Bioman35353

In a parallel universe dominated by the Mayan civilization the world waits breathlessly to see if...

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 21:30:26 -0500

In a parallel universe dominated by the Mayan civilization the world waits breathlessly to see if computer programmers have properly corrected the 14b (14th baktun) problem or whether all their computer will tick over to the beginning of the 13th baktun, 20 katun cycles ago (about 394 years, 1618 AD, in the obscure Gregorian calendar system).

Not a bad plot for an alternative history story…

Personally I’m a little more interested in the Binary Millennium (aka the Year 2038 problem) which is still looming.

http://bit.ly/VTptpo

#2012 #apocalypse #computers #programing #alernativehistory

original post

Where's the Smart Money in an (fake)Apocalypse?

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 13:25:10 -0500

Ok, so lot’s of people are freaking out over the fact that the Mayans didn’t bother to make the calendar on their monuments tick over to the 14th b’ak’tun (b’ak’tun are cycles nearly 400 years long). Basically, modern people are panicking because the Mayans had a 13th b’ak’tun problem and assuming that due to the well known Mayan skill of prediction (they saw the Spanish coming years in advance but suffered from severe cultural procrastination and never got around to doing anything about it) this lack of another page in their calendar is a sign that the world is about to end.

So here’s my question: While the people who don’t understand the Mayan civilization or calendars in general are putting their money into canned food and shotguns what should the rest of us do to prepare for the post-apocalypse fizzle? Will it be enough to effect the stock market? Clean up on lightly used survival supplies on Ebay Dec 22nd? Any thoughts/suggestions?

Posted an interesting #picture to #reddit, had the ultimate comment in less than three minutes by...

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 13:28:42 -0400

Posted an interesting #picture to #reddit, had the ultimate comment in less than three minutes by stackableshrooms “I used to be a race car …..”, very impressive.

#cars #skyrim #arrow
http://redd.it/yyxj2

Legal Performance Art (or Charles Carreon goes Batcrap Crazy)

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 12:23:00 -0400

I think it’s important to recognize the contribution of performance artists to our culture. It it through individuals like Andy Kaufman and Steven Colbert that we as a society can see in satire what would be unimaginable in earnest. That is why I’m so proud of Charles Carreon.

Charles Carreon is without a doubt the finest performance artist of all time. His subterfuge is more reminiscent of the Rosenburgs than Sacha Cohen in it’s complexity and commitment. Mr. Carreon actually went to law school and spent years building a law practice for the sole purpose of drawing attention to the foolishness of the American legal system.

After year of painstaking determination and patience Mr. Carreon launched his plan with a lawsuit against TheOatmeal.com which was quickly brought to people’s attention with this post by creator Matthew Inman. Now, for some people this would have been enough but Mr. Carreon didn’t spend all that time building his persona for such a minor piece of theater.

Mr. Carreon doubled down with this interview with Forbes where he displays a clearly unrealistic lack of understanding of how the internet and people in general work. This was a risky move since it’s becoming harder to take his character, and more importantly the message, seriously. Honestly, at this point I suspected that this brilliant criticism of our legal system was coming to an early and regrettable end.

Yet it was at this moment that Mr. Carreon explodes back into action with this lawsuit against the charitable organizations the American Cancer Society and the National Wildlife Federation. I was left in awe and somehow I don’t think he’s done yet.

Like the great Andy Kaufman it’s hard to know where reality ends and the joke starts. You are left wondering whether this is art that imitates life or life that imitates art. Regardless, we all should admire the incredible dedication of Charles Carreon who is willing to go so far to show us the foolishness of our current copyright system, legal structure and even the very way that we interact with people on the internet. Bravo sir!

Either that or Charles Carreon is Batcrap crazy.

Legal Performance Art (or Charles Carreon goes Batcrap Crazy) by Adam Glickman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Writing An Insulting Letter

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:44:00 -0400

I was going through my mail and found a letter from the company that administers Pennsylvania’s taxes (they use a private company called Berkheimer for the local taxes). Initially, I thought it was about my 2011 taxes which aren’t due yet but it seemed to be saying that I owed unpaid taxes. Since I had only lived in that town for a few months and had paid my taxes in 2011 I couldn’t figure out how I could owe anything.

I called them up expecting to be told that it about about prepaying or estimated taxes. Instead I was informed that I hadn’t paid a town tax which had been mailed to me in the middle of the year. Even though I told them that I had never received anything (the post office lost a couple of our letters while we where there and failed to forward some others since we moved) they said that they never resend anything and even if I’ve never heard of this tax which is sent out several months after all the others I was still libel for the fees.

I was irritated since I would have been happy to pay at the time (well, happy might be a bit strong) but there wasn’t anything I could do. I felt the need to vent a bit so I decided to send a complaint letter to Berkheimer, and because I’m a little odd, I decided to have some fun with it. This is the letter that I sent complaining about what happened, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it:

I have always sought to compose myself with the utmost care concerning what is owed of me. I have paid every tax asked of me but cannot pay that which is unknown to me. I paid my earned income and believed that to be the end of my monetary responsibilities in Sellersville as no further requests were presented to me and every credit check has come forth without blemish. Both while in residence and since in forwarding, my mail has been inconsistent due to the poor disposition of the Post Office of that town, yet I am without recourse.

Had I lived there for more than a few months I might have been better informed of the tax requirements and the knowledge that they are not asked of one all at once but in random intervals throughout the yearly cycle. That there are no further notices to account for lost letters nor ability to appeal these charges against my wallet and character are unfair and unjust. I could just as easily claim that I myself had sent a response to you and your inability to find it is upon your own head yet I would not be so odorous to you.

I have therefore paid your ridiculous fine which I am certain exists solely as a device for lining your company coffers but wish you to know that your services are atrocious and I hope that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania disposes of them for a company less villainous as soon as possible leaving you without means and cast into the street. I would wish you “Good Day” but cannot in good conscience place such as lie in print.

Writing An Insulting Letter by Adam Glickman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

New premium YouTube channels “Geek & Sundry” (http://bit.ly/H47Tva) and...

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:12:08 -0400

New premium YouTube channels “Geek & Sundry” (http://bit.ly/H47Tva) and “Nerdist” (http://bit.ly/H47VTI) are launching next week and look incredibly awesome.

I highly recommend that everyone check them out and subscribe to the channels so you get the updates (if you’re connected with me then odds are you’d like at least one of the shows).

These new YouTune channels are kind of like online-only TV stations, high quality and with great shows that wouldn’t get a chance on normal network television. They aren’t trapped by preset lengths, showtimes, or ratings. This is probably the future of TV, where shows are produced for the web but the most popular are also shown on TV rather than the other way around. It actually makes more sense since your target audience might not mesh with a particular timeslot and you can target ads more precisely. I’m really looking forward to see what some of these stunningly creative people can do when given a bit of a budget and a camera!

#Geek #Nerd #TV

Job Hunting Advice Continued (Part Two - Searching for Positions)

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:29:17 -0500

Intro

A good friend of mine recently became unemployed. I wanted to give my friend (yes, I’m intentionally being vague) the best advice I could since I’ve been laid off twice and learned a lot both times. Rather than just send an email I decided to create a blog post so that anyone else who might find this information useful could find it.

As my original post became too big I decided to split it up into what I expect will be three sections of which this is the second. The first post mostly focused on preparations such as creating a resume, a LinkedIn profile and business cards. This post will be focused more on what to do with your resume; how to actually look for work and get interviews.

I hope that you don’t need any of this but if you do then I hope that you find something here that makes your job search a little easier.

*Disclaimer*

These are some tips that I felt were helpful for me personally. Everyone is different and every field is different. Some of the things I did might have been helpful for me but would be harmful for you. Each person needs to evaluate this advice in the appropriate context and use their best judgement. If you read this and have better information please feel free to add any comments or suggestions.

The Road Thus Far and Yet to Come

If you’ve read my previous post then at this point you’ve got a resume (at least version 1.0), some business cards, a LinkedIn profile, and a dream. The point of this post is to bring you to the attention of people who can actually offer you a job, or at least bring you in for an interview.,

Posting Your Resume (version 1.0)

When you first start looking for work it can be extremely overwhelming. There are so many jobs out there and yet so few that seem to be what you’re looking/qualified for.

To get started I recommend posting your resume in as many places as possible. At the very least I suggest Monster.com, Careerbuilder.com, Dice.com, and Indeed.com. If you know of any that are more specific to your region, industry or field then post there too. With most sites you can update your resume whenever you like and upload multiple resumes as well. Take advantage of this. Once you have a decent resume, post it. You can then spend a week or two polishing and improving your resume while version 1.0 is already out there.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that you put out a sub-par resume. I just don’t want you getting bogged down with word choice, formatting, and phrasing when you should be focused on other things. This will also give you time to send your resume to people for review and give them plenty of time to respond. I’ll get into this more later but you’ll end up tweaking your resume for certain job applications anyway so don’t worry about creating a resume that is perfect for all situations.

Recruiters

Many job postings are now facilitated by recruiters. These are people paid by the company to find appropriate candidates for specific positions that the company needs filled. Examples of recruiting companies include Aerotek and Manpower.

Some of these companies will find you by noticing your posted resume. Usually this happens when they’re looking for a candidate for a specific position and your resume got their interest. If this doesn’t happen immediately, don’t worry. You can also send your resume to these recruiting/staffing companies to get into their database. Once you’ve got a profile in their system they’ll try and match you to available openings. Look for companies that specialize in your industry and contact them.

Sounds wonderful right? You don’t have to do anything and these people will get you a great job! Sorry, not so fast.

Yes, working with recruiting companies can be extremely helpful, HOWEVER it is absolutely not a substitute for putting in the necessary effort on your end! Recruiters get paid by companies to find someone to fill an open position. They don’t necessarily care if that person is you. These people work under incredible pressure because they get paid based on the number of candidates they present that get hired. They need to send likely candidates quickly or someone else might get the job so they’re not as interested in getting you a job as they are getting a position filled.

How do you deal with recruiters? By making yourself a good candidate.

1) Bring the positions to the recruiter. Most of recruiting companies have a database of open positions. Search through it regularly and when you find a potential match bring it to the attention of either your contact person at that company or the person listed as the contact for that position.

2) Be professional. When a recruiter sends you on an interview you are partially representing that recruiter (since their judgement is why you’re there). Make sure that you leave a good impression even if you don’t like the situation (such as realizing that you really don’t want the job). The recruiter is going to call the hiring manager to ask how things went. You want that call to go very well even if they decide that you’re not right for the job. Show up well prepared (more on interview prep later), be polite, and make sure that the recruiter won’t have any qualms about sending you another client later.

3) Stay in contact. Call or email your contacts regularly so that they know that you’re still looking for work. Most recruiters know that you won’t necessarily tell them that you accepted a new job so if they haven’t heard from you in a while they might assume that you’ve stopped looking.

My general rule was that I would call no less than once every two weeks to check in. I’d go through each database about once or twice a week and see if anything new had been listed. If I saw something promising I’d contact the person about it. If I hadn’t seen anything after about two weeks I’d make a quick call just to let my primary contact person know that I hadn’t seen anything listed but I was still looking and interested. Polite but short, the recruiter doesn’t need to chat but you want them to remember who you are when that perfect opportunity crosses their desk.

*Super Important Tip*
I strongly recommend that you keep a log of all your job hunting activities. It should include things like the job title, company (both the recruiting company and actual company), location, date of last communication, contact person and contact information. This is useful for a variety of reasons:

It will let you keep track of whether you’ve already applied for a position. Many companies have a policy of throwing out duplicate resumes! This prevents people from mass-sending resumes to every open position. A recruiter might ask if you’ve already had a resume sent to company X (either for a specific position or within a certain amount of time), this will let you check and confirm.
If you are receiving unemployment benefits the state might have requirements such as “apply for at least two jobs per week”. This log will be evidence of your efforts and will allow an auditor to easily confirm your hard work.
Specifically concerning our discussion of recruiters: It will let you keep track of the last time you spoke to someone from a particular recruiting company so that you stay in touch without being an irritation.

Ok, all that was very passive so let’s take a look at what you can actively do to get some attention.

Direct Applications

While many companies use recruiters to find candidates plenty still maintain their own hiring systems. In your industry there are probably a few big names that you’re familiar with. Starting with these go to the company websites and start looking for the “careers” section. Companies often prefer to do their hiring directly since this avoids paying a recruiter. Look through the listed openings and see if anything looks promising. Regardless, there is often a way to send in a resume to the company’s internal Human Resources database. This way if anything comes up that matches your resume they’ll give you a call.

Tailoring Your Resume

Tailor your resume for the job. Look through the job description and if possible the company website (sometimes recruiters won’t tell you who the client is to prevent you from circumventing them).

Look for keywords and phrases, then add them to your resume. Usually this is just a matter of making sure that a skill you have is stated explicitly. Sometimes you have a skill and don’t mention it because everyone in your field knows that you’d have it if you also have some other skill (such as knowing that if you can use Microsoft Word you can also use Notepad). However, the person going through the resumes might not actually understand the details of the position (this is especially common in technical fields). If they were told that a required skill was using Notepad, asked for Notepad skill in the job posting and don’t see it in your resume they might assume you can’t do the job.

If a company website stresses that they are precise then tweak your resume to highlight your precision.

You might also want to reorganize your resume to draw attention to specific areas of skill. For example, if one set of your skills involves photography then make sure that is the first set of skills listed when you apply for a job involving lots of photography (your knowledge of computer graphics might be handy but not the first thing you want that specific employer to see).

Roundup of Part Two

You’ve got a basic resume posted to every major site you can find, you’ve contracted recruiters, you’re starting to tweak your resume to specific positions and you’ve got a log to keep track of it all. Great progress! The next section will focus on interview preparation and technique.

Job Hunting Advice Continued (Part Two - Searching for Positions) by Adam Glickman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Job Hunting Advice (Part One - Preparations)

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 18:08:00 -0500

Intro

A friend of mine was recently laid off. I’ve lost my job twice (two different jobs, not the same one twice) and no matter what, it really sucks. I thought I’d post some of the things that I’ve learned as a result of my job searches. Most of this isn’t original but by putting it all in one place I hope to make what is already a really stressful process a little easier.

*Disclaimer*

Getting Started

The first thing that I would recommend is creating a professional email account. Gmail is fine but you want something that isn’t too casual. Beerman82 is fine for friends but not necessarily what you want a potential employer to see (unless you’re in the brewing business).

Techno Tip: email addresses ignore periods so you can create an email such as lastname.specialty@gmail.com which is easier to read than lastnamespecialty@gmail.com since it tells the reader where the separation is.

The second thing I’d recommend is getting a Google Voice number. Google Voice lets you create a personalized number (such as incorporating your field or name). That number can then be set to forward to your cellphone, land-line, or office phone. This keeps you from needing to give out your personal phone number and includes a ton of useful features.

LinkedIn

Starting off, I’m a big fan of Linkedin.com. I think it’s a great way to build a professional network without mixing it with your social network. The two might overlap but this really gives you control over it. There are definitely things that I’ll post to Facebook that I wouldn’t want on a more professional site or seen by my boss.

I’ll come back to LinkedIn later but for now I just want to make you aware of it. For me there are two primary tools for the job search: LinkedIn and the Resume. I’m guessing that at this point more people have a resume than a LinkedIn profile. You can use your resume as a starting point for your profile or vice versa but I’ll start with the resume for now.

The Resume

Your resume is your standard job application. It has sections such as experience, education, and skills. How you emphasize these sections will depend on your strengths. Straight out of school you’ll want your education experience to be more prominent. As you gain more job experience sections like classes and degrees will move lower to highlight your skills and employment history.

Here are a few tips where your resume is concerned:

Have multiple versions.
One should be no more than two pages so you can print it out front and back (for in-person situations) which can be as artfully formatted as you like, another can be several pages long for emails where they expect more detail (minimal formatting, nothing too fancy). Be ready to create specific resumes for certain jobs.
Avoid passive voice.
Don’t “assist” or “help” any more than absolutely necessary. Use action words, be a little boastful.
When describing your job and skills try and use different words as often as possible. A lot of resumes get passed through a keyword analyzer so getting 45/50 words found in your resume might give you a boost even if many of them mean the same thing.
Check your formatting.
If you build your resume in Microsoft Word then there may be issues if someone tries to copy and paste it into a worksheet. You can test this by opening WordPad and pasting in your resume text. If it looks weird (text isn’t correctly positioned or aligned wrong) then fix it.
Get it looked at by multiple people.
Everyone will have a slightly different idea of what the perfect resume should look like. Some of this will depend on the person’s field while some of it will be generational (certain styles go in and out of fashion).

I recommend printing on heavy stationary since it feels more substantial. I used “Wausau Royal Cotton Fine Business Stationery, White” and was pleased with the performance.

Resume Techno Tricks:

Place your multi-page resume into Google Documents.
Now in the upper right you will see a button that says “share”. Click on it and set it so that it can be found and viewed by the public internet. Now you will also see a “Link to Share”. You can post this on your webpage, profile, into your email signature of your professional email, etc. When anyone clicks through that think they will see your resume. When you update your resume on Google Documents the person clicking the link will always see the most recent version. Handy right? (here’s mine)
Bonus Tip: Take that really long URL Google gives you to share your document and run it through bitly.com, this will not only give you a MUCH shorter URL to work with it, if you create a bitly.com account (its free) you can track how many people use your link and make a QR code for sharing.
Post your resume to Monster.com, Careerbuilder.com, Dice.com, Indeed.com and anywhere else you think it might be noticed. Get ready for lots of spam but that’s why you have an email address just for professional use.

Back to LinkedIn

Ok, now that you’ve created a resume it’s time to go after that LinkedIn profile. Generally, your LinkedIn profile is a combination resume and social network.

You put in things like “Experience” and a short description of each position. I happen to like using bullet points which you can get by copying and pasting them from WordPad since there isn’t a bullet button on your keyboard.

The basics of Linkedin are fairly straightforward so I’ll focus on some of the more overlooked parts of this website.

Pick an appropriate picture.
The one with you holding up a drink that you have on facebook isn’t what you want your professional network to see. Stage a nice picture in your interview outfit with good lighting and a nice plain background. Frame it so your face is clear but include your shoulders so that it’s not just a giant head.
Make aggressive use of the “Skills” section.
It’s under the “more” tab and currently in beta. Fill it with every skill you can think of since you have no idea what searches someone will use.
Also under the “more” tab is “get more applications…”
There are some very clever tools here that you can make use of.
-Create a Google Presentation of why you should be hired and post it. If you do creative work then include examples from various projects. If you work with different types of equipment then include those. Make it into a “why I should be hired” presentation that sells you as a candidate.
-Create a Box.net account (5 GB free). Put in PDF files of work and extra copies of your resume or CV.
Personalize the LinkedIn URL. Go to “edit profile” then where it says “public profile” it should also say “edit” to the right, click that. Look at the right column. You can adjust your visibility (I’d suggest public if you want to be found), and below that it “Your public URL”. Customize it to something that is more interesting, like this:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/adamglickmanmicrobiologist
This link goes really well in the signature of your processional email account (check under “settings” in your email system)
Bonus tip: just like with your resume you can use bitly.com to create a QR code what will track your views.
Set your headline to something that will get attention
On the “edit profile” screen click on “edit” next to your name. See where it says “headline”? That headline can actually be fairly long and include lots of useful information. Change it to something like “Actively Seeking Work”. Then use the “|” symbol (shift , above “enter”) to add your top skills and interests. “Actively Seeking Work | Experience in Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals”
Get recommendations!
Don’t be afraid to ask your boss for a recommendation, it can make a big difference.
Don’t overlook the Summary section
This section often gets ignored and it is the most important if you’re looking for work. This is your personal statement to whoever views your profile. Talk about your strengths and highlight how you will be an asset. Keep it in first person, remember that this is you talking to the prospective employer.

Business Cards

Even if your company gives you official company cards I would highly recommend that you get ones that are your own. More and more you are becoming your own brand. Personal business cards are a way to represent yourself outside of your current position. Vistaprint.com is fairly inexpensive though I’d recommend going for full color heavy stock (looks and feels more professional) and two-sided printing (you’ll see why in a second).

Include a picture
Remember that nice picture for your LinkedIn profile? Put it on your card. When you name is a hazy memory that picture will remind the person of who you are and why they took your card in the first place.
Include a QR code and that personalized URL to your LinkedIn page on the back. This way by simply scanning your card with a smartphone or typing in a simple URL (because it’s personalized) a person can find you on LinkedIn. They can then connect with you, contact you, recommend you, etc.
Include your Google Voice number and professional email
Personalize it appropriately for your field
If you are in a creative field then make your card very distinctive. If your field is more conservative then tone it down a bit but still make sure that it will be remembered (one way to do that is to go for light lettering on a dark background).
Make sure it is readable!
Your card is useless if no one can read it. Make sure that your font is clear and large enough to read without difficulty.

Your Interview Toolkit (What to buy before you need it)

Your folio (I like the Wenger Vinyl Zip-Folio but removed the three ring binder part)
Extra copies of your resume (bring plenty so that when people show up with badly formatted versions you can give them good ones)
Business cards (offer one to everyone you meet but try to be smooth and casual)
A pen; take notes as you go (the folio comes with a pad of paper). Record each person’s name and something about your conversion with them. Later when you send a Thank-you note to them you’ll be able to remember what name goes with what conversation.
A presentation on a flash drive*
Thank-you cards. (Don’t actually bring these on the interview but make sure you have some beforehand so you’re prepared)

*Load that presentation you created for LinkedIn and put it onto a flash drive.
This might sound crazy but it happened to me
I went to a job interview at a fairly large company. The interview had been arranged by a recruiter. When I arrived I was asked if I had my presentation on a flash drive. Apparently due to a miscommunication I hadn’t been told that I would be expected to give a short presentation in front of several people followed by questions. I did a good job considering I was speaking without any preparation but not surprisingly I didn’t get the job. Even a couple of slides would have come in very handy that day

Roundup of Part One

Ok, so you’ve created an email address and phone number. You’ve started working on your resume and Linkedin profile. You’ve designed and ordered business cards. A really great start! In Part 2 I’ll talk about applying for specific positions and getting ready for interviews.

I hope that this has been helpful. Hang in there and remember the words of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “DON’T PANIC”.

Job Hunting Advice (Part One - Preparations) by Adam Glickman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Think I successfully set up comments on my #Tumblr #blog with #DISQUS. If you notice any problems...

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:00:03 -0500

Think I successfully set up comments on my #Tumblr #blog with #DISQUS. If you notice any problems just post a comment and I’ll get right on it.

….

Mmmm no comments yet, everything must be working!

Set my alarm this morning to play “Non, je ne regrette rien” by Édith Piaf (aka the song...

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 07:17:46 -0500

Set my alarm this morning to play “Non, je ne regrette rien” by Édith Piaf (aka the song from #inception). #funwaytowakeup

Truthiness in the News, the Bias and Reputation of Information (or What is the New York Times Going to Do Now?)

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:53:00 -0500

*Disclaimer*

The following is written primarily for my own amusement. I thought something was interesting so I wrote about it and then shared it. If you are in any way unhappy, offended or dissatisfied with this blog post then please return it for a complete refund (your return must also include your memory of this event along with any and all corollary thoughts as well as a receipt for your original purchase).

Prologue

Last Thursday Arthur S. Brisbane, the public editor of the New York Times, wrote an opinion piece called “Should the Times be a Truth Vigilante?” (and been updated with a followup post).

This lead to a lively discussion on Facebook with several of my friends, one of whom is a reporter. I thought that the topic was so interesting because it really gets to the heart of a major issue of our modern age: “the difference between truth and information”.

The classic concept that “knowledge is power” is severely lacking. People often confuse this with the idea that “information is power”, which is clearly untrue. Information doesn’t have any value, what one does with that information is what creates value.

I decided to post some of my thoughts on the subject and see what people thought. Hopefully this will either spur vigorous public debate or just slightly amuse/interest people for a little while. Either way I’m adding my contribution to the collective intellect of the human race. What have you accomplished with your morning?

Getting Caught Up (The Entire History of the Human Race in Less Than 200 Words)

For most of history information was scarce and so tended to be valuable. Information collected by one individual had to be transferred directly to another. Knowing what happened to the last person to try that purple berry had to be moved out of one person’s head and into another through direct communication. Otherwise, one hungry lion could wipe out the equivalent of the Library of Alexandria with just one bite.

Later, a means of storing information outside of the brain was developed by putting marks onto a surface. Now a person could leave information for someone else without having to be physically present. The greatly improved the storage of information but still presented a problem as far as it’s transmission.

For hundreds of years books were written and copied by hand. Prior to 1440 BCE output was around 40 pages per day, suddenly it skyrocketed to around 3600 (a 9000% increase). Now, information is plentiful. In 2008 289,729 books were published in the United States alone, and according to Google 129 Million Different Books Have Been Published as of 2010 (of which 12 million had been scanned).

Information Overload

So now we have lots of information, but a new problem has emerged. How does one convert that information into value?

In ancient times a craving for sugar and fat was good because it was sufficiently rare that getting it increased your odds of survival. That same craving now leads to the leading cause of death in the United States. A craving for information was useful because it provided you with knowledge that you otherwise might never acquire. When the tribe elder saw someone die after eating that purple berry while clutching his stomach you know something that probably isn’t worth trying to eat. That same craving now leads to information overload where the person loses the ability to actually process and analyze the information that they are getting because there is too much of it.

The internet is really good at transmitting information, just ask the RIAA, however it isn’t intended, designed, or capable of determining truth.

This is troublesome because we as human beings prefer to receive truth rather than information. You can either read all three volumes of Principia Mathematica (scans available from the University of Michigan Historical Math Collection), or I can just tell you that 1 +1 = 2 (which isn’t proven until page 86 of volume 2, or so I’ve been told).

Information is dealt with in three stages: Acquisition, analysis, and action (see how I made them all start with the same letter? That makes it true.) First you get information from some external source. Then you process that information using existing memory and reason. Finally, you do something with the result of that thinking (even if it’s just think about it some more).

Reporters

Reporters have a very specific function in society. They are information retrieval specialists. Their job is to collect information from various sources and then disseminate it with as little distortion as possible. This is why a free press is a prerequisite to a democratic society. Because people use information to create action, control of that information can change the action. In other words: garbage in, garbage out.

The reason that Mr. Brisbane’s post created such a firestorm is that people have difficulty realizing how much information isn’t actually facts but opinion. In the original article he give the following quotation:

on the campaign trail, Mitt Romney often says President Obama has made speeches “apologizing for America,”

and asks whether a *reporter* should be able to comment on the validity of that statement. On the surface it seems clear that if a politician says something that appears to be untrue the the reporter should say so. If President Obama announces that the war against Eurasia is going well* and the news story about that announcement doesn’t reveal it as false then what is the utility of listening to the New York Times instead of some state run organization?

*My use of Obama in a 1984 reference was due to his current office and is not intended to imply anything about his administration whatsoever

But there’s a *big* problem with that. Now the reporter is inserting their *opinion* about whether there is a war in Eurasia instead of just telling you what the president actually said. You are now being given altered information. Once a reporter inserts their own opinion into a story the information becomes corrupted.

So why is the New York Times better than the Ministry of Truth? A reporter can get additional information from an expert on Eurasia to say that there isn’t a war going on. This creates a path of accountability. You can check on who the expert is and who refutes that expert. In theory, the reporter should be a fair witness. Seeing and then transmitting without introducing any bias into that report.

Once a reporter introduces bias into their report it becomes impossible to tell where the facts end and the opinion begins. And so society crumbles, the end.

Not the End (Onmipresent Bias)

There is another problem though: everyone has a bias! Even the best, most detached reporter will have some bias. That bias will come out in her* work no matter how hard she may try to prevent it.

*I chose the female pronoun for my perfect reporter out of convenience to avoid lots of “their”s or “it”s. There are many fine male reports out there and this is not intended as an insult to any of them, merely a convenience for me.

When this reporter writes an article about a particular issue she must present both sides of that issue in order to be fair. She cannot just say “X is right”, because reading that will corrupt the reader’s ability to interpret the information. Instead she must find two experts on the subject who each support an opposing side and then get them to give their reasoning. But the selection process itself will create bias!

If the issue is “what side of your buttered bread should be up when you eat it?” then the reporter will find someone who says it should be eaten butter side down and someone who says it should be eaten butter side up. But what if this reporter knows that 99.99% of the public and scientific community agree that butter side up is best? She could introduce bias by asking the pro-“butter side up” head of dairy studies at a prestigious university for one opinion and the pro-“butter side down” head of the discredited unreviewed publication “butter dwn” <sic> for the other. Alternatively she could reverse her efforts to counter her own known bias and try to give the butter side up a slight handicap to prevent them from crushing the opposition outright.

I often find myself frustrated in this process by science reporting. In an attempt to be fair, opinions which are fringe to experts but mainstream to non-experts are given apparent equal weight. However that might just be my own bias talking.

No matter what system you might use there is never going to be one without SOME bias. The only prefect system is the *exact* report of the events, which is the event itself. So by condensing things at all you are inevitably introducing some opinion into the process since at some point someone somewhere must use their judgement.

So Now What?

People say they want the truth, but what they really mean is that they want *their* truth. They want the New York Times to act when a candidate they don’t like says something they think is a lie. However, they would be furious if the Washington Post said that the candidate *they* supported was lying. “Clearly the person I favor was misunderstood while the one I dislike is basically a Nazi.”

Even if it isn’t possible to have absolute truth in newspaper reports it is possible to have better or worse reporting (a range of truth rather than an absolute). There are currently several attempts to find a way to measure the truthiness of information but all of them are flawed (I don’t actually believe that there is a unflawed way). The question really is what kind of flaws are we willing to live with?

Reputation

Facts are just true or false, totally binary. They can be expressed in ways that create ambiguity but the human race has generally agreed to pretend that there is an objective reality that we all inhabit and some stuff happened and some stuff didn’t.

Truth isn’t so simple. Truth lives in your head and so my version of true isn’t going to be the same as your version of true. My version is better (but that might not be true to you). So how do we rate the amount of truth in a statement? Easy, we rate the person saying it. The reason that the reporter interviewed a well respected expert is because the public will rate that person and consequently the information that person presents to us.

When I read an article in the New York Times I assume that the article has a high level of truthiness to it. The New York Times has a good reputation resulting from high quality work (low bias), and consistent results (few failures). It hires reporters who will maintain that reputation and will fire those who would put that reputation at risk. The guy handing out photocopies copies of his personal newspaper on the street has a poor reputation and therefore an assumed low level of truthiness. It’s possible that the guy on the street is right while the New York Times is wrong but I’m playing the odds here.

This is the problem with blogs (not this one, but all the others), they make it much harder to distinguish between high and low reputation. A webpage might look respectable but have no facts checked or even any concern that that they weren’t. Those hyperlinks to other sources that you didn’t bother to click on just go to other blogs that also didn’t check their facts. What if an important statistic is just traced back from source to source until you get to Jon Kyl making up numbers? A discredited blog could also just shut down and reopen under a different name.

The New York Times and the reporters that it employs (as well as numerous reporters on other newspapers all around the world, and a couple of bloggers) have built a individual and collective reputation for quality journalism. The challenge is how do you actually measure reputation?

Quantifying Reputation

When the world was smaller it was possible to know and have an opinion on the reputation of all the people you needed to interact with. I can trust this person because he has dealt fairly with me for years; I don’t know him so I’m not sure I believe what he says. Now we interact with so many people that it’s hard to know who to trust and how much.

When I rent an apartment the landlord want to know if he can trust me. Specifically, he want to know whether I have a good *financial* reputation. So he contacts a credit agency who gives him a number. The better the number the better my financial reputation and the safer a bet I am.

Perhaps we need to begin using reputation agencies to track our *personal* reputation as well. There are several models for this that I thought I’d trot out.

Reputation Models

-State Liscening

Doctors and Lawyers must pass state mandated exams to practice their trade. Once a license is obtained it can be taken away for reasons of misconduct or simply allowed to lapse if no longer needed. Journalists could even create their own internal version with a union. Only licensed journalists may be hired by papers and individuals may post to blogs using a title such as AJ (Accredited Journalist). Until recently Brazil required all practicing journalists to have a degree in journalism, and some are trying to get the law reinstated.

-http://slashdot.org/

Slashdot uses a system where random moderators rate the comments posted. Perhaps random reporters would rate articles with the author hidden.

Peer review has it’s own problems as well.

-http://thewhuffiebank.org/ (currently inactive, planning to reactivate with a major overhaul later in 2012)

Based a short story Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow whuffie is a reputation based currency. The idea is that individuals with high respect for their contributions will be “richer” than those who lack that respect. You may pay money for an ebook on Amazon.com but give whuffie to the author who gives away their stories for free. In Charles Stross’ Novel Accelerando a reputation stock market exists which trades personal and corporate reputation like stocks and bonds.

-http://klout.com

Klout attempts to measure influence rather than reputation directly. Highly influential people can then be targeted for benefits based on the fact that their review carries additional weight. While this might be a step towards a reputation tracking algorithm I wouldn’t entirely trust a system that rates Lady Gaga at 93 while Anderson Cooper is 80.

-http://hypothes.is/

Hypothes.is is an ambitious attempt to build a peer review system into the internet itself. By using a browser add-on people will be able to comment on pages without needing an existing comment system. That way you could comment on a specific sentence of a post and possibly link to evidence for or against. Still in early development, getting it off the ground will be hard but putting together a system of moderators large enough to handle the traffic and still respected enough to keep things organized might be even harder.

Conclusion

I don’t actually have a answer for any of this, just a few thoughts. Every system is going to have problems and flaws. The best I think we can hope for it to minimize the problems and make the flaws apparent. When there is bias I think it needs to be clearly signaled.

I personally think that newspapers might need to revamp their style and layout to enable additional opinion to be added (to put information in context) while making it very clear what is an opinion by the author and what is fact. Perhaps a three column system: the main article in the middle, author clarification on the left (which includes some opinion/bias) and additional information on the right (pure facts).

If you disagree with me on any of this then please post a logical, well reasoned response. I think that it’s far more important that we argue about the solution than ignore the problem. Regardless of what system ends of being used it is absolutely crucial that we remember that our ability to accurately process information is wholly dependent on the quality of that information.

You can trust me on all of this, I’ve got a klout score.

Also, if anyone tries short-selling my reputation stock, then you owe me some whuffie!

Postscript

In the interest of full disclosure:

I was a Kickstarter.com supporter of hypothes.is and have a Klout.com account. I tried setting up a Whuffie Bank account but they seem to be inactive at the moment. I’m not a member of slashdot but will probably join to try it out. I also subscribe to the Washington Post Sunday edition as a way of supporting print news and strongly suggest you do something similar in your area to support journalism (remember, even if you get most of your news from John Stewart and Stephen Colbert they still need somewhere to get *their* news from). I am also a fan of both Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross, which explains some of the tone of this post.

Thank you very much for reading this (I know it’s quite long) and I hope that you enjoyed it. If you did, please share it (with attribution) so that more people can think about and discuss what I consider to be some of the most important issues facing our society.

Truthiness in the News, the Bias and Reputation of Information (or What is the New York Times Going to Do Now?) by Adam Glickman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Rooting my Incredible 2 phone, Installing the Cyanogen Custom ROM, and Fixing the GPS Afterwards

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 12:15:43 -0500

I recently decided that I wanted the increased functionality (and fun) of a fully rooted phone. I was a bit nervous about doing something that could potentially turn my beloved (most of the time) phone into a paperweight but with articles on Lifehacker.com such as “Five Great Reasons to Root Your Android Phone” and “The 10 Best Android Apps that Make Rooting Your Phone Worth the Hassle” tempting me for so long I finally decided to take the plunge.

*Disclaimer: My only intent with this blog post is to document what worked for ME on MY phone at THIS time in case it will be of some use to someone else. I cannot promise that any of this will work for YOU with YOUR phone NOW. Please read over any and all instructions carefully. Plan ahead by backing up all the data on your phone and assuming that this process will take longer and be more difficult than you expected. I also recommend that you double and triple check that your contacts, pictures, etc. are all backed up to your Google account as I lost a few recent contacts during this process. Finally, if you do experience any problems it is highly unlikely that I can help you. I suggest you look on some of the same forums I did and speak to someone more knowledgeable on this subject than me. If all of this has convinced you that rooting sounds too scary to try than you are probably better off not doing it.

Rooting My Phone:

To root my phone my primary resource was the excellent The Unlocker article “How To Root the HTC Incredible 2 (Unrevoked Method)”. My first note at this point is that getting to the Hboot screen was kind of a pain. I kept pressing down and the power button but sometimes it didn’t seem to matter and my phone loaded normally. Just keep trying and you’ll get the feel for it.

Now you will probably notice that you need to downgrade your version of Hboot to 0.98. For that I used this post, and specifically vwhk-12102011-c.zip. For an extremely helpful video of the process nat3mil’s How to Downgrade 2.3.4 - HTC Droid Incredible 2. For some reason when I tried to downgrade using a slightly different process (running the script as administrator rather than the command line) it didn’t work. Follow the video and you should be fine.

I continued to use the Unrevoked method and switched over to the CyanogenMod wiki article “HTC Incredible 2: Full Update Guide” specifically the section called Flashing CyanogenMod. I used the Method via Recovery method.

Everything worked great and I had my phone rooted and running cyanogen!

Ah, but all was not well. Turns out that while my phone is faster and has a ton of great features available the GPS has stopped working. I’d try to get a GPS fix and would get a message that my location was unavailable at this time. Uh oh…

Fixing my GPS:

I looked around the forums again and found a few possible solutions that involved various levels of complexity and risk. This is what I did and it worked.

*Before you do ANYTHING with your shiny new rooted phone BACKUP YOUR PHONE!!! (three exclamation points show you how important this is)

One of the great benefits for a rooted phone is access to great backup utilities like Titanium Backup and the premium version of ROM Manager. Use them now!

1) I installed new radio firmware by following this article on RootzWiki [RADIO] HTC Incredible 2 Radios [PG32IMG.zip] (Updated: 20 Sept 2011). I got the .zip file from here, specifically the 1.09.01.0722 version of PG32IMG.zip.

2) Install GPS Status & Toolbox. Go to Menu > Tools > Manage A-GPS state.

3) Install GpsFix. Got to Menu > Preferences and make sure it is set for at least 15 minutes. Run the program for a while and see if it can find the satellites.

After doing this for a while it still couldn’t find a lock so I MOVED TO A DIFFERENT ROOM. Suddenly it was able to find a lock (represented by a long line of little Sputniks).

Now my GPS worked! (Hopefully yours will as well)

Public Service Announcement

(this programming is made possible by users like you)

This process required several programs and apps to make it possible. The reason these exist is that someone put in the time and effort to create them. If you want to continue to have things like this available I strongly recommend that you purchase the premium versions or donate to the organizations.

http://revolutionary.io/ which provided the Unrevoked tool asks for a donation

http://www.cyanogenmod.com/ has a donate button on the bottom right

There are premium versions of:

I am not in any way affiliated with any of these organizations. I just think that if you like something you should show your appreciation by helping to support them. We have cool stuff because someone created it, so let’s encourage people to make more cool stuff.

Easy #recipe for fully cooked chicken with crispy skin in one hour using the #pamperedchef deep...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:46:02 -0500

Easy #recipe for fully cooked chicken with crispy skin in one hour using the #pamperedchef deep covered baker. 20 min in microwave, 30 min at 375 in the oven (uncovered), 10 min rest. Extremely juicy and very tasty.

Just #rooted my #incredible 2 phone and loaded it with #cyanogen #mod. I really like some of the...

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 22:24:23 -0500

Just #rooted my #incredible 2 phone and loaded it with #cyanogen #mod. I really like some of the features and it’s MUCH faster than HTC’s. The only problem is that it messed up my GPS. I’ve also been having issues with #Ubuntu. What’s going on with my #opensource software recently?

Wishing everyone a happy New Revolution Around The Sun! #science

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:25:15 -0500

Wishing everyone a happy New Revolution Around The Sun! #science

This Yahoo News article is about a man who gives free sperm donations for artificial insemination,...

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 17:07:28 -0500

This Yahoo News article is about a man who gives free sperm donations for artificial insemination, but the FDA is arguing that he’s violating health codes as a sperm bank and ordered him to stop. This is interesting because this guy is doing this for free but the FDA is saying that he is a sperm bank operating without all required tests.

Well, what about all the people who are inseminated directly and don’t get any tests at all. If he actually had intercourse with these women then he wouldn’t be breaking any laws, but since he’s just giving them the sperm and skipping the rest it’s illegal.

The problem I have is that the FDA is trying to mandate tests for one type of sperm donation but not another. It’s also odd that a sperm bank may charge for it’s services but hiring someone for a “direct donation” is illegal as well (even with the tests).

One night stands are fine but free donations are a problem?

http://goo.gl/N0oGh

#FDA #government #regulation #sperm #spermdonor #odd #news

Happy Festivus everyone!

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 12:02:15 -0500

Happy Festivus everyone!

I found this article by Quinn O’Neill a bit shocking. In college, many of my fellow students...

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:42:09 -0500

I found this article by Quinn O’Neill a bit shocking. In college, many of my fellow students were women and I have worked with female scientists for my entire career. Because of this I basically assumed that science education was actively seeking more women for our “intelligeeksia”. To hear that girls are being told that the cool science is for boys is really disappointing. Not all girls have to get a chemistry set for Christmas but they shouldn’t be told that if they want one then they’re playing with the wrong type of toy. If I have a daughter, she’ll get plenty of science toys, and LOTS of Legos!

IS REAL SCIENCE FOR MEN?
by Quinn O’Neill (http://goo.gl/MaiF8)
#science #women #toys #education

The "Hit with a Car" Theory of Terrestrial Cryptid Discovery

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:05:00 -0500

I was driving down a deserted road at night when it hit me: what would happen if Bigfoot was crossing the road and I slammed into him at over 45 mph? Well, Bigfoot would probably be killed. Also, my car would be totaled and really disgusting. But most importantly, I would be hailed as the first person to present conclusive proof of Bigfoot and become really famous as a result. Thinking about this I realized that one could probably find evidence of every known terrestrial animal that lives anywhere near roads being hit by a car at some point. Therefore, Bigfoot cannot exist because some trucker in Oregon would have one splattered across the front of his truck by now! I can now present my theory of discovering previously unknown animal species: If an animal can be hit by a car, eventually it will be. Therefore, if an animal hasn’t been hit by a car, it probably doesn’t exist. #cryptid #skeptic #science #bigfoot

It is a sad day indeed when the economy takes down futuristic ice cream. I mean what could be better...

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 11:49:00 -0500

It is a sad day indeed when the economy takes down futuristic ice cream. I mean what could be better than ice cream? Ice cream of the future of course! Yet now we face a dark dystopian future without appropriately futuristic ice cream. We must hope that other innovations are somehow able to fill the gap left behind, my money is on direct stimulation of the pleasure center of the brain with electrodes. Yes, it’s more complicated than just getting the same effect by eating ice cream but at least it’s futuristic. http://goo.gl/hUYqT #icecream #futuristic #dystopian #economy #bankruptcy