big deal, but why do cashiers insist on placing paper bills in your hand first, followed by coins? Think about how many times this leads to change sliding off the bills and causing a frantic change-chasing exercise. Even when you don’t drop coins, you typically slide the bills out from under the coins first to put them away in your wallet (since it is already open, because you just got bills out to pay them).

It’s not a big deal. I know. But why do it this way? There is no good reason! FUCKING PUT THE CHANGE ON THE BOTTOM!

This has bothered me for a long time. Sometimes as soon as I get the dollar bills from the cashier, I quickly take my hand away, or use my other hand to pull the bills out of the original receiving hand, forcing the cashier to place the coins in my bare palm. It’s my hope that by seeing how much better it is to place the coins into a customer’s hand - how it prevents slippage and droppage - the cashier will learn about proper change distribution. Sometimes it even leads to a conversation about the best money exchange protocol, and I leave in my wake an enlightened cashier. You see, I’m leading by example. I’m out there making life easier for you in small ways every day. You’re welcome America.

What’s wrong with regular books? That’s the most frequent criticism I hear from people when they hear about Amazon’s new Kindle book reader, announced in February.

The answer, of course, is nothing. Books are great - not even the most devoted Kindle fan would argue with that. But for some people, the ability to carry hundreds (or even thousands) of books, plus the ability to immediately browse and start reading any number of a quarter of a million books in seconds from anywhere in America, all in a device that weighs less than an average paperback, is worth $359. And for those people, there is the Kindle.

The first thing I noticed as I unboxed the Kindle 2 is that Amazon obviously envisions this device to be the iPod of books. The packaging is sleek and minimalist; they use form-molded recycled cardboard that is Amazon branded and incredibly compact. The manual is simple, in fact it would be inadequate if it were not for the fact that a more complete manual is included digitally on the device.

Holding the Kindle 2, I was struck by how thin it was. Previously, I had only seen the original Kindle, and it was in a leather case which made it even thicker. Holding the new Kindle, I was impressed. It fits very comfortably in your hand and is great for one-handed reading in bed, something that is difficult with traditional books. It’s also very sturdily built and doesn’t seem to scratch or blemish easily, although I have not subjected it to very rough handling - and don’t plan to.

Shopping for books on the device is amazingly easy. Amazon, in their infinite wisdom, automatically ties the device to the account used to purchase the Kindle (although you can change this if you are buying it as a gift for someone else). Buying a book is as easy as pressing “Buy” and waiting a few moments for the book to download. They say it can take a minute or two, but my experience has shown it to be almost immediate. It took maybe 15 seconds to download and start reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, which, as the title suggests, is a very long book.

Most books available for the Kindle are $9.99 or less. I only encountered a couple books that were more. The only disappointing thing about the shopping experience was the selection. They have almost 250,000 books for the Kindle, but quite a few that I searched for were not available. In Amazon’s defense, most of the books I was looking for were older non-fiction. But then again, Grisham’s new novel The Associate, currently #2 on the New York Times fiction list is not in the Kindle store.

In other words, if you only want to read very specific books you may find yourself frequently disappointed. But if you are more open minded and just looking to read interesting books, there is plenty for everyone. There is a large breadth of selection in the Kindle store.

The most impressive thing about the Kindle is that it is more than a device - it is an entire platform. Amazon has also released a free Kindle application for the iPhone and iPod Touch that will download any Kindle books you have purchased. There is no fee associated with downloading a book multiple times once you have purchased it - once you buy the rights to the book, you own it, and you can delete and re-download it as many times as you want (iTunes, are you listening?) You won’t necessarily need this feature very often - the device can hold thousands of books - but it is still nice to know that you don’t need to worry about backing up or saving any of your purchases or losing them in the future.

Amazon uses the wireless features of the Kindle platform in other creative ways. Personally, my favorite feature is how it keeps track of your current location in each book and syncs this information across devices. So, if you read a few pages on the Kindle 2, then pick up your iPhone later and start reading the same book, it will alert you of your progress on your other device and offer to take you to your previous reading position. (The concept of pages is made irrelevant by the Kindle since the text can be resized and therefore the amount of text that fits on one Kindle “page” is variable).

Of course, there are more traditional uses for the wireless on the Kindle as well. You can subscribe to blogs and newspapers for a fee, as well as use their experimental web browser. The web browser only works well on sites that are primarily text, and even then it is a bit slow. Sites like wikipedia work great though, and it’s nice to have this functionality. As an iPhone owner, I will probably rarely use this, but I’m glad Amazon included it either way.

There are a few other features I quickly want to cover. The screen is clear and crisp, as advertised. I’ve read it in bright sun and very low light and in both cases it is incredibly readable and did not cause any noticeable eye strain. However, it is not backlit, so it requires some source of light to read. The keyboard is very usable for short notes but isn’t great for writing much more than a few sentences. All notes you make about a book appear on your home screen under “My Clippings” as well as in the books at the locations where you make them. The battery seems to hold up as advertised, although I get a lot better battery life with the wireless turned off. The tradeoff is that with wireless off, it stops syncing the page number you are on and won’t download any periodicals you subscribe to (obviously). So this is just something you have to be conscious of and manually switch the wireless on at these times.

You don’t have to buy content for the Kindle 2. There are a variety of sources online to download books that are now in the public domain - the most popular is Project Gutenberg, although I have had some trouble accessing it recently. Others include manybooks.net and Feedbooks. Just plug the Kindle into your computer using the included USB cable and it should be mounted on your computer - put the downloaded books in the documents folder and you’re done! You also can transfer other files to the Kindle and use it as a USB storage device if you want - it has about 1.5 GB of space so it’s just as large as a lot of flash drives out there today.

So that’s the new Kindle. It’s quite an impressive device, I’ve now read a couple books on it as well as several newspapers and am loving it. If you decide to buy, please use this link - I get a kickback, and kickbacks make the world go round. Hey, at least I admit it.

The party of no has a vision problem. It seems like every issue with them is a rung on the ladder to hell. Gay marriage will lead to reckless hedonism. Increased government spending of any kind leads to socialism. Marijuana decriminalization will turn every street into a shooting gallery. Government regulation of industry will make our government a inflexible nanny state.

Alliteration doesn’t make it true - some slopes aren’t slippery. We have far too many people in prison for nonviolent, victimless drug offenses for non-harmful drugs like marijuana. Releasing them (or not arresting them in the first place) doesn’t turn the country into a drug-addled cesspool. Increasing regulation after years of free market abuses is just part of how we find balance in the necessary relationship between business and government.

Some “slippery slopes” aren’t even slopes at all. Gay marriage adds order and stability to same sex relationships that are completely legal regardless of the definition of marriage. Gay couples already engage in all the practices of married couples - cohabitation, sexual intimacy, raising children, buying property. Giving them the same legal status as opposite sex couples would, if anything, be a conservative force in their lives, not a recklessly liberal one.

If you’re going to make an argument not against a policy itself but against where a policy may lead, you need to make sure the policy actually leads there. In many cases, these potential threats are imaginary and reactionary.

Teen suicide has fallen by 25% over the last decade. Fewer teens are having sex, more of those that do are using contraception, and fewer are getting pregnant. Fewer people are smoking. Alcohol related deaths are declining. Yet you’d hardly know it from the way those issues are handled by conservative politicians. Every report is a startling revelation about a supposed decline in morality and it’s always linked to liberal policy. But the numbers say something else.

Every study on sex education shows that the so called “explicit” sex education in schools leads to better, more responsible behavior by teenagers, while abstinence education leads to more Tripp Palins. Marijuana decriminalization leads to decreased recidivism with no increase in violent crime. Greater government spending on infrastructure has been a boon to many industries, in some cases making commerce possible where it once was not. And increased regulation in those industries allow them to compete fairly without having to exploit workers and the planet in order to get a leg up on the competition.

Public policy is a complex, intricate, delicate thing, and making policy based on guttural reactions to social outcries without regard to established policy research is childish (or in the GOP’s case, senile). Leave it to the adults.

Since the issue of same-sex unions has centered around whether or not gay people should be able to use the word “marriage” to describe their union, with most states overwhelmingly saying no, I propose we let married people see what it feels like to be denied that word.

From now on, refer to married people as “joined” or “civilly united” or other such awkward phrasing. Refer to their husband or wife as their “partner” (”life partner” to make it more obvious). Let them get used to the non-traditional phrasing and see how much they like being treated as second class citizens.

Also, if you want to take it to the extreme, don’t attend weddings, and if you’re going to get hitched, only do whatever is legal for same-sex couples (i.e. Civil Unions, and a wedding in a church or secular organization that allows same-sex marriage). Don’t willingly take part in a discriminatory ceremony.

(I posted this on Facebook a while ago, but wanted to repost it here on my blog. In the months since I’ve come up with the idea, I admit it’s hard to get used to the weird nomenclature. But I still try to adhere to this policy anyway.)

Republican rhetoric about the stimulus plan has been particularly frustrating to me because they are attacking programs that are obviously beneficial. Spending on contraception for low income mothers, for example, where every dollar spent means three dollars saved. Spending on Pell Grants which pay for themselves through increased tax revenue by the resulting better-trained workforce. These are no-brainers!

Arlen Specter wrote a piece for the Washington Post today explaining moderate Republicans’ evolved position. They support many of the programs in the stimulus package, but want to leave most of the programs with more long term stimulative effects to the appropriations process.

I think this is a reasonable view. In my opinion, during a recession all federal spending is stimulative - but if Republicans want to relegate certain programs that aren’t immediately beneficial to other bills, I suppose that is okay. All the programs in the original stimulus bill are going to work their way through the Democratic-controlled congress anyway.