The concept:
Whether an idea is commonly supported, well researched, etc., doesn't always tell you very much about it's truth.
What that tells you is that someone finds that idea profitable.
The explanation:
I have a friend who is a New York Yankees fan. However, when the New York Yankees win the world series, he doesn't bother to call and brag. He knows what I would say.
I would say, "so what? They outspend almost everyone. It takes more than that to impress me."
The funny thing is that I feel the same way about ideas. There is a "degree of difficulty" which I place on any new information I come across. This degree of difficulty tells me how to react to it.
In politics, my thinking works like this:
The court of public opinion is much like a regular court. Each side in a debate, or point of view, finds an intelligent speaker to present their point of view.
Much like a court of law, those with more money hire more people and better speakers to present their case.
Unlike a court of law, there is no requirement that both sides get to speak. On tv, those without the ability and desire to pay, don't speak.
Therefore
Since there is more money to be made by arguing for the interests of the wealthy than there is in arguing for justice, fairness, and empathy, those arguments will be made more often in public.
Since there is more money to be made researching ideas that support the powerful, ideas that support the powerful will be studied more often, and supported by more data.
Examples:
T
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Local Tutoring Numbers and Websites
Huntington
Kumon
Autry
Apple Tutoring and Learning Center
Sylvan
Crescendo
Kumon
Autry
Apple Tutoring and Learning Center
Sylvan
Crescendo
Friday, October 15, 2010
Practice- Podcast Notes
What do we know about practice?
1. Ericcson's study of human expertise finds that the biggest contributor to human excellence is deliberate practice.
2. Csikszentmihalyi's study of flow says that we must attempt tasks of appropriate levels of difficulty in order to get "lost" in an activity, in order to get flow.
3. Practice must be deliberate. Practice must be toward a goal.
4. Practice must be regular. You can't cram for a physical fitness test.
5. Practice must have feedback.
6. You can practice too much.
7. Practice is not self-motivating.
1. Ericcson's study of human expertise finds that the biggest contributor to human excellence is deliberate practice.
2. Csikszentmihalyi's study of flow says that we must attempt tasks of appropriate levels of difficulty in order to get "lost" in an activity, in order to get flow.
3. Practice must be deliberate. Practice must be toward a goal.
4. Practice must be regular. You can't cram for a physical fitness test.
5. Practice must have feedback.
6. You can practice too much.
7. Practice is not self-motivating.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Local Writing Center Websites
Cincinnati State Writing Center-
http://www.cincinnatistate.edu/real-world-academics/student-services/writing-center
Raymond Walters Writing Center-
http://www.rwc.uc.edu/writing_center/index.html
513-745-5733
Xavier University Human Resources
http://www.xavier.edu/hr/jobs/index.cfm
Xavier University Writing Center
http://www.xavier.edu/writing_center/
513-745-2875
Thomas More College Writing Center
http://www.thomasmore.edu/english/writing_center.cfm?group2=Writing%20Center
859-341-5800
writingcenter@thomasmore.edu.
NKU Writing Center
http://lap.nku.edu/writingcenter/index.php
(859) 572-5475. Office hours are M-F, 8:15 am to 4:30 pm, though tutoring can occur in the Center till 7:00 pm, M-R.
College Reading and Learning Association
http://www.crla.net/
Ohio State Writing Center
http://cstw.osu.edu/writingcenter
614-688-4291.
Dr. Doug Dangler, Writing Center Coordinator
485B Mendenhall Lab
Office: (614) 292-1308
Email: dangler.6@osu.edu
Ohio State University at Lima Writing Center
http://lima.osu.edu/academics/writing/
The Writing Center Directory
http://web.stcloudstate.edu/writeplace/wcd/us/ohio.html
Care.com
http://www.care.com/tutoring-melanie-p1087-q1554.html#utm_content=&utm_medium=online&utm_campaign=Seekers_Tutoring&utm_source=superpages&utm_term=tutoring&
http://www.cincinnatistate.edu/real-world-academics/student-services/writing-center
Raymond Walters Writing Center-
http://www.rwc.uc.edu/writing_center/index.html
513-745-5733
Xavier University Human Resources
http://www.xavier.edu/hr/jobs/index.cfm
Xavier University Writing Center
http://www.xavier.edu/writing_center/
513-745-2875
Thomas More College Writing Center
http://www.thomasmore.edu/english/writing_center.cfm?group2=Writing%20Center
859-341-5800
writingcenter@thomasmore.edu.
NKU Writing Center
http://lap.nku.edu/writingcenter/index.php
(859) 572-5475. Office hours are M-F, 8:15 am to 4:30 pm, though tutoring can occur in the Center till 7:00 pm, M-R.
College Reading and Learning Association
http://www.crla.net/
Ohio State Writing Center
http://cstw.osu.edu/writingcenter
614-688-4291.
Dr. Doug Dangler, Writing Center Coordinator
485B Mendenhall Lab
Office: (614) 292-1308
Email: dangler.6@osu.edu
Ohio State University at Lima Writing Center
http://lima.osu.edu/academics/writing/
The Writing Center Directory
http://web.stcloudstate.edu/writeplace/wcd/us/ohio.html
Care.com
http://www.care.com/tutoring-melanie-p1087-q1554.html#utm_content=&utm_medium=online&utm_campaign=Seekers_Tutoring&utm_source=superpages&utm_term=tutoring&
Thursday, October 7, 2010
MLA Podcast Notes
MLA Podcast
Like a secret handshake for English teachers.
Like showing up to a job interview in a business suit.
I. Who?
II. Why?
a. Accidental standard - ("proper English" was one dialect that became privileged)
b. Deliberate Standard - When websites became important, a standard needed to be developed.
III. Why? Audience Issues
a. students
b. English teachers
Like a secret handshake for English teachers.
Like showing up to a job interview in a business suit.
I. Who?
II. Why?
a. Accidental standard - ("proper English" was one dialect that became privileged)
b. Deliberate Standard - When websites became important, a standard needed to be developed.
III. Why? Audience Issues
a. students
b. English teachers
Sunday, October 3, 2010
The Wisdom of Crowds
by James Surowiecki
In that sense, Gustave Le Bon had things exactly backward. If you put together a big enough and diverse enough group of people and ask them to "make decisions affecting matters of general interest," that group's decisions will, over time, be "intellectually [superior] to the isolated individual," no matter how smart of well-informed he is. -introduction, xvii
As sociologists Jack B. Soll and Richard Larrick put it, we feel the need to "chase the expert." The argument of this book is that chasing the expert is a mistake, and a costly one at that. We should stop hunting and ask the crowd (which, of course, includes the geniuses as well as everyone else) instead. Chances are, it knows. -xv
[The book concentrates on three kinds of problems. 1. Cognition problems- problems where a definite answer will be known. 2. Coordination problems- How do members of a group figure out how to coordinate their behavior with each other? (for example, driving laws) 3. Cooperation problems- the challenge of getting self-interested, distrustful people to work together.]
Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromise. -xix
Tellingly, they quoted the Cornell economist Maureen O'Hara, who has said, "While markets appear to work in practice, we are not sure how they work in theory." -9
[Talking about the speed of the market's reaction to the challenger disaster... The market made one company's stock tumble the most.]
The market was smart that day because it satisfied the four conditions that characterize wise crowds: diversity of opinion (each person should have some private information, even if it's just an eccentric interpretation of known facts), independence (people's opinions are not determined by the opinions of those around them), decentralization (people are able to specialize and draw on local knowledge), and aggregation (some mechanism exists for turning private judgments into a collective decision). If a group satisfies those conditions, its judgment is likely to be accurate. -10
After all, think about what happens if you ask a hundred people to run a 100-meter race, and then average their times. The average time will not be better than the time of the fastest runners. It will be worse. It will be a mediocre time. But ask a hundred people to answer a question or solve a problem, and the average answer will often be at least as good as the answer of the smartest member. With most things, the average is mediocrity. With decision making, it's often excellence. -11
What makes a system successful is its ability to recognize losers and kill them quickly. Or, rather, what makes a system successful is its ability to generate lots of losers and then to recognize them as such and kill them off. Sometimes the messiest approach is the wisest. -29
The point of Page's[Scott Page] experiment is that diversity is, on its own, valuable, so that the simple fact of making a group diverse makes it better at problem solving. -30
Finally, we seek out experts because we get, as the writer Nassim Taleb asserts, "fooled by randomness." If there are enough people out there making predictions, a few of them are going to compile an impressive record over time. That does not mean that the record was the product of skill, nor does it mean that the record will continue into the future. -36
Corporations, after all, are supposed to be maximizing their profits. That means their business practices are their strategic choices should be rationally determined, not shaped by history or by unwritten cultural rules. And yet the odd thing is that convention has a profound effect on economic life and on the way companies do business. -97
A scientist does not enter his lab as a blank slate, waiting to hear what the data will tell him. Instead he enters it as someone whose understanding of what problems are interesting, what problems can be solved, and what problems are interesting, what problems can be solved, and what problems should be solved has been shaped by the interests (in both senses of the word) of his community. -165
A successful hypothesis is a hypothesis that most scientists find credible, not a hypothesis that most scientists have tested for themselves and found to be true. -169
Social scientists who study juries often differentiate between two approaches juries take. Evidence-based juries usually don't even take a vote until after they've spent some time talking over the case, sifting through the evidence, and explicitly contemplating alternative explanations. Verdict-based juries, by contrast, see their mission as reaching a decision as quickly and decisively as possible. -178
This matters because all the evidence suggests that the order in which people speak has a profound effect on the course of a discussion. Earlier comments are more influential, and they tend to provide a framework within which the discussion occurs. -186
If you talk a lot in a group, people will tend to think of you as influential almost by default. Talkative people are not necessarily well liked by other members of the group, but they are listened to. -187
Another study of fifty-two middle managers found that there was a correlation between upward mobility and not telling the boss about things that had gone wrong. The most successful executives tended not to disclose information about fights, budget problems, and so on. -205
But the old corporate model and what happened to it are still worth paying attention to because in some deep way the assumptions that underwrote that model--that integration, hierarchy, and the concentration of power in a few hands lead to success--continue to exert a powerful hold on much of American business. -207
The idea of the wisdom of crowds is not that a group will always give you the right answer but that on average it will consistently come up with a better answer than any individual could provide. -235
. . . you don't see bubbles in the real economy, which is to say the economy where you buy and sell television sets and apples and haircuts. In other words, the price of televisions doesn't suddenly double overnight, only to crash a few months later. -245
As Richard Posner puts it: "Experts constitute a distinct class in society, with values and perspectives that differ systematically from those of ordinary people. Without supposing that the man in the street has any penetrating insights denied the expert, or is immune from demagoguery, we may nevertheless think it reassuring that political power is shared between experts and nonexperts rather than being a monopoly of the former." -268
In that sense, Gustave Le Bon had things exactly backward. If you put together a big enough and diverse enough group of people and ask them to "make decisions affecting matters of general interest," that group's decisions will, over time, be "intellectually [superior] to the isolated individual," no matter how smart of well-informed he is. -introduction, xvii
As sociologists Jack B. Soll and Richard Larrick put it, we feel the need to "chase the expert." The argument of this book is that chasing the expert is a mistake, and a costly one at that. We should stop hunting and ask the crowd (which, of course, includes the geniuses as well as everyone else) instead. Chances are, it knows. -xv
[The book concentrates on three kinds of problems. 1. Cognition problems- problems where a definite answer will be known. 2. Coordination problems- How do members of a group figure out how to coordinate their behavior with each other? (for example, driving laws) 3. Cooperation problems- the challenge of getting self-interested, distrustful people to work together.]
Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromise. -xix
Tellingly, they quoted the Cornell economist Maureen O'Hara, who has said, "While markets appear to work in practice, we are not sure how they work in theory." -9
[Talking about the speed of the market's reaction to the challenger disaster... The market made one company's stock tumble the most.]
The market was smart that day because it satisfied the four conditions that characterize wise crowds: diversity of opinion (each person should have some private information, even if it's just an eccentric interpretation of known facts), independence (people's opinions are not determined by the opinions of those around them), decentralization (people are able to specialize and draw on local knowledge), and aggregation (some mechanism exists for turning private judgments into a collective decision). If a group satisfies those conditions, its judgment is likely to be accurate. -10
After all, think about what happens if you ask a hundred people to run a 100-meter race, and then average their times. The average time will not be better than the time of the fastest runners. It will be worse. It will be a mediocre time. But ask a hundred people to answer a question or solve a problem, and the average answer will often be at least as good as the answer of the smartest member. With most things, the average is mediocrity. With decision making, it's often excellence. -11
What makes a system successful is its ability to recognize losers and kill them quickly. Or, rather, what makes a system successful is its ability to generate lots of losers and then to recognize them as such and kill them off. Sometimes the messiest approach is the wisest. -29
The point of Page's[Scott Page] experiment is that diversity is, on its own, valuable, so that the simple fact of making a group diverse makes it better at problem solving. -30
Finally, we seek out experts because we get, as the writer Nassim Taleb asserts, "fooled by randomness." If there are enough people out there making predictions, a few of them are going to compile an impressive record over time. That does not mean that the record was the product of skill, nor does it mean that the record will continue into the future. -36
Corporations, after all, are supposed to be maximizing their profits. That means their business practices are their strategic choices should be rationally determined, not shaped by history or by unwritten cultural rules. And yet the odd thing is that convention has a profound effect on economic life and on the way companies do business. -97
A scientist does not enter his lab as a blank slate, waiting to hear what the data will tell him. Instead he enters it as someone whose understanding of what problems are interesting, what problems can be solved, and what problems are interesting, what problems can be solved, and what problems should be solved has been shaped by the interests (in both senses of the word) of his community. -165
A successful hypothesis is a hypothesis that most scientists find credible, not a hypothesis that most scientists have tested for themselves and found to be true. -169
Social scientists who study juries often differentiate between two approaches juries take. Evidence-based juries usually don't even take a vote until after they've spent some time talking over the case, sifting through the evidence, and explicitly contemplating alternative explanations. Verdict-based juries, by contrast, see their mission as reaching a decision as quickly and decisively as possible. -178
This matters because all the evidence suggests that the order in which people speak has a profound effect on the course of a discussion. Earlier comments are more influential, and they tend to provide a framework within which the discussion occurs. -186
If you talk a lot in a group, people will tend to think of you as influential almost by default. Talkative people are not necessarily well liked by other members of the group, but they are listened to. -187
Another study of fifty-two middle managers found that there was a correlation between upward mobility and not telling the boss about things that had gone wrong. The most successful executives tended not to disclose information about fights, budget problems, and so on. -205
But the old corporate model and what happened to it are still worth paying attention to because in some deep way the assumptions that underwrote that model--that integration, hierarchy, and the concentration of power in a few hands lead to success--continue to exert a powerful hold on much of American business. -207
The idea of the wisdom of crowds is not that a group will always give you the right answer but that on average it will consistently come up with a better answer than any individual could provide. -235
. . . you don't see bubbles in the real economy, which is to say the economy where you buy and sell television sets and apples and haircuts. In other words, the price of televisions doesn't suddenly double overnight, only to crash a few months later. -245
As Richard Posner puts it: "Experts constitute a distinct class in society, with values and perspectives that differ systematically from those of ordinary people. Without supposing that the man in the street has any penetrating insights denied the expert, or is immune from demagoguery, we may nevertheless think it reassuring that political power is shared between experts and nonexperts rather than being a monopoly of the former." -268
Long Term TO DO LIST
1. Address sliding porch doors
2. Grout and caulk in the bathroom/ tile
3. Scan my photos with the digital scanner
4. Set up a new list of bookmarks
5. Test audacity as a recording software
6. Post an ad on craigslist
7. Apply with tutoring services
8. Talk to unemployment about the poll worker gig
9. Replace a light socket
10. Add a light socket
2. Grout and caulk in the bathroom/ tile
3. Scan my photos with the digital scanner
4. Set up a new list of bookmarks
5. Test audacity as a recording software
6. Post an ad on craigslist
7. Apply with tutoring services
8. Talk to unemployment about the poll worker gig
9. Replace a light socket
10. Add a light socket
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