Dear Toyota: really? You want to have Prius owners excommunicated from the driving public even more? (”Look at that ass with the fancy schmancy solar panel on his car.”) You’re willing to handle the additional electrical maintenance costs in your base warranty? Do I have to worry about washing the car differently? Does the additional weight of the solar panel even get offset by the energy it produces?

With all these questions, how is something “symbolic” at best worth it?

Toyota’s next generation of Prius hybrid cars will be fitted with solar panels to power on-board electrical items such as the air-conditioning system, it is reported. [From Toyota Prius may get 'symbolic' solar panels - tech - 07 July 2008 - New Scientist Tech]

Tagged with: prius, toyota

While Pritchard’s ultimate goal is to understand the processes the worms use to “turn down” the immune-system, I think I’ll stick with my rescue inhaler and wait for those same processes to be in pill-form. Without creepy-crawlies involved.

Of course, this kind of science toes the ethical line (introducing known harmful agents into the human body), so in Barry Marshall fashion, Pritchard started with the nearest subject he could find: himself.

In 2004, David Pritchard applied a dressing to his arm that was crawling with pin-size hookworm larvae, like maggots on the surface of meat. He left the wrap on for several days to make sure that the squirming freeloaders would infiltrate his system. [From Scientist at Work - David Pritchard - Scientist Studies Whether Hookworms Can Protect Against Allergies - NYTimes.com]

Yikes.

Tagged with: science

I was first exposed to Neil deGrasse Tyson a couple of weeks ago via this video on “stupid” design in which he argues that there can’t be a Creator if a Creator existed, it would have “unintelligent” among other attributes (see his comment below), since there’s a load of stuff out there (in the galaxy, on Earth, in our bodies) that will kill us. “This is no garden of Eden,” he states. Since then, I’ve seen his name a couple of times in print, and last week in New York, he hosted the pre-show video at the Hayden Planetarium on Cosmic Collisions. Then I learned that he hosts scienceNOW, a counterpart to the venerable PBS science show, NOVA.

So I finally got around to his Wikipedia page today, and found that in 2000, Tyson was voted the “sexiest Astrophysicist alive” by People Magazine.

‘Nuff friggen said.

As Steve Holt on Arrested Development would say… “STEVE HOLT”!

Isn’t that Harrison Ford on the left there? Can’t we just ask him and settle this once and for all?

Tagged with: star wars

Anyway, it appears Dunkin Donuts is running a new contest later this month. Standard instant-win stuff, get a code from any participating retailer on any applicable iced drink, go to the website, type it in, ???, PROFIT! I know this only because my iced coffee had just such a code today.

Couple of things:

1) The film and paper holding the code to the cup is pretty abysmal. It holds water (you know, like the condensation from the iced coffee?) so the paper coupon meant to make me feel like a winner does no such thing.

2) Since it was new and shiny, it was on my mind when I got to work this morning, so I went to the website. Pretty slick business, with a nice job of having a “wait for it” screen up and going.

3) Since I was here, it’d be nice to know what I’m playing for. The official rules are more than happy to help me out.Every entrant gets entered into two pool prizes: one nationwide, and one based on your zip-code. As is obvious from the screen above and the title of the contest, the regional pools roughly correspond to major market baseball teams: Baltimore, the New York Yankees, the New York Mets, New England (BoSox), Philly, Chicago (no distinction), and Tampa Bay.

But here’s the kicker. Despite it being a baseball-themed contest, despite being sponsored by MLB 2K8, despite Boston being both home of the hottest team in the American League and the holy land of Dunkin Donuts (like pharmacies in Florida, on every corner), the New England regional grand prize? Four (4) tickets to Six Flags New England. Talk about a bait-and-switch and destroying your official donut shop of the Boston Red Sox goodwill.

That’s bad enough, right? Guess what the prizes for the Baltimore, NY Yankees, and Tampa Bay regional pools are? Yup. Tickets to a game. Suite tickets to a game. Suite tickets to a Baltimore, NY Yankees, or Tampa Bay game (respectively) IN BOSTON. With airfare and hotel accommodations included.

To sum up: if you’re a lifelong Bostoner and grew up bringing Munchkins in for your birthday at school, you get a chance to win a trip to drive your ass out to Agawam and ride Superman: Man of Steel. If you live in a different state with a different zip code, you get to win a chance to see your local team play in one of America’s great ballparks (in a suite!), with roundtrip air and hotel.

Here’s the section of the official rules, copied:

“National Prize Pool Prizes (850): FIFTY (50) GRAND PRIZES: Sharp AQUOS® 46″ LCD HD TV. Approximate Retail Value (”ARV”): $1,799 each. ONE HUNDRED (100) FIRST PRIZES: Microsoft Xbox 360® Video Game System and the Xbox game title: Major League Baseball 2K8. ARV: $410 each. ONE HUNDRED (100) SECOND PRIZES: Digital camera (brand, model, and make determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion). ARV: $200 each. SIX HUNDRED (600) THIRD PRIZES: Major League Baseball 2K8 video game. ARV: $30-$60 each.

Baltimore Prize Pool Prizes (52): TWELVE (12) GRAND PRIZES: Two (2) suite tickets to a game in Boston to watch the home team on the road, air transportation and hotel (airline, hotel, game date and seating determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion). ARV: $2,326 each. The actual value may vary based on airfare fluctuations and distance between departure and destination. FORTY (40) FIRST PRIZES: MLB.com gift card. ARV: $200 each.

Chicago Prize Pool Prizes (25): TWENTY-FIVE (25) GRAND PRIZES: MLB.com gift card. ARV: $200 each.

New York Yankees® Prize Pool Prizes (49): FOUR (4) GRAND PRIZES: Two (2) suite tickets to a New York Yankees® away game in Boston, air transportation and hotel (airline, hotel, game date and seating determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion). ARV: $2,326 each. The actual value may vary based on airfare fluctuations and distance between departure and destination. FORTY-FIVE (45) FIRST PRIZES: Two (2) tickets to a New York Yankees® game (game date and seating determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion). ARV: $60-$187 each.

New York Mets® Prize Pool Prizes (45): FORTY-FIVE (45) GRAND PRIZES: Two (2) tickets to a New York Mets® game (game date and seating determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion). ARV: $140-$236 each.

Philadelphia Prize Pool Prizes (25): TWENTY-FIVE (25) GRAND PRIZES: MLB.com gift card. ARV: $200 each.

Tampa Bay Prize Pool Prizes (50): EIGHT (8) GRAND PRIZES: Two (2) suite tickets to a Tampa Bay Rays® away game in Boston, air transportation and hotel (airline, hotel, game date and seating determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion). ARV: $2,326 each. The actual value may vary based on airfare fluctuations and distance between departure and destination. FORTY-TWO (42) FIRST PRIZES: Two (2) tickets to a Tampa Bay Rays® game (game date and seating determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion). ARV: $42–$44 each.

New England Prize Pool Prizes (100): ONE HUNDRED (100) GRAND PRIZES: Four (4) tickets to Six Flags New England Amusement Park (valid during the 2008 season only; terms and conditions apply.) ARV: $200 each.”

Injustice, thy name is Dunkin Donuts. I don’t think I’ll be buying coffee from you anytime soon.

Tagged with: Boston, boston red sox, dunkin donuts

So what happened? Now, I admit that not everyone is a blogger, and even those that are aren’t on PO. But now with at least half of PO’s contributing authors alumni instead of students, the drop-off is explainable: those alumni are out doing real world things that take real world time, instead of procrastinating on the latest problem set to write about 2005’s horrible Aeon Flux. I think those first students expected the future classes to take over the blogging for us, but that hasn’t happened. (Some notable exceptions exist) Maybe it will someday, who knows?

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been tied into some alumni events surrounding the close of the fiscal year and graduation. These events have made me realize two things. First, that the people from Olin are (to paraphrase, of all people, Dave Barrett) the best you’ll meet in your life. They’re certainly the smartest, but they’re also good conversationalists, willing to go the extra mile, and collectively, a great sense of humor. (Current students, mourn the fact that it’s all downhill from here.) And two, despite Facebook and LinkedIn and e-mail lists and blogs and all the other tools that make Austin virtually next door to Boston, there’s not enough conversation going on en masse, not enough many-to-many threads.

Some absurd percentage of Oliners will say something along the lines of “Some of the best conversations of my life happened at <N> a.m.” where <N> is some small natural number, certainly less than or equal to 4. I think we all shared in them, those random musings that come tandem with insomnia and certainly only under extreme academic tension. But those conversations stimulated us in an incredible fashion, inspired us, gave us that last extra push. (Caffeine also did that, albeit chemically.) And despite our collective thinking that those conversations die off as a function of distance, I don’t think that’s the case. I think we just need to make more of a conscious effort in having them in formats we’re not used to, in ways we never expected.

Tagged with: Communication

As a tip, I recommend first turning the cake out onto the wire before you assemble the rack. I didn’t have a cake disaster, but I could easily imagine such a thing happening.

And the cake was delicious to boot, even though it came out a little dry. Turns out a stick of butter and four cups (!) of Confectioner’s Sugar with a little cream and vanilla extract will make a mighty good frosting.

Mm, engineering solutions in the kitchen.

Technorati Tags: lifehack, kitchen, cooking

Tagged with: cooking, kitchen, lifehack

Maybe I love the album because it’s such a refreshing take on music: every song is just *fun*. The band members have a certain playfulness in their chemistry, and that’s apparent in the music (and in the videos for “Mansard Roof” and “A-Punk”, available on the band’s website). Ezra Koenig’s voice perfectly complements the lyrics he sings: a 20-something singing about love and life in the early 21st-century finally done right. He reminds me of an early Jeff Tweedy (of Wilco fame) at times.

Tagged with: Music

I came home late last night after spending an evening with a friend having dinner and, as always, checked my e-mail (one habit I’ll never break.):

“i find reddit to pose a quandary for myself also.

i dont have time or patience to dig around
individually strenuously enough to at least be
marginally aware of whats happening. to my perception
the country i call home is experiencing a horrible
meltdown and i dont trust the MSM. without reddit,
yeah okay i would be Less Angsty but i would also be
in Denial. a sheeple, much as i hate the expression.

how the hell are you going to inform yourself given
the current sociopolitical climate, absent some kind
of social news? who the hell do u trust?

sorry to sound angsty.”

Somebody responded to my article. Somebody I didn’t know. Somebody that wasn’t my mom. It’s a rare occurrence, so I responded to the e-mail with:

Ah yes, the “once you’ve seen our problems, you can’t unsee them” issue. I don’t implicitly trust the mainstream media, though I do find some sources more trustworthy than others, namely NPR and the New York Times: both currently appear unwilling to sacrifice the credibility they’ve earned for extra dollars in the bank. You have to remember that all news reporting, by its nature, is biased: unless it happens in your backyard (literally), by the time it gets to you, it’s gone through at least one reporter’s hands.

During the Revolutionary War, General Washington had several spies stationed in New York and at various strategic points in Long Island. Unlike his British counterparts, which favored using the material gleaned by the spies deemed most “trustworthy”, Washington laboriously cross-referenced the reports from ALL his spies, no matter his personal thoughts on them. It’s a subtle difference, but in a couple of cases, it was enough for Washington to have enough information to eke out a victory during battle.

To borrow a page from Washington, find as many divergent sources as you can: Reuters, NPR, BBC, the NRO, the Atlantic Monthly, Mother Jones, Reason Magazine, the opinion pages of the big dailies (NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe and LA Times). Each of these is a reputable news or current affairs magazine, some centrist in presentation, others on the ends of the spectrum. Contrary to popular reddit belief, you can type dailykos into Google and skip the reddit self-fawning. You can also try some conservative/libertarian blogs. Invest in a free RSS reader: paying a little now in setup time reaps dividends quickly. Everything that’s not a cited fact or a quote can get tossed out: it’s garbage. Keep the facts and quotes and check them against each other.

Remember that the printed word is the most concentrated and effective form of communication man currently has in his arsenal. The printed word, unlike the digital or the spoken, stands for all time, and is checked and rechecked by well-established hierarchies, all of which have their bacon on the line. A printed word is worth twice as much as its online or television counterpart. Trade having it “now” in favor of having it correct tomorrow.

I make it a point to spend the 30-45 minutes I used each day on reddit reading something elsewhere: maybe it’s a piece of nonfiction in book form, maybe it’s a newspaper, maybe it’s my blogroll.

But I’m not out to destroy reddit or social news: if you think it’s the best out there and you can’t do better yourself, or don’t have time to, don’t give up on it. Reddit is obviously better than nothing. Just remember the points I made in the original post: all cops aren’t bad, all corporations aren’t evil, and being trusting and courteous without being naive can go a long, long way. Speak out in the community, punish the “vote up”ers (your blue down arrow is a powerful beast), and keep an open mind.

Good luck out there.

It’s incredibly lucky that I checked my e-mail and responded before I checked my website statistics.

I’ll be honest: my first thought was that StatCounter had seriously fucked up. I also thought that somebody had used my site to test their RSS feed reader and was hammering on it.
Then the sweet, delicious irony hit me. All I can say is that: I didn’t post it. I posted under JoeCollege. I have no blood karma from this. (Feel free to post this to reddit if you must.)

After spending two hours last night e-mailing my web host, being wholly unprepared for having more people visit my site in a given second than I’m used to as a daily total, I’m a bit overwhelmed.

But while I’ve no doubt there are dozens of comments on reddit.com about this article, with a wide range of thoughts and styles, I can say that I am in awe of those of you that took the time to respond to the post either in the comments or via e-mail. Many of you were motivational, most of you were well-written, even in disagreement, and all of you were insightful. Truth be told, I still get goosebumps when I read: “You inspire me.” “I want to quit too.” “How well-put. This is exactly what I was feeling.”

I didn’t set out to inspire people, of course. I’m an engineer who wears a silly hat. I wrote to my personal blog about my frustrations with the lacuna between reddit and reality, and my experiences with it. Your mileage may very vary. You may favor Ron Paul and LOLcats. I don’t blame you: they’re interesting and fascinating, and I’m glad they have a part in the human condition. But I confess, in hope and inspiration taken, hope and inspiration is given. The comments and e-mails have made me more resolute in my decision to leave.

I’m not setting out to convert the world: stay with reddit if you think it’s the best you can do in the time you’ve got. Don’t sacrifice some information with noise to get none of either. Work on your filter, use the down arrow with passion.

But maybe you, like me, think you can do better than reddit. Maybe you can disconnect from the Web and engage friends, family, and coworkers. Maybe you live in a large city with seminars, book discussions and coffee talks. Maybe you live in a small town and the Internet is the escape from unpersonable, uncultured, uneducated neighbors. But read, think, and speak for yourself and never blindly accept what is presented to you. The single greatest thing I learned from reddit was to question everything and when the community discussions were at their best were when we were doing just that. Utill that reddit returns, I won’t.

That said, someone please e-mail me if we attack Iran.

Tagged with: News

I’ve been a reddit user since the early days: I lived through the multiple influxes of users from the much larger (and hence, by the theory of Internet audiences, more juvenile) digg. I lamented the death of the “good article”, the gradual replacement of interesting science and programming content on the frontpage for LOLcats and pictures from Russia. I survived the still-smoldering diatribes on Bush and that fresh minty wonderment of Ron Paul (the man it seems who can do no wrong). None of these were my source of frustration. I’m wholly aware that the “real” Internet is by and large a libertarian community: a free society of free thinkers who feel it should be kept free. It’s abhorrent to hear of police brutality, unfair business practices, and animal abusing Marines. In a sense, I’m glad that there’s a place where these problems appear front and center and are discussed, albeit somewhat sophomorically. Any discussion of a society’s consternations has value.

In openness, two articles I’ve submitted were found interesting enough by the reddit community to appear on the front page: one from the New Yorker called “We are all Larry David” (about how patients in therapy sympathize with the wince-worthy HBO character) and one called “The Man who Unboiled an Egg” from the Observer. Both are verbose, eccentric articles: I found them fascinating and submitted them. Overall, though, my ratio is poor: I’ve submitted other articles more for kicks, in an attempt to get a feel for what sticks with the community. And, in shame, I admit that I’ve submitted no less than three articles from this very blog. None gained any traction (in retrospect, that’s for the best.) I tell you this because I’m not one of those people who quit a community because they feel they’re not being heard. I was heard. I had one-liners and discussions, and reddit, until recently, served me well as an information and entertainment portal.

Reddit, however, has two major problems. One is that it’s very, very good at sucking you in. Any idle minute at my computer found me typing in www.re and selecting the first entry from the FireFox dropdown. Reddit sucks down those five/ten minute blocks in between tasks, then expands to fill the available space. I grew to rely on reddit: feeling uninformed if I didn’t visit at least once or twice a day. Nothing was equal to reddit: digg, the mainstream press, even rolling your own bloglist. I was a Reddit junkie. It eventually dawned on me that Reddit causes the problem it aims to eliminate: getting your information from only one point narrows your worldview.

A great thinker can analyze, critique, and respect a valid argument, and ultimately choose to reject it based on logic. But in order to become a great thinker, one needs to see a plethora of arguments for this process to reach maximal efficiency. Reddit, nor any community big or small, cannot do all the work of presenting arguments for validation: ultimately, any community collapses to the least common demoniator. I found myself blindly accepting those tales of police brutality, unfair business practices, and animal abusing Marines as representative of the whole. The reality painted by Reddit and the actuality of the real world are as opposite as fire and ice, but when you spend the majority of your time in the virtual world and not in the real one, which are you more likely to believe? Fortunately, some real world time gave me the following: I accidentally jaywalked in front of a cop and NOTHING HAPPENED. I bought a video game from Best Buy, set off the electronic sensor on my way out, and the security supervisor WAVED ME THROUGH. My belt set off the metal detector and when I apologized, the TSA representative said it HAPPENS ALL THE TIME. But after spending 20 minutes on Reddit, I’d be pissed as hell at cops, corporations, and corporals. (Sure, you could argue that if any one of these had ended differently, taken to some version of the back room and deprived of rights and freedom, this would be a different post. And I’d agree with you. The point is not that these things never happen, but that these things happen more rarely than Reddit would lead you to believe.)

The other problem is the Reddit community by and large likes to be the show, rather than see the show. Stories on Reddit come with comments, both in the form of editorialized headlines and in threaded conversations on reddit’s site. Additionally, Reddit allows (and I’d argue encourages) “self” posting, in which there’s no story, just a conversation. Some of these are interesting, others hilarious, but most are just venting and ad-hoc emotional votes. Here’s three of the latter type (from recent memory):

“Vote up if you don’t give a flying fuck about the Oscars.”
“Vote up if you’re not watching the Super Bowl.”
“Vote up if you think BUSH and CHENEY should be IMPEACHED!”

All three of these, if memory serves me correctly, were at or near the top of the front page. Maybe I’m not the audience: I watched the Oscars and the Super Bowl, and I’d think it’d be a major destabilization to an already shaky economy to remove the President from power or even force the administration to think about preparing a defense. (Granted, I’m not sold on that last one.) These “votes”, just as unscientific and uninteresting as the Ron Paul debate spamming polls, consistently get voted up to the top. Talking about the news is one thing, seeking confirmation that, indeed, other members of the community have the same ideologies as you is entirely something else. Ultimately, these were what drove me away; if the cream of an organization’s output is that we should “chimpeach the chimperor” instead of have a debate about the merits and shortcomings of the current administration, then what can you possibly learn by staying in that community?

So I’m done. I’ve blocked reddit at work (by routing the URL to the loopback address) and at home (by blocking it at the router). I’ve been gone for a week and already, I feel less angsty. Don’t get me wrong, the first 48 hours were hell: withdrawl sucks. But I can already feel the mindrot receeding. I’m not going to bitch about it at reddit, because I don’t feel the community wants to change.

I, however, do.

Technorati Tags: Reddit, addiction, Ron Paul