The Opinionated Bastard

Education is supposed to be this difficult problem.

It shouldn’t be. Teaching children at its core is a very simple problem. You need children to interact with an adult. The more time they interact with that adult, the more they learn. The more materials available to the teacher in the classroom, the more kids learn.

I know, that seems so obvious its stupid. Maximize time spent with a teacher, maximize the resources available to that teacher, and the child will learn more quickly.

But what then, am I to think of a bureaucracy in every state that forgets this simple fact? The education establishment tries very hard to improve our schools, but they’re like a guy in a rowboat rowing very hard the wrong direction: they just go around in circles.

A typical program in our school systems is Title XII. This program is designed to help kids who have fallen behind catch up. The typical way this is implemented is that they hire a separate part-time teacher to teach the Title XII kids. These kids are pulled out of the classroom for a certain number of hours a week so that the Title XII teacher can give them additional attention. Usually the Title XII teacher teaches 5-10 kids at a time.

See the problem yet?

Sigh.

Stupid religious war on Slashdot today about which OS is better.

Look, people are different. Most people are primarily verbal or primarily visual.

They will be more productive in an operating system that caters to that. A verbal person will prefer a command line, a visual person a well done GUI.

Mac OS X is visual/kinesthetic. Linux tends to be pure verbal.
Windows is a bastard verbal GUI. (more on that later)

So if you’re an artist, you’ll find Mac OS X to be easier to use and you’ll produce better work then you would on another operating system because the OS will synchronize with your cognitive mode.

If you’re a lawyer, you might well be happier on Linux. If you ask a lawyer, they’ll tell you they were happiest on Word Perfect 5.4 under MS-DOS.

No one can be productive on Windows, because Windows manages to be a verbal focused GUI. Under Windows, its all all about choosing verbs and nouns using a GUI, vs. Mac OS X which is more about the visual manipulation of objects. So there is no cognitive mode were Windows is really usable… Even worse for a visual person, the color scheme is like being screamed at all day. For most artists, using Windows is the death of a thousand stings. More subtly, art done under Windows is usually inferior to art done on Mac OS X, because Mac OS X is easiest to use in a visual cognitive mode. Windows, by forcing a shift to the verbal mode, hobbles the artist.

As an experiment, ask yourself this:

If you are drawing, do you use more or less keyboard commands? If you are writing, do you use more or less keyboard commands? If you are programming, do you use more or less keyboard commands? If you are designing programs, do you use more or less keyboard commands?

What you’ll find is that depending on the primary cognitive mode of the task you’re currently doing, you use the computer in different ways.

This is why all OS religious wars are stupid. Different people have different preferences depending on their particular cognitive preference.

Except for trashing Windows, because it sucks because it requires mutually exclusive cognitive modes. That’s ok. :-)

Computers are never more annoying then when they’re trying to be helpful.

So the Noise, the local art monthly I write a column for came out this week. My piece is here, I posted it on my blog 3 weeks ago. As I expected, it had two slams against me. Funny thing is, the second slam is in the form of a letter to the editor supposedly written by a independent person. Except it quotes almost word for word what Sylvia said to me at the editorial meeting a month ago.

You know, its funny, because what really happened is that I had three complaints about Sylvia:

1. She was a whiner.

2. Her writing was a boring rant no one would want to read.

3. It seemed to me that her piece confirmed the worst aspects of some feminists, the whole “we’re all victims of the patriarchy” nonsense, and then made comparisons I found offensive by drawing equivalency between genocide in some countries and wearing high heels in ours. I generally associate that sort of nonsense with lesbian feminists, as heterosexual feminists usually have a little more clue about men. Given that she also used the word queer, something most enlightened heteros won’t do, I assumed therefore that she was an intelligent lesbian instead of a clueless heterosexual.

That’s basically because I don’t disagree with most feminists, I just think the ones that blame all their problems on men are idiots. Men and women have different strengths and weaknesses, but not everything women struggle against is sexism.

Guess which one complaint Sylvia focused on to the exclusion of the others? The lesbian part of course. God forbid she actually improve her writing.

As an example, this month she had this 2000 word rant called Outdated Stereotypes of Feminism. Here’s an excerpt (bad punctuation and missing words are as published):

Feminists are Humorless

We tried and tried to come up with something funny respond to this one, but we just couldn’t think of anything because we…we’re feminists.

But, Seriously, folks!

Feminists would have all committed suicide by now if they didn’t have a sense of humor, for the reality of sexism is grim and serious, not funny.

That was the funny bit. The rest of the article was just as grim. Three women who know me read the part about me, read 2 sections, then moved on because it was too boring. Eventually, they got to my article, and complimented me on it.

Anyways, men and women have different strengths. Women are really good at networking, but that means that if you piss one feminist off, they tend to form a pity party to pick you apart. Hence the term feminist mafia. However, they picked the wrong fight this time. Ganging up on a single person who complained about a feminist being whiny is well, just silly. Ganging up on someone who has “The Opinionated Bastard” in his newspaper masthead for being opinionated is just stupid. Here’s what my masthead looks like.

Would you write a letter to the editor about someone who has this at the top of his column?

The other weird thing in the letter to the editor (first a fake interview, then a fake letter to the editor, geesh) was an offhand comment that PMS Media was doing their activities in no way to be self serving. It took me awhile to realize this, but that was supposed to be referring to me. Well, all Art is self serving, its all about the ego chicky-babes, otherwise no one would do Art. My main issue with these so called feminists is that all their art so far consists of “look at me, look how cool I am”. Do cool art, and people will know how cool you are. The letter to the editor also mentioned this terrible thing in Juarez. Which is funny, because if you go to the PMS Media website above, they’ll tell you all about how they traveled to Mexico to protest this horrible occurrence, but not one word or link about whatever the horrible thing was. I even emailed them and asked, but I never got an answer, so I still don’t know what the hell is going on with this terrible thing they’re supposedly trying to “raise consciousness” about.

It’s still weird how my situation parallels Estrich vs. Kinsley.

‘Ware the feminist mafia!

I don’t really consider a feminist worth listening to unless she’s read the following four books:

Games Mother Never Taught You

This book is the best book on corporate politics ever, and while its written by a feminist for women, its an invaluable guide to corporate politics that all men should read as well. I easily credit this book with probably about 25% of my current salary over the years, and about 50% of every raise I’ve ever gotten.

• If you think raises go to the person who does the best work and is therefore most valuable to the company, you’re wrong, get this book.
• If you don’t know the difference between a “staff” position and a “line” position, get this book.

Bottom line, is that the barriers to advancement for women are often not knowing the rules of the game more then they are actual sexism.

How To Win Friends And Influence People

This book is just a classic. Anyone who takes these principles to heart will succeed no matter what color or sex they are.

You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation Talking from 9 to 5 : Women and Men at Work

Men and Women often just don’t communicate, no matter how hard they try. These two books explain why, and I think its especially valuable where she talks about how that affects women in the work place. If you are a women, and you constantly say “I’m sorry” during a staff meeting, meaning “I’m sorry that happened”, your fellow workers are going to see you as weak and lacking confidence, even the other women. So you’re less likely to get promoted.

Sexual Personae : Art & Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson

Camille Paglia is controversial, but undeservedly so in my opinion. If you ask an art historian about sociology or politics, she’s going to tell you its all about art. In her case, since Camille has drawn some really interesting parallels between art and sex, she’s going to tell you its all about sex. That doesn’t mean she’s right, but its an interesting perspective.

In this case though, this book is a tour de force presentation of how there are two main themes in art: the Apollonian (which she associates with the masculine) and the Chthonian (which she associates with the feminine). Its the most interesting and thought provoking book on art I’ve ever read.

W.L. Gore Medical is based in Flagstaff, so they’ve given me interesting insight into how an organization run on more feminine principles might work.

It doesn’t.

In a traditional, more masculine enterprise, there would be a strict hierarchy.

At W.L. Gore everyone is an associate, so in theory, everyone is equal.

The reality is that there is very definitely a hierarchy at W.L. Gore, its just completely hidden so it takes a new employee about a year before they can become very effective if they have any large amount of responsibility so they need “buyin” from multiple people. It also means its very hard to push through any decisions there, because it requires too much consensus, so everyone has to be comfortable.

There’s a very dark side as well. Because there are no clear lines of authority at Gore, you can only be effective if everyone likes you. Now not only does that have nothing to do with how effective you are at your job, but say something happens in your personal life. Like you get divorced. Now man, woman, or beast, you’re going to be bitchy about your divorce for about a year.

The consequence of all this feminine touchy-feely stuff? You get laid off, because you’re grumpy, no matter how well you may be doing your work.

I’ve heard academia can be even worse…but they at least have the concept of tenure.

Then again, I don’t really associate any of this with the feminine. From what I’ve seen, feminine pecking orders can be pretty similar to masculine ones. Its that I’m constantly reading stuff from feminists who think that if women ruled the world, it would be this big happy place where people sit around singing Koom-By-Yah…

Not gonna happen.

How to destroy the Earth

Foolish humans! The Earth is much more powerful then you! You are to the earth as an ant to an elephant!

Hat Tip: Bruce Scheirer

via Volokh a quote from either Slate or Anne Applebaum:

Perhaps male columnists are just not interested in this issue because it doesn’t represent the sort of “hard news” they’re used to commenting on. More likely, they are terrified to opine on the debate because the inquiry is so fraught with the possibility of career-terminating levels of politically correct blowback — a la Larry Summers — that they deem it better to hold their tongues and wait for the storm to pass.

Ok, I’ll bite. While I’ve been willing to comment on my own run ins with issue, mostly, I find the whole issue boring because its just whining. Men really don’t find whining interesting because we don’t do the sort of “trouble talking” that women do.

As for why there are more male opinion columnists then women, there are some gender differences I think.

• Men are more egotistical, so they’re more interested in writing an opinion column or blogging in the first place.
• Men are more confrontational in general. In men’s conversations, there’s often a game of one-upmanship, so there’s definite precedent for disagreement in conversation. Women tend towards agreement in converstation. You’re much more likely to hear a man say “you’re full of shit and here’s why” then you are to hear a woman say that.
• Ever notice that blogs written by women have more details about their lives and tends more towards journals then opinion essays?

This is covered quite well in this book I recommended previously:

You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation

BagNews

He analyzes photos he sees in the mainstream media for themes and content. Pretty interesting.

About two months ago, I started using this program called Sp@mX. Basically, you feed it a set of spam and it munges through it for you and sends emails to the appropriate people complaining about the spam.

This has two effects: Spammers remove you from their lists, so you get less spam, and ISPs shut down spam accounts, which also helps you get less spam.

It took awhile (I’ve reported 4427 spam emails so far), but it cut my spam down from 150/day down to 33/day, and its been steadily dropping.

But its been quite interesting looking at the interaction between myself, ISPs, and the author of the program. I’ve come to the conclusion that ISPs are at least half the problem when it comes to spam. They’re arrogant, whiny, and quite bitchy when it comes to dealing with abuse messages from end users.

First off, realize that Sp@mX is not perfect. Jeff Hendrickson, the author of the program has been reasonably responsive, but he’s not the world’s best programmer. He’s had bugs, and he’s had to learn about spam reporting as he went, so early versions of Sp@mX would sometimes send messages to the wrong ISPs based on forged headers. Since almost all spam have forged headers, that means that with early versions of the program, ISPs could get deluged with messages that had nothing to do with them.

However, that doesn’t excuse their rudeness back to either myself as an end user, or Jeff. Jeff developed a tool for end users to report spam, and it works pretty well from the end users perspective. Jeff now checks before sending an email to a spamming ISP to see if they’ve been blacklisted somewhere, and the reality is that its quite possible for an ISP to show up briefly, yet innocently on a blacklist.

Does Sp@mX work perfectly from the ISPs perspective? No, not every message send from Sp@mX is guaranteed to be a problem for that ISP. But you know what? Suck it up guys! Expecting end users to spend 1 hour per spam to figure out exactly where/when a spam came from so that they can give you a report is just stupid. Instead, tools like Sp@mX are needed. Will those tools have problems? Yes.

After conversing with a number of ISPs on this issue, including a friend of mine, I have come to the conclusion that the true cause of spam is ISP laziness more then anything else. The real reason spam exists is because ISPs have been too lazy to really develop open source tools of their own for dealing with spam at their level, nor have they pushed on the IETF to modify the mail protocols to make header spoofing more difficult. Nor for that matter have they come up with a standardized format for reporting spam that would make writing automated tools simpler.

Cowboy up, guys.

I was mostly ignoring this case.

I can see both sides. Medical science now has the capability to torture people even unto death. Yet Dylan Thomas said it best: “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”.

Unfortunately, the time has come for someone in the middle to comment on this tragedy.

Life is complex, and there are times when there are no good answers. This is one of those cases.

Ignore what you might have read. The media has spun this issue so hard that any story about it in the media at this point is bunk. The reality is that Terri Schiavo has been mentally dead for 14 years, and her husband and parents disagree about what to do about it. Everything else pro and con is just a distortion of the facts: believe nothing bad about her husband, and nothing good about her “condition”.

A number of well-meaning people on both sides of this issue have created an abomination. Neither of the two options: keeping a dead woman’s body alive indefinitely or starving her to death are acceptable answers to this conundrum. The logical, merciful thing would be to give her a drug overdose.

The fact that we have gone beyond logic and mercy in this case is what frustrates me so much with the media, and the politicians that think that screaming at each other is debate.

I wish Terri Schiavo a good death. It’s too bad she won’t get one.

Here’s a FAQ about the case if you’re interested: Hat Tip: Right Wing News