The algorithmic feedback loop

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Users keep encountering similar content because the algorithms keep recommending it to us. As this feedback loop continues, no new information is added; the algorithm is designed to recommend content that affirms what it construes as your taste.

Reduced to component parts, culture can now be recombined and optimized to drive user engagement. This threatens to starve culture of the resources to generate new ideas, new possibilities. 

If you want to freeze culture, the first step is to reduce it to data. And if you want to maintain the frozen status quo, algorithms trained on people’s past behaviors and tastes would be the best tools.

The goal of a recommendation algorithm isn’t to surprise or shock but to affirm. The process looks a lot like prediction, but it’s merely repetition. The result is more of the same: a present that looks like the past and a future that isn’t one. 

Grafton Tanner, writing in Real Life Magazine

Hockey equipment manager finds woman who saved his life with message about cancerous mole

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A woman knocked on the glass at a hockey game and urged the Vancouver Canuck’s assistant equipment manager to get a mole checked out. It turned out to be cancerous. He didn’t know who the woman was, so he tracker her down with the team’s help.

NBC News has a video report below or read the story from ESPN here.

New Adobe tool for Content Creators

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Adobe express logo

Adobe has released a single template-focused app called Creative Cloud Express (replacing Adobe Spark) that combines some of the best features from the Creative Cloud Suite for mobile and web. Quickly create everything from social media posts to promotional posters and videos with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface. Drag all sorts of elements into your composition from text, icons, shapes, free photos and fonts, music and other design elements. Assets from Photoshop and Illustrator can be utilized as well. Convert videos to GIFs and documents to PDFs. Great for non-professionals with little video editing experience. However, if you’re a pro, this is not a full-featured video editor.  

Creative Cloud Express includes premium features from: 

  • Adobe Premiere Rush — Shoot, edit, and share videos on mobile and desktop. 
  • Adobe Photoshop Express — Edit and retouch images, create collages, and combine photos. 
  • Adobe Spark Video — Quickly create stunning video slideshows. 
  • Adobe Spark Page — Turn words and images into beautiful web pages.

More on the features here.

Teaching resources from Adobe for Educators here.

While Express is already included in many Creative Cloud subscriptions, there is a free version available or get more templates, photos and fonts with a paid subscription for $9.99 a month (or $99.99 a year) here. Better yet, there is a three-month free trial here. More info on the plans here.

More Tech Tools

Wear Sunscreen

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A Chicago Tribune columnist wrote a piece in the late 1990s that has become known as Wear Sunscreen. She imagined what advice she might give to students at a commencement. It starts like this: “Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’97: Wear sunscreen.”

The commonsense advice that followed included tidbits like, “Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts” and “Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.” The message was intensified when it was set to music, renamed Everybody’s Free (To WearSunscreen) and released on an album by an Australian film director. One of Brazil’s biggest advertising agencies added video.  



 

 

 

Prescriptive Grammar Rules

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Most of the hobgoblins of a contemporary prescriptive grammar (don’t split infinitives, don’t end a sentence with a preposition) can be traced back to eighteenth-century fads.

Of course, forcing modern speakers of English to not – whoops, not to split an infinitive because it isn’t done in Latin makes about as much sense as forcing modern residents of England to wear laurels and togas. 

But once introduced, a prescriptive rule is very heard to eradicate, no matter how ridiculous. Inside the educational and writing establishments, the rules survive by the same dynamic that perpetuates ritual genital mutilations and college fraternity hazing: I had to go through it and am none the worse, so why should you have it any easier? Anyone daring to overturn a rule by example must always worry that readers will think he or she is ignorant of the rule, rather than challenging it. 

Since perspective rules are so psychologically unnatural that only those with access to the right schooling can abide by them, they serve as shibboleths, differentiating the elite from the rabble. 

Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct

 

Data Science articles from Dec 2021

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Self-Made Failures

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Occasionally, I’ve seen a man stand up and say, “I’m a self-made man.” So far I’ve never seen the guy or gal who DIDN'T make it, stand up and say, “I’m a self-made failure.” You know what they do? They point the index finger and say, “I’m not successful or happy because of my parents.” Some say, “My wife or husband doesn’t understand me.” Some blame the teacher, the preacher or the boss. Some blame everything from skin color and religious beliefs to lack of education and physical deficiencies. Some say they’re too old or too young, too fat or too slim, too tall or too short, or that they live in the wrong place.

Zig Ziglar, See You at the Top

Controlling Others

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Think about your childhood experiences. Did your parents spend a lot of time teaching you the outward behavior that would make you a responsible adult? I don’t mean to imply that there’s anything wrong with this if it’s not carried too far, but did you ever have an opportunity to talk about the way you felt? Were you able to admit you angry or irritable or afraid? Did anyone take time to help you understand why you felt these kinds of emotions? Children who don’t have this kind of encouragement gradually learn to suppress their negative feelings. It is easier to pretend that you don’t have them than to be criticized for expressing them.

When you felt angry, perhaps bitter, you assumed that you’d better keep it to yourself because you might get in trouble if you exposed a feeling that didn’t match your reputation as a nice, well-behaved girl.

Individuals assume very early in life that they can conquer their feelings of inadequacy only if they perform well enough. So when a stain spoils their performance record, they feel they have no choice but to put a demerit mark on their value rating.

I’m not implying that a parent should never set firm boundaries for children. That might lead to chaos. But time can be spent discussing the why’s of behavior and listening to each others' opinions.

I recall one woman who protested the idea of discussing options with her children. My kids would run absolutely wild if I gave them choices,” she said. “If I don’t stay right on top of them, they’ll never learn to live correctly.”

Respecting her desire for orderliness, but questioning her dictatorial manner, I responded, “I’m thinking more of your children’s future when Mom won’t be around to tell them what to do. They’ll have so little practice in making healthy decision that chaos will almost be guaranteed.”

Maintain control is an ever-present goal of the imperative person. Conversely, relinquishing control and encouraging another person to think and reason are the goals of healthy interpersonal relations.

Les Carter, Imperative People: Those Who Must Be in Control

His way of Working

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The Magnificat, Mary's Song of Praise, is recorded in Luke, chapter one. Here is what it reveals about the Messiah’s way of working among people: 

v51 He scatters the proud                     

v52  He brings down rulers                    

v52  He exalts the humble                     

v53  He fills the hungry              

v53  He sends away the rich        

 

He scatters the proud

But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples deserted him and fled. -Math 26:56

 

He brings down rulers 

One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us.” -Luke 11:45

 

He exalts the humble  

“Truly I tell you,” Jesus said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. -Luke 21:3

 

He fills the hungry 

Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42 They all ate and were satisfied. -Mark 6:42

 

He sends away the rich  

When the man heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” -Luke 18:23,24

The Box of Love

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Paul’s wife bought Christmas wrapping paper for presents they could not afford. Angry over the purchase, Paul flew into a rage. His three-year-old daughter fled into another room with the paper. She soon returned with a poorly wrapped box. Enraged even more, Paul sent her back to her room sobbing after a harsh spanking for wasting the paper. 

On Christmas day, the little girl brought the same box to Paul, promising it contained her daddy’s gift. Paul’s embarrassment soon turned to anger, when he discovered the box was still empty. But the little girl explained to him that she had not forgotten to add a gift.

“It is full of love and kisses" she had “blown into the box” herself. 

Paul hugged his daughter and asked for forgiveness. He promised to leave his anger and bitterness behind. Paul, a child abuse survivor, kept that box. He used it as a well of affection to draw from when he was hurt or discouraged. 

Paul had seen the best and worst of fatherhood. But that box of love served as a reminder of what being a father can truly mean.

While we do not choose our fathers, we have the opportunity to decide how we will respond to them. As we gather with family this coming Thanksgiving and Christmas, may we reflect the goodness and kindness we have received from the one father who never disappoints and loves unconditionally.

Author unknown 

Healing Quietness

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One summer afternoon my wife and I went for a long walk in the woods. On this beautiful afternoon, nature was laying its hand of healing quietness upon us, and we could actually feel the tension being drawn off. Just as we were falling under this spell, the faint sounds of what passes for music came to us. It was nervous, high-strung music of the jitterbug variety. Presently through the woods came three young people, two young women and a young man, and the latter was lugging a portable radio.

They were three young city people out for a walk in the woods and tragically enough were bringing their noise along with them. They were nice young folk, too, for they stopped and we had a pleasant talk with them. It occurred to me to ask them to turn that thing off and listen to the music of the woods, but I didn’t feel it was my business to instruct them, and finally they went on their way.

We commented on the loss they were incurring, that they could pass through this peacefulness and not give ear to the music that is as old as the world, harmony and melody the like of which man has never equaled: the song of the wind through the trees, the sweet notes of birds singing their hearts out, the whole background of the music of the spheres.

This is still to be found in America in our woods and great plains, in our valleys, in our mountain majesties, and where the ocean foams on soft shores of sand. We should avail ourselves of its healing. Remember the words of Jesus, "Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile." (Mr 6:31) 

Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking