The System is Not Set Up for Introverts, Reconsidered

The recent public shaming of several public figures has brought to mind several aspects of the culture that irritate me as an introvert. The internet is merely exacerbating behaviors I didn't like as a kid. Below are a few more reasons why the internet-fueled media culture is not set up with introverts in mind.

• Sharing comments originally intended for one person. Perhaps you've spoken in the heat of the moment, but obviously not intended for the entire world. I'm not going to even speculate on Mr. Sterling's state of mind, for example, but I know that the reason I trust the friends I have is that they don't share my angry comments with everyone. Not saying what Sterling did was right--clearly he's said similar things in the past. That's a discussion for another day. For the moment, let's de-Sterling the conversation and make it about me, you, or someone close to you. Let's say I've said something rather rude, like "I think X is an blankety-blank jerk and I can't stand him." I say this to a friend in confidence, but said friend, for whatever reason, has started recording our conversations and posts my diatribe on YouTube. Or they don't even have to record it; they could just repeat the comment to someone...maybe the subject of the comment himself, creating unnecessary hard feelings with that person and creating embarrassment for me. No, I probably shouldn't have said what I said, but my "friend" probably shouldn't have repeated it, let alone recorded it. That's a level of low that's hard for me to process.
• Ganging up on someone. Are you perfect? Have you said only kind, culturally sensitive, perfectly politically correct words with every single solitary person you've ever met? Never mind, let's cut to the chase: no, you haven't. I haven't. No one has, not even those who decide what's socially appropriate/polite and what's not. So let's say you're better than average and you only slip up once a week or once a month. Take your most obnoxious comment and imagine having it shared with everyone you know. With perfect strangers. Multiply that by a factor of a few hundred million. You know what you did was wrong. Now so does everyone around you, and every self-righteous scold now wants to pile on and tell you how to change your behavior. Or maybe you're not sorry for what you said or did, but you're now surrounded by a lot of people who detest you for it. The loneliest minority in the world is a minority of one, and it becomes nearly impossible to live a normal life with your beliefs intact if you believe that the entire world hates you because of one comment.
• Bringing up old issues. This has been happening in human relationships for hundreds of years. Person A says or does something stupid or hurtful to his or her significant other, and that significant other brings it up in the heat of an argument months or even years later. The internet allows not just Person A to bring it up but anyone who has seen or heard what you did. And the internet never forgets. Years later, decades later, anyone can go back to that moment of ill-timed stupidity and throw it in your face. I read an article recently that brought up the fact that forgetfulness is one of the human attributes that allows us to forgive others and to heal. The internet does not allow anyone to forget and does not allow the perpetrator of social faux pas the right of forgiveness. (Let's assume here that I'm not talking about high crimes and misdemeanors.)
• Always being "on stage." This is a particular pet peeve for introverts. We usually don't enjoy being the center of attention. I write on the internet and usually go out of my way not to post pictures of myself unless I deem it necessary--in fact, I once asked a friend to remove a photo. My standard internet avatar is the gopher armed with a machine gun. And most authors (unless they're major money makers) manage to enjoy a bit of anonymity not possible for actors, actresses, or other media figures, whose faces tend to be everywhere. Different introverts respond to the internet--particularly Facebook--in different ways: 
• Carefully control or limit the amount and type of information shared.
• Create an online "persona" that resembles, but isn't a 100% representation of what the individual is actually thinking.
• Not participate at all.
• 
  Many of my friends take the first approach. My parents take the last approach. I favor the middle approach, where I share humor, opinions, or stories that interest me. However, I usually don't share all my personal information (address, financial status, relationships, etc.) about how I live my daily life. So far as the internet knows, I'm a sarcastic, cerebral introvert with an odd writing career and gopher for an avatar. Is that "me?" Yes and no. I've seen in some places that "You are your data" now, and that anything you do that interacts with a computer is kept somewhere and explains who you are and what you are like. The internet is gratifyingly free of Bart Leahy-related videos. Part of that is the result of not doing much worth capturing on video; part of it is from a studied effort not to put myself in front of the camera. As a t-shirt now says, "I'm glad I'm old enough that all the stupid stuff I did as a kid isn't on the internet." So if you read my data, you might get some insight into my interests and how I spend my time and money. Does that mean you "know" me? No. You don't know what I'm thinking right now. You don't know what my facial expressions are. You don't know how I react when I'm happy or hurt. You don't know who all my friends are or how they feel about me.
  
  It used to be that only movie stars had this problem--fans thinking that they "knew" the celebrity in question because they've read every tabloid and newspaper story about them. On the flip side of that, the celebrities themselves found themselves in a fishbowl, unable to find a moment to themselves to just be a regular person because any unguarded moment was captured by a voracious paparazzi.
  
  Now we're all paparazzi, if we choose (I usually don't because, quite frankly, what other people do with their personal lives is usually none of my damn business). Yet if our face and data are out there on the internet, we're "celebrities" whether we would wish it or not. This is a doubly problematic issue for introverts: we don't share ourselves as easily as extroverts. The assumption of the internet is that if you post anything "out there" (or someone posts something about you) people assume that they know you. Yet I am sometimes taken off guard when I talk to someone who has been following my doings on Facebook and comments on them when I see him or her in person. Mostly that's a function of forgetting what I've posted...but, again, the internet remembers.
  
  Right now it's just my words and occasionally my pictures out there. How will I behave if I think "the camera's on" every moment of my life. George Orwell considered a horrific form of constant surveillance in 1984, as I do. Yet in 2014, we're doing it to ourselves. I don't know why people worry about the NSA spying activities sometimes when so much of people's lives is being shared. Some people "ham it up" if they know a camera is on. Others, like my parents and me, become very still and very quiet.
• If the camera is on all the time, the extroverts will win. Introverts need time to compose arguments refuting bad things that are said about us or what we think. This is why many of us become writers--because we aren't as adept at the think-on-your-feet interactions required for public debate. We're self-conscious about being the center of attention. We have to expend a lot of energy to interact with lots of people at once, and that can impact how effective we are as public speakers--it's not the quality of our thoughts that is lacking but our confidence in speaking about those thoughts. We might have very well-thought-out reasons for doing or saying something, but sometimes it takes us a while to work out that reasoning--at which point the topic has changed. TV and the internet are all about the now.
  
  I might be wrong, but I think a lot of those people who think up great retorts an hour after the argument ends are introverts. I'm one of them, to be sure. And, again, video is all about what's happening now, in the moment. If it looks like an introvert is losing because they're pausing to think out their answer, the extrovert will be perceived as the winner. A brilliant response two hours later does the introvert no good--the extrovert will be perceived as the better debater and better speaker now. I can't help wondering if that's why televised presidential debates have shaped the presidents we have gotten over the past 50-odd years.
  
  To close this essay, I'm left to wonder how introverts will find advantages in a culture that is increasingly driven by the immediate, the verbal, and the "live action." I'm open to suggestions. Right now, however, I need to turn off this machine and go take a walk.

Poetry Interlude

I write this stuff every now and then. Enjoy or ignore as you see fit.

The internet is little but image management—

black and white facts or opinions or jokes

posted in bright, moving colors.

Yet such things do not move me

Those moments come only with real presence:

actual flesh, real blood, sensuous touch.

Or sometimes those moments are solitary--

--a moment between me and my head

--or a shiver of wind in a landscape of the real

--or a tremor of recognition in a book

when I see myself in plain words on the page.

A hundred public “happy birthdays” suffice to a point

yet in the end, it is the private message

the unseen kindness that matters.

The technologists keep promising the magic

of the real, and people keep craving it

awaiting the virtual real

instead of seeing and loving the actual real

all around them.

Perhaps someday they will get there and

millions will share

sunsets…

quiet moments…

landscapes…

restaurants…

…with those they love without really being there

Those of us who already live in our heads

will have reality at yet another remove

from the experience in our heads

Maybe it will feel the same

Maybe we won’t know the difference

Maybe the new real will be no better or worse than

the old reality we were born to live.

Some claim we’ve been living this way all along:

always at one remove from reality

because we cannot experience it directly:

a Platonic shadow dance forever beyond our grasp

The world is too strange and hurtful and wondrous

to think that way.

At this moment, at this blurring border between

ever-receding reality

and ever-approaching dreams

I can only assume that this world is real

It deserves to be enjoyed and appreciated as it is

(or as we perceive it to be)

and lived as if it all matters.

/b

3/26/14

An Introvert in a Wired World

Introverts are often fond of peace and quiet: so fond, in fact, that unnecessary noise can be downright intrusive. My standard pet peeves along these lines are TVs in airports. You can't get away from them except in the restrooms and airline lounges, which are not cheap.

Some gas stations now have TVs with advertisements blaring while you're pumping gas. Here's a clue that they know the practice is annoying: the only way to turn off the noise is to buy some gasoline. THEN the mute button works. In Orwell's 1984, the only way to turn off the telescreens was to become a senior political official.

Another gripe, since I'm on a roll here: relentless "social networking." The Yelp app on my iPhone is a decent service for locating businesses in any city, along with customer reviews. But in addition (the programmers are never at rest), they have a contact/texting feature so that you can communicate with your friends while looking for a particular business. To which my introverted mind is asking, "Why?"

Maybe I'm simple minded here, but I really don't NEED that. Yelp is the electronic version of the Yellow Pages. All well and good, but if I'm looking for a business, that's all I want to do.

I've been fighting these types of battles with the internet for years now. One of my first introvert-based reactions occurred when I installed one of the instant messaging (IM) apps on my PC. The default setting for the app is as follows:

• It activates as soon as you turn on your computer.
• It tells all of your friends that you are online.

So what happened multiple times was that if I didn't set my status to "busy" soon enough, an extrovert friend would ping me and want to chat right away when all I wanted to do was check my email (an asynchronous method of communicating that I initiate). When it became clear that the messaging services--AOL and MSN--were not wired for my type of behavior, I shut off one and uninstalled the other. If I want to have a real-time chat, I'll call you and talk on the phone.

The bottom line is that the internet is reducing the number of places and ways for introverts to get the space and privacy we need to function well. There are ways to push back without depriving yourself of human contact or useful gadgets, but you have to work at it. And maybe it would help to find some programmers who are willing to design applications with introverts in mind.

Something to think about.

2011 International Space Development Conference in Social Media



One thing I picked up through 12 years of working at the Walt Disney World Resort is how powerful pervasive marketing can be. This means getting the attention of potential guests (customers) wherever they may be. Think about it: you have to go very far out of your way NOT to see a Disney commercial. In the 21st century, one place our most likely potential customers will be is on the internet.


Conference marketing has changed dramatically. The costs in paper mailings might be reduced by working with electrons, but the sheer breadth of the internet means that just having a web site is no longer enough. You have to have a presence in multiple areas, go where your most likely customers are, and be able to generate that most elusive of viral marketing phenomena: buzz.


From early on in our planning, we have made a conscious effort to embrace and leverage social media to market ISDC 2011. In addition to our primary website (http://isdc.nss.org/2011), we have expanded to the following arenas as well:


Twitter (short messages and updates)
http://twitter.com/ISDC
User ID: @ISDC
Hashtag: #ISDC


Facebook (longer messages and pictures)
http://www.facebook.com/NSSISDC

LinkedIn (broadcasting to a professional audience)
http://www.linkedin.com/groups/2011-International-Space-Development-Conference-3844843?mostPopular=&gid=3844843


NSS.org (for press releases and other information)
http://www.nss.org/news/releases/pr20110402.html


Cafepress.com (for merchandise sales)
http://www.cafepress.com/dd/53083292


These are merely our storefront sites. We can't overlook the valuable use of email bulletins to our NSS Chapters mailing list as well as NSS's Downlink. We also have been encouraging NSS members to "Like" or "friend" the various ISDC sites, as well as discuss the conference and link to it on their personal blogs, which builds greater visibility for our existing sites.


It doesn't hurt to have a little fun with this effort now and then. Through my connection with Darlene Cavalier, the Science Cheerleader, ISDC 2011 was able to get a welcome video from the Science Cheerleaders for our site home page. The trick, as always, is to keep people interested, and keep our content dynamic and interesting. Part of that derives from the conference's speakers and activities, part of it comes from the way we package things. If you have ideas that we haven't tried (and don't cost a whole lot), please let me know at ISDC2011.Chair at gmail.com. That's another advantage of internet-based marketing: quick collaboration and correction if things aren't working.


Print media are not going away. We have ads to post in Space News and other related publications, as well as traditional press releases, flyers, patches, stickers, and business cards for in-person contacts. But let there be no doubt: with a tech-savvy audience, we need to keep the tech-heavy internet front and center in our future efforts.


Bart Leahy is Chairman of the 2011 nternational Space Development Conference

Web Stats and Shout-Outs

One of the magical things about this-here internet thingy is that I can track who's reading from where. Okay, I don't really know WHO, but I can at least track WHERE people are reading Rhetoric & Rockets and WHAT they are reading, though alas I have yet to figure out how to cross-reference the two. That would be an interesting data-slicing exercise all to itself. Anyhow, the latest report from Google Analytics shows that these are the top five most popular pages or landing sites that people read when they visit:

1. Science Cheerleaders, Etc.
2. Saturn V Redecorating, Part II (Seriously? If you google my name, this is the second entry to come up--for gosh sakes, WHY??)
3. Petition Signing: Re-Opening the Office of Technology Assessment
4. Potpourri CLVII
5. Potpourri CLV

Oh yeah, and I'm still holding steady at ~20 visits a day, which is why I say thank you to all 20 of my readers (love y'all!).

What's more interesting to me is where my readership comes from, and it does vary week to week and month to month. I'm quite frankly astonished that I have as many diverse readers as I do. Be that as it may, here are the top five countries reading Bartacus...

1. United States (no surprise there)
2. Canada
3. United Kingdom
4. Slovakia
5. Czech Republic

The first three I get. My interests and writing would tend to attract readership from the English-speaking world. But the former Czechoslovakia (as I knew it growing up)? What's cooking there, guys?

Back home in the states, my most common readers come from the following parts of the US:

1. Alabama
2. California
3. Florida
4. Virginia
5. Illinois

1, 3, 4, and 5 I understand: They are either states where I live or have lived or they have NASA centers in them. However, while California has a couple of NASA centers, the readers are all over the place. Must be a lot of Science Cheerleader fans there. Greetings!

Even closer to home, another anomaly that's of interest is that there are a lot more folks in Decatur reading the blog than in Huntsville or Madison. Who the heck are you? X-)

And lastly, just because it intrigues me how people in unusual places find my blog, here are some of the more exotic locales checking out Your Humble Narrator's random postings:

Pelotas, Brazil
Sofia, Bulgaria
Okotoks, Canada
Abidjan, Cote de Ivoire (Ivory Coast)
Lappeenranta, Finland
Accra, Ghana
Jakarta, Indonesia
Tehran, Iran
Shinjuku, Japan
Nairobi, Kenya
Kaunus, Lithuania
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Kuching, Malaysia
Bacoor, Philippines
Manila, Philippines
Moscow, Russia
St. Petersburg, Russia

Again, howdy! And thanks for checking in!

Potpourri CLIX

Between the day job and the conference, my mind's been all over the place, so if you don't think my links and reads and thoughts don't quite all fit together, you're probably right.

IMF is one of our biggest beggars. If they're asking for a different currency, you know something is awry.
From Tracy:

• John Irving, business inspiration? Yep.
• An online, collaborative writing tool. Looks interesting, but most writers will tell you that writing with other people is a pain in the neck. It's much easier to just put down what you want to say. Any group document is inherently a compromise or series of compromises, not all of them good.

From Lin: an article about the challenges of interstellar travel. As I put it to Lin:

I'd say he hits the problems of interstellar flight dead on. Star Trek notwithstanding, we have no way to travel faster than light. The author actually understates the case. According to relativity theory, as objects accelerate closer to the speed of light, c, their mass becomes nearly infinite due to dynamics that elude me. Pick up Arthur C. Clarke's "The Songs of Distant Earth" for a realistic portrayal of the interstellar travel engineering problem. (The realism of his characterization or sociology are another matter.) We are, I'm afraid, a long way from warp drive. It would be nice to have something, though.

From my space/libertarian friend Berin, a statement about "Do Not Track" legislation:

WASHINGTON D.C. — The following statement can be attributed to Berin Szoka, President of TechFreedom, regarding legislation introduced today by Rep. Jackie Speier that would require the Federal Trade Commission to establish standards for a “Do Not Track” mechanism and require online data collectors to obey consumer opt-outs through such a tool:


Implementing “Do Not Track” without killing advertising won’t be easy. Just as consumers need to be empowered to make effective privacy choices, so too must publishers of ad-supported websites be able to make explicit today’s implicit quid pro quo: Users who opt-out of tracking might have to see more ads, pay for content and so on.

Government cannot design a “marketplace for privacy” from the top down, nor predict the costs of forcing an explicit quid pro quo. It would be sadly ironic if the same FTC that has agonized so much about the future of journalism wound up killing advertising, the golden goose that has sustained free media in this country for centuries.

The market is evolving quickly here, with two very different “Do Not Track” tools debuting in Internet Explorer and Firefox just this week. Ultimately, it is the Internet's existing standards-setting bodies, not Congress or the FTC, that have the expertise to resolve such differences and make a “Do Not Track” mechanism work for both consumers and publishers, as well as advertisers and ad networks.

Other stuff from Lin:

• It's been awhile since I've seen one of these, but it bears repeating: thank our military.
• An intriguing article on the interworkings of science and big universities. The article asks a good question: the universities need science, but does effective scientific research NEED to be performed in a university environment? Before the 20th century, most research was privately funded--think Thomas Edison or Bell Laboratories.
• An editorial on "who fed the tiger" (China). Uh, that'd be us. Or rather, corporate America and their political allies in the White House (Bush I and Clinton). We were told through the '80s and '90s that free trade with the West would moderate Communist China and make them more like us. What happened instead is that it made the Chinese government richer, not more moderate, and while we were selling them the rope with which to hang ourselves, they got a bunch of manufacturing jobs--and technologies--exported to them from the U.S. of A.
• The Navy now has its own carrier-based drone. I wonder if the human pilots pick on the radio-control jockeys for missing that first arresting wire.
• I really liked this one: an obituary for Roger Milliken, a businessman of the old stripe--the kind we're told doesn't exist anymore, so we must depend on government to "take care of the workers." Mr. Milliken's bio will show that such is not always the case.
• An analysis of the Obama Administration's National Security Space Policy. To be fair, I haven't finished reading the Policy yet (it's sitting on top of the pile at work), so I can't comment on the author's arguments. However, I did promise Lin some more thoughts on war in space. Short version: space war would devastate all nations' access to space. Orbital debris of all sizes can whack useful payloads at speeds of up to 20 km/seconds. Without access to space, even basic services like weather or communication satellites would be lost, and we'd be back to 1950s-era tech in some areas.
• Reviewing the state of the world via statistics.

From Kate Down Under: the latest roundtable newsletter on the Battle of Midway.

From a friend who will remain nameless for his own protection, but his attached commentary was too snarky not to share: "Another cleverly disguised study supposedly aimed at helping men but secretly proving women are nuts."
 
And I think I'll end there. At a conservative estimate, I'm processing well over 100 ISDC-related emails a day. N-U-T-S, but making serious progress. Should be a cool conference!

Potpourri CLI

The busy-ness continues. I'll provide more details about ISDC and the Science Cheerleader thing as the Outreach Coordinator (i.e. that'd be your humble narrator) writes them. :-) Meanwhile, on to other things!

Where has all the oil gone in the Gulf? Well, we've captured some, some is still leaking and floating around out there or polluting the beaches, and some...well, some of it is being eaten by bacteria.



Is the web hurting Gen Y’s critical thinking skills? My guess would be yes...but not just theirs.

From Karen: a bacon wallet. Furreal.

This is pretty cool: the Kepler telescope has detected its first multi-planet solar system out there among all them-thar bright stars. We are living in an age of wonders, my friends. Gotta pay attention out there.

A summary of 11 great operas in 10 minutes. Caveat visor: I have watched this yet, it just sounded fun.

Okay, this will make you feel very healthy, sane, and well-adjusted. Some dude has spent $250,000 remaking himself to look like a lizard. Did anyone at ANY time consider offering this guy counseling? Like, ever? Seriously. Dude.

I need to re-watch this video and respond at some point. It is an attempt to redefine what ethics should look like in the 21st century. I found myself reacting against some of it, because either the logic or assumptions were fuzzy. Or, perhaps, because I found the conclusions unrealistic. But then most of my philosophical influences are either ancient or from the Enlightenment, which are exactly the things the piece is criticizing. Go figure.

An essay talking about fear in our lives, but also fear in airport security. I liked its new term "the fear tax." Worth reading.

Note to people who both a) want to visit Afghanistan and b) perform public displays of affection. Uh, don't: Taliban militants stoned a couple to death over alleged love affair.

Rebel Walking

I did something quite radical for a 21st century person today: I took a long walk and didn't bring my smart phone with me. My dirty little secret is that enjoyed the time immensely. The iPhone, with its Facebook, internet, and other apps, makes it very easy to stay in touch with the world, and for the rest of the world to be in touch with you. There's a problem with that scenario if you're an introvert: there are times when you just want the world to leave you the heck alone.

It is all too easy, even if the phone is off, to pull it out of your pocket and turn it on "just to keep up with what's happening." And the stimulus/response effects Facebook produces are akin to gambling, I think--bright lights, pretty pictures, instantaneous response, and suddenly, YAY! You get a message from somebody you know, someone you knew, or someone you've never met. The more messages you send out, in general, the more messages you get back, to the point where you keep the machine by your bed because you might get something in the middle of the night. Electronic addictions are no prettier than drugs, but they at least have the advantage of being legal and socially acceptable, so long as you're not texting while driving or somesuch thing.

But taking a break from the machinery makes me all too conscious of the fact that time spent socializing is time I'm not spending writing. Also, the instantaneous nature of texting, email, instant messaging, or Facebook starts to condition the user--instead of the user being able to turn on, access, and turn off the data at their convenience, there's a tendency for the data to demand instant attention. After all, if you didn't need it right away, why would you carry the data-access machine with you everywhere you go? Some of my best, most relaxing naps in the last year have been on airplanes because I know I'm not going to get a call, text, email, or some other thing that demands instant response.

We're already a nation of short attention spans. What is all this instant information gratification going to do to us? The mind reels.

Suggested Guidelines for Crisis Communication and Social Media

Social internet media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) need to be treated as an organic and integral part of an organization’s media strategy. The internet feeds on information, and the worst thing an organization can do in that environment—as with traditional media outlets—is to go silent during periods of crisis or uncertainty. The information needs to keep flowing, even if the information is “We’re still working on an answer.” Public affairs, marketing, and/or outreach personnel need to be kept in the loop as subject matter experts and advisors for handling public perception, regardless of the nature of the crisis or uncertainty surrounding it.


In addition to external communications, extra thought also needs to be given to internal communications—what you are saying to your employees. The best thing you can do is to instill a feeling that “We’re all in this together.” The best way to do that is to keep your employees as informed as you can about what is being done to address the crisis at hand and let them be your organization’s advocates out in the social media world. If you cannot divulge the specific decisions being discussed, then you need to at least explain what the process is—what some of the factors are that must guide your decisions, and how long you expect the process to take. Again, responsible transparency goes a long way toward building trust, both internally and externally.


Lastly, it is important that employees understand their rights and freedoms regarding social media: what can they say? Where can they say it? What can they do to help the organization during this period of crisis? Obviously they must follow guidelines regarding the use of information technology resources and company time, but once they’re on their own, they should be made to feel empowered to be advocates for the organization. By emphasizing what employees cannot do or say, you open the door to passive-aggressive behavior, as employees get the impression that they cannot say anything. And in this new media environment, even the impression of inadvertently or blatantly suppressing personal opinions produces two negative effects: it makes your organization look like it is trying to cover things up and that you are being tyrannical over your employees’ free speech rights.


It is very easy to share good news and progress on the internet when things are going well. The true test of an organization’s public communications on the internet is when things are not going well but the need for information continues. Silence is no longer an option.

Potpourri CXVI

The week's pile has gotten thick again, so 'twould best if it were done, that it be done quickly...

Another good find from Tracy on outreach. This article suggests that the problem with outreach isn't with audiences connected to the internet, but with the technologically and educationally underserved. Meanwhile, people who already have access to the web or decent education are likely to already be familiar with the state of space exploration, nanotechnology, or other developments. As Darlene the Science Cheerleader puts it, "the rich get richer." The trick seems to be to reach underserved audiences through nontraditional means.

Here's a slight way to participate in your space program...you can go to this site and select the design for a patch to commemorate the final Space Shuttle launch.

None of us is as dumb as all of us: One of my graphics buddies at NASA pointed out some artwork developed by guys who gathered surveys in several different countries, asking what types of art people liked, what subject matters, what colors, etc...and then also what types of art they didn't like. This is as close as one can get to art by polling data.

From my NASA PAO feed, a notice from Glenn Research Center that there's a competition for high school students to put an experiment on a "BalloonSat."

I got on this mailing list awhile back, and occasionally it comes up with useful stuff. Here's a blog on the effective use of Twitter as a communication/outreach/sales tool. Bottom-line question any organization should answer before jumping into this social networking technology is: "What are you trying to accomplish?" If you can't answer the question coherently, you're just following trends without analysis, and that's a Bad Thing.

I saw this posted by one of my technophile English major buddies, Rudy: it's called SIKULI, and it appears to be a graphic user interface (GUI) of sorts. There's a YouTube attached that speaks ins Programmerese, which is completely unintelligible to me. If it makes sense to you, congratulations. It's supposed to make YOUR life easier. For those of us struggling to remember what we named and how we filed a document, it's a little advanced.

From Douglas Mallette: an article on using carbon nanotubes to make batteries from fabrics. Cool!

The internet is now in space--the International Space Station, that is. What's next?

From Regina, an interesting do-it-yourself experiment in tea bag rocketry (political pundits, keep your nasty comments to yourselves).

From the Down Under Defense Expert (DUDE):

• An interesting article from Der Spiegel entitled "The World Bids Farewell to Obama." It's a summary of German perspectives on the Obama administration's future reaction to the Republican taking of the late Senator Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts. I wouldn't count out Mr. Obama just yet. It's not that I'm rooting for him, it's just that anyone who can take down the Clinton machine is not someone to be taken lightly.
• A Financial Times article on the United Nations waiving the first deadline for meeting carbon emissions.
• The Times of London is reporting that a U.N. official is apologizing for saying Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035.

The Senate of New York is increasing the amount of legislative information available to the public on the internet.

The OpenNASA folks have a blog about "how little information is available via our agency-wide employee directory." The types of information that interest the writer (Jessy Cowan-Sharp) include "who you are, what you're working on, trades or skills, and side projects." Well, good luck getting anyone over 40 or so to fill in that type of information, my friend. Sometimes it's sensitive/classified, and sometimes the over-55 crowd at NASA doesn't take all that tag cloud stuff seriously, nor do they necessarily want to share the information.

NASA data suggests that the first decade of the 21st century was the warmest on record.

I have some other stuff in my inbox, but I think I'll punt for now. Have a pleasant evening.

Random Links for a Weekend

Need wine? This site is a cousin of Shirt.Woot.

And do you feel the need to translate yourself into a Star Trek character? Try this.

From Tina: Another look at the cap-and-trade bill. Bottom line here is as expected: if you raise the price of energy, you raise the price of everything else, because you need energy to do everything. This needs to be stopped in the Senate, or a LOT more people will be hurting and unemployed. You can find contact for your senator here.

Potpourri VI

More reading for today.

Some interesting assorted sites about technology:

• Ars Technica
• The Technology Liberation Front
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation
• A Green Anarchist (and neo-Luddite) site
• iRobot
• And if you didn't read the Kurzweil interview, "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" is seriously worth reading...it's a hardheaded look at the risks of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics.

A couple of links from my buddy Down Yonder, Scott:

• A cultural think tank from New Zealand, the Maxim Institute.
• Access to Energy, a "pro-science, pro-technology, pro-free enterprise monthly newsletter."

*

On a completely different note, a couple weeks ago I was talking to a couple ladies I know, and they were telling me about their bowling team. They are not the best bowlers in the world (I can relate). In fact, they laughingly admitted to losing to one guy in a wheelchair and another who is legally blind. I laughed, they laughed, and we moved on to the next topic.

Fast forward two weeks, and now the President of the United States is comparing his bowling skills to kids in the Special Olympics. Now, if he'd actually bowled one of those kids and lost, I'd probably laugh, as I laughed with my friends. It's called self-deprecating humor, and I use it myself. However, if I'm in a public forum, with millions of people watching, I'd probably find some other way of introducing levity. And if I'm President of these United States, I'd arrange to be doubly careful, not because I wouldn't think the remark funny, but because I'd have some awareness that others around me would not. Unfortunately, the teleprompter wasn't on, and Obama made the gaffe.

Instantly and predictably, the Sensitivity, Political Correctness, and Anti-Humor Police were out in force. They demanded he make an apology. In the face of the War on Humor, Obama duly provided his apology. Issue over. Time to lighten up and drop it. We've got global economic problems and serious security issues facing us, and people are freaking out over the president making a stupid remark on a TALK SHOW? And by the way, what's he DOING on the show, anyway? Doesn't he have something better to do?

Anybody ever wonder what happened to gravitas?

Various Links, News, and Outrages

A plain-language explanation of the value of social media.

Germany has something every guy can appreciate: man parks! An opportunity for grown men to play in the dirt with real construction equipment.

Care to know who else has taken bailout money? Here's the list of other companies Congress is likely to denounce for operating with no strings after first pledging money to bail them out with no strings attached: http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/tarp-chart.htm. Stand by for more outrage, show trials, forced confessions, blacklists, and disingenuous demonizing.

Nancy Pelosi believes that Immigration raids of worksites to look for illegal workers are un-American.

Science fairs in Alabama (just in case you're interested):

• http://www.uah.edu/sciolympiad/
• http://narsef.uah.edu/
• http://www.uah.edu/ASEF/

A friend of mine from Disney is doing some email marketing of his own comic book. I thought I'd pass it along in case you're interested: Deus ex Comica: The Rebirth of a Comic Book Fan

While America seems to be lurching along to the left, New Zealand has elected a center-right government, and has a pretty impressive list of accomplishments for their first "100 days."

"Tea Parties" are expanding nationwide. Because the protests are often anti-Obama, the mainstream media, of course, is ignoring them unless they're also denouncing businesses.

I am now officially famous. I've been interviewed by The Space Show as a space advocate and The Story Institute as a nonfiction writer.

*

Doc and I had a really good discussion today about the Internet business model and how newspapers could make the transition beyond the dead-tree model. I asked him directly how writers like Scalzi and Doctorow will manage to make a buck once the dead-tree route is no longer available. (Side editorial: I believe some bright soul in the Obama administration will attempt to force the demise of paper books in the name of protecting the environment. Sure, a bunch of people at Barnes & Noble and Borders will lose their jobs, but Amazon will make out just fine with its Kindle editions. Okay, done with that--we now return you to your previously scheduled foolishness.)

One example Doc offered was Salon.com, which manages to hire and get good (albeit liberal) investigative pieces, to pay its writers, and get people to pay for their content. They have advertisers, and manage to bring in the big bucks, etc. So couldn't the big-name newspapers follow that same model? Or couldn't the NY Times, etc., make Kindle and the internet their primary for-pay distribution channel? "Perhaps," sayeth The Doc.

My follow-up question was, "What about new writers?" Getting paid for writing is difficult enough in the dead-tree era. How do writers without publishers get paid? Well, "that'll probably involve a long time writing for free." Yep. That was my guess. Anyhow, Doc is right that "Content is King," and that if your content is good enough, you can give some of it away and still make money on it.

Potpourri V

Here's a roundup of the sections of the internet where I prowl:

• Ray Kurzweil finally responded to the Singularity questions sent by Darlene the Science Cheerleader, me, and our readers. We'll have those answers dual-posted on Science Cheerleader and Rhetoric & Rockets Thursday, when Darlene gets back from South by Southwest (SXSW). Darlene is on a panel titled, "Back Off, Man. I'm a Scientist," which will be discussing "user-generated discovery." That should be interesting.
• Darlene has posted cheers developed by the Philadelphia 76ers cheerleading squad on the 18 concepts people should know for science literacy. Did I mention that Dar rocks?!?
• The new Star Trek trailer is worth a look.
• Some interesting reading from the American Enterprise Institute by Charles Murray and Irving Kristol, as well as commentary by Jerry Pournelle.
• The Space Shuttle finally launched, and I missed it. Shame on me. Of course the more I learn about these things and what sorts of things can go wrong, the more nerve-wracking they become.
• Matt Labash has another interesting bit in The Weekly Standard, this time on my latest e-addiction, Facebook. Suffice to say, Mr. Labash is not a fan.

*

I've been having a rather long discussion at work about newspapers and their imminent demise at the hands of the internet and talk radio. My buddy Martin keeps trying to sell me on the glories and greatness and Almighty Traditions of Impartial Reporting, which the Internet is Going to Destroy. First of all, that "tradition" can be (and has been) easily exposed as anything but impartial. However, even if I accept his first premise, I still believe that objective journalism and thoughtful analysis and commentary can be found on the Internet. The problem (and Martin is right about this) is that people are not particularly interested in reading "objective" accounts of anything anymore, or they don't believe such things exist. You can thank postmodernism for that.

Obi-wan Kenobi: "That's the truth!"
Qui-gon Jinn: "From your point of view." --Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

While I won't mourn many of the local papers I've read in my lifetime, the capitalist in me still wants to know from the net-heads how they expect writers who develop content to make money. My buddy Doc has pointed out that writers like John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow manage to keep selling books even though they give them away on their web sites. Great. What will they do to make a buck when the dead-tree option is no longer available to them?

However, if I understand the problem correctly from Martin and Tracy, who are both former reporters, there are not enough advertising revenues to support high-powered staffs of eminent writers used to serious money (proof enough to my hard-core Republican friends that liberals, too, are capitalists). On the flip side, I might argue that the ethos or credibility of certain reporters could easily transfer to new forms of media. Maureen Dowd, Thomas Friedman, et al., manage to write the same quality of English for WashingtonPost.com that they do for the version that comes from dead trees. But seriously, can't these folks write books (electronic or otherwise) to make a buck? The problem is crystallized by a guy I went to grad school with. He was an early adopter of the Internet, Linux, open sourcing, etc., and his big thing was that "The internet should be free, man." To which I still say, "Fine, dude. But how are you gonna pay for all your hardware?" Blank stare.

I don't expect Tracy, Martin, Doc, or me to solve the Demise of the Newspapers or the broken internet business model, but it beats the usual yakkity-yak water cooler talk about SEC football, doesn't it?

Journalism Evolving, Not Dying

For my friends who lament the continuing demise of traditional newspapers:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.99c75c577fa1a698c1689adb0e008445.ca1&show_article=1

I'll probably have more links later today. Some interesting reading in The New Atlantis, if you haven't read it before.

Missing Pieces: What NASA’s Gen Y Keeps Missing

I invite you to visit this web site, and read where Nick Skytland, a Gen-Y civil servant at Johnson Space Center (JSC), posted a presentation from the PM Challenge conference entitled “Participatory Exploration: The Role of the User Contribution System.” Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Okay, now that you’ve read that, I’ll make some obligatory grumpy comments. These are being written in the spirit of constructive criticism, not "Siddown, kid, and wait your turn!" I'm looking at specifics in the presentations and so am asking/commenting about specifics.

I’ve met Nick once or twice at space-related events, and he’s a friend in Facebook. I'm not sure he reads this blog, but I might direct him to it just to provide him with food for thought for his next presentation. Nick is one of many under-30 contributors at the agency who’s trying to get NASA to think more like a dot-com (e.g. Google) and less like a command-and-control military organization. I wish him and his compadres well. Gosh knows all government agencies could think more quickly on their feet. However, being a Gen-Xer who’s spent most of my career in large, command-and-control organizations, I suspect that Nick has bigger challenges ahead than he realizes.

One of the gripes I’ve had about these types of presentations is that they are very brain-heavy. Here’s what I mean: despite the fact that, until the recent recession, America has continued to break records in the amount of manufactured stuff we export, media pundits and younger folks focused remain captivated by the "service economy" and the “information age."

Now admittedly a lot of our mass-produced products can be assembled, packaged, or shipped robotically, and that trend will no doubt continue. However, one of the largest contributors to America’s exports has been The Boeing Company, which depends on a large, skilled workforce capable of bending metal, installing wiring, turning wrenches, welding structures, and all the rest. All of this is still too complex for robots and likely will be for some time to come. These activities involve people doing physical labor, not just sitting in front of a laptop at Starbucks, sipping lattés. I don’t know what the specific percentages are, but I think I’m safe in assuming that not all of the people producing or building stuff—from farm goods to airplanes and spacecraft—went to college. Skytland is “privileging” (a favorite phrase of one of my grad school profs) intellect and symbol manipulation over physical labor. This is a mistake because not everyone can contribute this way, nor do they necessarily want to. Any future educational system—and any future space program—must find ways for individuals with mental and physical skill sets to contribute, because we will need both educated minds and skilled hands if we want to get to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Another issue I have with these Gen Y presentations—and I apologize now if Nick covered this, all I have to go by are the PPT slides—is how they emphasize collaborative technological tools but do not specify how these tools will enable people to make fundamentally better contributions than they might make through, say, face-to-face meetings, phone calls, or memos. I would also be interested to see what specific engineering or scientific contributions have been made in the aerospace industry using Skytland’s proposed new work environment. One example I can think of off the top of my head is the "virtual collaboration" Boeing has been doing to design and build the 787 Dreamliner at multiple locations around the globe. However, that plane is now likely to start deliveries more than a year late. Was that the result of--or despite--worldwide, international collaboration? That question should be answered.

Next on my nitpicking list: the global marketplace. It is one thing to have global “participation” in a robotic exploration mission (the standard example I’ve heard is allowing people to vote on “where to plant the flag”). It is another to have people from other countries reviewing and building the rockets--see the 787 example above. Since the dawn of the space age, rockets have been a critical national and strategic technology because of their ability to carry weapons. As noted above, if America has had one distinctive competitive advantage over the past 50 years, it has been in aerospace technology. This includes everything from materials to aerodynamic shapes or computer codes for analyzing flight paths to the guidance systems that allow a rocket to travel 25,000 miles per hour and reach a target millions of miles away with a margin of error measured in inches. These are all technologies that require United States citizens to produce them—at least if the United States wants to remain a spacefaring nation. There are some jobs that NASA and its primary contractors simply will not and cannot outsource to other countries because it’s the law.

We have a truly unique and challenging future ahead of us. I look forward to future contributions by Nick and others like him. I’d just like a little more organizational, cultural, and operational realism brought into the discussion.

Follow-Up: Bad Behavior, Embarrassing Pictures, and Job Security in Internet Age

Having vented previously on people's foolish behavior on the internet, I now must take a contrary stance. Why? Because, while the new reality of the world is that individuals can get fired for bad or embarrassing behavior they exhibit on the internet, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's good or right.

That Obama speech writer was tacky, but did his behavior rise to the level of a punishable offense? Did a hockey player deserve to be suspended from his job because of some sexist, crass remark about a former girlfriend? It depends on who you talk to.

When people talk about "political correctness," this is what they mean. There are just Some Things That Must Not Be Said. It is a manner of thinking and speaking that restrains anything that might be perceived as insulting to particular individuals or groups. Now am I endorsing full-out rudeness, crudity, or impolite behavior? No. However, I know that no one is capable of perfectly well-behaved, appropriate speech, partially because the rules keep changing, and partially just because people are people, and slips of the tongue are likely to happen. In short, we need to lighten up.

The end result of PC-speak is, as George Orwell notes in his description of Newspeak in 1984, to restrict the range of political speech and (by derivation) thought. If you can't say certain things--laughing at or judging particular behaviors--it becomes impossible to offer up alternative views. So today businesses will fire someone because of individual, personal crassness. What will be next? What happens when it's your turn to make a slip that shows up on the internet?

How do we fix this? I have no frickin' clue.

Bad Behavior, Embarrassing Pictures, and Job Security in Internet Age

It's amazing how many people have put themselves into hot water by posting or having things posted about their behavior on the Internet. Consider the following:

An Obama speechwriter is in trouble for joking around with a friend and pretending to grope the breast of a Hillary Clinton cutout.

In the sports world, a Calgary Flames hockey player is about to be suspended for comments he made regarding another player picking up his "sloppy seconds" (i.e. his ex-girlfriend).

But one need not look to the famous to see examples of people screwing up their lives because of some bad behavior appearing on the internet. Workers have been fired for postings made on Facebook. Criminals have been caught showing off or doing bizarre things and then bragging about it on the Internet.

What is it with people? Once upon a time, people had pictures taken at inopportune times, and they could burn the negatives and be done with it. No more. Now those pictures can be taken with a phone and emailed around the world before any explanation or apology can be issued. Even the burning-the-negatives-and-prints strategy is not a guarantee that personal foibles remain private. Digital scanners can commit those pictures to electronic format, and from there they end up who knows where.

Aside from the crudity and general stupidity of the actions, there's also this seemingly willful ignorance of how actions performed in the virtual world can affect the real world. The internet, with its limited, albeit worldwide opportunity for publicity, allows people to put their personalities "out there" for all to see. I've succumbed to this myself, via blogging and Facebook. But I also know that my coworkers and managers either read or see what I do. Thus my unwillingness to get extremely foul in my language or to post pictures from friends' bachelor parties. The electronic world has made everyone potential victims of tabloid journalism, and I don't think Gen Y has fully absorbed what that can mean for their futures.

The bottom line on all this is that, if you do something stupid and photographic evidence exists that you did said stupid thing--or you yourself have posted that evidence--you have to accept that there will be consequences. That Obama speech writer and hockey player are about to learn what those consequences are. With the internet and wireless and digital cameras everywhere, it is increasingly difficult to avoid any private sins from becoming very public. And that lack of privacy and public willingness to display (or unwillingness to hide) bad behavior can result in you losing your job. It might not sound fair, but it is very much the way of the world.

There was a phrase that was very popular in the '60s: "The personal is political." Well, welcome to the 21st century, where "The personal is professional." Meaning, if you exhibit some sort of negative personal behavior or attitude or belief, and it's on the internet, your professional future can be eroded very quickly if you embarrass your employer. Bosses can Google, too.