Hasta La Gadget!

Ben Zauzmer, an applied math major at Harvard, uses only data — no personal hunches or opinions — to predict the Oscars. He has served as a columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, and his work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and publications across the globe.

We officially have a race! If anyone was upset that Boyhood would run away with Best Picture without any excitement along the way, fear not! The Producers Guild, which threw a wrench into last year’s contest by awarding an unprecedented Best Picture tie, did it again this year by catapulting Birdman into first place.

This is no small matter — the PGAs have correctly picked the last seven Best Picture winners (if we count the tie). Their last miss came back in 2006, when The Departed won the Oscar over PGA champion Little Miss Sunshine.

The correlation is even stronger: For instance, Braveheart (1995) is the only Best Picture winner in the 25-year history of the PGAs to not receive a PGA nomination. The only film hoping to repeat that feat this year is Selma. On the flip side, every single PGA winner has earned an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Overall, 73 percent of PGA winners end up taking home the big prize a month later.

But if you’re hoping for a roadmap to success for Boyhood, that 2006 race provides a good model. Even though Little Miss Sunshine also won the SAG and The Queen won the BAFTA, The Departed earned a DGA win en route to victory at the Academy Awards. Boyhood (or The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, or any of the other contenders) would need a similar split to be the statistical frontrunner heading into the season’s final and most important awards show.

In the other two categories, the Producers Guild effectively made itself irrelevant for Oscar-picking purposes by choosing The Lego Movie for Best Animated Picture and Life Itself for Best Documentary. Both of these movies were widely considered to be Oscar snubs, but regardless of merit, that means that the PGA choices have no bearing on the Oscar races.

In general, though, the PGAs aren’t the most important predictors in either of those categories. For Best Animated Picture, the PGAs are now 6/10, or 60 percent. For Best Documentary, the PGAs are now 3/8, or 37.5 percent. There are better predictors in both of those categories.

This is the second time ever that the PGA pick for Best Animated Picture went un-nominated by the Oscars, with the only other time coming in 2011. That year, PGA winner The Adventures of Tintin was similarly snubbed by the Academy.

So does the fact that the Producers Guild was so off the mark on animated films and documentaries mean they are a worse Oscar predictor for Best Picture this year? Probably not. In the seven years that the PGAs have given awards in all three categories, they have correctly picked the Best Picture winner each time. As a result, they’ve never gone 0/3.

Could this be the year that the PGA success streak ends? If you’re a fan of Boyhood, keep your fingers crossed.

Twitter: @BensOscarMath
Email: bzauzmer@college.harvard.edu

Image by Munroe

The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

—  Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I attended high school in Germany, I was deterred by philosophy’s complex logic. It was only when I moved abroad for college that I reconsidered studying philosophy.

I observed a pattern among successful investors. They all thought independently and studied philosophy.

Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros studied philosophy under Karl Popper at the London School of Economics. André Kostolany studied philosophy before his father sent him to Paris to work as a stockbroker. Billionaire investor and entrepreneur Peter Thiel received his B.A. in philosophy from Stanford in 1989.

Legendary investor Jim Rogers extols the value of studying philosophy. “So many folks today are caught up in conventional thinking, their intellectual processes circumscribed by such concepts as the state, culture, or religion,” he wrote. “To think outside the established framework, to examine things independently  –  this is true philosophy,” he added. Learn to think for yourself.

When I met Jim in New York, I asked him about the value of studying philosophy. He told me that it not only helps you to understand yourself, but also what is important to you.

In another book he explained that through the proliferation of media and the Internet, many people are inclined to follow the same ideas and thoughts. But, success does not come from doing what everybody else does. It is about figuring out the reality and then finding your own path.


On Self-Reliance

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

— Ralph Waldo  Emerson

One piece that helped me to think independently is a short essay on self-reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson published in 1841.

“Trust thyself,” Emerson wrote. “Nothing can bring you piece but yourself,” he stated.

“With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do… A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines,” he famously exlaimed.

“To be great is to be misunderstood,” he noted.

The text is quite old and the language rather inaccessible to most. I certainly did not find it easy to read through the original piece. As his work is so important, however, I want to share the three points that define his essay: the self-contained genius, the disapproval of the world and the value of self-worth.


The Self-Contained Genius

Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.
 
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Inside of each person is a genius, Emerson argues. “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men –  that is genius,” he wrote.

Trust your own voice and don’t give so much weight to the thought of others. What made great thinkers great is that they didn’t disregard their own thoughts.

There is something unique and original about you. Find a way to express it. “Envy is ignorance; imitation is suicide,” Emerson wrote. Don’t try to copy someone else. Envy will not get you ahead.

You know better than anyone else what your strengths are. Follow your interest, and it will lead you where you need to go.

Accept your situation and then find a way to improve it. For that, you must be brave and courageous.

There is a lot you can learn from children. They trust their own impressions. They are not aware of what other people think about them. They just do things. “Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it,” Emerson wrote.

Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho talks about this, too. “A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires,” he wrote.

Do not wish for younger years or yearn to be older in the hope that things will be better. Be who you are right now. And don’t try to please other people or beg for their approval. Do what you think is right.

You don’t need people’s approval to advance your purpose. Be indifferent to the judgment of others. And don’t worry about what you said before.

Be true to yourself. Others will try to stop you. But don’t let them.


The Disapproval of the World

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

 – Ralph Waldo  Emerson

Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater.

The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Society will try to make you conform. People are more comfortable with what they are familiar with. They will tell you what you should be or what you can’t do. Don’t conform, or else you will lose your soul. You will lose your originality and creativity.

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind,” Emerson wrote. “No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it,” he added. Rely on yourself.

You think you cannot change the world? Many who did thought so, too. And then they just did it anyway.

Conformity, however, will not lead to greatness. Conformity “scatters your force.” Conformity turns your true expression into mediocrity.

If you join a crowd, be careful. They will lock you into one perspective or set of beliefs that may blind you to the truth.

You do not exist to please others. You are here to live. And you don’t need anyone’s approval for that.

When you are alone, it is easy to be yourself. But keeping your solitary independence when among others is much more difficult.

Trust yourself. Don’t concern yourself with what you said in the past. Set yourself free. Learn and grow every day. If you always try to be consistent, you will block that new creation that is trying to come out of you.

And if you are misunderstood, so be it. All great souls have been misunderstood. At least you had the courage to be the architect of your own life, and see the world through your own honest eyes.

Defy the status quo. Heroes of the past stayed true to themselves. They took action against popular resistance. Therefore, be indifferent to circumstances, opinions or authority.

Don’t be afraid. Stand for who you are. Stand for something.

Extraordinary people often began as ordinary people. But they decided to take matters into their own hands. They broke free of conformity.

You don’t need to rely on dogmas. You don’t need to rely on anyone telling you what is that you want. Instead of quoting someone of the past, say boldly what you perceive now. “If we live truly, we shall see truly,” wrote Emerson.

Don’t follow anyone else’s path. Create your own path.

Most people are passive. They lack purpose and complain. Few people have guts and character. Why?

These people conform. And by conforming, they lose their originality. They fear failure. That is the wrong attitude. Embrace failure.


The Value of Self-Worth

Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Stay independent, stay self-reliant if you want to be a creator, not a victim.

In other words, live in the present.

Outside influences only cloud our vision. But solitude will help you to see truly and clearly. Don’t get caught up in the web of others. Try to help where you can, but draw a line.

“I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you.”

Speak honestly, and don’t put up appearances. Don’t mislead. Express yourself freely.

Don’t pray and wish for things to happen.

Take action. But if you don’t take action, don’t regret that you didn’t. Be more self-disciplined and take action next time.

Take pleasure in what you create and do not feel that you need to impress others or require their approval.

When you find a truth, don’t stop examine and question it.

“Traveling is a fool’s paradise,” he wrote. Travel, but don’t expect to be comfortable when you are not even comfortable at home.

“Insist on yourself,” wrote Emerson, “never imitate.” Imitation will only yield “half-possession.” Everybody has greatness inside themselves, but it will not be activated by following others. Thus, express who you are and don’t imitate.

Circumstances do not matter. Don’t look to external things to make you happy. Happiness derived from external things do not last. Measure yourself against others not by what you own, but by what you have become. In the end what matters is not the acquisition of money, but character.

When you rely too much on what others say, you become weak and lose confidence.

Don’t rely on luck. External circumstances have no lasting value. Honesty is the only way to become happy.

Don’t stop questioning. Examine facts. And stay curious.

This piece was originally published at Medium.

The story of how gay marriage has gone from a political impossibility to a cultural reality offers America a practical way forward on the seemingly impossible issue of political gridlock.

In his State of the Union address, the president drew a connection between the success of gay marriage and the possibility of ending gridlock in politics, “I’ve seen something like gay marriage go from a wedge issue used to drive us apart to a story of freedom across our country, a civil right now legal in states that seven in ten Americans call home.”

But what the President didn’t explain was why gay marriage has succeeded, while so many other progressive issues, such as climate change and abortion rights, have lost ground with the American public during the last decade. The secret to the success of gay marriage was that early advocates for the issue integrated conservative values into their proposals, as brilliantly outlined in Andrew Sullivan’s 1989 New Republic cover story entitled “Here Comes the Groom: A Conservative Case for Gay Marriage.”

In the early 1990s when I headed to Washington D.C. to launch Log Cabin Republicans, we did something very counterintuitive. In a series of gay marriage debates with socially conservative organizations, we used faith-based, family oriented, conservative arguments for why gay marriage advanced conservative values. In fact, some progressive LGBT leaders actually opposed gay marriage as an issue to pursue.

The lesson to be learned in the success of gay marriage is found in the way this issue integrates strong American values from both the left and right. And this suggests how we can overcome our hyper-partisan, dysfunctional politics overall, which Americans now rate as the number one threat to our nation’s future.

To overcome our nations’ political gridlock, we’ll need to develop new ways to integrate both the conservative and liberal values that underlie the polarization. Attempting to reform politics, without appreciating the very real cultural world views that drive polarization, will only lead each side to find clever new ways of gaming or disrupting the system to their advantage.

Like gay marriage, policy solutions that actually incorporate some of the best values of the Tea Party right and the Occupy left can move us beyond polarization. But before right and left can come together, we need to depolarize each party first.

Here are three steps we can take to depolarize American politics:

Step one: Depolarize our own thinking by increasing the scope of what we are able to value. This involves taking perspectives that respect the values of those we disagree with, and recognizing the positive motivations of our political opponents.

Step two: Depolarize the conflicting values found within each party. In 2015, this can be accomplished by convening thought leaders from each party in small conclaves tasked with developing policy stances that incorporate the values of both the pragmatic establishment and the ideological base within each party.

Step three: Using the same strategy outlined in step two, work to depolarize the electorate as a whole by crafting policies that incorporate the core values of both sides. While it may sound counterintuitive, the moral views of both conservatives and progressives have more in common then we think. The success of gay marriage demonstrates that when forward-looking issues manage to incorporate and respect traditional values, we create a win for all sides, and our politicians can get things done.

Rich Tafel is the author of Party Crasher: A Gay Republican Challenges Politics as Usual. He is a Senior Fellow at The Institute for Cultural Evolution think tank, and President of Public Squared.

Driving on the surface of Mars pretty much sucks. Even though the Opportunity rover celebrated its 11th anniversary on the Martian surface today, that robust little craft has also ran into tricky sand dunes and other perplexing surface anomalies. It sure would be nice if some aerial reconnaissance could identified these potential snags before they happen.

Read more…

CyanogenMod is a ROM that is very well known amongst Android users. It acts as an alternative to the skinned and customized versions of Android that OEMs tend to load on their phones and to a certain extent, it almost feels like stock Android, just with added features and functionality.

However it seems that the folks at Cyanogen Inc. aren’t too happy about their reliance on Google and are hoping to one day become more independent, or in the words of Cyanogen’s CEO Kirt McMaster, “We’re attempting to take Android away from Google.” McMaster spoke those words during The Information’s “Next Phase of Android” event that was held in San Francisco.

According to McMaster, “Today, Cyanogen has some dependence on Google. Tomorrow, it will not. We will not be based on some derivative of Google in three to five years.” Apparently the folks at Cyanogen feel that Google is holding back what developers can do with the Android platform, and that by breaking free, they will be able to allow developers to go as deep as they want.

The folks at Android Authority have pointed out an example such as Google Now in which no developer would be able to create such a feature on the Android platform. While we suppose that is true to a certain extent, is that really such a bad thing? After all, these tweaks and tools for Android are meant to enhance the operating system, not replace it.

This does not mean that Cyanogen will be giving up on Android, but rather they are looking to build an even “freer” version of it, which we guess could result in a forked version of Android which is what companies like Nokia and Amazon have done, although in the process they will lose services such as Gmail and Google Maps, but what do you guys think?

Cyanogen Wants To “Take Android Away” From Google , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.