Thoughts

Is the Internet Actually a Playground?

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It’s no secret that I love the internet. If forced to, I could keep myself entertained for weeks, maybe even months, just poking around and seeing everything that is out there. (Un)fortunately I have friends that keep this from becoming a reality.

What is it that I love about the internet? Well first there is the information. I’m pretty nerdy when it comes to learning outside of the school environment about the things I want to learn. I think there is something out there for everyone – every single subject you can imagine from academic to silly to somewhere in between. From text to videos to audio.

What else do I love? The internet is a playground for mischief! Can’t keep a straight face when making your crank calls? No problem, try your luck on the internet. My favorite is the 7 legged spider email correspondence. Even if you don’t participate, you can check out all the different ways people are creating a disruption on the web. Obama’s internet IDs idea better not bring this to an end.

Are you creative? How would you like to create money out of thin air? There are numerous examples of people doing one simple, creative thing on the internet and making boatloads of money off of it. My favorite example is the Million Dollar Homepage – a 21 year old decided to pay for his college (and a whole lot more) by selling 1 million pixels of advertising at a dollar a pixel. It peaked at the 127th most popular website on the internet and in half a year brought in a million dollars for a pittance of effort. Check out the Wikipedia page and FAQ for some more background.

Your brilliant idea might not be too far away. Clay Shirky’s book Cognitive Surplus is chalk full of interesting ways that the internet is changing the world both socially and economically. Clay is the go to guy for anything internet related – his essays are oozing with ideas and opportunities on the web.

I must conclude that the internet is a playground. But it is also the classroom. It is also the teacher’s lounge, bulletin board, club meeting space, and gymnasium. And it is absolutely a work environment. If I had to sum it up, I’d call it a social experiment – here is this brand new way of communication continuously being reinvented. Really it’s just about anything you want it to be.
 

 
The “somewhere in between” link above is highly recommended. In fact, check out all the Drunk History videos. And looking for a way to contribute to Wikipedia? Believe it or not, there isn’t a Wikipedia page for Drunk History yet!
 

Photo: Vincent Lock

The Difference Between Politicians and Pundits

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I don’t follow politics closely at all. It’s just not a passion of mine. But I do get all riled up when people are idiots and confuse politicians with political pundits. Politicians should be held to a higher standard, they have the difficult job of making unpopular decisions and compromises for the sake of progress. Pundits are there to discuss the work (or potential work) of politicians, nothing more. Please don’t tell me your favorite pundit would make a great politician – sure they can talk, but can they actually solve any problems? Oh, and once you decide to be a pundit you shouldn’t go back to office.

I have no problem with a politician like John McCain – I believe he is attempting to make the United States a better place. Sure he does it by playing hard partisan politics (not supporting any Democratic initiatives), but it’s so that when the Republican party is in office the “real” progress can be made. He is such a team player that he puts Republican party official stance ahead of his own beliefs (whatever they are) by flip-flopping whenever it will help the party.

But then you have a guy like Glenn Beck, popular Fox News pundit, heralded by the conservative media and a huge Tea Party advocate. He is a troublemaker. That is his goal (no he is not stupid). It’s pretty obvious. In fact, he is even quoted in Forbes saying as much: Keep reading…

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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I hope everyone is enjoying their holidays, or in the very least their time off. My apologies for not writing any interesting new posts for you – I have 3 partials patiently awaiting my attention, but they aren’t quite ready. I have been distracted, but will have time in the next few days.

What have I been doing? Well obviously spending time with my family. But my computer time has been spent on a coding project involving your favorite social media sites. More on that to come later …

I got a Kindle for Christmas, so expect even faster additions to my Book List.

And finally, the first weekly Pedantic Post email will be sent early tomorrow morning. Be sure to sign up on the right to get the email updates.

Photo: Nina Matthews

My First Birthday Post, Blogs, and a Birthday Favor

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Today I turned 25. A quarter century. Wow. Not that old in the grand scheme of things, but I think at some point I am no longer a kid right? But enough of those thoughts, let’s worry about that later.

I have been blogging for 8 months now, my how time flies. But it sure is a time consuming, is this how I want to spend my limited time on this planet? People ask “Brian, you strive for efficiency everywhere else in your life, why waste so much time on Pedantic Posts?” After 61 posts it is time to reflect upon the experience and why I continue to post my thoughts for the world (hint: the favor is related). I suppose as you get old you reflect on the past and why you do the things that you do …

Many articles have been written on the benefits of blogging. I don’t want to go into the many aspects, but here is a concise post to use as a starting point. Just like being a vegetarian* there are so many reasons it is hard to pick just one. They are all obvious to me now and each contribute, but when someone asks the simple question of why, it is difficult to talk about one reason over the others.

Well tonight I finally put my finger on one reason that I can point to above all the others for why I invest my time in this blog. Connection and community. In the world of cookie cutter social networks of “friends”, I want a place where I can communicate on my own terms, where my friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers can come together and be a little nerdy with me. In Seth Godin lingo, I desire to have a tribe.

Keep reading…

Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies – Or Would You Prefer the Truth?

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Everyone claims they want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But do they really? Think back to the conflicted teachings of your childhood – we are all taught to tell the truth because you wouldn’t want to be lied to. Yet adults acknowledged situations exist when it is necessary for grown-ups to tell little white lies. But of course children still shouldn’t … darn double standards.

One more trip down memory lane. Remember the movie Independence Day? In the movie the U.S. government has known about the existence of aliens for many years, but kept denying their existence to the public. In fact, they kept it so secret they didn’t even tell the current president.

PRESIDENT
“Regardless of what the tabloids have said, there were never any space crafts recovered by the government. Take my word for it, there is no Area 51 and no recovered space ship.”

Chief of Staff Nimziki suddenly clears his throat.

NIMZIKI
“Uh, excuse me, Mr. President, but that’s not entirely accurate.”

Fast forward a few minutes …

PRESIDENT
“Why the hell wasn’t I told about this place?”

NIMZIKI
“Two words, Mr. President. Plausible deniability.”

Of course I didn’t understand what the heck plausible deniability meant at the time, but it stuck in my mind. It’s one thing to not tell the general public about the aliens that visited earth, but the president is a horse of a different color.

Now that I’m slightly older, I understand that the government might not necessary want to alert the public of the existence of extraterrestrials. You saw how they reacted in the movie! Shooting guns in the air, crazy people partying on roofs, rioting, and general mayhem! But if it is in the government’s best interest to lie about this, what else is there? Where do you draw the line?

Keep reading…

The 29 Thousand Dollar Speeding Ticket – Linking the Fine to the Offender’s Wealth

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Photo: Woodley Wonderworks

A few weeks ago I posted about the controversial ways European countries are approaching drug reform. Today I’d like to broach a topic that you will probably more closely relate to: speeding tickets.

Once again those Europeans have proven to be creative with their laws – in some countries the price of an excessive speeding ticket is linked to the wealth of the driver. For example, a Swiss millionaire received a $290,000 ticket. He was also a repeat offender, going twice the speed limit, and had a personal wealth over $20 million.

So what do you think? The same concept is also applied to drunk driving. Now what do you think?

Someone more qualified than myself (a Ph.D. in economics from UCLA) doesn’t think it makes sense. If you don’t vary the price of goods (cars, houses, food, etc.) for the wealthy, why would you do it for a speeding ticket? Here’s why: just because you are rich, doesn’t make you above the laws of the land!

If you can afford to pay the penalty, does that mean you have the right to do it? No way Jose! If the only penalty for driving too fast was a $100 fine, Bill Gates could drive as fast as he wants. He could just pay $100 every time he gets caught. The goal of the law is not to make the government money, but rather to keep the roads safe.

Keep reading…

Is it Time to Rethink the War on Drugs?

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Photo: Giuseppe Bognanni

Sometimes the United States finds itself in wars that it cannot win. And the worst part about it, we don’t lose either. What can possibly be worse than losing a war? If they go on indefinitely. Well here is one war that has been going on for 40 years with no end in sight: the war on drugs.

Ineffective
School initiatives began 40 years ago to educate children about the dangers of drugs and to “just say no”. I don’t think anyone can argue against trying to keep drugs away from children. But that doesn’t mean it is effective – since 1970 there has been a 0% change in high school drug use.

Any new ideas or are we just going to keep plugging away and hope it eventually works? I can’t help but think of Albert Einstein’s quote, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I hate to break it to you, but 40 years = over and over.

Russ Jones is a retired narc who has spent over 30 years on the front line of the war – he should know better than almost anyone how we are doing. And he believes it is time to call it off!

“The U.S. over the last four decades has spent $1 trillion of our tax dollars, made 38 million nonviolent drug arrests and quadrupled our prison population,” Jones said. “And the rate of addiction today, 1.3 percent, is the same as it was in 1970, when we started.”

Isn’t it a good thing that there have been 38 million arrests? Isn’t that progress? Well, not really! Do you think all the addicts that bought from that dealer are just going to stop using and start going to church on Sundays? Nope. The next drug dealer slides right in and business keeps humming.

“When I arrested a rapist or a robber, the community was safer,” Jones said. “When I arrested a drug dealer, all I did was create a job opening.”

Keep reading …

Paradoxes to Ponder – Part Deux

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Photo: makelessnoise

Last week I posted some of my favorite paradoxes (Click her for part 1.) – here are some more gems:

Service recovery paradox: “Successfully fixing a problem with a defective product may lead to higher consumer satisfaction than in the case where no problem occurred at all.” This is the business flavor of the paradox, but it can be similarly applied to social aspects as well. Someone who is born again or overcomes some failure that was entirely their fault, often garners more respect than those who avoided the pitfall in the first place. Go figure. Nice guys finish last, that’s why I’m a bad boy.

Heat death paradox: “Since the universe is not infinitely old, it cannot be infinite in extent.” Any hot object transfers heat to its cooler surroundings, until everything is at the same temperature. If the universe were infinitely old there must have been enough time for the stars to cool and warm their surroundings. Everywhere should therefore be at the same temperature and there should either be no stars, or everything should be as hot as stars. So the universe can’t be infinitely old, and since it can’t be infinitely old it cannot extend to infinity.

False positive paradox: “A test that is accurate the vast majority of the time could show you have a disease, but the probability that you actually have it could still be tiny.” Consider a test with no false negatives, which gives a false positive only 0.04004% of the time, applied to a million people, in which 1 person in 10,000 is infected. The expected outcome would be: 100 people would receive a true positive, 400 people would receive a false positive, and 999,500 would would be correctly negative. Thus, only 20% of the positive results are correct, even though the test is “over 99.95% accurate”.

Tolerance paradox – “A tolerant person is antagonistic toward intolerance, hence intolerant of it. The tolerant individual is by definition intolerant of intolerance, but in so being must be intolerant of himself.” Should the tolerant person be tolerant of intolerance in others? So maybe the most tolerant people are those that are just completely indifferent to the cause?

More: Wikipedia’s complete list

Going Beyond the Chicken and the Egg – Paradoxes to Ponder

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Photo: Ruben Alexander

Almost everyone has heard the paradox “which came first, the chick or the egg?” That was so 2nd grade. Here are some others for you to think about:

Zeno’s paradox: “In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.” This is also known as Achilles and the Tortoise. If Achilles (fast) is racing a tortoise (slow), but the tortoise is given a mile head start, by the time Achilles has reached where the tortoise has begun, the tortoise has advanced a measurable distance X. In the time it takes Achilles to cover the distance X to where the tortoise currently is, the tortoise will have gone another measurable distance Y. This will go on infinitely so that Achilles will come close, but never actually pass the tortoise.

Mpemba paradox: “Hot water can, under certain conditions, freeze faster than cold water, even though it must pass the lower temperature on the way to freezing.” If you have two cups of water – one at 95 degrees and one at 45 – and place them in the freezer, shockingly the hotter cup will freeze first. Check out the link for insight into why and the story of the high school kid it was named after.

The Pinocchio paradox: “What would happen if Pinocchio said ‘My nose will be growing’?” An awesome version of the classic “This sentence is false” paradox.

Drinker paradox: “In any pub there is a customer such that, if he or she drinks, everybody in the pub drinks.” Either everyone in the pub is drinking , or at least one person in the pub isn’t drinking. On the one hand, suppose everyone is drinking. For any particular person, it can’t be wrong to say that if that particular person is drinking, then everyone in the pub is drinking — because everyone is drinking. Suppose, on the other hand, at least one person isn’t drinking. For that particular person, it still can’t be wrong to say that if that particular person is drinking, then everyone in the pub is drinking — because that person is, in fact, not drinking. Either way, there is someone in the pub such that, if they are drinking, everyone in the pub is drinking. Something to talk about next time you are in a pub not drinking.

Go on to Part Deux for more.

This post comes at you all the way from Berlin, Germany. I’m having a great time and will return home with plenty of stories one week from today.

Happier With Less Choices – The Magic of Fewer Options

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Photo: i_yudai

The conclusion of a book I read this year resonated with me, and since completion I have noticed it keeps popping up in my life – that sometimes more options can have a negative effect on a decision. The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz argues that if you have three choices, the consequences of adding a fourth choice will outweigh the utility of another option.

How can this be? This fourth option may be better than the other three, and if it is not, then it can simply be disregarded and you are back at three choices. Yes, that is a logical conclusion, but humans are not perfectly rational. First, this additional option will require further effort on your part to compare it to the others – if the choices are all very similar this can be excruciatingly difficult. More importantly, additional options provide the opportunity to second guess your decision. Schwartz illustrates in the book that the doubt in your mind introduced by more options will result in you being less content with the outcome.

The Jam Study
Two psychologists put this hypothesis to the test to find out if more choices can have negative effects on the decision. One study they ran was to setup a table of jam samples at a grocery store – sometimes they displayed 6 flavors and other times 24. While they found that more choices of jam incited a greater number of shoppers to sample, they were ten times more likely to buy with less choices and “reported greater subsequent satisfaction with their selections.”

The Paralysis of Analysis
The book lumps individuals into two categories: those who want the absolute best, and those who are happy with the first option that meets their requirements. Can you guess which group is happier with their outcome? Even if the perfectionist chooses a marginally better jam, they still are not as satisfied with their choice and have wasted a great deal of time.

Investing is a great example of this principle – we all know we are supposed to invest our money as early as possible to take advantage of the miracle of compound interest. But we also know that a 9% return is a whole lot better than 5%. If possible we should strive for 9%. Before we realize what has happened, the paralysis of analysis has taken hold, we have stalled looking for the perfect safe place to invest our money, and we are 45 without any investments. Just pick the first good investment that comes your way (there will always be better, no matter how much time you put into it), pick it now, and be happy!

Keep reading…