After Twitter was demonstrated in class last week, I‘ve been inspired to do a little commentary on this remarkable social tool and its meteoric rise from a slightly different angle…

Haiku
The Twitter-platform structures the content very sharply. It could be said to be a radicalization of the sms format which the Europeans have embraced for years. 140 characters are the limit of each tweet. Of course, one can send several tweets, but the idea is to condense the opinion and content published. In this way it could be argued that the 140 rule works in the same way as the limitations and verses in the Haiku poem.

The competition

It appears that Facebook takes the threat of Twitter quitet seriously! Google bought the Finnish Jaiku, which at that time was the largest direct competitor to Twitter – and now after a bit of development, has been put somewhat on hold and migrated to the Google Apps platform. The “spin” sounded good, but afterwards appeared to be just a quiet decommission of a product.

In the meantime, a plethora of alternatives to Twitter has appeared: Rejaw, Utterli,Identi.ca, Tweet.ie, etc. These last ones are based on the open software framework Laconi.ca which some claim has a bright future. This could spawn a Darwinian struggle between these platforms and maybe, or maybe not, there will be a place in the online world for these niche-micro blog services in the future.

What is it Twitter can do?

Twitter appears to satisfy the need for exposure, as well as bond people together in opinion/attitude/interpretation/action communities. Additionally, the number of people who tweet appears to have reached critical mass, which has made possible the development of monitoring and analytical tools that take as their point of departure a belief in social intelligence.

Collective Intelligence and social proof

It is commonly accepted that we, in the interplay with other people, navigate on the basis of “social proof”. In 2007, the Washington Post persuaded the famous violinist Joshua Bell to play in the underground in Washington DC during rush hour. Bell even brought his Stradivarius worth 3-4 million dollars and started to play. Nearly no-one stopped to listen! This example is often highlighted as an illustation of the notion of social proof; that is, people react as those around them. Thus, when certain communities start making use of new tools, it is often seen that the masses follow – as in the case of Twitter.

Collective Intelligence

The twitter platform also makes possible a hitherto non-existing opportunity to ”test” people and phenomena – without risk. One can go on a discovery in the thoughts, feelings and actions of other people – as well as their relation to products, brands and concepts. With this in mind, it is little wonder that the platform attracts people.  That was also possible with blogs, but today the dynamics have evolved. These dynamics often appear to make people optimize their communication with the intent to get the most followers. Quality and relevance have become parameters of web 2.0, and whilst some might claim that quality is not exactly the general hallmark of Twitter, it does appear that many find that connecting by the means of tweets is both relevant and useful in their everyday lives…

#1. I was speaking with my dad this morning. He was filling me in on how his side of the family are faring. They live in Northern B.C. so I don’t get to see them at all. Making a long story short, I’m going to talk about my cousin who is a year older than myself. She’s brilliant. So brilliant in fact, that she ended up attending UBC when she was sixteen and earned her B.A. in English by the time she was twenty or twenty-one. Maybe earlier, I don’t remember. But it was early in her life. She is registered with the Canadian Federal Government as having one of the highest I.Q.‘s ever recorded. UBC did a research project on her brain and discovered that she has a photographic memory. She has always read books like they were going out of style and remembers everything she has ever read. She’s quite the conundrum. When she was twelve or thirteen, UBC offered to send her down to a school in California for brilliant kids. A school whereby the students have the run of the whole place and write a thesis of their investigations. She turned it down due to not wanting to be separated from not only her family, but society in general. Not wanting to be singled out as “too different,” she down-played her gifted abilities. She had to learn how to apply teenage lingo appropriately, she drank, she partied, she experimented with drugs. You name it. However. Engage in some kind of academic or intelligent topic and watch her in all her glory. She uses phrases and words that would put me in a coma. She could be “anything” she wants to be. She lived near the ocean for most of her life so at one point she thought her career would be a marine biologist. Her great love of the written word won out though. Currently, she is working on her PhD in English and her research has lead her to the works of William Shakespeare. The last I heard, she is currently investigating and trying to prove that William Shakespeare did not write any of his work. Apparently, she is making headway but its taken a very long time researching all this out. When she was nineteen, she met a divorced Englishman who’s career was a naval officer. I’m not sure what his rank was. A brilliant man himself and twenty years my cousins senior, he left his career in the English Navy and moved to Northern B.C. with his mother and sister and there he met my cousin. Both found jobs at the local ferry corporation. He was the ferry captain and my cousin was employed to work inside the ferry. I believe it was a year and they became married. Eventually my cousin became pregnant and transformed into a full-time housewife. Later, she worked part-time with her brother at her fathers business. “Its all she’s wanted” she been known to tell people. To have a normal life. I’m sure in her own way its been quite a struggle. For me, I only wish I had a quarter of her brilliance. The things I would do……..

#2. Looking at my search engine terms I come across this: “hand penis.” Like, what’s up with that?

Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.
- Abraham Flexner, American educator (1866-1959)

If an alien from a planet unimaginably distant from here were to come to earth with the objective of studying life forms, what do you think he should do?

If he were to study the most abundant life on the planet he would have to look at microbes. We, for example, have more microbes in our own bodies than we have cells we can call our own–that is, that carry our unique DNA.

If he decided to look at life forms more advanced than a single cell he would likely look at algae or plankton in the oceans. If he looked for something more mobile, he would have to study insects. There he would find some well organized and advanced societies if he looked at ants or bees.

Maybe he would want to communicate with another being. For that he might choose a chimpanzee. Or a dolphin.

Dolphins can understand and speak back, especially if given the opportunity to learn a new language. Chimps can’t talk because they lack the physiology to form most sounds we consider essential to language.

Why doesn’t he study us, you may ask. We live in more parts of the land world than any other creature–at least more than any other large animal, maybe not more than the cockroach. We are certainly the most destructive, which makes us the most powerful.

Surely a being from another world who travelled may light years to reach earth would want to speak with the most powerful creature on the planet. Or would he?

What language would he use? Remember, most of us know only one or a few human languages. Not one of us can communicate more than a few hundred words with any living being on earth other than humans.

We, who seek extraterrestrial life on distant planets, do not have the ability to communicate well with any other species on earth other than ourselves. Our solution to that problem, it might seem to an impartial observer, is to render other intelligent life extinct.

Now that’s power.

But why would an intelligent space being admire the power we use to destroy each other and other beings on our own planet? Only 20th Century science fiction had space aliens invading earth to kill everyone or enslave us. It doesn’t take much thinking to see that the “destructive space alien” scenario simply doesn’t make sense.

Are we really the smartest creatures on the planet? Sure, just ask us.

I’m going to ask you something. Two things, but they’re related.

(1) Do you think that if you asked 1000 people you meet randomly on the street in the next few days any of them would admit that they are stupid? Even one?

(2) Have you considered the behaviour of people you have seen and thought they “must be stupid”?

The most intelligent minds among us evaluate how brilliant we humans are, using human testing methods (we haven’t a clue how to test otherwise) and human result standards (such as IQ) have decided that we humans are the most intelligent creatures on earth.

Isn’t that a bit like asking an Olympic athlete who he believes will win the gold medal in his event? Or like asking a religious person which religion he believes is the best? The results couldn’t be more biased.

Assuming we could be shrunk to the appropriate size, could you survive and thrive in a bee or ant colony? Assuming you can swim and even given diving equipment, could you live the life of a dolphin? Or, make it easier, could you fit into a colony of chimpanzees well?

Why not? If we are so smart we should be able to adapt to different living conditions. But we can’t. Because there are things–many things–that ants, bees, dolphins and chimps know that we will never know. That we can never know. That we have no way of finding out.

As our quote says, we are the species that borrows billions of dollars for war (trillions in the case of the USA at present), but seldom borrows much to fund our education systems. We borrow money to kill each other, but scrimp when it comes to educating ourselves.

How smart is that? Chimps only fight to see who dominates, not to kill each other. Dolphins squabble over mates. No, wait, we don’t even know that much about dolphins. They may be smarter than us, we would never know. No, they live in the water, so they can’t be as smart as us.

So we say.

Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today’s Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for teachers and parents who want to know what to teach children to aid their intellectual, social and emotional development and when to teach it.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Sagat wrote:

If the studies are thorough, we will begin to understand differences not only in major continental groups but between ethnicities as well. Will race realists want to discover deficiencies in their group? Will there be group fractures if some ethnicities are more intelligent and less prone to crime than others?

The intra-white gap is rather interesting and always ignored.

The German IQ is a full standard deviation above that of the Serbs. How will the Serbs react when it comes known that the gap is caused mostly by genetics?

We know how Hitler reacted to the Jewish IQ average – by forbidding IQ tests. I wonder if many white groups, those scoring at the lower end, will join Third World crowds in trying to prove that IQ is a social invention that doesn’t really exist.

Two years ago, Afghanistan’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), alerted the American military with “very detailed” reports explaining how the Taliban were profiting financially from protecting convoys of US supplies in Afghanistan.

A military official in Kabul explained, “We understand that across the board 10 percent to 20 percent goes to the insurgents.”

The main issue is not that the US military is turning a blind eye to the problem. The trouble is that–as with so much in Afghanistan–the United States doesn’t seem to know how to fix it.

American Col. David Haight, who commands the Third Brigade of the Tenth Mountain Division, was asked about it, as part of the main shipping artery of the country runs through his area of operations.  What did he think about security companies paying off insurgents?

“The American soldier in me is repulsed by it,” he said in an interview in his office at FOB Shank in Logar Province. “I know that it is what it is: essentially paying the enemy, saying, ‘Hey, don’t hassle me.’ I don’t like it, but it is what it is.”

[The Nation]

Sometimes when I wake up for the first few seconds I feel like something is there,hoovering over me. Not like a person or a ghost, I do not fear it,but its definitely something alive and aware. It doesnt  have an apperance it just has a vibe. It doesnt talk but it definitely has a purpose. Its almost like an invisible cloud of intelligence. It feels like any and everything. I feel really connected to this “thing” like possibly I at some point was it or I was inside it or something! Perhaps this cloud comes and takes me away when I dream. It takes me on a journey, or maybe it takes me to another part of the world and allows me to be something else for a while. Maybe it purposely wakes me up right before it leaves so that it could say goodbye. Maybe its all nothing more than a figment of my insane imagination. Does that make it any less real?

Possesseur d’une Xbox 360, il m’arrive parfois (voire même souvent, suivant la période) de me détendre quelques instants et de jouer un peu. Tu trouves contradictoire pour un grand consommateur de produits Apple comme moi d’avoir une console de jeux Microsoft ? Il n’y a que deux explications à cela : tout d’abord, j’ai plus d’amis qui ont la Xbox 360 que la PS3 ou la Wii, et puis je préfère les jeux qui sortent sur Xbox 360 que les autres.

Autant le dire d’emblée, je ne suis pas un adepte des jeux de plateforme, de sport ou de course. Sous mon air angélique (hum…), je suis un boucher. Selon moi, un jeu vidéo est fait pour s’évader, pour faire des choses que la vie réelle nous interdit. Je profite donc de tirer sur et tuer des humanoïdes (parfois ils ne le sont pas), jouer à l’acrobate hyper agile, au voleur, à l’espion tapi dans l’ombre, au terroriste, etc. Relever des challenges procure un certain plaisir. Jouer au tennis sur console ne m’intéresse pas : autant pratiquer ce sport réellement. Idem pour les jeux de courses : on peut toujours aller foncer comme un bolide sur des circuits.

Évidemment, il faut toujours que ma mère rentre dans ma chambre au moment où je joue. Du coup, j’ai droit à “encore devant la Xbox ?” ou à un hochement de tête et un haussement d’épaules désespérés, ou encore à “tu n’es pas encore assez abruti ?”. Mais mes parents passent des soirées entières devant la télévision. Alors…

Qu’est-ce qui abrutit le plus ? Jouer une soirée à un jeu (souvent violent, seul ou avec des amis) ou rester avachi dans le canapé du salon à regarder un film – voire à zapper, quand il n’y a rien ? Si le jeu-vidéo abrutit à haute dose, la télévision aussi. Et si la télévision divertit, le jeu-vidéo aussi.

“De mon temps, je lisais des livres” me fais-je encore reprocher… D’abord, le temps a changé, la société a évolué, les loisirs aussi. Quel mal à cela ? J’aurais des tendances agressives, ces remarques seraient sans doute justifiées… Je ne tiens pas à traiter ici de la polémique sur l’âge légal pour acheter et jouer à certains jeux. Je suis de ceux qui estiment que les enfants doivent jouer à des jeux pour leur âge et que les parents doivent être responsables envers les jeux-vidéos. Cela signifie qu’ils doivent s’y intéresser un minimum. Mais là encore, dire que ce que je fais est abrutissant sans avoir essayé, c’est être sévère et trop restrictif… Remarque, je peux comprendre qu’on y trouve pas d’intérêt, que ça n’intéresse pas, surtout de personnes qui ne baignent pas dans la technologie depuis tout petit.

Selon le dictionnaire, s’abrutir, c’est “s’abaisser jusqu’à ressembler à une bête par le visage, par un amoindrissement important de son activité intellectuelle, de ses qualités morales“. Mes neurones ont sûrement une activité un peu plus intense quand je joue à un jeu-vidéo que quand je regarde la télévision. Et même si ce n’était pas le cas, au moins je fais quelque chose et je ne reste pas inactif.

Il n’est peut-être pas très moral de tuer des êtres vivants. Dans ce cas, et si l’on regarde la définition, je m’abrutirais bel et bien. Mais je garde toujours les mêmes qualités morales. Et il ne me viendrait pas à l’esprit de vouloir reproduire dans la réalité ce que je fais virtuellement. Donc non, je ne m’abrutis pas.

Bref, tout ça pour dire que le jeu-vidéo, quel qu’il soit, n’est pas forcément plus abrutissant qu’un jeu de société ou que regarder la télévision.

Qu’en penses-tu ?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word creative as “involving the use of the imagination or original ideas in order to create something”.  Sir Ken Robinson defines creativity as ” a process of having original ideas that have value”.

Original Ideas

Both these definitions of creativity talk about original ideas. This is obviously very important for the creative process.

How many of us try to think of an original idea, when attempting to solve a problem?

How often do we encourage each other or our kids to be original?

Not often enough.  The reason for this lies in our fear of being wrong.

Why are we so afraid of being wrong?

Our entire educational system criticizes  and penalizes errors and mistakes. Hence we start believing that taking chances, doing things differently and maybe getting it wrong will get us into trouble.

Unfortunately if you fear being wrong, you could never come up with something original.

This is what I tried with very interesting results. Find an original and creative way of doing or solving at least five things today.

I bet that you will find more enjoyable and rewarding ways of doing at least half of these tasks.

Let me know how you get on.

Good reminder about how not to praise from Stephen Currie in a recent post to the PDS Math Guy Blog.

It’s all to do with the effort effect and how to talk to kids about their work. Researcher Carol Dweck’s work has shown that  praise for being smart is a great demotivator. Here are the researcher’s tips for a better way to talk to kids about their work:

Here are Dweck’s tips from Mindset:

• Listen to what you say to your kids, with an ear toward the messages you’re sending about mind-set.
• Instead of praising children’s intelligence or talent, focus on the processes they used.
• Example: “That homework was so long and involved. I really admire the way you concentrated and finished it.”Example: “That picture has so many beautiful colors. Tell me about them.”

  Example: “You put so much thought into that essay. It really makes me think about Shakespeare in a new way.”

• When your child messes up, give constructive criticism—feedback that helps the child understand how to fix the problem, rather than labeling or excusing the child.
• Pay attention to the goals you set for your children; having innate talent is not a goal, but expanding skills and knowledge is. Don’t worry about praising your children for their inherent goodness, though. It’s important for children to learn they’re basically good and that their parents love them unconditionally, Dweck says. “The problem arises when parents praise children in a way that makes them feel that they’re good and love-worthy only when they behave in particular ways that please the parents.”

Last night we celebrated No Thanks!-giving.  S. sent me an email earlier in the week saying “We’re going to celebrate Thanksgiving, but be thankful for all the things we DON’T have…” and so, we did it, and this is how the First Annual No Thanks!-giving was born.

S. made a delicious pumpkin soup and brought mini quiches and veggie spring rolls, I made a delicious tarte aux pommes (which I added pears to as well – delicious!!), stuffing, banana-chocolate-orange bread, L. had a big salad and baguette, we had mashed potatoes… and we drank wine and egg nog… Mmm!!  (but not together!)

And listed all the things we are thankful not to have.  Like whiny children.  And needless baggage.  And MEN WHO DON”T CALL!

The great dating debate continues, but I”m on to something huge.  Men want you to be intelligent, but what most of them mean is: ….not as intelligent as me.  It’s a shame, but I believe it’s true.  And I think the warning sign to know if your date is one of THOSE, is if you hear the “Wow… you’re so smart!” Ok, just when would such a sentence come up in a regular conversation with a friend?  Probably never.  People don’t compliment each other on their brains.  It goes without saying that if I didn’t think you were smart, I wouldn’t be on a date with you or I wouldn’t be your friend.  I think the only acceptable way for that sentence to surface on a date, is if it’s followed by something like: …and I’m glad you’re smart because I don’t feel like I’m selling myself short by being on a date with you and we can have an intelligent conversation! Otherwise, it’s bad news.  My last date said that to me, and all I’d done is essentially paraphrase something I’d heard on the news.  Really?  My ability to read a news article and form an opinion makes me smart?  Ouch.  Then I’d hate to be your definition of smart.

Anyway, these are just small steps towards trying (and mostly failing) to understand how men think.  But really, the question remains:  How hard can it be to meet someone you truly connect with??  The answer could very well be, next to impossible.  But I don’t want to crush anyone’s dreams just yet.  Go out and try it for yourself and see.

Good luck.  And in the meantime, Happy No Thanks!-giving

It is remarkable how many people believe many things on rather insubstantial evidence, but just as remarkable is how so many reject things out of hand without having even investigated at all, let alone as fully as possible!  I have observed more and more clearly in latter years – many people will believe just about anything, especially if it suits them, their lifestyle, their habits and accumulated opinions. This cuts both ways, of course, both as to believers and unbelievers. When the facts cannot be established and an issue is still in the balance, most people prefer a certainty than a continued state of uncertainty… even if it is a false certainty. Most people are very poor at questioning their own beliefs, especially those held most dear. But any genuine search for truth must question beliefs, however deep-rooted – and this is most demanding. It calls for a patient condition of inconclusiveness and tolerance of the uncertainty caused by reservation of final judgment until certain knowledge is attained.

There are always pros and cons in any matter, increasingly so the larger and more important the subject. To keep in the mind all of them from both sides, yet not to conclude in favour of one side or the other is a feat of conscious tolerance of uncertainty that few people can sustain for long… at least when the issue is at all crucial. Only when the evidence is so powerful as to make its factuality believable to the well-informed can reservation of judgement be concluded. One should be wary of the fact that belief is endemic, and it takes many different and new shapes which also often shift as experience proceeds.

An even-minded approach allows us not to pre-judge – whether the prejudice be for or against – and helps us takes the rough along with the smooth. But this requires restraint in reaching conclusions together with continuous reflection upon one’s own mind and personal, experiential knowledge. It is not easy to remain open-minded towards all evidence and various interpretations of it, by many-sided reasoning. While investigating the case against Sathya Sai Baba, I have always borne in mind how further questions and answers of which I had not yet thought might arise. This was because I wanted to follow a most stringent method of seeking the true facts.

In general, I do not believe that all or even most of my convictions represent absolute certainties or that what is apparently incontrovertible fact cannot ever prove to be otherwise. Yet personal responsibility requires that I hold to convictions that I have been able to reach after thorough examination [and repeated reexamination as new information emerged] until the cogent reasons for them have been shown to be incorrect by stringent methods of proof. I am aware that some of my important convictions have been overturned by the facts again and again in the past and that many a ’scientific fact’ and theory have been modified, superceded or rejected in my own lifetime. This applies all the more to human acts and historical developments, as distinct from natural events and processes. That I have moved with the emerging truth and not stuck in a belief that fact has superseded I consider an achievement.

The hardest part of the search for truth, I think, is to remain undecided when sufficient facts and evidence are lacking… for most people everywhere like to get rid of uncertainty quickly and would even prefer to live with false certainties than with inconclusiveness.