Today Will Be Remembered as the Era When Technology Ruled Our Lives

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Photo: Chris Metcalf

Technology was originally created with the intention of saving us time. The cotton gin was created to save time processing cotton, the steam engine to save time over using horses for power, and computers to save time on calculations. But where is all this free time? It seems that people are busier and more stressed than ever before.

Despite the incredible pace of technological innovations in the last several decades, it has been ineffective in actually saving us time. An incredible number of tools are available today that have never been available before, but we don’t know how to effectively use them to reduce stress and provide more leisure time. It is not a limitation of the technology, rather our training on these technologies lags far behind – we just don’t take the time to learn how to use them effectively!

The technologies that dominate our everyday lives
In the grand scheme of things cell phones and email are new technologies. The majority of people got their first cell phone less than 10 years ago and email maybe a couple years before that. Now we are combining the technologies – chances are if you bought a new cell phone in the last year or two it now has email on it. The downside to these rapid technological advances is that we haven’t had time to properly learn the best way to use them.

Have you ever been talking to someone in person when their cell phone rings? How is this person supposed to respond? It is wonderful that you can be reached at any time of day by your friend 10,000 miles away, but at what cost? The call disrupts your face-to-face conversation for a digital one. Text messages are less obtrusive but the same principle applies – they dictate our lives and take us out of the moment.

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Second Order Effects Can Ruin Good Intentions

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Photo: Punchup

First, what is a second order effect? I wanted to start this with one of those “Merriam-Webster defines second order effects as …” that you so often see in papers by freshmen in high school, but I refrained. Let’s start with a first order effect. This is the direct result of a change. Taking it one level deeper, a second order effect is the result of the direct result of the change. It is better explained by an example.

A new tax break is created to give an $8000 rebate to first time home buyers this year. A first order effect is that more people buy homes this year. A second order effect is that less people buy homes next year because so many just bought houses this year.

As you can see, the second order effect is often an overlooked consequence. Laws, rules, and regulations are often put in place to create a change in behavior. But what is the consequence of that change in behavior? All too often we lack the foresight to look this far into the future, but there also could potentially be third, fourth, or fifth order effects!

Title IX
Title IX’s regulation of college sports is an example that jumps out in my mind. The intention was to make sure women and men have the same rights. One area most effected by this is collegiate sports – women and men must be equal in both athletic scholarships and the male-female ratio of athletes needs to match the schools student ratio. This is a tremendous first order effect – more women get to play sports and receive scholarships.

But unfortunately the school’s economic situation comes into play. Football is the only sport that makes money and there is not a women’s sport with an equivalent number of players. So if the school wants to have a football team, they will also have to have 5 women’s sports teams before they can even add another men’s sport. A second order effect is that schools are (economically) forced to drop some of the less common men’s sports teams. A third order effect may be that the sport loses popularity over time (wrestling is an example). Fourth order? How about we start losing the Olympic medal count to China because they train their athletic children to focus on a specific random sport. Fifth order? Communism wins.

What does this have to do with communism?
Absolutely nothing, that was a stretch. The point is, it is extremely hard to predict the result of a result of a result of an action. The consequences of the action may outweigh the benefit of the initial goal – this is why Republicans often vote for less government intervention – it’s not that they don’t want better healthcare, rather they believe the unintended consequences outweigh any improvement.

Is .9 Repeating Less Than 1? – Not So Fast …

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Image: Melchoir

.99999 repeating is the representation of an endless string of 9s. Just when you think it should end, add another 9. Then do it again. Intuition tells us that without rounding this number is less than 1. We know it must end in a 9, and any decimal that starts 0.999… regardless of how many 9s you write, has to be less than 1. Well here is proof that you are wrong!

x = .999…
10x = 9.999…
10x – x = 9.999… – .999…
9x = 9
x = 1

How is this even possible? Why wouldn’t you just right 1 instead of .9 repeating? Now you can – if anyone questions you show this proof to blow their mind! You also now have the right to tell the joke “How many mathematicians does it take to change a lightbulb? Point nine repeating!”

The Ethics of Using Information Attained by Unethical Means

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Photo: Jason Scragz

I love attaining knowledge, but here is a puzzling question – is it ethical to use information gained in an unethical way? If so, are we just supposed to turn a blind eye to how it was obtained and move on? If not, are we just supposed to forget the knowledge we gained and pretend it never happened? Neither option jumps out as the right answer, so let’s inspect a couple examples.

Using the Information
How about an extreme example – let’s take a look at the Nazis, some of the least ethical people ever. They did a whole series of messed up experiments on human prisoners that resulted in thousands of deaths and countless more ended with dismemberment, disability, or at the very least emotional torment. Just to give you an idea, some of the tests were carried out to find out the the effects on the human body of extreme cold and heat, mustard gas and other poisons, altitude, and drinking salt water.

Today we know a lot about the limits of the human body because the Nazis forced thousands of people past the limit and did not stop until they were dead. For example, we now know that you die from hypothermia when your body temperature reaches approximately 77 degrees Fahrenheit. Researchers today openly use the Nazi experiment data and are determined to see good come from all the deaths by using it to help others in the future. Here is a good essay examining the ethical debate of using this data.

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I Love Educational Rap Videos

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Rap videos are unequivocally my favorite way to learn. Really any educational music video. It started in my childhood with School House Rocks and eventually Bill Nye the Science Guy.  To this day I still love educational songs, but not so much the ones geared towards things you learn in 6th grade. Believe it or not there are smart raps with collegiate level subject matter.

One of my friends from Stanford, Tom McFadden, created a series of rap videos about human biology. He was a course instructor for the human biology program and created most the videos to help teach his students. Even though it is not my favorite topic, I am completely engrossed by the videos and able to retain a lot of information:

Here is an explanation by Tom:

Since virtually all cells have the same genome, cell specialization (for example: whether a cell becomes a neuron or a skin cell) is largely controlled by which genes are actually transcribed in a given cell. This can be controlled by transcription factors – proteins which bind to DNA and interact with the cellular machinery to control gene expression. An important family of transcription factors are Hox genes, which control which body parts grow where.

Hox genes control where legs, wings, and antennae grow in the fruit fly (so mutating them leads to some strange creatures). These same Hox genes have been highly conserved during evolution, and control vertebrae specialization in mice and humans. This helps to bring home a main lesson of developmental biology: that creating different body forms isn’t so much about what genes you have, but how you regulate them.

But my absolute favorite educational music video is “Fear the Boom and Bust” about the macroeconomic theories of John Maynard Keynes and F.A. Hayek. It is professionally made and provides a hilarious account of Economics 101:

This quality of content comes about when a talented producer with an interest in macroeconomics realizes the popular media isn’t talking about monetary policy. We need more people like this in the media.

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Personal Informatics – What Gets Measured Gets Managed

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Photo: Tyrone Shum

The often quoted Peter Drucker said “what gets measured gets managed.” If you can’t measure it you are merely guessing, not managing. Of course he was referring to applying metrics to better manage a business, but the same principle applies to individuals as well. How are you to optimize your life when you do not measure how exactly you spend it?

Personal Finance
Personal finance is the best example of this — in order to get your spending under control and save money you first need to know where your money is being spent. Track where your money is going, create a budget to control problem areas, and continue tracking to observe the improvements. Mint.com is a terrific website to help individuals focus on tracking their expenses. From their website:

If you’ve tried to build a budget in the past and just couldn’t stick to it, we understand. Until now, trying to see where you’re spending and where you can cut back has been too difficult. But once you understand a few basic principles and start tracking your spending with Mint.com, you’ll be able to set and stick to realistic goals, easily and automatically.

Mint.com has developed impressive technology to easily track and report on your spending – in turn allowing more people to stick to their financial goals. This website is only one example in an abundance of new tools utilizing technology to help you track your life. Beyond personal finance, there are similar services you can use to for almost any facet of your life.

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The Jefferson Bible – Who Has Time to Read the Whole Bible Anyway?

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Photo: Robert Paul Jr.

Regardless of your religious beliefs, you have to admit the Bible is huge, hard to read, and contains some ridiculous stories with outdated ideologies — talking donkeys, people turning into pillars of salt, sexism, and stoning other religions … whether you believe those stories wholeheartedly or dismiss them as parables from which we are to learn is up to you. Unfortunately all the aforementioned shortcomings have resulted in most people, even those you would describe as religious, never picking up the Bible to read it all the way through. This is unfortunate not in a religious sense, but because it is the only account of the life of Jesus, one of the best role models of all time. How are supposed to learn about this man? Which parts of the Bible are actually important and not outdated or unbelievable? How are we to know which passages to skip over? Luckily Thomas Jefferson took care of this for us.

The third president of the United States?
The same. Jefferson created what we now call “The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” by thoroughly reading the Bible and cutting out the passages he deemed important to paste in his shortened version of the bible. What were his criteria? Mainly it was based upon the passage’s demonstration of Jesus’s teachings and authenticity.

He didn’t believe the Bible was authentic?
Nope. Jefferson was a deist who believed the four evangelists were grossly unqualified to write the account of the life of Jesus. He thought the authors made up or greatly exaggerated numerous elements including the virgin birth, walking on water, rising from the dead, and being the son of God. Despite the perceived fallacies Thomas Jefferson realized the importance of learning from the core teachings of this great man.

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Salary – When Minimum is Greater Than Maximum

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Photo: David D. Muir

Most people think the benefit of attending a top tier school is the ability to nab a high paying job – investment banking, consulting, CEO, etc. Sure those opportunities are great, but I am going to argue that the real advantage is the ability to pursue work that the individual finds interesting. Right now you are probably thinking – can’t anyone do that? Yes, but a top tier degree enables you to do it without worrying about money – you have a great degree to fall back on if things don’t work out. It’s not the maximum salary opportunities that matter, but rather the high minimum salary that can be expected with a degree from an elite university.

The focus of students at these schools is not merely passing versus failing – all the students admitted to top tier schools are capable of doing the work, in fact thousands of capable students are rejected every year. Keeping this in mind, these students are going to have a focus other than passing and failing: grades, social life, sports, clubs, job, girls, etc. I won’t go into what their focus should be in the post, only what they should do in the meantime – get a technical degree! Not all college diplomas are equal, even if they do come from the same school. Graduating with a technical degree will prove valuable later when it comes to your career.

Many college students make the mistake of choosing a major because it is easy and they will be able to get a higher GPA while working less. A technical major is much more important for job demand than GPA. In fact, leave GPA out of the consideration – after your first job, who cares? The answer is graduate schools, but that is not a job. Who is going to have a harder time quickly finding a job, someone with a aerospace engineering degree and a 3.1 GPA or someone with a classics degree and a 3.4 GPA? These majors may be harder but it is well worth a sacrifice of a couple tenths off your GPA in exchange for job demand.

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Eye Opening Abortion Statistics

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Photo: Matt Smith

Abortion is a hot button issue in the United States and nearly everyone has an unwavering opinion – there is no argument that can be made here that will instantly change your belief. Instead I will share with you some eye opening statistics regarding abortion and let you draw your own conclusions.

I am not one to wholeheartedly believe in statistics as a statistic can be dug up (or created) to support any viewpoint. My main issue with taking statistics at face value is that there can be numerous errors in the study which are reflected in the final data. Is it truly a random sample? Is it a big enough sample to draw any conclusions? Was the study funded by an organization that had an interest in the results coming out a certain way? Fortunately, abortion is not a difficult activity to track as nearly all abortions take place in a hospital or abortion clinic. The healthcare industry accurately tracks everything – in a 2008 sample of 100 hospitals there were 4 injuries relating to slicing zucchini, including one for trying to slice it with a mandolin …

In the case of abortion the margin of error is largely irrelevant — are you even able to come up with a ballpark answer? How common are abortions? 5% of all pregnancies? 10%? 20%? 40%? Higher?

In the United States 20% of all pregnancies result in an abortion. What’s interesting is that this number varies greatly across the country and the world. The District of Columbia and New York are close to 40% while many rural states are under 10%.

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Things You Didn’t Even Know Had a Name

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Photo: White Gold Wielder

Just about every obscure item you can imagine has a proper name. Someone before you previously attempted describing the item, discovered that “blue thingy” was not descriptive enough and took the liberty to making up a name that everyone can use. But of course not everyone knows the official name and the item is inevitably still referred to as adjective + “thingy”. I am not advocating adding thousands of nouns to your vocabulary in the off chance that you may one day want to refer to the flap of skin on your hand between your thumb and index finger (purlicue). But there are a few that I would like to pass on to my readers in hopes that they will be widely used one day. Try dropping these into conversations:

  • Aglet – the hard plastic part at the end of a shoelace
  • Cairn – a pile of stones made by hikers
  • Ferrule – the metal piece at the end of the pencil that holds the eraser on
  • Muselet – the wire thing on the top of a bottle of champagne to keep the cork from flying off under the pressure
  • Zarf – the cardboard coffee sleeve you receive at Starbucks to keep you from burning yourself through the thin cup

Photos: Tom Wefald, Ian W. Fieggen, Steve Webel, Fredrik Thommesen

When you do in fact use one of these words in conversation, you will undoubtedly have to explain the meaning. This is a perfect opportunity to share all five of these words, which will make you look like a genius and promote the use of adding of these words into common use!