Guesswork Theory

Anna and I Make Faces

2009-11-30T23:59:00.013-05:00

Here are two things you may not know about me: One, I have a lovely, wise, and thoughtful younger sister named Anna, to whom I bear a very strong resemblance. Two, I have what I consider to be a rubber face. I can make some pretty crazy faces, if I do say so myself. It stands to reason that Anna can too. So since my talented wife Erin is a professional photographer it seemed only natural for her to take some pictures of Anna and me trying to make the same funny faces last weekend when Anna and Jessica came to visit us in DC. For your enjoyment, here are the hilarious results.

Click "Read more" for more faces!

The Dark Side of Citizen Journalism

2009-11-27T19:03:00.001-05:00

Following my post on the future of mobile broadcasting last month, my friend the entrepreneurial Rob Johnson sent me this article from TechCrunch, which is hands-down the most insightful, relevant stuff I've read on the subject. It discusses the dark side of a future where everyone has their own personal audience who they broadcast to, to whom they are constantly tempted to brag "look at me looking at this!" It discusses how the established media has to some degree prevented incorrect, sensitive, and private information from reaching the public in the past, and how the rise of citizen journalism is shortcutting this to our detriment. Finally, it discusses the psychology of personal broadcasting, and how it encourages people to disconnect with reality and morality for the sake of their audience, as presented in the following clip from This American Life:

If you use Facebook, Twitter, a cell phone, or the internet -- essentially, if you live in the 21st century -- I encourage you to give this article a read.

Correlation Implies Causation

2009-11-24T07:00:00.008-05:00

I've been thinking about the age-old caution that "correlation does not imply causation." A classic example is the ice cream, shark attack correlation. Whenever ice cream sales rise, so do shark attacks. Not realizing that correlation does not imply causation, one might conclude that ice cream sales cause shark attacks.

What has been bugging me about this is you can't really prove causation. You can do an experiment over and over a million times and get the same predictable result, but all you have really proved is that there is a strong correlation between your experiment's conditions and its results -- there is always a chance that one day you might get a different result. One day, an apple might fall from a tree and stop, suspended in mid-air. Extremely unlikely, given everything we have observed about the universe, but still possible.

This is what Einstein meant when he said, "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." It would take an infinite number of predictable experiments (or correlations) to prove that one thing causes another, but it only takes one counterexample to disprove a causal relationship.

Therefore I'm a bit confused when someone says "correlation does not imply causation," because I'd like to know what does. Nothing can prove causation. You can only disprove causation. And when you want to gather support for causation, correlations are all you've got.

The trouble is with the word "imply." To a mathematician, statistician, or logician, to "imply" means "to be a sufficient circumstance." The phrase therefore really means "correlation does not always lead to causation." In the colloquial sense, "imply" simply means to "suggest." In this sense, correlation very much does imply causation. They are linked. Indeed, you can't have a causation without correlation.

So the next time someone mentions two correlated phenomena to you ("I get sleepy when I eat turkey!"), I would encourage you to think of a counter-example instead of pulling out the old, worn-out correlation/causation warning. Because if you do, the person pointing out the correlation will be offering a lot more support for causation than you will be detracting from it with a somewhat misleading statement about the rules of logic.

A lot of the ideas in this post came from these two articles:
Wikipedia: Correlation does not imply causation
Daily Meh: Correlation implies causation

You Will Control the Future With Your Mind

2009-11-20T17:57:00.006-05:00

As we approach the close of the first decade of the 21st century, here's a solid prediction for the next:

In the coming ten years you and I will communicate with computers using only our minds. (That's telekinesis, Kyle.)

In the last few years, brain research has exploded. Scientists, researchers, and engineers are making huge strides in understanding how our brains work and what they care capable of. As a shining example, here is a fascinating demonstration of a device capable of allowing you to manipulate an object on screen using only your brainwaves:

Expect some really sweet video games in the near future.

It doesn't stop there. Students at the University of Wisconsin have actually tweeted just by thinking using a technology which may prove extremely useful for victims of paralysis. Scientists at Intel's research lab are working on the same thing, only their research includes actually implanting microchips into the brain -- a practice I find a little frightening, and hopefully avoidable. Nevertheless, the group says the technology will be here by 2020.

Further away than the next decade, but still very much on the horizon, is technology allowing you not only to communicate with your computer through brainwaves, but have it communicate with you. This article from Wired Magazine describes a new field dubbed Optogenetics (using genetic engineering and optical stimulation to manipulate the brain) which may lead to cures for brain disease and two-way brain communication between a person and say, his/her prosthetic limb. To take it even further, a researcher at MIT has been able to cause her study participants to make specific physical movements, and even affect their moral judgments, by stimulating different parts of their brains with magnetic impulses. Obviously the implications of this are enormous.

I know this post will inevitably sound like a bunch of sci-fi movie fantasy, but as the videos included show, it's very real. It's happening right now in labs all over the world, and it will be in your living room sooner than you think.

Reflections from a Weekend Trip to NYC

2009-11-19T00:57:00.010-05:00

1. I had solid, painful lumps forming in my throat all throughout a performance of West Side Story on Broadway -- not during the sad scenes, but during the scenes with numbers that I felt were performed extraordinarily well. In my humdrum, day-to-day life I forget just how passionate I am about theatre, how quickly and deeply it affects me, like it's hardwired to my gut, to who I am.

2. I was very amused by the confused look on a New Yorker's face when I held the door open for her.

3. It's really true, there is so much anger in the city. Once on the subway, a woman started screaming and cursing at Erin for allegedly bumping into her. At Erin -- a woman so gentle she practically weeps every single night when I lock our disappointed cat out of our bedroom so it won't wake us up at 4am.

4. I have recently been trying to step out and try new foods, and it has made all the difference. The bagel with creme cheese and smoked salmon I had at Carnegie Deli was amazingly delicious. My deepest apologies to my brother Jared Ray for decrying the dish.

5. My last time in NYC was my senior year in high school, when my parents gave me a trip to NYC with a drama buddy of mine as a graduation present. That was November of 2001. At the time I was emotionally dealing with the 9/11 tragedy by completely avoiding it, so we didn't visit Ground Zero, and ever since it's been one of my worst regrets. Finally visiting it this weekend was harrowing, surreal, darkly moving. I've never experienced a larger, more poignant, more tangible metaphor come to life than that site -- a deep, massive hole. A hole that's in every New Yorker, in every American, in the spirit of this country. Looking out over the site from a bridge the events before and after that day played in my mind in way that made them seem unavoidable, even fateful in the way they fit together. Maybe it was the dark and the fog and the rain but the seemingly unstoppable evil of men who believe that almighty god hates with them just hung about the place. I wish I could say I felt some hope there. I didn't.

6. This may reflect negatively on me, but the most exciting thing about a trip to the New York Public Library was getting to see the stuffed animals which inspired A. A. Milne. Wonderful. I know I was supposed to be more awed by the Gutenberg Bible, but I wasn't. (In case you're wondering -- yes, Eeyore's tail is precariously pinned on!)

7. I have heard drummers with kits that wouldn't fit into a U-Haul play with much less diversity than the drummer we heard in Central Park playing in a jazz quartet with just two rides and a snare. The sticks, boys! It's all about the sticks. I think if I ever have a kid who wants to play drums I'll give him (or her) a snare and some brushes and tell him to come back in a couple years. Erin and I sat together on a bench for an hour in the crisp Fall air, the Autumn colors all around us, and drank in Cole Porter and Sir Duke. There is little in this world more beautiful than a walking double bass line, especially when enjoyed with a pretty girl on your arm.

8. Times Square is really just a whiz-bang tourist trap, isn't it? Like Myrtle Beach or Fisherman's Wharf on steroids.

9. After a weekend in mammoth NYC, DC feels like Mayberry by comparison. Come to think of it, Obama and Biden sortof fit the Andy/Barney archetypes...

A Quick Note on Shared Items

2009-11-16T12:48:00.001-05:00

Per the results of my reader's survey, my shared items (or "discoveries," as I used to call them) are headed back to the sidebar. You can see them there on your left. I will not be posting weekly lists of links anymore.

However, you can always get them delivered through the RSS feed or by diving into Google Reader, where you can join in the lively discussion they sometimes inspire. You will need to have my email address in your Gmail contacts to comment on my shared items in Google Reader though, so let me know if you need it by leaving a comment here.

Getting Better All the Time Part II

2009-11-12T20:53:00.013-05:00

One of the many lessons I've learned the hard way is that online debate is generally fruitless and pointless unless you're debating someone you know. So when I debate online, it's usually with my good friend the confident Harrison Brookie. Harrison is a libertarian with a masters degree in economics (a deadly combination), and he writes almost daily about seeing the world through a libertarian/economic lens on his blog, Bottlenecked.

As a center-right, "what have they done to Conservatism!" Republican, I disagree with Harrison a lot -- our arguments in the past have ranged from the abolishing the minimum wage to legalizing trade of human organs to allowing people to farm and sell endangered species. I admit, sometimes we argue so much that I feel like Harrison and I don't agree on anything.

But we do agree on many things which actually matter -- like the Gospel. So I wanted to take a moment here to outline an idea Harrison mentions regularly on his blog which I always find interesting, insightful, hopeful, and welcomely counter-culture -- an idea with which I whole-heartedly agree:

For most people, things are much better now than they ever were.

The fact is the world is less violent now than it ever was. Trade and economic growth has meant less people live in poverty now than ever. We have better healthcare, education, sanitation, living and working conditions than our grandparents did. We have more time to spend with our families. We are better at fighting disease, malnutrition, and hunger than we ever have been. We are even smarter than we were just a few generations ago.

Human progress should not be idolized, but it should not be ignored either.

Here are some excellent posts by Harrison which touch on this topic:

Ten Positives of the Recession

Historically, Unemployment Is Down and Earnings Are Up!

The Industrial Revolution's Impact on Baby-Making

It Takes Less Work to Pay for a Fridge than it Ever Did

(Ok Harrison didn't write that last article -- but one of Harrison's favorite bloggers, who he constantly points me to, is interviewed in it.)

Despite all my reservations, there is an optimism intrinsic in free-market fundamentalism that I gravitate towards. An optimism that says "Don't listen to the doomsday prophets, you are much better off now than your ancestors ever were -- and there is good reason to believe things will be even better in the future." I think once in a while, especially as the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, we could all use a little more of that.

Guesswork Theory Turns Five

2009-11-06T09:27:00.017-05:00

Five years ago today I saddled up to my beloved R31 Thinkpad and fired up Guesswork Theory for the first time. I won't get nostalgic about it, blogs are silly things after all, but it has been incredibly fun and I have to admit I feel a small sense of accomplishment about coming this far. I have learned quite a lot about life, love, and why here.

One lesson I have learned over the years is that for me, writing for someone else is much more fun than writing for myself. I'm not a journal or diary fellow. In Fall of 2007 several of my closest friends took the plunge and started blogging, and you can see having them around sent my post counts through the roof -- I wrote more entries in 2008 than in the previous four years combined. Community is a powerful thing.

So I mean this deeply and sincerely when I say: thank you for reading. And thank you for commenting. I will go ahead and admit that for me, the most fun thing about writing here is getting comments in my inbox. If you enjoy reading one of my posts, I would like to encourage you to comment on it, even if it's just to say you liked it. It means a lot to me. It makes my day, every time, no kidding.

In light of all this, I've decided to take this occasion to perform a reader survey. I originally envisioned this space as a "journal of ideas," but in the last two years I've wandered quite a bit, and I keep wondering what the folks who read what I write here actually enjoy. So if you read this blog, I would really appreciate it if you could let me know what interests you in the following questionnaire. I would love to write more of what you like to read.

Thank you, thank you, thank you again for reading, commenting, and for taking the time to fill out this survey if you can. You make this place fun.

Loading...

Top 5 Gmail Tips

2009-11-05T07:00:00.009-05:00

Gmail, Google's online email service, is my favorite online app bar none. Before Gmail, email took up a huge chunk of my hard drive, I had to delete old messages to save space, I could only access my old email from one computer, I was deluged with spam, and finding old emails was incredibly difficult. Not anymore. If you're still using Yahoo, Hotmail, or some locally-stored email program like Outlook, I promise you are making life harder than it has to be. If you need convincing, email me. I'd be happy to serve as a Gmail evangelist.

Over the years I've collected quite a few tricks to help make Gmail work even better for me. I thought I'd share them here.

1. Stop using labels and start using search.

For the first year or so after switching to Gmail I meticulously labeled my email just like I had organized it in folders in Outlook Express. Then one day I realized the only reason I label/file email is to help me find it later, and Gmail's search function is a much more powerful way of finding email than searching through labels. Using the "to:" and "from:" search operators I can find anything. If I need to know the details about the Halloween party my friend Adam sent me, I just search "to:me from:adam halloween" and it pops right up. Here is a full list of Gmail search operators for even more advanced searching.

Since my realization I have trashed all my labels except for a few I use for very specific purposes. For instance, it's pretty common these days for folks to email out their new mailing address when they move. I've made a label called "address-book" just for these emails. Now when I need someone's mailing address, I just go to Gmail and search for their name plus "label:address-book." I also have a label called "to-consider" for emails I want to read in-depth later. Whenever I have some free time and I feel like doing some reading, I do a quick "label:to-consider" search and I'm ready to go.

2. Create some creative filters.

Here's some instructions on creating filters. Filters can help you organize email automatically as well as keep unwanted email out of your inbox. It seems everyone has at least one distant family member (we'll call her "Aunt Glenda") who loves to forward annoying chain emails. A great way to avoid these without confrontation is to create a filter that automatically archives email from Aunt Glenda with the subject "FWD:", skipping the inbox. This way you still get Glenda's personal emails to you, but you miss the chains.

A lot of people use Gmail for quick-and-easy online storage by attaching something they want online to an email and sending it to themselves. I do this too, so I have a filter which automatically archives and "marks as read" all email that is from me, to me. When I need it again, I just do a "from:me to:me" search.

3. Create some new email addresses for yourself using the + sign!

Little-known Gmail fact: you can insert "+anything" before the @ symbol in your Gmail address and email sent to this address will go to you. In other words, if your Gmail address is john@gmail.com, then email sent to john+doe@gmail.com, john+table@gmail.com, and john+monkey@gmail.com will all come to you.

What's more, you can create filters that redirect email coming to these addresses. So let's say you're signing up for a newsletter for people who like cars. You give them the email address yourname+cars@gmail.com, then set up a filter in Gmail so that all email sent to yourname+cars@gmail.com is labeled "Cars Newsletter." If one day you decide you don't want this newsletter anymore, or they sell your email address to a spammer, you can just change your filter to delete all email coming to this address.

Oh and by the way, Gmail completely ignores periods in your email address. Email sent to yourname@gmail.com and y.o.u.r.n.a.m.e@gmail.com all goes to you.

4. Use Gmail labs!

Gmail Labs is set of experimental features for Gmail, most of which are just awesome. Go to Settings>Labs in Gmail to enable them. Here are a few of my favorites:

Forgotten Attachment Detector -- This feature automatically detects when you might have forgotten to attach something to an email and lets you know when you click "Send." It's saved me a significant amount of embarrassment.

Send & Archive -- Most of the time, when I reply to an email, the next thing I do is archive the conversation to clean out my inbox. This feature adds a button to do this all in one click!

Undo Send -- This feature gives you 5 seconds to click "Undo" after you click "Send." Another real face-saver.

5. Stop using the delete button.

Remember that with Gmail's huge, ever-increasing storage space (I started with 1 GB and I currently have 7.4) there's really no need to ever use the delete button. Just archive everything! You never know when you might need a message later, and Gmail's powerful search is always there to help you find it. Email messages take up very little space and digital storage is only going to get cheaper in the future.

Here are a couple extra tips you may enjoy:

How to add a custom 'From' address
How to import old email into Gmail
(This is a tough one but oh so cool - my Gmail messages go back to 2001!)

Y O U - "How to Say Goodbye"

2009-11-04T07:00:00.005-05:00

I'm sad to announce today that one of my favorite unsigned bands (and Strongbad's backup band), Y O U, has broken up. Here is a post I wrote about them last year with some samples of their tunes. It's a sad day for Erin and I; a lot of our dates in college involved catching their shows in Atlanta, and once in Clemson. It's heartbreaking that we couldn't even make it to their last show at our old haunt Smith's Olde Bar a couple weeks ago.

If you would like to support these guys and grab some great melodic pop rock, here are some links to their albums on iTunes:

Y O U
Everything is Shifting
Flashlights
The Long-Playing EP

My Shared Items: Week of October 27th, 2009

2009-11-03T08:57:00.000-05:00

These are links from my Google Reader Shared Items to interesting webpages I discovered during the week of October 27th, 2009:

White House, senators agree on media shield law – washingtonpost.com – Yay for freedom of the press! Wish they'd go further.
The $10,000 suit – interesting perspective on buying local.
Illegal downloaders 'spend the most on music', says poll – The Independent
Marginal Revolution: Florida's Public Option – The story of public option home insurance in Fl.
Friday Funnies – on the GOP
State's high court dismisses juvenile convictions – HOLY CRAP!
I'm a PC and Windows 7 was my idea – Ars Technica – That's better.
A History of Family Hoaxes | Newsweek
Flickr Photo Download: Swine Flu Mortality – Everybody just CALM DOWN.
Web Boosts Grandpa's Brain : Scientific American Podcast – Justification.
Pearl and the Beard – Will Smith Medley on Vimeo
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: The Borg's freaky new ad for Bing – WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!
The Vitamin C Myth : NPR – I'm beginning to think everything I know about my health is wrong.
Grammar Girl :: May Versus Might – I love style tips.
Obama's Declaration Of Swine Flu Emergency Prompts Pro-Swine-Flu Republican Response | The Onion – Bwahahaha.
BBC NEWS | Size zero girls 'less attractive'
Goat rentals for clearing brush – Boing Boing – I love solutions that use animals doing what they do best.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's coded F-bomb in veto – Boing Boing – This was no accident, and it's awesome.
Official Google Blog: Making search more musical – Cooool
Creepy Cap-and-Trade Claims are Illusions | FactCheck.org
tumblr_kolo40SQZq1qzy3cwo1_r1_500.jpg – "Hey Jude" flowchart.
091102_warer18964.gif – This is what the subway looks like everyday.
FORTUNE: Trapped in cubicles
The White House’s war with Fox News : The New Yorker
Couple alive after car pins them to bed for almost an hour – CNN.com
Want 50Mbps Internet in your town? Threaten to roll out your own – Ars Technica – Now that's an econ story.
Op-Ed Columnist – The Fatal Conceit – NYTimes.com – DAMN STRAIGHT. I like David Brooks more every day.
Acoustic Kitty – Wikipedia – The CIA is insane. Don't tell them I said that.
The Associated Press: New movie takes aim at celebrity journalism
Cap-and-trade: “Green Jobs” or Job Killer? | FactCheck.org
The Raw Feed: Microsoft pulls out of Family Guy special – Hahaha
Google Voice now (kinda) works with your number | CNET News – This looks promising.
CNN Drops to Last Place Among Cable News Networks – NYTimes.com – Ugh, not looking good for news.
Scozzafava Is G.O.P. Candidate, but the Right Likes Hoffman – NYTimes.com – Grrrrrr
YouTube – Year one Leeroy jenkins skit
Man Dies After Secret 4-Year Battle With Gorilla | The Onion

For more of my shared items, grab the feed or join Google Reader.

How to Post Your Facebook Status on Your Blogger Blog

2009-10-31T10:53:00.011-04:00

You might have noticed that I have my Facebook status posted in the top left-hand corner of this blog. It's updated automatically. I thought I would post instructions on how to do this for the benefit of any Blogger users who might like this on their blog as well.

1. Log on to Facebook and go to your Notifications page.

2. On the right-hand side you’ll see "Subscribe to Notifications." Click the "Your Notifications" link.

3. Go up to the URL in your browser and replace the word "notifications" with "status".

4. Highlight the entire URL and copy it (ctrl+c). This is an RSS feed of your FB status.

5. Login to Blogger.com and go to the Layout page for your blog.

6. Click on the "Add a Gadget" link in your sidebar.

7. A popup will appear. In the popup window, scroll down and click on "Feed."

8. Paste (ctrl+v) your URL from step 4 into the Feed URL box. Click "Continue."

9. Change the Title to "My Facebook Status" or whatever you prefer. Set the Show drop-down menu to the number of recent statuses you want to display (I selected "1" so I only display my most recent status). Check the Item dates checkbox if you want to display the date along with your status. Check the Item sources/authors checkbox if you want to display your name along with your status.

10. Click "Save" and you're done! Your status will now appear in your blog's sidebar. If you want to change where in the sidebar your status appears, click and drag the "My Facebook Status" box to wherever you prefer on your Layout page.

An alternate method of posting your FB status in your sidebar is to use a FB profile badge.

Special thanks to TechLifeWeb.

Harrison Hudson - "On My Heart"

2009-10-30T13:49:00.012-04:00

Harrison Hudson is a friend of mine from childhood; I grew up with his older brother John. Harrison and I played in worship bands together in high school. He was always one of those kids who really knew how to play, while the rest of us were just "good enough for youth group worship."

After drifting through a number of bands, Harrison settled into his own as a singer/songwriter and released a killer album titled Angels on One Side...And the Other on the Other. His music is a gritty blend of Roy Orbison, Elvis, The Beatles, Buddy Holly, and Johnny Cash: or in other words, 100-proof Americana (well ok, minus The Beatles). This is my favorite track from the record, featuring splendid background vocals by The Bridges.

Buy "On My Heart" by Harrison Hudson on MySpace

You can find Harrison in Nashville, on Facebook, and at HarrisonHudson.net. I encourage you to show him and his band some love if you dig their tunes.

Living the Simple Christian Life is HARD

2009-10-29T07:00:00.005-04:00

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but where, oh where, are those who think of changing themselves?" Richard Foster

Several years ago my faith was revolutionized when I came to know and understand a handful of truths which I outlined in a blog post with the tongue-in-cheek title "Essential Truths of the Christian Faith" -- namely, that I am and will probably always be uncomfortable with some of the Bible's teachings, no one (including me) has a monopoly on precisely what the Bible says and means, being right is not a virtue, and love is the most fundamental characteristic and pursuit of the Christian faith.

This led me come to grips with the fact that the faith I had been living was not a faith that springs from the truth of these ideas. These ideas led me to a simple faith, one that pursues loving God by spending time in relationship with him and one that pursues loving man by serving him/her. They led me away from a faith that concentrates itself primarily on theology, apologetics, and biblical reasoning. They led me away from a faith that focuses on typical Christian church activities rather than actions that serve my fellow man.

But in the years since I have found it incredibly difficult to live out these truths. In fact, I would say I've completely failed. Prayer and time spent with God is still largely vacant from my life. Church activities still take the place of intentional efforts to love my neighbors. Reading (Orthodoxy, The Problem of Pain), writing (Community Church and the Dunbar Number, End All Youth Groups Now), thinking, and conversing about theological ideas still comes so, so easy to me. I run to it. Of course there's nothing wrong with these things, indeed they are considerably positive, but when I am reckless about pursuing them in the absence of what Jesus made possible -- a personal relationship with him -- they are not so good after all.

The disconnect between what I know to be true and the actions I carry out is jarring. My favorite quote of all time (and this is not without some consideration) is G.K. Chesterton's "What is wrong with the world? I am." Or to paraphrase, the trouble with the world is me. It is my relationship with God that needs my action, it is the question of my own faith that needs my consideration, it is my lack of obedience that needs my attention. The salvation of the world can wait. Religious and theological ideas can wait.

The years since my epiphany have made me realize: living the simple Christian life is hard -- at least for me, but probably for most people. Spending time alone with God is awkward, it is difficult, it is messy. Prayer does not come easy. How much easier is it to read C.S. Lewis than Moses or the Apostle Paul? How much easier is it to give my money to the church every week than to cook a meal for a homeless man or pursue a friend who is hurting? Waxing philosophic is easy. Theological pontification is easy. It is simplicity that is hard. Discipline, obedience, devotion: these are the challenges. I must resolve to meet them.

I will leave you with a few passages from Let God: The Transforming Wisdom of François Fénelon by Winn Collier. If you read this blog much, that's a name you've probably heard before.

Be content with leading a simple life, however that fits for you. Be obedient. Bear your daily cross -- you need it. It is a gift given by the pure mercy of God. The essential idea is to despise self from the heart, and to be willing to be despised, if God allows it. Feed upon God alone. Saint Augustine says that his mother lived on Prayer. You do the same, and die to everything else. We can live toward God only as we allow our self to continually die. [...]

You don't need to know more truth. What you do need, however, is to start obeying the truth you already have. We are deeply deceived whenever we think our spirituality is progressing simply because our useless curiosity is being stimulated. [...]

And I have to ask--why are you chasing after all this knowledge anyway? What we need is to recognize how much we don't know, to see how poor and desperate and helpless we truly are. Books and big-time teaching won't help with that. You don't need what they're pushing. You just need to know a few simple things: you need to know Jesus. And you need to know Jesus died on a cross. Pretty simple, huh? Saint Paul knew what he was talking about: "Knowledge puffs up while love builds up."

If this is true, then running after all this knowledge, thinking it will finally make you happy with how you are, is a waste. What you need instead is to learn to be contented with love. Just love.

Quotes: Quiet Desperation, Intelligent Life, and Smoking Crack

2009-10-28T07:00:00.003-04:00

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things." Henry David Thoreau

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." Bill Watterson

"Anyone who thinks we move in a post-racial society is someone who's been smoking crack." Spike Lee

My Shared Items: Week of October 20th, 2009

2009-10-27T09:09:00.000-04:00

These are links from my Google Reader Shared Items to interesting webpages I discovered during the week of October 20th, 2009:

In the US, Hope for Victims of Genital Mutilation | Newsweek.com – Be forewarned, this is extremely graphic and sickening. But it is also hopeful. We must face these demons if we are to fight them.
Senate Passes Blame By Vote Of 91-8 | The Onion
Big in Japan: Burger King Sells Windows 7 Whopper – FOXNews.com – They just don't stop the terrible marketing, do they?
Rory Sutherland: Life lessons from an ad man | Video on TED.com – Fantastic and funny.
Art of UnNaming: UnNaming Wisdom – Now those are rules for an unborn son!
One shot of gene therapy and children with congenital blindness can now see
The Associated Press: 1st polygamist sect criminal trial set to begin
YouTube – BRAZILIAN MUSIC INSTITUTE 2009 – TICO TICO – I'm pretty sure at one point the man's left hand is playing with the woman's right hand. Amazing.
YouTube – Obama Gets Tough Question From Fourth Grader – Good answer.
The Middle Way Forward: The Entitlement Narrative – Oh election season, how I miss you.
BBC NEWS | Rich Germans demand higher taxes
Wallstats | MintLife Blog – I heart wallstats!
Net neutrality: John McCain says no, Glenn Beck sees a Marxist plot — DailyFinance – Let's remember that McCain has admitted to not knowing how to use a computer. And let's remember Beck - actually, please, let's forget about Beck.
Maryland Reins In Hospital Costs by Setting Rates – WSJ.com
Swiss Model for Health Care Is Gaining Admirers – NYTimes.com
D3d2K.jpg – Calvin on Wall Street.
Breakdancing Cat Flip Accident
Amazing Pictures, Pollution in China – This is hell.
Life Imitates 'Arrested Development' | The New Republic
Getting It Wrong: Surprising Tips on How to Learn: Scientific American
After 5 Years In U.S., Terrorist Cell Too Complacent To Carry Out Attack | The Onion
This American Life – Hands down the most entertaining, interesting thing I've read/heard on the Healthcare issue.
For Some Seeking Rebirth, Sweat Lodge Was End – NYTimes.com
1001 rules for my unborn son – 396. Never get your haircut on the day of the big dance. – This took me 25 years to learn.
Selling Sickness: How Drug Ads Changed Health Care : NPR
How The Modern Patient Drives Up Health Costs : NPR
Ezra Klein – Health Reform for Beginners: The Suprisingly Important, Occasionally Controversial, Dartmouth Atlas Studies
The Telltale Wombs Of Lewiston, Maine : NPR
The Raw Feed: Best Halloween costume yet: It's Balloon Boy!
Left vs Right (World) | Information Is Beautiful
BBC NEWS | Apology for singing shop worker
Naked Man Arrested – wtvr – Hard times for the Dude.
Disapproving Michelle Obama To Be Printed On All Fast Food Containers | The Onion
iRobot's oozy ChemBot amazes and terrifies | CNET – Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Rift between Obama and Chamber of Commerce widening – washingtonpost.com
YouTube – The Awesome Levitating Train – Science rules!
NASA names cosmic treadmill after Colbert – CNN.com – Don't know how I missed this one.
Clive Thompson on the New Literacy
An Interview with Scott Buckwald, Prop Master for the Hit TV Show Mad Men | Collectors Weekly – I WANT THIS JOB!

For more of my shared items, grab the feed or join Google Reader.

"The Eternal Appetite of Infancy"

2009-10-26T10:10:00.005-04:00

Recently I posted an exhaustive list of quotes from G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy. I also wanted to include this passage, but the post was far too long as it was. I found this section of the book inspiring; Erin can vouch for how excited I was reading it. Don't you love those moments when you read something so truthful it's electrifying, yet somehow you feel you always knew it? Well I do.

All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption; a false assumption. It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead; a piece of clockwork. People feel that if the universe was personal it would vary; if the sun were alive it would dance. This is a fallacy even in relation to known fact. For the variation in human affairs is generally brought into them, not by life, but by death; by the dying down or breaking off of their strength or desire. A man varies his movements because of some slight element of failure or fatigue. He gets into an omnibus because he is tired of walking; or he walks because he is tired of sitting still. But if his life and joy were so gigantic that he never tired of going to Islington, he might go to Islington as regularly as the Thames goes to Sheerness. The very speed and ecstasy of his life would have the stillness of death. The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction.

Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. Heaven may encore the bird who laid an egg. If the human being conceives and brings forth a human child instead of bringing forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin, the reason may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without life or purpose. It may be that our little tragedy has touched the gods, that they admire it from their starry galleries, and that at the end of every human drama man is called again and again before the curtain. Repetition may go on for millions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant it may stop. Man may stand on the earth generation after generation, and yet each birth be his positively last appearance.

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

War by Wire

2009-10-25T07:00:00.002-04:00

There are men and women in this country who every day get up, drive to work, kill enemy combatants in Afghanistan, get off at five, go home and eat with their families.

PBS Frontline: War by remote: What do you think?

Five Reasons to Hate Twitter

2009-10-24T07:00:00.007-04:00

1. People think it's cool to propose via Twitter. (It isn't.)

2. People think it's cool to publish a book of their tweets. (Nope.)

3. People think it's cool to tweet about their miscarriage -- and then rejoice about not having to wait in line for an abortion. (Yikes.)

4. George Clooney would rather have a rectal exam than join Twitter, and he's way cool. Jon Stewart hates Twitter too. (So does Maureen Dowd, but she's not that cool.)

5. Culture-crazy Christians have already made their own version of Twitter, just like they did with YouTube, because "Twitter-land needs a little more Jesus!" It's "microblogging-as-ministry!" (Gag.)

Disclaimer: This is not intended to be fair to Twitter.

My Summer of Anger

2009-10-23T07:00:00.008-04:00

During the summer of 2005, I commuted between metro-Atlanta and the suburbs three days a week. The Atlantan rush hour is a cultural experience second only to LA in hellishness. Disgruntled businessmen and women sit in their sedans, moving stop-and-go at 2 mph for hours in 100 degree heat, listening to Rush Limbaugh, Neil Bortz, and Sean Hannity. The anger hovers over the four-door armada with unrelenting oppression. You can feel the hate -- at the DOT, at "the liberals," at the car in front of you -- burn through you like a cancer.

I ate it up -- not the talk radio pundit's views, but their anger, which most of the time I fueled right back at them. I wrote about my frustration with the GOP (twice). My hatred for the Kelo v. New London decision. The bias I perceived in NPR's reporting. Senator Byrd's involvement with the KKK. The "liberal media." My burning anger at the pundits. By August of 2005, I am quite convinced that if I had met Neil Bortz, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Al Franken, Bill Maher, Ann Coulter, or Randi Rhodes on the street, I would have punched them in the face.

Once I left Atlanta I calmed down, but keeping myself from blowing up about one of these miscreants, or their deviant hosts like Air America or Fox News, is a constant struggle. That's why I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I read this column by center-right New York Times columnist David Brooks this week. He makes the so very important point that last year a man who the pundits hated with a passion won the Republican presidential nomination. John McCain's centrist views have always kept him out-of-favor with the far-right and their idealogues. Ann Coulter said she would campaign for Hillary Clinton if McCain won the nomination (I don't recall her keeping her word). Candidates like Romney and Thompson were the darlings of Fox News (Huckabee even has his own show on the channel now) -- never McCain.

Which adds great weight and support to the notion that thank heavens, the pundits don't matter. They are not the voice of the majority of the Republican Party, much less middle America. They may be able to get 75,000 people to march on Washington in the name of something-or-other but that doesn't put a dent in the 9 million votes McCain received in the '08 primary. The people who do matter, the people who make up middle America, the average voters in this country, are the centrists. The "purple state" voters.

Fox News and their minions are loud, but they are not powerful. If our Republican leaders would realize this and not be scared of voting against their supposed "base," and if our Democrat leaders would realize this and stop blaming all Republicans for the crimes of the few, we could make great progress in this country. I think Obama gets this, but we need more voices than just his. I know it's hard to unite people under the cause of centrism -- moderation never makes a good slogan. But it's what we need, and it's what the American people believe in.

The Pentagon's New Map for War and Peace

2009-10-21T22:11:00.003-04:00

This lecture blew me away a few weeks ago. In it military strategist Thomas Barnett describes a revolutionary new strategy for U.S. foreign policy which calls upon the U.S. to export security to encourage the globalization of countries which are currently unstable and disconnected from international trade. These also happen to be countries in which the U.S. often finds itself involved in military conflict.

The "America as world police" aspect of it all frightened me a bit, but the idea of transforming the U.S. military to promote peace and trade intrigued me. These ideas are closely related to the work I currently do, they have tremendous implications for our country's current military situation, they provide an interesting and informative look at U.S. military history, and the lecture itself is surprisingly humorous and entertaining.

TED: Thomas Barnett draws a new map for peace

Here is a quick outline of Barnett's "New Map," from its Wikipedia article:

Systems of rules called Rule-sets reduce violent conflict. Violence decreases as rules are established (e.g., the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding) for dealing with international conflicts.
The world can be roughly divided into two groups: the Functioning Core, characterized by economic interdependence, and the Non-Integrated Gap, characterized by unstable leadership and absence from international trade. The Core can be sub-divided into Old Core (North America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia) and New Core (China, India). The Disconnected Gap includes the Middle East, South Asia (except India), most of Africa, Southeast Asia, and northwest South America.
Integration of the Gap countries into the global economy will provide opportunities for individuals living in the Gap to improve their lives, thereby presenting a desirable alternative to violence and terrorism. The US military is the only force capable of providing the military support to facilitate this integration by serving as the last ditch rule-enforcer. Barnett argues that it has been doing so for over 20 years by "exporting" security (US spends about half of the world's total in military spending).
To be successful the US military must stop thinking of war in the context of war but war in the context of "everything else", i.e. demographics, energy, investment, security, politics, trade, immigration, etc.
In recognition of its dual role, the US military should organize itself according to two functions, the "Leviathan" and the "System Administrator."

-Leviathan's purpose is the use of overwhelming force in order to end violence quickly. It will take out governments, defend Core countries, and generally do the deterrence work that the US military has been doing since the end of WWII. The Leviathan force is primarily staffed by young aggressive personnel and is overwhelmingly American.

-The SysAdmin's purpose is to wage peace: peacekeeping, nation building, strengthening weak governments, etc. The SysAdmin force is primarily staffed by older, more experienced personnel, though not entirely (he would put the Marines in SysAdmin as the " Mini-me Leviathan"). The sys Admin force would work best as a Core-wide phenomenon.
By exporting security, the US and the rest of the Core benefit from increased trade, increased international investment, and other benefits.

Soon You Will Forget What It Was Like to Forget

2009-10-20T12:30:00.004-04:00

Four years ago I wrote that in my lifetime we would see the advent of a small electronic device which would allow users to record every second of their lives in audio and video and import this data into a computer, where it would be archiveable and searchable.

Turns out it's already begun. A Microsoft researcher has started what he calls "lifelogging," by wearing two cameras every waking moment and recording his entire life. Thanks to advancements in camera technology and the fact that data storage has grown at an even faster rate than Moore's Law, this has become possible very quickly.

I have the same questions now I had in 2005. What will the world be like with these devices? The implications are enormous, and they go far beyond internet pop-culture phenomena such as lifecasting. Soon you and I will be able to instantly recall a video of every experience we've ever had. We'll be able to pull data such as how many times we've said the words "I love you" in our lifetimes, how much time we spent watching TV, how many calories we ate, how many books we read and what was in them. We will be able to recall exactly what we said in every conversation we've ever had, and precisely what was said to us. Nothing that happens to us will be forgotten, and maintaining personal control of this information will become the privacy war to end all wars. There will be those who are completely disgusted by the narcissism of it all and others who are so addicted they become dependent on the technology to remember things for them.

It may sound like I'm describing something out of a sci-fi film, but all this is possible with technology we have right now, today. Strap in, folks. We're on our way.

My Shared Items: Week of October 13th, 2009

2009-10-20T09:01:00.001-04:00

These are links from my Google Reader Shared Items to interesting webpages I discovered during the week of October 13th, 2009:

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Why is the Borg so messed up? Three guesses, and the first two don't count – A great summary of Microsoft's failures
Microsoft’s Future, Beyond Windows 7 and the PC – NYTimes.com
The Associated Press: Risky business: States tax the rich at their peril
Off the Charts – By Some Reliable Measures, the Global Recession Is Over – NYTimes.com – All I can think is how terrible our media is, and how right the conservative economists were.
Why Fox News Is Un-American | Newsweek.com – yes yes yes
This American Life – Stories about the sanctity of marriage
YouTube – CNN's Rick Sanchez Exposes FOX News Coaching Tea Party Crowd
Video: Queer and Loathing in D.C. | The Daily Show
YouTube – David Cameron Vs. Gordon Brown – If they have something like CSPAN, I'd watch it 24/7
8Swi9.png – Appropriate summary of the balloon debacle.
Rape Case Highlights Arbitration Debate : NPR
What the Jamie Leigh Jones Case Teaches Us—By Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine)
YouTube – Did You Know?
sorenson.jpg (image) – Palin/Obama/Terminator cartoon
Seeing Red In Pink Products: One Woman's Fight Against Breast Cancer Consumerism – Newsweek.com
30 Dumb Inventions – Photo Gallery, 30 Pictures – LIFE
Book of Odds – The Odds of Everyday Life – The odds a female will be diagnosed with breast cancer are 1 in 8.14. Yikes.
The Raw Feed: The Internet. Who says you can't take it with you? – I can't believe I want one, but I do.
YouTube – Economist "Did you know?" – Viva la revolucion!
Lawrence Kadish: Taking the National Debt Seriously – WSJ.com – I could do without the threats to the "fabric of our society," whatever that is, but we need action on this issue NOW.

For more of my shared items, grab the feed or join Google Reader.

How to Rediscover the Joy of Facebook

2009-10-17T13:37:00.003-04:00

I've decided to start a new post category called "Tips" for sharing helpful bits of info I've collected, mostly about using the web. Enjoy!

Last year I nearly deleted my Facebook account, primarily because it had grown so cluttered with updates and requests from people I barely knew. As I recently mentioned in regards to Twitter, the signal-to-noise ratio had become unbearable.

As a last ditch effort, I decided to use Facebook's friends list feature to create a private list of my closest friends. It took forever to wade through all my Facebook friends and pick the 25 or so people I know the best, but the payoff was huge. Now when I load up my Facebook homepage, I only see updates from people who are close to me. As a result, Facebook has once again become a source of entertainment, community, and fun in my life, instead of a chore.

Of course I could have unfriended everyone but my closest friends, but this surely would resulted in hurt feelings. Because Facebook friends lists are private, I can avoid that. I also could have used Facebook's "hide" button in my news feed, but you are limited to hiding 200 people with this feature and it would have taken forever to hide everyone.

I highly recommend you try out a "close friends" list. Here are some good instructions on how to do it. Some extra tips I would add:

1. You can set the "friends" box on your profile page to only include people from one of your friends lists. Just click on the little pencil in the top-right corner of the box. This serves as a neat way to make a "top friends" box, like MySpace's old "Top 8."

2. On your Facebook homepage, after you click "more" on the left menu, you can drag your friends list to the top of the menu. If you do this, your friends list will come up by default on your homepage, saving you a click!

3. You can set privacy settings based on your friends lists. So if you'd like, you can give your closest friends access to info that the rest of your Facebook friends can't view.

The Daily Show on CNN: "Nobody Leaves More Things There"

2009-10-16T20:28:00.002-04:00

Exhibit A for why Jon Stewart is the best damn newsman of my generation:

The Daily Show: CNN Leaves It There