October is breast cancer awareness month. Most people know this already and most people probably also know someone who has had breast cancer. I have at least one close relative who has battled through this form of cancer over the last few years, and had to endure multiple operations as a result. I think we can all agree that breast cancer is life-threatening, devastating to its victims, and absolutely a bad thing. What has bothered me a little in the past, though, is that many of the other cancers do not get the same level of attention and funding that breast cancer gets.
As an example, prostate cancer kills roughly 80% the number of people in the United States every year that breast cancer kills yet it does not receive anywhere near 80% the attention or funding for research that breast cancer receives (prostate cancer incidences, breast cancer incidences). Products all over the grocery store aren't sold in blue packages during prostate awareness month (September, by the way) with proceeds going to research prostate cancer. According to a New York Times article from last year regarding government funding for cancer research, prostate cancer is actually the most common of the cancers, but lung and breast cancers do account for more deaths. Funding is very skewed toward breast cancer when compared to other cancers by almost every measure, however.
A cynical part of me wants to believe that part of the reason that other cancers do not get the attention that breast cancer gets is that our society is obsessed with breasts. In reality, though, I think the modern focus on breasts more of an impact in how difficult the cancer is for the victim to deal with rather than on the attention that is given to it. It would be absurd to suggest that even a significant minority of people who participate in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, for example, do so because they care about one part of the human anatomy more than another. However, there are almost certainly people who participate because of fear or self-image issues a loved one had to deal with due to a mastectomy.
One reason that someone could probably give for all of the focus on breast cancer relative to the other cancers is that it is one type of cancer that can be caught and treated early. I believe that prostate cancer* is probably more important in this regard, though, because men are statistically much less likely to go to their doctors about medical problems they are having than women are. I also suspect that women are statistically much more likely to worry about getting cancer, so they are less likely to need to be made aware that they should be checking for abnormalities that could indicate cancer. If awareness is the goal, it would seem to me that an awareness campaign focused on getting men who weren't going to do so to have their prostates examined would be more effective than one to get women who weren't going to do so to check their breasts for abnormalities.
While I do not know this to be true, I suspect that the focus that breast cancer gets is because it is something unpredictable and scary that affects a large percentage of people's mothers and sisters. If my dad got cancer it would be a very big deal, but he would not talk to the rest of my family about it much simply because most men do not cope by talking things out. Whatever he goes through he does it in silence. By contrast, if my mom got cancer she would cope by talking about it, even though she is not normally much of a talker. I think the constant conversations within families impacted by breast cancer motivates people to take steps to do something about such a devastating disease. Families of men with prostate cancer probably do not talk about it as much, and so they are probably motivated to become active in finding a cure for or raising awareness about this form of cancer. I suspect that this accounts for much of the attention and research funding disparity between the cancers.
In the end I am not trying to say that giving attention to breast cancer and encouraging people to take steps to catch early is a bad thing. I just believe that we should be careful not to focus only on the one type of cancer and neglect awareness and research efforts for the others.
* Update (10/21/2009): I found out this past week that the official guidelines on at least one of the prostate cancer tests recommend not getting the test because the level of cancer found is rarely significant, and the treatments are often worse than the cure. This kind of damages part of my argument, so I felt obliged to add a note about it.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Thursday, October 08, 2009
education
The value of education and the means of improving it has been on my mind quite a bit recently. The two biggest reasons are that NJ is approaching the age where we have to start planning for pre-school and kindergarten and the other is that I have been getting a bit jaded about higher education over the last few years. As is my wont, I am approaching this through a series of disjointed observations and opinions.
Choice
I don't think that there is a right choice for all kids regarding whether they do public schooling, private schooling, homeschooling, or online learning. They all have very distinct advantages and disadvantages, and so that makes the choice a situational thing more than anything else. A lot of people seem to judge others based on the educational choices that they make for their kids. I am not looking forward to that.
Improving Education
Many Republicans want testing in schools and performance-based pay for teachers. Many Democrats want higher wages for teachers and longer school years. Honestly, I think that all of these are red herring options that only make it look like the politicians are fixing something. They all sound great at first blush but every one of the options introduces perverse incentives, solves the wrong problem, or both.
The way I see it none of the traditional steps that politicians take to fix school systems addresses the main problem, which is that people who do not want to learn will not learn. By my observation, the greatest failure of the American educational system is that it drives kids to apathy of the world around them rather than to a love of learning. Going into too much more depth is beyond the scope of this post, but I have identified three causes that drive kids to apathy. The first is that most people do not learn the best in a classroom structure, so forcing kids to sit in a classroom environment every day for hours makes something that is already boring feel futile as well. The second is that kids who have a love of learning are tagged as nerds, so it is actually cooler to not try to learn and to be educationally deficient. The third is that kids who don't feel safe in school are not likely to enjoy being there, so things like social bullying should be taken much more seriously than they generally are.
Another thought regarding improving the educational system is that maybe personal finance should be a required course. I know, it's not like we are going through a horrific recession fueled by excessive debt accrued by people who should not have been approved for the debt in the first place.
Classism and an Inefficient Economy
I really do understand the value of education. I should. I have nearly twenty solid years of education under my belt. That being said, I believe that the focus on education over other forms of learning and knowledge in today's society serves both to re-enforce the class structure and as a drag on the economy. Let me explain.
First, the requirement of a degree to work in, or be taken seriously in, a business environment favors those people who come from families with means. Someone from a below-median wage-earning family who is not awarded many scholarships will probably graduate with significant student loan debt. I can attest from my own experience that few things are more destructive to building a strong financial foundation in a person's twenties, when doing so is the most important, than paying hundreds of dollars every month to Sallie Mae for years on end. The median student loan debt for graduates with BA degrees in 2007-2008 was $17,700. This is significant because the median is not a measure that weights people extremely high levels of student loan debt like the mean would. So, while education itself is not withheld from the poorer masses, the requirement of an education forces those without means into a debt trap that will be destructive to many graduates' net earning power for many years to come. For many, this will also damage their ability to retire since they were paying off debt rather than saving for retirement.
Second, I believe that the focus our culture places on the time spent in education is a drag on the economy as a whole because it leads to inefficient uses of capital that could be better improving the work force. There is a concept called Parkinson's Law which states that work expands to fill the time allowed for completion of that work. Likewise, if those who establish the rules for the educational system decide that four years of schooling is a good time requirement for a bachelor's degree then the degree programs will backfill to meet that arbitrary length of time. Greater thought should be put into making degree programs more efficient and not just require a certain number of classes for the sake of having a certain number of classes. The only reason this system is allowed to exist in this state is that those who make the decisions regarding how the system should be structured also benefit from requiring students to take more classes.
Frankly, I believe that the best way to improve the American work force is, for the types of jobs where this makes sense, focus many more educational resources on apprenticeships and consider restructuring many degree programs to heavily focus on internships/apprenticeships over other elective work. On-the-job training is almost always better than in-the-class training.
Future of Education
The future in nearly every industry is some sort of automation and increased economy of scale. I have said as much already (prediction #10). The same will be true for education as well, though I think it will take a different face. This isn't much of a prediction since it is already starting, but a very serious shift to online schooling at all levels is inevitable. If an online class can cut overhead by allowing thousands of students to attend the same class and assignments automatically graded or graded by lowly-paid TAs, then that school can theoretically offer the same education that a traditional institution does at a lower price. None of this requires technology that does not exist right now, either. Because of this, I actually suspect that the ever-increasing cost of higher education will drop below the level of inflation some time in the near future.
I do not think that traditional elementary and high schools will go the way of the dinosaur and completely disappear. I do believe that they will go the way of the condor, though, and be thinned out. Simply out of necessity one of the main purposes of schools today is to have somewhere for kids to be while parents are working. Most parents are not going to have the choice of keeping the kids at home if they have to work to put food on the table. I think, however, that school districts will learn that teaching kids online is cheaper than teaching them in the classroom and so they will start offering parents incentives keep the kids at home and learn online. This will encourage many of those who have the flexibility to either work from home or quit their jobs and stay at home while the kids do their learning online.
Ultimately, the strongest attacks against online schooling, at least for the elementary through high school level, will be the same that are leveled against home schooling. The argument will be that kids need social time. What will probably happen to keep that from being an issue is that most kids will go through some sort of hybrid program where they learn online certain days of the week and they come into class certain days of the week. Like everything here, though, this is speculation.
Conclusion
Wherever the bright young minds are today is going to be where the innovative adult minds are in a few years. The school system's main goal should be, then, to keep those who have a love of learning from dimming into apathy. This will have to be done in a changing environment where people will learn as much through an Internet connection as they do in a classroom. It's a challenging proposition to say the least, but I am actually optimistic that it will go mostly well.
Choice
I don't think that there is a right choice for all kids regarding whether they do public schooling, private schooling, homeschooling, or online learning. They all have very distinct advantages and disadvantages, and so that makes the choice a situational thing more than anything else. A lot of people seem to judge others based on the educational choices that they make for their kids. I am not looking forward to that.
Improving Education
Many Republicans want testing in schools and performance-based pay for teachers. Many Democrats want higher wages for teachers and longer school years. Honestly, I think that all of these are red herring options that only make it look like the politicians are fixing something. They all sound great at first blush but every one of the options introduces perverse incentives, solves the wrong problem, or both.
The way I see it none of the traditional steps that politicians take to fix school systems addresses the main problem, which is that people who do not want to learn will not learn. By my observation, the greatest failure of the American educational system is that it drives kids to apathy of the world around them rather than to a love of learning. Going into too much more depth is beyond the scope of this post, but I have identified three causes that drive kids to apathy. The first is that most people do not learn the best in a classroom structure, so forcing kids to sit in a classroom environment every day for hours makes something that is already boring feel futile as well. The second is that kids who have a love of learning are tagged as nerds, so it is actually cooler to not try to learn and to be educationally deficient. The third is that kids who don't feel safe in school are not likely to enjoy being there, so things like social bullying should be taken much more seriously than they generally are.
Another thought regarding improving the educational system is that maybe personal finance should be a required course. I know, it's not like we are going through a horrific recession fueled by excessive debt accrued by people who should not have been approved for the debt in the first place.
Classism and an Inefficient Economy
I really do understand the value of education. I should. I have nearly twenty solid years of education under my belt. That being said, I believe that the focus on education over other forms of learning and knowledge in today's society serves both to re-enforce the class structure and as a drag on the economy. Let me explain.
First, the requirement of a degree to work in, or be taken seriously in, a business environment favors those people who come from families with means. Someone from a below-median wage-earning family who is not awarded many scholarships will probably graduate with significant student loan debt. I can attest from my own experience that few things are more destructive to building a strong financial foundation in a person's twenties, when doing so is the most important, than paying hundreds of dollars every month to Sallie Mae for years on end. The median student loan debt for graduates with BA degrees in 2007-2008 was $17,700. This is significant because the median is not a measure that weights people extremely high levels of student loan debt like the mean would. So, while education itself is not withheld from the poorer masses, the requirement of an education forces those without means into a debt trap that will be destructive to many graduates' net earning power for many years to come. For many, this will also damage their ability to retire since they were paying off debt rather than saving for retirement.
Second, I believe that the focus our culture places on the time spent in education is a drag on the economy as a whole because it leads to inefficient uses of capital that could be better improving the work force. There is a concept called Parkinson's Law which states that work expands to fill the time allowed for completion of that work. Likewise, if those who establish the rules for the educational system decide that four years of schooling is a good time requirement for a bachelor's degree then the degree programs will backfill to meet that arbitrary length of time. Greater thought should be put into making degree programs more efficient and not just require a certain number of classes for the sake of having a certain number of classes. The only reason this system is allowed to exist in this state is that those who make the decisions regarding how the system should be structured also benefit from requiring students to take more classes.
Frankly, I believe that the best way to improve the American work force is, for the types of jobs where this makes sense, focus many more educational resources on apprenticeships and consider restructuring many degree programs to heavily focus on internships/apprenticeships over other elective work. On-the-job training is almost always better than in-the-class training.
Future of Education
The future in nearly every industry is some sort of automation and increased economy of scale. I have said as much already (prediction #10). The same will be true for education as well, though I think it will take a different face. This isn't much of a prediction since it is already starting, but a very serious shift to online schooling at all levels is inevitable. If an online class can cut overhead by allowing thousands of students to attend the same class and assignments automatically graded or graded by lowly-paid TAs, then that school can theoretically offer the same education that a traditional institution does at a lower price. None of this requires technology that does not exist right now, either. Because of this, I actually suspect that the ever-increasing cost of higher education will drop below the level of inflation some time in the near future.
I do not think that traditional elementary and high schools will go the way of the dinosaur and completely disappear. I do believe that they will go the way of the condor, though, and be thinned out. Simply out of necessity one of the main purposes of schools today is to have somewhere for kids to be while parents are working. Most parents are not going to have the choice of keeping the kids at home if they have to work to put food on the table. I think, however, that school districts will learn that teaching kids online is cheaper than teaching them in the classroom and so they will start offering parents incentives keep the kids at home and learn online. This will encourage many of those who have the flexibility to either work from home or quit their jobs and stay at home while the kids do their learning online.
Ultimately, the strongest attacks against online schooling, at least for the elementary through high school level, will be the same that are leveled against home schooling. The argument will be that kids need social time. What will probably happen to keep that from being an issue is that most kids will go through some sort of hybrid program where they learn online certain days of the week and they come into class certain days of the week. Like everything here, though, this is speculation.
Conclusion
Wherever the bright young minds are today is going to be where the innovative adult minds are in a few years. The school system's main goal should be, then, to keep those who have a love of learning from dimming into apathy. This will have to be done in a changing environment where people will learn as much through an Internet connection as they do in a classroom. It's a challenging proposition to say the least, but I am actually optimistic that it will go mostly well.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
animal maps
Today's post is just a couple of simple geographic observations I made as a kid that I never really heard anyone else make. I lived within a few hundred yards of Lake Superior between the years when I was five and when I was seven and I have always had a strong interest in maps. As a result, I have seen images of the Great Lakes quite frequently throughout my life. As long as I can remember I have seen some sort of cross between a shark with arms and a genii. I have heard people refer to Lake Superior as a wolf head, but it looks more like a genii/shark hybrid head to me.
Just like the animal I have seen in the shape of the Great Lakes, I have always seen an elephant in the shape of the lower forty-eight states of the United States. New England is the trunk, Florida is a front leg, Texas is the back leg, and it is in the process of simultaneously sitting down and raising its trunk.
So, what do you think? What do you see in these maps? Am I nuts for seeing what I see? Am I deaf for not ever hearing anyone make that observation before? Am I a nerd to get such a kick out of this?
Just like the animal I have seen in the shape of the Great Lakes, I have always seen an elephant in the shape of the lower forty-eight states of the United States. New England is the trunk, Florida is a front leg, Texas is the back leg, and it is in the process of simultaneously sitting down and raising its trunk.So, what do you think? What do you see in these maps? Am I nuts for seeing what I see? Am I deaf for not ever hearing anyone make that observation before? Am I a nerd to get such a kick out of this?
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
to cure or not to cure
I have noted before that I have self-diagnosed protanopia color-blindness. Everything I have read or heard about colorblindness to this point has always emphasized that it is completely untreatable as well. I have never really seen (pun not intended but not avoided, either) this as a big deal. Since I have no clue what I am missing and there has been absolutely no possibility of my experiencing that which I have been missing, I haven't put a lot of thought into possible treatments. Apparently, through the wonders of medical science, I may actually have a possibility of experiencing real colors some time in the future.
I heard a story yesterday about a recently published study where researchers from the University of Washington were able to get two color-blind squirrel monkeys to differentiate reds and greens by injecting them with a virus containing the gene that is deficient in color-blind humans and all squirrel monkeys (story here and here). According to the reports the results took several weeks, but the are still able to see colors two years later.
At this point I am not sure how excited I should be. If this actually turns into a treatment, which I cannot imagine that it would not some time in the future, the question I would have is whether it is worth going through a procedure to fix my color-blindness. It probably would not be a horribly invasive procedure, but I would imagine it would at least initially be relatively expensive.
In college we had representatives of a deaf organization visit one of my classes and I was struck by what one of them noted about her condition. This is just a rough summary, but she said that if she had the choice she would still not choose to get her hearing back because being deaf was who she was. Obviously, deafness is far more impactful on a person's life than color-blindness, so that contrast in my mind does make getting my color-blindness addressed seem a bit more trite.
I can imagine a few valid reasons for having the procedure done. First, if I were ever in my life to consider a career change, it would open a lot more doors. Also, it would help to be able to differentiate colors when people use them to describe people or things (e.g. "Do you see that guy in the red jacket?"). Another consideration is that, since I already know what it is like to be color-blind, I think I would like to know what it is like to have normal vision. I am sure that there is some part of being able to see all of the visible spectrum that would add some unexpected value to my quality of life.
All of that said, I cannot imagine spending a large sum of money on something like this unless I could come up with a good rational reason why seeing a few extra colors is worth the expense. I would not hold back because due to some sense of self-identification with being color-blind, but I would hold back due to valuing other things for which I could use the money over the ability to differentiate a few extra colors. I might also have some concern about potential side effects for a procedure that impacts such an important area of the body.
So, some day in the years ahead I will probably get to decide whether I want to change the way I see the world. At that time I will have to determine if it is really worth it. It wouldn't be a surprise if I decided it wasn't.
I heard a story yesterday about a recently published study where researchers from the University of Washington were able to get two color-blind squirrel monkeys to differentiate reds and greens by injecting them with a virus containing the gene that is deficient in color-blind humans and all squirrel monkeys (story here and here). According to the reports the results took several weeks, but the are still able to see colors two years later.
At this point I am not sure how excited I should be. If this actually turns into a treatment, which I cannot imagine that it would not some time in the future, the question I would have is whether it is worth going through a procedure to fix my color-blindness. It probably would not be a horribly invasive procedure, but I would imagine it would at least initially be relatively expensive.
In college we had representatives of a deaf organization visit one of my classes and I was struck by what one of them noted about her condition. This is just a rough summary, but she said that if she had the choice she would still not choose to get her hearing back because being deaf was who she was. Obviously, deafness is far more impactful on a person's life than color-blindness, so that contrast in my mind does make getting my color-blindness addressed seem a bit more trite.
I can imagine a few valid reasons for having the procedure done. First, if I were ever in my life to consider a career change, it would open a lot more doors. Also, it would help to be able to differentiate colors when people use them to describe people or things (e.g. "Do you see that guy in the red jacket?"). Another consideration is that, since I already know what it is like to be color-blind, I think I would like to know what it is like to have normal vision. I am sure that there is some part of being able to see all of the visible spectrum that would add some unexpected value to my quality of life.
All of that said, I cannot imagine spending a large sum of money on something like this unless I could come up with a good rational reason why seeing a few extra colors is worth the expense. I would not hold back because due to some sense of self-identification with being color-blind, but I would hold back due to valuing other things for which I could use the money over the ability to differentiate a few extra colors. I might also have some concern about potential side effects for a procedure that impacts such an important area of the body.
So, some day in the years ahead I will probably get to decide whether I want to change the way I see the world. At that time I will have to determine if it is really worth it. It wouldn't be a surprise if I decided it wasn't.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
a mind of violence
Just as a warning, this post is a relatively frank assessment of one specific part of the male mind as I see it. The content, other than possibly being blunt, is merely PG in nature. Also, since my mind is male, I feel that I am far more qualified to write on that than something on the female mind. While I am not explicitly requesting this from anyone, I would love to hear assessments from other people on how they believe the minds of people of their gender work.
A lot is made of the focus of sex in the male brain. Not nearly as much is made of the focus of violence. While it may be true that the male brain is more wired for sex than violence, I am not currently convinced that this is the case. I think the drive for violence is more easily masked and diverted than the drive for sex and that is why many diminish the important of violence in the male mind.
First is the most obvious type of mental violence which makes it the easiest to mask. My experience has been that I imagine out violent scenarios to situations quite frequently, and I believe this is something that is common to most or even all other men. This is something that has always been with me, meaning I did not learn it from watching TV and movies, and I do not believe I am alone in this given the content of most action films and comic books. Given how opposed I am to offensive physical violence, that I continue to experience this should carry some significance. This maskable violent imagery is only the most straightforward element of violence in the male mind, though. Just because I imagine violence doesn't mean that anyone has to know about it, but there are other telltale signs of violence in men's minds.
Diverted violence is generally related to a focus or interest in warfare and the elements of warfare and dystopian survival. My observation has been that even many of the most pacifist men have interests of which the appeal is largely due to the similarity to some element of warfare. This can take the form of sports, video games, and business, among other things. For example, football is just a proxy for the actions on a battlefield. It is less obvious than gladiatorial fights were, but all of the symbolic stuff is there. Violence in video games is almost redundant, but even most games that are not violent involve vanquishing a foe. Games that do not involve this are usually designed as crossover games to appeal to women. Finally, the business world is almost entirely structured to be a battle zone. The strong and those supported by the strong (meaning government-supported entities) survive largely by ripping the competition to shreds (I just got a violent mental visualization about that).
Dystopian survival mentality is sort of related to warfare mentality in that my male mind is wired to accept that every once in a while society will destroy itself through warfare and a group of people will have to survive the wilds after it is gone. This is not without some truth. At any given point in time through history there are regions of the world where this is reality. I am not an outdoor sportsman and I do not even own a gun, but I can say that they have some appeal because they would come with the knowledge that I could hunt and fish to provide for my family and shoot to protect my family if society disintegrated.
Since God made most men this way I do not think there is anything naturally evil or wrong about the violence drive as I have described it in the same way that there is nothing naturally evil about the sex drive. The wrongness occurs when the drive for violence goes unchecked and manifests itself destructively. Where that point is where the drive is unchecked is for God to know. I just have to be sure not to reach that point.
A lot is made of the focus of sex in the male brain. Not nearly as much is made of the focus of violence. While it may be true that the male brain is more wired for sex than violence, I am not currently convinced that this is the case. I think the drive for violence is more easily masked and diverted than the drive for sex and that is why many diminish the important of violence in the male mind.
First is the most obvious type of mental violence which makes it the easiest to mask. My experience has been that I imagine out violent scenarios to situations quite frequently, and I believe this is something that is common to most or even all other men. This is something that has always been with me, meaning I did not learn it from watching TV and movies, and I do not believe I am alone in this given the content of most action films and comic books. Given how opposed I am to offensive physical violence, that I continue to experience this should carry some significance. This maskable violent imagery is only the most straightforward element of violence in the male mind, though. Just because I imagine violence doesn't mean that anyone has to know about it, but there are other telltale signs of violence in men's minds.
Diverted violence is generally related to a focus or interest in warfare and the elements of warfare and dystopian survival. My observation has been that even many of the most pacifist men have interests of which the appeal is largely due to the similarity to some element of warfare. This can take the form of sports, video games, and business, among other things. For example, football is just a proxy for the actions on a battlefield. It is less obvious than gladiatorial fights were, but all of the symbolic stuff is there. Violence in video games is almost redundant, but even most games that are not violent involve vanquishing a foe. Games that do not involve this are usually designed as crossover games to appeal to women. Finally, the business world is almost entirely structured to be a battle zone. The strong and those supported by the strong (meaning government-supported entities) survive largely by ripping the competition to shreds (I just got a violent mental visualization about that).
Dystopian survival mentality is sort of related to warfare mentality in that my male mind is wired to accept that every once in a while society will destroy itself through warfare and a group of people will have to survive the wilds after it is gone. This is not without some truth. At any given point in time through history there are regions of the world where this is reality. I am not an outdoor sportsman and I do not even own a gun, but I can say that they have some appeal because they would come with the knowledge that I could hunt and fish to provide for my family and shoot to protect my family if society disintegrated.
Since God made most men this way I do not think there is anything naturally evil or wrong about the violence drive as I have described it in the same way that there is nothing naturally evil about the sex drive. The wrongness occurs when the drive for violence goes unchecked and manifests itself destructively. Where that point is where the drive is unchecked is for God to know. I just have to be sure not to reach that point.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
what it's worth
A few months ago something that was popular with a lot of my Facebook friends was making a point that they would not use Facebook if they had to pay for the service. That's fine. It's their prerogative. It doesn't make much sense to me, though.
I am intrigued by how people value different products and services they buy and use. I have heard of studies (too lazy to look them up right now) that establish that people really have almost no means of independently valuing things, so most people use cues from the less rational areas of the brain to value them. That is why people can value two identical pieces of clothing very differently because they have different labels and why people really thought that hugely inflated house prices from a few years ago were reasonable. People used social cues to value things because the rational cues are lacking.
Going back to Facebook, I think that I would pay for the service so long as the people with whom I cared about keeping in touch also continued to use the service. My position on this should carry some weight because I definitely can be a bit stingy. Facebook certainly has a value to me, and actually much more than some of the other services that I already pay money for. For example, we still get the Kansas City Star on weekends, but I read Facebook much more than I read the Star (I know, I know, I can get news online for free for now, but that's an issue for another post).
My impression is that there are a lot of people who will spend $200 on a cell phone and $100 a month on a data plan to connect to Facebook, among other websites, but they expect that those sites will provide their services for free with minimal advertising and put up a stink at a mere unsubstantiated hint that things could go that way. For now I do not think that Facebook and most other websites can afford the loss of goodwill to make their services paid. Maybe that can last forever and maybe it cannot. Time will tell.
I am intrigued by how people value different products and services they buy and use. I have heard of studies (too lazy to look them up right now) that establish that people really have almost no means of independently valuing things, so most people use cues from the less rational areas of the brain to value them. That is why people can value two identical pieces of clothing very differently because they have different labels and why people really thought that hugely inflated house prices from a few years ago were reasonable. People used social cues to value things because the rational cues are lacking.
Going back to Facebook, I think that I would pay for the service so long as the people with whom I cared about keeping in touch also continued to use the service. My position on this should carry some weight because I definitely can be a bit stingy. Facebook certainly has a value to me, and actually much more than some of the other services that I already pay money for. For example, we still get the Kansas City Star on weekends, but I read Facebook much more than I read the Star (I know, I know, I can get news online for free for now, but that's an issue for another post).
My impression is that there are a lot of people who will spend $200 on a cell phone and $100 a month on a data plan to connect to Facebook, among other websites, but they expect that those sites will provide their services for free with minimal advertising and put up a stink at a mere unsubstantiated hint that things could go that way. For now I do not think that Facebook and most other websites can afford the loss of goodwill to make their services paid. Maybe that can last forever and maybe it cannot. Time will tell.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
magnetism and stupidity
This summer I have been watching Warehouse 13 and old episodes of Sliders. Of the two Warehouse 13 is easily the more well-written but both have some serious plot-development and believability issues, even for science fiction. The problem is that I know that without some of those plot issues there really wouldn't be good storyline to follow. So, do I gripe about it or accept it for what it is? I am still working out what standard to use for what is sloppy storytelling and what is just me nitpicking.
As one example that I have seen repeated many times in TV and the movies, including the usually very well-written Lost last season, the last episode of Warehouse 13 had a scene where a character was wearing a magnetic coat and metallic objects slowly inched their way toward her before flying at her. Anyone who has played around with magnets for more than five minutes knows, though, that the region of space between where an object will not move toward a magnet and where it will move very quickly is small. Metallic objects do not visibly inch toward magnets. They either stay still or they move very quickly.
The magnet thing is just something that irritates my geeky side. I know that most people would not care. Something that is a bit less geeky that gets at me, though, is when characters behave in unrealistically stupid ways just to move the plot along. In Sliders the concept is that the main characters move from dimension to dimension seeing alternate worlds. No matter how many times they run into situations that are far different than they appear on the surface throughout the series at least one character will make serious assumptions based on the face value of a situation and do something stupid as a result in each episode. Somehow the characters have forgotten everything they learned in their experiences in the previous umpteen dimensions that they visited.
Since I generally life science fiction I should probably just buck it up to some extent. If I can accept the premise of a show that is about jumping dimensions or about collecting artifacts that have almost magical behavior, then I probably should not get too bothered if the magnets in that story don't behave like I expect them to.
As one example that I have seen repeated many times in TV and the movies, including the usually very well-written Lost last season, the last episode of Warehouse 13 had a scene where a character was wearing a magnetic coat and metallic objects slowly inched their way toward her before flying at her. Anyone who has played around with magnets for more than five minutes knows, though, that the region of space between where an object will not move toward a magnet and where it will move very quickly is small. Metallic objects do not visibly inch toward magnets. They either stay still or they move very quickly.
The magnet thing is just something that irritates my geeky side. I know that most people would not care. Something that is a bit less geeky that gets at me, though, is when characters behave in unrealistically stupid ways just to move the plot along. In Sliders the concept is that the main characters move from dimension to dimension seeing alternate worlds. No matter how many times they run into situations that are far different than they appear on the surface throughout the series at least one character will make serious assumptions based on the face value of a situation and do something stupid as a result in each episode. Somehow the characters have forgotten everything they learned in their experiences in the previous umpteen dimensions that they visited.
Since I generally life science fiction I should probably just buck it up to some extent. If I can accept the premise of a show that is about jumping dimensions or about collecting artifacts that have almost magical behavior, then I probably should not get too bothered if the magnets in that story don't behave like I expect them to.
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