The Myth of Talent

Scott Young has written an awesome short post about The Myth of Talent. This prevalent thought in our society that unless you find yourself already pretty able to do certain things well, you will never be able to master them. I think the most obvious case of this myth is the amount of mathophobia that has been present in our society for quite some time.

You hear quite often, "I am not a math person". What the hell does this mean? Personally, I cringe when I hear this. Yet another person has obviously been suckered in by the myth that if they had sat down and practiced the hell out of their long division and had a teacher that taught the theory as well as wrote memorization, they would still come out of it knowing just as much math as they currently do. This is nonsense!

There are many scientific studies to this effect. This one has a great quote that I will share from Anders Ericsson, the professor of psychology at Florida State University in Tallahassee, "...it isn't magic, and it isn't born. It happens because some critical things line up so that a person of good intelligence can put in the sustained, focused effort it takes to achieve extraordinary mastery. These people don't necessarily have an especially high IQ, but they almost always have very supportive environments, and they almost always have important mentors. And the one thing they always have is this incredible investment of effort."

This myth of talent has implications far beyond mere math skills. It seems that this subject really cuts the population into two groups: those who believe that they can achieve anything they want to, and those who think their lot in life is set and just go through the motions. Now I strongly place myself in the first group because this is a genuine belief of mine that I could master any skill or subject with enough honest practice. The hard part is committing yourself to putting in the hours, every week, needed to excel at something.

Enjoying Music Online

Wow do I love Pandora! No I am not talking about the Swedish dance queen, Pandora, nor the Mexican trio, Pandora, seen to the right.

From their FAQ:

Q: What is Pandora?

Pandora is a music discovery service designed to help you enjoy music you already know, and to help you discover new music you'll love.

It's powered by the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken, the Music Genome Project: a crazy project started back in early 2000 to capture the complex musical DNA of songs using a large team of highly-trained musicians.

Just tell us one of your favorite songs or artists and we'll launch a streaming station to explore that part of the musical universe.

This service is beautiful and effortless as it serves up an entire genres' worth of tasty tunes that you can specify and switch with the click of the button. No more hunting for that amazing playlist you made last year or relying on the random feature of your favorite media player to satisfy your eclectic tastes. Just type in the artist you want to hear and Pandora serves up unlimited hours of music similar in style.

Now you would think that this type of service might turn up a lot of duds within the genre, which can happen, but it has wonderful customization options that can tell it that you dislike a song and it will factor that into what it plays from then on (on that station at least). You can also tell it which songs rock and these will come up more often along with similar songs.

The free version will allow you all the features of the paid version just with advertising on the actual page but I haven't seen a single ad yet thanks to AdBlock Plus.

You can also capture every song on Pandora (along with other nifty features) with the handy Pandora's Jar. Pandora's Jar also works with the similar service, Last.fm which I have yet to explore. If you are looking strictly for great Electronica, another source is the consistently good, Proton Radio.

A few of my favorite stations on Pandora?

• Bonobo
• Cut Chemist
• Bebel Gilberto
• Ulrich Schnauss
• Make Love (by Daft Punk)
• Chemical Brothers

Some songs I have discovered and liked so much that I bookmarked them:

• Heat The Pot by Dreadzone
• Life, Rain, Fall by TM Juke
• Beat The Clock by Bob Sinclair
• Something In My Eye by Corduroy
• F*** Me On The Dancefloor by Disco D Ft. Princess Superstar
• Facing The Sun by Teebee, Maldini & Vegas
• Transmission by Replica
  
  
  Where do you find music?

Absurdism as a rule

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.

- Dr. Seuss

I can't remember where I found this quote, but it really rings true with me. Around 11th grade I had a gradual shift in my life whereby I realized how much better off I was when I embraced the weirdest thoughts that flooded my brain. Before this point in my life I had been far too wrapped up in trying to act normal. I think it was mostly about wanting to have sex with the "hot" girls.

I must have thought that if I bought an Abercrombie hoodie and, and..... what? I can't even remember what the hell I thought I was fitting into and how I was going about it, but it was smooth sailing once I realized that I could be weird as hell and there were other people that really got a kick out of the bizarre as well (including some different hot girls!). Lately it seems that examples of amazing absurdity can be seen more and more frequently in the pop culture sphere. 


Take for example two new shows on the notoriously wierd Adult Swim line-up on Cartoon Network, Tim & Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job! and Saul of the Mole Men. 

You can watch the episodes that aired tonight on Adult Swim's Fix.

My favorite segment from the premiere episode that aired last week can be found on the indispensable YouTube below:





What is the most absurd thing you have seen lately?

How to Change Anybody (Part 1)

Can people ever truly change? I think so.

I just started listening to the audio book version of How to Change Anybody by one David J Lieberman. I almost finished the first of three CDs before the sound card in my laptop apparently reached the culmination of its lifetime of destitute servitude, slaving away inside this ugly plastic case that Dell has been kind enough to provide for the world.

Lieberman starts off with the statement that anyone can change their beliefs. He breaks someone's character down into beliefs and values. Our beliefs are used to justify our past and to rationalize our current behavior. Values can be broken down into mean values and end values, with the mean values being those that eventually lead to the end values. So if someone's end value is happiness, their mean value might be money, it might be power, but as long as it can be identified, it can be changed. All one needs to do is reshape the belief that connects these two values together. This can happen naturally when someone makes a lot of money and realizes that this alone, has not lead to the predicted end value of happiness or respect. He doesn't elaborate on this too much, but instead goes right into the situation specific tactics for changing someone's behavior.

The first area he tackles is morals. If someone lacks a strong moral compass, it can severely hinder progress and development in life. The more insightful of these tactics was the image consistency and raising the bar strategies. Image consistency refers to the situation of someone attributing positive qualities to us, which we then try and maintain in their eyes for as long as possible. He uses the example of a man who gets praised mightily by a distant relative who has come to visit, even if he never raises a finger to help his close family. This effect seems to be magnified the shorter the relationship has lasted. When I heard that, my mind did one of those gears clicking into place things where I felt like I had seen some very concrete examples of that in my own life.

(quick metaphysical digression, I am also reading Alan Watts' The Supreme Identity, wherein he writes that, “...just as one cannot reach the sky by climbing, so the metaphysical infinity is not attainable through degrees of analogical knowledge. This is why it is always more exact to say that intellectual knowledge is realized rather than attained, because the word 'realization' implies the discovery of something already present or given. The sky appears to be above us, but we are in fact living in its midst (emphasis mine).”)

The raising the bar strategy refers to the act of praising someone lavishly instead of chastising them when they do something wrong. Only after you have given sufficient praise should you then inform them that the behavior that they were using is unacceptable, that way you are criticizing the behavior and not the person. This seems very legitimate considering how poorly most people take even the lightest criticism.

Lieberman also tackles the issue of loyalty and how to inspire it in your coworkers, friends, and customers. He first advises that if you have someone who shows disdain or negativity, that you bring him or her to you side by entrusting them with a small, but singular responsibility and provide them with a measure of power. Once you raise someone else up to be a compatriot instead of a servant, they will start to fight your battles for you.

His most powerful advice in this section on loyalty basically advises that loyalty will come if people believe they are a part of greatness. This gets achieved by letting out the greatness in your heart and demonstrating that you are willing to do what is right even if there is an easier path available. He used the example of a CEO coming down and picking up trash off the workroom floor inspiring the workers to do the same and even more. Another example he used was if you are playing a card game and someone gets accused of cheating against you, if you defend them instead of only arguing for your side, people will see that you are taking a position that is unfavorable to you and this will command much more trust and loyalty.

This is getting pretty long so I think I will make this Part 1 of this review/synopsis. Join me next time!

Uncertainty & Hope in the 21st Century

Hey Folks, here is what I was working on this weekend instead of another blog post. An essay I submitted for a scholarship through the UW system. You can read about the scholarship here .

As the world hurtles full speed ahead into the 21st century we humans face crippling uncertainty. Potential college students think they will secure for themselves a life of gainful employment by choosing a specific track and fastidiously maintaining a high grade point average. The truth is that we are entering into a period of instability that hasn't been seen since before the first World War. Rampant globalization has led to a surge in outsourcing labor, the rise of the decentralized workplace, and the depreciation of the dollar. These complex developments have left countless citizens facing unemployment. This uncertain cultural situation brought on by such developments will necessitate an evolution in thought within the populace. No longer will a dogged approach to one’s labor niche be enough to guarantee even a modest, comfortable lifestyle. The soon-to-be-twenty-something undergraduate population faces a decision: either to dip into one's store of creativity and serve up something of genuine value or drown in a sea of banality, struggling to work as hard as possible while producing superficial, ultimately unimportant work.

A well-rounded liberal arts education may be the only defense against this type of instability. More and more students are realizing the need for a diverse education in today's world. A liberal arts path offers the chance for significant personal development not only in knowledge, but also in efficiency and novelty of thought. This naturally leads to a development of the most marketable trait for the future: adaptability. The ability to change to fit circumstances, to learn new skills quickly, will be of paramount importance in the shaky years ahead. Those who have realized this fact are commonly shunning the status quo of the 20th century, favoring instead new models of entrepreneurship harnessing the freedom, cost effectiveness, and speed afforded, for example, by the worldwide web.

The exponential surge in technological innovation, exemplified by the Internet, will continue unabated - and the ways in which this changes traditional business models have only begun to manifest. We have already seen the emergence of literal overnight success that was unthinkable only two decades ago. The web has created an environment that disposes with the need to fund expensive marketing strategies. The market of today has seen the replacement of traditional advertising, instead harnessing the power of word-of-mouth communication inherent in the blogging and social networking in which nearly every youth in America now engages. The potential for rapid growth allowed within this new explosive information age has yet to be fully understood but it is easily observed in many examples including Myspace, Youtube, and Google. As technology continues to evolve, it will be reliably proven time and again that money can be scooped up out of the river of wealth simply by focusing on creative output and effective marketing.

Traditional barriers to success like socio-economic status, race, and gender are dissolving in the absence of skilled, enthusiastic young minds. If one can manage to overcome the oppressive sense of laziness and ennui frequently burdening the youth of today, there is an entire new world of possibilities available with new innovations able to spring to life in a fraction of the time it would have taken at any other period in history. Sadly this technology has become a double-edged sword. With it has come a flood of information and perspective, but it seems to possess just as torrential an effect at leaving folks in a daze; gawking at their own inability to inspect more closely all of the various interesting things happening every day. It is now nearly impossible to keep up with a learning curve growing exponentially steeper; the more one learns, the more one finds to learn about. There must therefore be a paradigm shift in the way a liberal arts education gets utilized. As Robert Heinlein said, “specialization is for insects”. Students of the liberal arts need to resist emphasis on specialization. We must connect disparate ideas and refine our thinking so as to be able to stand out as creative free thinkers not only in today's overly crowded job market, but also in the connected world of the future.

The options available for my generation are less than fluid, but we must not forget to assiduously consider the generations to come. I want my children to receive the liberal arts education afforded to me. I want my children to grow up able to draw their own conclusions, able to get the facts and the fiction and be able to tell which is which: a son who will look me in the eyes and disagree with the conviction of someone who has considered the options, a daughter who will have access to the vast knowledge of humankind past and present, to knowledge of the true variety of experience available on this planet. A liberal arts education teaches this critical thought through stimulating minds with fresh and ancient ideas alike; ideas which build a critical, fruitful mind that capitalizes on every situation and recognizes failure as the opportunity it provides and not the momentary consequences it delivers. A liberal arts education acts as a springboard into the pool of the human spirit, a foundation upon which the fertile soil of young minds may grow and nourish any number of careers, hobbies, and passions. Ironically, a liberal arts education prepares us precisely for the uncertain future we face by stimulating knowledge in a diverse array of fields; because every thought, every idea absorbed may one day factor into a paramount decision.

Open Source, DIY, & Face Yoga

Face Yoga? Hell yes! I have participated in this my entire life as I am a frequent yawner and eye-widener. I also discovered the eye exercises mentioned here years ago and have tried to incorporate them into my life. Basically, the advice I read said to look into the most extreme diagonal corners of your vision alternating opposite sides; so:
up to your right, down to your left, up to your left, down to your right. It also recommended holding an object or just using your hand for something to focus on in those corners of your sight for even greater benefit.

I used to drive down 10 miles of highway every single day when I was going to high school and when I was bored I would sometimes practice the focus technique by focusing on something on the horizon and then focusing on the dirt or bug brains on my windshield. Doing this back and forth for a while will make your eyes slightly sore and may distract you from the road so don't blame me if you hit granny going to get her mail while strengthening your vision!

Another thing to look at for improving vision is the controversial Bates Method endorsed by the amazing Aldous Huxley.

On the Open Source Front:

Paris LOVES the open source! They are giving away 175,000 USB Drives loaded with open source software like firefox and openoffice (I assume, it doesn't specify the office suite)

Princeton library joins Google Books project
While Google definitely has some ulterior motives to many of their projects, I can't help but love them for trying to digitize every piece of literature ever. The addition of the Princeton Library will add thousands of pieces of knowledge to the fingertips of anyone with an internet connection.

I would also like to point out how much I endorse the new Do It Yourself (DIY) movement taking place thanks to the likes of people like MAKE & Instructables. A cool DIY item I found today is Make Your Own Febreeze!

I love Febreeze for its skip-the-washing-machine-when-all-that's-nasty-is-cig-smell abilities.

More on Open Source

I suppose I should bring some more clarity to the philosophy of open source that I claim to loosely base this blog on.

This might be best achieved by some examples:

You can't talk about open source without mentioning Linux. Linux remains one of the few alternatives to Microsoft and Apple in the desktop environment. From Wikipedia, "Its underlying source code is available for anyone to use, modify, and redistribute freely, and in some instances the entire operating system consists of free/open source software." Linux has been the territory of only the nerdiest geeks for a long time but the emergence of user-friendly packaged distributions like Ubuntu has led to Linux becoming a viable alternative for the average computer user fed up with proprietary nonsense.

If you want to do something on a computer there is almost always going to be an open source solution already developed for exactly that purpose. Someone named Jason has compiled an awesome list of open source software for replacing windows software.

Some of my fav's

Firefox (web browser)

OpenOffice (Office Suite)
Completely replaces and can handle all powerpoint, spreadsheet, and word processing tasks with ease and greater compatibility.

Gaim (Instant Messenger)
Chat on any service - AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN, Jabber, ICQ - with this multi-platform, tabbed IM client.

Don't think that this is just limited to computer software though. An amazing humanitarian cause can reap huge benefits from this model. The Open Architecture Network is one such cause. According to this article,

The Open Architecture Network is a collaborative database which Architecture for Humanity hopes will make it easy for architects, designers and engineers from around the world to freely share their work, evaluate and modify existing solutions, and collaborate around new approaches. Think of it as the Wikipedia of humanitarian design, the first big step towards open source design.

With a coalition of sponsors and partners, including Sun, Architecture for Humanity built and is starting to test a system designed to be not just a repository of good ideas, but a tool for collaboration and research. Users will be able, Cameron says, to search existing ideas based on a number of criteria (such as, say, "housing, affordable, tropical, community-designed, passive solar, bamboo materials) and the ratings of other users.

As you can see, there are very few, if any, problems that don't benefit from an open source design! Got any counter examples? Post 'em in the comments.

Introduction to BitTorrent Technology

Since many of my blog post ideas would involve referencing it, I thought I would write up an introduction to BitTorrent technology.

According to bittorrent.com, BitTorrent is a peer-assisted, digital content delivery platform that provides the fastest, most efficient means of distributing, discovering, and consuming large, high-quality files on the Web.

This is mostly marketing terminology for the purpose of giving business men erections.

Let me take you back in time.

Around the end of 8th grade I was still watching MTV whenever I could go to someone's house with cable (the cable co. stopped service a mile from our house). One day, while consuming this amazing array of advertising, I saw a beautiful woman interviewing some forgotten recording artist about his opinion on Napster. Well upon hearing this buzzword I searched for it on the web that very night and thus was my introduction to illegal file sharing borne.



Mind you my parents' computer was still crawling along the web with a 28.8 kbps phone line connection until only a couple years ago. So, slowly I started collecting a large mass of single, low-quality mp3 files through the magic of Napster.

Napster didn't remain the single content provider for long before Morpheus showed up, and then there was Kazaa, and more recently Limewire has been the client of choice for those seeking to plug in a search term for their favorite pop ditty and get immediate (if greatly varying in quality) results.

Now we are back in the present again and Limewire still commands a lot of loyal users, but those who are serious about their music (or movies, games, software, porn) know that bittorrent is the only way to fly (or trade files).

Here is the man who created bittorrent just for reference.



Now in order to use this amazing service, one simply needs a bittorrent client program, a tracker website, and an internet connection.

Here is a cute graphic from the bittorrent.com site

Now the way it works is: the content (music) is on someone else's computer, they use software to create a very small .torrent file, this file then goes up on a tracker page (the delivery), when you download the .torrent file, it lets your client software see where those files are on that other person's computer and it proceeds to download them promptly onto your hard drive(the device).

The best client software in my opinion is: µTorrent (or Transmission for those Mac users)

There are many popular tracker pages out there to choose from, if you want to search many at once you can use Torrentz, if you are more in the browsing mood I recommend The Pirate Bay

Haven't figured it out yet? OK so click “download utorrent” in the right corner of this page and install it on your computer.

Go find that latest episode of Grey's Anatomy on The Pirate Bay:LINK
and click “download this torrent” in green.

(Quick side-note, you will probably need this to play these video files as Windows Media Player or Quicktime will usually not work)

Don't click “Save As” just click “Open” and your torrent software should pop up saying, “Where do you want to save this?” Just choose a folder on your computer where you will remember and hit start and once the status bar fills up you can go and watch your precious Grey's Anatomy with a pint of Ben & Jerry's at any hour and without commercial interruption!

Now I kind of lost track of that original topic of superior music downloads that I mentioned earlier so let me just catch up real quick with this:

So you forgot to backup your data and just lost your entire music collection? Don't think you will have to re-search for every one of those precious Enya songs on Limewire, no! Because bittorrent trackers will often have people compiling every cd an artist has ever made into a discography torrent. Please, before you shed any more tears on your keyboard, go here and download those 5 Enya albums, run a hot bath, light some candles, put itunes on repeat, and never leave the house again!