Philips Digital Photo Display

I picked up a few 7" Philips Digital Photo Display frames for gifts. Of course, I had to set them up before giving them, add a card to increase capacity, add initial photos, etc. Among many in the market, the Philips seemed to have top reviews. And they do indeed work as expected. Adequate display quality. Flexible frequency of photo rotation. Actually, I should be more positive--when working, they are a product worth having. But during setup (which for me, of course means trying every option), I have to admit to thinking "hardware companies should not be allowed to ship software." The out-of-box software experience is just too annoying. What makes it worse is that they obviously tried to optimize for non-technical people. Yes, if you mess with the setup options and button configuration for a while and it becomes fairly natural. But so did DOS...

Evangelicals Going Green?

I heard a panel (sorry, no link, but it was NPR) asserting that Evangelicals are starting to go "green." Specifically, the assertion was that Evangelicals were starting to talk from the pulpit about Global Warming--that it was moving from an economic issue to a moral issue. The panel went on to claim this rise in Global Warming attention from religious leaders wasn't limited to Evangelical Christian leadership, but extended to religious leaders of many faiths. The panel reminded listeners that many of the social issues we take for granted today, such as abolition of slavery, women's right to vote, civil rights, and others, brewed for years without taking off...until they were adopted by religious leaders.

If the panel was correct, this is big. And it's big on many levels: It's big if you follow the priorities professed by the leaders of your faith. It's big if you track the economics of solar panels. It's big if you simply wonder if the world (or even just the U.S.) will ever consider Global Warming a serious threat. Anyone else out there want to confirm this from personal experience?

Freakonomics: Why is Stuff the Way it is?

If selling drugs is so profitable, why do so many drug dealers live with their mothers? Is it possible that the real reason crime dropped in the 90s is an idea so repulsive that a politician mentioning it guarantees election loss? Freakonomics (paper, audio) asks these and a bunch of other questions and uncovers data to find answers. The forward essentially says, "This book is random and the only consistent thread is a search for truth about why our very real-world life is as it is." It's true. I think I remember opening term papers with something like that when I just couldn't quite get the topic to hang together. Funny how an opening admission often makes it ok. And sure enough, they pull it off. Freakonomics is written by an economist, which--I suspect they'd be delighted with this analogy--is like saying Indiana Jones movies are about a history teacher. Steven Levitt is the sort of economist you want to drink with. He looks at the world and asks why…and instead of leaving the question hanging like the drunk whispers of vapid intellectual, he tries to figure it out. If you like data and numbers, you'll like it. If you hate data and numbers, but like truth, you'll like it. If you don’t really care about much of anything, well, you won't like it. If you're a parent and you get it in audio, be ready for people to avoid you as you start arguing with an invisible companion as Levitt undermines your convictions about the stuff you're doing to help your kid be successful in life. He can't be right. But the data is compelling. But he can't be right. But the data...

The drug dealer question is one of the funniest because once you hear why so many dealers are poor, it is just so painfully obvious. And so obviously right. And so obviously based on exactly the same premise as 1001 "legitimate" activities: Amway, insurance sales, chain letters, local politics, stock options, lotteries…I could go on and on.

Oh yeah, and what was it that dropped the crime rate in the 90s? (Gladwell's Blink, another book worth your time and mentioned previously) goes into rather gory detail asserting a pretty common view that the drop in crime in the 90s was something non-controversial: innovative policing tactics. Levitt digs into this also. And compellingly disproves it…with more data. Who ya gonna believe? As usual, you have three choices: flip a coin, look at both arguments to see who is more convincing, or get the data and figure it out yourself. Come on, you know you're not going to do the third one. And you don't really want to be the kind of person that does the first one, right?

So what's the crime drop factor you can't mention without retribution? Hey, don't firebomb Blogger HQ on this…but it's Roe v. Wade. Levitt claims that fewer unwanted children result in fewer children at risk for a life of crime--and he does the math. You'll have to get the book for the details.

[Follow-up: An interesting contrasting view from Frank Zimring, author of The Decline of Crime in the United States. Mentioned briefly above.]

Who Else Benefits from Musiceuticals?

More on Musiceuticals: I've been wondering who else--beyond a music provider looking to differentiate--benefits from Musiceuticals. Perhaps the group with the greatest to gain (at least on a percentage basis!) is new artists. And this is tied intimately to the value listeners receive. It's hard for a typical listener/buyer to say, "I want new music and I like hip hop or classic rock, so find me things I'll like." Typical genre searches just deliver too many hits. You need a tighter filter. So what do many buyers do? They buy more from the artists they know or the artists that are most famous. But if we assume that Musiceutical effectiveness is tied in some way to taste in genres (not required, but I believe it to be true), then a Musiceutical filter lets me say, "Find me music that fits a melancholy mood" [knowing your preference for Country] or "I'm looking for something that gives me energy" [knowing your preference for Electronica] and your chances of finding something you want skyrocket. At that point, you have new confidence when you come face-to-face with a list including new artists. Your list that is far more concentrated in what you are looking for, so it may be worth your time to browse the 10s of artists you haven't considered instead of the 100s that a generic genre search would deliver. New artists are going to see a jump in sales. Who else do you think will benefit?

Cell phones to Flex Muscles as Top Internet Gateway?

I've been wondering about how cell phone internet access will change how all of us use the internet from our PCs. In the U.S., most of us think of our computers as our internet gateway. But there are far more cell phones sold every year than PCs. Over a billion cell phones worldwide in 2006 vs. fewer than a quarter of that number of PCs. And in developing countries, such as India and China, that ratio is far higher. This isn't just a developing country question, however. I did some government agency work recently to bring light to how citizens use services--and what drives satisfaction. (Yes, some bureaucrats think about this....) When you get out and talk to typical consumers of government services...when you hear "oh yeah, I have a PC, but it's broken," it becomes clear that phone-based web access could go from tail to dog. For basic communications (text email, SMS, chat), phones can already be full citizens. (Have you seen how fast some folks type on 9-key?) But what about for research and what we think of as "web pages." How will that change? Assuming the limping dog phone-based internet performance improves, what about screen size? Today, you design for a reasonable PC screen and then try to be sure the experience is acceptable on a handset. Will that switch? Will we all have beautiful 1200 x 1400 pixel flatscreen monitors and find that all our favorite pages are optimized to lower res handsets? The big players will optimize for both, but will smaller players have the time or inclination?

Who Profits From Musiceuticals?

I've been wondering which companies might benefit from Musiceuticals. It's clear that Musiceuticals define a a new categorization of music, which means a new user experience. The two main results of the new user experience? Differentiation for the music or music system provider and new exposure for certain music and artists. Let's think about the first of these today. In thinking about music system providers, the question "Which companies benefit from Musiceutical innovation?" is the same as the question "Who benefits from differentiation?"

So who does? Well, Apple already used differentiation to dominate the industry. With 3 out of 4 music players some sort of iPod, Apple is riding that differentiation to the bank. Problem is, what's their motivation to take another leap? They seem more focused on hardware and video innovation than music user interface innovation lately. And it's certainly clear that if they DON'T focus on Musiceuticals, they won't want anyone else to…for the obvious reason that another company's strength in Musiceuticals creates a competitor with a real advantage over iTunes/iPod. By the way, since any Musiceutical data set is going to require lots of user data (see What Systems Do Musiceuticals Require below), the company with the most users--Apple--is actually best positioned to have the best Musiceutical data in the shortest time. But it is still hard to see them rocking their very profitable boat.

So who else? Microsoft Zune and Zune Marketplace seem the most obvious. Microsoft has given up on an open MP3-based music ecosystem because, well, they got crunched. So they recreated iTunes and iPod (with that ever-so-sexy flat brown look) and are poised to take over the music industry just as reinventing the Macintosh allowed them to own the computer industry. Will it work? Hmm. Lower user base. Stodgy image in a hip-oriented music world. Fewer songs (at least today). A bigger screen (but no better resolution). And players that really do look like your father's Oldsmobile. It seems like few today think they'll win, but you rarely win betting against Microsoft (not never, but rarely). They need differentiation. Differentiation that makes the music experience better. They are one company that needs Musiceuticals. And, of course, in the Zune world, they do indeed control the Systems Required by Musiceuticals….

Musiceuticals: What affects MY mood?

Most of the emails about Musiceuticals so far have fallen into two groups:

1. I want it, but it seems difficult, so it won't work.
   
2. I want it, but everyone is different, so it won't work.

I've been wondering about #2. It's what I referred to in the last post as the question: "What affects MY mood?" In other words, how can we account for the fact that music affects each of us in different ways?

As usual, I don't know for sure. But there are logical starting points that tie back to the two general approaches to song categorization: Algorithms and People. In either case, I think color is a good metaphor. Across cultures, different colors mean very different things. With thanks to About.com, below is an edited list of differences related to death:

Red

• South Africa: Color of mourning

Yellow

• Egypt: Color of mourning

Purple

• Thailand: Color of mourning (widows)

White

• Japan: White carnation symbolizes death
• Eastern: Funerals

Black

• Western: Funerals, bad guys
  

This variation is only in this one topic. We see similar variation in themes of purity, success, marriage, etc. Who among us on seeing lists like this hasn't found the difference interesting? Are the differences driven by something real and cultural or simply random changes that have taken root. For our wondering, it doesn't matter. Once they take root, they're real. For someone in a particular culture, you can take a pretty good guess that a color will register in their mind in a predictable way. I see Musiceutical customization happening in a similar way. Segments will form with similar reactions. How many segments will there be? Five? Fifty? 50,000? The data will tell us.

And how it might work takes us back to Algorithms vs. People.

If using Algorithms, songs will "cluster" in various ways. Whether by particular cadence, tonality, word choice, etc., songs will cluster. Some will be Musiceutically meaningful. Most won't. This is about people, after all, so people will have to register whether those clusters have meaning for them. Do songs in a particular cluster give you energy? ...bring you pleasure in a melancholy mood? ...get you psyched about an upcoming event? If so, similar songs will bring similar effects. And as people match themselves to clusters, the people themselves start to segment. For example, Group A will find songs in Cluster 23 energizing. Group B will find songs in Cluster 4 sad. Will people who fall into Group A agree on any other song Clusters? It'll be in the data. But I wouldn't be surprised.

If basing everything on People's song ratings, the effect is similar, but you can't really "pre-cluster" songs based on attributes. People's reactions, however, will start to segment with respect to particular songs. Since a pure "People" rated system can't guess in advance what cluster a song fits into, the people themselves have to be rated. That is, a person who consistently rates songs exactly like the rest of their segment becomes a trusted categorizer. If that person says a song is effective at driving or maintaining a particular emotion...it probably does. You can trust that "vote." It's worth noting that this person isn't more a leader or more insightful than anyone else. They just happen to respond more often to songs in a way that represents their segment. For someone who has more random reactions, you don't trust their vote as much and need lots more people to rate a song the same way before it goes in the hopper and gets labeled "an energy song" for those in the segment.

This isn't easy, but it will work and it will happen. The question is which main approach and how it's executed.

What Systems Do Musiceuticals Require?

I've been wondering about Musiceutical system support. It's clearly all about user experience (what a surprise).

In an obvious first step, devices have to support selection by Musiceutical. Listeners need to be able to say: "At this very moment, I want more energy." "At this very moment, I want inspiration and/or focus." Or perhaps even "deal my current sadness or melancholy." So obviously, providers need access to the device UI. Users need to be able to select Musiceuticals as easily as Playlists. If you control the whole experience, as Apple does, this is easy. If you sell commodity MP3 players differentiated only by physical design, you can alter your software to support Musiceuticals, but where do you get the songlists? Where do you get the data?

So the more interesting question is the data. This leads to two questions, which look similar, but are totally different. Both need research and new ideas:

1: "What affects my MOOD?"

2: "What affects MY mood?"

The difference here is: how to approach Musiceutical effectiveness in general vs. how to tailor them for varying taste, background, age, culture, etc.

This blog will already be long, so for today, I'll just offer initial thoughts about Question 1. As is typical in our Web 2.0 world, there are two approaches: Algorithms and People.

The algorithmic system needs to understand songs. It needs to deconstruct music to find relationships not visible simply by knowing artist and style. It's patently obvious that a single artist can have different songs with very different Musiceutical effects. I have to return to Pandora on this. Today, their focus is similarity for it's own sake, not for impact on emotions. They respond to the request, "Give me more songs like this." But you have to believe that a discussion of algorithmic approach among Pandora architects and engineers will instantly reach a higher level of sophistication than it would among a typical group. It's likely that an algorithmic system will require a "seed--a song that performs as desired leading to new options. I'd also expect that some subset of Pandora's "similarity algorithms" would be more applicable that others (e.g. cadence might be more important than instrument choice).

It also seems obvious that in this case, if a single "seed" is good, many seeds are better. A user who suggests more "effective" songs upfront or rates song effectiveness along the way will surely increase the effectiveness of any particular Musiceutical algorithm.

The other approach is People. With the right perceived value and painless user interface, large numbers of people will rate songs for Musiceutical application and effectiveness (e.g. this song "targets energy" and is "moderately effective at doing so"). This may be the shortest path to success since it requires less new thinking about the problem and can be a smooth expansion on current song ranking tools. For something to rise to the level of a "-ceutical," there's an implication of science or analytics beyond "voting," but this approach may provide better short-term results.

Both of these raise an immediate question: "Am I like the algorithm?" or "Am I like the others providing input?" In other words, "What affects MY mood?" That's for another day, but in the meantime, email ideas about algorithms or voting methods and I'll share them here.

Musiceuticals: New market or just music vendor differentiator?

I've been wondering about what I think of as Musiceuticals(tm). Let's start at the obvious beginning. Pharmaceuticals make you feel better. More recently other "...ceuticals" arose. Nutraceuticals is one of the most famous (notorious?). According to Wikipedia:

Dr. Stephen DeFelice coined the term in 1989. The term has no regulatory definition, but it is commonly used in marketing. ... Nutraceuticals are sometimes called functional foods.

Ok, foods that make you feel better. Do things marketed as nutraceuticals actually affect how you feel? Few know. Fewer still rigorously ask.

Music. Ah, music. That's a very different kettle. Does anyone with even a passing fondness for even one sort of music question whether it can alter how we feel? The question is: how to harness the power.

Hmm. Power. Not a subtle segue, but it'll work. Like many new approaches, Musiceuticals has ancestors. There's Muzak, for example. That horrible elevator music-like set of frequencies that is supposed to energize and/or calm, but generally annoys. (To be fair, those Muzak scientists have apparently gotten pretty good at this stuff. But you can rarely tell from their output.) And there's marching bands. And there was that little flap about Republicans using Springsteen's "Born in the USA" as a theme song when he wasn't really a fan. And more recently, the Nike/iTunes PowerSong (from the Apple site):

From the Nike + iPod menu, you can set a PowerSong. When you want to hear this song during your workout, press and hold the center button for instant sonic motivation.

In all these examples except the last, someone tries to make you feel a certain way because they choose to do so. Sorry for the tired analogy, but the last example, the PowerSong, is like the Web 2.0 shift from website contents being company-driven (Apple.com, Walmart.com) to being user driven (YouTube, MySpace). For the first time, you store a personally-selected sound that is supposed to make you feel a certain way at a certain, personally-selected time.

Take the morsel of music affecting mindset, link it with personal choice, turn the approach upside down...and you have Musiceuticals. Hey, I love my playlists. They aren't going away. And sometimes I select by genre. Or artist. All these are right on my iPod screen. And yeah, they'll be on the Zune screen. We need another menu item. It may be "Emotion" or "Mindset". Maybe "Musiceutical." In any case, it will alter or maintain your feelings at will. Like a Pharmaceutical, it may not be successful in changing your state of mind without additional forms of "treatment." But it will be a drug of choice.

The only big challenge? What do you need to know to connect music to emotion? And that's a future entry...

Musiceuticals in a trademark of Dox O'Ryan, Doxspot, and the Doxspot owners.

How Can Pandora Make Money?

First things first: Pandora rocks. If you're reading this, I'm sure you know about it. It's not for the purists that think song order on a CD is part of the art form, but if your music preferences include radio and setting your multidisc to "random," it's the perfect path to variety and exposure to new music. [OK, for the uninitiated: tell Pandora a song or artist, they create a radio-like station that plays related music.] I'd be in the theme of this blog to simply encourage Pandora usage. But that's not the point. I like Pandora...and lament it could be crushed any day. It will likely be crushed by a big player with a similar approach, so as a user, I might not care. But Pandora did it first--a good idea simply and elegantly executed. They should live. To do that, they have to make money. So I've been wondering about how they might do that. This is an idea or two on that topic.

Pandora revenue will follow making money from what they know. So what do they know? They know what you've said you like. And they know how songs relate to each other. Hmm. To expand their value, they need to move from what you've said you like to what you really like. I'm not implying you're lying, just that you don't have time to tell them everything. So the first step is obvious: Pandora can look at your entire song collection. And since they know how songs relate to each other, they know more. A lot more. But that's too simple. Your collection is varied because your musical desires vary. So they need to look at your collection at a more granular level. That sounds like work. It sounds manual. Never mind, it exists already. It's your playlists. OK, so this was easy, analyze playlists to deliver multiple, highly targeted "stations." (What? Couldn't afford all the songs that would truly define your taste? No problem, add them to the station manually or give them a thumbs up when they play--just like Pandora today.) Done. They know what you really like. Now to step 2.

Integrate with a music provider. Are you shocked?! Of course not. You know they are busily trying to cut a deal as we speak. But on what terms? With what focus? Just like iTunes, it's all about user experience. When I'm online, I don't usually listen to my own music. I know it too well. I listen to Pandora. I want to keep whatever sense of wonder and newness I have about my music when I'm away from Pandora...which is to say, I'm offline. [Here's where you mileage probably varies--after all, this is a blog, so it comes with a point of view.] So what I really want is "Pandora-To-Go." When the gods shine down from Olympus and cover the planet with wireless broadband, this goal goes away. But we're not close yet.

How does the money work? Online, Pandora is free. Offline access already has a name, it's called "buying." So Pandora-To-Go is an interface for buying. Let's say I was willing to drop just $10 in a typical month for my P-T-G. No subscriptions, just a typical pattern. And let's say (this shouldn't be hard) those clever Pandorites cut a deal with the copyright owners (directly or via iTunes, Walmart, Zune Marketplace, etc.) to deliver non-specifically requested songs at $0.25. This pricing isn't required, but it's a good direction to differentiate from typical music buying. How the *#*&@ could they cut prices so much? Remember the Pandora model is that you can't select what song plays. Even if it is the seed for your entire station. It's free because it's radio-like. It's free because listeners must generally take what they get. It's free because copyright owners know it advertises new music that listeners didn't realize they wanted. P-T-G needs the same approach: it's offline, so it costs $$, but far less because it isn't infinite choice. If they want to get fancy, they could allow you to get a refund on 1 song for every 8 you buy.

There's a deal to be made.

This is a totally new way to fill that iPod. But Apple already owns the market. But you know what? For this service, I might trade my Nano for a Zune. Microsoft should snap up Pandora and provide Pandora-To-Go to provide at least some exclusive value to the Zune Marketplace. Because you know they won't be superior at playing that same game as Apple....

Blink: Is Information Destructive?

This is the first time I've mentioned Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, but it won't be the last. According to Gladwell's site, "It's ... about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye." And you should get it (audio, paper). Heck, it's one of the only books where the support points alone are worth your time (e.g. insanely detailed research leading to fast, simple, accurate forecasts of which married couples stay married). I'm going to start off with one of Gladwell's relatively minor points: information can be destructive. Most of us are info hounds. The idea that more can be less in something so fundamental seems like silly folklore. Perhaps more info can bog things down a bit, but "it's not really going to make things worse in the real world." And that's where Blink changed my thinking. Gladwell uses a long example about the use of information during war. "When bullets are flying," his objects of study assert, "scenario planning bogs down thinking and filters out the really great (and typically unprovable) ideas." But another example is even more compelling: Doctor diagnosis. Turns out that additional tests and data don't objectively improve doc's diagnosis accuracy. Yep, that alone is worth repeating: more data doesn't improve diagnosis. (OK, eliminate the extremes of diagnosing over the phone without seeing the patient, etc.) Gladwell cites research on this which, if you believe he's not confused or purposely deceaving, is compelling. But if this is where the story ended, it would just be an economic issue. You'd be taking tests and not getting better results. The bill gets bigger. But what's destructive? Ah, that's the rub. The docs who diagnosed with more tests and data were more sure of their diagnosis. They were more confident. Mind you, they were not more accurate. They just thought they were. And this is classic "null hypothesis" territory. If you feel more confident, it takes more to change your mind. If you feel more confident, you stop questioning. If you feel more confident, you will be slower to realize when you are wrong. And that's destructive. There is zero question that if Gladwell isn't fudging results, additional info can be destructive. And this isn't a bizarre, unlikely example. It's an example in field that all of us might one day have a personal interest in accuracy.

"Just one more!" comes from Being an Animal

"Evolutionarily valuable" is an interesting concept. To me, it means a behavior which, if followed, would help an organism chug along the evolutionary chain. (If you don't believe in evolution, well, this isn't your topic.) So I've been wondering about what everyday tendencies are evolutionarily valuable. I was rather shocked on day to realize it's evolutionarily valuable for an organism (like a person) to think satisfaction is just beyond its current state. Why? It is, by definition, evolutionarily valuable to achieve something that helps you survive. And we've certainly evolved to find things that help us survive (at least in moderation) to be satisfying or pleasurable--food, physical pleasure, shelter, etc. So no surprise. The organism--or person--is motivated to do things that help survival and evolution. That's half the story. The other half is people seem to have an inbred sense of what economists call a "discount rate." That is, any good thing now is worth more than the exact same good thing (in the same quantity) at some time in the future. And if it is indeed inbred, it is likely not specific to humans, but perhaps many organisms. Maybe even nonsentient ones. Who knows why this sense might develop, but it can be as simple as "enjoy it now because by next week you may be eaten by a cougar." The result is obvious: if you have a satisfying outcome in the future, you will be motivated. But if your brain breaks the outcome into tiny pieces and spreads these like tiny milestones with the same final endpoint, the sum total of motivation increases! Put these together and what do you get? You get an organism that will evolve to want "just one more." For people, that means believing that slightly more in many typical areas will finally make you satisfied. A bit more food, alcohol, money, career success, friendship, etc. will be "just what I need." The implications range from dieting to goal setting to career planning to family planning. The next time you want "just one more" of anything, at least question whether you only want it because your genes are telling you so.

Senseo

I have a serious recommendation for you: the Senseo coffee maker. For the few that don't know the genre, it's a smallish coffee maker that holds water in a 3 or 4 cup reservoir. The coffee is in "pods," simply circular pockets of filter paper with coffee inside. The machine forces water through the coffee and right into a cup or mug. It's not espresso, it makes coffee. So you have to avoid listening to the naysayer reviews about low pressure on the water and all that. The simple key is ease and speed. Lots of both. And there's the obvious advantage for those who want one cup and who share space with caf and decaf people. A colleague recommended this to me a year ago. I didn't do anything until my old coffeemaker died. My delay was foolish. Senseo is cheap and does the job well. I've never tried to price drip coffee by the cup, but Senseo is certainly a small fraction of Starbucks and the like.

The key caveat (sorry Senseo) is their own brand of coffee is poor. Forunately, pod sizes have standardized so there are tons of producers and distributors. More than you'll ever be able to evaluate (unless you start your own website to keep you in free coffee like SingleServeCoffee.co m!). I didn't evaluate them all either, but I tried enough that I can point you to PremiumPods.com, Coffee and Tea Warehouse, and Better Coffee where you won't go wrong. To be a total contrarian, I'll even mention that when desperate waiting for an online order, I tried buying at a Safeway. They only had Senseo and Folgers. Not liking the former, I took the latter. It wasn't as good as the ones above, but drinkable. It'll even taste good if you think of corporate breakroom coffee. I'm tempted to slip it into a blind tasting. If you have a cube, office, home office, etc., Senseo a no-brainer addition. And hey, it comes in colors, so it's practically an iPod.

On Intelligence, Part I

Want a users guide to your brain? You have to get On Intelligence (paper, audio) by Jeff Hawkins. Yes, the Jeff Hawkins of Palm fame. Jeff is pretty impressed with himself, but given Palm, Graffiti and now On Intelligence, maybe he should be. Jeff says he made all that money just to fund his real hobby of figuring out the brain. Maybe he did. Anyway, On Intelligence is Jeff's theory of how the brain works. Not just how it acts, but how it really works. Which tells you how it (and you) will act. And once you read it, you won't see the world the same way again. You won't trust your senses or your memory the same way. You won't teach your children or expose them to things in the same way. It's one of those books that becomes a filter for everything you experience and comparison for new content on the subject you come across. Yes, really. If you find his theory to be hogwash, well, then it won't be like that for you. But if you value understanding your own thinking, you're going to get a ton from the book. Why, it just makes sense and fits (that is, predicts) everyday experience. There might be other ways the brain could work that could also predict human action and thought patterns this well, so the specifics might not be right. But if his theory predicts as much as it does, what else can it tell you? Get it. (By the way, I'm not going to be able to avoid mentioning it in the future, so it would be better if you read or listened to it yourself. ;-)

Talking to Yourself: Thinking Tool or Speaking Practice? (Part III)

Let's finish the "experiment" results mentioned in the last post: I'd found the Fountain of Time. Wait for an internal conversation to start, jump to the end, watch the final scene, follow the decision. Presto. I'd just saved the time of the conversation, whether 10 seconds or 10 minutes. Was there any loss? Turned out there was: Explaining the result. Turns out the silent internal conversation may not have had the apparent purpose of helping reach a good decision after all. Turned out it seemed to have (or also have) the purpose of building and rehearsing the explanation. Most of us never practice what we're going to say. Great presenters do. A lot. But for everyday life, almost never. So if you have had at least one conversation about a topic (even if silent in the hollows of your own little brain), you have a big leg up on most of the world. When your decision comes up and you need to explain yourself, you're ready. There are a few obvious results:

1. If your decision is based purely on "gut" or instinct or intuition (whatever those mean collectively) and not internal conversation, you haven't done the rehearsal. That may be no problem, but it's true.
2. If your decision never has to be justified (what to have for dinner?, is that bird going to firebomb me if I sit at that table?, what font should I use?), then who cares? Rehearsal is irrelevant. Save the time.
   
3. If your decisions are regularly discussed, you won't be as prepared.

Yep, #3 is true. I saved tons of time. I already realized that my, well, arguments weren't as tight when I brought up new ideas with others. It was usually worth it (more than worth it), but this is suddenly like a new internal technology (Thanks DL) to use appropriately. Use that Tivo Forward button when it makes sense. But if actually seeing the whole game rather than jumping to the score at the end makes it easier to talk about it the next day, you might want to see the whole game.

Talking to Yourself: Thinking Tool or Speaking Practice? (Part II)

So back to the question in the previous post: What are these weird silent, internal conversations about? Is it an "objective" conversation between multiple internal perspectives to help you reach a good decision? Or, do you know in advance where the conversation will end...making the whole thing a waste of time? (Or something else)
So I tried an experiment. For a month or so, everytime I sensed an internal conversation starting about an approach I should take, I tried to fast-forward to the end to get to the result. Think of it as hitting the Tivo Forward button so you get the last 30 seconds of the show. And what a surprise, I could always get right to the final "answer." Always. OK, maybe I'm dense and it shouldn't been a surprise. After all, both participants in the conversation are me. But every time? Even when I really did think I was trying to make a decision? Eureka! What a great way to save time! What a great way to be able to think about more stuff in a limited amount of time! More time and no one gets hurt. But is there a downside. Yep. Maybe in only special cases, but yes. See Part III.

Talking to Yourself: Thinking Tool or Speaking Practice? (Part I)

I've been wondering about what happens when we talk to ourselves. Lots of people do it. Not in the crazy person who makes you walk the other side of the street sense, but as daily "thinking." The difference between this and "having an idea" is that the "conversation" is clearly language. That is, the internal conversation uses actual words and sentences. The topic could be what to have for dinner, what you'll say next time someone at work shows up without their action items completed, whether the garage needs painting, etc. The conversation can take time: 10 seconds, a minute, maybe even 15 minutes during a commute. Listen to yourself when you're pondering something. You might be one who never has a language-based internal conversation. But I doubt it. So I wondered about the impact...or maybe I should say the purpose...of this subvocalizing. Is it really an "objective" conversation between multiple internal views in order to reach a decision? Or, do you (whatever "you" is in this sense) know in advance where the conversation will end? So I tried an experiment. Results in the next post.

Words vs. Music...Short step vs. Long leap

I made a naked claim in the last post that if you see casual audio as any sort of contribution to long-term intellectual development and practical ideas, you need a mix of words and music. The claim was that "words are the seed and music is the soil." Hey, this is a blog, so I can claim whatever I want, but DoxSpot is supposed to be at least a little rigorous in such things, if only so you can tell me what I'm all screwed up. So I tried to dissect the results of my own experimentation. Everyone that cares about such things assumes a link between words (NPR podcasts, non-fiction audiobooks, classic speeches, etc.) to intellectual growth. And most assume some practical value for your daily decisions. What a shock. Listen to 30 minutes on Katrina and learn about levies (or corruption or poverty or political ambivalence or whatever). Listen to 60 minutes on Einstein and gain a conversational knowledge of relativity. But does music play a role? Does the content--and more importantly, your ability to use the content--grow differently depending on how it is subsequently marinated? In my "experiments" it did. The difference was the size of the steps (or leaps). When all audio is "content," the steps are small. Learn about Katrina and then make decisions about donations, home flood control, a trip to New Orleans. Learn about relativity and then make decisions to, well, learn more about relativity (or not). In short, all thinking was a simple regurgitation of the actual content--a glorified book report. But learn (sufficiently) about Katrina and switch to music and then the thinking evolves to changing planning processes related to various disasters, finding ideas to respond to a headline-driven society incapable of maintaining the 3-5 year attention span to really fix the New Orleans ills with new ways to mobilize interested subsegments. Or learn (again, sufficiently) about relativity and build a mental model for exactly why time slows down so you can explain it to a 12 year old.

If you are a parent or other person-of-influence for a young person, this isn't navel gazing. It's completely practical. What do you model? What do you encourage? What do you buy? And for any given person and any given topic, what is the optimal mix? 90:10? 50:50? Where exactly on this mythical scale is hip-hop? (My personal view is that's it's on both ends.)

Try this sometime on yourself. You may be surprised by your results. And let me know.

Words versus Music: Content Needs Room to Grow

I've been wondering about the effects of listening to music vs. words in audio. From commuting to workouts, I listen to tons of audio. Based on music sales and theft, I'm guessing you do too. The question is: is the audio pure distraction or does it play some role in your long-term personal mental development? And if the latter, what should be on your iPod? This matters whether the "personal development" is your own or that of your children. (Warning: this overall topic may be a recurring theme in DoxSpot.) Too keep things clear--at least to start--we'll talk about a stark contrast of pure content (words) vs. pure melody (music without understandable words), even with the understanding that lots (most?) falls in the middle. I've done some experimentation. My question was simple: Are intellectual results of a workout greater listening to substantive content (e.g. non-fiction audiobooks, talk radio, etc.) or to my moderately varied musical playlist? And the answer is simple: the former is content and the latter is concept development. Words are the seed. Music is the soil. Without content, your musings and music-marinated daydreams have the value of a 24-hour Charmin toilet paper commercial marathon. But without development, your NPR-enriched thinking is a glorified junior high book report. More to come on this....

Dalai Lama, Part II: Rigor in Meditation?

I promised more on the Dalai Lama's view of rigor in meditation. This blew me away. And if you missed the last post, we're still talking about the views the DL expresses in his "The Universe in a Single Atom" (audio or print). The second half of the book digs more into what Buddhism is about rather than just contrasting it with western science. In doing so, the DL sets up a case for combining Buddhist meditation with scientific analysis of thinking and brain physiology in a rigorous way to figure out thinking and happiness and what not. It’s a very good case. The most fascinating thing is the contrast with what we (or at least I) have been introduced to as Buddhist mediation. As noted earlier, I’ve had friends that approached Buddhism from the Western side (that is, as a personal exploration. Not from their parents.). Among them, one of my closest childhood friends lived at Muktananda’s ashram in LA where I’d visit him and maybe join a meditation session or two. What DL makes clear is that all (virtually all?) of the stuff we learn about meditation in the West…and it seemed virtually all that my friend saw as his ultimate goal…is essentially the calisthenics that 8 year old monks learn. The meditation built on “clear the mind, focus on a point, keep your mind quiet, etc. etc.” isn't some state a stone's throw from enlightenmend. Nah, it's just the basic skills, the scales, the stretching that one needs to master in order to do serious meditation. And what is that? It is active, results-oriented, rigorous, analytical, replicable, extensible to others, and investigative...about whatever topic one is analyzing. If you already know that, fine, click away. But if that isn't obvious, think about it a moment. We're talking about mature, skilled monks analyzing their own reactions, thinking, fundamental mental processes in a way that lets them guide others to replicate and test their findings in their own meditative analysis. This isn't just a little different from the typical Western view--it is almost the opposite. And yes, it is, in virtually every important sense, scientific. Once you picture this, can you possibly disagree that it might be valuable to combine this analytical, internal rigor (what the DL calls an "internal technology") with modern thinking about brain physiology and the science of the mind? I can't.

[Full disclosure: I am NOT getting kickbacks from Audible, Amazon, or any other vendors when I provide a link to something I mention. However, this may change in the future.]

The Dalai Lama on Meditation versus Science

I recently completed "The Universe in a Single Atom" (audio or print) by the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama compares and contrasts the scientific tradition with the Buddhist tradition. Obviously, the DL has some unique views on this. I should mention I "read" this book via an audiobook (from Audible). The reader is Richard Gere. My view is that probably sold a lot more copies, but wasn't a good thing for the listener. You have to imagine Richard Gere whispering in your ear in his more urgent and earnest tones about something the wants you to realize he cares about deeply and that he obviously considers a great work. For me...just a distraction. Anyway, I finally got past that and it was well worth it.

Let's start with the basics: If you're going to learn about Buddhism, you might as well learn about it from the Dali Lama. Buddhism is far more investigative than I’d realized. Much is through contemplation rather than what Westerners think of as experimentation, of course, but exceedingly rigorous. (More on this in a future post.) It’s also non-theistic. I grew up with friends who lived in Ashrams, so I’d heard murmurs of Buddhism's different view of God relative to other religions, but it's more intense than I realized. I suppose deep down, I filtered these rumors through the view that being theistic in some fairly fundamental sense is pretty much the definition of a religion. It's not. The DL also expressed a massively different view of Karma than usually discussed in the West. In the West, Karma is usually described as a sort of metaphysical justice. The DL has clearly heard this in the way we Westerners talk about Karma, so he spends a bit of time on how it’s off-base. Short story: It's more a propensity for action (that leads to predictable results) than some sort of metaphysical justice. And you know what? That view ties much more directly to evolution, nature, nurture, and science.

Let's go further on the relationship to evolution. The DL isn’t too keen on the whole “random variations lead to evolution” argument. He finds the “random” part to be, hmm, I think he says “unsatisfying.” He's certainly not an intelligent design advocate, but something more than survival of the fittest. He actually takes a very effective swipe at the way Darwin/evolution explain altruism. He’s knows that evoluation-minded people (and psychological hedonists in general) reinterpret apparent altruism as a just another flavor of survival or self-interest. No surprise. But then he makes a humble but biting comment about how his “understanding of science is that it attempts to build theories from data rather than adjusting the data to fit the theory.” Ouch. He also finds Darwin circular because evolution defines those species which survive as, therefore, the species best able to compete. And therefore those best able to compete are the ones that survive. He’s got a theory that something like compassion might actually be an additional driver for evolution, but doesn’t flush it out much. The key is that this attempt to embrace compassion is not some soft, squishy, nice-nice religious leader saying "can't we all just get along." No, it's a real criticism of current thinking based on attacking the core of the scientific method. Worth getting his view.

[Full disclosure: I am NOT getting kickbacks from Audible, Amazon, or any other vendors when I provide a link to something I mention. However, this may change in the future.]