Relevant History

links for 2010-08-30

• Wikipedia revision project teaches teamwork, communication, chemistry
  "[I]n Anne McNeil's courses at the University of Michigan... teams of students are given the task of revising a Wikipedia entry on an esoteric subject, making it understandable not only to fellow scientists but also to general readers. In the process, students learn teamwork and improve their communication skills while mastering chemistry, said McNeil, who recently was invited to make a presentation at the Wikimedia Foundation headquarters in San Francisco. McNeil and three U-M colleagues also describe the teaching technique, its challenges and successes, in a paper published online in the Journal of Chemical Education."
  (tags: wikipedia science education collaboration)

[To the tune of Tabla Beat Science, "Alla," from the album Tala Matrix (a 1-star song, imo).]

links for 2010-08-27

• Shahram Izadi
  My research focuses on creating novel technologies that push the boundaries of how we interact with computers. In recent years my work has focused primarily on making computers more natural to use through the development of new touch-based computers and devices. My research is very applied, meaning I like to build and play with diverse interactive technologies, all in the name of science.
  (tags: research multitouch ubicomp displays msrc)

[To the tune of Cocteau Twins, "Aloysius," from the album Treasure (a 1-star song, imo).]

If evolution is outlawed only outlaws will evolve

Love it!

(h/t to Heather)

[To the tune of Foo Fighters, "Alone+Easy Target," from the album Foo Fighters (a 1-star song, imo).]

links for 2010-08-25

• Chart of the Day: Housing Prices Since WWII | Mother Jones
  Americans have a faith that housing prices always rise-- enough to help fund retirements. The reality is that "home prices have actually been pretty steady over time. In fact, if you look at a fifty-year period after World War II, home prices were absolutely steady. In 1947 the Case-Shiller index stood at 110, and in 1997, adjusted for inflation, it stood at 110 again. So here's the question: why do people think that home price appreciation is a law of nature, when it so clearly isn't?"
  (tags: housing economics retirement)

[To the tune of Sarah Shannon, "Along The Way," from the album City Morning Song (a 1-star song, imo).]

links for 2010-08-23

• The Paradox of Scientific Authority - The MIT Press
  Today, scientific advice is asked for (and given) on questions ranging from stem-cell research to genetically modified food. And yet it often seems that the more urgently scientific advice is solicited, the more vigorously scientific authority is questioned by policy makers, stakeholders, and citizens. This book examines a paradox: how scientific advice can be influential in society even when the status of science and scientists seems to be at a low ebb. The authors do this by means of an ethnographic study of the creation of scientific authority at one of the key sites for the interaction of science, policy, and society: the scientific advisory committee.
  (tags: science policy)
• College Dropout Factories by Ben Miller and Phuong Ly | Washington Monthly
  Great article on colleges that graduate amazingly low numbers of students-- sometimes only a few percent-- and why the survive.
  (tags: education university)
• "Real Estate’s Gold Rush Seems Gone for Good"
  Housing will eventually recover from its great swoon. But many real estate experts now believe that home ownership will never again yield rewards like those enjoyed in the second half of the 20th century, when houses not only provided shelter but also a plump nest egg. The wealth generated by housing in those decades, particularly on the coasts, did more than assure the owners a comfortable retirement. It powered the economy, paying for the education of children and grandchildren, keeping the cruise ships and golf courses full and the restaurants humming. More than likely, that era is gone for good.
  (tags: housing economics realestate future)

[To the tune of Cocteau Twins, "Aloysius," from the album Treasure (a 1-star song, imo).]

This will not be me: Getting Velcro parents off campus

The New York Times reports on colleges' development of rituals to essentially throw parents off campus after move-in:

As the latest wave of superinvolved parents delivers its children to college, institutions are building into the day, normally one of high emotion, activities meant to punctuate and speed the separation. It is part of an increasingly complex process, in the age of Skype and twice-daily texts home, in which colleges are urging “Velcro parents” to back off so students can develop independence....

Formal “hit the road” departure ceremonies are unusual but growing in popularity, said Joyce Holl, head of the National Orientation Directors Association. A more common approach is for colleges to introduce blunt language into drop-off schedules specifying the hour for last hugs.

This is not a problem I ever had. My freshman year at Penn, I took the night train from Richmond, leaving home at 4 a.m. and arriving in Philadelphia later that morning. It was great: few things could better mark the end of one phase of your life and the start of another. I don't think my parents ever stepped foot on the campus until graduation four years later. And given how casual the kids are when we take them to camp, I suspect they're going to want the same treatment.

[To the tune of Dengue Fever, "Seeing Hands," from the album Venus on Earth (a 2-star song, imo).]

Octopi are smart

From the Mercury News:

The story goes that an unspecified aquarium somewhere in the United States was losing fish from a particular exhibit at a rapid pace.

For days, keepers wondered why the fish were disappearing. They weren't the kind of fish that would eat each other, and no one was breaking in with a pole and tackle box. Finally officials decided to film the tank at night to see if they could catch the culprit.

Which is why the back of the tank holding the Giant Pacific Octopus at the Monterey Bay Aquarium is now lined with AstroTurf. The buggers can't get their suckers to stick to the material and pull themselves out of the tank, after which they could scurry across the floor, pop into another tank and indulge in an unauthorized midnight snack.

Instead, to keep them busy, food is often placed in round containers resembling hamster balls. Retrieving the food is like a puzzle for the octopus, keeping its brain exercised and otherwise occupied from formulating escape plans.

[To the tune of The Beatles, "Octopus's Garden," from the album Abbey Road (a 2-star song, imo).]

links for 2010-08-20

• Opening the Contemplative Mind in the Classroom — Journal of Transformative Education
  The present article offers educators a rationale for returning the contemplative to education by summarizing research on the impact of contemplation on learning and behavior. It then provides a range of specific approaches for teachers that can be easily integrated into existing curriculum from elementary to university levels.
  (tags: contemplative_practice mindfulness education)
• The Buddha’s Extra Scoop: Neural Correlates of Mindfulness and Clinical Sport Psychology
  Recent studies using neuroimaging technologies offer evidence that ancient beliefs about the benefits (e.g., enhanced attention, increased distress tolerance) associ­ated with mindfulness practice and other forms of meditation may be supported by identifiable neuroanatomical changes in the brain. Although it is too early to make probative statements regarding exactly how and why contemplative prac­tices affect the structure and activity of the brain, sport psychologists may want to consider the potential implications of the findings that have begun to emerge from this neural correlates research. The goal of this article is to (a) review the findings from the principal studies of contemplative practice that have employed measures of neuronal activity (e.g., fMRI, EEG) and (b) examine the potential relevance of these studies to the treatment of psychological disorders among athletes and the enhancement of athletic performance.
  (tags: sports neuroscience mindfulness)
• ScienceDirect - Psychology of Sport and Exercise : Relationships between mindfulness, flow dispositions and mental skills adoption: A cluster analytic approach
  "[A]thletes’ flow dispositions and mental skills adoption could be differentiated using mindfulness. The findings have implications towards the understanding of flow and mental skills adoption within sport psychology."
  (tags: mindfulness sports psychology)
• Mechanisms of mindfulness - Shapiro - 2005 - Journal of Clinical Psychology - Wiley Online Library
  Recently, the psychological construct mindfulness has received a great deal of attention. The majority of research has focused on clinical studies to evaluate the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions. This line of research has led to promising data suggesting mindfulness-based interventions are effective for treatment of both psychological and physical symptoms. However, an equally important direction for future research is to investigate questions concerning mechanisms of action underlying mindfulness-based interventions. This theoretical paper proposes a model of mindfulness, in an effort to elucidate potential mechanisms to explain how mindfulness affects positive change. Potential implications and future directions for the empirical study of mechanisms involved in mindfulness are addressed.
  (tags: mindfulness psychology)
• Mindfulness: Theoretical Foundations and Evidence for its Salutary Effects - Psychological Inquiry: An International Journal for the Advancement of Psychological Theory
  Interest in mindfulness and its enhancement has burgeoned in recent years. In this article, we discuss in detail the nature of mindfulness and its relation to other, established theories of attention and awareness in day-to-day life. We then examine theory and evidence for the role of mindfulness in curtailing negative functioning and enhancing positive outcomes in several important life domains, including mental health, physical health, behavioral regulation, and interpersonal relationships. The processes through which mindfulness is theorized to have its beneficial effects are then discussed, along with proposed directions for theoretical development and empirical research.
  (tags: mindfulness psychology)
• The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting With Nature — Psychological Science [sub req]
  We compare the restorative effects on cognitive functioning of interactions with natural versus urban environments. Attention restoration theory (ART) provides an analysis of the kinds of environments that lead to improvements in directed-attention abilities. Nature, which is filled with intriguing stimuli, modestly grabs attention in a bottom-up fashion, allowing top-down directed-attention abilities a chance to replenish. Unlike natural environments, urban environments are filled with stimulation that captures attention dramatically and additionally requires directed attention (e.g., to avoid being hit by a car), making them less restorative. We present two experiments that show that walking in nature or viewing pictures of nature can improve directed-attention abilities as measured with a backwards digit-span task and the Attention Network Task, thus validating attention restoration theory.
  (tags: psychology attention memory cognition nature)
• Book Review - Hamlet’s Blackberry - By William Powers - NYTimes.com
  Powers suggests that evolutionary programming may be partly responsible for the drive that has many of us constantly checking our digital screens. We are wired by nature, he notes, to pay attention to new stimuli, thereby helping us to respond quickly to predators or to nab a potential meal. The biochemical effect of the iPhone ping, in fact, might be injecting my brain with what one scientist calls a “dopamine squirt.” In other words, marketers have told us we must be connected all the time, and our brains have done the rest. The author worries that our homes, the traditional shelter from the crowd, have been invaded to the point where we may be in danger of no longer connecting deeply with our families, our books and our thoughts. But Powers, a former staff writer at The Washington Post who has written extensively on media and technology, is not simply an earnest foreteller of doom.
  (tags: media technology attention cognition psychology digital_culture)
• Clive Holtham, Victoria Ward, Allan Owens, "Slow knowledge work– designing space and learning"
  This paper reports on a decade of research and development in relation to the concept of slowness in management, specifically relating to the design of working spaces and learning methods for knowledge work.
  (tags: contemplative_practice office design workspace)
• "Edward Bowles and Radio Engineering at MIT, 1920-1940," HSPS 20:2 (1990), 313-337.
  My second published article, on a now little-known figure in the history of technology. Not a bad piece for a graduate student, I guess. (Not that I remember anything but the broadest outlines of the piece 20 years later....)
  (tags: history_of_science mit)

[To the tune of Pet Shop Boys, "Always On My Mind," from the album Discography: The Complete Singles Collection (a 1-star song, imo).]

links for 2010-08-19

• Ethic Soup: Nature Restores the Mind : Just a Walk in the Park
  Spending time in nature is more beneficial for mental processes in many ways than being in urban environments, according to a new study reported in Psychological Science. "Interacting with nature can have similar effects as meditating," said Marc Berman chief researcher of the University of Michigan psychology research team. As quoted in NewsMax: "People don't have to enjoy the walk to get the benefits. We found the same benefits when it was 80 degrees and sunny over the summer as when the temperatures dropped to 25 degrees in January."
  (tags: psychology cognition attention nature)
• How the city hurts your brain - The Boston Globe
  Now scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. While it's long been recognized that city life is exhausting -- that's why Picasso left Paris -- this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so. "The mind is a limited machine,"says Marc Berman, a psychologist at the University of Michigan and lead author of a new study that measured the cognitive deficits caused by a short urban walk. "And we're beginning to understand the different ways that a city can exceed those limitations."
  (tags: neuroscience nature health brain psychology science city urban cognition)
• Theodore Roszak - Awakening The Ecological Unconscious
  Vice President Al Gore, in his book, Earth in the Balance, is among those who compare our culture's inability to effectively grapple with our ecological crisis to a dysfunctional family. In both cases one finds symptoms of denial, failure to take responsibility for damage caused, and a sense of inertia that interferes with meaningful change. But where can a dysfunctional culture go for a cure? Theodore Roszak's call for a new synthesis of psychology, cosmology, and ecology may be part of the answer. "We need a new discipline that sees the needs of the planet and the person as a continuum and that can help us reconnect with the truth that lies in our communion with the rest of creation," he writes in The Voice of the Earth (Simon and Schuster, soon to be released as a Touchstone paperback).
  (tags: ecology psychology spirituality ecopsychology philosophy)
• Eco-Psychology: Jeffrey Mishlove Interviews Theodore Roszak
  (tags: interview ecopsychology)
• David M. Levy, To grow in wisdom: vannevar bush, information overload, and the life of leisure [pdf, sub req]
  It has been nearly sixty years since Vannevar Bush's essay, "As We May Think," was first published in The Atlantic Monthly, an article that foreshadowed and possibly invented hypertext. While much has been written about this seminal piece, little has been said about the argument Bush presented to justify the creation of the memex, his proposed personal information device. This paper revisits the article in light of current technological and social trends. It notes that Bush's argument centered around the problem of information overload and observes that in the intervening years, despite massive technological innovation, the problem has only become more extreme. It goes on to argue that today's manifestation of information overload will require not just better management of information but the creation of space and time for thinking and reflection, an objective that is consonant with Bush's original aims
  (tags: digital_culture overload history)
• We skim, scan and surf -- so slow down already
  In an age of tech-mad multitasking, some big thinkers are asking questions about an emerging culture of distraction, interruption and inattention. We skim and scan, they say. Hit the buttons. Get the info. Surf a tsunami of data. Do we still focus and reflect? "There's a kind of numbing that is happening in our lives," says David Levy, professor at the University of Washington's Information School. "We're good at juggling, but the problem is we're not deeply engaged in what we're doing, or even with ourselves."
  (tags: information zeroing digital_culture digital_sabbath)
• Jewish Boston Blogs | Exploring an Internet Sabbath
  On the concept of the "Internet Sabbath." "I'm considering this approach - or at least putting down my iPhone for a day a week, perhaps even on Shabbat. My addiction to information was bad enough when I had my "crackberry". The iPhone is a much stronger drug."
  (tags: digital_culture digital_sabbath psychology)
• I Need a Virtual Break. No, Really. - New York Times
  Mark Bittman on his "secular Sabbath." "I took a real day off this weekend: computers shut down, cellphone left in my work bag, land-line ringer off. I was fully disconnected for 24 hours."
  (tags: attention digital_culture psychology digital_sabbath technology internet)
• About this Project « Sabbath Manifesto
  "The Sabbath Manifesto is a creative project designed to slow down lives in an increasingly hectic world. We’ve created 10 core principles completely open for your unique interpretation. We welcome you to join us as we carve a weekly timeout into our lives."
  (tags: zeroing digital_culture contemplation)

[To the tune of Monty Python, "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life," from the album Monty Python Sings (a 1-star song, imo).]

links for 2010-08-18

• David Levy, Syllabus for Information and Contemplation
  "Today’s information technologies provide instantaneous access to vast amounts of information.... [but] the easy availability of information can turn into information overload; the presence of multiple communication sources and devices may lead to the fragmentation of attention; and the ease of acting and communicating quickly seems to encourage a pace of interaction that is unsustainable and counterproductive. In this course, we will examine the causes and effects of such trends, and will explore possible counter-measures, including contemplative practice. For thousands of years in a wide range of cultures, people have developed techniques (meditation, yoga, contemplative reading) for stilling the mind and cultivating attention. We will study and practice a variety of these techniques, and will apply the understanding gained from them to critique the speedy, fragmented, and inattentive mind states that digital technologies seem to encourage."
  (tags: contemplation contemplative_practice computer psychology)
• The Allure of a Female Hitchhiker’s Breast Size (To Male Drivers). | Psychology Today
  The power of the social sciences! Experiment with hitchhiking shows that "If a woman has large breasts, men are more likely to engage in prosocial behavior (in this case offering her a ride)." The details: "Statistically speaking, only men's behaviors were affected by the hitchhiker's breast size (p < .03). The frequency of stopping in the cup C condition was marginally greater than that of cup B (p = 0.09) and significantly greater than that of cup A (p < .01). The difference between cups A and B was not significant."
  (tags: psychology)
• Practicing Mindfulness Without Meditating | Psychology Today
  "I work with my clients to identify the activities that they already engage in that can become occasions for practicing mindfulness. Most people have a number of possibilities. Practically all sports can work: basketball, baseball, soccer, volleyball, and so on. What's it like to stand at the foul line before you try to make a free throw? Other physical activities can be used, too: biking to work in traffic, walking the dog, going for a jog, shoveling the driveway, buying groceries, picking out what to wear, putting on make-up, driving the car. What these activities have in common is the opportunity to pay attention to sense perceptions in the present moment: what one can see, hear, smell, taste or touch."
  (tags: mindfulness psychology contemplative_practice)
• Brown University Contemplative Studies Initiative
  The Contemplative Studies Initiative is a group of Brown faculty with diverse academic specializations who are united around a common interest in the study of contemplative states of mind, including the underlying philosophy, psychology, and phenomenology of human contemplative experience. We are currently able, as a group, to provide advice on students’ academic and personal study in this area and we are working towards eventually receiving formal recognition as a Program, Concentration, or a Center to study and teach the underlying philosophy, psychology, and phenomenology of human contemplative experience. Our goal is to develop a coordinated program in this rapidly emerging field that focuses on many of the ways that human beings have found, across cultures and across time, to concentrate, broaden and deepen conscious awareness as the gateway to cultivating their full potential and to leading more meaningful and fulfilling lives.
  (tags: meditation contemplative_practice)
• Challenges and Opportunities: Speculations on a Buddhist Future
  Four challenges that will shape the future of Buddhism: the passing of a generation of charismatic figures; political developments in Asia; the rise of global Christianity (in particular its growth in Asia); and the spread of secular materialism.
  (tags: buddhism future)
• The Future of Contemplative Practice in America: Buddhism in the West
  For the Patheos summer series on the future of religion, I'd like to share some insights based on my research into the state of contemplative practices in America, conducted for the Fetzer Institute and the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society. I offer them here as Buddhism has informed much of the current popularity of these practices, and the developments described here may have some bearing upon the future of Buddhism. Following a brief introduction to the growth of contemplative practices in America, I'd like to focus on their future.
  (tags: buddhism contemplative_practice future)
• Buddha in the Googleplex | Tricycle - The Buddhist Review
  The search engine’s “Jolly Good Fellow” brings the dharma to Silicon Valley
  (tags: google buddhism contemplative_practice)
• In Twist, Nonprofits Honor Technology’s Failures
  “I absolutely think we learn from failure, but getting people to talk about it honestly is not so easy,” said Katrin Verclas, a founder of MobileActive. “So I thought, why not try to start conversations about failure through an evening event with drinks and finger foods in a relaxed, informal atmosphere that would make it seem more like a party than a debriefing.” There is also a prize for the worst failure, a garish green-and-white child’s computer nicknamed the O.L.P.C. — for One Laptop Per Child — a program that MobileActive members regard as the emblem of the failure of technology to achieve change for the better.
  (tags: technology development failure)
• Technology Review: Blogs: Mims's Bits: The Future of Interfaces is Mobile, Screen-less and Invisible
  One futurist's vision of the coming interface singularity contrasts with the reality of today's prototypes. Reto Meier, an "Android Developer Advocate for Google" recently laid out a fairly science-fiction account of where computer (or at least mobile) interfaces are headed. In the spirit of the best futurism, all of his predictions - from Augmented Reality eye glasses to advanced batteries - have parallels in the real world. What follows is a walk-through of the future, expressed in terms of the not quite ready for prime time discoveries coming out of labs today.
  (tags: mobile interface digital augmentedreality computing forecasts endofcyberspace design digital-physical)

[To the tune of David Bowie, "Always Crashing In The Same Car," from the album Bowie at the Beeb: Best Of BBC Radio 68-72 (a 1-star song, imo).]

links for 2010-08-17

• IEEE Xplore - Designing smart artifacts for smart environments
  Smart artifacts promise to enhance the relationships among participants in distributed working groups, maintaining personal mobility while offering opportunities for the collaboration, informal communication, and social awareness that contribute to the synergy and cohesiveness inherent in collocated teams. Two complementary trends have resulted in the creation of smart environments that integrate information, communication, and sensing technologies into everyday objects. We distinguish between two types of smart artifacts: system-oriented, importunate smartness and people-oriented, empowering smartness. The system-oriented and people-oriented approaches represent the end points of a line along which we can position weighted combinations of both types of smartness depending on the application domain.
  (tags: ubicomp)
• Moving on from Weiser’s Vision of Calm Computing: Engaging UbiComp Experiences [sub req]
  A motivation behind much UbiComp research has been to make our lives convenient, comfortable and informed, following in the footsteps of Weiser’s calm computing vision. Three themes that have dominated are context awareness, ambient intelligence and monitoring/tracking. While these avenues of research have been fruitful their accomplishments do not match up to anything like Weiser’s world. This paper discusses why this is so and argues that is time for a change of direction in the field. An alternative agenda is outlined that focuses on engaging rather than calming people. Humans are very resourceful at exploiting their environments and extending their capabilities using existing strategies and tools. I describe how pervasive technologies can be added to the mix, outlining three areas of practice where there is much potential for professionals and laypeople alike to combine, adapt and use them in creative and constructive ways.
  (tags: ubicomp)
• Bits flowing through the wires of a computer network are invisible; a “network monitor” is a tool that let’s those bits be seen. At SIGGRAPH 95, the largest computer graphics conference, a radically new network monitoring tool was introduced. It produce
  It seems contradictory to say, in the face of frequent complaints about information overload, that more information could be encalming. It seems almost nonsensical to say that the way to become attuned to more information is to attend to it less. It is these apparently bizarre features that may account for why so few designs properly take into account center and periphery to achieve an increased sense of locatedness. But such designs are crucial as we move into the era of ubiquitous computing. As we learn to design calm technology, we will enrich not only our space of artifacts, but also our opportunities for being with other people. When our world is filled with interconnected, imbedded computers, calm technology will play a central role in a more humanly empowered twenty-first century.
  (tags: technology ubicomp interface hci design history)
• New evidence suggests 57 Irish railroad workers were murdered [in 1832]
  News from before the Irish became white: "US historians trying to uncover a mystery surrounding the mass death of 57 Irish immigrants nearly 180 years ago, have found evidence they may have been murdered. Previously it had been thought the group -- they died within weeks of starting gruelling work on the Philadelphia and Columbia railroad in 1832 -- were cholera victims. However, four skulls unearthed from the mass grave suggest the men suffered blows to the head and at least one may have been shot in an outpouring of anti-Irish violence."
  (tags: history)
• Your Brain on Computers - Studying the Brain Off the Grid, Professors Find Clarity - NYTimes.com
  It was a primitive trip with a sophisticated goal: to understand how heavy use of digital devices and other technology changes how we think and behave, and how a retreat into nature might reverse those effects.
  (tags: neuroscience computer endofcyberspace contemplation)

[To the tune of Miles Davis, "Amandla," from the album Amandla (a 1-star song, imo).]

links for 2010-08-16

• ScienceDirect - Journal of Socio-Economics : Do self-fulfilling prophecies improve or degrade predictive accuracy? How sociology and economics can disagree and both be right
  Self-fulfilling predictions and self-defeating (suicidal) predictions-collectively termed reflexive or self-altering prediction-occur whenever the issuance of a social or economic prediction causes alterations in behavior (decisions) that promote or thwart the expected outcome.... [T]here is confusion concerning the effects of self-alteration on accuracy: does it tend to enhance accuracy, as the term “self-fulfilling” would indicate, or does it tend to diminish or destroy accuracy?... The present article first notes an intriguing contrast in the relative emphasis and conclusions on this question found in economics versus the other social disciplines. This contrast, it turns out, is not accidental but related to the self-imposed prediction tasks of different fields. A typology of prediction statements helps explain how self-alteration can be expected to affect accuracy, and this, in turn, explains the aforementioned contrast in emphasis.
  (tags: "self-fulfilling prophecy" psychology forecasting future)
• The Structure of Self-Fulfilling and Self-Negating Prophecies — Theory Psychology
  A formal system based on the sentential calculus is constructed to explore the logical properties of autogenetic (self-fulfilling and self-negating) beliefs.... The analysis proceeds in three stages. The first stage deals with individual autogenetic processes, wherein a single person's belief system has an effect on the truth or falsehood of what is believed (e.g. the placebo effect). The second stage deals with social processes in which the belief systems of two or more individuals have an autogenetic effect that cannot be produced by any single belief system in isolation (e.g. a run on the banks). The third stage deals with higher-order processes in which a belief about one's own involvement in an autogenetic processes has itself a further and more complicated autogenetic effect (e.g. faith-healing). Higher-order autogenesis has paradoxical consequences that raise fundamental questions about the nature and scope of empirical knowledge.
  (tags: psychology "self-fulfilling prophecy" forecasting)
• Emerald | Strategy & Leadership | Forecasting: The myth of control
  Many managers are disillusioned by the dismal record of their strategic and financial planners in forecasting even the near future. And trustworthy futurist gurus are getting harder to find. The thoughtful expositions of Herman Kahn (Hudson Institute) and Amelia Peccei (Club of Rome) have been replaced by the pop speculation of Naisbitt. Does futurism have a future? Donald Michael recasts our understanding of what to expect from futurism in this interview with Planning Review's editor, Robert Allio.
  (tags: future methodology)
• ScienceDirect - Futures : With both feet planted firmly in mid-air *1 : : Reflections on thinking about the future
  This article reflects on over two decades of one individual's thinking about the future. Of central concern are the epistemological problems raised by futures studies and the role of the values and beliefs of both the producers and consumers (as well as anti-consumers) of futures studies. Increasingly Professor Michael has come to be concerned with the functions futures studies perform rather than the undertaking itself. Futures studies are seen essentially as storytelling-and various methodological injunctions and morals flow from this view.
  (tags: futures methodology)

[To the tune of Víctor Lavallén, "Amanecer Ciudadano," from the album Tango & Folkore Music of Argentina - Epsa World Music (a 1-star song, imo).]

"Words are like cockroaches"

Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker suggests "if you want to write, get threatened:"

I've been writing for a living for around 15 years now and whatever method I practise remains a mystery. It's random. Some days I'll rapidly thump out an article in a steady daze, scarcely aware of my own breath. Other times it's like slowly dragging individual letters of the alphabet from a mire of cold glue. The difference, I think, is the degree of self-awareness. When you're consciously trying to write, the words just don't come out. Every sentence is a creaking struggle, and staring out the window with a vague sense of desperation rapidly becomes a coping strategy. To function efficiently as a writer, 95% of your brain has to teleport off into nowhere, taking its neuroses with it, leaving the confident, playful 5% alone to operate the controls. To put it another way: words are like cockroaches; only once the lights are off do they feel free to scuttle around on the kitchen floor. I'm sure I could think of a more terrible analogy than that given another 100,000 years.

Pescadero Creek County Park

Last week my wife and I went on a ride through Pescadero Creek County Park, a park outside La Honda.

via flickr

Most of the park is hiking trails only, but there's an old logging trail that is open to horses and bicycles. From the entrance to the park, it runs about 5 miles, through some hilly but not overwhelming terrain.

via flickr

It's a very pretty ride, but I'm partial to redwood forests.

There are a number of hiking trails, including on that leads to Tiptoe Falls, a small but charming waterfall surrounded by ferns; we meant to go find it, but took the wrong trail, and never got there.

tiptoe falls, photo by GlennFrancoSimmons, via flickr

Even if you don't see the falls, though, it's a good ride.

via flickr

Ideas have consequences...

...even when they're published "in a little-read journal," as Ezra Klein points out.

He's talking about Elizabeth Warren's 2007 article proposing a Financial Products Safety Commission-- which she is now the front-runner to lead.

[To the tune of The Arcade Fire, "Wake Up," from the album Funeral (a 4-star song, imo).]

links for 2010-08-12

• How Objects Support Engineering Design Thinking
  "There has been an increasing interest in objects within the HCI field particularly with a view to designing tangible interfaces. However, little is known about how people make sense of objects and how objects support thinking. This paper presents a study of groups of engineers using physical objects to prototype designs, and articulates the roles that physical objects play in supporting their design thinking and communications. The study finds that design thinking is heavily dependent upon physical objects, that designers are active and opportunistic in seeking out physical props and that the interpretation and use of an object depends heavily on the activity. The paper discusses the trade-offs that designers make between speed and accuracy of models, and specificity and generality in choice of representations. Implications for design of tangible interfaces are discussed."
  (tags: cognition media collaboration engineering design paperspaces)

[To the tune of Air, "Alone In Kyoto," from the album Lost In Translation (a 2-star song, imo).]

links for 2010-08-11

• The illustrated guide to a Ph.D.
  "Every fall, I explain to a fresh batch of Ph.D. students what a Ph.D. is. It's hard to describe it in words. So, I use pictures."
  (tags: phd career academia visualization education)

links for 2010-08-09

• College financial lesson: The eight lowest-paying majors
  How in the world is history of science not in this list?
  (tags: education)
• Leisure College, USA | Capital Gains and Games
  The amount of time students spend studying has declined precipitously since the 1960s. Why? Among other things, a "nonaggression pact exists between many faculty members and students: Because the former believe that they must spend most of their time doing research and the latter often prefer to pass their time having fun," each side agrees "not to impinge on the other.
  (tags: education university)
• "Certainty" Is Nothing But Spin | Capital Gains and Games
  "The more you hear about the business community being worried about the future because it is "uncertain" about federal income taxes, the more you realize that it actually is the one pushing for increased uncertainty. There already is absolute certainty about the tax cuts enacted in the early 2000s: Under existing law they expire at midnight December 31, 2010.  Do nothing and we can all be absolutely certain that rates will go up.  Somehow, however, that certainty is being defined as creating uncertainty. By contrast, the changes to the existing law the business community is saying are so important to economic growth will require new legislation and, especially these days, the legislative process is about as unpredictable as you can get."
  (tags: certainty future business economics)

links for 2010-08-08

• Rethinking the Future -- In These Times
  David Holmgren has been considering the possibility of our civilization falling victim to our own growth for the better part of four decades. With fellow Australian Bill Mollison, he originated the permaculture movement in the 1970s, aimed at bringing the design of human societies in line with natural systems. In his new book, Future Scenarios: How Communities Can Adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change (Chelsea Green Publishing, March), he suggests that the fast converging crises of peak oil and climate change may lead to a future far different from our past—a future of less energy, less complexity and more locally focused lives.
  (tags: peakoil energy scenarios environment)

links for 2010-08-06

• Why Sarah Palin says all those stupid and ridiculous things. - By Jacob Weisberg - Slate Magazine
  Palin's public speech-- Palinisms, if you will-- "consists of a unitary stream of patriotic, populist blather. It's like Fox News without the punctuation. It is so devoid of content that it hardly deserves the adjective "truthy." Let's call it "roguey." Palinisms do not have to contain actual evidence of rogue thinking, though; they just have to capture the rogue spirit. It's "Yes, we can, in spite of Them.""
  (tags: humor politics)

The real life of a mama grizzly

From Daily Kos:

The true life of a momma is a lonely one. There is no pappa bear in the picture. No cub knows his father. She doesn't even see them for the first time until they are old enough to walk out with her. That would be like humans hibernating during the first eighteen months of a baby's life. Once out the mother grizzly is solely responsible for all aspects of her cubs' fedding and safety..... A third to a half of cubs do not survive to maturity.

So the ideal development that this branch of the Tea Baggers want to bring about is a society of lone mothers battling every man and each other for food for their competing offspring and a return to the rate of child mortality that hasn't been seen since the late nineteenth century.

Ah, metaphors we live by....

"Once you're a grown-up, life doesn't just hand you opportunities..."

From Alyssa Rosenberg:

Once you're a grown-up, life doesn't just hand you opportunities to discover that you have capabilities greater than you knew. If you don't seek them out, you can peak knowing that you're capable of holding down a job, paying your rent, getting along with your adult families, with additional jolts only coming along when you become a parent, lose a parent, or face death yourself. The things you discover when you travel are smaller, individually, than those large revelations, but I think they're worth learning....

[To the tune of Charlotte Martin, "Up All Night," from the album On Your Shore (a 3-star song, imo).]

If you think history doesn't matter

This observation from The League of Ordinary Gentlemen about the expert witnesses in Perry:

in the findings of fact Judge Walker ended up relying almost exclusively on the plaintiffs’ witnesses, above all Nancy Cott, whose work is indeed excellent. Gays and lesbians should thank her, George Chauncey, Hendrik Hartog, and indeed the entire American historical profession that supported their work. Historians have made very clear what marriage has and has not been throughout American history, even if it doesn’t necessarily square with many of our received understandings about the way things always were. The truth is that marriage has been a continuously changing institution, not one settled for all time, and that same-sex marriage is simply one more change in a direction that aligns marriage more closely with our ideals and values. Historians have performed an invaluable service to the cause of liberty and human dignity in this case.

[To the tune of Shirley Bassey, "Diamonds Are Forever (Mantronik Diamond Cut Club Mix)," from the album The Remix Album...Diamonds Are Forever (a 4-star song, imo).]

links for 2010-08-04

• Employers Slow to Resume 401(k) Matches - WSJ.com
  This sucks. "Roughly a year into the current economic expansion, U.S. corporations and their shareholders are enjoying surging profits and rising dividends—yet many employees are still waiting for the restoration of one of their most important benefits, the 401(k) match.... All told, almost one in five U.S. companies with at least 1,000 workers have reduced or suspended their matching contributions since September 2008. Roughly half have yet to restore those benefits, though many are considering reinstating at least a portion of the match within the next 12 months.... Smaller companies are especially reluctant. A March survey by Fidelity Investments found that only 36% of employers with 500 or fewer workers had reinstated previously suspended matches or planned to do so in the next 12 months. If anything, more cuts may be on the way."
  (tags: economics retirement security business)
• The Facebook posts Palin doesn't want you to see.
  Slate looks at comments and wall posts that are deleted from Sarah Palin's Facebook page. "The deletions amount to a real-time look at how much effort and care Palin puts into protecting her public image. It's not just the number of posts that are screened out that gives some indication of how seriously Palin's team is monitoring things. The superfine mesh through which posts are sifted also gives an indication of the work involved."
  (tags: facebook journalism technology web2.0 social_software)

Naomi Klein isn't the only one who wants No Logos

So, apparently, do the wealthy, according to the New York Times:

Rather than rely on obvious logos, expensive products use more discreet markers, such as distinctive design or detailing. High-end consumers prefer markers of status that are not decipherable by the mainstream. These signal group identity only to others with the connoisseurship to recognize their insider standing.

In one study, fashion students were more likely than regular students to favor subtle signals for products visible to others, like handbags. But for private products less relevant to identity, like underwear and socks, there was no difference between the groups.

(via Marginal Revolution)

Social connections and longevity

From Marginal Revolution:

A new Brigham Young University study adds our social relationships to the “short list” of factors that predict a person’s odds of living or dying. In the journal PLoS Medicine, BYU professors Julianne Holt-Lunstad and Timothy Smith report that social connections – friends, family, neighbors or colleagues – improve our odds of survival by 50 percent.  

This study joins a growing body of evidence that the strength of social networks is important for longevity and quality of life. We are, after all, social animals.

links for 2010-08-02

• What Would Phoebe Do: In defense of effort
  If one word could be removed from fashion writing, I'd pick the following: "effortless."
  (tags: fashion writing)
• Paul Krugman, Defining Prosperity Down
  I’m starting to have a sick feeling about prospects for American workers — but not, or not entirely, for the reasons you might think.

  Yes, growth is slowing, and the odds are that unemployment will rise, not fall, in the months ahead. That’s bad. But what’s worse is the growing evidence that our governing elite just doesn’t care — that a once-unthinkable level of economic distress is in the process of becoming the new normal.

  And I worry that those in power, rather than taking responsibility for job creation, will soon declare that high unemployment is “structural,” a permanent part of the economic landscape — and that by condemning large numbers of Americans to long-term joblessness, they’ll turn that excuse into dismal reality.

  
  
  (tags: economics development politics)
  
  
• 
  
  Monkeys hate flying squirrels, report monkey-annoyance experts
  
  
  Greatest science article ever! "Japanese macaques will completely flip out when presented with flying squirrels, a new study in monkey-antagonism has found. The research could pave the way for advanced methods of enraging monkeys."
  
  
  (tags: science humor monkeys)
  
  
• 
  
  Economist's View: The Unpaved Road to Serfdom
  
  
  Some rural roads in the U.S. are being converted from paved to gravel. "Are the number and condition of our roads leading indicators of a lost sense of common cause, lost shared purpose, crumbling political stability? Do we stop investing in and maintaining public goods because we feel no common cause with the other people likely to benefit from them? How do empire's crumble? Surely from within, at least at first. The internal weakening of shared purpose and sympathy, bolstered by mindlessly shrinking tax revenues that otherwise would have maintained the infrastructure of a complex, advanced capitalist and commercial society, must make it easier for the barbarians to storm the maintenance-deferred, crumbling gate."
  
  
  (tags: infrastructure economics development future)
  
  

"The crisis of middle-class America"

A really excellent piece in the Financial Times on "the crisis of middle-class America," which alternates between high-level discussion of the squeeze on the middle class, and a focus on two families, the Freemans and the Millers:

Mention middle-class America and most foreigners envision something timeless and manicured, from The Brady Bunch, say, or Desperate Housewives in which teenagers drive to school in sports cars and the girls are always cheerleading. This might approximate how some in the top 10 per cent live.  The rest live like the Freemans. Or worse....

The slow economic strangulation of the Freemans and millions of other middle-class Americans started long before the Great Recession, which merely exacerbated the “personal recession” that ordinary Americans had been suffering for years. Dubbed “median wage stagnation” by economists, the annual incomes of the bottom 90 per cent of US families have been essentially flat since 1973 – having risen by only 10 per cent in real terms over the past 37 years. That means most Americans have been treading water for more than a generation. Over the same period the incomes of the top 1 per cent have tripled. In 1973, chief executives were on average paid 26 times the median income. Now the ­multiple is above 300.

The trend has only been getting stronger. Most economists see the Great Stagnation as a structural problem – meaning it is immune to the business cycle. In the last expansion, which started in January 2002 and ended in December 2007, the median US household income dropped by $2,000 – the first ever instance where most Americans were worse off at the end of a cycle than at the start. Worse is that the long era of stagnating incomes has been accompanied by something profoundly un-American: declining income mobility.

Combine those two deep-seated trends with a third – steeply rising inequality – and you get the slow-burning crisis of American capitalism. It is one thing to suffer grinding income stagnation. It is another to realise that you have a diminishing likelihood of escaping it – particularly when the fortunate few living across the proverbial tracks seem more pampered each time you catch a glimpse.