Posts Tagged ‘not work’
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
Major media outlets have started picking up Google’s news today that they’d be aggregating user profile and usage data across all of their products.
To be honest, I didn’t find this particularly surprising since I assumed Google had long been doing this.
But the winning quotation from the press release was this nugget:
Our recently launched personal search feature is a good example of the cool things Google can do when we combine information across products.
“Cool?”
Cool?!
Google “Search Plus Your World ™” was characterized in many ways when it shipped.
Of all The Web’s sentiment I saw, “cool” was not among it.
Unless you by “cool,” you mean “incredibly creepy, of limited actual use, and full of chilling effects.”
Does this change fall under “doing evil?”
I suppose it depends on how they end up using the data (and whether or not any independent entity could ever audit those statements to assert truth)… but however they use it, I’m pretty sure it will result in some pretty epic unintended consequences.
commentary, not work, the web
blahblahblah | 1 Comment »
V944
Saturday, August 13th, 2011
When Mindsight was recommended to me, I immediately bought it.
It arrived a couple of days later, and promptly sat on my bookshelf—through a move—for months.
I just wasn’t ready to read it.
But times and circumstances change1 and, as with so many things, I find myself asking “Why didn’t I read this sooner?!”
Mindsight is Daniel Siegal’s newest book2. His writing style is both conversational and engaging, even though he often refers to complicated brain chemistries and structures (You’ll never look the same way at your enclosed fist again). His patient histories provide the lively characters for a book whose major plot is a scientific exploration of the “squishier” parts of our most important organ.
The question at hand: how can we understand and experience our consciousness as an interested, yet compassionate third party—a concept Siegal dubs “mindsight”—to achieve what he calls integration3 within our minds.
Mindsight provides medical research to back up the technique, which interestingly is what I’d describe as a form of guided super-meditation; as an engineer, I appreciate the scientific digressions discussing why meditation has been humanity’s go-to for psychological serenity across both centuries and cultures.
My only disappointment was that the book doesn’t get as far into the details of Siegal’s techniques as I would have liked. He does talk at a very high level about what has worked for his patients, but leaves just enough out that trying it yourself can be a bit daunting. It doesn’t help that his patient case studies make it all look so easy4.
To be fair, Siegal doesn’t intentionally mislead his readers; from the epilogue:
This proposal is no easy task. Dissolving fixed mental perceptions created along the brain’s firing patterns and reinforced relationally within our cultural practices is no simple accomplishment. Our relationships engrain our early perceptual patterns, deepening the ways we come to see the world and believe our inner narrative. Without an internal education that teaches us to pause and reflect, we may tend to live on automatic and succumb to these cultural and cortical influences that push us toward isolation.
Maybe it’s someone whose conflict resolution process involves stabbing her co-workers in the back, figuring they’ll never compare wounds with each other. And she can’t figure out why she’s not the success she thinks she should be.
Maybe it’s an acquaintance who proudly boasts about his dating flavor-of-the-week. In between shots at the bar.
Maybe it’s the guy who became angrily exasperated with his friends when they couldn’t sooth the grief from my father’s death. And couldn’t figure out why they became frustrated and left
We all know people similar to these, either out about in the world or within the confines of your own consciousness. Mindsight provides insights into the tools to start figuring out the most important question in addressing them: why.
(If you’re in a hurry, or just curious what this is all about, you can listen to Siegal’s Google Tech Talk on Mindsight.)
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1 And bookshelves
2 One of many
3 Siegal discuses eight “domains of integration”: consciousness, horizontal, vertical, memory, narrative, state, interpersonal, and temporal
4 They’re all so happy at the end of the chapter! And always cured!
not work, reviews
Reviews, personal | No Comments »
V798
Wednesday, July 27th, 2011
It all started a number of months ago when @dolske randomly linked to an innocuous video about fluffy unicorns.
Little did I know the first time I watched it, but I’d end up spending hours upon hours listening to Pantaloons’ videos, and would eventually be led to his current collaborator, Mr. Gunnarolla, only to spend another host of hours watching his great material.
When they announced they were going on tour, I jumped at the thought of being able to watch them perform the songs live that had been bouncing around in my head on repeat for the last few months.
I dragged my roommate along since I had caught him singing the delightful earworms that are their tunes; we got to the San Francisco venue—a cute cafe in the Outer Sunset—slightly before showtime, but it was already so crowded we spent the entire concert by the door.
I actually saw Gunnarolla outside looking for Pants1, saving the space for him to park in; I surprised myself when I leaned to my roommate and said “OMG THAT’S HIM!” He surprised me when he went over to Andrew and said “Hi! We’re big fans. He got me started watching you!”
Andrew said “Aww, thanks guys, that’s great!” And then surprised us both with a hug.
Unlike other shows2, we were treated to an opening set by Sam Hart (which had been announced in a really catchy way). Sam’s songs were beautiful ballads to the things he loved: loves-that-weren’t, loves-that-were, his cat, and MarioKart.
Then the Andrews took to the stage, and… how can I put it? Singing. Contests. Singalongs. Awesomeness. Just like their videos… except, y’know, not on YouTube. And we were in the videos.
My day started with a corrupted source control server and went downhill from there. But it ended with this:
Team Andrew finds the sauerkraut in my lederhosen after the San Francisco concert
I also nabbed one of their awesome tour posters and got them to sign it!
It started out a lil’ rocky, but all things considered, it was a spectacular day.
I can’t wait to see them on tour again, hopefully soon!
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1 Wait, that… sounds wrong…
2 I think
fun, not work, reviews
Reviews, Uncategorized, personal | 3 Comments »
V774
Friday, December 24th, 2010
Looks like the Wikileaks isn’t taking the holidays off, and has released one more secret document from the United States government, just in time for Christmas.
Unlike the previously released diplomatic cables, this document was released without much fanfare or press attention.
While it’s understandable that the government wouldn’t want to publish this information1, this document provides fascinating insight into holiday operations of the National Airspace System and of one pilot in particular; it’s too important to be kept secret in a free society:
Unlike the other leaked documents, mostly diplomatic cables, this document appears to concern a Federal Aviation Administration Defense VFR flight plan.
The pilot of november five-alpha-november-tango-four apparently files this flight plan with the agency every year on or about December 24th.
While this is the first document we’ve seen with this level of detail, this is far from the first time the government has hinted that it is working with Santa: see the NORAD Santa Tracker and the FAA-charted North Pole NDB or GPS-A approach plate.
Let us hope, for the pilot’s sake, that he isn’t subjected to the TSA’s “increased security measures” when embarking on his first stop.
For those celebrating Christmas tonight, Merry2 Christmas, from me to you.
And, of course, happy holidays to all!
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1 Especially since the terror threat-level is currently something like polkadotted puce
2 Please use this regex if it’s relevant to you
aviation, fun, not work
blahblahblah, personal, planetmoz | 3 Comments »
V617
