James L Adams—People and Products

Brains and Minds

There is an increasing fascination,  at least among  media folk, with brains/minds.  I write brains/minds, because brains are the approximately three  pound pieces of complex meat that adults have in their skulls, and to many people, minds are more.  The fascination has to do with how they work, and  is a reaction to the many new insights from instruments (functional MRI scans, Pet scans) and insight into the structure and chemistry of brains.

 There are several problems involved with understanding how brains/minds work.  There is a perhaps cynical view (which I at times hold) that it will take something more powerful than a human brain to understand a human brain.  But to be more charitable to the neurologists, psychologists, computer scientists, and other people who are engaged in this task,  a major problem exists because the various disciplines involved are often not comfortable with each other.  There was an article  in the June 28^th issue of the New York Times entitled “Face It, Your Brain Is a Computer”.  It was written by Gary Marcus, a professor of psychology and neural science at NYU, who has just written a book entitled “The Future of the Brain”.  The article is here,  Happily, the article is not saying that the brain is a computer, as computers are commonly thought of.  Rather the author  is saying that thinking of the brain  as a computer  is perhaps a good way of structuring brain research.

 The magazine section of the same issue of the newspaper contains a section entitled “Head Trips”, which speaks of brain/mind function as seen by people ranging from a talk therapist to a person with a history of bipolar disorder, to a person doing research on the effects on the brain of microbiota that grow in the gut.  There seems to be agreement that  brain research must involve many disciplines, since the brain does seem to exhibit some “digital” behavior, certainly involves chemistry, electrical signals, and biological processes, and is strongly affected by behavior, experience, and emotion.  But many outstanding specialists are biased toward their own discipline.  When I read the article by Professor Marcus, I wondered how many of his friends were bio chemists.  I was very interested in the description of Mark Lyte’s work on the influence of microbiota, but he seemed far from the traditional talk therapists, who seem to be losing ground to the people in the “hard” sciences. In my opinion, theory that does not impress all of the intellectual camps involved, is not adequate.  We need a giant AHA, that sets all parties dancing—the equivalent of the double helix insight.

 Most of the brain/mind theories I am aware of are thought provoking and explain certain aspects of  thinking, responding, interpreting, predicting, and other things brains/minds do. But can the theories be integrated into a satisfying model?  That we shall see.  In the interim, I think brain research is one of the more entertaining things on which to stay current (except for the Golden State Warriors, of course).   

Shadow Work, by Craig Lambert

  This is a short, easy to read, and provocative book by Craig Lambert (more info. at recommended books column at the left), that claims that our leisure time is being eaten up by doing work that used to be done for us.  The reason for this is partly technology (the computer), partly because business has discovered that by off-loading work to customers it can cut its payroll (pumping our own gas), and partly because we honor work in our culture.

 This book got my attention because everyone I know seems to be bemoaning the loss of leisure time, even though supposedly the information revolution is helping us by taking over increasing amounts of work, and because I have just blown away a ridiculous amount of time in first of all, going to an outrageously complex multi level password system needed to use the Stanford server (the university was badly hacked a while ago), and having my computers be encrypted (which of course required "upgrading" the operating systems, which required "upgrading" apps, etc. etc. etc. ) 

 Lambert defines shadow work as work we do without labeling it as work, and for which we are not paid.  One example is the constant mucking around we do with our computer(s), as manufacturers keep “upgrading” them to sell us even more features we don’t want (and remove some we do).  I hate Apple’s new “Photos” program, a supposed improvement over IPhoto.  To me it is a step  backwards enshrouded in meaningless changes and crowned with the loss of useful features.  Even worse, once one allows one’s computer to make the change (mandatory with OS 10-10-3 on), one can’t go back unless one has the latest version of iPhoto on the machine—apparently not known by my favorite IT person who knows everything.  Dumb move by Apple.  And lots of Shadow Work upcoming for me, as I am going to bail out of their photo organization software so I can organize my photos the way I want them, not how Apple thinks I should. In fact, maybe I'll bail out of Apple.

 The book has many examples of this phenomenon.  The replacement of travel agents by web sites, for instance.  Granted one has the ability to compare endless flights, hotels, rental car deals, etc., but the time and effort spent as contrasted with letting a travel agent do this (at one time paid by airlines, hotels, etc) can be huge.  Another is shopping, especially in big box stores, or even large grocery stores, in which it sometimes seems impossible to either find what one wants (especially if everything has re-arranged to be compatible with the now popular marketing technique of forcing the shopper to pass by everything in the store) or find a person to give one a helpful clue.  Another is the time spent figuring out all of the non-standardized kiosks, credit card readers, and other digital “aides”, all slightly different.  I just had a brand new-looking gas pump consistently refuse my credit card, and upon complaining to the one attendant, was told that I had to withdraw the card slowly.  Interesting after years of being told to withdraw it rapidly.

 Lambert also goes into topics such as doing one’s own taxes, legal work, and other activities formerly done by others.  And the time we spend filling out medical forms, and providing information on ourselves to internet vendors so that it can be sold in the Big Data world.  He agrees that many of these activities are cheaper and maybe faster than hiring professionals, and perhaps our time is less valuable than that of the doctor who wants the information, but his main point is that we do an increasing amount of “work” that used to be done for us, without realizing it, and the result is perhaps more frantic lives and less human interaction.  Definitely describes me.

 He also talks about the incredible time and effort spent by parents outside of the home that did not used to occur.  When I went to school in the dark ages of education there were no organized kid athletics, no summer camps, no parents driving  us to school or helping us with our homework (not much homework), no PTA or other volunteer groups, or parents organizing campaigns against teachers and administrators (too much homework—not enough homework).  I look at my children and the time they spend chauffeuring their kids around and attending events, and I think Wow.  I learned to play sports and did well in school without parent involvement, and it worked.  In fact, we would have been uncomfortable if parents were hanging around our ball games and attending out school productions.

 And finally, his argument again reminds the reader of the loss of paying jobs awaiting us in the future.  I went through a divorce many years ago.  It did not include large estates, criminal behavior, or anything that would result in a novel.  In fact it was even called a routine divorce by the judge, who chided the two attorneys for making it into a war and not coming to an agreement.  But they did earn money for a whole year.  An example where computers could have done better, but we do have a lot of attorneys to support.

 I recommend the book.  It is an  easy read and will make you wonder how much “Shadow Work” you are doing.

When Most People Were Makers

I grew up in a time and place where people made and maintained a large amount of their stuff.  It was in the 1930’s, the depression was on, and I lived  on a small orange orchard in southern California.  In those days it was possible for a family to live off of the income from 10 or 20 acres of oranges, but there wasn’t much cash around.  But all people needed was enough cash to buy necessities they couldn’t grow, and there was no incentive to buy luxury cars, live in huge houses, or wear expensive clothes.  In fact, such things were considered in very poor taste.  And people were proud of their ability to make what they needed and fix it if it broke.

 I was born in my grandparent’s house, which my grandfather had built, and my grandmother decorated and maintained, in addition to cooking, making clothes, taking care of kids and other "traditional woman’s work".  This was before the massive shift in occupational expectations among women, and what she did was essential for the family, so although an extremely bright and strong woman, she seemed more than satisfied with her role. In addition to building the house, My grandfather also built a large garage/shop, a barn, and an auxiliary building for their occasionally exploding gas generator, and was also the area blacksmith.  And he planted ten acres of orange trees and installed the irrigation system. When they were first married my parents also lived in the house.

But after I became mobile as a small child, they clearly needed a house, so  they signed up my grandfather and built one.  I was allowed to think I was helping.  The photograph shows me doing so.  Note hammer, also note I am not actually working on the house structure.  It was a separate structure designed to keep me amused and out of the way.

 I recently was visiting this house, since my brother now lives in it, and was reminded of how much building and making stuff had occurred in that spot.  When I was six, it was decided that I needed my own room,  The photo below shows it newly constructed,  (again by the family), lived in by me, and outfitted by furniture (the desk,bed, shelves, drawer chest, and even the boat model) built by my mother.  She had become the family furniture maker. 

Toys were home built.  The next photo shows my brother as a kid and a horse he built (with a little help from mom).   And then she really took off as a maker and fixer.  Mom had always made her own clothes, and now branched out into clothes for all of us.  My father liked to fish, and I remember her making him a pair of waterproof hip boots from old tire inner tubes.  I became tall early, and could not keep my shirt tucked in.   She designed a shirt for me that did not need tucked in and made them for me until I was well into my forties, by which time I was adequately equipped.  They don’t wear out, and I still wear them.  The photo below is  a back view of one she made me from the sacks of the pulverized sulfur that was then used as a pesticide. Her shirts were not always flamboyant, but mostly were, and they were partly responsible for forming my  persona in high school—I needed a little more extroversion.

 And on it goes.  When I was in high school I built myself a swell bedroom/bathroom addition to our
house with my grandfather’s supervision, as well as helping him build other additions and upgrades,  When my grandfather died, I became family carpenter and maintenance person, and happily retained those positions when I married and became the owner of my own house, which I could radically improve. Also I went to college and studied engineering and spent enough time in industry and in my shop that I could build and maintain more sophisticated things.

 When my brother and I went off to college (a first in the family) Mom became a water colorist.  She took a few classes from an excellent water colorist (Robert Wood), loved them, and away she went.  The photo below is an example.  She became very good, and broke the family tradition by selling her work.  She won a number of awards (one from the California Historical Society for a series she did on old houses, several in art shows), all the while trying to hide from notoriety.

 My grandfather was a metal worker, carpenter, plasterer, concrete guy – the whole works. My father less so, and was more interested in farming and the orange business.  My grandmother was more into “traditional” tasks.  But on recently visiting the family house, I was again amazed by my mother's work.  She died only a few years ago, in the house at the age of 97,  from falling down while carrying a stack of her paintings down a stairs and breaking her neck – a fitting ending for her—quick, at home, and with her work.  She was a quiet and humble lady, but the breadth of her interests and abilities would be astounding these days.  And whether it was cooking, sewing, painting, making furniture, mending, working with concrete, fixing the sink,or teaching me to make model airplanes (from scratch), play the piano, or type, she was always trying to improve her work (and me). She was after quality. I think I was encouraged by my mother and her father to do the same.  But did I inherit something?  Was it nature or nurture?  Probably both.

 Whatever happened, as you know I am a believer in the importance of working with the hands.   I do it not to make money, but rather for pride and sense of accomplishment- and once in a while to keep from going nuts.  Except for Mom going commercial with her  paintings, the rest of my family, and most of the people I knew who were drawn to growing oranges in my home town were the same.  I miss that aspect in the area in which I live, where most (but not all) of my friends seem to tend toward buying things rather than making them, and hiring other people to maintain them and do their manual work. They seem to think that their time is too valuable to do such things. Perhaps this explains why even though I don’t want to grow crops, I am drawn to rural areas, where it is more common to see welding equipment in people’s garages.  They remind me of my early days when most people were makers, not because being a maker was cool, but rather because people could not afford to continually buy new stuff and making and fixing things and tinkering with them was satisfying.  In my opinion it still is.

 Incidentally,  I have given many talks, courses, etc. using the title “Making, Fixing, and Tinkering”, and am well into a book on the topic, so you will occasionally hear more about it in this blog. I am writing the book not only because I am a believer, but need something to defend myself against attacks from my friends who fervently believe I am wasting my time when I could be thinking or touring the world instead of tinkering.  Been there, and you have to think to write a book.

Polluting the Internet

There was an interesting article in the magazine section of the New York Times, June 8, 2015.  It was written by Adrian Chen, entitled  The Agency, and is here.  It is about the major effort going on in Russia not only to use the internet to spread positive feelings about the country and its activities (Putin, the  Ukraine, etc.), but also to spread confusion in “western” countries such as the  U.S., and in general, dilute the credibility of what is referred to as the “U.S.” internet.  It focuses on a fairly secret organization named the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg, which hires large numbers of young  people with computer skills at relatively high salaries to put information on the internet that will accomplish these aims. No particular knowledge of the world, politics, economics, or sociology is needed.  The employees work hard (an example was a woman who worked two twelve hour days in a row followed by two days off), and in the two days was expected to file five credible political posts, ten non-political posts, and 100 to 150 comments on other people’s posts.

 The article gives examples of their work —building carefully orchestrated, but fictional hoaxes (Columbian Chemical Explosion in Centerville Louisiana, Atlanta Georgia Ebola epidemic) and disinformation of all sorts.  Although the article focuses on the one agency, which is modeled after a corporation, the author implies that there is a wide effort to do such work, and the workers seem to be challenged and rewarded for their work.  After all, this is a chance to do mischief for money.  What could be more fun to young people than writing negative material on all candidates for U.S. president, and not being at all inhibited by the truth.

 The  article is well researched, well written, and not surprising.  The Internet is heavily dominated by the U.S. and annoys at least the leadership of many countries.  TV is continually degraded by advertising, but is not targeted toward particular interests or beliefs, because it wants as large an audience is possible.  But the internet is consciously/unconsciously selling U.S. values (superiority of Christian capitalistic democracies, easily available porn).  It is  only natural for leaders of countries who are not interested in having their country be like the  U.S. to attack the internet.  What better way than to hire kids who like to play with computers to do so, through pumping into it information that is seen as positive by these leaders, and random information that is not based on truth ? 

 In a sense, this is an attempt to lower the quality of the internet by injecting junk and biased information into it.  I am usually doing things in which gains can be made by increasing quality. As far as I am concerned the internet already contains plenty of junk and biased information.  But it was interesting to me to read this article and realize that there are situations in which perceived gains can be made by lowering quality, and that people can earn good salaries by helping do so.  

Computer Hype and Reality

I was glad to see a column in the New York Times by Paul Krugman, entitled “The Big Meh”.  It is here.  Krugman is a prolific writer and a major force in economics, having won the Nobel Prize, and having been named the second most influential economist in the world by The Economist.  He points out that despite all of the hype about the information economy, the computer revolution, social networking, computer games, smart phones, and other digital marvels, the U.S. economy is and has been sluggish for the last ten years, and in his mind, except for a few spikes, has been disappointing for the last 40 years. 

 But the hype in the media grows, and here we are, waiting for our virtual reality kits and lining up to buy the latest expensive Apple miracle.  True, Apple, Google, Facebook, and such companies are boasting extraordinary cash flows, but, how much are we actually benefitting from all of these digital miracles? Krugman, in looking for reasons that our dazzling new technology does not seem to be strongly affecting the nation’s economy, states that perhaps the new technology is more fun than fundamental.

 Certainly many Stanford students want to start a company and make a fast pile of money, but most of them won’t.  And how about those unfortunate young people without college training who can’t find jobs —see the last Economist magazine. The cover features a drawing of a young white male sitting in a crashed male symbol, under  text reading “The Weaker Sex; No jobs, no family, no prospects” .  The lead article is entitled “Men Adrift”, and is here.

 We are realizing that there is a social cost from automating work that was formerly done by humans, and will realize it even more when CPA’s, attorneys, truck drivers, and others capable of making more noise begin to be displaced.  It seems to me that driverless trucks make at least as much sense as driverless cars, but clearly the media is a bit shy about taking on the teamsters.  We are also realizing that there is a cost to us in changing our lives to meet the demands of being “connected”, and having our habits known in increasing detail so that we may be more efficiently bombarded with more marketing material, as well as having our attention fractionated in many ways. Psychologists are having a field day with the latter.

 So far new technologies have taken on the order of 50 years to mature.  Tim Berners Lee, a British scientist, is given credit for having invented the World Wide Web (the basis of the internet) in 1989.  That is only 26 years ago.  We have a long way to go before it reaches anything close to maturity.  To me, it is presently becoming more difficult to use, and requiring more and more time to handle features that used to work, but are now overwhelming (e-mail), and more and more time to separate, as they used to say, the wheat from the chaff (ads, gripes, and baseless opinions).  And as a tool, I find that the time I spend using it is highly compromised by the time I spend trying to keep up with changes in the software associated with operating systems, apps, and programs that by now should be mature, but are constantly showing up with new (and to me unnecessary and sometimes negative) bells and whistles.  But I am an optimist, and believe that eventually it will settle down, take its place in our lives (although it will cost us to get rid of the distractions and trash bult into it), and the hype will go away.

 So I agree with Professor Krugman.  Let’s can the hype, figure out what we have and what we need, and make it serve us, instead of us serving it.  Incidentally, I just ordered a book entitled Shadow Work; The Unpaid Unseen Jobs that Fill Your Day, by Craig Lambert.  I'll give you my reactions after I read it.  It concerns work that used to be done by others for you, that you now have been tricked into doing through partial automation and cleverness on the part of companies through digital electronics.  Think of shopping in big box stores.  Remember when there were people to help you in stores?  I, and many of you,  even remember when people didn't  pump their own gas.  When I grew up, working in a "service station" was a sought after first step into the economy.  Now these jobs have gone away, along with the service.