OUT OF MY MIND:

Technology, any technology, is not as good as the people who design it, or as good as the people who build it, or as good as the people who sell it, or as good as the people who install it. Technology is only as good as the people who maintain it. Often, in today's world that's you and I. Even with help, we are not only not experts, we may not even follow directions correctly. Sometimes we are less conscientious than we need to be, and sometimes the instructions and help are inadequate — and usually some combination of the two.
        One way around this dilemma is to make and sell technology that will not require maintenance. An easy way to accomplish this is to make sure the technology has a short life. One method for this is failure due to planned obsolescence. Another is to induce users to discard the technology in favor of newer technology. This latter is the primary path chosen by many technologies but especially by today's digital technology.

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Just heard phrase: It might be academic. Academic in this case meaning pointless, a good description of Academia.

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Would you like a definition of an intelligent machine? Here's one (derived from Donald L. Norman): An intelligent machine can deal with the unexpected. Now, since by definition, the unexpected is that which was not planned for, it will be quite a trick to build (from plans, etc.) an intelligent machine. Let me know when you see one. I'll wait.

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Notes from Conversations with Woody Allen, Eric Lax:

pg. 203 "I write everything with my own inflection . . ."
[This is especially obvious in the voice of the narrator, regardless of who the actor is.]

pg. 243 "A script is only a guide for the work to come."
[In his case, the end product even differs in intent.]

pg. 291 ". . . you've always got to come back to what happens next because that's what the viewers want to know."

pg. 361 . . . Purple Rose, Husbands and Wives, and Match Point are the three you like best.
[The author repeating what Woody has said before.]

pg. 362 "Rather than live on in the hearts and minds of my fellow man, I'd prefer to live on in my apartment."
[Woody's favorite joke on the immortality of art.]

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The great blessing of excessive creativity is you're never bored; the great curse of excessive creativity is knowing one life is not enough.

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To paraphrase Camus: All great consequences have inconsequential beginnings.

What does The Big Bang Theory TV show have in common with bad web design? Well, if you're a fan of this show (as am I) you can probably guess. As smart and as educated as the guys on this show are, they are equally lacking in common sense. You could even say that the smarter and more educated they are, the more they (he, Sheldon) lack common sense.
        Which is what the designers of bad web pages and sites have in common with the (guy) characters on this show: a lack of common sense. So we might ask, how do smart people lose their common sense? Easy. They're too impressed with their smartness, their cleverness, their education, to value anything common. As if ignoring common sense was smart. Yet, this is exactly what passes for smart in our techno-centric society. It's the same type of smart that brought down Enron (look up Smartest Guys In The Room). But nobody got it. Then the same breed of smart people brought down OUR ENTIRE ECONOMY. Now, here I am telling you the same story about bad web design. Still, nobody gets it.

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All lives are a mystery, especially those we think we know — including our own.

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When examining the question, What is the purpose of prayer? I'm sure for many people the answer is to ask God (or whomever) for something. Some, like children, think these things should be tangible, like a bicycle or good grades or not to have Daddy hit Mommy so much. But maybe the purpose of prayer is not to ask for something, even for intangibles like love and peace and not to sin so much. Maybe the purpose of prayer is simply to thank God (or whomever). Maybe for something specific and tangible — or not. Maybe for nothing specific, just for the help He (or She or Whomever) has given you. Or maybe just to say Thank You for everything, for life, people, and a Universe so large it not only has room for us but even if we screw up badly it won't make any real difference (to the Universe). On the other hand, I don't see that prayer, whether asking or thanking, has kept us from screwing up too much right here, with ourselves, with each other, or with the earth — a shrinking home, whose bounty may not be boundless.
        In response to the suggestion that prayer may not work because not enough people are praying, I would suggest it's not the number of people but the fact that many of them discount or disrespect the prayers of so many other people. In a phrase, these people think the prayers of others are not effective unless they are on the same page (as those first people). If we are so divided about religion, about God (or whomever), about each other, the logical conclusion is that for those who pray it can only be personal — or at least limited to a tiny percentage of people on the planet. And if it can only be limited to each person, then it makes you wonder what's the purpose.

The crowd is addicted to The Next. Unfortunately, they can't get their hands on it until it becomes The Now. Even more unfortunately, that won't make them happy because what they really want is whatever's The New Next.

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Newt Gingrich has a very big head — on the outside, too.

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Swords are made for killing, for cutting and chopping, for stabbing and slicing. No one really learns from these uses. However, learning is possible if you simply use a sword for pointing.

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Almost everyone knows that to get things done you must focus on the tasks at hand. But few people know that is absolutely wrong when it comes to writing. (Not, of course, re-writing, which many call editing.) Writing has nothing to do with focus or tasks. Those abilities and objectives belong the to rational, conscious mind. If you want to write, you best keep that mind the hell away from your writing.

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Life is a tightrope act over an open grave.

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Humans beyond the age of three or four have a very powerful Theory of Mind. It is so powerful that they tend to anthropomorphize not only other creatures but even inanimate objects. I have mind, therefore you, she, or it have minds.

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Is the plan for releasing movies so the DVDs can be promoted for Xmas?

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A commonly heard phrase (attributed to Albert Einstein) is, "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." We expect repetition to produce the same (or similar) results. But we don't expect that repeating a failed action will produce successful results — so we don't repeat failed actions — unless we're aiming for the rubber room.
        Another commonly heard phrase when people make mistakes is, "Well, we're all (or only) human." As though a prime defining characteristic of being human is making mistakes. Well, it is! It's the only way we really learn not what actions work but what actions don't work.
        Everyone knows of situations where an action that used to work no longer does. This "correct" action is only conditional. But almost no one attempts a failed (mistaken) action more than once. The negative information — the mistaken action — is stronger, therefore more valuable than the positive information or the correct action.

The more connected a new habit is, the easier it is to learn (reinforce) it. And conversely, the less connected, the harder. Connections are other habits (fixed actions), clocks (fixed times), and places (fixed locations). So to begin a new habit you must first connect it to one or more of these.

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If you ask most people what it means to be smart, they'd likely say it has to do finding answers: quicker answers, better answers, bigger answers. But if you ask most really smart people — the people smart people agree are really smart — they'd more likely say it has to do with finding questions: better and bigger questions. Really smart people understand how important it is to ask the right questions.

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Saying, even believing, there are no absolutes, is useless unless you quantify the limits and have a course of action. E.g., the customer is not always right, just up to the point you're willing to go to court (sue or be sued).

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Notes from "Life Without Principle," in The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau, H. D. Thoreau:

pg. 198 Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives.

pg. 199 If you would get money . . . you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly.

pg. 200 Do not hire a man who works for you for money, but him who does it for love of it.

pg. 201 There is no more fatal blunder than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.

pg. 201 You must get your living by loving.

pg. 207 In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post office.

pg. 207 . . . the poor fellow . . . with the greatest number of letters . . . has not heard from himself this long while.

pg. 208 It is individuals that populate the world.

pg. 209 I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things . . .

pg. 211 . . . we do not worship the truth, but the reflection of truth . . .

pg. 212 When we want culture more than potatoes, and illuminations more than sugar-plums, then . . . the result . . . is, not slaves, . . . but men—those rare fruits called heroes, saints, poets, philosophers, and redeemers.

pg. 213 The poor President, what with preserving his popularity and doing his duty, is completely bewildered.
[H. D. capitalizes President, as do I.]

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The prose of great writers is infused with poetry. Unfortunately, this often leaves nothing for their poetry.

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As a kid of 12-13, Ray Bradbury tried to break into radio—here in Tucson! The first stories he sold (after his family moved to Los Angeles) were radio scripts.

Notes from The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuition Deceives Us, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons:

pg. 7 . . . We experience far less of our visual world than we think we do.

pg. 13 After accidents, drivers regularly claim, "I was looking right there and they came out of nowhere . . . I never saw them."

pg. 13 . . . we are only aware of a small portion of our visual world at any moment.

pg. 24 . . . the more attention-demanding tasks your brain does, the worse it does each one.

pg. 35 . . . they did not see the [object] because they did not expect to see it.

pg. 37 . . . the advance of technology has given us devices that require greater amounts of attention, more and more often, with shorter and shorter lead times.

pg. 38 The structure of the human body doesn't permit us to fly, just as the structure of the human mind doesn't us to consciously perceive everything around us.

pg. 104 Patients trust doctors perhaps more than they should . . .

pg. 105 An obdurate certainty in the face of conflicting evidence is perhaps the best indication that you need a different doctor.

pg. 136 Ronald Rensink . . . has made the interesting proposal that the mind works much like a Web browser. . . . [In that] The perception that the Web is stored locally on your computer is a reasonable misunderstanding . . .
[Athough it may appear so, like the Web appears to be stored on your computer, the outside world is not stored in your mind.]

pg. 147 We seem to prefer the advice of experts who act like they know more than they really do . . .

pg. 151 . . . measles . . . remains a leading cause of death in children worldwide.

pg. 155 The human mind's tendency to promiscuously perceive meaningful visual patterns in randomness has a one-word name: pareidolia.

pg. 157 Yet the mark of true expertise is not the ability to consider more options, but the ability to filter out irrelevant ones.

pg. 180 In Britain, where the media gave more coverage [to discredited research] . . . measles is again considered endemic.

pg. 195 . . . American Academy of Pediatrics currently recommends that children younger than two years old watch no television or videos whatsoever.

pg. 198 Seventy-two percent of people agreed that "most people use only ten percent of their brain capacity."

pg. 199 Sixty-five percent of the people apparently believe that "if someone behind you is staring at the back of your head, you can sense that they are looking at you."

pg. 230 . . . most of our thought processes can be divided into two types: those that are fast and automatic and those that are slow and reflective.

pg. 241 In many cases, intuition is poorly adapted to solving problems in the modern world.

The Frankenstein Brotherhood

The current fundamental mistake in understanding the brain is to think its electrical activity is somehow its own source, when it is obviously the result of chemical activity. This mistake is common to nearly all researchers in neuroscience and artificial intelligence. A mistake not unreasonable for an 18 year-old girl uneducated in science to have made almost 200 years ago. I speak of course of Mary Shelly and her immortal Frankenstein. Yet the mistake — in more sophisticated form — still persists.
        One difference from the original is that modern researchers in neuroscience and artificial intelligence don't seek to create life. Rather they seek to create intelligence. Because they are impressed by the intelligence they possess, they think it a more important goal than merely creating life. But they do not understand the workings of their own minds, much less how to infuse dead silicon with similar behavior. Yet they all agree the magical force of electricity is the key and its greatest embodiment is the modern computer.

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The state of a person operating under hypnotic suggestion is, for all intents and purposes, identical with that of a sleepwalker. Both appear to be fully conscious and — to the degree their behavior is affected by their unusual condition — yet they are limited in ways not obvious to the casual observer. How then are we to determine in what manner the state of any person differs from these two examples?
        People may appear conscious, yet may be subject to behavior out of the norm due to any number of causes, e.g., mistaken perceptions, distractions, subconscious emotions, etc. Clearly, there is no simple way to verify a fully conscious state free from unconscious interference. So why then do we invariably assume this unfettered state merely because a person appears conscious? There is no way to be sure a person is fully conscious, just as there is no way to ensure a person is fully rational. Rather we must judge each behavior on its own, applying no additional credence by assuming a person is conscious — or rational.

It has been said, somewhat self-evidently, that history is written by the winners. Well, the story of evolution — the history of life on this planet — is also being written by the winners. Or at least this is how they think of themselves — as winners. But, in truth, they are merely the survivors. Yet yesterday, once again, I find a book referring to them — to us — as the "fittest." Not. Although some might be, clearly not all can lay claim to be among the "fittest." All they — and we — can legitimately claim is having been sufficiently fit to have survived. No more, and no less.
        We can choose to continue to delude ourselves into thinking we are the winners, the "fittest," even the top of life's food chain. But we are, simply and factually, only survivors — and most of us damned lucky to have achieved that.

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 "Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in; but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents." —Schopenhauer

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Sorry, I don't understand the whole left hand equals unclean thing. I mean I understand where it comes from, how it came about, and even why it persisted for centuries. But I can't fathom why it still persists. Does it choose to ignore the approximately ten percent of the world that is left-handed? People with only a right hand? Does it think it's better to perpetuate ancient proscription than to improve sanitation? If you tell me I should respect a culture that believes the left hand is unclean, then I will watch those left hands like a hawk to make sure I avoid contact with anything they contact. Or can these people count their money with only one hand?

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Popular Jokes of the Future. Q: How many quzots does it take to flurn a bleen? A: Zeeplots!

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If the word Governor is capitalized, as is Senator and Congressperson, then why not the chief executive of the country? Especially to distinguish that person from a president of a company or some such? I ask, because contrary to common usage I do capitalize any reference to the President of the United States. For all the reasons mentioned.

Yesterday, I watched the LSU / Alabama game. Here's the thing: it was hyped (a lot, by everybody) as The Game Of The Century. Really? This century? A century we have yet to see 88% of? How could anyone even call it the game of this decade? Really.

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Given the proper context, all pride is false pride.

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Voltaire said, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." Ever the slyboots, what he was really saying was there was no God and the proof is that we invented him.

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Dead cell phones are one thing. But dead cell phone chargers — i.e., unusable because the phone (i.e., the battery) is dead (i.e., no longer rechargeable) — is just plain stupid. Why is there no standardization? Not one size fits all, but a handful of common sizes (i.e., power ratings) and a few standardized connectors. (But chargers don't even have standard markings, and often labels unconnected to the phone manufacturer.) These darn things last forever, yet they become junk (most of them) because the battery technology stinks. Idiotic!

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It is imperative not to recognize we're dreaming. Else we are likely to wake up. Yet, we are still capable of that recognition when something within us thinks it's needed. Very complex.

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"Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors." —T. H. Huxley
Not only may, but unquestionably are. Reasoning is a process that admits possible errors, truths held without reason admit no errors.

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People truly believe they want unlimited choice. They do — until they have to choose. Then, they want those unlimited choices to be transformed into a manageable, easily handled, greatly simplified set of choices.

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There are only neural correlates of conscious activities and actions, but not of consciousness.

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Literacy is more than the ability to decipher a few signs, menus, or T-shirt slogans. Literacy is merely the door, the entrance to the path to becoming literate — in the full sense of a well-informed, educated person.

Just as dreaming can be understood as a form of consciousness, so are all the variations of sleep. The mother who can be awakened from the deepest sleep by the soft cries of her infant is clearly not totally without some degree of consciousness. The lucid dreamer who can direct his dream is using a part of mind usually reserved for conscious thought. And we all have incorporated external stimuli — like the alarm clock — into the content of our dreams.
        On the other hand, the basketball player who can't seem to miss is described as being "unconscious." The concert pianist can't perform the most difficult passages while actively thinking about them. Like the basketball player, some of her playing is also unconscious.
        Where is the clear division between a conscious state and an unconscious one? There is none. There are only a variety of activities, in various combinations, some of which might be labeled as unconscious, some as conscious. You need only examine the extraordinary actions of sleepwalkers to confirm this. There is no clear-cut conscious state distinct from an unconscious one. There is no sharp division such as there is between the states of being dead and being alive. Instead, there are only conscious actions and unconscious actions; but there are no wholly unadulterated conscious or unconscious states.

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Almost everyone fails to consider that the supporters of conventional wisdom are smart people. In fact, with the fewest exceptions, they're all of the smart people.

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Notes from The HAVES and the HAVE-NOTS, Branko Milanovic:

pg. 49 U.S. Senators . . . average net wealth is estimated at about $9 million.

pg. 115 . . . in many cases practically all people living in a richer country are better off than all the people living in a poorer country.

pg. 117 . . . the poorest Americans are better off than two-thirds of the world population.

pg. 121 . . . [we can] explain a person's income in the world by only two factors . . . his citizenship and the income class of his parents. These two factors explain more than 80 percent of a person's income.

pg. 195 President George W. Bush famously promised that every American family, regardless of its income, would be able to own a home.
[So how come this false hope is always blamed on the left?]

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The failure of the American economy was due primarily to a flawed belief, namely that a rising tide lifts all boats. The error was that too many of these financial boats, especially the personal overextended ones, had gaping holes — they leaked, badly. Therefore, the rising tide only made them sink faster. The temporary patches and clumsy bailing techniques that seemed to work when the water was shallow completely collapsed under the flood of uncontrolled spending. Especially the future spending known as borrowing. Minor bill deferment and short term help-over-the-hump loans quickly turned into total bankruptcies. And a domino effect that no one seemed to foresee (unlike the one they saw in Southeast Asia that wasn't there) rapidly toppled the next bigger fool and the next and the next. Until the Federal government, the biggest fool of all, stepped in to prop up its friends — not realizing we were all, now, barely treading water.

When I first saw the World Wide Web (in '94), I immediately saw its potential for commerce. I went around proselytizing, telling everyone who would listen that a presence on the Web (a Web site) was the greatest store ever invented. It was not only open around the clock, around the world, but would tell you where in this virtual store people visited (which Web pages) and even how much time they spent. And . . . it would take orders while you slept, partied, or took a long weekend.
        But I never assumed that was all the World Wide Web was or could be. It was also, obviously, the door to all the world's knowledge (as soon as it was posted). It was the infinite, searchable memory of Vannevar Bush's Memex machine. Or so I thought. Today my original perception of its commercial possibilities seems ludicrously naïve and shamefully inadequate.
        Now, it feels like little more than a door into your life, with salespeople always inserting a hand or a foot. (Not to mention all those eager to break and enter.) Foot-in-the-door Web is what it should be called. Not only are you inordinately busy trying to prevent unwanted access to your computer and your life, whenever you venture out through that door you're constantly hounded by wave after wave of endless creatures of the sale.

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To speak of those in power, even the rich, as a class is nonsense. Defining these as classes may be true as far as shared beliefs are concerned, but it is questionable as to shared power and pure fiction when it comes to concerted actions. Individuals always acted on their own behalf, which sometimes results in joint actions but can just as easily result in conflict between and among so-called members of a class. It depends upon the individuals and the situations. To assume those with power act as one class ignores the degree to which competition can be taken. Therefore, only some of the actions of any powerful class — specifically those supporting the power of that class — reflect any common belief.
        If one examines the supposed solidarity of any powerful class, the only common belief invariably leading to action is not to undermine the social structure and mechanisms that support that class. The actors in the political class frequently combat each other. But all will support any factor enabling the existence of their class. In a one or two-party system, this means limiting the opportunities for successful additional parties. Similarly, all the rich fight anti-rich tax laws tooth and nail. But to think this mutual action prevents any rich person from destroying another — if it can be achieved without repercussions — is just silly. In the end, the only beliefs or actions common to members of any powerful class are those promoting class welfare, not class warfare.

To say that the mind does not extend beyond the skull because it is physically confined to the skull, is to deny that the mind understands, navigates, and interacts with the world outside that skull by utilizing a virtual representation of that world. This virtual representation incorporates all forms of extension, not only of the mind but also of the body. The words on this pad as I write this, like the skier's skis, are such extensions. As we say, the best thinkers (like Einstein) think outside the confines of the box, this skull. To argue against this is to maintain that the mind is only physical, that it is not a mental construct.

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Notes from Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson:

pg. 40 "You must begin to dream. From this time on you must shut your ears to the roaring of the voices."

pg. 129 He was beset by ideas and in the throes of one of his ideas was uncontrollable.

pg. 153 . . . he hated it whole-heartedly, with the abandon of a poet.

pg. 211 . . . they were the kind of artists that talk. Everyone knows of the talking artists. Throughout all the known history of the world they have gathered in rooms and talked. They talk of art and are passionately, almost feverishly, in earnest about it. They think it matters much more than it does.

pg. 218 He thought about himself and to the young that always brings sadness.

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 ". . . how people perceive an economic event . . . ultimately . . . determines the outcome." —Balter and Butman, Grapevine

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If there were no evil, then how could we learn to make moral decisions? And if we cannot make better moral decisions, if we cannot become better people, what good are we?

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I'm sure this has been used before: The United States of Avarice. But it's not entirely true; things like charity, philanthropy, and community service (well intended or not) run wide and deep in this country. To label us all (USAll) as greedy rings adolescently false. But there is another USA initialism that's more appropriate, less pejorative, and yet rarely heard. Probably because, like the air we breathe and the water surrounding the fish (which they also breathe), it's so pervasive we take it for granted: The United States of Advertising. And while advertising (ads to us, adverts to the Brits) is not in and of itself evil, our country's unquestioned acceptance of its unrestricted use cannot be good.

This distracted generation, unable to read deeply, will unlikely be able to write with any depth. The subtleties of word choice in poetry, for example, will not only be beyond their reach, the need for it will be beyond their understanding. Likewise, the finer points of word placement, of font selection, of disguised hints and complex allusions, will be of little interest and less dexterity. And they will never know what they're missing. Not only will they not know, but they will be incapable of comprehending the value of any part of these little pleasures, these little creative miracles.

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". . . reason and memory are nearly always at odds . . ." —Paul Auster, Sunset Park

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Open letter to Jaron Lanier:

Where is Virtual Reality (VR)? Hollywood is producing 3D movies and yet there are no 3D games. This may be a matter of simple economics because it's cheaper to move the movie-making process from 2D to 3D than it is to create 3D games. But why all this product for 3D when VR is more engaging? Why is VR not an entertainment target?
        Given the success of Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft Kinect, all that's missing for VR hardware is an immersive, wearable screen wired to a battery-powered wireless belt receiver. Surely, the massive power of today's computers and game consoles can handle VR. Yet there is no VR, even though rough prototypes existed over 25 years ago! How is that possible? What's the answer?

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 "But the dreamers of the day
are dangerous men
for they may act
their dreams with open eyes,
to make it possible."
—T. E. Lawrence

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Because they have to, many people who are officially unemployed find ways to earn income off the books. They also work in exchange for non-monetary returns. Sometimes, they'll just help out family or friends. All this is work that might otherwise be performed as an official job, a job that pays taxes. And taxes not paid by some must be made up by others.
        Yet unemployment is rarely spoken of as a communal problem. In fact, if you're employed the media usually presents unemployment as other people's problems. Are we really that dumb? Can we not see the obvious: that loss of tax revenue is everybody's problem?

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 "Advice always seems particularly wise after you'd ignored it." —Ken Bruen