Harvard Magazine | Gutenberg 2.0

… [Isaac Kohane, director of the Countway Library at Harvard Medical School] sees similar problems when making the rounds with medical students, fellows, and residents: “When we run into a problematic complex patient with a clearly genetic problem from birth, and I ask what the problem might be and what tests are to be ordered, their reflex is either to search their memories for what they learned in medical school or to look at a textbook that might be relevant. They don’t have what I would characterize as the ‘Google reflex,’ which is to go to the right databases to look things up.” The students doubtless use Google elsewhere in their lives, but in medicine, he explains, “the whole idea of just-in-time learning and using these websites is not reflexive. That is highly troublesome because the time when you could keep up even with a subspecialty like pediatric neurosurgery by reading a couple of journals is long, long gone.”

I wish universities had general science informatics graduate programs, and not just bioinformatics ones. Do they? Then again, does one even need formal certification in “science informatics” when what is required beyond the requisite science degree(s) is a natural DIY inclination to search for information? How To Mine Online Resources can be a learned skill and net savvy certainly isn’t some genetic-nerd quality, but whither the reflex?

A comprehensive report on Open Access by the United Kingdom’s Joint Information Systems Committee:

The increased impact of wider access to academic research papers could be worth approximately £170 million per year to the UK economy.

Although we believe that publicly funded research should be available to everyone, it is not a straightforward journey and our role is to involve and work with colleges and universities to help them to make the choices that are right for their individual situation … The long term goal is to achieve a coherent layer of open scholarly and academic resources readily available to all on the internet.

Anya Kamenetz and I met years ago in New Orleans when she interviewed me on post-K recovery for the Village Voice. She has now penned the insightful and timely DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education. From the book:

1. The promise of free or marginal-cost open-source content, techno-hybridization, unbundling of educational functions, and learner-centered educational experiences and paths is too powerful to ignore. These changes are inevitable. They are happening now …

2. However, these changes will not automatically become pervasive. Many existing institutions, especially those with the greatest reserves of wealth and reputation, will manage to remain outwardly, physically the same for decades, and to charge ever-higher tuition, even as enrollment shifts more and more toward the for-profits and community colleges and other places that adopt these changes.

3. In order to short-circuit the cost spiral, and provide access to appropriate education and training for people of all backgrounds, there is much hard work to be done in the way schools are funded and accreditation and transfer policies are set. College leaders need to have the will to change … political leaders need to legislate change … Above all, learners and their families need to recognize that alternatives to the status quo exist and demand change.

4. The one thing that can change dramatically and relatively swiftly is the public perception of where the true value and quality of higher education lies. It’s no longer about the automatic four-year degree for all. Institutions can’t rely any more on history, reputation, exclusivity, and cost; we now have the ability to peer inside the classroom … So we have both the ability and the obligation to look at demonstrated results.

Change comes from imagination, moving away from the herd mentality and questioning how a traditional college education will serve one’s ambitions for the future. This is why I don’ t have a college degree in computer science; no way good money would be wasted on something I could teach myself. It was my interest in geology, which requires laboratory facilities and access to field education, that motivated and propelled me through what is otherwise a factory conveyor belt*. I’m really interested in science access being made open further through the creation of co-learning spaces (like co-working and co-tech spaces) and, in this day and age of the Maker Faire, public maker laboratories with teachers. Or is this where universities with these facilities can re-establish their relevance and open their doors to learners wanting shorter-term contracts?

That’s it for now.

* The stadium classes, the use of precious laboratory and discussion time to re-learn and re-teach what the professor crammed into the 50-minute lecture, tutoring your fellow students after class because your teaching assistant has mentally checked out, finally caving into student demands of “Is this going to be on the test?” only to find out that they can’t reproduce an answer if it stared them in the face and the terminal humiliation of the grading curve. And they wonder why we have a creativity crisis.

When I stumbled on a laptop and the realization that there were at least two computers per nerd in the room, not counting smartphones.

It was, of course, the perfect opportunity for another episode of Interpretive Dance And Classic Cinema Reenactments With Inanimate Objects.

***

The opening strains of Also Sprach Zarathustra are heard in the background. At the end of the song there is general merriment. The narrator steps forward.

"Behold, a herd of wild Dells! How they graze whilst showing off their iconic plumage."

"How they have gained self-recognition and hold hands and sing."

The lights suddenly dim. And then the Lone SA drops his new iPad right in the middle of the circle saying, “Bam, now the lowly primates have something to worship.”

"What is this foreboding and mysterious monolith?"

Things begin to get ugly. The mood is tenser than a moose’s butt in fly season. Hurtful epithets are thrown. The iPad is physically removed before the Dells move in and someone loses an app.

Peace and love (and my coffee table) are restored to the living room floor. The end.

Linkbait Generator via BoingBoing

Sign 1
Do you always check your e-mail before doing other things? Most of the time.

Sign 2
Do you frequently find yourself anticipating the next time you’ll be online? Yes. (Update: I run two blogs and write occasionally for another one. My anticipation here is not waiting on my next fix as much as it is What Comments Do I Have To Moderate Now? and Who Lit Fire To What? The Internet – it is serious business after all.)

Sign 3
When you’re online and someone needs you, do you usually say “just a few more minutes” before stopping? Sometimes. Not at work.

Sign 4
Have you ever lied about or tried to hide how long you’ve been online? No.

Sign 5
Have you ever chosen to spend time online rather than going out with others? No.

Sign 6
Does going online lift you from a depressed or nervous mood? No.

Sign 7
Do others in your life often complain about the amount of time you spend using technology? Yes. (Update:  I get paid to do it, so yeah.)

===

What now? Am I overloaded or not? So many signs add up to someone sending out an ambulance? Do I check myself into Betty Ford Grace Hopper? Free carpal tunnel splints? What?

Aziz Ansari hosts the MTV Music Awards (with a message for BP)

Manish Vij is shutting down Ultrabrown, a four-year-old Indian-American literature and arts blog, to pursue tech startups (brave) and writing a novel (braver) full-time. You may recognize Manish as co-founder of and former blogger at Sepia Mutiny, which he left to found Ultrabrown with amazing, young writing talent such as Chandrahas Choudhury, Jai Arjun Singh and Anonandon.

Ultrabrown’s farewell post serves as a refreshing antidote to my despondency earlier today. My parents and the parents and grandparents of many over at Ultrabrown and Sepia Mutiny moved away from the Indian subcontinent and sacrificed much so that we, their children, would be judged by our work and the content of our character, not the color of our skin, flavor of our caste, weight of our bank account or the coin toss of gender. Lately, with all of this immigrant bashing, name-calling and othering, I’ve been starting to think their work was in vain. Until I read this:

I always thought our community would eventually be as integrated as desis in Canada and the UK, where you can’t turn a channel without running into a brown anchor. I didn’t foresee it happening this quickly. For all the ways in which America remains deeply tribal, it is also beautifully and pragmatically open to an Aziz Ansari or a Nikki Haley in a way that few other countries seem to be. One grew up [Tamilian] Muslim, the other [Punjabi] Sikh; Aziz strutted around in a white tuxedo last night and never even bothered with a stage name.

My father’s tech generation often Anglicized their goodnames, started their own businesses because they couldn’t get promoted, and were forced to hire white CEOs anyway because nobody would buy from a desi. And now the former PM of Britain is asking Vinod Khosla for a job. Mindblowing.

I hate MTV awards shows, yet read this with sappy tears forming in my sappy eyes and, as sappy as it sounds, it made me feel for one small second that Barack Obama was not wrong. That “in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.” The unlikely story that is Barack Obama, president of the United States. The unlikely story that he recently thanked DJ Rekha for performing Bhangra at the White House. The unlikely story that is my brother, partner in his own successful business solely due to his hard work. The unlikely story that is my aunt, dean and former provost of an American university. The unlikely stories that are my cousins, female sommelier, female aviator, female journalist, female physicist. The unlikely stories that are my nieces, carefree young American women. The unlikely story that is me, geologist, technologist and loudmouth, married to a sweet farmboy from northern Wisconsin.

Hope is what made these people. But, keeping American hope alive and giving it to the next generation requires work. Fighting the hatred, bigotry and violence that will erupt further from an increasingly troubled and changing economy and resulting shattered egos needs the resilience of will, pen and vote. And it needs a lot of love and support of one another. Manish has done us a great service in this arena. So, even if Ultrabrown has closed shop, I ask that you support the blogs and books of its talented writers and start your own movement to inspire and support more.

Good luck, Mr. Vij and the gang, grab your lungis and don’t panic!

“Okay, baby, hold tight,” said Zaphod. “We’ll take in a quick bite at the Vadapav Seller’s at the End of the Universe.”

Unlike The Wire, Treme is not about drugs or rampant corruption among city officials. Instead, the series follows ordinary New Orleans citizens as they attempt to rebuild their lives following Hurricane Katrina … the decision to leave the grittiness behind in Baltimore was a conscious choice.

Is the show too much too late?

Almost five years have passed since Katrina and the Flood, we’ve proven in the last year that our government and economy are broken and Americans don’t give two shits about one another and, especially with the Superbowl win and Mayor Ray Nagin out the door, it seems that New Orleanians want to move past living in post-K PTSD. Kinda odd timing to bring back Late 2005 and to apply again the floodlines that had just faded away from walls and hearts, isn’t it?

Here’s the dirty secret: No one learned a damned thing from what happened. Up here in Ohio, I am sometimes asked, “Well, what did you expect would happen when a Category 5 hurricane hit a city 20 feet below sea level?” (To which all I want to do is torch my computer and blog and walk into the forest, away from the willfully, yet-underinformed troglodytes.) Down in New Orleans, many are not back in their homes FIVE YEARS LATER exactly because of rampant government corruption, the state government goes through great lengths to reduce much-needed physical and mental health and educational services and a second failure of the federally-built levees is still a very distinct possibility. Comprehensive flood protection a la the Dutch is only a dream. Outside, it’s America. Back in May of 2007, at a horrifyingly low point in the city’s recovery, my buddy Dambala presciently observed: “It’s not just New Orleans that is dying … I think it’s America in general. We are just the cynosure of the descent … the most photogenic example.” Enter the recession and the latest Grand Circus Of Democracy.

It’s not too much and never too late.

But, here’s the real secret: New Orleans is more than a warning, a cautionary tale. It just is, with a tale that can be told 50 or 500 years from now. The matter of how much and when thus becomes irrelevant. All the citizens of New Orleans have ever wanted since August 29th, 2005 is reoccupy their homes, their neighborhoods, their lives and to let the world know that what happened in New Orleans was not the result of a hurricane but flooding caused by the breakdown of levee protection and federal, state and local government. They don’t want your respect or sympathy on account of being mostly black citizens of an irreplaceable city chock full of historic architecture, rich food, tasty drinks and grand merriment. They want your acknowledgment that they, too, are people who have a certain way of going about their lives and that’s that. Treme tells us this story.

So, I will watch the show out of curiosity and expatriate pride … and cojones, an anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach and hope that they get it mostly right.

And blog about it. In anticipation of the show, I founded the Back Of Town blog and invited writer friends from the NOLA Bloggers/First Draft/New Package krewe to hold forth on the show there. And, gods love the internet, have they already brought it pre-premiere: Go check out the news and opinion posts and, starting Sunday, episode reviews. And please feel free to join the conversation or just bring the popcorn and enjoy the discussion and dissection. But come:

America needs to understand New Orleans, whether it wants to or not, whether it believes it needs to or not.  Whether Treme will help make that happen is anyone’s guess, but even without having seen it, I don’t think this story of New Orleans, of its value, is to be told as a request, with an open hand, with an aspiration, or a goal, other than that of verity.  It’s a story to stand on its own merits, for its own sake. It has value because it is. Some know that, others seeking to know will come to bear their own witness.

FCC loses Net Neutrality case. Welcome to New Communist America, where the largest internet provider kills competition and development and decides what data you have access to. An NPR commenter cries, “A win for the consumer!” Some libertarians call for the abolition of the FCC. Pssst, when Customers become Consumers whose purchasing choices are greatly diminished, it’s no longer capitalism but legislation-mandated robbery.

Meanwhile, everyone from the national media  to the local news “is hard on the case of iPad sales and Tiger Woods’ f***crimes.” While the White House entertains the latest teen douche-sation and throws pitches to the nation’s collective catcher.

“In politics nothing is accidental. If something happens, be assured it was planned this way.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

“If you’re not a part of the solution, there’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem.” – Despair, Inc.

Along with the regular talks, workshops and brainstorming sessions, there is also a Where Faire, in which “research, academia, and yet-to-be-discovered entrepreneurs” display their projects and we stand around and talk to them with a cocktail in hand. Tom Longson’s Open View Project really stood out this year because the concept is simple-brilliant and community-oriented at once. From the OVP site:

Seeing what [Google] had done [with StreetView] was inspiring, but I wanted to be able to annotate parts of the panoramas, to build my own services around it, and to take pictures of the places Google didn’t go. Instead of creating panoramas of asphalt, I wanted to capture places with people, create interactive panoramas of events, trails, beaches, ice skating rinks, the places where people actually go. The OpenView Project is just this, a way for anyone to create interactive panoramas, and share them to create a new way to view the world … if there’s anything I’ve learned in the 27 years I’ve been alive, it’s that being part of something is far more exciting than just being a spectator.

And how do Longson and his team accomplish this? With the Trike – a recumbent bicycle and a daisy chain of cameras – of course. It’s all Open Source with instructions.

Jay Longson (my brother), Brent Heyning, and I [have built a] panoramic camera on top of a recumbent tricycle, we’ll be able to cover a huge amount of distance, and get the chance to create interactive panoramas of bike trails, boardwalks, farmers markets, concerts … the Burning Man art festival. Instead of just using Google Street View as a spectator, we’ll be building a creative commons of snapshots in time of places all over the world. We’ll be publishing instructions to show you how to do it too, and building an open source service to act as a clearing house for the data.

These folks aren’t amateurs. They had to make the cameras work in unison and look at all this other heavy duty equipment they use to create panoramas.

Check out their posts and panoramas from Burning Man. Social Animal’s 360 HD technology and output for Hollywod is amazing, but their blueprints and methods aren’t open source. And SA’s booth didn’t have a fun-loving Scotsman in it called Haggis.

Can you imagine a better venue for the Open View Project’s Trike than the Krewe du Vieux or St. Anne’s parade? Or Jazzfest? Or any gathering in the city? We have to get these guys to New Orleans! Or, even better, start our own New Orleans Open View Projects. That’s what giving away technology is all about, right?

1) A list of Google’s or Ask’s search terms shows many internet users cannot pose a question to save their lives. Use these 20 Tips For More Effective Google Searches to avoid being overwhelmed by search results.  Become one with Boolean.

2) There are many free science search tools out there.  Here is a review of the prominent ones.  Search early, search often.

3) Ask a librarian.  There exist these humans, many Library & Information Science graduates and other smart people, who work at libraries who can help you hone your search skills as well as find answers to your questions.  They also do funny dances with library carts, I hear, which is always worth the time spent at your local library.  Jokes aside, considering the number of people who don’t possess home computers and computer & online literacy, well-funded libraries and intelligent, helpful librarians are crucial to the future of information facilitation.  Also consider publishing your search results and analyses as a blog post to help others who may have the same question.

4) For humanity’s sake, lower the noise or help verify data.

Blair pointed me to The Economist’s The Data Deluge which simultaneously celebrates and bemoans the exponential increase in data, be it photographic, tabular, scientific or vital-statistical in nature, and how corporations are only beginning to find value in separating the wheat from the chaff.  Violation of privacy aside, the greatest threat to signal quality is data hoarding (especially by individuals, taxpayer-funded organizations and publishing houses) and a large amount of noise in the system.  Those who do put information out there don’t (want to) curate it, which includes ensuring accuracy and constant updates.  In a comment on the aforementioned Economist article, a D. Sherman says it best:

… the vast majority of of “noise” in databases is simply bad data, duly entered and propagated … We put a great deal of effort into collecting more and more data, but comparatively little into weeding out bad data. This implies that the sign[al]-to-noise ratio is only going to deteriorate. Part of the reason for that is that the incentives all favor collecting more data, but do not adequately penalize bad data.

… Members of the database resistance movement who are willing to risk more radical means of spoofing more important databases can readily imagine even more creative (though less legal) methods. When RFID tags and image-recognition tracking of people and vehicles becomes more common, the opportunities and means for injecting noise into the system will multiply exponentially.

The solution is a selective and sophisticated willingness to part with data depending on what the data involves.  Not divulging personal information and data hoarding are two different things.  While I value my personal privacy and often purposefully give wrong phone numbers and zip codes to websites and salespeople, I will readily part with any scientific, technological or social information that is not classified explicitly as proprietary.  Google and Bing are not entitled to my street address but they are to my paper on transtensional folding because Americans paid for it and not Elsevier or Springer.

Another sure-fire way to lower noise is to cut back on content replication.  A mature search engine will a) enforce canonical URLs and b) take a scythe to unabashed content scrapers who enjoy high search engine rankings.  I’ve lost track of the number of MY blog posts that show up on others’ sites as higher-ranked search hits.  (Just because my content is published under a CC-BY-NC-SA license does not mean you are entitled to pilfer it and ignore the non-commercial and share-alike components of the license.)  Also, take-down notices only work if you can find a responsive human on the other end to respond, and who has time for that?  There has to be an easier way to punish websites and aggregators for outright plagiarism and internet abuse.

Speaking of content replication, here’s an interesting “what-if” article on information copying and machine sentience.  I guess there is one benefit to a low signal-to-noise ratio in the network: really dumb Artificial Intelligence, should it emerge.