My mind has many nooks and crannies ... like an english muffin
What Constitutes 'Research on Humans'?
· ☕ 1259  words life  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
Suppose you are an ethical researcher so you needed informed consent before experimenting on people. Now suppose a group of people writing really complicated software read email suggestions for patches on the software and any emailed patch will go through several of review before it is accepted. Finally, suppose you decide to “research” whether you can get patches accepted that look like they are positive on their face, but in reality create security holes in the software.
More Deaths by Pens than by Guns?
· ☕ 326  words life politics  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
I’ve been hearing horror stories from friends in the medical field about COVID deniers even as they are gasping for breath. Many of these people (and their families) simultaneously deny the existence of COVID and insist that the doctors gave it to them to get more money. How did this happen? Because people told them lies. Children are taught the saying “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
Spherical Cow or Assume a Can Opener?
· ☕ 617  words life politics  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
I was told yesterday that business people don’t cheat or cut corners because if they did, investors would punish them and that if I had studied finance I would understand that. It was all I could do to avoid just responding with maniacal laughter. Last year I had an economics professor tell me that Google and Amazon are not profit maximizing companies because they do not operate the way that microeconomic theory says that they will.
ACLU - What Were You Thinking?
· ☕ 363  words privacy  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
The ACLU just updated its privacy statement on its webpage. Included in that statement was the following: “To enable us to provide the most relevant information on our activities, we may share your personal information with communications platforms, such as Facebook and Mother Jones, including to deliver our content to you or to identify other people who may enjoy our content.” “We may also share ACLU supporter information with organizations that display our advertisements or petitions to their subscribers.
Irregular Verbs/Noun
· ☕ 56  words life  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
Courtesy of Paul in a comment on Charlie Stross' blog. “I know the facts.” “You have opinions.” “He’s biased.” “They’ve been brainwashed.” Like everyone else, I occasionally need to be reminded of my own biases and preconceptions. As usual, feel free to disagree using this contact link. My world view is a hypothesis, not a belief.
You are Stepping on My Foot
· ☕ 425  words life  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
I’ve been read some of the excuses for bad behavior, most recently discussions about Richard Stallman being neurodivergent and therefore he did nothing wrong. In this context I and others thought to dig up this comment by someone calling themselves Hershele Ostropoler about sexual harassment at public gatherings in John Scalzi’s blog in 2012: “If you step on my foot, you need to get off my foot.” “If you step on my foot without meaning to, you need to get off my foot.
Lets Talk About Bitcoin
· ☕ 882  words politics technology  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
Bitcoin is another example of the gig economy - outsourcing business costs to someone else who may or may not recover their costs. In addition, there is the question of its impact on the environment. Let’s spend a minute thinking about what bitcoin really is. Bitcoin is a let’s pretend commodity, limited by contract to 21 million bitcoins. Simplifying greatly, bitcoins are supposed to be a way to exchange value and anonymously with the transaction guaranteed by cryptoanalysis.
Phantom Tollbooth
· ☕ 203  words life  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
Norton Juster, the author of “The Phantom Tollbooth” died yesterday at age 91. In my opinion, it is a book that everyone should read (or have read to them - you can choose to take this as snark or not as you see fit). It is possible to appreciate it more as an adult than as a child. Below are some of my favorite quotes. “You must never feel badly about making mistakes … as long as you take the trouble to learn from them.
Morality - Religious and Atheists
· ☕ 1184  words life  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
An interesting study was recently released (Feb 24, 2021) on morality and atheists v. religious. It started from the observation that while attitudes in the US have improved towards minorities over time, attitudes towards atheists have not. According to a Pew poll in 2019, 44% of Americans think belief in God is necessary for morality (apparently people only behave well if someone is watching). The researchers decided to look at morality among the atheists and religious in the US (a religious country) and Sweden (a non-religious country) and investigate “whether disbelievers differ from believers in how they conceptualize morality.
Conversation Length, Journalism and the Apparent Inability of Scientists to Write a Coherent Report
· ☕ 1354  words life  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
Psych News Daily reports that Conversations Rarely End When People Want Them to End. Scientific American reports that People Literally Don’t Know When to Shut Up or Keep Talking. You would think this was consistent reporting. Are you sure about that? Psych News Daily states “On average, participants wished their conversations had been 1.9 minutes (or 24%) longer. They also said they believed that their partners wished that the conversation had been 5.
Nothing is that Simple
· ☕ 2446  words life politics  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
Sometimes (some people would say often) I feel the need to flag some study in an area I am completely unqualified to comment on the substance. I am, however, really good at pulling apart logic, generalizations and over-broad journalistic pronouncements, however, so I feel completely at ease in doing that. What else is the internet for? WARNING: Long read. Cambridge University researchers just came out with a study entitled The cognitive and perceptual correlates of ideological attitudes: a data-driven approach with a rather astounding claim in the abstract: “[W]e uncovered the specific psychological signatures of political, nationalistic, religious and dogmatic beliefs.
On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings
· ☕ 937  words life  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
I mentioned William James when talking about all the different personas that exist in personal interactions I think William James Undercounted. I think I should mention his On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings. You can find an abridged version here. If I was to summarize as concisely as possible, he says that there is a lot more of life and the universe to appreciate than any of us, encased in our own experiences and training, realize.
Definition Oriented v. Culture Oriented
· ☕ 690  words politics  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
Shirley pointed me towards an interesting article entitled Why You Can’t Understand Conservative Rhetoric. I’ll change the terminology slightly to “Definition Oriented People” and “Culture Oriented People”. Think of the word “red” as in the color. A physicist or a graphic designer may have an exact definition of what that word means. I can point to something and say it is red and something else is not red (examples), but I wouldn’t be able to actually define “red”.