Buzzfeed outlaws negative book reviews

In a move that's sure to astound the dozens people who read Buzzfeed for its book reviews, the site has announced that it will no longer publish negative reviews.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/30/opinion/banning-the-negative-book-review.html?_r=0

This reminds me of the endorsements on LinkedIn, and I'm sure it will have the same effect.  

Nice guys DO NOT finish last, but here are some good tips if you're worried about it

I'll never believe that you have to be mean or hurtful to get ahead in life.  But here are some good tips to keep from being a doormat, too.  Not a perfect list, for sure, but still worth a read.

For example:  Working to please the boss.  That's important, but most of the time the boss only has a limited understanding of what they want, especially in a professional situation.  If the boss has any leadership talent she will hire people who know their field best and therefore create the best output possible, and she will give them a good bit of autonomy.  The boss doesn't need to know every aspect of your job to be a good boss... So work to a professional standard to please yourself.

THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE JUST STARTING OUT AND DON'T KNOW ANYTHING YET - and YOU know who YOU are...

Ignore what I just said: please your boss.  Otherwise, you'll never get to the "professional autonomy" phase of existence.  Understand?

Scientists kill world's oldest living creature in order to figure outhow old it was; see Heisenberg, Werner

It's been discovered that the world's oldest living creature was older than originally thought, but it also comes out that to measure its age it had to be killed - Heisenberg was a genius!

That sounds a little like "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it".

Update:

We find out today that they DIDN'T kill it to find out how old it was-they killed it as part of a global warming study.

Oh, that makes it OK I guess...

Just saw this piece from 2009 where Freeman Dyson disagrees with the climate change models.  
Wow, I never thought I'd see THAT happen! 

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/freeman_dyson_takes_on_the_climate_establishment/2151/

WebMD was paid to promote the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare)

The popular Web site WebMD has been 'outted' for taking Federal government money to promote the ACA. 

Saul Alinsky would be proud, as would P.T. Barnum.

Eyewitness to history: Gun confiscation in Nazi Germany

Interesting article in The Washington Times about gun confiscations from German Jews after Hitler ascended to power.  I think there's a new Step 1 in the playbook, though (Step 1 used to be registration).  The new Step 1 is "reduce the availability of ammunition for private handguns by crowding out production with government contracts."  That, or "demonize private gun owners through misrepresentation and bias in the complicit national media." 

These days calls for more registration come after massive efforts to make gun owners into kooks and paranoid types who should feel guilty for endangering civilization.  The 2nd Amendment is, after all, so terribly out of date.

I guess we'll have to call for people to register their blogs (plus, every blog post should have a 5-day waiting period, just in case they contain "fighting words.")  You know, that 1st Amendment is, after all, so terribly out of date.  Along with many of the other ones - after all, the Founding Fathers didn't anticipate drone technology, did they?

Cliff Stoll was right...it's just the WAY it failed that hasn't become obvious

Back in 1995 Cliff Stoll* wrote in Newsweek about how the Internet wasn't going to go anywhere (Boing Boing talked about it here.)  I've mentioned this before - Stoll was right.  His book Silicon Snake Oil still has lots of valuable insight for those of us contemplating the future of the Web.

When people talk about the success of teh Intarwebs they point to online banking and Amazon and Facebook and Google (and MySpace used to be on that list, with Yahoo search, etc.)  Some of those examples are relevant, and others are not.  In particular, Stoll's comments about finding dreck on the Internet as sources are still valid nearly 20 years later; unless you know something about what you're looking for to start with, Google is useless for finding new information.  Plus, we know that Google feeds the priors of its users.

Why?  No referees, no credibility, no continuity or memory of any kind.  No permanence - things change daily.  For the same reason that Wikipedia is failing, what you can find on the Internet at any given time will eventually be mostly irrelevant.  There's just too much noise out there compared to valuable stuff (signal). [Ask Dr. Shannon about that.  Entropy is a bitch.]  The worthwhile is getting marginalized every day, and the noise is getting noisier.

Facebook?  Useful for distributing family pictures, but does it really have any other value?  Can you sell it?  Not so far.  It's good for maintaining some relationships, but you've got to HAVE those relationships first.  And nothing beats a good phone call.

Twitter?  What happens when teenagers get tired of it (maybe, let's say, when they get REAL JOBS and don't have time to keep up with vapid 140-character nothings all day)?

Do Twitter and Facebook play a role in some economic system that's emerging?  Not yet.  As with so many other fads (Farmville, anyone?) they are most likely to join MySpace in the dustbin of the Web.  If they disappeared tomorrow, what would we be left with?  [more free time - that we would likely NOT spend in Eisenhower's Quadrant IV].

Nothing is permanent or reliable on the Internet.  This is considered the new normal.  Mankind doesn't function well on a shifting foundation.

So, here's to Cliff Stoll, prophet of teh Intarwebs.  We ignore his warnings at our own peril...

[*Note:  Cliff Stoll wrote "The Cuckoo's Egg" first, about catching a hacker.  It's standard Greybeard 101, but really interesting stuff.  If you don't understand everything in that book, how could you call yourself a SysAdmin?]

Update 11/13/13:
The more I think about it I'm led to the conclusion that the Internet actually reduces our critical thinking ability as a society.  There's probably some research out there that demonstrates it - maybe it's a noise effect, or a cognitive overload problem...

The latest reason that "Johnny Can't Learn" - he's an introvert, from Faculty Focus

In the long list of reasons why "Johnny Can't Learn," I thought we'd heard it all - he's a non-traditional student, he's a first-generation college student, he's got test anxiety...you name it.  Of course there are legitimate concerns regarding these characteristics (although nobody seems to pay attention to them when they're inconvenient*).  But the move to "active learning" in classrooms, which was brought on by the call for new approaches in the classroom since lecturing was just the same old thing, has caused a look at how introverts might deal with speaking up in class and ad hoc groups and the like.

Guess what?  Introverts may not like active learning.  The problem comes in determining whether Johnny is an introvert or whether Johnny just didn't do his homework and assigned reading.  Having insisted upon active learning for most of my two decades in the college classroom, I can tell you there are more introverts than ever before.

Maybe there's an introvert epidemic! 
Maybe this nation needs to devote resources to curing introversion.

Also, from experience these students seem to be MORE introverted immediately following a test, or when the material gets harder later in the semester.

*It seems that some kinds of students don't do very well in an online learning environment, according to the Community College Research Council in February of this year.  Don't tell the administrators.

The troubles with Wikipedia

As I've maintained for a while, Wikipedia is useful for casual things, and sometimes as a starting place, but rarely is it reliable for important information.  This article on Technology Review makes it clear that the Wikipedia model is not sustainable nor is it reliable.  Very interesting.

I guess there may be economic reasons behind these issues...

The Big Winner in the Financial Crisis, from The Economist

The Economist has an article from September about how Wells Fargo really emerged from the 2008 financial crisis as a "winner."  Read all about it here.

Thomas Sowell on the government shutdown

Casting blame is usually futile, but I offer this post as an attempt to sort out the facts.  After all, Bernard Baruch said

"Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts."

Thomas Sowell writes here about the facts in the government shutdown.  What's important in this discussion isn't the hype or political posturing (although he identifies the opinion points as well).

What's to be learned from this episode in American history?  Control the media, control the message, and you can do whatever you want to.  It's the same in local politics or national politics or within your own business.  When people hear the same things over and over they will start to believe them, regardless of whether or not they are factually accurate.  And most people, we've seen, won't take the time to ask research questions on their own or to understand the basic economic forces involved in political decisions.

Dr. Sowell was nice enough to leave out any reference to bullying.  Now that society is starting to commit more resources to "anti-bullying" campaigns and measures, I wonder how the Washington situation looks in light of our renewed awareness of bullying.  Shutting down national parks although 83% of the government remained open?  Refusing to negotiate or discuss compromise on any terms?  Dr. Sowell points out the flaws in our current leadership, but he's nice about it.

For the record, a management style that says "my way or the highway" isn't going to leave any lasting impressions on this world.  Notice I referred to it as a "management" style - that certainly isn't good leadership.  Leadership finds a way to address the issues that concern its constituency, and that means EVERYONE in its constituency. In this case the Washington leadership would be better served by listening to those folks who they expect to PAY FOR the ongoing shenanigans and renewed social welfare agenda.  They may end up leading just themselves and a few cronies by the time it's all said and done.

Harvard study shows that guns reduce crime

Here.  How's THAT for schadenfreude?

[this is from a month or so ago, please excuse the repost]

Fama, Schiller, Hansen win Nobel Prize

Eugene Fama wins the Nobel, along with two other guys.

Data visualization and the birth of modern statistics (or something like it)

Data "visualization"?  Isn't that just a big map with pins in it?  Well... sort of.

I'm reposting a blog that discusses how John Snow identified the source of the 1854 cholera epidemic in London and used visualization to convince politicians to shut down the town pump.  Interesting.  A good reminder about how stupid politicians can be sometimes.

AFP posts survey condemning debt and budget fight in Washington. Or does it?

The Association for Financial Professionals (or AFP) has released the results of a survey it conducted on 10/3 and 10/4, asking financial managers about their intended behavior and the anticipated results of a government shutdown.  You can find the press release here with a link to the actual survey results farther down on the page.

The press release is worded to make one think that there would be a staggering number of executives who are worried about federal government budget shenanigans.  However, if you look at the survey results themselves, it turns out that the overwhelming majority of financial managers don't plan to change their behavior, and don't anticipate major market responses to either a fight on the budget (the shutdown) or a fight on the debt ceiling.

This survey, in particular, doesn't separate (or even try to separate) the overriding effect of uncertainty on the business decisions it is focused on.  If there's no way to understand how healthcare costs are going to change for individuals and businesses, and there's no way to project how new government expenditures are going to be paid for without tremendous corporate and individual tax penalties and increases, then the level of uncertainty alone may be enough to drive some very dim estimates and responses out there in the world.  The failure to address the decision-making environment BEFORE the debt fight really makes some of this stuff questionable.

Don't take my word for it - go get the survey results and read it.  Remember, too, that without hard info about the group surveyed and the wording of the entire instrument (the questions themselves, all of them, and the instructions) then surveys are usually unreliable.  In this case, too, I think it suffers from the "Big Bad Wolf" effect - respondents have no way of knowing what WILL happen, based on experience, and so the act of taking a survey itself may change their answers.  Heisenberg was a genius!

For example:

Meanwhile, half of the respondents say that a government default would harm their organization’s access to, and raise their cost of, capital. An increase in the cost of bank credit and higher cost of debt financing were each cited as possible outcomes by 27 percent of financial professionals.

27 percent!  That should read "73 percent thought that a higher cost of bank credit and debt financing were not possible outcomes from the current fight."  See Huff, Darrell, How to Lie with Statistics, now in it's 400th edition (that's not much of an exaggeration, really).

It's not unheard of for professional organizations to sell out to political interests (completely), but I find it unusual that they would post the actual results and then spin them so poorly.  Perhaps the AFP should stick to doing research about finance.

Should you get an MBA? An excellent analysis based on Business Model

LinkedIn today has a great article on whether you should get your MBA.  [If the link doesn't work, just search for " Should I get an MBA? Entrepreneurial Finishing School. "]

The gist of the article is that an MBA will help you move beyond the start-up phase of a business (or, by analogy, your career).  The added depth and breadth that an MBA will give you can help you understand the later, more mature phases of a business.

A couple of things to bear in mind:

1) Later stages of a business are different (and often just as tough or tougher) than the early parts.  Some people are addicted to the thrill of the chase, too, and that makes long-term commitment (even to a career) difficult.

2) There are lots of MBA programs out there, and many of them are even accredited (by somebody, somewhere).  A low-quality MBA program won't really help you learn anything - it just gives you a piece of paper.  If the program doesn't challenge you or push your boundaries, then it isn't going to really give you anything to take away or use to your advantage later.

3) The MBA should be less about management and more about leadership.  Some MBAs even pride themselves on their entrepreneurship focus.  Make sure the program you pick suits you, but remember that the MBA is a general degree.  Sure, you can specialize if you want to, but when you're done it's expected that you will have a well-rounded understanding of everything that business is about.  If anything, you should come out with a good set of quant skills, especially in analysis, finance and accounting.  You should come out knowing how to express yourself in writing and in an oral presentation.  If those things somehow elude you during your schooling, your MBA won't help you much.

Checking HouChron and global warming (climate change) predictions, 5 years along

I saw a link to UncaDarrell's blog from a few weeks ago where he shows how the HouChron stokes the fires of mass hysteria regarding global warming.  The guy set his calendar to remind him to check "4 or 5 years from now" and when he did the polar ice caps were still there.

Amazing.

You can find the blog here.

8 common grammar & punctuation mistakes

https://www.openforum.com/articles/8-common-grammar-mistakes-you-should-never-make-again/?extlink=of-social-moran-p

Local politics and the 'Alinsky Effect', with a handy link to HRC's senior thesis

http://bigjollypolitics.com/2013/07/05/montgomery-fort-bend-harris-counties-and-the-alinsky-effect/

Several links in this, but the one that goes to Hillary Rodham's senior thesis is worth having.

A primer on the goals of community organizing

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/alinsky-for-the-left-the-politics-of-community-organizing

A very interesting piece written by someone who was 'in the trenches' as an organizer for fifty years.

New plan to lower the cost of college

The New York Times today has a story previewing the administration's new plan to rate colleges based on student outcomes.

Never fear, though - it has to get through Congress.  Good luck w/that.

Millennials are just tragically misunderstood!

I just had to post one of the closing paragraphs from this article I saw on Salon today (via Fark).  It sounds like this guy has figured out the secret of life at 25 (seriously).

For all their being dismissed as entitled, millennials have to channel more and more of their resources toward succeeding in any field.

Jason Ritzke, a 25-year-old operations manager in broadcast television, says he and his wife sent out 400 job applications and received four interviews. He managed to find a job. She’s still looking. He doesn’t take many risks as a result. He says, “As difficulty scales, as it becomes more and more difficult to elevate yourself, you find yourself giving up things. You find yourself asking, ‘Can I ride this bike without a helmet? What will happen to my wife if I lose my job? Can she provide for herself? Can she get a job fast enough to do it?’ Every day I have to lean on every single one of my faculties at work to haul myself just a tiny bit higher. Then I come home and work to fight the forces of entropy on my life, to fix things, to pay bills. I do everything by the straight and narrow because the penalties for falling off the track are so steep.”

Does he wish he was out partying? Maybe a little. Does he feel less cool because he’s not doing so?

“Do I feel lame?” asks Jason. “No. I feel like Hercules.”

Most of the piece is about how Millennials are so much more giving and attentive, etc. but this part really stands out.

I humbly submit that Mr. Ritzke has figured out the meaning of life - acting responsibly.  He's probably going to make it to adulthood successfully in a few years.

Proctoring update! And the Capstone Game.

For those of you who have expressed some interest in the whole online course integrity issue at UHCL (and you know who you are) I wanted to post a little update.

As you already know, Dr. Williams, Dr. Rusth and I are proctoring this semester.  They proctored a bunch of things, and I only required ProctorU.com for the final exams.  Funny enough: when I gave students the choice of taking the exam, online, with a proctor, or coming to campus to take it on a Friday or Saturday afternoon, most students (overwhelmingly) chose to simply come to campus.

The pilot study for ProctorU in the School of Business continues over the summer and into the fall, when we have our AACSB (accreditation) visit.  The university will also be testing two or three other systems including RemoteProctorNow and one other.  All of these include some "lock down" of the browser and remote system during the exam, but I'm not sure they all involve live proctors.

We haven't moved forward on instructing students to pay for their proctoring sessions yet - I'm not sure what folks are waiting on at the university.  I figure that when local students figure out that university resources are being used to pay for online student testing they'll probably blow a gasket.  Who knows?  Seems very unfair to ask local students to pay for (directly or indirectly) the cost of online student exams.  Seems unethical, almost.

One more issue for the alums:  Some MS Finance students have started complaining that advisors are letting other students "skip" the seminar class.  I'm not sure how that happens - it's the capstone course for crying out loud.  I'll have to check into it and report back as to whether that is actually happening, and whether it's become some kind of game ("but my roommate got to do it..." etc.).  Dr. Kathleen Williamson is responsible for that kind of thing, so I'll have to ask her about it once I get some more of this grading stuff behind me.

Watch this space for updates.

The Turner Report: A warning to those who want to become teachers

The Turner Report: A warning to those who want to become teachers

No ebooks, no flying cars: the future is here, where are my ebooks?

Interesting article here from IDG Connect on why eBooks still face an uphill battle.  The short answer (in my opinion): lack of random access, simultaneous access.  Also, institutional inertia. 

Houston is Number One...in burglaries (from Jan 3rd)

Yahoo posted a story from CNBC on January 3rd that ranks major metro areas by burglaries.  Houston was tops, followed by all of the usual suspects.  It seems that this represents a trend in recent years.  I just thought it would make a good PSA, especially since this is the first I've heard of it.

Who's moving where from Business Insider

Check out the map of who's moving where from Atlas - of course that probably only really counts those folks who use moving vans to move.

The original is here.

Interesting trends.  Plus, I think Canada is getting bigger.

'Well-regulated' and intent: Words have meanings

We hear a lot of back-and-forth about whether the 2nd Amendment is talking about individual or states' rights.

Some things come to mind on this. First, wouldn't it be unusual among the Bill of Rights amendments to have one that discusses a collective right? I think most of them dealt with individual rights, didn't they?

Next: well-regulated. The term has nothing to do with a militia being a state organization - it's about whether the militia is capable of performing effectively. The use of the term isn't novel to the Bill of Rights, as this post at constitution.org points out

Here.

Maybe we should seek to figure out all of the interpretations relevant to the First Amendment next. After all, I don't think the founders could have conceived of the slop that we see on the Intarwebs these days billing itself as 'news.'

As I've said before, if politicians would just interpret the Second Amendment the way they want to interpret the First, we'd all be REQUIRED to own guns, most likely.

Assault weapons at the founding

I was thinking about the whole 'intent of the founders' argument today. Back when the Constitution was ratified the populace was armed with hunting rifles and/or fowling pieces. Some folks probably had pistols of various sizes. Military units were mostly armed with smoothbore muskets that could be reloaded 2 to 3 times as fast. Muskets were only effective at short range, in volley fire against troops lined up in a similar 3-rank fashion.

Rifles, the weapons of the common folks, were far more reliable and accurate than the Brown Bess muskets of the regular army at the time. They also required training to be effective - military training wasn't needed to learn to fire or load a musket since aiming didn't really matter, military training was needed to condition troops to be dumb enough to march close enough to other troops and take marching commands in the fog of battle. And to train them to use their bayonets, which were in their infancy.

What I'm getting at here is that it's certainly worth considering that the founders saw armed civilians having BETTER weapon technology than the state-of-the-art standing armies of the day. A few with rifles and their accuracy can hold off or incapacitate dozens of regular troops; we see numerous examples throughout the Revolution. In fact, when the Continentals tried to go toe-to-toe with British regulars it didn't usually work out so well.

As we have a debate about how to stop gun violence caused by loonies, we should avoid the specious arguments about 'founders' intentions'. They clearly intended citizens to have the right to protect themselves, and superior technology was part of that intent.