Old People Don't Like Change

This is a graph of people who liked a new, "crowdsourced", design of myyearbook.com compared to the old one. I've never even been to their website, and I don't really care a bit about their new design (besides being interested in the crowdsourcing part), but the consistency of this is pretty amazing.

The independent variable here is age; the site was redesigned the same for everyone. So basically, as you get older, you're not as receptive to change! Not surprising, really, but something one doesn't often think about and something that is so beautifully illustrated in this graph.

Do Yourself a Favor

Check out Seth Godin's blog. Seth is a genius. Period. Subscribe to his blog and you'll receive a daily bit of insight into how the world works and how people think . Read any three of his recent posts, and I know you'll be hooked. Trust me.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Hanoi Street Food Map

My friend Linh created a Google Map of great street food places in Hanoi. I saw it today for the first time, and its definitely an awesome resource for anyone living here; there are so many street food places, indistinguishable from the outside, that its kind of daunting trying to figure out the scene for yourself.

Not only is it a great resource, its also a great demonstration of the power of technology, or more specifically, Google:



View Hanoi Street Food in a larger map

You Should Read the Comments

Today, approximately 42% of people in the U.S. report the internet as their primary news source. Obviously there are many benefits to getting your news online, including

• Speed: internet stories can be updated in near- real time, meaning the information you're receiving is the latest
• Accuracy: Sure, blogs get it wrong and there are people trying to spread disinformation both to achieve their own ends and to be the first to 'scoop' something, but on the internet you can check a number of different sources simultaneously to get your facts right
• Expediency: Most people have internet access at their jobs, at home, and on-the-go, making getting information online quick and easy
• Interactivity: News stories online often have interactive content, allowing you to dig deeper into topics of interest.. Also important is the available of this information outside of news articles online. When I'm reading an article online, and a reference or topic comes up that I want to know more about, its as simple as opening a new window and searching wikipedia. Online, its just so easy to find more information on a topic

While all these are important, the single best part of getting news online is the "Comment" section following articles. Inevitably, I learn more from the comments section than I do from the actual article.

The article is really just a jumping off point for a discussion in the comments section, and by definition the comments section will give you a wide cross-section of different viewpoints, oftentimes from those with little interest other than expressing their anger at some idea presented, but also oftentimes by people who do know what they're talking about and have intelligent points to make.

They key is finding news sites with intelligent reader communities. The best examples I know of are BoingBoing and Slashdot, with Slashdot being a particularly excellent source of community comments.

If you like "news for nerds" as Slashdot calls it, then subscribe to their daily news update and check out the comments section on an article that interests you. You won't be disappointed.

I've been tempted to write this post for some time, but the reason I did today was after reading a short story on BoingBoing about Jim Henson. The video is great, but also check out the comments for an example of what I'm talking about:

Corporations as Citizens?

The Supreme Court just overturned a key component of the McCain-Feingold law that placed limits on the financing of campaigns. Basically, corporations are now allowed to contribute as much money to campaigns as they want. 


Congress has promised to react aggressively and put into place a law that will pass the scrutiny of the Supreme Court, something that must have broad support across the ideological spectrum.


Four Justices dissented, and apparently Stevens did so bitterly. Below is an on-point and thought-provoking quote from Stevens:

Justice Stevens

"Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters... The financial resources, legal structure, and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races."

My Drive to Work in Hanoi

I got both a flip camera and a tripod for it with "wrap around" legs. Put them together, and I can make videos while driving my motorbike around.

Below is a fast-forwarded view of my drive to work in Hanoi, which I make every day except when its raining (I take a cab). Before that though, I've made a rough drawing to give you an idea of where exactly it is that I'm driving to:

And now, the video:





Crazy, huh?

Russian Hacker or Weirdo or Computer Program Messing with My Website

Around this time last year, I bought and created a website for www.ctrlv.org , pronounced "Control V dot org." Its a relatively pointless and stupid site: you go to it, press the "Control" and "V" keys at the same time, and whatever you last copied (as in "copy/paste") will appear in the text box. Effectively, it shows random examples of the things people most recently selected "copy" for.

Anyways, the saying at the top of the site says "Anonymous, Eponymous, Autonomous". The "autonomous" part refers to the fact that it runs by itself without any intervention. As a result, I've neglected it for some time now, content to leave it be and let it do its thing out there in the wide vast world of the internet.

Until I checked it recently. For the last two months or so, somebody kept entering random numbers and text into the box. Many of the IP addresses traced to Russia, which is also consistent with the appearance of lots of Russian alphabet characters and the listings of random Russian email addresses. But really, the content was absolutely meaningless. I don't think it was a computer because I have a "CAPTCHA" on the site (those things with jumbled up letters you have to type in to prove you're human).

This is the view when I login to my webhost- the column in the middle is all of the random text someone had put up (which I had to go through manually and delete!):

I checked the web traffic for the website, which has increased an astounding 243%! Hmm, I wonder where those visits are coming from (the darker the green, the more visits from that location):

Surprise, surprise.

Leave me alone you crazy Russians! What the heck do you get out of posting garbage on my poor, neglected web site?!

Or should I say, оставьте меня в покое мудак!

Sickening Graph for Democrats: Martha Coakley's Fall from Grace

This is a graph for Martha Coakley, the Democrat running for Ted Kennedy's old seat. The graph is from Intrade, which allows you to bet on who will win a given race. A week ago, she was all but assured a victory according to people betting money on this, selling for higher than $.93 cents/ share. That means that people were paying $.93 to win $1, or net 7 cents, per share. Then, the freefall begins, and now her stock is selling just above $.43 .

Somebody goofed!

The reason anyone should care is that losing a seat in the senate could seriously damage Obama's ability to pass critical parts of his agenda, including health reform, etc. With the stakes so high, what happened?!?

The Paranoid Style in American Politics

From an article titled "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" in Harper's magazine by Richard Hofstadter... in 1964, but which still has relevance today:

American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression “paranoid style” I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. I have neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiable lunatics. In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.

Of course this term is pejorative, and it is meant to be; the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad causes than good. But nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated in the paranoid style. Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content. I am interested here in getting at our political psychology through our political rhetoric. The paranoid style is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent.

... and then later on (after some digression into Illuminati, Masonry, McCarthyism etc.)

The spokesmen of those earlier movements felt that they stood for causes and personal types that were still in possession of their country–that they were fending off threats to a still established way of life. But the modern right wing, as Daniel Bell has put it, feels dispossessed: America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion. The old American virtues have already been eaten away by cosmopolitans and intellectuals; the old competitive capitalism has been gradually undermined by socialistic and communistic schemers; the old national security and independence have been destroyed by treasonous plots, having as their most powerful agents not merely outsiders and foreigners as of old but major statesmen who are at the very centers of American power. Their predecessors had discovered conspiracies; the modern radical right finds conspiracy to be betrayal from on high.

... Of course, there are highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow paranoids, as there are likely to be in any political tendency...The higher paranoid scholarship is nothing if not coherent–in fact the paranoid mind is far more coherent than the real world. It is nothing if not scholarly in technique...

...The paranoid style is not confined to our own country and time; it is an international phenomenon...This glimpse across a long span of time emboldens me to make the conjecture–it is no more than that–that a mentality disposed to see the world in this way may be a persistent psychic phenomenon, more or less constantly affecting a modest minority of the population. 

The bold above is my own, and my experience over the past few years makes me inclined to think that he was definitely onto something...

Pump Yourself Up

My friend Dave showed me this video clip, of Micky Ward fighting Arturo Gatti in a fight that won "Fight of the Year" sometime in the 1990's. As Dave points out, its a great clip to watch if you're having a tough day. It basically tells you to stop feeling sorry for yourself, get up and do what you gotta do. Boxing fans, enjoy.

Trip Home, the very best of...

I took two weeks off from work for a trip home for the holidays. It was a great trip, but I'll be brief and just list a few  highlights/ observations:

• See my post "Americans Rock" on how great it was to see Americans again and how much I love them. Its easy to be cynical about Americans, but more than other culture I'm aware of, everyone is such an individual. I saw so many random/awesome types of people. After two weeks home, the novelty of it started to wane and be less present in my mind, but the thought endures: Americans rock.
• I also noticed how "corporate-ized" America, or atleast its suburbs, is. Town after town seemed to be one corporate playground after another, only with a different arrangement of Wendy's, BestBuys, Walmarts, CVS, and Applebees. I guess its always been that way, but going from Vietnam, where most places are locally-owned, to seeing carbon-copy clutter was a little disturbing.
• My flight from SF to NYC was cancelled mid-layover, and after an hour and half of waiting in line and then another two hours negotiating, I convinced the JetBlue ticket agent to route me through Vegas for a two-day trip rather than sit around Long Beach for three days. Fittingly, I stayed at New York, New York. The short story: a made enough money playing poker, blackjack, craps, and roulette to cover my hotel bill, some great food, and a new ticket for the flight I missed the next day because I overslept! I had an amazing time, but its definitely a place to go with a group of friends rather than alone.
• In 17 days, I slept in 14 different beds in 7 different cities! I was exhausted by the end of it. Special thanks to Alex, Jon, and Katy for putting me up in your places, also thanks to Jetblue, the Long Beach Airport, and momma.
• 
• I bought a case of Zaxby's sauce... thats 120 packets. Man I love that stuff, but the tower of Zaxby's sauce piled on the table was truly a daunting sight. I gave away some, left some at home, and stuffed about 30 in my bag, of which 28 made it intact.

 

• Went to the concert of the always-awesome Avett Brothers at the Fox Theater on New Years Day with my mom, brother, and brother's gf. The theater has an amazing roof, which looks like an evening sky from below. 

• My little brother had been talking smack about his tennis game, but we hadn't had a chance to play the entire time I was back. The night before I left, it was dark and below-freezing outside when he returned from a three-day church trip. It was then or never. My mom, dad, and I each drove a car over to the courts, flipped the high beams, and set the stage for an epic tennis battle. 

All in all, it was great to be back home for a bit and see friends and family. It was a little tough getting back on the plane, but I'm definitely not ready to leave Vietnam yet, and have a lot of exciting things coming up in the next few months to keep me busy. I'll keep you posted...

Book Bounty and Other Things You Can't Get in Vietnam

I recently returned to Vietnam from an amazing two week trip home. On the way my bag was filled with Christmas gifts, and on the way back my bags were stuffed with books that I'd bought on Amazon and had sent to my house in Georgia. I squeaked through customs with a bag weighing exactly 50.0 lbs . Here are the books I brought back, most on the recommendations of others:

• Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
• Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson
• The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene
• SuperFreakonomics by Daniel Levitt
• Brokedown Palace by Steven Brust
• Sutree by Cormac McCarthy
• Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
• The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
• The Official C.I.A. Manual of Trickery and Deception
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace
• Lincoln by Gore Vidal
• The River of Doubt: Teddy Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard
• Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman

Beyond books, here are the other "essentials" I brought back to Vietnam:

• Mini remote controlled helicopter from Brookstone
• Football, flag football belts and cones
• Rock climbing shoes (plus chalk bag), a new pair of Topsiders, and some tennis shoes
• New backpack from REI (awesome pack and got it at their used sale for 30% of the original price)
• Frisbee with lights on it (for night use)
• 1 Terabyte External Hard Drive
• Kodak zi8 video camera (I call it a "Flip" because the name's so terrible)
• Digital camera
• Gorilla tripod (bendable tripod legs! i can hitch my video camera to my motorbike now, etc.)
• Apples to Apples (all-time favorite party game)
• New blue jeans, my winter jacket

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: two giant bags filled with Zaxby's sauce. Mmmmmm.....

Book Review: Iconoclast

Over the holidays I read Iconoclast: A Neoroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently. It was a great book, providing an accessible overview of the aspects of the brain relevant to what's described below, supported with a wide range of anecdotal and interesting descriptions of past iconoclasts. A lot of the book describes phenomenon and the brain's activity that have only recently been made possible with the creation of fMRI, which essentially provide a live video stream of the brain's activity.

For the record, in the book an iconoclast is a figure who creates and is the force behind new ways of thinking. In the book, familiar names like Bill Gates and Richard Branson abound, but there are also a lot of great historical references and lesser-known contemporary figures that are described as iconoclastic thinkers. Google defines "iconoclast" as:

• a destroyer of images used in religious worship
• someone who attacks cherished ideas or traditional institutions

Here are the key takeaways from the book, if you find the below interesting I'd absolutely recommend it:

There are three broad themes that separate iconoclasts from others: Perception, Dealing with Fear, and Social Intelligence.

• Perception: Iconoclasts "see differently," which me means both literally and figuratively. Iconoclasts can envision and create solutions that cast aside predefined ways of thinking. The brain's perceptual system operates by categorizing objects of your perception and even ideas, and the brains of iconoclasts are able to adapt and create new categories. This is how iconoclasts "see differently." Interestingly, you have an influence on how well your brain is at this. The secret is to constantly bombard your brain with new and different types of experiences and ideas: read books, try new activities, live in a foreign country, etc. It makes sense, right? The more things you do, the more ideas you're exposed to, the more able you are to identify new opportunities and envision creative solutions to problems that haven't been encountered before.
• Dealing with Fear: There are three types of fear identified in the book: fear of public humiliation, fear of failure, and fear of the unknown. The book describes the neuroscientific and common sense reasons how and why fear inhibits action and rational thinking.Successful iconoclasts don't lack fear, they're simply able to either embrace it and use it constructively or rationalize and compartmentalize it in their minds. Again this is somewhat obvious, but its also important and the science behind it is also fascinating. 
• Social Intelligence: So you've got a revolutionary idea and you're ready to bring the force of its awesomeness down on the world, good for you. If you can't get anyone to go along with you and embrace your idea, then you won't get off the ground. This one is all about understanding people, and despite its promising potential was probably the weakest chapter in the book. But basically empathy is important, as is some level of social grace.

There's an interesting chapter at the end about drugs, from adderral to teas to hallucinogens. He describes how all these drugs operate in the brain, and what implications they have for improving one's ability to engage in iconoclastic thinking. There wasn't anything revolutionary however, and no pill alone will make you an iconoclast, but certain drugs can help deal with specific aspects of what you need to think like an iconoclast. For example, there are drugs that can help people deal with fear, there are drugs that can make people more social, and there's evidence that psilocybin (the active drug in hallucinogenic mushrooms) can improve perception and the ability to think in new ways. 

All in all, a really interesting read. I really liked how he broke down iconoclastic thinking into the three requirements described above, that alone was worth the read. The countless anecdotes were sometimes fascinating, and it was also a great overview of how the brain's perceptual system and fear response system work.