Anna and I Make Faces

Here are two things you may not know about me: One, I have a lovely, wise, and thoughtful younger sister named Anna, to whom I bear a very strong resemblance. Two, I have what I consider to be a rubber face. I can make some pretty crazy faces, if I do say so myself. It stands to reason that Anna can too. So since my talented wife Erin is a professional photographer it seemed only natural for her to take some pictures of Anna and me trying to make the same funny faces last weekend when Anna and Jessica came to visit us in DC. For your enjoyment, here are the hilarious results.

Click "Read more" for more faces!

The Dark Side of Citizen Journalism

Following my post on the future of mobile broadcasting last month, my friend the entrepreneurial Rob Johnson sent me this article from TechCrunch, which is hands-down the most insightful, relevant stuff I've read on the subject. It discusses the dark side of a future where everyone has their own personal audience who they broadcast to, to whom they are constantly tempted to brag "look at me looking at this!" It discusses how the established media has to some degree prevented incorrect, sensitive, and private information from reaching the public in the past, and how the rise of citizen journalism is shortcutting this to our detriment. Finally, it discusses the psychology of personal broadcasting, and how it encourages people to disconnect with reality and morality for the sake of their audience, as presented in the following clip from This American Life:

If you use Facebook, Twitter, a cell phone, or the internet -- essentially, if you live in the 21st century -- I encourage you to give this article a read.

Correlation Implies Causation

I've been thinking about the age-old caution that "correlation does not imply causation." A classic example is the ice cream / shark attack correlation. Whenever ice cream sales rise, so do shark attacks. Not realizing that correlation does not imply causation, one might conclude that ice cream sales cause shark attacks.

What has been bugging me about this is you can't really prove causation. You can do an experiment over and over a million times and get the same predictable result, but all you have really proved is that there is a strong correlation between your experiment's conditions and its results; there is always a chance that one day you might get a different result. One day, an apple might fall from a tree and stop, suspended in mid-air. Extremely unlikely given everything we have observed about the universe, but still possible.

This is what Einstein meant when he said, "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." It would take an infinite number of predictable experiments (or correlations) to prove that one thing causes another, but it only takes one counterexample to disprove a causal relationship.

Therefore I'm a bit confused when someone says "correlation does not imply causation," because I'd like to know what does. Nothing can prove causation. You can only disprove causation. And when you want to gather support for causation, correlations are all you've got.

The trouble is with the word "imply." To a mathematician, statistician, or logician, to "imply" means "to be a sufficient circumstance." The phrase therefore really means "correlation does not always lead to causation." In the colloquial sense, "imply" simply means to "suggest." In this sense, correlation very much does imply causation. They are linked. Indeed, you can't have a causation without correlation.

So the next time someone mentions two correlated phenomena to you ("I get sleepy when I eat turkey!"), I would encourage you to think of a counter-example instead of pulling out the old, worn-out correlation/causation warning. Because if you do, the person pointing out the correlation will be offering a lot more support for causation than you will be detracting from it with a somewhat misleading statement about the rules of logic.

A lot of the ideas in this post came from these two articles:
Wikipedia: Correlation does not imply causation
Daily Meh: Correlation implies causation

Comic: xckd

You Will Control the Future With Your Mind

As we approach the close of the first decade of the 21st century, here's a solid prediction for the next:

In the coming ten years you and I will communicate with computers using only our minds. (That's telekinesis, Kyle.)

In the last few years, brain research has exploded. Scientists, researchers, and engineers are making huge strides in understanding how our brains work and what they care capable of. As a shining example, here is a fascinating demonstration of a device capable of allowing you to manipulate an object on screen using only your brainwaves:

Expect some really sweet video games in the near future.

It doesn't stop there. Students at the University of Wisconsin have actually tweeted just by thinking using a technology which may prove extremely useful for victims of paralysis. Scientists at Intel's research lab are working on the same thing, only their research includes actually implanting microchips into the brain -- a practice I find a little frightening, and hopefully avoidable. Nevertheless, the group says the technology will be here by 2020.

Further away than the next decade, but still very much on the horizon, is technology allowing you not only to communicate with your computer through brainwaves, but have it communicate with you. This article from Wired Magazine describes a new field dubbed Optogenetics (using genetic engineering and optical stimulation to manipulate the brain) which may lead to cures for brain disease and two-way brain communication between a person and say, his/her prosthetic limb. To take it even further, a researcher at MIT has been able to cause her study participants to make specific physical movements, and even affect their moral judgments, by stimulating different parts of their brains with magnetic impulses. Obviously the implications of this are enormous.

I know this post will inevitably sound like a bunch of sci-fi movie fantasy, but as the videos included show, it's very real.  It's happening right now in labs all over the world, and it will be in your living room sooner than you think.

Reflections from a Weekend Trip to NYC

1. I had solid, painful lumps forming in my throat all throughout a performance of West Side Story on Broadway -- not during the sad scenes, but during the scenes with numbers that I felt were performed extraordinarily well. In my humdrum, day-to-day life I forget just how passionate I am about theatre, how quickly and deeply it affects me, like it's hardwired to my gut, to who I am.

2. I was very amused by the confused look on a New Yorker's face when I held the door open for her.

3. It's really true, there is so much anger in the city. Once on the subway, a woman started screaming and cursing at Erin for allegedly bumping into her. At Erin -- a woman so gentle she practically weeps every single night when I lock our disappointed cat out of our bedroom so it won't wake us up at 4am.

4. I have recently been trying to step out and try new foods, and it has made all the difference. The bagel with creme cheese and smoked salmon I had at Carnegie Deli was amazingly delicious. My deepest apologies to my brother Jared Ray for decrying the dish.

5. My last time in NYC was my senior year in high school, when my parents gave me a trip to NYC with a drama buddy of mine as a graduation present. That was November of 2001. At the time I was emotionally dealing with the 9/11 tragedy by completely avoiding it, so we didn't visit Ground Zero, and ever since it's been one of my worst regrets. Finally visiting it this weekend was harrowing, surreal, darkly moving. I've never experienced a larger, more poignant, more tangible metaphor come to life than that site -- a deep, massive hole. A hole that's in every New Yorker, in every American, in the spirit of this country. Looking out over the site from a bridge the events before and after that day played in my mind in way that made them seem unavoidable, even fateful in the way they fit together. Maybe it was the dark and the fog and the rain but the seemingly unstoppable evil of men who believe that almighty god hates with them just hung about the place. I wish I could say I felt some hope there. I didn't.

6. This may reflect negatively on me, but the most exciting thing about a trip to the New York Public Library was getting to see the stuffed animals which inspired A. A. Milne. Wonderful. I know I was supposed to be more awed by the Gutenberg Bible, but I wasn't. (In case you're wondering -- yes, Eeyore's tail is precariously pinned on!)

7. I have heard drummers with kits that wouldn't fit into a U-Haul play with much less diversity than the drummer we heard in Central Park playing in a jazz quartet with just two rides and a snare. The sticks, boys! It's all about the sticks. I think if I ever have a kid who wants to play drums I'll give him (or her) a snare and some brushes and tell him to come back in a couple years. Erin and I sat together on a bench for an hour in the crisp Fall air, the Autumn colors all around us, and drank in Cole Porter and Sir Duke. There is little in this world more beautiful than a walking double bass line, especially when enjoyed with a pretty girl on your arm.

8. Times Square is really just a whiz-bang tourist trap, isn't it? Like Myrtle Beach or Fisherman's Wharf on steroids.

9. After a weekend in mammoth NYC, DC feels like Mayberry by comparison. Come to think of it, Obama and Biden sortof fit the Andy/Barney archetypes...

A Quick Note on Shared Items

Per the results of my reader's survey, my shared items (or "discoveries," as I used to call them) are headed back to the sidebar. You can see them there on your left. I will not be posting weekly lists of links anymore.

However, you can always get them delivered through the RSS feed or by diving into Google Reader, where you can join in the lively discussion they sometimes inspire. You will need to have my email address in your Gmail contacts to comment on my shared items in Google Reader though, so let me know if you need it by leaving a comment here.

Getting Better All the Time Part II

One of the many lessons I've learned the hard way is that online debate is generally fruitless and pointless unless you're debating someone you know. So when I debate online, it's usually with my good friend the confident Harrison Brookie. Harrison is a libertarian with a masters degree in economics (a deadly combination), and he writes almost daily about seeing the world through a libertarian/economic lens on his blog, Bottlenecked.

As a center-right, "what have they done to Conservatism!" Republican, I disagree with Harrison a lot -- our arguments in the past have ranged from the abolishing the minimum wage to legalizing trade of human organs to allowing people to farm and sell endangered species. I admit, sometimes we argue so much that I feel like Harrison and I don't agree on anything.

But we do agree on many things which actually matter -- like the Gospel. So I wanted to take a moment here to outline an idea Harrison mentions regularly on his blog which I always find interesting, insightful, hopeful, and welcomely counter-culture -- an idea with which I whole-heartedly agree:

For most people, things are much better now than they ever were.

The fact is the world is less violent now than it ever was. Trade and economic growth has meant less people live in poverty now than ever. We have better healthcare, education, sanitation, living and working conditions than our grandparents did. We have more time to spend with our families. We are better at fighting disease, malnutrition, and hunger than we ever have been. We are even smarter than we were just a few generations ago.

Human progress should not be idolized, but it should not be ignored either.

Here are some excellent posts by Harrison which touch on this topic:

Ten Positives of the Recession

Historically, Unemployment Is Down and Earnings Are Up!

The Industrial Revolution's Impact on Baby-Making

It Takes Less Work to Pay for a Fridge than it Ever Did

(Ok Harrison didn't write that last article -- but one of Harrison's favorite bloggers, who he constantly points me to, is interviewed in it.)

Despite all my reservations, there is an optimism intrinsic in free-market fundamentalism that I gravitate towards. An optimism that says "Don't listen to the doomsday prophets, you are much better off now than your ancestors ever were -- and there is good reason to believe things will be even better in the future." I think once in a while, especially as the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, we could all use a little more of that.

Image: jbelluch

Guesswork Theory Turns Five

Five years ago today I saddled up to my beloved R31 Thinkpad and fired up Guesswork Theory for the first time. I won't get nostalgic about it, blogs are silly things after all, but it has been incredibly fun and I have to admit I feel a small sense of accomplishment about coming this far. I have learned quite a lot about life, love, and why here.

One lesson I have learned over the years is that for me, writing for someone else is much more fun than writing for myself. I'm not a journal or diary fellow. In Fall of 2007 several of my closest friends took the plunge and started blogging, and you can see having them around sent my post counts through the roof -- I wrote more entries in 2008 than in the previous four years combined. Community is a powerful thing.

So I mean this deeply and sincerely when I say: thank you for reading. And thank you for commenting. I will go ahead and admit that for me, the most fun thing about writing here is getting comments in my inbox. If you enjoy reading one of my posts, I would like to encourage you to comment on it, even if it's just to say you liked it. It means a lot to me. It makes my day, every time, no kidding.

In light of all this, I've decided to take this occasion to perform a reader survey. I originally envisioned this space as a "journal of ideas," but in the last two years I've wandered quite a bit, and I keep wondering what the folks who read what I write here actually enjoy. So if you read this blog, I would really appreciate it if you could let me know what interests you in the following questionnaire. I would love to write more of what you like to read.

Thank you, thank you, thank you again for reading, commenting, and for taking the time to fill out this survey if you can. You make this place fun.



Image: Companion Bakery

Top 5 Gmail Tips

Gmail, Google's online email service, is my favorite online app bar none. Before Gmail, email took up a huge chunk of my hard drive, I had to delete old messages to save space, I could only access my old email from one computer, I was deluged with spam, and finding old emails was incredibly difficult. Not anymore. If you're still using Yahoo, Hotmail, or some locally-stored email program like Outlook, I promise you are making life harder than it has to be. If you need convincing, email me. I'd be happy to serve as a Gmail evangelist.

Over the years I've collected quite a few tricks to help make Gmail work even better for me. I thought I'd share them here.

1. Stop using labels and start using search.

For the first year or so after switching to Gmail I meticulously labeled my email just like I had organized it in folders in Outlook Express. Then one day I realized the only reason I label/file email is to help me find it later, and Gmail's search function is a much more powerful way of finding email than searching through labels. Using the "to:" and "from:" search operators I can find anything. If I need to know the details about the Halloween party my friend Adam sent me, I just search "to:me from:adam halloween" and it pops right up. Here is a full list of Gmail search operators for even more advanced searching.

Since my realization I have trashed all my labels except for a few I use for very specific purposes. For instance, it's pretty common these days for folks to email out their new mailing address when they move. I've made a label called "address-book" just for these emails. Now when I need someone's mailing address, I just go to Gmail and search for their name plus "label:address-book." I also have a label called "to-consider" for emails I want to read in-depth later. Whenever I have some free time and I feel like doing some reading, I do a quick "label:to-consider" search and I'm ready to go.

2. Create some creative filters.

Here's some instructions on creating filters. Filters can help you organize email automatically as well as keep unwanted email out of your inbox. It seems everyone has at least one distant family member (we'll call her "Aunt Glenda") who loves to forward annoying chain emails. A great way to avoid these without confrontation is to create a filter that automatically archives email from Aunt Glenda with the subject "FWD:", skipping the inbox. This way you still get Glenda's personal emails to you, but you miss the chains.

A lot of people use Gmail for quick-and-easy online storage by attaching something they want online to an email and sending it to themselves. I do this too, so I have a filter which automatically archives and "marks as read" all email that is from me, to me. When I need it again, I just do a "from:me to:me" search.

3. Create some new email addresses for yourself using the + sign!

Little-known Gmail fact: you can insert "+anything" before the @ symbol in your Gmail address and email sent to this address will go to you. In other words, if your Gmail address is john@gmail.com, then email sent to john+doe@gmail.com, john+table@gmail.com, and john+monkey@gmail.com will all come to you.

What's more, you can create filters that redirect email coming to these addresses. So let's say you're signing up for a newsletter for people who like cars. You give them the email address yourname+cars@gmail.com, then set up a filter in Gmail so that all email sent to yourname+cars@gmail.com is labeled "Cars Newsletter." If one day you decide you don't want this newsletter anymore, or they sell your email address to a spammer, you can just change your filter to delete all email coming to this address.

Oh and by the way, Gmail completely ignores periods in your email address. Email sent to yourname@gmail.com and y.o.u.r.n.a.m.e@gmail.com all goes to you.

4. Use Gmail labs!

Gmail Labs is set of experimental features for Gmail, most of which are just awesome. Go to Settings>Labs in Gmail to enable them. Here are a few of my favorites:

Forgotten Attachment Detector -- This feature automatically detects when you might have forgotten to attach something to an email and lets you know when you click "Send." It's saved me a significant amount of embarrassment.

Send & Archive -- Most of the time, when I reply to an email, the next thing I do is archive the conversation to clean out my inbox. This feature adds a button to do this all in one click!

Undo Send -- This feature gives you 5 seconds to click "Undo" after you click "Send." Another real face-saver.

5. Stop using the delete button.

Remember that with Gmail's huge, ever-increasing storage space (I started with 1 GB and I currently have 7.4) there's really no need to ever use the delete button. Just archive everything! You never know when you might need a message later, and Gmail's powerful search is always there to help you find it. Email messages take up very little space and digital storage is only going to get cheaper in the future.

Here are a couple extra tips you may enjoy:

How to add a custom 'From' address
How to import old email into Gmail
(This is a tough one but oh so cool - my Gmail messages go back to 2001!)

Image: basajuan

Y O U - "How to Say Goodbye"

I'm sad to announce today that one of my favorite unsigned bands (and Strongbad's backup band), Y O U, has broken up. Here is a post I wrote about them last year with some samples of their tunes. It's a sad day for Erin and I; a lot of our dates in college involved catching their shows in Atlanta, and once in Clemson. It's heartbreaking that we couldn't even make it to their last show at our old haunt Smith's Olde Bar a couple weeks ago.

If you would like to support these guys and grab some great melodic pop rock, here are some links to their albums on iTunes:

Y O U
Everything is Shifting
Flashlights
The Long-Playing EP

Image: pleaserock.com