Author Archive
Tuesday, January 12th, 2021
The Hype Machine: How Social Media Disrupts Our Elections, Our Economy, and Our Health and How We Must Adapt by Sinan Aral takes an in-depth look at the impact that social media has had on our society. He covers the positive and negative aspects and offers advice for how scientists, industrial leaders, and policymakers can collaborate to clean up issues associated with things like fake news, election tampering, and free speech. This is a book that every consumer of modern media needs to read so click here to get your copy now.
Preface: Pandemics, Promise, and Peril
- Sinan’s Hype Machine is the real-time communications ecosystem created by social media. We start by seeing how COIVD pushed billions of more people to laptops and smartphones as many digital Luddites were forced on to various online platforms. Even routine users found themselves using it more and young people who were given limited screen time by parents prior to COVID started spending the entire school day online. People responded by organizing Zoom meetings to brainstorm problems old and new. As automated “bot” software along with cyborg and troll networks spread misinformation about things like COVID and elections, others got to work to fight these new digital enemies. As we have seen there is potential for great promise and peril. This book takes a look at both and offers suggestions for how we can make the most of the Hype Machine.
1. The New Social Age
- Humans have always been social animals. The Hype Machine has simply poured gas on our campfires. It is designed to inform, persuade, entertain, and manipulate us. It learns from our choices and location to improve its persuasive leverage. The motivation of course is money. It can rightly be considered the social media industrial complex
- We start with the story of how Russia used social media as a key part of their armed takeover of Crimea in 2014. Every time a pro-Ukrainian message was posted it was swarmed by messages from Russian bots and subsequently taken down. Most people were left with the idea that the people of Crimea wanted to be part of Russia.
- During his PhD work, Sinan realized that statistics required observations to be independent while modern networking made everything interdependent. His epiphany at the time was that digital social networking was going to turbocharge how information, behavior, economic opportunity, and political ideology flowed between people. His thesis was on how information flows through digital social networks and as he now evaluates hundreds of companies each year, he gets to see what is coming. He knows that we don’t know enough and advocating for more research is a theme of this book.
2. The End of Reality
- Fake news isn’t new, but the speed at which it can spread can cause real consequences. Rumors of gas shortages and a shooting at the White house caused long gas lines and a brief stock market crash. Some put out positive fake news about stocks they own and sell when the price goes up (pump and dump). We know that Russia made an effort to impact the 2016 election using the Hype Machine, but we don’t know the impact that effort had. Using social media in an effort to impact elections is a global problem.
- Another area where fake news distributed by social media has had an impact is the world of vaccines. Anti-vaxers have used it and caused some communities to decrease vaccination percents below the point where they offer heard immunity. This has caused an increase in cases of measles, a disease that the US declared conquered in 2000. Another problem is that several studies show that false news spreads faster than real news. Political false news travels faster than any other category.
- Social bots are software controlled social media profiles. They pounce on fake news and retweet it broadly. Real people then pick it up and do most of the spreading. They often mention influential humans who can give them a greater reach. Novelty attracts attention (the novelty hypotheses) and as a result, false news is more novel. Big repetition causes belief. (Doug: This is something that Hitler took advantage of.) People also believe what they already think (confirmation bias) so when you try to convince them that what they believe is false they tend to dig in even harder. Since fake news attracts more readers it makes more money by posting Google ads. This makes it a big business. Generative adversarial networks (GANs) pit two neural networks against each other. One learns from the other’s decisions and optimizes its efforts to fool the other. They can also be used for good. Deepfaked audio can allow one person to sound like another, which has been used to defraud companies.
3. The Hype Machine
- The Hype Machine is an information processor regulating and directing the flow of information in society. It is comprised of the network itself, the interaction between people and machine intelligence, and the input/output device, which is most commonly the smartphone. In addition to these three components, there are the four levers of Money, Code, Norms, and Law. Networks learn about us by looking at who we are connected to, what we read, and what we buy. People tend to cluster and similar people connect. This causes echo chambers that spread fake news. If one person has strong connections to two others, the others are likely to have at least a weak connection. The small-world phenomenon also shows up in social media as the average distance between any two people is about 4.7 degrees, not six.
- Sinan describes what he calls the Hype Loop. It starts with machine algorithms sensing who we are by what we say, what we consume, and what we do. It then offers suggestions for things like who to friend and what to buy. We then consume content based on the suggestions and finally, we take action such as making a purchase, sharing content with others, or voting.
- Connections via social media platforms are much more likely to happen via suggestions offered by algorithms than by people searching. This may also contribute to political polarization as similar people get connected faster. Algorithms also recommend the content we consume. Facebook is now the largest news outlet. Its goal is to attract more likes and more viewership. Some things are best done by the machine. Spam filters and newsfeed ranking are examples. More reflective people tend to want their news recommended for them. Since our smartphones are always with us the Hype Machine is constantly learning about us. Apps constantly share data with five to ten other apps. The next big thing is likely to be the brain-computer interface so we can control things with our thoughts. Think of using your “brain mouse” to click on something you see in an augmented reality space.
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Saturday, January 9th, 2021
House Moves 101: How Do You Do A House Move With Your Kids? by Rhenn Taguiar gives some tips on moving from the point of view of a company that moves people. If you are planning a move be sure to head his advice along with my addendum. This post is brought to you by RoadwayMoving.Com. @roadwaymoving @roadwaynyc
Introduction
- If you decide to move to a new house, then congratulations! Your new house can serve as the best place to open a new chapter in your life – be it that you’re moving to start a new family, moving to get closer to work, or moving to get closer to school. Regardless of the reason, a new house can definitely make way for a wonderful new home life. You can enjoy amazing meals with your kids, delightful walks around your neighborhood, and interacting with new schools and teachers. However, remember, you can only enjoy all of these things if you’ve finally settled down in your move. And unfortunately, such an idea can be stressful, considering you need to worry about other obligations while having to move houses. In fact, you can definitely enjoy moving with your kids, provided you start with a few steps.
Here are some things you need to do.
- Secure your documents and requirements and submit them as soon as possible. Once you’ve decided to start the moving process with your kids, it’s wise to secure your documents and requirements and submit them to the necessary channels as soon as possible. That way, you’ll limit the need for you to visit faraway offices, especially if you’re moving to a faraway location especially to Manhattan. Moreover, you can use this opportunity to tour your kids to your new neighborhood, meet moving companies and other professionals, and even help them be more familiar with their new community. That way, you minimize the risk of unnecessary leaves and absences just to secure these materials.
- Plan and sort your belongings as soon as you can to avoid complications. Before you pack, it helps for you and the kids to sort and create an inventory of what you own – especially if it’s through the cloud via a spreadsheet or an app – so you can keep track of what you want to keep, sell, or even throw away. Moreover, a cloud-based tracking system allows you and your kids to pack their things simultaneously and among their individual rooms without having to keep track of a ledger or a notebook. Make sure your moving timeline doesn’t interrupt your other obligations. While you may only move houses a few times over a few decades, you need to make sure that these moves don’t interrupt your other obligations like your job or your kids’ schooling.
Track Your Time Line and Consider Involving Professionals
- If possible, try to make sure you’re using a calendar app or a scheduling app that synchronizes your moving timeline with the rest of your daily routine. That way, your kids won’t have to risk losing too much school. Try to ensure that your moving needs are positioned on days you can take time off, free days, or even paid leaves and vacation days.
- Pack one room at a time over the course of a week before the moving day. Instead of panicking about packing a few days before moving day, try to pack a room at least a week before moving day. That way, you can slowly focus on ensuring that all things are put in their right places and that you won’t misplace anything. Moreover, packing one room at a time allows you to avoid any unnecessary mishaps, especially regarding missing items. It also allows you to still be able to pull off other things you might have to do such as study and work without having to panic about accidentally packing essential things.
- If possible, have your kids start packing the things they need the least first, and then pack the things they might need more urgently last in order to be able to get access to them should they need to. Get in touch with professionals to handle much of the heavy lifting. If you’re having a bit of trouble with the rest of your moving process, you might want to rely on professionals such as packing and moving services to deal with the heavy-duty moving tasks for you. Thanks to their expertise and specialization in various moving services, these moving teams can help you manage various parts of your move from packing and unpacking, storage, and even transportation. With their help, you might find it much easier to organize your move and still be able to accomplish your other moving needs without many worries.
Make It Work For Your Loved Ones
- With the above tips in mind, it’s important to remember that it’s totally possible for you and your kids to conduct a house move while still having to meet your other obligations. Remember, the success of your house move lies in how you manage your various tasks – which means it’s actually the planning and execution stage that holds all the answers when it comes to successful house moves for your family. As such, remember to keep a close eye on how you communicate with your moving services, how you plan your inventory, and how you manage your entire moving timeline in general.
Dr. Dong’s Comments
- Since Rhenn is not an educator he has left out some important things that you need to consider when moving with children. Depending on their age moving is likely to cause emotional difficulties for kids. They may be moving away from close friends and a school they like. I suggest reaching out to your school counselor for advice on this matter. This person may also be willing to meet with your children to help them. You should also involve them as much as possible in the process of looking for a new home as well as planning and executing the move. Try to make them seem like part of your team as you take on a great adventure.
- Rhenn is a Manila-based content writer with a love for all things health and lifestyle, science and technology, and geek and pop culture. He has a BA Journalism degree and has since then pursued making content about geek culture. Rhenn used to write for a couple of geek and gaming publications and also served as editor-in-chief for Philippines-based What’s A Geek!. He constantly plays video games but also takes the time to try out older activities.
- Top Image Source: https://pixels.com
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Friday, January 1st, 2021
Happy New Year
- If you are looking for a good read, look no further. Since I started this blog in 2009 after my wife died from ALS, I have summarized 193 books and 194 is in the works. Each summary should take about ten minutes to read and covers all of the key concepts in the book. They are designed to help my readers make purchasing decisions, and for people who have already read the book, they can be used to review and internalize the main ideas.
- All of the books are nonfiction. Some are books that deal directly with education while others are aimed at business or general audiences. In all cases, they are books that offer sound advice and knowledge for busy parents and educators who represent my target audience. The list under the BOOK SUMMARIES link at the top of my home page is in alphabetical order by title. Book titles starting with “The” can be found in the T section. Enjoy!
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Monday, December 7th, 2020
Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World by Olga Khazan is for anyone who has felt like they were different from typical people in their culture. Since we are all unique, we probably all feel different or weird from time to time. There are a number of research-based coping methods here that just about anyone can use. While this book is aimed at the general public, it is especially good for anyone doing counseling.
Part One: Being Weird
1. Weird
- Olga was a Russian Jewish immigrant who grew up in West Texas. The rest of the people in her town were either white evangelical Christians or immigrants from Mexico. Since Russian Jews were forced to be atheists, they don’t even fit in with American jews. Her feeling of weirdness was also fostered by the fact that her parents moved a lot and always to different school districts. At home, her parents watched only Russian television and ate only Russian food. She attended American University in Washington, D.C., which didn’t help her feel any less weird. After interviews with over three dozen successful “weird” people, she concluded that it can be good to be weird as it confers a hidden advantage. It also behooves you to live and work among weirdos. Groups are smarter and more powerful when their members hold a diversity of views and backgrounds.
2. The Realization
- Cultural norms are unwritten rules that make us think that “right” is what everyone else is doing. There is even a gene that predisposes people to be rule followers. People like it when others follow norms as they don’t like being surprised. Norms are inherently conservative and can get in the way of innovation and creativity. They also may not make sense, think neckties. Olga presents a review of how swimwear reveals the randomness of social norms.
- Next, we have short stories of two “weirdos.” The first is a gay male kindergarten/preschool supervisor. Only 2% of kindergarten teachers are men and a female NASCAR driver who represents a microscopic fraction of the total. Their problems aren’t the same, but they both have many more challenges to face than their peers.
- Friends are for comfort, taking it easy, relaxing, and not being challenged. By hanging out with people who are just like you, you can be out of touch with the big, beautiful, diverse world. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to find acceptance and friendship in an environment where you are the different one.
- Cultures can be tight or loose. In tight cultures, norms are strict and formal, and the punishments for breaking them can be severe. Loose cultures permit a wider range of behaviors. Weird people have an easier time in loose cultures. Tight countries like Russia are autocratic and have less free media. As you go from tight to loose cultures you go from orderliness to creativity. Rural cultures tend to be tight while urban cultures tend to be loose. The LGBTQ folks definitely need to find a loose culture to live in. People who travel between tight and loose cultures in either direction tend to be disoriented and feel weird. The stories of three more weirdos conclude this chapter.
3. The Exclusion
- Once humans formed groups intergroup conflict was sure to start. Rather than being inborn, prejudice is a reflection of the dynamics between groups. In our hunter-gather days, social relationships were the only wealth a person had. That predisposed them to take care of other group members. Successful groups look out for each other. Rulers, money, and organized religion created subgroups and pitted them against each other. Groups are based on their differences even when they are laughably minor (think protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland). The idea that diversity can be a source of strength and advantage is a relatively recent concept.
- When it comes to differences, gender is a big one. Historically, women have had to put their own interests after their mate’s. They needed to take their cues from their husband’s mood in order to prosper. We can thank our brains for our ability to recognize differences as it seems to be automatic. The brain also stores stereotypes. Our instincts set us up to avoid or alienate people who don’t look like us. One outsider is a deviant. As the number grows they become a threat and cause a fear of losing status. Americans are more accepting of immigrants who speak English, while the Swiss are more accepting of people who get to work on time.
- People who have a problem with someone from a different group tend to generalize the issue to the entire group. Peripheral group members tend to marginalize someone else as pushing someone weirder to the side can make you feel normal. People who are more offended by norm violators are not likely to think outside of the box and be more creative. As a result, looser cultures are more creative. They are also sick less. Tight nations have fewer natural resources, worse air and water, more deaths from communicable diseases, and more natural disasters. Such collective threats foster tightness. Stories here include an Amish girl and an African Muslim immigrant girl.
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Sunday, November 22nd, 2020
How To Know if a Computer Science Career Is Right for You by Craig Middleton is a reality check for students considering a career in this field. It’s a field where you can typically work anywhere and make good money as long as you can deal with the stress of deadlines. Share this with students you know who are good in math and science.
Introduction
- Computer science is a field of study that can lead to some pretty appealing careers. However, pursuing this career path requires an immense amount of effort. In order to make the right choice as you enter the field of higher education, it helps to have an idea of what computer science education and careers are actually like and what it takes to make it. Here’s what you need to know in order to make the most informed choice possible.
The Tech Job Market
- Computer science careers are associated with a paycheck that’s potentially quite high, and that makes pursuing that kind of career a fairly easy choice on paper. More importantly, specializing in computer science can all but guarantee you job opportunities after college graduation. With recent advancements in technology, modern businesses of all kinds and many entrepreneurs need skilled computer science specialists. This ensures that your skills will always be in demand. This kind of expertise, in particular, is so valuable because these skills don’t typically come naturally. This means that fewer people have developed the knowledge and skill required to manage modern technology at a professional level.
- Taking the necessary steps to make yourself an indispensable asset in this way will be difficult, but it will be well worth it in time. There are plenty of resources online to build up your skills, that in return, will help you stand out from the crowd when applying for jobs. You can take free courses about computer science found at codecademy or open culture. Exploring these options will lead you to a better understanding of yourself and your career goals. If you find that you have a passion and interest in these beginner courses, then you’ll likely gain even more passion for it as you advance through your education and career.
The Importance of Cybersecurity
- Modern businesses rely on the internet for a variety of increasingly essential purposes. Companies depend on an online presence to maintain a competitive level of marketing, for starters, and online retail is a natural extension of the reach of any retail business. All of these online interactions open up companies to the risk of cyber-attacks because businesses are often targeted by hackers as a result of a perceived financial opportunity or simply a high profile target that can give them some clout in the hacker community. With the rise of apps for every brand under the sun, network and API security are an essential part of protecting not only the business in question but also the users of these apps.
- Cloud storage is becoming a staple of modern businesses, and this style of file storage, while it’s generally more secure, requires additional cybersecurity protocols. Cybersecurity entails a number of tools and best practices used in tandem, making this field even more inaccessible to the average person, and that makes this kind of skill set indispensable in today’s job market. This role requires not only knowledge and skill, but also the ability to keep calm under pressure, because cyberattacks can be tremendously detrimental and need to be solved quickly.
The Rise of the IT Department
- The increased dependence of modern businesses on complex technology, both online and off, has led to an increase in the importance and representation of the IT worker. IT, or information technology, workers are a fundamental part of any digital-age business, because these professionals are those tasked with maintaining the various systems at play concerning data. This means that IT workers are on the front lines when and if malfunctions occur, and this is more important now than ever.
- In many modern companies, malfunctions of all kinds can lead to the loss of valuable time, and it falls to the IT department to resolve these issues quickly and effectively. This requires expertise in understanding the how and why of technical difficulties regarding computers, modems, routers, and networks, and that knowledge can be put to use both to solve problems and to prevent them.
- As businesses continue to lean on their IT workers, these qualified professionals continue to have job security and often fairly substantial pay. However, the tradeoff is that the job can be quite stressful. The study of computer science is akin to that of medicine. While the subject matter is inherently different, both of these disciplines require an immense amount of knowledge and the ability to put that knowledge to use in high-stakes situations. If you can handle that responsibility and have an innate interest in technology, pursuing this career path can be incredibly lucrative for you.
Another Career Guide and Doug’s Comments
- Here is a computer network career guide that may also be helpful. As a former High School computer science teacher I have seen students enter and succeed in this field. The best went beyond expectations and branched out to learn programming languages on their own. If you can learn to program using online courses at your own pace you might have what it takes. If you get lost in programming challenges and lose track of time, that’s a good sign that you have the passion required. Thanks, Craig
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