Stanley Fish of the New York Times riled everyone up again with a discussion of why curiosity is not necessarily a good thing. (Query: is Fish turning into a subtle, intellectual-baiting troll? Come to think of it, that could be a fun thing to do with my old age ;-)

Fish is correct in saying that people should not put knowledge ahead of more important things, but only partly so.

This was my comment:


I don’t know about anyone else, but in my case, being curious is overdetermined.

I am curious because I am delighted by the universe, and when you love a thing you want to know more about it

I am curious because I am outraged or saddened, and want to know if there’s anything I can do to solve a problem.

I am curious because I deeply love God, and I therefore want to understand his works as clearly as possible. There is no truth I am not willing to accept - not evolution, not the big bang, not God complexes in the temporal lobe - because the better I understand God’s playing field, the better I can do within the parameters of the game. There is a ground of being, knowing and loving me into existence. In my small way, I like to return the favor.

During the decade or so I was an atheist, I was curious for all the other reasons in this letter.

Psychologically, I am probably curious because knowledge gives me an illusory sense of control over my world.

I am curious because as a child my education was deliberately stifled (my parents seemed to think much learning would make their genius child mad), and I am making up for lost academic opportunities.

I am curious because of my mortality, and the mortality of everything else. When I know a thing, a piece of it lives on in me, and is passed on to others by affecting what I do and say.

Relatively few pigs engage in intercontinental travel.

I used to think William Kristol could think, although I strongly disagreed with most of his opinions. But then he wrote this:

But isn’t health care a crisis? No.

Indeed, the president acknowledged it isn’t: "But we did not come here just to clean up crises. We came to build a future. So tonight, I return to speak to all of you about an issue that is central to that future — and that is the issue of health care." In other words, health care — unlike, say, the financial system a few months ago — is not in a state of crisis.

He's apparently missed a key word, "just." What Obama said was that we are not *just* addressing crises, we are building a future. The two concepts are not in conflict. Health care is not just something that needs a quick fix, it's something that will affect our future long-term.

A crisis can have short-term effects or long-term effects; some have both. Right now, right here, millions of people are in crisis because of health care costs, and how this is handled will affect us deeply for the rest of our lives. And it's not "just' our health affected by this: it's our ability to rent homes, purchase cars, find jobs, go to college, pay our bills that is dragged down by this crisis.

• Employers have undue power over employees because we can't afford to lose our jobs/insurance.
• People can't afford college because of health care costs.
• More than half of personal bankruptcies involve medical bills.
• People unable to afford necessary treatment live shorter, unfulfilled lives because they are constantly dragged down by bad health.
• People declaring bankruptcy or whose credit is suffering because of medical debts are having difficulty getting jobs, because many companies are using credit as a easy weeding-out tool.
• People with medical debts hurting their credit have more difficulty renting or purchasing a home
• If you have insurance, you're at the insurance company's mercy regarding treatment plans, and drs may assign unnecessary tests, etc., because they assume you can pay.
• If you don't have insurance, your health cares fees are probably much higher, and health practitioners may not give you the same quality of care because they make assumptions on your ability to pay.

This is not “just life.” This is apparently entirely avoidable in most civilized countries. Looking at other countries' coverage of US health care, it's eye-opening how much they have to explain to their readers.

Get a pair of eyes, Mr. Kristol. There are desperate people in crisis all around you. We’re dying. We’re simply dying a little more slowly and unobtrusively than what you require to call us a “crisis.”

The attempt of the food industry to self-regulate itself is failing miserably. The "Smart Choices" program, touted last year as food manufacturers' combined attempt to incorporate federal and science-based nutritional guidelines across the industry. From the NYT, last October:

The nutrition standards for the Smart Choices Program are based on the federal government’s dietary guidelines and other scientific guidance...To qualify for a symbol, a product cannot exceed standards for specific ”nutrients to limit,” like total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, added sugars and sodium.

For most categories, the products must also provide nutrients or food groups that are recommended by nutritionists for good health. The “nutrients to encourage” include calcium, potassium, fiber, magnesium, vitamin A, vitamin C and vitamin E, while the encouraged food groups are fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and dairy products that are low in fat and fat free.

Standards, however, have been tossed aside in favor of "relative" value. Froot Loops, for example, receive a Smart Choice check for being more healthful than donuts.

No, I'm not kidding. Froot Loops qualifies as a nutritional "Smart Choice."

From Eileen Kennedy, president of the Smart Choice board, quoted in the NYT:

"The checkmark means the food item is a 'better for you' product, as opposed to having an x on it saying 'Don't eat this,'" Dr. Kennedy said. "Consumers are smart enough to deduce that if it doesn't have the checkmark, by implication it's not a 'better for you' product. They want to have a choice. They don't want to be told 'You must do this.'"

"You're rushing around, you're trying to think about healthy eating for your kids and you have a choice between a doughnut and a cereal," Dr. Kennedy said, evoking a hypothetical parent in the supermarket. "So Froot Loops is a better choice."

One of the initiative's founders describes the situation:

Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group, was part of a panel that helped devise the Smart Choices nutritional criteria, until he quit last September. He said the panel was dominated by members of the food industry, which skewed its decisions.

"It was paid for by industry and when industry put down its foot and said this is what we're doing, that was it, end of story," he said....

Mr. Jacobson objected to some of the panel's nutritional decisions. The criteria allow foods to carry the Smart Choices seal if they contain added nutrients, which he said could mask shortcomings in the food... "You could start out with some sawdust, add calcium or Vitamin A and meet the criteria," Mr. Jacobson said.

The comments section on this article has some pretty pithy critiques:
Fruit loops is better than drinking bleach too. How do these people sleep at night?
—Don, Wyoming

Fruit loops is better than a doughnut, like cocaine is better than crack! are these people serious?
—K, NYC

We are all familiar, I would presume, with the metaphor of the fox guarding the chicken coop?
—Jim, New Jersey

Here's what I would comment (were comments still open):

Clearly, the best choice is not to reward bad behavior. If possible, boycott foods from these companies: Kellogg's, Kraft Foods, ConAgra Foods, Unilever, General Mills, PepsiCo and Tyson. If not possible (due to choice limitations, pricing, whatever), try to avoid them or at the very least ignore this label. Read the nutritional label and make the best choices for your personal health.

I've finally crossed over to the dark side—I'm starting to use powerpoints to share ideas outside work as well as within. Below is my first slideshare, cross-posted from my alexfiles.com blog.

---

Designing for users is a tough job. To optimize our designs and strategy, UX professionals frequently turn to concept/site testing.

The problem is that most design strategy and testing thinks in terms of input → output. We provide input, users perform a desired response (click-through, purchase, content creation). How to break out of this mold?

Perceptual control theory (PCT) assumes that all output is based on the ultimate goal of improved perceptual input. If you replace “input” in the above with “experience,” you’ll see the direction this discussion is going…

Helped a friend get a job she told me she was qualified for, without checking qualifications. This was not good for either the friendship or my job.

I've been with LJ since 2003, and I think (not sure) that LJ has had customizable friends groups throughout that time. Does anyone remember a time they didn't have it?

I'm comparing functionality to the Facebook friends lists, and would like to be able to say how long LJ had it before FB.

Thanks oodles!

Ruffian broke our hearts a week ago. A sweet Douglas squirrel made the mistake of coming too far down a tree while she was in the backyard. Ruffian caught him as he froze on the side of the tree, gave two quick shakes, and it was all over.

I was just a few feet away. I yelled No, hoping for the dog to pause and the squirrel to run. The squirrel, already facing up, began to run; the dog, despite her brief distraction, leapt up and picked him off the tree about five feet up.

Lesson learned: next time, no yells, just walk up and take the dog's collar.

Once she'd shaken the squirrel a couple of times, Ruffian listened to my "Drop it!" She must've known my tone was upset because she then went off about fifteen feet and sat, letting me check to see if the squirrel was indeed dead, and pick it up to lay it to rest. It was warm, but cooling fast, with no heartbeat—and almost no sign of violence. But gone nonetheless.

The squirrel, a day or two earlier. We feel some guilt because we threw seed for birds, squirrels, and raccoons, never imagining Ruffian could be quick enough to catch one. We are now more cautious.




The fern bank where I laid the squirrel. I did not bury him; there are many hungry beasties, and it seemed wrong to remove him from that circle altogether, simply because his part was cut short.


After I returned from taking the squirrel away, Ruffian came over to me quietly. Since she was just being a dog, I petted her reassuringly but not happily. She remained in a somber mood the rest of the day. We were concerned she might transfer squirrel interest to the cats, but such was not the case—she still treats them as pack mates. She is now completely over the experience.




alex's photostream

A sampling of the latest photos (click on an image to see larger sizes on my Flickr photostream).

Ruffian about to catch her ball

Thora batting at a ball. Note the fabric "leaf" pushing in where her cancer surgery removed half a shoulder blade. Three years, and she's still having fun!	Black slug
Bald eagle in the yard	Osprey eating a fish at work

alex's photostream

Lately the most personal creative energy I have is taking photos while riding the bus, or occasionally from the house. Here are a few recent ones (click on an image to see larger sizes).

Seattle architecture: a seagull flying past walrus grotesques

International district The best dragon I've managed thus far, thanks to a stop light.	Landscaping near the King Street Station
Snow on the road home, 9 March 2009	Junco on a rain-washed deck

alex's photostream

Clovis having a low-quality thought about a sleeping dog's tail. Peace did not last long.


( More photos behind cut. )

More tomorrow!

Alex's twitters: still not as versatile as a mockingbird's or as clever as a crow's, but hers nonetheless:

• She comes near to the earth, to make men mad. news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7779294.stm
• The extroverted Browzmi developers have socialized Firefox surfing: tinyurl.com/5cg8qc
• Twitter takeaway #11 Judgment at Nuremberg. Doing the legal or politically correct thing can be a far cry from doing the right thing.

Better than a morning paper! Well, no, not really. But no trees were injured in the conveyance of this message, brought to you by LoudTwitter

Alex's twitters: still not as versatile as a mockingbird's or as clever as a crow's, but hers nonetheless:

• Can there be such a thing as a lolgov? tinyurl.com/5cp6s3 (Possible brief ad required)
• Visualizing scientific paradigms: tinyurl.com/25n9vo
• Will no one rid me of this turbulent song in my head? *Do* *Not* *Want*!

Better than a morning paper! Well, no, not really. But no trees were injured in the conveyance of this message, brought to you by LoudTwitter

Alex's twitters: still not as versatile as a mockingbird's or as clever as a crow's, but hers nonetheless:

• One electron caught on film (slowed for humans): tinyurl.com/5c7b75 About: discovermagazine.com/2009/jan/070
• I am attempting to develop a site UX quotient out of stone knives and bear skins ;-)

Better than a morning paper! Well, no, not really. But no trees were injured in the conveyance of this message, brought to you by LoudTwitter

I twittered about enjoying being a redhead again, and some asked for pics.

Every photographer has to break down and do the "photo of self in mirror taking photo of self" at least once. Here's mine:



This was a project requiring three steps over two weekends, because I had to remove permanent black hair dye to make it happen, then tone it to the shade I desired. Long-term it will require less attention than the black hair did.

Alex's twitters: still not as versatile as a mockingbird's or as clever as a crow's, but hers nonetheless:

• How many Nobel prize winners would post lolz? tinyurl.com/6fj5y9
• Interesting interface design - click on links to see presentation variations. thoughtpile.org/
• Thoughtpile link found through ixda.org

Better than a morning paper! Well, no, not really. But no trees were injured in the conveyance of this message, brought to you by LoudTwitter

Alex's twitters: still not as versatile as a mockingbird's or as clever as a crow's, but hers nonetheless:

• So nice to be a redhead again. Such a trivial surface change, but it makes everything feel better.

Better than a morning paper! Well, no, not really. But no trees were injured in the conveyance of this message, brought to you by LoudTwitter

Alex's twitters: still not as versatile as a mockingbird's or as clever as a crow's, but hers nonetheless:

• Hubble telescope Advent calendar. Enjoy! tinyurl.com/6qynxf
• Now I can't get Outkast outta my head.
  
  Could be worse. Could be Shatner's first album (qualitatively an extreme opposite to his latest).

Better than a morning paper! Well, no, not really. But no trees were injured in the conveyance of this message, brought to you by LoudTwitter

Courtesy of cherokee1: