I'll take hard over soft

This thought came to me the other day, and I apologize to all of you who are programmers, but it seems true from my non-geek perspective: Over time, software gets worse, and hardware gets better.

"Worse" means bigger, harder to use, less compatible with other stuff, and more likely to fail. "Better" means faster, cheaper, easier, and more elegant.

Cases in point: Microsoft. Intel. You be the judge.

PowerPoint

I have seen several criticisms of PowerPoint recently, most notably by Edward Tufte, guru of conveying visual information (for instance, his essay, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint). The gist is that condensing analytical arguments into slide format with bullet points cheapens and weakens the structure of the logic. And at their worst, programs like PowerPoint can mold the thinking of the person using them such that they lose the ability to craft coherent, sophisticated, analytical arguments.

These critics have a point. The arbitrariness of PowerPoint's format-- in which each "page" allows four or five bullet points-- may not match with the flow of a particular coherent argument. And PowerPoint also contains way too many cutesy features that can tempt the writer to substitute form and fluorish for actual content. These are serious issues.

But I am also wary of some of the criticisms of PowerPoint, as they seem to arise merely from having sat through a few awful presentations, or from being made to create a presentation that turned out to be difficult. These whiny, peevish criticisms often point more toward problems with the people than with the program.

First of all, no presentation can be more coherent than the person who wrote it. Think about that. If a person is, for instance, unable to write cogently-- unable to distill their thoughts into sentences that flow, unable to craft paragraphs that move logically from start to finish, unable to use English grammar-- how can they possibly write a good presentation using any program?

PowerPoint is an outline. People who can't write outlines can't use PowerPoint effectively. And I would claim that every coherent analytical argument can be summarized in an outline. If it can't, the person probably doesn't quite understand what they're trying to say. PowerPoint is like math. It's like being able to write an equation rather than a word problem.

So before criticizing the software, check out the brain trying to use it.

For example, Edward Tufte's brain is quite logical and analytical. Blogger Aaron Swartz very nicely wrote up Tufte's essay, "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint," into a clear and satisfying PowerPoint outline. I bet it would make an effective presentation.

The Allen Telescope Array

There's a new facility being built north of San Francisco to be used by SETI to listen for LGM: The Allen Telescope Array. :-)

.... Named for Paul Allen of Microsoft, but still!

Adopt a Scientist!

Three physics groups -- The American Physical Society (APS), the American Institute of Physics (AIP), and the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) -- are launching a joint pilot project called Adopt-a-Scientist. The goal is to show young people that pursuing a physics career leads to a wide range of opportunities, countering the stereotype that physics is a narrow or obscure discipline.

I am trained as a physicist. And so are lots of my friends. If you assembled us in a room and polled us on our current jobs, intellectual pursuits, and interests, you'd find an intriguing mix of similarities and differences. There is certainly a distinct quality and character associated with people who have trained in science; it will shape your mind in certain ways. But this type of training broadens a person, not limits them.

Here's some further information from APS, AIP, and AAPT:

Participants will engage in a short interview via email by high school physics students. Scientists will be provided with a list of questions in advance.

The interviews will be conducted by high school students. A small group of students will interview the scientist, then report back to the class on what they learned. As each group will be interviewing a scientist from a different category, it is hoped that the class will receive a broad description of what it means to be a scientist and realize the variety of options available within science.

This is a pilot project, so the scale is small. If it is a success, it will be expanded and repeated in future years. We've had a good response from scientists in academia and look forward to a similar response to scientists in industry.

Please forward this invitation to any scientists you feel may be interested. You can contact the project coordinator by telephone at (301) 209-3690 or by email at education@aip.org. Wee looking forward to bringing together scientists and students and we appreciate your assistance in making this program a success!

So if you are a high school student or a practicing scientist, please consider getting involved with Adopt-a-Scientist. My guess is that both groups will end up learning a lot.

By the way, I participated once in a similar program for people in math careers-- it was an essay contest sponsored by the Association of Women in Math, where women who use math in their careers are interviewed by students, and then the student produces an essay about them. I was interviewed by three students who largely got to structure the questions and resulting essay themselves, and it was greatly educational-- for me.

I enjoyed our email exchanges, and found myself exploring some of my own motivations and opinions, as prompted by their questions. I learned a few things about how my young interviewees think, and about how I relate to students who are looking at me through the lens of my being a "mentor" to them. Quite revealing.

Breathing easier

Reader's Digest recently did a survey of the top 50 metropolitan areas in the US, then ranked them based on cleanliness-- air, water, toxics, waste, etc. The results are somewhat, but not totally, surprising.

OK, so Portland is #1 and Chicago is #50. But #3 is... Buffalo?

Timebelt

A guy at work lent me a DVD of a show called Timebelt made by some friends of his. It aired online at Channel 101, and consists of eight 5-minute episodes done on a super-low budget. [He knows the creators because they both do improv comedy with a group called Comedy Sportz.]

I really enjoyed Timebelt. It's cute. It's got plot holes, but there is a plotline. It's obviously filmed by people learning how to do film, but it's done honestly and in some places even earnestly. I was surprised because usually I think low-grade sci-fi is awful. But this one actually won some awards for indie filmmaking. I found it kind of inspirational, actually.

If you've got 40 minutes, it's worth a look. These guys pretty much just kludged their way through using their neighborhood and the guy's apartment as the setting, their friends as cast, stuff they could find in the kitchen as props, greenscreening for effects, etc.

Pet of the Month

My kitty Skyler was chosen as one of the Pets of the Month at my local Trader Joe's! You turn in a picture of said pet, and each month they feature a few of them on a bulletin board, garnering fame for the animal and a $10 gift certificate for the human.

It seems only fair to use it buying something for him. I'll probably get him a toy, plus a bag of frozen shrimp. OK, so we'll share that one. But he really loves shrimp. Yup, he's a seafood man.

And so darn cute!

July 05 snapshot

A friend recently encouraged readers of her blog to summarize who they are right now, and it seemed appropriate to post it here also. (Caveat: past performance is not a guarantee of future returns).

I grew up loving nature, loving learning, and feeling some sense of larger glory in the Universe. This led me into physics, but the farther along I got in that field, the more I sensed that the whole point of hard science is to remove the human from the Universe. Physics does not include the whole universe because it leaves out one point-- the origin. The heart. There was no room for me in physics, so I began to look elsewhere.

I make my living as an emerging technology analyst and consultant, but consider other dimensions of me more significant right now. The best part of the job is lots of foreign travel, mainly to Asia, where I have gained breadth and come to rest with the huge variety of perspectives in the world. Learned some Japanese, too.

As a scientist from an atheistic upbringing, I had internalized some disdain for all things spiritual, and the current climate of religious ideological terrorism from both abroad (Islam) and here at home (Christian) hardly helped. But I am slowly learning to differentiate among spiritual practices and paths.

I have taken up a vipassana Buddhist practice that includes sitting meditation and involvement with the local community of practitioners. I am taking a class where we read parts of the Pali Canon, I attend multi-day silent meditation retreats, and I am doing personal study with a teacher.

An astute friend pointed out that I have always been spiritual. For 25 years, I was a serious athlete, reveling in my healthy body and its ability to feel calmest and purest in moments of extreme physical exertion. I was a spiritual athlete. That ended abruptly with some major health challenges a few years ago that shook me pretty fundamentally. But perhaps I had to give up the religion of athleticism to see that those deeper states do not come from my body, they come from my mind. I still enjoy the mild exercise I can do, but now know the danger of identifying with it as "me."

I have been surprised to learn recently that I am really not that ambitious in the sense of wanting to achieve things in the world, above some minimum level of providing for myself. I would like to direct my energies toward helping this world, and staying connected to friends/family. I have no idea what the future will bring. Later this month, I am going to become a volunteer at a local Children's Hospital.