Days five and six consisted of us picking up one of my cousins (on my father’s side of the family) from the train stop and venturing around the Olympic grounds with her.

Today was mostly a logistics and planning day. Nailed down our trip down south, went out to eat with a couple of family friends at a Szechuan restaurant.

Today we went to take some professional photos as a family. It took eleven hours. Thoughts: Being a professional model must be incredibly hard.

I’m in Beijing, China at the moment, visiting relatives for about two weeks. One of the things that’s struck me is how much the city has changed from just four years ago.

I recently came across an interesting paper on quantum information theory outlining exactly why superluminal communications via quantum entanglement - so-called “spooky action-at-a-distance” - is impossible.

One of the most frustrating things about discussing US politics is the disconnect between politicians and “normal people” - whether or not the representatives who are, in theory, supposed to defend the interests of their local constituencies are in fact interested in defending or even aware of these interests.

Via Matt Yglesias, a new USA Today/Gallup poll finds that the richer you are, the more likely you are to think that the economy is doing great:

Er, once in awhile I run into a piece I hear that’s not designed for piano solo. So I arrange it for the solo piano (usually by cutting the heart and soul out of the piece).

I recently had a conversation with my father about income disparity and social mobility in the US. He’s always been a huge believer in social mobility in the US - you know, the belief that if you work hard, you’ll be rewarded for your efforts.