Status Quo Ante

At this point, many have already read Elena Lappin’s stomach-turning tale of being detained and deported for a criminal act of journalism. It seems that the Department of Homeland Security now considers British journalists dangerous. So, to recap: we are detaining journalists, professors, and clergy. War on terror, my ass! We have declared a war on thinking.

Why can’t we just go back to the way we were before, except with the addition of hardened cockpit doors. That was an appropriate response. I wrote once before about this: America needs to walk it off. Nothing would show our friends and enemies the strength of the United States better than saying “Damn, that stung; now we’re going to move on.” Or, get this, how about offering scholarships to students from Arab nations? That’s right, invite them in and treat them as guests. Can you imagine how sneaky that would be? Rather than attacking the hardened terrorist—clearly a wily character—we would attack the Arab world’s weakest point, young and impressionable students. We would show them the best America has to offer, and send them back as emissaries, and yes, as spies. Because they would return as friends of America; or if not that, friends of freedom and liberty.

Give visas to journalists (you know, like free democracies do). Heck, give visas to everybody. What the hell are we doing turning back students from Morocco, Malaysia, and Egypt? Are we that willing to give up freedom and liberty for all?!

I want my country back.

Now, I know what I would do, if I were able. When I came into the US, I would identify myself as an amateur journalist, as a blogger. Unfortunately, immigration largely leaves me alone.

Actually, as an aside, let me make clear that isn’t exactly the case. I live right on the Canadian border, and despite the fact that we give Canadians no special reason to love us, I am always made to feel welcome by Canadian immigration, and made to feel intimidated by US border guards. Why does being a prof make me a suspect? Someone has recently told me that I appear as though I could be Arab—and my name screams not-frum-round-here—but what’s with the hassle? It’s not like I’m accidently importing hand grenades.

OK, so it doesn’t seem fair to ask foreigners to foot the bill for this small act of civil disobedience. Let me see, how about a hypothetical way to raise consciousness about this? How about stickers that say something along the lines of what you see above? Heck you could even make them available at Café Press, or provide a pdf for folks to print.

Hypothetically, again, what if these were posted at national frontiers? Concerned folks could make sure fliers or postcards were left where travelers would find them. Or they could post stickers in helpful locations. I can’t imagine anyone could complain about informing our potential enemies about the newly enforced laws.

Of course, I recommend that we just stop thinking about it. Thinking about the end of liberties in the US is just too depressing, and is fundamentally anti-American. I’m ashamed the thought even crossed my mind.

Group predictions

I already made my prediction, but I guess the October Surprise is still up for grabs. Go and vote, it’s your civic duty. We can see whether collectivities do any good at predicting the future.

(I could add something silly here about the recent success rate of mass polling predicting the incoming president, but I won’t.)

There are times

“I’ve been studying history,” Peter said. “I’ve been learning things about patterns in human behavior. There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world…”

- Peter Wiggin in Ender’s Game, on why he is beginning to blog.

Remaindered Links

• Short but delightful flash narrative puzzle.

• While we’re at it: flash mini-golf, and flash railroad.

• House fabbing allows for the roboticized construction of concrete homes from an architect’s drawings.

• Creating agent-based secre administrative assistants.

Scholblog network

Of the scholarly bloggers discussed below, 267 (or just under half) had reciprocal links with others in the group. The map of these binary connections is pictured here. The center of the wheel there is Crooked Timber. If Crooked Timber did not exist, there would be far fewer ties among these blogs, and some would have no reciprocal links. Note that this has a lot to do with the fact that Crooked Timber has an extensive blogroll.

Conferences and weblogs

Academic conferences play an important role in the life of the academic, and in the life of the academy. For a graduate student (and in some cases, an undergraduate), it is often the first experience of the wider world of academia beyond their own schools. Despite a general understanding among scholars that there exists this wider community of science or of scholarship, it is not always clear how such a community emerges. One of the connecting points for such meetings is the large academic conference.

It takes a while to understand what role these conferences play in the community of academics, in part because that role is complex. The putative reason for a conference is for scholars and researchers to share their most current research, and, perhaps more importantly, to provide an opportunity for discussion of topics important to the discipline. For graduate students, the first conferences can be nerve-wracking experiences, as they expose their thinking for the first time to a wide audience. It can also be exhilarating to find that while their may be no one at their own institution with interests directly allayed with their own, such people do exist in the wider world.

It is this latter function that, in my opinion, the academic conference serves. Certainly, it is an opportunity to present current findings, but with the pace of research, it is entirely likely that what is presented is already far along by the time conference attendees see it. Journals and informal exchanges serve to keep folks abreast of information. The primary role of the conference is as an opportunity to establish colleagues, partners, acquaintances, and friends. Delivering papers is largely a function of providing public introductions, both to the research and the researchers.

If there is any doubt that this is the case, ask around any academic department, and you will find that the more bacchanalian events tend to be the favorites. Rousseau, in describing the origins of religion, talks about the parties that would be held annually or semi-annually—and that these celebrations brought rise to a feeling of commonality that led to the greatest (and worst) of what human society could do. Many people who attend conferences take stock of what was gained at the conference and whether it was worth the trip. In the past, all of these things have made it on to such a list for me:

1. Exposed to an idea that is exciting, and worth exploring further.
2. Exposed to an author, or a literature, that is worth exploring.
3. Met someone with whom I would like to collaborate in the future.
4. Had a chance to try to recruit someone (faculty or student) to the department
5. Was recruited by someone.
6. Was invited to participate in a research group or contribute to a collection/journal.
7. Had a chance to catch up with friends.
8. Had a chance to talk with and plan with collaborators on projects.
9. Received feedback and recommendations on a presented research project.
10. Received recognition for participation (top paper, etc.)
11. Experienced a city’s culture.
12. Had fun.
13. Got away from local concerns/routine.

These might be gathered into X groups:

A. Seeking and experiencing novel ideas
B. Interaction with a geographically-dispersed social network
C. Combining A&B: expanding social network

I think that weblogs can play an important role here as a tool that does not replace physical conferences, but allows for both an alternative route to these ends, and an enhancement to such experiences. I think blogs could be particularly good at providing a way to keep people updated between major conferences, and as a way of making conferences better, by providing some of the preparatory support (introductions) that would make the time together better spent.

NotCon

Tom Coates is blogging from NotCon. Already I wish I could be there. Mentions a presentation on biomapping, combining biometric data (e.g., galvanic skin response) with GPS data to create a collective map of physical reactions. Damn, that’s cool.

Scholarati

So, a while back, I put up a a wiki page listing Scholars Who Blog, drawing from a bunch of similar lists on the web. Since then, a handful of new sites have been added or taken from the list, and there are about 550 blogs listed. At the time, Seb Paquet agreed that a more complete solution was desirable, and set up a very nice set of notes on another wiki.

There, I suggested one way of maintaining quality was only allowing blogs that had been linked to by other, already established blogs. To that end, I took a look at the hyperlinks among the blogs listed, and looked for inlinks from others on the list. This is a bit like what Technorati does on a much larger scale. The top twenty were not too surprising:

URL	inlinks
http://hnn.us/	723
http://www.crookedtimber.org/	307
http://www.poliblogger.com/	224
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/	202
http://volokh.com/	141
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/	110
http://rhetorica.net	103
ttp://www.instapundit.com/	103
http://atrios.blogspot.com/	98
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com	96
http://chutry.wordherders.net/	74
http://www.dailykos.com/	69
http://www.erinoconnor.org/	56
http://www.danieldrezner.com/blog/	56
http://fistfulofeuros.net/	55
http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/	51
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/	50
http://huminf.uib.no/~jill/	50
http://nielsenhayden.com/electrolite/	49
http://www.crescatsententia.org/	47

Part of the reason it isn’t particularly surprising is that I gathered some of these links from the Crooked Timber site, the Rhetorica site, Jill Walker’s site, and Seb Paquet’s site, so it isn’t really surprising that these end up being linked a lot in turn. Several of these are also “A-listers” and very widely linked. It would be interesting, and maybe worthwhile, to compare these with each weblogs total inlinks according to Technorati.

The upshot is that a number of blogs that I would classify as being quite “scholarly” in content received 0 links from the 550 in this list. There are two explanations here. The first is that these 550 are only a tiny sliver of the number of academic bloggers in existence. Frankly, while I know that it is missing a number of blogs, I suspect that it contains a fairly good number of them. The second is that counting inlinks is not a good way of assuring quality. Back to the drawing board…

Click the “More” link to see if you made the top 120. I’m in there somewhere :).

Update: In answer to an emailed question, the reason HNN figures so prominantly is because of a small issue with the approach. Since I’m looking for the existence of the any part of the site in the link, in fact, that is catching all the links to any of the hnn site. That, in combination with a lot of linking, accounts for the very large number of links seeming to be inbound to hnn.us.

Overqualified

The NY Times today notes that Google is unusual in that it actively recruits Ph.D.s:

Until recently, when computer science students completed their long Ph.D. training and stepped into daylight, they were treated warily by industry employers. American business has had to overcome its longtime suspicion of intellect. “Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men,” an article published in the 1920’s in the American magazine, is a typical specimen of an earlier era. In modern times, computer scientists are hired, but a doctorate can still be viewed as the sign of a character defect, its holder best isolated in an aerie.

There are potentially a lot of reasons, I suspect, it is hard for a Ph.D. to get a “regular” job. Whether stated or not, often the reason is that they are “overqualified.” It’s easy to take this as a euphemism for something else, but it may not be.

It may be that employers are intimidated by someone who is certifiably better educated than they are. It may be that they need someone who is better at thinking inside the box. While there are MBA programs that stress innovation, many do simply train bright people to do things the way they “ought” to be done.

But at a basic level, I think most employers are worried that the Ph.D. will leave their position. They might, for example, be rapidly promoted in an organization that seeks out merit of various sorts. Or, more likely, they will become bored with their job and quit or become less focused. I think this is a very rational reason not to hire a Ph.D.

From the perspective of the “common knowledge” within many businesses, the Ph.D. is a mark of the incompetent. Why would anyone spend from 3 to 7 (to 12) years pursuing a degree, paying outrageous sums of tuition, living in a hovel, working 18-hour days, when they could have been jump-starting their careers? If you can’t understand the motivation of someone, it’s difficult to manage them.

I think Google’s success has been to understand that motivation. For many, I suspect the lure of being granted a fifth of your work day to tinkering on a personal project, while it may exist, would be easily trumped by a higher salary or stock options. It remains to be seen if running a company like an academic or research institution is a profitable way to do business, but it is an interesting way to make use of a human resource.

Come together

• I think it’s time to pick up Flash again. If you like the Beatles, or if you like animation (or both), check this out. (Via MeFi.)

My Life Thus Far

I have little time for my memoirs. However, since my “stalkers,” who knew more about my history than I ever seemed to, now have graduated , I figured I should provide a thumbnail sketch of my life. Here is the blissfully short version, and here is the longwinded version, replete with slow-loading photographs from my youth. (I know, it needs kid pictures. Mom, do you have any of those you can scan?)

My next computer

When I got the Zaurus, the hope would be that I could use it “just like” a computer. It didn’t work out that way. The push now is for Ultra PCs. If I’m amazingly good, and Santa hits the lottery, I want the new SonyVAIO for Christmas.

Belated Memorial Day

I like this picture of a memorial somewhere in Greenwich Villiage for lots of reasons. And it seemed apropriate to Memorial Day.

Bonus to those who recognize the quotation. (No Google, faineant broadbander!).

Imaginary dirigibles

You know how some people have imaginary friends? Until today, I had an imaginary blimp.

I was reading the post over on WorldChanging about the return of the airship as a travel alternative. I am prepared to sound really dumb here, but I thought there already was an existing route between Brunei and Hong Kong. Yes, I know this is bizarre. It seemed bizarre to me to. And get this: I believe I may have applied for a job flying such a route.

OK, since my lovely partner is out of town (she’s living with an up-and-coming stand up comic in Harlem for the summer—the picture is at her stop—well, sort of…), I should note that I have not completely lost my marbles. If anything, I am just dumb. There was an ad—I believe in the English-language Daily Yomiuri for the position of blimp captain on the popular Brunei-Hong Kong route. Apparently, part of its popularity involved the availability of gambling and drinking on board (which seems even more absurd, come to think of it, given that the airline was owned by the Sultan). I was so intrigued by the advertisement that I applied for the job. I never heard back from them. I am prepared to accept that this may have been because they didn’t exist.

So now I comb the Web, looking for any evidence that such a service actually existed (come on! where is an airship going to land in HK?), or some way of understanding how I have fostered this route in my imagination for a decade. There are a few possibilities that spring to mind:

1. It was a hoax, played on poor unsuspecting English-speakers marooned in Japan without recourse to outside sources. (This was back in the early 90s, when the only thing on the Web was the UCI bookstore. Or was that gopher?)

2. The ad actually said “airship,” meaning one of the monster Boeings that Royal Brunei flies, and I mistakenly read it as “blimp,” when they meant “big jumbo jet.” While this is the most likely option, I find absolutely no evidence of anyone using “airship” in this way.

3. I read a novel at some point that suggested such a route existed and this somehow leaked into my belief about the real world. This does happen sometimes, that some inconsequential fictional bit of information will somehow seep into the real world. Doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, short of digging through microfilm of the Daily Yom, I am out of luck. I actually did keep diaries during much of that period, but given that they are not Googleable, and that I don’t have a firm idea of when (or even if) I actually sent a letter of inquiry about the job, this is probably also a wash.

In the end, my world is a bit poorer for there not being a party blimp that took a week ferrying especially adventurous travelers from Bandar Seri Begawan up to Hong Kong. I kind of wish I hadn’t wised up.

Remaindered Links

• Nokia 3220, with “wave messaging.” (Via Joi Ito.)

• Bush keeps the gun they found Sadam with in the oval office and shows it to visitors. WTF.

Circus

Hadn’t run across this one before…

When the politicians complain that TV turns the proceedings into a circus, it should be made clear that the circus was already there, and that TV has merely demonstrated that not all the performers are well trained.
- Edward R. Murrow