Some Thoughts on a Mad Man

Nearly every sonata written by a composer with any degree of merit is composed of four parts. Each begins with an introduction, an overarching statement of the piece's tone. The exposition follows, presenting listeners with the melodies, the key, the tempo the composer has chosen to advance their idea. With the major ideas and tone stated, the music takes a turn; melodies are developed, scales and tempos are modulated. These deviations from a well-established pattern use their differences to highlight importance, that new key, that embellishment, and just important as what is now present, is what is missing in its absence. Lastly, the composer recapitulates the piece, returning to the original melody with lots of repetition to emphasise the finale.

While it seems unlikely that a person insisting that the cacophony of emergency klaxons resonate through campus has an intimate appreciation for classical compositions, there are parallels to be made to this Mad Man – and yes, my belief is that this is a man – and the piece of work he is conducting on this canvas of a campus. What we've seen is an early introduction of a desire to cause disruption with the early, erratic threats to Chevron and the Cathedral. In time, this Mad Man developed his exposition, presenting highly consistent pattern of threats - a late morning and early evening call during the weekdays, when students were more likely to be in class. Then, these patterns were developed into something else altogether; first with new buildings around campus, residence halls, and now more recently a complete deviation in their tempo - overnight threats, nights, weekends. The recapitulation, the crescendo, the coda, has not yet been written, or rather has yet to be played out. Undoubtedly, this menace has an ending planned, but the true sound, the true form of the piece will depend on the interplay between this Mad Man, the authorities responsible for catching him, and perhaps most importantly, the students of the University themselves.

So what does this collection of threats and evacuations, this pattern that someone has gone to great lengths to establish and subsequently deviate from, tell us about this Mad Man? This is a question that members of the University and law enforcement are working tirelessly to answer correctly. They are in the unfortunate position where getting the answer wrong may mean lives are lost. It's a high-pressure situation, and not an enviable one, and, perhaps to a fault, it is one that must rely only on analysis of the evidence at hand.

As an outsider (to the investigation, at least) who is equally motivated to have a non-violent conclusion to this ordeal, if not more so, I'd like to offer a profile that may be an accurate assessment of who this Mad Man is. This isn't driven by some desire to in the future remark "I told you so", but rather, to offer a different perspective, one born more from intuition than analysis of hard fact.

What was seen initially was a honed focus on the Cathedral of Learning in the earliest strings of bomb threats. Of course the Cathedral is a well-suited targeted for a variety of reasons: it is a high-traffic region during the day, which lends it self to concealing suspicious activity and causing maximum disruption, as well as the Cathedral as an symbol being closely associated with university identity. For someone intent on causing havoc to the university logistically and psychologically, the Cathedral of Learning is an astute first choice.

Chevron, on the other hand, is a less compelling target. It is a busy area during the day, but no more so than a handful of other buildings around campus. While the building has recently been renovated, its drab eighties architecture hardly makes it a symbol of university status. Instead, it seems that this building is part of a personal symbolism for this Mad Man – an event, or something of the sort, has made this building a locus of attention.

As these threats have continued, other buildings have had the unfortunate coincidence of having a bomb threat called in. The pattern, which had been established as bomb threats to the Cathedral and Chevron, no longer seemed to apply. David Lawrence, Thackeray, Posvar, Music Building, Frick Fine Arts, etc. These targets have little relationship with one another – in fact, they have become increasingly erratic in origin. So much so that the only pattern that one can possibly conclude exists must spring forth from the mind of this Mad Men. These learning buildings seem to have become increasingly personal in origin. I would conclude then, that if these buildings have some personal significance, they must be representative of places this Mad Man feels he was slighted. In short, it is exceedingly likely that he took classes which met in these buildings.

Further evidence can be inferred from this Mad Man's jump to the disruption of residence halls. With Towers being the first and most frequent target, the threats soon escalated to Sutherland, Forbes, Holland and Lothrop. Curiously, these dormitories are almost exclusively inhabited by freshman students.

So what can we conclude? No, conclude is too strong a word, but rather, what can we intuit? Here are some thoughts:

• This is a current, or possibly former, Pitt student.

• They greatly enjoy the feeling of being in control, of being able to coerce something as large as a university into action.

• They are highly meticulous. Initially, when the threats began to increase in frequency, I believed this was a sign that they were losing control of the situation, with the authorities closing in. Instead, it appears that these escalations are well-planned and well-executed.

• They are non-confrontational, almost to a fault, producing actions that cause an intended effect as opposed to making demands that must be met.

• Attention is a primary goal of this Mad Man. Every tweet, every status, every story is further proof of a well-executed plan.

• They are highly anticipatory, resorting to more elaborate methods only when such measures are absolutely necessary. For the record, I believe they are an avid fan of chess.

• Based on what little we know about the content of the bomb threats, they seem to have a dissociation between the threat of a bomb on campus and the actual violence of an explosion from said bomb. The threats characteristically relate to this Mad Man in a personal manner; he states "I have planted" as opposed to "There is a bomb", clearly desiring an association between the threat and himself. Yet, no imagery of the violence of a bomb explosion has been noted in the public record. This could lead to two conclusions. Either this Mad Man is uninterested in acts of violence and is instead using them as a tool to bring about some other goal - to what, I cannot say, though it seems unlikely that this is an elaborate prank. The other, more chilling possibility, is that he is in fact planning a violent act, but one that is not brought about by a bomb. Given the personality traits these threats have illustrated, I would imagine he is interested in a more personal form of violence, such as a shooting. Truly, I am not sure which of these possibilities is more likely, however I do hope it is the former.

• Given the targets, I would hazard to guess that the suspect is a male, 20 or 21, who is a student in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. More than likely, they had a difficult time freshman year, particularly in their classes, and believe the school has slighted them in some way. No particular group has been singled out in these threats but rather than the university as a whole, which is good in that no one need worry of being specifically targeted but at the same time makes this Mad Man more difficult to trace. Were I to guess further, I believe they lived in the Litchfield Towers their freshman year - not a stretch, given the size of the residence halls, but it may narrow down the field further. This was all predicated on events prior to this morning, in which Sennot Square and Benedum Hall were added to the list of targeted buildings. Nevertheless, I believe that these buildings were singled out more to remind students that the entire campus is not safe (likely driven by students' comments of the relative safety of these buildings).

I would like to follow up with this issue further in the following days. What worries me the most, and what I will try to follow-up upon as soon as possible, is that this Mad Man has so far anticipated every one of the school's responses. My worry is that this mot recent response by the school, the closing down of buildings to a single entrance and the inability to bring backpacks, was likewise anticipated. In that case, is this an opportunity for him to further his plan, or merely another victory in causing disruption in the school? Or in the case that the move was not anticipated, does he feel slighted that the school unfairly changed the rules? I sincerely hope we are fortunate enough to capture this Mad Man before the answer is determined.

UPDATE: Well, the last 24 hours have been an extremely active period, to say the least. Nevertheless, I'd say these conclusions are still mostly valid, and these recent accelerations are a sign that this Mad Man is nearing some sort of culmination, as well as showing his displeasure in the school's recent policy changes.

Zeal

“For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” – Aristotle

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I remember what zealotry used to feel like. That ever-expanding frontier of something-ness. The thought that this, this, THIS, above all things is worth my time. That zeal used to burn bright.

For a while it was chemistry, grandeur found in the course catalogue of the University of Chicago. Then, sitting in a to single class at Brown University, neuroscience consumed all thought. When those tides waned, bioengineering filled the hole. I don’t doubt that ad infinitum could very easily have sufficed to explain the rest of that torrid history.

I say could, because what once was a Molotov of a blaze is now a dull sheen of indifference. It wasn’t the chemistry, nor the neuroscience, nor the bioengineering, nor was it what ever other godawful replacement likely to come in its place. It wasn’t the summit, it was being at base camp looking up the slope, with flag in hand. Chasing the high of the action, instead of relishing the act.

It just doesn’t fucking matter.

What’s the difference of having the Laplace transform down pat? Of knowing what the six layers of the cortex contain? Of the name of some chemical reaction no one gives a shit about? These concepts, ideas, reactions – whatever your poison may be – are tools. Does a carpenter spend four years of his life learning about how his hammers are made, or what constitutes a good hammer, or how to tell the difference between a hammer and a banana? No – he learns a craft, practices it, and spends the rest of his life, if he is dedicated, perfecting it.

Here I am, here you are, I suspect, a year or two away from the biggest transition life can give us, and we’re learning about tools – our hammers, our nails, our million-dollar biomedical imaging devices. How more prepared are we from four years ago? Daily we spend our time learning, instead of creating, or thinking, or imagining, or even daydreaming. We are kept busy with drudgery, if only to placate that half-formed wariness that what we learn makes so, so little difference.

Michael Lopp writes about a similar phenomenon that plagues managers in “real-life” world, a phenomenon he calls the Faux-Zone:

It is a place intended to create the same rewarding sense of productivity and satisfaction as the Zone, but it is an absolutely fake Zone complete with the addictive mental and chemical feedback, but there is little creative value. In the Faux-Zone, you aren’t really building anything.

It doesn’t have to be like that. There’s no reason for you and me, sexy smart thinkers that we are, to go on pretending. Lopp suggests devoting one precious hour every single day to building something.

I say go further. If there’s one thing in this world worthing being full of zeal for, it’s yourself. Wonder. Daydream. Write. Build. But do it with a passion. Or don’t do it at all.

Deutschland

“This is what I thought: for the most banal even to become an adventure, you must (and this is enough) begin to recount it.”

– Jean-Paul Sartré

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Adventures don’t happen in everyday life. Minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day, engrossed in the banality of the passing of time. Life slipped and squeezed between highlighter stains, sips of coffee, snippets of lectures unprocessed.

And every so often, a break, a breath. Reflection, recounting events – a plot thickens, a them. Recollect the climax, drift to the denouement. The banal becomes exalted, every step drawn out into an Odyssey.

Man is either a teller of tales, or he lives, he exists. Should life be told, portrayed recounted and broadcast with every step, every breath? Or felt, touched, lived?

An adventure, perhaps. Or a banality. Germany this summer – a notebook, a camera and film, and yes, none of you.

Merry

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My father gave me my tenacity. My single-mindedness. My attention to detail. My inability to give up control. Some call it being a perfectionist. I call it getting things right. He calls it work.

My mother gave me my practicality. My unflappability. My fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants. My inability to manage my time. Some call it procrastination. I call it collecting my thoughts. She calls it high-pressure productivity.

Both gave me my stubbornness. Both, my creativity, in their own way. Both, their good sense of humor. Both, every ounce of love they had.

Some call it raising a child.

I call it being the luckiest son in the world.

Merry Christmas. Mom, Dad, all.

The Dangers & Ethical Considerations of Performance Enhancements

To begin to understand the ethical considerations and potential dangers of artificial enhancement of blood oxygen carrying capacity, it is first necessary to frame our question. In doing so, we can ask ourselves the reverse question: “Does allowing an athlete who hails from a high-altitude region to compete against other athletes constitute an unfair advantage or an unethical situation?” Perhaps this seems somewhat silly; of course it isn’t unethical to allow a competitor from a mountainous region, and in fact it seems that it would be unethical to disallow competition. Similarly, it does not seem to constitute an unfair advantage to hail from a hometown above the tree line – competitors, after all, cannot control where they are born.

It is also important to distinguish our three concerns – what, after all, constitutes fairness, ethicality, and harmfulness? Let us briefly briefly state our frame of reference for each of these:

1. Fairness constitutes a fundamental availability of access; an ideally fair enhancement would be equally available to all competitors. While this is often a practical impossibility, a fair enhancement would be optimally accessible.

2. Ethicality constitutes specific societal considerations as to the nature of a treatment; they must be socially acceptable, recognized, and widely used among the relevant population. As cultures vary around the world, society in this sense denotes the governing body that oversees the competition; usually this is mutually agreed-upon by member nations of the competitions.

3. Harmfulness is a much easier metric as it can typically be quantified. Any treatment which provokes a negative acute or chronic response within the body should be considered harmful. Furthermore, any treatment which has a net negative impact on society would also be considered harmful.

Which of these considerations, should they be violated, constitute banning from competition? As stewards of both present and future athletes (as well as being caretakers of the inevitable future in which athletes retire from sport), oversight committees should strive to prevent any performance enhancement, or indeed any potential situation arising from competition, from causing any undue, unnecessary, and avoidable harm. As such, any treatment which could be reasonably constituted as harmful, as determined by a series of accredited and independent set of researchers, should be banned from competition. Thus, while it could certainly be argued that living in high altitudes could cause serious respiratory problems in the general population, athletes are much less likely to see these effects. Furthermore, regardless of any potential individual harm due to homologous transfusions, of which there are many, they should be banned by the simple fact that they provide a net negative influence on society; using donor blood that would otherwise be donated to a blood bank strains already continually in-demand supplies.

Additionally, competitions must inherently be kept competitive; while many have argued that  universal approval of performance enhancements would promote universal adoption, thus negating any unfair competitive advantage, universal adoption is necessarily possible, especially in international competitions (let alone the potential health issues that this may cause). Thus oversight committees should strive to ban any enhancement which is reasonably unfair. Again, there is some judgement inherent; while it could be concluded that it is unfair to allow high-altitude training given that countries like the Seychelles do not have native access to mountain ranges, but such a thing would seem to go to far. After all, Switzerland is a perennial contender in the America’s Cup, an oceanic sailing event, despite being entirely land locked. EPO stimulants, in addition to likely being harmful to the body, would constitute an unfair advantage, as availability is not widespread.

Lastly, we arrive at the question of ethicality, the most nuanced of the three categories. It would be, for example, entirely unethical to poison a competitor prior to competition; however, this is also an unfair and harmful competitive advantage. In fact, most situations of ethicality are covered by the previously stated cases for banning. The only major category is deception – using (approved) performance enhancements while not disclosing them. While this may not feel right to some, there is nothing inherently unfair, or harmful about deception, and thus, it is not a cause for banning. Thus, with the stringent requirement that it is safe and performed properly, there would be no issue with autologous blood doping, a more unethical form of RBC enhancement: athletes all over the world have equal access to their own blood, and treatment centers are almost universal widespread with the capability of performing these operations. The issue, of course, is what levels of transfusion could be considered safe, an issue that would need to be researched and overseen.

Off-Key Themes

I set out with this piece to describe to very distinct concerts – a ballet and Lollapalooza – through the use of the sonata form. This is what became of it. -SM

Tiny reflections reflecting from chandeliers flutter against the gilded ceiling. Muted pink flats scuff against ornate patterns. Their owners struggle to escape the cloying gravity of their granite guardians, wrapped in grey peacoats and more austere attire. A flurry of activity in the atrium orchestrated to some unknown rhythm. Children and adult alike imbued with light-footed excitement.A delicate choreography laced between last-minute snack purchases and souvenir shopping.

Serene chimes emanating from the walls themselves vibrate within the bustling hall. Sparkling jewels of eyes lock onto vaulted doors. Their owners navigate toward the yawning portals of the cavernous theater, enthralled in saccharine fantasies and coiled anticipation. A chauffeur guides every guest to their prescribed position. A cacophony of animal calls grumbles ominously from beneath. Faceless musicians, thrown below deck, fearlessly continue their tune-ups despite their imprisonment.

Grey skies beget a drizzle. The crowd draws closer together. Uncertain if from warmth or anticipation, a magnetic draw toward the twin black cabinets. Bluish smoke hangs thick. The crowd hazy from smog and source. Tens of small orange flares scattered in the midst, wafting sickly sweet smells into the air.

Clouds give in to sun. The crowd quiets in anticipation. A man steps forward on the spartan stage, but alas no performance; just a Hawaiian shirt and a sound check. An empty stage again. The crowd presses closer to the edge. Two figures emerge now, applause growing with realization, as the musicians take their place.

A lone note escapes from the pit, first solo, then swelling with instrumentation. The lights of the theater diminish as do the whispers. Ephemeral silence as the cogs wind-up for their release. Their operator, hardly more than a baton and disembodied head, makes a leisurely approach. The sharply honed point rises for the strike. A delicate downward drift signals the overture. Dulcet notes encompass the entire hall in delicate warmth as the intricate scene is set.

No awknowledgement of applause. No orchestrated performance, no, an attack. The first rat-a-tat staccato, a false start, or a prelude to an eruption of sound. Thunder from the ground shakes rain loose. Passion interrupts silence, or the reverse. Two instruments rest on the stage, but with them their caretakers craft an entire orchestra of sound.

Soft feet leap back and forth from prescribed position. Rise and fall in scale mirrors movement. Emotion contained in the sweep of a leg, bend of a bow, placement of a note. No words fall from made-up lips. No segue, non-sequitur, into elaborate song. The body alone, with harmonic accompaniment, the sole device of communication.

Slender fingers brush delicately against synthetic keys. Raven locks swing wildly from frenzied moves in time to tune. Fever pitch of song, not verse itself, conveys unbridled passion of her craft. Her stoic partner more grounded, subdued. Focus enticingly apparent from strumming hands and pedaling feet. Two on-stage characters, juxtaposed in movement and grace, yet exceedingly similar in conveying their art.

The audience slowly drawn forward, entranced. Ballerinas-to-be imagine themselves on stage. Faeries dote playfully on every cherubim desire, a come-to-life Tinker Bell. The crowd wrapped in music’s movement. Each fan roused into independent rhythm. All dancing to the same tune, yet every snowflake twirl and sway, unique.

The performers switch, seamless, from piece to piece. No time for claps after each denoument. No acknowledgement, no respite; intent only on offering up ever greater music. No bows seen from the pit. Applause for the dancers, yes, but none for their accompaniment. Faceless performers, whose only intent is to produce a backdrop for lithe dancers to leap and bound.

Velvet curtain falls on the shimmering scene, peotic prancing finished. The last melodic notes hang in suspense a fraction longer, a final glimpse of Neverland. The audience, silent silhouettes, now erupt, erect and applauding. Curtain pulls back, revealing not characters, but the performers unmasked. One by one they bow, showered with adoration. And yet all the while the musicians go unnoticed, unrecognized, unacknowledged, faceless.

The thunderous bass ends its last trembling reverberations. Hairs, stood on end from an hour of blasting chords, slowly fall flat against stilled arm. Sullen realization dawns on all that the last note has been played. The crowd applauds ever more boisterously. Jumping and pressing forward, clamoring for just one more song. As if recognizing for the first time that the crowd exists, the woman looks out, says “thank you”, and departs.

Three and Twenty

“For the most banal even to become an adventure, you must (and this is enough) begin to recount it.” – Jean-Paul Sartré

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What is it, precisely, that changes in the world, when you realize you’re the luckiest man in the world? Does the world revolve ever so slightly slower, to savor the delight of the moment, or instead does the pace of the world abruptly quicken so as to hasten the end of that luck? Is there some diffuse filter that descends upon the scene, softening all features except the ones that matter most.

But existence does not drag along with it curtain drops, and catchy melodies; existence plods, flows by, just existing, without pause. We don’t even recognize our luck in the moment; it is only later,when we recall our fortune, that we realize just how blessed we were.

To be the luckiest man in the world. To get things, inexplicably, amazingly right on the first try. To have the terrible misfortune to realize it only after everything had gone.

We are either the traveler in our turbulent experiences, or the teller of the fabulous stories that result; we can never be both. Do we decide to live the banal existence, or do we recount our fantastic adventures. There’s no good answer. But I do fear that we avoid lving the banal in order to tell a story that was never ours to recount. Perhaps, too, in some ways we avoid telling our story to live in banality.

In either case, it’s never good enough.

I’ve been blessed to have been given the time to relish in that sublime experience. But I was too young to realize just how meaningful that time was.

Existence always slips away, unknowing. And all we are ever left with is the stories we may one day tell.

Solving Email

As anyone who receives more than, say, zero emails a day can tell you, getting, writing, sending, sorting, and searching email sucks. It’s absolute shit. Your grandmother grabs a hold of your work address andsends you every cute cat junk mailer she receives from her bridge buddies. Your associates send you critical, last-minute changes (complete with three exclamation marks) expecting you to check your email in the five minutes between it being sent and the critical deadline. Perhaps your social group even uses an email list to talk about whatever is going on in your respective lives.

Email handles practically all use cases – correspondence, instant message, file-sharing, discount coupons, archive – but it handles them miserably. IT’s slow, horribly formatted, and worst of all, it’s misused constantly.

A major problem is the expectations surrounding email. We expect it to do all these things, and we expect it all to go off without a hitch; we are disappointed when the inevitable happens. Worse, we assumes that each and every user, the people we send to, receive from, knows and will conform to our own expectations. We expect different levels of formality, frequency of use, etc. But no one uses email in the same way, because email is so undefined in its use.

So how would one solve email? It isn’t simply a matter of shutting down your Gmail account, because that expectation is so firmly entrenched in our minds: everyone is available through email, if all else fails. And it isn’t a matter of replacing the service with some other, state-of-the-art system, because it isn’t much use if no one else uses the damn thing. So here are some basic criteria:

1. It has to do everything that email can do.
2. It has to coexist with current email.
3. It has to not suck.

Some basics, certainly, that need to be fleshed out more, which I hope to explore further in later posts. I imagine this to be a solution that takes an iMessage-like approach, where users can use the new method with other people similarly entrenched, and switches, without the knowlesge of the user, to normal, plain-old shitty email.

Because it really does suck.

Sometimes Saying Yes

In the recent weeks, reading Steve Jobs’ biography, and several recent stories about Apple’s [success][Joswiak] in desgining for markets that don’t exist, there’s clear emphasis on one word: No. It’s a mantra in many cases for Apple in how they operate: No, we will not answer your questions; No, we will not make twenty products when one will do; No, we will not ask the customer what’s best for them because even they don’t know what’s best for them.

No, No, No.

I think it’s very easy to get hung up on that lone two letter word and start ascribing special meaning to it. It’s easy to get trapped into thinking that by the mere act of saying “No” you drive yourself toward greater success. It’s easy to say we can’t make this work, let’s try something else. It’s easy to say no let’s not do this because it can’t be done.

In no small part, it is about saying no, but more importantly, it’s about saying no to the things that don’t matter. No isn’t some mystical power; it’s merely a way to avoid compromising on what you believe in.

Sometimes, avoiding compromises means saying yes, too. Because without a yes or too, we don’t create amazing things, we don’t identify what matters most to us, we don’t understand what we can’t do without.

Say no to boring things. Say yes to impossible ones. Never stop asking yourself which is which. Always keep what matters most close to your heart.

The District Sleeps Alone

It’s never obvious, when it’s going to be one of those nights. No shining star across the horizon. No status update. No headlights in the fog.

No warning.

It all seems innocuous enough at first; the feeling that there’s an itch that you just can’t scratch, or maybe the street lamp outside is just a bit too bright. Nothing helps of course, no amount of scratching, no shade pulling makes it go away. Cures don’t cure,treatments for the symptoms just dont work: everything you do just serves to make it obvious.

And so the seconds start counting themselves, one, two hundred, three thousand, four AM and nothing’s changed except the light from the moon, maybe, waning with your hope from the night.

Five, six now and the morning comes, grey, dreary, and without comes the noise of the morning, drowning out any chance of relief.

Twiddle your thumbs. Maybe brew an extra large pot. It’ll be another long day before it gets to night again. Maybe then your mind won’t get the better of you. Maybe then you’ll stay still for a second longer than you need. Maybe then you’ll get some sleep.

Maybe you’ll lay awake again, listening for sounds you know you’ll never hear.

Some Thoughts on 2012

With the spectacle that is the Tea Party Beauty Pageant – errr, or is it the Race for the Republican Presidental Nomination? – in full swing now, it’s become almost unavoidable to see adverts, punditry and all other sorts of ballyhooing about some as of now entirely hypothetical face-off nearly a year away. I say almost of course because it is in fact avoidable if you’re willing to forgo television for two years out of every four, a price I think most of us would prefer not paying.

All this political pontificating about which currently occupies the 24-hour newsperson’s hard-core, wet-dream fantasies has got me thinking about the matter at hand, the matter that I think most people at least have on the back of their mind as election day all too slowly approaches:

Just who the fuck am I going to vote for?

A valid question, if at the very least somewhat premature, considering the Republican candidate is far from set in stone, let alone even a single primary vote been cast on the matter. Yet still, despite the so-called “intense primary race” between Romney and a bunch of idiots1 – not to imply that Romney isn’t an idiot, he just happens to have sold his soul to a far less ignorant set of ideologies – the tactic seems pretty clear to the that used by the Democrats in 2004. It’s the so-called “Anybody But [Current Incumbent]”, and it played out well for the Democrats in their subsequent ouster of Bush and election of, wait, who was that guy again?

…

Crickets. As in only crickets could even bear listening to John Kerry speak.

So let’s just assume for a second that the Rupublican candidate is “Anybody But Obama”, since that’s how every candidate seems to be running2. That leaves the Democratic party – sorry, Independents, but I’d like to think my vote at least might count – which means, unsurprisingly Obama.

So the question is Obama, or no Obama? And I think that question itself is a little harder to answer, because I think the answer really depends on how you ask the question. If you compare him to the standard set by most other modern presidents, and account for the context he’s been placed in – struggling economy, unresponsive congress full of bat-shit insane people – he stacks up pretty well, though that’s not saying much.

The issue, in part, is that he came into office with a lot of help from a little four letter word - Hope. And if anything’s disappeared from the White House, Congress, and the American Political Machine in general, it’s hope. Naturally people are disappointed because he hasn’t changed anything. My disappointment is a bit more pragmatic. I wasn’t expecting change; after all,the President can only do so much when he has to rely on a stable full of America’s pompous unintelligent jack-asses to get things done. What’s truly been disappointing in Obama’s first-term is the uninspired manner in which he composed himself. Perhaps he too, understood that just being elected would do little to get things done. But his actions in his four-year term were downright cowardly, especially since the Republicans have taken back some power.

All that aside, the promise of having a second-term president is extremely appealing, especially in a time like this. Having someone in office who isn’t immediately thinking about re-election presents the genuine possibility of getting some of the issues and trouble spots that Obama initially campaigned on truly resolved. Unfortunately, a large part of the decision has to go down to that. It’s not about choosing between Obama and the “Not-Obama”. It’s about choosing between a leader made ineffectualy because of an upcoming election, or a leader that can no longer be elected.3

Pick your Poison, I guess.

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1. Wait, you mean Ron Paul is running in this primary? Who knew? ↩

2. Seriously though, are you sure Ron Paul is still running? ↩

3. If only Ron Paul were still in the running for the Republican nomination… ↩

Bacon

Or, Heaven Comes in Pairs. As I pick up my set of groceries from the co-operative today, scanning the labels for my name, I delight in seeing the underwritten descriptor – “Bacon”.

I tear open the cool bag, and yes, heaven does indeed await: not one, but two slabs of the full-fat hacked off the hog pieces, two and a half pounds in total.

Why is bacon so great? Hell if I know. Hell if I care.

Hearing From the Corners of our Eyes

I recently submitted this research proposal to the University of Pittsburgh in order to obtain some funding and the opportunity to present my findings at a University symposium and possibly other, larger get-togethers. I include it here as a roundabout way of describing some of the work that I do as a researcher. -SM

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By Sean Moore, Undergraduate Researcher, Sensory Motor Integration Laboratory

When we first learn about the basics of our senses, those five fundamental pathways of assessing our outer world, we learn of their independence from one another. Smell is smell, sight is sight, touch is touch. Each allow us to know and view our world in a fundamentally different way, each gives us a wholly unique experience of interacting with the world, and each pathway distinctive so that our perception can properly influence our decisions. We don’t, as normal, healthy human beings, hear colors, after all; nor do we taste shapes.

However, the cognitive regions of the brain, in all of their expansive and interconnected glory, rarely work as independent systems assessing distinct sensory stimuli. Rather, perception itself is a richly entwined process in which information obtained from one path can be utilized to short-circuit the calculations another route must make. The result is faster, smoother decisions, actions, and updates about the world around us, and we use it all the time: close your eyes for a second and hunt for that beloved mug of coffee on your desk – careful, don’t spill! We are entirely capable of finding the handle, but the action is accomplished in several short jagged burst of motion. But when we open our eyes, and combine our rich visual information, we intercept that steaming vessel with fluidity and pinpoint accuracy.

This integrative ability of the mind is nothing short of astounding. And yet this capacity for cross-talk between sensory centers also gives rise to some fascinating phenomena; cases in which the mind deludes itself, sensing two distinct pieces of information and yet perceiving another that is wholly independent of either. One such phenomenon is known as the McGurk-MacDonald Effect. Discovered accidentally when a videographer in the lab mistakenly produced a clip “in which repeated utterances of the syllable (ba) had been dubbed on to lip movements for (ga), normal adults reported hearing (da).”1 At the time, the implications were enormous: it was entirely unknown that, prior to the film faux pas, that visual processing influenced auditory perception in any way.

While McGurk and MacDonald’s research shed light on a topic that has been explored in-depth about this parallel engagement of sensory processing, little has been elucidated as to precisely what elements of the visual field are altering the speech recognition capabilities of the mind. Is it the disconnect between the micro-expressions of syllable formation and auditory register? Or does the mere sight of the speaker in the corner of your eye, without any conscious ability to read the words on the speaker’s lips induce the effect? It is not clear what fundamental components of the visual stimulus are truly necessary in tricking our mind, and what protions are wholly extraneous.

In analyzing this affect of vision on the perception of sound, subjects will be presented with the visual stimuli in ever increasing ranges of their peripheral vision, and will be asked to relate what they hear. As these tasks arc further into the visual hemisphere, the visual acuity of subjects will be tested by evaluating their ability to discern geometrically similar letters from one another. By comparing one’s relative visual acuity in the periphery to the extent of which the mind is fooled by the trick, it should become clear at what point, if at all, the lack of visual detail extinguishes this audio-visual phenomena.

While the experiment is almost childishly simple, it aims to shed light on some exceedingly intricate neural connections. It may be discovered that this phenomenon is not contained in the higher-level centers of the visual and auditory centers, but may instead be an ingrained connection between vision and speech that arises prior to, and even influences our conscious perception of the illusion. More importantly, this research allows the chance to investigate the underpinnings of one of the many fascinating paradoxes of the mind. It is these things that have in the first place asked to consider “What is it about me that causes this?” Answering these small riddles, in turn, gives great joy in knowing that, in some small way, our understanding of our fundamental existence has been furthered.

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1. McGurk, H & MacDonald, J. “Hearing Lips and Seeing Voices”. Nature, vol. 264, pg. 746-8. 1976. ↩

Tools

I thought it would be prudent before continuing these recent dialogues about design and the human interface to step back and frame our assessment of these somewhat abstract concepts. What is it that grounds design, that grounds interface, and interaction. I think we are led off track somewhat when we hear these words, because we’ve been told, not completely erroneously, that these higher notions are aesthetics alone, that they are no more forms of art. It’s not much of a stretch after all, to conceive great design as works of art; to equate the two as equals, though, is brutish. The two, when executed properly, express themselves emotionally. Art uses this emotion rhetorically. Design uses this emotion to communicate function. And so the essential piece, the low-order bit of the whole thing isn’t the aesthetic, because design can exist without it (though often it does so poorly); instead it is the function that design cannot exist without. And function is fundamentally contained within the tool.

Defining the Tool

What, fundamentally, is a tool then? Is it merely that amalgamation of molded iron and plastic that sat in a shiny little box in the garage when you were a kid? If it were as simple as that, one wonders why your dad couldn’t make due with the neon Fisher-Price facsimiles you had as a child when building you that treehouse you’ve always wanted. In fact a tool has little to do with where it’s found, or what it’s made of; it is in fact much more than that, and truthfully, much less.

A tool is nothing more than a solution to some problem we face.

Truly, it’s such a simple definition, but it’s one we often understand experientially rather than consciously. Consider buying a drill. We don’t go to our hardware store because our tool bench isn’t filled up to the brim – we go because we have found that we need a problem solved – in this case, our life needs more holes in it – and so we look for a solution to the problem. But logic dictates that when the person is in the store they are searching for a drill, but that’s confusing cause and effect. People don’t buy drills to make holes, but rather they find that holes are in need of making, and so they head to the store to find a way to make them. The drill itself is superfluous, it merely happens to be the best way of solving a problem.

And so our life is full of tools that represent the current best solutions to current problems. A newspaper, for example, is a tool we employ that solves the problem of knowing what’s out there; if we didn’t have newspapers, we’d have to travel to every inch of the world, everyday, to know the latest goings-on out there. Truthfully, when viewed like this, it solves an even greater problem: getting the most out of our time.

Getting Stuck with Tools

One of the biggest problems we sometimes face isn’t finding ourselves facing a problem with no tools, but rather finding ourselves choosing between too many tools to solve a problem that may not even exist. A beginning artist may walk into an art store to select a few brushes for their latest work, only to come back to the studio, see the blank canvas, and wonder if the few brushes they picked out of the thousands on display were the right ones. Why, after all, do those thousands of brushes exist unless every single one of them were needed. But the truth is that the problem doesn’t lie in the brush; you could purchase every single one from the store and that canvas in your studio would be no less blank because of it. The problem isn’t that you have the right tools to make beautiful works of art, the problem is you don’t know if your art will be beautiful. The real question you want to ask is, “How do I make things that don’t suck?”

As it turns out, we have a tool for that too. It’s called a trash can, and it’s very likely the best solution ever conceived.

# Occupy

I can’t say I’m either supportive or dismissize of the OWS movement that has seemed to envelop this nation in the last two months. I can wholeheartedly agree with them about some of their concerns of the lending institutions of America – there shouldn’t be companies that both play an integral part in our prosperity, are too big to fail, and can gamble billions of dollars of American money in order to make billions more. It should be like the old engineering adage “Pick Two”, and really, truly, honestly, it should be “Pick One”. No one would be upset if these banks gambled big with their own money and lost it all. No one would be upset if they gambled big and won too, but I guess that’s besides the point. At some point the house always wins.

But what’s troubling, despite it being a major draw of many to the #occupy movement, is the largely unstructured hierarchy of the movement. It’s wat’s allowed the groups in various American cities to grow their encampments. But it may also be their eventual downfall. The movement is characterizing itself as non-partisan, anti-“Fat Cat” bureaucracy, which is really what a talk about the mation’s financial troubles should be – free from party bias, and more importantly, out of the reach of special interest groups. But these same groups have already begun to employ the movement to further their political gains – the right, of the “liberal agenda”, the left of the nation’s disapproval of the right.

Matt Taibbi [urges][taibbi] the protestors to protect themselves from these affronts to the non-partisan nature of the protests. But protection can’t come merely from denial of these labels; nature abhors a vacuum, and as unwholly natural as politcal journalism sometimes feels, they too follow the nature laws and just feel flat-out uncomfortable abouth a story with no buzzwords. What this movement truly needs is a face; a single voice that speaks for the entire campaign. It isn’t necessarily what that voice is saying this early on in the movement; merely that it is saying something, and saying it well.

In much the same way that Dr. King became the face of the Civil Rights movement, and largely shaped the debates at all levels of American life, so too do the OWS members need their own public spokesperson. Without it, #occupy will ultimately serve as nothing more than a tool to manipulate public opinion wrought by the very same people the protestors are unabashedly opposed.

Reimagining the Human Interface: Part I

This piece is one in a series of pieces in which I hope to explore, and in some ways redefine what we consider to be an interface, what we consider to be interaction, and what the role the human plays in all of this. This is something near and dear to my heart, my studies, my research, and hopefully one day my career. Enjoy.

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Defining the Interface

What, fundamentally, is an interface? Were it merely the boundary between two things, our classification would be quick and consise – it may be labeled as nothing more than the “membrane” that separates one thing from another. Just as the cell is surrounded by a membrane between cytoplasm and the external environment, so too can we designate the “membranes” of human interaction – the touchscreen, the keyboard, or even the quill and ink, the hammer and chisel.

A definition that includes this boundary property of the interface is by all means necessary, but it does not adequately describe what the interface is. The cell membrane, after all, isn’t merely a method of segmenting and cordoning off one thimbleful of molecules from the rest of the primordial soup; it serves as a conduit of interaction between the inner and outer partitions. It shapes and defines the characteristics of how the cell interacts with its outside environment. It fascilitates and limits the cells outward expression.

The human interface operates in precisely the same means. The tools – the hammer and chisel, for example – are our “membrane” between inner contemplation and outer thought. But the mere designation of a particular tools isn’t the role of the human interface; instead, it is how we interact with the tools in question, how we use them to convey information, and how effective they are at capturing intent. In our example, it’s the design and ergonomics of our hammer and chisel that effect our interaction, their ease of use in transcripting information that we’ve processed, and our ability to use them to convey what we mean. Understanding each of these aspects is crucial because they define how the human interface becomes useful, and guide use in future undertakings.

Note that none of this relies on knowledge of what we interact with, and what we wish to convey. It’s a subtle point of distinction, but one that certainly needs to be considered. Fundamentally, the user interface should be ubiquitous; it should be able to capture any form of cognition and convey it to the receiver in any form. Practice, however teaches us that this is typically impractical – a hammer and chisel is by no means an effective input method to a computer system, and a touchscreen device is a poor method of capturing complex emotions 1. Trade-offs are inherent in the specific design solutions, but the human interface should strive for ubiquity, or at the very least, have clear boundaries.

So what, then, is an interface? With this definition in mind, the designations expand almost endlessly. Interfaces can be input-oriented; the size, typography, style guide, and even fruequency of printings are all aspects of the human interface of a newspaper, nearly everything but the content itself. The dialers, receivers, speakers and microphones of a telephone, but not the transmittance, or the voices on either side, are part of the human interface. In short, it’s all aspects which collect, convey, or convert human inputs and outputs. And I think the future lies in refining and enhancing our capabilities within these constraints.

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1. I would argue that printed word, and to a lesser extent, even spoken word are ineffective means at conveying true emotion. We are blessed that biology has spent many thousands of eons perfecting this interface through facial expression. ↩

Spoke & Wheel

There are few companies that can even function in such an organized way, and even fewer that can get it right. Disney, when Walt was at the helm, was one of them. Apple, prior to Steve’s resignation was another. I think it’s clear that the effectiveness of these companies wasn’t so much the fact that the spokes existed. It was that there was an incredibly solid axle to spin around. Both men put themselves into every aspect of the companies they built. The spoke and wheel wasn’t so much a structured decision as an organic one; bureucracy was certainly limited as these men had the need to reach all corners of their respective companies. It was more out of convenience than of true usefulness.

So is the spoke and wheel truly effective in management? Can Apple continue to spin true without their axle? Will they even remain organized the way they are? Should they? And can companies operate effectively organized like this, can they be constructed radially rather than just bloom without attentive cultivation?

These are questions that need further examination.

Revisited

“When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetics, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.” – Steve Jobs, on designing the Mac

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I wanted to revisit what I wrote earlier about Walter Isasacson’s biography on Steve Jobs. I really do think, when you consider just how private Steve was in his life, that anyone could get him to sit down for an extended of series of interviews; that Isaacson was able to retain control over everything within the book (Steve thought the initial cover design looked like shit) is nothing short of amazing. It’s true that Steve did initially commission the book, and that he willingly gave up editorial control over the work, and yet, knowing Steve, actually being able to follow through on the hands-off approach is still a feat to be admired.

My thoughts, especially in the first half of the book, mostly consisted of being astounded by all the unique – really, truly unique – parts of Steve’s life that I’d never been exposed to – though their documentation has been previously published in other tomes. What’s disappointing, really, is the drastic decline in detail as we get closer to the present day, especially the last fifteen years and the return to Apple. Here was a man who did something inconceivable not just in the Tech world, but in any company, and it feels brushed aside, or rushed, or just not quite right. I have the feeling that Isaacson felt that really delving deep into this side of Steve would skew the book into too positive of a territory. I wonder, and worry, honestly, that this part of his life was played down so that the book reads more balanced, more “fair”.

It’s unfortunate that this need to convey objectivity, this need to prove that there is no emotional attachment to the subject, no sympathy, only the facts. But that’s exactly what Steve was about. The emotional connection, the intuitive relation, the superceeding of logic in favor of a much more humanist relation. How could you not be moved by this man’s story? It really is a shame that the book feels as though it has cast aside this powerful bond in favor of mass-market acceptance.

It should feel like a book about Steve. Instead, it reads like a book by Isaacson.

But maybe that’s what Steve wanted after all.

The End of Quick Lunches

Paleo is hard. It’s hard moving from a diet abundant with grains to one completely bereft of them. It’s hard throwing out such a fantastic staple of the Western diet, the pasta, the bread, the baked goods, the quick carb, and replacing it with alternatives. It’s harder to get real serious about it, especially with an active lifestyle, throwing out slow-carb sources such as potatoes and rice, in favor of caloric intake almost exclusively from protein and fats.

And it’s made all the more difficult being a college kid. No more late night pizza runs, the lifeblood of post-dinner meals. No more ramen, the staple in kitchens and beat-up apartments near campuses all across the country. Gone, too, is the a far larger chunk of your wallet1 spent on healthier options and fresher food.

But most disappointingly, gone is bread.

Not just the fresh-baked delight of a baguette, golden-brown and crispy on the outside, and delicately airy and soft within. It’s the Sara-Lee, the wonderbread, the nine-grain, the pre-sliced, pre-saran-wrapped down-to-earth stuff that’s truly the challenge to live without. Because without it, it means no more quick-to-prep lunches – no more sandwiches. It’s really something to be taken for granted, how simple and efficient the sandwich really is. Two minutes, and probably less if your good at it, and you have a travel-ready meal that can be consumed, if need be, in less than half the time.

So how do you replace it? That was honestly my greatest concern when starting Paleo, and it’s still not a question I’ve completely answered. But I have found two things that work, albeit to an extent:

1. Cooking to make leftovers: One phenomenal part of Paleo, to it’s great credit, is that I’ve learned to cook protein – fish, chicken, beef, etc. – simply, quickly, and for the most part, deliciously. Mostly out of necessity, or perhaps more accurately, impatience, I’ve cut down cooking times on many meals without comprimising on flavors. Extending this further, and merely cooking a little more than I need, and I have a ready-made meal for lunch the next day. When this works, it works great – who wouldn’t love a fantastic home-cooked meal over dining hall food? Two big questions remain though - What if I don’t cook an evening meal? And what if I cook something that isn’t big enough to split up?
2. Pre-cooking lunches: In searching for an answer to these questions, I started attempting to make big, crock-pot meals; meals that would last a week both satisfying my stomach and surviving the fridge. Chilis, stews, taco meat – and again, it was fantastic when it worked. The problem is, and is only becoming more exacerbated over the semester, is when am I going to have time to make these meals? It’s hard to step aside and devote several hours of time to cooking when papers, tests and homework are constantly looming.

So unfortunately I don’t have a catch-all answer yet. If all else fails though, I can make my way to Spain. I hear they like to take their lunches nice and slow.

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1. If you’re serious about Paleo as a college student, I would definitely look into joining a farm co-op of some sort – they offer cheaper prices for better food, and sometimes, if you’re lucky, they deliver either to your house or to some convenient place on-campus. ↩

The Problem with C++

The typedefs say it all; I’ll stick with Objective-C please. Presented without comment.

#if defined(_MSC_VER)
#pragma warning ( disable : 4786 )
#endif
#include "itkSize.h"
#include "itkIndex.h"
#include "itkImage.h"
#include "itkImageRegionIterator.h"
#include "itkPoint.h"
#include "itkSphereSpatialFunction.h"
#include "itkFloodFilledSpatialFunctionConditionalIterator.h"
#include "itkPNGImageIO.h"
#include "itkImageFileReader.h"
#include "itkImageFileWriter.h"
#include "itkCannyEdgeDetectionImageFilter.h"
#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>



int main () {


const unsigned int Dimension = 2; 
typedef unsigned char PixelType;
typedef itk::Image< PixelType, Dimension > ImageType;
typedef itk::ImageRegionIterator< ImageType> IteratorType;

ImageType::Pointer image = ImageType::New();

ImageType::SizeType size;
size[0] = 256;
size[1] = 256;

ImageType::IndexType start;
start[0] = 0;
start[1] = 0;

ImageType::RegionType region;
region.SetSize(size);
region.SetIndex(start);

image->SetRegions(region);
image->Allocate();

double spacing[ImageType::ImageDimension];
spacing[0] = .5;
spacing[1] = .5;
image->SetSpacing(spacing);

double origin[ImageType::ImageDimension];
origin[0]=0;
origin[1]=0;
image->SetOrigin(origin);

ImageType::PixelType pixelValue='X';
for(int i=0;i<256;i++) {
    for(int j=0;j<256;j++) {
        ImageType::IndexType pixelIndex;
        pixelIndex[0]=i;
        pixelIndex[1]=j;
        image->SetPixel(pixelIndex,pixelValue);
    }
}

IteratorType it(image,image->GetRequestedRegion() );

for( it = it.Begin();!it.IsAtEnd();++it) {
    it.Set('O');
}

  for(int strat = 0; strat < 4; strat++)
    {

    typedef itk::SphereSpatialFunction<2> FunctionType;
    typedef FunctionType::InputType FunctionPositionType;

    FunctionType::Pointer spatialFunc = FunctionType::New();
    spatialFunc->SetRadius( 25.0 );

    FunctionPositionType center;
    center[0] = 128;
    center[1] = 128;
    spatialFunc->SetCenter(center);

    ImageType::IndexType seedPos;
    const ImageType::IndexValueType pos[] = {2,2};
    seedPos.SetIndex(pos);

    typedef itk::FloodFilledSpatialFunctionConditionalIterator
      <ImageType, FunctionType> ItType;

    ItType sfi = ItType(image, spatialFunc, seedPos);

    switch(strat){
    case 0:
      {
        sfi.SetOriginInclusionStrategy();
      }
    break;
    case 1:
      {
        sfi.SetCenterInclusionStrategy();
      }
    break;
    case 2:
      {
        sfi.SetCompleteInclusionStrategy();
      }
    break;
    case 3:
      {
        sfi.SetIntersectInclusionStrategy();
      }
    } 

    for( sfi.GoToBegin(); !( sfi.IsAtEnd() ); ++sfi)
      {
      sfi.Set('c');
      }

    }   

    typedef itk::ImageFileWriter<ImageType> WriterType2D;
    WriterType2D::Pointer writer2D = WriterType2D::New();
    writer2D->SetFileName( "PartE.png" );
    writer2D->SetInput( image );
    writer2D->Write();

    typedef itk::ImageFileReader<ImageType> ReaderType;
    ReaderType::Pointer reader = ReaderType::New();

    reader->SetFileName("Tiger.png");

    ImageType::Pointer image1 = reader->GetOutput();

    typedef itk::Image<float, Dimension>    RealImageType;
     CastToRealFilterType;
    typedef itk::RescaleIntensityImageFilter<RealImageType, CharImageType > RescaleFilter;
    typedef itk::CannyEdgeDetectionImageFilter<RealImageType, RealImageType> CannyFilter;

    float variance = 2.0;
    float upperThreshold = 0.0;
    float lowerThreshold = 0.0;

    itk::CastImageFilter< ImageType, RealImageType>::Pointer toReal = CastToRealFilterType::New();
    RescaleFilter::Pointer rescale = RescaleFilter::New();
    CannyFilter::Pointer cannyFilter = CannyFilter::New();

    writer->SetFileName( "filteredImage.png" );

  rescale->SetOutputMinimum(   0 );
  rescale->SetOutputMaximum( 255 );

  toReal->SetInput( image1);

  cannyFilter->SetInput( toReal->GetOutput() );
  cannyFilter->SetVariance( variance );
  cannyFilter->SetUpperThreshold( upperThreshold );
  cannyFilter->SetLowerThreshold( lowerThreshold );

  rescale->SetInput( cannyFilter->GetOutput() );
  writer->SetInput( rescale->GetOutput() );


    writer->Write();

}