Jeff Ventura - surprisingly has never been called 'Ace' before.

Man commits suicide by sliding down face of Hoover dam

I've never understood public suicide.  Suicide in itself is immensely selfish, but to involve others in the taking of your own life seems to be the ultimate act of terminal nihlism. 

Yes, you took your own life, but you also permanently scarred innocent people who were just out enjoying the day, in this particular case at a national monument. [Warning: disturbing video.  Not graphic, but not pleasant.]

This sort of thing makes me equal parts sad and angry.

The unknown unknowns

Errol Morris’s new piece in the NYTimes is interesting to me, as I’ve always noodled the Dunning-Kruger effect around in my mind ever since learning about it. And I’ve long held the belief that we act in a social system governed by confirmation bias; that is, we tend towards what we believe or want to believe, both in our learning and actions.

(The beauty -- and irony -- of Dunning-Kruger is that it is difficult to truly know on which end of the continuum you reside.)

Morris, in his piece, really gets into the holes in our knowledge and how they effect our behavior. This fascinates me, because I’ve been on both sides of conversations that were heated and full of energy only to find one of us was entirely ignorant of an adjunct area of knowledge that played heavily in the rounder conversation.

In Morris’s piece, David Dunning writes:

If I were given carte blanche to write about any topic I could, it would be about how much our ignorance, in general, shapes our lives in ways we do not know about. Put simply, people tend to do what they know and fail to do that which they have no conception of. In that way, ignorance profoundly channels the course we take in life.

Today’s bit in the NYTimes if part one of five. Can’t wait for the rest.

(Via kottke)

Conan O'Brien Says He Won't be Part of The Tonight Show's 'Destruction'

Conan's official press statement, scattered with goodies throughout.  One of the best I've ever seen, done with class by a classy guy being put in a shitty situation by management all too willing to accommodate Jay Leno's sudden change of heart at The Tonight Show's expense.

It starts on a good note with the salutation:

People of Earth:

Takes a subtle shot at Leno's meager 10pm ratings:

It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule.

And gets to the meat of it:

For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show. Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the Late Night show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn’t matter. But with the Tonight Show, I believe nothing could matter more.

Bravo, Conan.

The Children of Cyberspace

My 2-year-old daughter surprised me recently with two words: “Daddy’s book.” She was holding my Kindle electronic reader.

Here is a child only beginning to talk, revealing that the seeds of the next generation gap have already been planted. She has identified the Kindle as a substitute for words printed on physical pages. I own the device and am still not completely sold on the idea.

My daughter’s worldview and life will be shaped in very deliberate ways by technologies like the Kindle and the new magical high-tech gadgets coming out this year — Google’s Nexus One phone and Apple’s impending tablet among them. She’ll know nothing other than a world with digital books, Skype video chats with faraway relatives, and toddler-friendly video games on the iPhone. She’ll see the world a lot differently from her parents.

Fascinating article from Brad Stone stating that, quite simply, the unflagging rate of tech advancement is creating mini generation gaps whereby these mini-generations can be identified and grouped by what technology they grow up with during formative years.  Makes perfect sense, because more than once I've observed that young kids today are familiar with an iPhone in a way that kids of eight years ago are not.  My son, now 5, tries to touch, swipe and pinch the screen of every mobile phone he comes across.  Eight years ago, kids would have been introduced to a BlackBerry or Windows Mobile phone or something from Nokia and then introduced to an iPhone.

Another thing I think about: what will tech look like when my son is 16?  How many disruptive technologies will come down and displace the things that, by today's standards, are considered contemporary?

And perhaps the biggest question of all: speaking from psychological, cognitive, sociological and developmental perspectives, what long-term effect will all this technology, replete with its 'information anywhere' capability, have on people?  Today, we see all sorts of psychopharmaceutical drugs aimed at what we now consider mainstream psychological conditions: anxiety, ADHD, depression.  It's interesting -- and not just a little scary -- to consider what we'll be 'treating' 15 years from now as a result of people being overstimulated, forced to multitask beyond what the human mind can reasonably do (some argue we're there already) and rely on technology for everything: information, answers, directions, social consensus, morality.

Even as a tech geek, I reel sometimes.  As a guy who used to read a book a week but now struggles to get through one a month (most of my reading is web reading, which, arguably, is more convenient due to its more fragmented nature), I wonder where this is all going.

I know -- I think I'll check out a Kindle.  If, of course, the Apple tablet disappoints.  Then -- yes, then -- I'll get back to reading at a tyrannosaurid rate.  Right?

Tyler Cowen's Advice for Children 2010-2020

Good guidelines for these times:

My first-order response is that my most important advice comes by example and I have little idea what kind of message is actually being received.  Keep in mind that children often respond to your strengths with niche-finding strategies, and thus deviation, rather than copying strategies.

Otherwise, a long time ago I told Yana to take calculus and statistics; even if she hates them she'll know what side of that divide she stands on.  I am encouraging of learning languages, driving modest Japanese cars, and ordering the most unappealing-sounding dish on the menu of a good restaurant.  On investing it's buy and hold all the way.  Use TimeOut guides when you travel and when you are eating in third world countries avoid walls.  I'm not a big fan of debt; debt is worth it only if you're earnings-obsessed and I don't recommend that for most people.  Don't expect to be too happy, that is counterproductive.  I've mentioned that future job descriptions may be quite fluid and unpredictable from today's vantage point.  Being "good with people," combined with smarts and a focus on execution, will never wear out.  The reality is that I hardly have any useful advice.

An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All

The rejection of hard-won knowledge is by no means a new phenomenon. In 1905, French mathematician and scientist Henri Poincaré said that the willingness to embrace pseudo-science flourished because people “know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether illusion is not more consoling.” Decades later, the astronomer Carl Sagan reached a similar conclusion: Science loses ground to pseudo-science because the latter seems to offer more comfort. “A great many of these belief systems address real human needs that are not being met by our society,” Sagan wrote of certain Americans’ embrace of reincarnation, channeling, and extraterrestrials. “There are unsatisfied medical needs, spiritual needs, and needs for communion with the rest of the human community.”

Looking back over human history, rationality has been the anomaly. Being rational takes work, education, and a sober determination to avoid making hasty inferences, even when they appear to make perfect sense. Much like infectious diseases themselves — beaten back by decades of effort to vaccinate the populace — the irrational lingers just below the surface, waiting for us to let down our guard.

via wired.com

Putting aside that this is a fantastic article by Wired's Amy Wallace, I'm more disturbed by how often I hear similar anti-vaccination rhetoric from people who don't know a vaccine from a naked mole rat. And as another confusing spoke coming from this debate's hub, the ironic, over-willingness to embrace H1N1 vaccines out of the pure media-fed paranoia that's been shoved down our throats. Cognitive dissonance, indeed.

The Obama problem

In a column published yesterday, Newsmax's John L. Perry wrote that there is a "gaining" possibility that the military will stage a coup to "resolve the 'Obama problem.'"

Newsmax has apparently removed the column from its site. Links are now redirected to the homepage, and Perry's author page has no mention of his latest work. You can read the full text here.

The coup -- which would be "civilized" and "bloodless," according to Perry -- would consist of a "patriotic general" sitting down with the President and working out a new system in which "skilled, military-trained, nation-builders" would "do the serious business of governing and defending the nation" while Obama would still be allowed to make speeches.

via tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com

A few things:

1. John L. Perry is an insane, scared white man, terrified of change and clinging desperately to John Cougar Mellencamp's America.

2. If a black columnist suggested we stage a military coup to remove George W. Bush from office, the only thing we'd be hearing is the racism card being piledriven into our skulls.

3. Newsmax, the dubious site on which Perry's lunatic rant was published, broke from its bourbon-induced haze and pulled the column. Thankfully, the Internet tends to have a memory, so you can find the full text, in all it's pants-on-head retarded glory, over at TPM.

The new literacy

"I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization," she says. For Lunsford, technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions.

The first thing she found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That's because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text. Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom—life writing, as Lunsford calls it. Those Twitter updates and lists of 25 things about yourself add up.

via wired.com

I've argued this for a long time: we're all supposed to be getting more illiterate and not reading and writing as much due to technology, but that's not the case if you're willing to look beyond the stupid text message jargon we see demonized so often. We're just reading and writing differently. I know many people who won't read a book to save their lives, but they'll honestly read 100+ feeds -- some very information-rich -- per day. And while we're not sitting down for a rousing night of writing political essays, we are communicating and expressing our opinions over a written medium far, far more than we ever have.

When things that used to happen in a certain way no longer do, it doesn't necessarily mean they've stopped. It means they simply could be changing -- and, in fact, growing.

When Mom & Dad are fighting

I’m not sure whether our political moment really is more polarized than it has been in the past. But boy, does it feel corrosive. Mothers are crying at the prospect of the President might speak to their children. People are sniffing everywhere for hints of racism.

I’ve been wondering quite a bit recently how democratic dialogue is supposed to occur in a situation like this. We can’t talk to each other. How on earth are we supposed to handle self-governance?

via snarkmarket.com

Exactly. The far right and left extremes are making this climate a powderkeg just looking for a reason to go off.

However -- Glenn Beck is still a friggin' idiot and his advertisers leaving him is the best thing I've read in the past month. Schadenfreude? Whatever. Karma, if you ask me.