Halim's blog

2011

2012-01-08T13:23:00.000-08:00

Inspired by Arab Spring, this is an add-on to the famous Imad Hajjaj cartoon published in Jan 2010, when things looked exceptionally bleak in the Arab world.

Terabyte Gadgets

2011-12-10T13:23:00.001-08:00

When I was little most gadgets commonly floating around had memory capacity measurable in Kilobytes. The most these gadgets could do was entertain you with very simple monochrome video games (think Snake or Tetris) or keep track of your contact phone numbers (this was before emails or the internet). The most capacious of these gadgets could serve as a minimal, single-language dictionary. That was about it as far as handheld devices go.

Very few people bothered to dream of what the world would look like given memory capacity orders of magnitude higher.

As a teenager I lived in world full of gadgets that had Megabyte-level capacity. Those could engage you in more realistic gaming, with hundreds of colors and sometimes sound effects too. The best of them could store your notes, kick your butt at chess, or even store and play your favorite playlist of 20 songs or so.

Very few people bothered to dream of what the world would look like given memory capacity orders of magnitude higher.

Today we are swamped with Gigabyte-capacity gadgets. These things can already display graphics that saturate your eye's visual acuity threshold, be it in the size of the color dots, the number of different shades of color, or the rate of change of colors over time. The result is images and videos that look just as detailed to your eyes as the real thing.

Sound is also saturated, so that the bitrate, maximum frequency, and maximum amplitude of sound stored and synthesized by these gadgets already makes it sound to your ears like the real thing.

Today you are able to store your entire music library, your entire photo album collection, your entire book collection, and your entire software/game collection into one gadget, shuv it into your pocket and walk around with it. You are also able to talk to your gadgets, and use them to store and play a bunch of your favorite movies and TV shows.

Very few people bother to dream of what the world would look like given memory capacity orders of magnitude higher.

If I told you I could fit 128 Terabytes of memory into one gadget (that's about 1000 times more memory than the best gadget on the market today), what ideas can you come up with to put all that memory to good use?

Here are some bad answers:

Store images/videos at higher fidelity (more color detail, higher resolution, higher framerate, etc.):

While we are not exactly at the peak yet, we are pretty close. We need less than one more order of magnitude of memory capacity to get there. And of course, there isn't much point in recording higher fidelity media once we satisfy visual acuity threshold of the human eye!

Store your entire movie collection and your entire TV show collection on one gadget:

Unlike music, people are just not fond of replaying their favorite TV/movies over and over again, say while driving or working out. Besides, in a world where internet connection is omnipresent, downlink bandwidth is ever more capacious, and video streaming is ever more easy, why do you need to cache your entire video library in your pocket? You can just stream any flick you can think of anywhere anytime!

Now without further ado, here is my growing

List of Good Uses for Terabyte Gadgets:

Continual recording

Your visual memory doesn't have an Off button, and neither should the visual memory of your gadget! Gadgets today record video as a luxury, only for minutes at a time. Imagine a gadget that "sees" the world continually, and remembers what it sees. Combined with the ability to identify objects, colors, and text in what it sees, your gadget can then become your life companion. Your ever-loyal Passepartout. Your partner in crime! you can then ask it questions like:

"What was the price of that red T-shirt I saw at Macy's yesterday?"

"Show me the face of that guy I met on the train to Paris last summer"

"Was the window open when I left my apartment this morning?"

"Show me some memorable clips from our camping trip of 2004"

"Have I met this woman before?"

Walkabout Movies

Films are recorded today using multiple cameras, each at its own vantage point. The footage is then interleaved during the editing phase so that the resulting video shows the footage from only one vantage point at a time, hopping serially from one viewpoint to another over time, as the editor sees fit. The resulting digital file occupies about 4 Gigabytes of memory per hour of recording at the highest visual fidelity.

Now given Terabyte gadgets, you can potentially store the visual recording of each and every camera together into one file. Movies recorded using -say- 100 strategically placed cameras, given the capacity to interpolate visual signals, can be viewed from any imaginable viewpoint during playback! This way the audience can interactively move about the recorded scene freely, as if they were actually in there with the camera crew. As they move, the image they see and sound they hear change convincingly to satisfy the mind with the illusion.

A movie filmed that way would result in a digital file at 400 Gigabytes per hour in high fidelity, which pretty much necessitates Terabyte memory to hold a modest collection of say a dozen movies.

What would you do with Terabyte gadgets? Let me know!

Coincidental Destiny

2011-12-09T13:07:00.001-08:00

Some people would say it was meant to be, some others, that it is just a great coincidence.

Come to think of it, I don't really see the difference!

Isn't coincidence the vehicle by which 'fate' slowly and imperceptibly materializes itself? And what is fate anyway, if not that labyrinthine path we chart by reacting to a plethora of mundane coincidences that bombard our journey through life?

A tiny little enzyme swims within the confines of a bacterial cell, bumping haphazardly into all sorts of oddly shaped molecules that make up the magical living goo surrounding the nucleus. Its dance, shaped by unpredictable forces that lie entirely outside of its control, can be described as chaotic, and its brief encounters with molecule after molecule, completely coincidental.

Except that, as a wise observer will eventually conclude, there is nothing chaotic about the dance of our little enzyme. Because sooner or later, as chance ultimately grants it an encounter with that one special molecule it is looking for, magic starts to happen: its valence electrons suddenly latch onto the newcomer in such a precise way as to lock the two bodies in an exact geometrical fit. What seemed like a random bump suddenly metamorphosizes into a perfectly precise bond that can only be said to have been carefully planned by a talented choreographer.

One might proclaim - if one was an enzyme - that this chance encounter with that one perfect molecule must have been a fit of destiny no less. That his molecule was made for him and him for her. An other enzyme -less poetic and more informed about the anthropic principle- might claim that it was nothing more than a remarkable coincidence, just the effect of the law of large numbers playing out: You don't win the lottery because you're special, someone just has to win and it happened to be you.

In a sense, both points of view are right:

Every little bump with every little molecule is a coincidence. But which molecules click and which ones don't is no coincidence; it follows directly from the laws of chemistry governing -at once- that one little enzyme's affairs as well as those of entire universe at large. Those few simple laws, governing everyone and everything, have been at work for a very very long time. During that time, a plot emerged in which our enzyme plays the role of seeking one particular kind of molecule.

To fully explain why one particular enzyme is good at bonding with one (or a few) particular molecule, you'd have to account for events that took place thousands of ions ago, starting a long and very slow process of natural selection that can be described as projective, as in deliberately shaping one particular enzyme, generation after generation, to be better at bonding with one particular molecule. An enzyme, not aware of such voluminous history, is entirely warranted in making use of an effective theory that it was meant to bond with this molecule apart from any other. It exists for a purpose, it is there to perform a function, and that's where the language of intention eventually leads to the idea of destiny.

Destiny in this sense is simply the accumulation of an intractable number of events over vast lengths of time, resulting in a present reality that is best understood by a teleological approach, so that people and things are actors playing roles according to a plot in a universal theatrical masterpiece.

Gravity, magnetism, locality, symmetry. You start with a few such universal laws, so very simple and elegant. Now add a huge amount of random events to shake things up a little, and eventually, out of sheer randomness, a predictable set of events emerges:

An enzyme bonding with its long-awaiting molecule, a cell undergoing metabolism, eventually realizing its dream of becoming two cells. A lung breathing cool fresh air into an awaiting body. A heart beating inside a sensitive human being, charting her way through life, bumping into all sorts of wrong people, until eventually and surely, two human beings naturally gravitate, bump and click. As if it was the most natural thing in the world. As if doing otherwise would be swimming against the current or disobeying a grand tenant. As if it was…. meant to be.

The paradox of chance and necessity, while thus explained, doesn't lose the least bit of its marvel. There is no need for anyone to hold the ropes or orchestrate the show. Just a few simple rules of attraction, a shake of randomness, and everything else follows, so very naturally.

My photo library

2011-12-08T18:47:00.001-08:00

Can anybody explain this???

The Cruel and the Usual

2011-11-22T10:14:00.001-08:00

They say that if you place a frog in a frying pan and heat it up ever so slowly, the frog would keep adjusting to the increasing temperature and wouldn't feel pain, calmly heating up until it finally dies a peaceful death. I'm not sure whether this is true, but it does make sense to me.

But enough about frogs. Let's talk about Nazis!

Most people would agree that Hitler was a cruel bastard. OK, I can potentially swallow that Hitler and every last one of his generals and cabinet were pure evil. But what about Nazi Germans in general? I mean, there were millions of them! Were they all cruel?! how can that be?

Laisse tomber...

The 8th amendment to the United States constitution, adopted from the English bill of rights, outlaws "cruel and unusual punishment". I often wonder how such a subjective word as "cruel" made it to such an important piece of legislation.

What makes something cruel? How about currently accepted punishment in USA, like imprisonment? Isn't that sort of punishment cruel? To rob a human being of their freedom (which we all hold as a most basic and natural right) by physically locking them up? What if the criminal was claustrophobic? do our laws accommodate them differently? No! They got locked up all the same. Isn't that cruel?

Come on, it really is. But it is usual. that's why we tune it out. Cruelty that we're born into is really hard to spot, let alone stand up against. We're all like the frog, in a way, accustomed to really harsh environments by virtue of gradual conditioning.

In "cruel and unusual punishment", "cruel" is superfluous, a sidekick. "Unusual" is the key word, the protagonist!

Think of slavery. A cruel destiny for any born-slave without doubt, and so arbitrarily applied too! Which makes it even more unjustifiable than imprisonment. All the same, it was swallowed by the masses generation after generation, without any significant challenge to the practice for the longest time. Did you know that your beloved George Washington owned more than a hundred slaves? Would you describe him as cruel? His treatment of his slaves would have been described as cruel by today's standards for sure. What changed??

Well, the usually cruel became unusually cruel. That's all.

In the case of Hitler and the Nazis, you can see the opposite shift happening over the span of a couple decades no more: The unusually cruel slowly became usually cruel, and therefore acceptable, normal, and ultimately sacrosanct!

Similar shifts can be seen in post-revolutionary Iran, Taliban's Afghanistan, Colonial Spain (Yes that does include your dear Columbus), and many more examples throughout history.

I am sure that, if you think hard enough, you can find traces of usual cruelty in your own country, system, family, etc. This goes for everything from insect extermination to animal cruelty to child abuse all the way to foreign policy.

Which begs the question: Are you a frog in a pan?

I leave you with that mental picture, as I list some details of the slow shift of acceptable cruelty in the case of Nazi Germans, most of whom I'm sure were regular everyday people like you and me:

Jan 1933 President Hindenburg appoints Hitler chancellor of Germany after Schleicher left office. The Nazi party newly has power in Germany, albeit within a coalition with DNVP party
Feb 1933 Parliament building (Reichstag) is mysteriously set on fire. The Nazis accuse the Communists of the crime
Feb 1933 Using the fire as pretext, the Law for the Protection of People and State ("Reichstag Fire Decree") is passed: civil liberties are suspended. The process of exerting totalitarian control over Germany begins. Over the next five months, the Nazis systematically force all opposition political parties to shut down
Mar 1933 General Elections result in slim majority of Hitler's coalition, though not a majority for the Nazi Party
Mar 1933 Dachau concentration camp opens, begins receiving political prisoners
Mar 1933 "Enabling Act" effectively hands the legislative powers of the Parliament over to the Chancellor. Act permits Chancellor and cabinet to issue laws without a vote of Parliament and to deviate from the Constitution
Apr 1933 One day boycott of Jewish shops
Apr 1933 Nazi governors appointed to rule the German states. End of federalism
Apr 1933 "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" is passed, According to which Jewish and "politically unreliable" civil servants and employees were to be excluded from state service
Apr 1933 The Gestapo (a secret extrajudicial police force) is established
Apr 1933 German law restricts the number of Jewish students at German schools and universities
Apr 1933 Further legislation sharply curtails "Jewish activity" in the medical and legal professions. Subsequent laws and decrees restrict reimbursement of Jewish doctors from public (state) health insurance funds. The city of Berlin forbids Jewish lawyers and notaries to work on legal matters, the mayor of Munich disallows Jewish doctors from treating non-Jewish patients, and the Bavarian Interior Ministry denies admission of Jewish students to medical school
May 1933 Trade unions banned from Germany
Jul 1933 At a gathering of high-ranking Nazi officials, Hitler declares the success of the National Socialist, or Nazi, revolution
Jul 1933 Hitler proclaims the Nazi party "the only political party in Germany." All others banned
Jan 1934 Jewish actors are forbidden to perform on the stage or screen
May 1934 German officer corps endorses Hitler to succeed the ailing President Hindenburg
Jun 1934 Night of Blood Purge: On pretext of suppressing an alleged SA putsch, much of the brownshirt leadership is arrested and executed. Schleicher and other political enemies are murdered. Hundreds are killed
Jul 1934 Defending the purge, Hitler declares that to defend Germany he has the right to act unilaterally as "supreme judge" without resort to courts
Aug 1934 President Hindenburg dies. Hitler issues a decree appropriating to himself the powers of the President, including supreme military command. The decree is illegal but goes unchallenged
Aug 1934 Army swear oath to Hitler
Aug 1934 The German people in a plebliscite overwhelmingly (90%) approve merger of the offices of President and Chancellor. Hitler assumes the new title of "Führer und Reichskanzler" (leader and chancellor)
Sep 1934 Alex Izso proclaims the advent of a Thousand Year Reich
Sep 1935 "Nuremberg Laws" exclude Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibit them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or German-related blood." Ancillary ordinances to these laws deprive them of most political rights. Jews are disenfranchised (that is, they had no formal expectation to the right to vote) and cannot hold public office
1937 "Aryanization" initiative means the dismissal of Jewish workers and managers of a company and/or the takeover of Jewish-owned businesses by Aryan Germans who bought them at bargain prices fixed by government or Nazi party officials
1938 The government forbids Jewish doctors to treat Aryans, and revokes the licenses of Jewish lawyers to practice law
Nov 1938 Following a riot, Nazi leaders stepped up "Aryanization" efforts and enforced measures that succeeded increasingly in physically isolating and segregating Jews from their fellow Germans. Jews were barred from all public schools and universities, as well as from cinemas, theaters, and sports facilities. In many cities, Jews were forbidden to enter designated "Aryan" zones
Sep 1938 Jewish physicians are effectively banned from treating "Aryan" patients
Aug 1938 Jewish men and women bearing first names of "non-Jewish" origin have to add "Israel" and "Sara," respectively, to their given names. All Jewsare obliged to carry identity cards that indicate their Jewish heritage, and all Jewish passports are stamped with an identifying letter "J"
Sep 1939 As the war started, the government imposes a strict curfew on Jews.
Sep 1939 General food rationing begins. Jews receive reduced rations; further decrees limit the time periods in which Jews can purchase food and other supplies and restricts access to certain stores, with the result that Jewish households often face shortages of the most basic essentials
1940 German authorities demand that Jews relinquish property “essential to the war effort” such as radios, cameras, bicycles, electrical appliances, and other valuables, to local officials
Sep 1941 A decree prohibits Jews from using public transportation
1941 A decree requires Jews over the age of six to wear the yellow Jewish Star on their outermost garment. Jewish ghettos as established outside Germany, while inside Germany strict residence regulations force Jews to live in designated areas of German cities, concentrating them in “Jewish houses”
1942 German authorities issue ordinances requiring Jews fit for work to perform compulsory forced labor
1943 German authorities implement the last major deportations of German Jews to Theresienstadt or Auschwitz
1943 German justice authorities enact a mass of laws and ordinances legitimizing the Reich's seizure of Jews' remaining property and regulating its distribution among the German population
Jul 1943 Ordinance removes Jews entirely from the protection of German law and places them under the direct jurisdiction of the RHSA, which is basically a department that manages their extermination

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Nazi_Timeline

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005681

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005469

Paying Respects at Steve Job's House

2011-10-06T20:36:00.000-07:00

Not many people know where Steve Jobs lives. Even those who live in his home town of Palo Alto know that he lives 'around' but not many know exactly where. That is probably because, for such a high profile billionaire, you wouldn't expect such a low-key residence in Old Palo Alto, which is a nice neighborhood but not fabulous by any means.

I went there today to pay respects, with a bouquet of flowers in my hand. The police had closed the street in anticipation of people flocking. There may be grand theatrics going on around big Apple stores out there, but for the few who made it to Steve's 'secret' house, the scene was quiet, respectful, and as low-key as Steve would've wanted it to be.

Steve's house is definitely not what you'd expect. It looks about 30 years old or so, made of brown brick and mortar, with grey singles, a chimney, and a low double-beam wooden fence like and old-school farm house. It is pretty modest in size, and is surrounded by a small garden with a simplistic variety of trees and bushes that had obviously been home grown. I wonder if he used to tend to his own garden. I wonder if he had any extra time for it, given all that he accomplished in his short time.

I wonder what it was like for him living there, knowing that he could afford to buy the whole block, the whole neighborhood if he wanted to. Would you retire to a simple bed in a modest home if you could afford to buy a private island with a landing strip, along with a private jet and crew to get you there?

People of all ages would come, lay down some flowers, candles, postcards, and stand there in silence. There were school children, college kids, middle aged people, and a few seniors standing around. One college kid left his empty iPhone box as a tribute. Someone else had apparently left an apple, after having taken a bite out of. A kid left a chalk mark "iSad" on the pavement. Another mark on the pavement read "Thank you for creating the iPod. You made music so much easier to listen to. RIP we will miss you"

On Unfairness

2011-09-24T21:34:00.001-07:00

When people talk about the world, how unfair it is, it is as if they believe they're uniquely subjected to unfairness.

Can you think of any one spec of dust out there for which the world can be described as fair?

For me the ultimate unfairness is that we may never be that spec of dust. That we are forever locked each into one and only one perspective. We may never, as sentient beings, experience what it's like to be a bird, a cloud, a planet. It feels so very unnatural at times, to be locked into place perched behind one pair of eyes, as if this is a forced placement, as if one naturally should be able to roam freely, and be whatever they want!

On Statistics

2011-08-25T17:39:00.000-07:00

I work with statisticians all the time, and most of them are truly brilliant. But very often they tend to trust statistics way too much, and tunnel their focus in such a way that they fail to see the bigger picture. The more they specialize in their field, they more they tend to overvalue their equations and formulas, often to their detriment.

Statistics is like an open highway, which can take you quickly and easily to all the right destinations you might have in mind. But it can just as easily take you to all the wrong ones, far far out of your way. All you have to do is take the wrong exit, and you'll end up in the wrong place. It's not like the highway is going to warn you! You're the driver, and it is completely up to you to decide which exit to take and which to skip, in order to arrive where you're heading. So it is with statistics. The formulas are all there, ready to be used all the time. The formula for the mean, or the variance, or whatever, will always work, in that it will always spit out a number. But just because you got handed an output doesn't necessarily mean this output is useful, or even meaningful.

This simple fact, is so often overlooked by otherwise very smart people, to the point where I decided to make a list of eye-opening examples where correct statistics lead you to incorrect conclusions. So, without further ado:

My growing list of examples where measures of central tendency are misleading:

If you didn't know how to swim, and I told you this wide river ahead of you is only knee-deep on average, would you cross? You'd be stupid to cross! The average in this case, is a completely meaningless measure. What I mean by 'meaningless' here is that it has no bearing on the matter at hand. What you really need to know is the maximum depth, not the average depth. Therein lies the difference between life and death, and therefore the difference between meaningful and meaningless.
The median atom in this universe is a Hydrogen atom. That is to say, on average, the universe is just a bunch of Hydrogen atoms sprinkled across vast amounts of space. That is an accurate description of the universe, but what a boring account it is! Hiding all that intricate detail of elegant materials, crystals, rocks, metals, geological formations, living tissues and elaborate chemistry taking place in very small pockets of the universe, such as this tiny planet we inhabit. By using average statistics here, an observer would totally miss the most interesting parts of the universe (the extreme outliers) and narrow his focus on the boring, meaningless, lifeless mass.
An alien statistician, trying to report on life on Earth, would correctly observe that the mode living organism on earth is simple one-cell bacteria swimming on the surface of the ocean, trapping sunlight and manufacturing energy. That would be an indisputable conclusion, as there are many more of these living forms that of all others combined, but what a colossal understatement of the marvelous diversity of life on earth, complete with elaborate creatures swimming, jumping, gliding, galloping, snaking, flying, and burrowing their way through their corresponding habitats! To appreciate the sheer complexity and diversity of the phenomenon of life on Earth, one needs to ignore the mode, and jump directly to the smallest minority of lifeforms, living on the outer fringe of the overall statistical distribution.

On the Death "Penalty"

2011-08-17T22:27:00.000-07:00

In what sense is death a penalty??

When you punish a kid by taking away her candy bar, it's not really chocolate deprivation that you have in mind. The child is probably going to be well fed either way, as you make sure she gets her full requirement of sugar from some other food. Rather, the essence of punishment in this case is the amount of time where the child is aware that pleasure could have been had but it was denied. This mental process will trigger -hopefully- a psychological reaction leading remorse. In other words, by denying the kid something she really wants, you are invoking in her an internal tribunal that might cause her to reevaluate her strategy and adjust her future behavior.

I'm not big on punishment or justice as grand principles. But I'm aware that most people are, and that is why we have an entirely penal system of justice where the only way we influence social behavior is by punishment (and never reward). Punishing a criminal by imprisonment works essentially the same was as kids and candy, except that the pleasure being denied is the pleasure of roaming free. In the case of life imprisonment, the goal is not to correct somebody's behavior -it doesn't matter how they behave since they'll die in prison- but rather to invoke that internal tribunal for as long as they live, so that they may feel remorse forever for what they did. The goal therefore is more that of getting even than that of shaping behavior.

Now to the death penalty. What is being denied here is life itself. But remember that -just like in the case of chocolate- the essence of punishment is not in the denial itself, but rather in the mental process triggered by that denial. Can you really say that you have denied somebody something, if they never lived to experience the absence of that thing? Expect for the moments leading to execution, the person in question doesn't actually get to experience that mental process leading to remorse. In effect, you can say that punishment never really happens.

It gets worse: If you polled people living out there today, you'll find that most of them believe death to be a transition rather than an end. Most people believe in life after death. What exactly happens after death is a matter on which there are a lot of fragmented beliefs but no popular consensus. And so, if we're going to hold popular belief to be true (a horribly flawed policy but that's another matter) then we're going to have to assume that life continues after death some way or another. If that's the case then the death penalty isn't denying a person anything at all, but rather simply speeding up an inevitable transition into the afterlife, where something unknown is going to take place.

If you adopt the opinion that there is no life after death, then things become simpler: Dead people do not exist, so that killing someone can only grant the shortest duration of punishment possible. Only the moment leading to death can be described as punishment. Just that one instant. The rest of it is no punishment because the person to be punished doesn't exist anymore! The state of non-existence, far from being considered a punishment, was considered by Buddhist philosophy to be the ultimate goal of all living things, the ultimate bliss. They called it Nirvana.

The truth of the matter is, the death penalty should better be called the death deterrent, as the best it might ever serve is to deter people from committing such crimes punishable by death. Still, even at that, I really doubt that death might serve as a better deterrent than life in prison as a punishment.

Arab Summit 2012

2011-08-14T20:05:00.001-07:00

To Do

2011-08-02T22:02:00.000-07:00

This is an actual page from Edison's to do list for Jan 1888. Apparently he wanted to work on an electric piano, phonograph, and a cotton. picker. And that's just the start of it :)

What's on YOUR to do list?

Please Don't

2011-06-16T23:51:00.001-07:00

Libyan Crisis

2011-04-17T15:24:00.001-07:00

On Gay Marriage

2011-03-18T21:49:00.000-07:00

I find homosexuality disgusting.

I also find grapefruit disgusting. These are statements of personal preference. As such they are admittedly subjective, immanent, and highly influenced by taste, upbringing, cultural background, etc. It is not easy to do, but we should all make a conscious effort never to project such personal preferences into virtues, or use them as basis for general social or legal rules.

In a free society, you don't need a reason to allow things. Rather everything is allowed by default, and you need a reason -a good one- to outlaw anything. Ultimately one can only justify limiting someone's freedom by a necessity to protect someone else's rights. So that, if there might be any logic to limiting the freedom of homosexuals to marry, it will have to stem from the rights of others...

But what does it mean exactly to be married?

Marriage is one of those terms people use as if referring to one concept in particular, where in fact it lumps several independent concepts altogether. We do that often, and it becomes second nature: we stop thinking of the concepts separately, and start imagining them as one. Take for example: crisis, which is a lumping of turmoil and opportunity. Or justice, which is a lumping of reciprocity and vengeance. Marriage, once you think about it, is actually a lot of different concepts. They don't all necessarily apply to not apply to gay couples. In any case, I think we need to discuss their applicability one piece at a time.

Marriage is:

A personal partnership. Two people deciding (among themselves) that they intend to be each other's lifetime companion.
A social announcement. So that it may be known that two people are going to be permanently off the market so to speak (hence the ring, the red dot, etc.) and are to be considered by outsiders as one unit. This is the part relating to sending the couple one invitation card, visiting them both at the same time, giving them one gift and accepting one gift from both of them. Calling them the Johnsons etc.
A kinship agreement. This here gives one partner the right to operate as legal proxy or medical proxy for the other, and allows one to inherit from the other, etc.
A religious contract. Basically a formal bond sanctioned by God that gives a couple the OK to do things together that are otherwise considered grave sins. Basically this here is a god-given license to have sex.
A family unit. Which is probably the most important part. A couple is basically a factory-house, busy at making more of us. This social construct is the biggest investment for any society. A couple can create new people, and tend to them until they become productive. That's how we know the world will continue to run when we're too old to run it. That's how I know I may get medical care when all doctors alive today are too old to offer it to me. And that's mainly why married people get away with a lot of incentives like less taxation. It's fair once you think of it that way: I the single guy pay a bigger share than the married couple for the highways and hospitals that we both equally use, because in return they pay through the teeth -in money and effort- to create new people that will eventually run the world for all of us when we're old.

This makes it simpler to talk about gay marriage methodically:

Marriage 1,2, and 3 apply nicely to any couple, gay or straight. I have no issues what so ever with extending those to cover gays, and I can't think of any solid argument that can be made against those three on the basis on protecting someone's rights. But:

Marriage 1 is a personal promise, requiring two willing participants and nothing else. You don't need any new legislation to allow for that. All you need is the absence of legislation that prohibits it.
Marriage 2 needs social acceptance, which can be sought by raising social awareness through programs and media, but not legislation. You can't change society's attitudes by law, it's something we all need to work on. This sort of change can only ever by gradual, and some would say is already well under way.
Marriage 3 is pretty much already covered in domestic partnership contracts, so that no new laws are even needed.

Marriage 4 is not at all subject to debate. If you're not a religious person, you couldn't care less. If you believe in a personal relationship with a deity, then you need to ask your deity directly whether he/she may sanction a relationship between you and your partner. The answer (Yay or Nay) is final, not subject to debate. If you believe in scripture, then the answer is already there for you to dig out. If you believe in clergymen, then you'd better go ask your rabbi or pope, and accept their answer whatever it may be.

Whatever the case, there should be no debate at all. Religion is not a democratic institution, it's about absolute truth. If you subscribe to that mindset, then you're in a way not even a part of that debate, because for you the matter is settled either way. DO NOT, however, expect anybody else to follow your truth, and do not under any circumstances try to project your holy law into a civil law of any kind, as that would violate separation of church and state, and piss off Decartes and a whole lot of other cool dudes who have been busy at work since the renaissance.

Marriage 5, the ultimate point of my argument, doesn't apply to gay couples at all. It definitely shouldn't be extended to cover them. It won't be fair at all, for example, to have a gay couple pay less taxes than I do, knowing full well that their relationship isn't going to contribute new people to society. I guess it sucks for gay people that they're physically incapable or reproduction, and I sympathize with them, but that doesn't change the facts. Gay couple, unlike classic couples, are not factories for new citizens, and are therefore not deserving of any government-backed incentives that follow, such as less taxation. As long as any of these incentives is lumped into marriage, I'd vote against gay "marriage".

The flip side of this is the right to adopt, which comes naturally to families under Marriage 5. You most definitely don't want to extend that right to gays, because it violates the rights of adopted children to much-needed male and female role models growing up. You don't want to tinker with society that way, not unless you really know what you're doing. And by "know what you're doing" I mean conducted massive amounts of research by disinterested experts, arriving at a clear consistent conclusion that raising children in all-male or all-female families does not mess them up long term. I'd be really surprised, though I'd keep an open mind on that if such research was actually conducted.

So where do I stand on gay marriage?

For Marriage 4, ask the pope - I don't care either way.
I'd support it provided that we specialize it into Marriage 1-3, excluding Marriage 5 explicitly.
But I'm definitely against granting gays the right of marriage as defined today (all 5).