User Interface Design

The first rule of user interface design is to NOT design a user interface.

The concept of a user interface is designer-centric, it's how the designer relates to the user, and THAT is the problem.  When designers think in terms of an interface, they think of delivering things by way of transaction.  Instead they should step into the users shoes and create a system where the user simply takes what he needs - NOW!

I've been following user interface design for years and have learned much from Isaac Asimov, Jef Raskin and Bruce Tognazzini but I keep coming back to the wall that stands between the user and the designer - the user interface.  We need to simply remove this wall and allow the USER to have anything he wishes, WHEN he wishes it.

I realize this sounds like rhetoric, but it's more than that.  I'll be expanding on this post with detailed examples as well as corollaries to this principle.

Zen

I became a Zen Master this morning at dawn.  But that's not important.  It's high comedy.

No, I'm not on drugs, well not like that.  I did go on a short but intense hike yesterday with my son Travis and a friend named Hayley, and adrenalin IS a powerful drug for me.  But this morning I was relaxed.

On this hike we were having a heated debate about the nature of language. Travis challenged me to define terms with increasing simplicity, as opposed to increasing complexity.  That IS important.  Later Hayley made a comparison which shall forever remain secret.  It seems best.

This morning on my walk I was thinking about a problem involving the mathematics of computer languages, but totally different from yesterday's discussion.  Still, I remembered Travis' words.  That set the stage.  Then I remembered Hayley's.  Finally, it wasn't her words; it was their implication.  Hayley, you are a muse indeed.  And amusing.

Stay tuned for elaboration.  This is a beginning.

Home at Burning Man 2011

Linda Allison Declares World Peace

While I don't agree with the "science" of "I Declare World Peace", I do believe world peace is inevitable for other reasons.

Supposedly, the newest threat to world peace is cyber-war between China and the west.  This idea is simply mapping old motives over new technology without understanding the impact of that technology.  China does not want war with it's biggest market.  World war no longer makes sense.  There is no land in cyberspace. There is no clear us versus them because where you live matters far less than who you are and what you think. There are now millions of various groups each doing their own thing. Nationalism is melting away.

Fortunately, war has had it's time in human history.  While there was almost certainly fighting over limited resources before agriculture, its fixed nature created a permanent focus for war about 10,000 years ago.  And these wars scaled up until they involved the entire globe.  But the highest values are no longer focused on land or even limited resources.  The greatest value now is information, which has fortunately been set free.  War is now dying out like the echo from that bomb on Nagasaki.  We are finally on the verge of living out the promises of enlightenment.

Sure, the next decades will be filled with small religious and wars of democracy where despots and doctrine of our past will continue to play out in waves as various groups gain power in each region.  But something new is happening.  Information is out-running politics.  New ideas are out-running religion.

This trend actually started back in the last century when as Rolling Stone put it, "The Sony Walkman and Levis jeans brought down the Iron Curtain".  Their point then was, that competition in culture between east and west were the real driving forces in the new political landscape.  Only a place as isolated as North Korea can stand against these forces, and then only for a while.  Once the internet arrives, hope for war is lost, peace has won.

Think of the last couple of centuries as voting by migration.  America was populated by the most adventuresome seeking political and religious freedom, and the process continues.  Millions have died leaving locations where old ideas dominated to seek new homes where ideas and freedom thrive.  Any government which does not subscribe to the pursuit of  happiness is a lost cause, it's just a matter of when they realize it.

The enlightenment ideas of the 18th century are clearly out of the box and won't ever go back in.  From now on, jurisdictions will more aggressively compete for citizens with the resources they have at hand - geography, tax rates and freedom.  Communications is the grease that will allow the machine of peace to work.

Governments that don't compete will simply find themselves more and more marginalized and isolated until new management is installed, as we are seeing with the Arab Spring.  Such transition is even now finding it's template.  And those that once again revert to feudalism will simply have to do it all over again in a few years.  At some point those in power will get the message and compete for citizens seeking personal freedom.

Even North Korea shall be free in less than a generation.

Linda Allison has declared world peace.

She is right, even if for the wrong reasons.

The Significance of the Samsung Note

Like much in the history of human affairs, technical advancement does not generally happen in smooth progression. It moves in fits and starts, and smart-phone technology has been on a tear for the last few years.

Palm was the first true smart-phone with a library of independent apps, but it was the iPhone that first found broad acceptance of the general public. Apple seems to have a way with tech fashion, even if they aren't always the first to market.  Or the best.

The next major fit of development was the Android family.  Motorola Droid offered the first significant competition to the iPhone.  HTC improved performance and over this last year Samsung has come to lead Android technology with it's large displays, yet light weight.

We now have the Samsung Galaxy Note as it's latest example, but is it a true advancement of technology?  Yep.  I'll compare it to my Droid which is what I know best.  The Samsung Note has:

100% more screen area.
50% taller
67% wider
250% more pixels
255% faster clock
80% more battery
60% more pixels in its camera
Plus a front camera
4G surfing and movies
4 times the RAM
16 times the ROM
Effective pen interface

So what's not to like?  Well, it is 8 grams heavier but that's too small to notice.  The Samsung Note also has no hard keyboard, but surprisingly, the screen is so large, I'm faster (and more accurate) on its soft keyboard than the Droid hard keyboard.  The Samsung Note is better in every way than the standard Droid and even better in most ways than the latest iPhone.  End of story?  No quite.

Surprisingly, the Note's best feature (the screen) is also the critic's biggest complaint, which is what this post is really about.  The Note is being panned as a "phablet" because of it's large screen. The logic is, it's too big to hold up to your face, and yet too small to compete as a tablet.  Here's an example review:

By: Jonathan S. Geller - Feb 13th, 2012 at 03:45PM

"The Galaxy Note essentially has everything you’d want in a smartphone: a great dual-core processor, a solid camera, a beautiful display and good build quality, and it runs on ATT’s new 4G LTE network that delivers incredibly fast downloads speeds. Plus the battery seems actually decent so far, which is a triumph for modern smart-phones.

Throw all of that right out the window.

The phone is too big. You will look stupid talking on it, people will laugh at you, and you’ll be unhappy if you buy it. I really can’t get around this, unfortunately, because Samsung pushed things way too far this time."

And it wasn't just Jonathan.  Here's what Zach at BGR had to say:

Samsung Galaxy Note review: The smartphone that ‘Samsunged’ Samsung
By: Zach Epstein | Feb 22nd, 2012 at 12:01PM


"Holding this beast to your face while on a phone call in public will result in awkward stares. Not “maybe” or “might,” but “will.” It just looks silly."

One more - PC World's review:

"For most, the Note will be too big for a phone, but too small for a tablet. Rather, it’s an awkward in-between device, and will only appeal to a niche consumer base. "

I'm here to tell you, PC World and all the rest are dead WRONG.  The Note will NOT be limited to a niche.  It has hit the sweet spot in size and will become the new standard in smart-phone technology.  Here's how I know.

There's not much to which I can easily lay claim, but I am an original and authentic geek. I'm been interested in computers since the smallest ones filled up a room, which was long before they became personal.  It was much later that the first thing that could be considered personal technology was introduced, and it was a calculator.

If you think the lines are long for gadgets now, you should have been around in 1972 when HP introduced the original HP35 calculator.  It sold for $395 which was over $2000 in today dollars, but you couldn't buy it at any price (no eBay back then).  After placing only two full-page magazine ads, the original HP35 calculator was back-ordered for more than six months!

This backlog was because the HP35 was SUCH a major advancement  in technology, it is hard to imagine even in today's new gadget world.  The closest competition to the HP35 sat on a desk, weighed 25 pounds and cost more than $10,000 (or $50,000 in today dollars).

In contrast, the HP35 was designed to fit into William Hewlett's shirt pocket, which is the key to the issue at hand.

Even though back-ordered from their own distribution, I discovered from a friend at HP that I could buy their calculator at HP headquarters.  This outlet was for employees, but he said they weren't checking IDs.  I immediately flew my plane to Palo Alto, walked up to the front counter and bought two (an extra one for my cousin).

It's been that way my whole life. I watch a given technology then buy the latest and greatest when it's introduced; not because it's a fashion, but because it's significantly better in some technical way. I bought the very first Palm Pilot when it was released. I generally hold off upgrading until there is significant advancement. At their introduction I bought the first color Palm PHONE (also from Samsung), then the Palm Treo and Palm Centro in turn.

Just over two years ago I ended a long-term relationship with Palm and bought the original Droid on the day of it's introduction. I considered the iPhone but the first version wouldn't even copy, cut and paste text which I can't live without.  Android has been amazing though there are still things the old Palm did that the Droid can not yet touch. But that's another blog post.

So why am I leaving the Droid behind so quickly? The usual reasons - significant advancement in technology which are listed above, but most importantly because of the size of the screen.  All of that visual real estate is wonderful.  For years now I've known the  the original HP-35 hit a sweet spot in physical size and weight.  It was as big as possible without being too big to fit in a shirt pocket.

As it turns out the Samsung Note is almost the same size and weight as that original HP-35. I've been carrying the Note in my shirt pocket the last few weeks and it feels just like the HP35 I carried from years back. So according to the reviewers, the only problem is how silly we look if we hold it up to our head, which is my second point - a true geek is like the Honey Badger - he doesn't give a shit.

And that's how I know I'm authentic: I don't understand why it looks weird to hold a Samsung Note up to your head.  Why does it matter?  It's what it DOES that counts.  I for one believe it's the ultimate geek-cred.  And who's says Bill Hewlett wouldn't have looked cool talking on his new calculator, if there had been some cell towers around?

Who wants to bet the next iPhone is not bigger?

And that in three years the Samsung Note will be the standard size for a phone?

And then it will be cool.

Email your wager.

03-28-12 Samsung ships five million Galaxy Notes in just five months

04-05-12 Samsung's Galaxy Note is a freak hit


06-01-12 Too early to say I told you so?

Sex at Dawn

This may well be the most significant book published so far this millennium.  OK, it's only been 12 years but what Dr Christopher Ryan and Dr Cacilda Jetha have brought together in such a candid fashion is at the very least a breakthrough in the understanding of the human condition, if not a road-map to the entire field of primate psycho-sexual behavior.

Sex at Dawn doesn't just challenge Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, and Desmond Morris; it drives a bulldozer right through their conclusions using their own observations as diesel fuel.  Like so many breakthroughs before, this one starts with a whole new perspective.

These two start by recognizing the standard narrative as a war of the sexes where women are less sexual and men need to "own" the outcome of the battle, until death do us part.  That this narrative doesn't really work is patently obvious to the most casual observer, and they point out the reasons.  For instance, why do we grow bored with our partners?  Why do so many cheat?  Why is it so difficult to live happily ever after?  Instead of blaming exceptions to the rule, Sex at Dawn actually provides answers to these questions by taking a fresh look at old data as well as drilling back into history in some interesting and creative ways.

All my life I've read history full of inconsistency between dictum and action.  From your mother to Jerry Falwell or even the Popes down through the centuries, we've gotten the same message: do as I say, not as I do.  And sex is often at the core of this behavioral paradox.  Sex has almost created the concept of double-standard and hypocrisy all by itself.

Unfortunately for millions, this "fashion" as been driven forward by force of culture and law.  And the powers that be, have tried to explain away all the exceptions when at that end of the day, all there are, are exceptions. The modern industry called soap opera is proof of how silly the king looks without his clothes.

I've often observed about paradoxes, if something doesn't make sense, you simply don't have enough data.  But that's not the only factor.  Sometimes we aren't looking at the data in the most effective way.  Dr Ryan and Dr Jetha have found a fresh perspective on what we've learned about human sexuality over the last few hundred years.  Then they dig back thousands and millions of years in ways that make sense.  Sex at Dawn not only vividly present the contradictions of the narrative, it provides a more natural alternative.

Even though this is an easy and entertaining read, don't let that diminish the significance of these concepts: these are world changing ideas.  From linking ownership of property to agriculture, to shared parentage, these are significant changes in how we think about our ancestors, and by inference, ourselves. I believe these two have opened a Pandora's box that will not close.  I think these ideas will have the general public laughing at our recent sexual history in only a generation from now.

Before I conclude, let me say I don't think they got it all right.  I believe they've under-represented not only the power of the prude but how monogamy can sometimes be natural and healthy; at least for a while.  And I don't believe we can dismiss jealousy as entirely cultural or only the result of the agricultural age.  It varies from person to person but seems primal in some.  Also, it's hard to accept that a paradise won't expand until it's no longer a paradise.  And most hunter gatherers did not even start with paradise.  These points aside, there are enough great ideas in this book to prompt a hundred more books on the topic.

And Sex at Dawn is the place to start the process.

In any case, read Sex at Dawn and tell me what YOU think.











Here are a few other reviews:

Sex at Dawn

How Sex at Dawn is Blowing My Mind

And it's rare for me to link the International Socialist Review but:

Anything Went

Don't Feed the Animals

This is another fascinating read on the topic.  While it's not a review of Sex at Dawn but illustrates many of the contradictions brought up in the book:

11 Strange, Horrific, or Just Plain Weird Ways Societies Have Policed Sex Throughout History

... and makes one appreciate the sexual freedom we now have.

Here's one alternative to the standard narative:

Polyamory and the Elephant in the Room

OK.  Not everyone agrees this is the book of the century.  A friend of mine has given me permission to include her review here, which I'm doing because it's such a through and excellent counter-point to many of the important ideas of Sex at Dawn and because she shares some of the political reservations I do.  Later I plan to read Sex at Dawn again and then review Roberta's review.  So standby for updates:



Roberta's Review


"There are some subtle and many not-so-subtle leanings toward forwarding socialism and communism as the main point of the book. Aiming at a target audience that wants to hear that sexual freedom is good and natural, it attempts to connect the reasons they feel bad about it to the repressive capitalistic, property-based, dogmatic, religiously zealous, Western society they live in. It then posits that egalitarian, free-loving, communal tribes lived with no sociosexual repression, making the logical conclusion that a communist society would be free of the social repression that keeps polyamory repressed.

I have attached several Citation Points to show a clear spin in favor of communism and against all forms of personal property rights:

1) pg. 43, Marx is stated to be one of “three intellectual giants of his century, Darwin, Freud, and Marx”
2) pg. 13-14, Equating the rise of agriculture to the advent of personal property & possessiveness (unfounded and stated as undeniable fact in the face of contradictory scientific proof in archeological records; see below)
3) pg. 151-212, A complete narrative on the evils of capitalism, personal property rights, and how economic theory points to large-scale communism not as totalitarian, but “misguided”. (pg. 171)
4) pg. 172, Unintentionally negating the entire theory, one line states, “Marx’s fatal error was his failure to appreciate the importance of context. Human nature functions one way in the context of intimate, interdependent societies, but set loose in anonymity, we become a different creature.” This undermines the entire thesis that communism is misguided and reinforces the fact that it is unworkable beyond small bands of close-knit people. (anonymity defined as being part of a group of more than 150 individuals; the limits of the human brain to create close-knit personal relationships)
5) pg. 180, The assumption is made (without cited archeological evidence) that agriculture societies caused the chronic food shortages seen in fossilized skeletal evidence of the age while ignoring evidence that food shortages were in fact due to massive megafaunal extinctions during the Younger Dryas cooling, (the last ice age circa 10,900-9,500 BC) thus leading to the rise of agriculture-based societies in order to survive. (see Mithen, Steven J.: After The Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000–5000 BC, pages 46–55. Harvard University Press paperback edition, © 2003 which offers three alternate theories of the rise of agriculture) The authors even admit on pg. 13 that agriculture actually leads to food surplus, thus allowing for large population growth, leading to higher population densities. Such a statement is in direct contradiction to the thesis and the insistence that agriculture leads to famine. (one could argue it does lead to malnutrition through adoption of a mono-diet, but agriculture can hardly be blamed for the lack of dietary diversity through the Younger Dryas cooling)

My conclusion is that the entire concept of sociosexual repression is turned upside-down in order for the authors to promote a pro communist agenda. The hypothesis that humans are naturally promiscuous can be proven without the repeated attempts to undermine the validity of personal property rights as it relates to the objects we own. (but then the book would only be about 80 pages long instead of 416) One can have a deep sense of pride of ownership over things we have earned through our labors (such as land and other artifacts) and still not hold a sense of “property” over our partners. People are not things… they are people.

Archaeological evidence shows that the very hunter-gatherers that the authors state practiced open sexuality did in fact own personal possessions, evidence that undercuts the thesis that the concept of personal property did not exist prior to agriculture. For citation, see articles on the Wadi Hammeh 27 dig site in Jordan, dating back 14,000 years. (4,000 years before the rise of agriculture) “Although a lot of individual [sic] stone age tools and items have been discovered, it is very rare to find a collection, one person's possessions.” (emphasis added) Among the items found in the dig were “a cluster of gazelle phalanges (toe bones) which were used to make decorative beads”. These are not tools of necessity as the thesis states were the only possessions of the hunter-gatherers, but pure adornments, possessions that served no practical purpose, carried around simply because they were valued. Doesn’t sound like a society free from materialism, does it? Other archaeological evidence shows many ancient hunter-gatherers were buried with prized possessions (see Lieberman, Philip Uniquely Human: The Evolution of Speech, Thought, and Selfless Behavior pg. 153) to prevent anyone else from possessing them. That is not egalitarian, but highly possessive.

While the authors cite many experts that agree with the thesis, they omit others that offer refutation, even when presented with unbiased scientific reasoning. The book cites many examples of modern egalitarian hunter-gatherers as evidence of the way of life of ancient hunter-gatherers, but fails utterly to mention refutations that modern hunter-gatherers show historical evidence as having themselves once been pastoral agriculturists that had been displaced into returning to a hunter-gatherer life. Thus “tainted” by an agricultural ancestry, they cannot be used as scientifically viable evidence of ancient hunter-gatherer lifestyles. (see Kelly, Raymond (October 2005). "The evolution of lethal intergroup violence" and Wilmsen, Edwin (1989). Land Filled With Flies: A Political Economy of the Kalahari. University Of Chicago Press) Put simply, because they have no unbroken ancestral history to ancient hunter-gatherer ways of life, their behaviors and ideologies are completely original constructs, not examples of ancient societies reborn.

Furthermore, ideas that the pre agricultural hunter-gatherers were relatively peaceful are fallacious. Anthropological finds show cave drawings over 15,000 years old depicting battles fought between tribes of these “peaceful egalitarian people” over tribal god images, especially good hunting grounds, feuds between family groups, and so on. (reference Chris Scarre’s “The Human Past: World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies” Copyright © 2008 Thames & Hudson) Certainly it gives lie to the thesis that agriculture created warfare if warfare existed 5 millennia prior. Again, the authors ignore these facts as inconvenient to their thesis that agriculture and the rise of materialism is the cause of most of our social woes. (including sociosexual repression)

The authors go so far as to cite the poorly researched dissertation by Professor Steven Pinker to demonstrate that accepted prehistoric war theories are invalid. This is nothing more than a blatant attempt to intimidate opposing theories by holding up one of the worst examples and calling it “typical”. (akin to stating that all spiritual beliefs are evil because of the Spanish Inquisition) The thesis tries to dismiss warfare among hunter-gatherers by raising the question, “What would they have to fight over?” while ignoring whole lists of reasons humans fight one another.

A note on disease: The authors pontificate on the evils of agriculture having introduced many diseases to humanity through close contact with livestock and make the unsubstantiated claim that disease was rare among the hunter-gatherers who lived prior to agriculture. Furthermore, they do so without citing any verifiable evidence. The authors’ citations on this matter, once researched, reveal only the unsubstantiated opinion of other theorists, not any actual evidence. Were there fewer diseases then? Scientific evidence says that bacteria and viruses have been a part of life on this planet for as long as there has been life here. (and unlike the authors, I can cite evidence in the fossil record; see Nesse, Randolph M., Williams, George C., Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine; Times Books, New York © 1994) Were humans susceptible to fewer diseases? Probably, but the diseases we fell victim to (like common infections from skin abrasions) were often fatal. (see previously cited text) Theory without evidence is not science; it’s opinion.

On the primate ancestry front, the authors cite human common ancestry with bonobos more times than I can count, while understating the relative ancestral ties to the equally distant chimpanzee. (except where it benefits the thesis, see pg. 223) If one cites ancestral ties to the bonobo as proof of their hypothesis, it is scientifically irresponsible not to cite chimps as being equally valid comparisons. The authors do grudgingly admit that the two species are equally distant from us ancestrally, but dismiss chimp’s aggressive behavior as unique. Why are chimps unique from humans and bonobos aren’t? Did I miss something in the concept of “ancestral equidistance”? Shouldn’t we look at both for signs of common ancestral behavior? Trying to dismiss cited examples of chimp aggression as “tainted observation due to provisioning” (giving chimps food to keep them close enough for study) while failing to cite studies that support the theory lacks scientific credibility. You can’t just propose a theory and then state it as fact without evidence and simply citing a book where the results are not stated doesn’t count as evidence. (see pg. 189)

While I find a great deal can be learned from the commonalties between humans and bonobos, genetically there is just as much that we have in common with chimps… such as our innately aggressive nature. (and ability to cope with stress without dying, see footnote 22, pg. 338) Often in life, we find the truth lies not in the extremes, but somewhere in the middle. We are not chimps who aggressively kill strangers just because they wandered into our territory, but neither are we bonobos, satisfied to the ideal of “make love, not war”. (and drop dead from cortisol shock the first time we hear a large explosion) We are humans; a species of our own with our own drives, our own instincts, our own failings, built on millions of years of our own unique evolution. We are innately kind, yet innately cruel. We are innately generous, but innately selfish. We are innately gentle, yet innately harsh. We are innately tyrannical, but innately freedom loving. We are the unwritten books; mixed drives, emotions, and experiences that make us want to be the “horrifying saints” we are as a species.

From the bad to the good, the chapter on the biomorphic evidence for human polygamy is very well considered. Comparative gender dimorphism is very clear that humans males are not designed to compete physically against other males for the “right” to father a woman’s children, but rather they are designed to let their sperm fight it out in the womb. (though as a woman I find Mr. Ryan’s obsession with penis sizes a bit too self-interested) But even through this section, the authors take a time-out to bash industrial capitalism for poisoning men’s testicles into reduced fertility without mentioning the more likely cause being the natural human response to overpopulation.

I half-remember a study I read years ago that compared fertility rates to population density. I was unable to find the study to cite, so I did a quick comparison of 222 countries comparing fertility rate versus population density. The results are clear and immediate: the countries with the highest population densities all had the lowest fertility rates with an average deviation of less than 6.5%. (data obtained from CIA World Factbook, 2011)

For reference, here are the ten countries with the lowest fertility rate to population density ratios:

Country	Pop density (#/km²)	Fertility rate (births/woman)
Macao	20,319.26	0.92
Monaco	15,269.50	1.50
Singapore	6,801.63	1.11
Hong Kong	6,451.55	1.07
Gibraltar	4,454.77	1.96
Gaza Strip	4,603.21	4.74
Bahrain	1,598.30	1.88
Malta	1,292.19	1.52
Maldives	1,325.50	1.81
Saint Marten	1,100.85	1.70

And to compare, ten countries with the highest fertility rate to population density ratios:

Country	Pop density (#/km²)	Fertility rate (births/woman)
Zambia	18.44	5.98
Bolivia	9.21	3.00
Kazakhstan	5.70	1.87
Somalia	15.57	6.35
Republic of the Congo	12.41	5.68
Canada	3.41	1.58
Angola	10.70	5.97
Mali	11.42	6.44
Central African Republic	7.95	4.63
Niger	13.00	7.60

Note that with a few exceptions (generally caused by countries such as Canada with large tracts of unoccupied land and most of its population in high-density cities) the countries with the highest population densities have the lowest fertility rate. Of note, Macao has both the highest population density in the world and the lowest fertility rate, while Niger has the highest fertility rate and is in the bottom 10% of national population densities. When so many countries show the same pattern, and are a mixed variety of lifestyles from 3rd world to industrialized, with such a small deviation, the reasonable conclusion is that low fertility rates are linked to putting too many people in one place. Sounds to me like biology is just adjusting fertility to compensate for overpopulation.

The authors also make connections between low fertility and the consumption of red meat and soy. While reasonable sounding at first, one has to ask the question, “If red meat causes infertility, why were the people who lived 50,000 years ago more fertile than people today when they ate even more red meat per capita than we do?” (see Smil, Vaclav “Population and Development” ©2002 Colorado State University Press pg. 604 “Eating Meat”) The fact is that there is no scientifically verifiable link between male infertility and the consumption of any particular food, but there is a direct correlation between infertility and population density. The authors are using the fear most men have about their virility (or perceived virility) to try to spur changes in their behavior. The fact is that most men are very concerned about their virility, even if they are not interested in conception. So much so that they will go to great lengths to avoid anything that they believe may jeopardize it, even when no evidence can be cited. Humans have been eating soy and red meat for 700,000 years that we know of, but certain activists intent on altering our innate behavior are misleading people to believe that now it is causing infertility. Peak US per capita beef consumption was in 1976, long before the “fertility crisis” had been conceived of. (see previous citation, pg. 613) Why does eating red meat now cause infertility and not 35 years ago, or 50,000? What changed? (hint: nothing changed except the demonization of “big beef” corporations by radical vegans)

Moving on, the authors’ treatments of the suppression of female libido in Chapter 18 is heartbreaking in the knowledge that any society could be so cruel to it’s wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers. False diseases such as hysteria and the horrifying practice of clitoridectomy are as evil a practice as slavery. To take from a woman her natural right to have sexual pleasure is a fate nearly worse than death. (Death might be kinder, for what value is your life even to yourself once you are doomed to toil without reward?) That this evil is still carried out in parts of the world today sickens me near to tears of rage. If any proof were needed on the nature of the potential of human evil, one need look no further than this infamous practice. I cannot help but become angered at the evil of men who thought it a good way to enslave their wives and daughters. Disgusting! (any wonder why I’m a lesbian?)

Speaking of being a lesbian, the authors demonstrate an overwhelming tendency to focus strictly on heterosexual intercourse and give only fleeting mention to homosexual attraction. In the section on the anatomy of female bosoms and buttocks, the attraction is only noted by the authors as a “transcendent influence over heterosexual male consciousness”. (pg. 259) This, and other sections of that chapter, push the idea that a woman’s body is specifically attractive only to heterosexual males and that this is the purpose of the beauty of the female body. God forbid you should suggest that a woman’s body be universally considered attractive, even by heterosexual females and homosexual males. To do so might drag the topic off into discussing human sexual behavior and away from agriculture bashing.

On the section regarding female copulatory vocalizations, that term is in itself heterocentric. Copulation is defined as sexual intercourse between males and females. Calling it “copulatory vocalization” implies that women are only vocal if a man is having sex with them and that heterosexual sexual excitation is it’s only purpose. (as if women don’t ever get turned on by the sound of another woman’s orgasm, even if they are heterosexual) This phrasing is not only insulting to me as a woman, but to me as a homosexual.

Further on that, the book is absent a significant set of data: namely the vocalizations of female bonobos when engaging in homosexual activity with other female bonobos. With all the time and page space that the authors dedicate to making comparisons between humans and bonobos, the complete lack of data on how female bonobos vocalize during homosexual encounters is notable in its absence. If the authors are so adamant that human sexuality is very closely related to that of bonobos, why this complete dead space? Does the data show something that could be used to negate the author’s thesis? The biology of female sexual vocalizations (a much more accurate term) when engaged in sexual activity with other females could give great insight into the sexual appetites of women in general. (but again, we might get dragged off the real topic of blaming capitalism for all our woes)

That the authors completely ignored this line of inquiry makes me suspect that the findings were not supportive to the claim that female sexual vocalization is designed to spur multiple male copulation. Could it be that female vocalization is simply a side effect of the fact that a woman’s orgasm is just better than a man’s and women can’t help but cry out because it just feels that good? (i.e. men would vocalize too if their orgasms were nearly as good as ours) I’m not trying to start a ‘women are better than men’ fight, but I have a unique perspective on the issue. I was born with male anatomy and went through puberty as a male and enjoyed intercourse before transition, however I can attest that sex before transition was a much lesser experience. True, I had body image issues then (wouldn’t you if you were a woman trapped in a man’s body?) which could have inhibited my enjoyment of sex as a man, but the actual degree of pleasure was greatly increased after Hormone Replacement Therapy, by multiple orders of magnitude. (both in duration and intensity, as well as the ability to have multiple orgasms)

Mr. Ryan likely did not include data on bonobo female sexual vocalizations in homosexual experiences because it forced him to face the uncomfortable fact that sex is just better for women than for men. Biology doesn’t care about fairness though, it only cares about results. A female that enjoys sex more than the male of the species will have sex more often than the males, including with other females, which creates social bonds between the females to strengthen the tribe’s unity. That males are turned on by female sexual vocalization is not conclusive to the thesis that it spurs sperm competition because females are aroused by it as well. It would seem that its purpose is to spur the entire tribe to sexual activity with whoever is willing in order to bind all closer together as a tribal unit, not just the males for the purpose of reproduction.

Again, bias forces the subject away from the purpose of the book. (the truth of human sexual history) Even though the admission of human sexual gratification dimorphism (the difference in the pleasure that men and women perceive during sex) would serve to prove that humans are naturally promiscuous, that’s not what the authors want to hear or write about, so it gets ignored.

Think about it logically, simply as a numbers game. Just using average figures, the following data points are known:
1) A woman would generally need 2-3 male partners over the course of one sexual experience to be fully satisfied
2) Men only generally are able to copulate with one woman in that same time span
3) Men and women crave sex with an equal frequency
4) There are an equal number of males and females
If viewed as an equation, this set function demands that women must be designed to enjoy sex with multiple male partners as well as with other women to balance the equation, otherwise we have to conclude that women are designed by nature to be unfulfilled. (which makes no sense from an evolutionary point of view) This would explain why nearly all women are turned on by the sexual vocalizations of other women, however it implies another uncomfortable truth; that likely only about 10% of women are heterosexual, 10% are homosexual, and the vast majority (80%) are bisexual.

If the set function is altered to force there to be an equal number of bisexual females as bisexual males, the result is that 49.6% of the time, women will not be satisfied with their sexual encounters. That is, there are not enough men to keep an equal number of women satisfied when women require 2-3 times the time spent having sex versus the males. The only way to balance that equation is to add an additional data set requiring men to have sex 2.5 times as often as they wish to. (or 2.5 times longer than the time it takes for them to be satisfied) From an evolutionary point of view, this serves no purpose, so why would nature breed for a species to have females that crave more sex than they can get, even in a promiscuous society? The answer is that it wouldn’t, unless a large amount of sex between females is allowed. Interestingly, the book touches on that on pg. 276-279, but quickly abandons the subject in favor of bashing the Catholic Church. (pg. 281)

Back to the good, the section on “The Perils of Monotomy” is very well considered for a while. The idea that we have a built-in desire for sexual variety and to avoid the overly familiar as a feedback against incest makes a lot of sense from a biological viewpoint. Of course, the chapter loses my interest by focusing completely and totally on male heterosexuals, so it’s a mix of good and “where’s the rest?” To make it worse, the authors imply that women have no “need” for sexual diversity when on pg. 300 they say “if you’re a woman whose husband is ‘cheating’, your options are no better… have your own revenge affair (even if you don’t feel like it)”. The implication of the choice of language is staggering and flies in the face of the idea that women seek sexual diversity just as much as men do. Reversion to the ‘standard narrative’ is also found in other passages about women when discussing male sex drives, leaving me to question the authors’ scientific objectivity.

In conclusion, I cannot recommend this book for a serious exploration of human sexual nature. It is too rife with overtly socialist propaganda and male egocentrism that the few nuggets of truth are so buried you can’t see the light of day. As a Libertarian bordering on Rational Anarchist, I find the scientific conclusion of agriculture being the root of sexual repression as presented suspect at best and fraught with intentional lies of omission at worst. The authors would have been better to just write about their social concepts within the bounds of a book on that subject and left the conclusions regarding the natural promiscuity of humans to another volume that is actually interested in exploring the subject without prejudice and with scientific objectivity."




Here's another excellent  review from our group:

And now, from a woman’s perspective… 

Sex at Dawn is a book that needed to be written.  It is time to open up the discussion not just about the theoretical/evolutionary underpinnings of sexual pair-bonding but how we view male and female sexuality generally. The book is important because it sets the stage for discussion.  Is it scientific literature?  No.  But in the same way that Desmond Morris’ work brought the discussion of evolution to America’s dinner table, Ryan and Jetha’s book brings sex.  Well, maybe.  So far, we have not shown ourselves to be capable of having a conversation about sex without titters and awkward innuendo.

Most of the book reviews I have read on Dawn found fault with it for the right reasons (according to me, and I am writing this review) and loved it for the male reasons.  That’s because almost all of them were written by men.  Allow me to digress so you might gain some understanding of my perspective before dismissing me as a strident feminist whose mucous membranes are all dried up. 

The science fiction view of the future in the 1960s and 1970s was one of sexual freedom without the bonds of monogamous marriage.  It was a sexual freedom that included young, scantily clad or body-painted women.  The men would take care of the women and treat them well in exchange for sex on demand.  The women would enjoy being sex objects because they were creatures borne of the author’s limited vision:  They would have no unmet needs of their own and they would enjoy the sex.  What could possibly be missing?  It was a strictly male perspective on sexual freedom that projected the stereotypes of the day into the future. 

Any speculation about the future or the past is necessarily colored by the present.  I think Dawn is guilty of some of the so-called “Flintstone-ization” it heaps on others, but its agenda is based on a different model than the monogamous ‘ideal’ we’ve been hobbled by for many years. It pushes this agenda while it denies having one.  It is an important book.  I enjoyed it.  I recommend it. I would respect it more if it would own the truth:  Like science fiction writers, the best any of us can do is to interpret a body of evidence subject to our own necessarily biased perspective. It does not make Ryan and Jetha right while proving Helen Fisher wrong.  And it does not allow that there might be other interpretations.

The male reviewers of this book seem to embrace Dawn’s perspective as a more accurate and, perhaps less damning explanation of their experience.  This is legitimate as far as anecdotal evidence is acceptable.  Anecdotally speaking, in my experience as a woman, monogamy has not been so much a choice as a perceived social expectation.  At some point in longer-term relationships, exclusive access becomes an issue as part of our social order.  The only time I feel “naturally” monogamous is when I have strong love feelings; under their influence I simply lose interest in others. 

Dawn’s arguments against monogamous pair-bonding (woman exchanging exclusive access to her body for access to a man’s protection and resources) are welcome and refreshing.  (I once got into a very vocal disagreement in my college dorm when a young man equated marriage with prostitution using  similar reasoning.)  The truth is that men know women enjoy sex as much or more than they do (the orgasm differential being a sore spot, ahem).  And men have put a lot of time, energy and creativity into controlling the female sex drive: clitorectomies (sp?), chastity belts, etc. The present day GOP presidential candidates would have women only participate in sexual activity for the purpose of procreation.  They better not push too hard – they might just get what they push for!  

In the rush to equate our sexual needs and to support the notion that neither males nor females are “naturally” monogamous, let’s take care not to say that men and women are alike.  That has not been my experience and is not, I think, what Ryan and Jetha’s book is trying to put forward either. Part of the traditional formulation is that women seek sex for intimacy (rather than for pleasure) while men seek sex for pleasure.  This suggests that intimacy is not pleasurable.  To whom?  Women  seek sex for pleasure and for intimacy and not always at the same time.  Men also seek intimacy.  Do they do it differently?

Intimacy is a rare commodity – aren’t we all seeking it in the sex act literally naked and vulnerable?  Among my male and female friends, there is pretty good agreement that the best sexual experiences are those that involve emotional connection and physical attraction.  Once again, this is only anecdotal evidence.   But I say: Get as much of that as you can.

Defy Aging, Keep Moving, Stay Hungry

The photo above is a great example - 60 is the new 40. 50 is the new 30. I've even seen a proclamation that 80 is the new 30!

Such declarations about age can be seen everywhere lately. Is this simply age denial? Do baby-boomers refuse to grow old? Is this denial a way to lie about our age? Will lying about our age help us live a longer and happier life? Maybe.  There's been lots of interesting research lately about the placebo effect. What's interesting is, it seems to work even when the patient KNOWS it's a placebo. And what is lying about your age other than giving yourself a placebo?

Unfortunately, the placebo effect will not solve everything. There are some hard factors in this new age of aging, no matter what number we admit to. Since the Kellogg brothers made health a popular topic at the beginning of the last century, thousands of treatments have been tried in an attempt to stay younger. Most of them have been worthless, but a few have obviously made a difference:

"Today, the average age for someone moving into a nursing home is 81. In the 1950's, it was 65."

"People are living 34 years longer than our great-grandfathers."

"The number of people in the world over 100 years old is now approaching half a million."

The internet is full of such dramatic results. Avoiding tobacco and limiting solar exposure is good for the skin, eating a variety of fruits and vegetables is good for nutrition, but by far the most important factors are diet and exercise. The rest doesn't matter much. Just keep moving and stay hungry.

Whether you are overweight, have chronic pain, arthritis, dementia, depression, diabetes, anxiety or fatigue there is one piece of advice that will improve your quality and length of life - "Keep Moving". What's surprising is how this advice not only affects the physical, but also your mental health.

ANY physical activity that keeps you moving for at least 30 minutes a day, EVERY day will make a huge difference. But that "every day" is the hard part. Success comes from finding something you enjoy.  It can be yoga, swimming or walking a couple miles per day.  Just start slowly and work your way up. Even if it takes a year to work up to 2 miles a day, after that you've gained 80% of the benefit of exercising in general. And the second, fifth and seventeenth year is easier.

Here is the best summary I've found on the topic:

The Single Best Thing You Can Do For Your Health

As for staying hungry, the meaning is obvious. But the trick is to not stay TOO hungry. Just like the exercise part, if you take it to the point of pain, your Id will push back and you're more likely to return to your old lifestyle. If on the other hand, you eat only what you need, you not only stay lean and healthy, you'll enjoy life more.

Have you noticed how if you stay hungry, food tastes SO much better? Well at least for the first few hundred calories, which is an important hint. When the meal becomes less compelling, stop eating. If you eat just 100 calories less than you burn each day, you'll lose 12 pounds a year - that's hard science, and it's major progress.  The trick is finding how many calories you really need - it's less than you think.  Then take your time losing those pounds.

Staying hungry can also improve the quality of experience for your other appetites. From sex to alcohol, less can be much more if you hone your appetite with a bit of moderation. Find the "sweet spot" and stay hungry.

The final way to stay hungry is to stay hungry for life. Live each day as if it's your last. One day it will be. 

So if we have the answers why is everyone not healthy? It's obvious not everyone is gaining these extra years.  Not surprisingly, access to excess and the electric grocery cart are the reasons. The majority of people today are actually shortening their lives with calories and the couch. Many are now dying YOUNGER than they would have a hundred years ago because of their default lifestyle. And more will follow them into the grave shortly.

Our society has become bifurcated where most people (of all ages) default into less activity and consume more calories; and a minority eat less and lead more active lives. What is truly amazing is, this minority is STILL able to skew the average increase in lifespan while the bulk of America is doing the opposite. So a healthy lifestyle may extend one's life even more than the averages indicate. If you live well, your chronological age may not matter much at all.

Here's why:

Life's third act

Misrepresenting your age may be a lie, but it's a lie worth living.

More data:

Run for your life – or at least to make it longer


Slate on Walking on Walking in America - see all four parts


"Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears." - John Lennon

Martin Jet Pack

Yet another way to move through the air:

Martin Jet Pack

CES: Motorized unicycle, anyone?

I do love a minimalist solution, and these guys I met at CES have definitely created one.

They say it's easier to ride than it looks, which is good because it looks like it might be difficult; but they did make it LOOK easy.  Still, I wonder how comfortable it is after an hour of standing in such a rigid fashion?

It looks like something right out of the Jetsons, and at only $1795!

Cool videos:


SoloWheel

Economic Predictions

I'm going to start a post here which I will update from time to time to make my economic predictions a matter of public record.  Some of these are summarized from the past.  The rest are current, predicting the future.

01-01-12 - The US Treasury still believes US banks have $9.9 trillion in home loans.  That's down only 7% ($10.6 trillion) from it's high in 2006.  Such denial!  A quarter will have to be written down sooner or later.  Another quarter will be paid by underwater home owners who simply don't want to move or accept the real value of their house.  So between the banks and home owners, there's still plenty of denial to go around.  I've said house prices won't bottom for another year, but this real estate toilet won't completely flush for another five to ten years (lost decade?).  With new construction minimal for at least another three years, US growth will continue it's long slow pull off the bottom with real growth rates staying under 4% and averaging only 2% for the next five years.  Still, real estate will remain the best long-term investment for anyone who has cash.

01-01-12 - The Euro will survive since Germany has already involuntarily funded the weak sisters through the central Buba bank claims of half a trillion Euros.  Now they only need formally loan that much so the weak sisters can own up to their claims in their central bank and hand the money back to them. In for a penny, in for a pound.

01-01-12 - China is building 36 million new apartments to distract investors from the 64 million condos already completed, but still standing empty. That's exactly 100 million new units total, which makes our 7 million empty houses look like a minor disturbance. 


The real question is, where will these 230 million people work when they come in from the farm?  And how much will they be paid?  The growth honeymoon is over in China.  Now they'll have to do it the hard way. Ironically, organized labor will be their next major political force on the street.  Stand by for volatile times in China.



01-31-11 - Collectibles will be the next financial bubble, will have a long expansion and selective contractions over years before final collapse.

The U.S. will gently return to a slow growth "new normal" as we complete our transformation to the information age, and continue to lead in tech design. 06-22-10

China will become the world's manufacture, but have the greatest volatility as they grow too quickly in political fits and starts.  Russia will provide grain and energy, but struggle to achieve true democracy.  India will evolve more slowly around customer service. Brazil will be the emerging star of the next decade.  Still not much hope for Africa. 06-22-10


Because of last year's $150 per barrel oil, in less than five years we will be awash in energy from multiple sources such that energy will be available at the equivalent of $1.99 a gallon in today's dollars - 01-01-10.

We will have modest deflation for at least the next three years. 04-17-10

China's construction and real estate bubble will exceed the scale and impact of our own and will pop within 24 months, with dramatic effect. 04-17-10

Creating Passwords Using Seed Mapping

Passwords are a pain.  


Security requirements are becoming more complex just as we need more passwords for new apps, challenging our ability to remember them all.   


Here are the requirements for a reasonably secure password:

1. Contain at least 8 characters.

2. Contain upper case letters.

3. Contain lower case letters.

4. Contain numbers.

5. Contain special characters.

6. Appear to be random.

7. Be different for each application.

And...

8. Be easy to remember. 

  

Unfortunately the first seven requirements make the last almost impossible.  Many just give up and use personal information or typical words which are easily cracked.  Yes, there are software tools to help out, but they mostly add cost, complexity and management.


Fortunately there's a simple trick I've been using for years, and it's good enough to stop the average hacker.  Plus, it costs nothing at all to use.  The trick is, don't REMEMBER your passwords - DERIVE them.  Here's a simple example using a two phase algorithm - seed selection, and keyboard mapping.  It will pseudo-randomize any password.

Start with a seed that's in front of you as you log on to the site, for instance Microsoft.  A simple seed would be the first four letters "micr".  There.  You're halfway done.

Now simply expand this seed onto the keyboard in a visually consistent way.  Let's use the two keys above the seed key for this example.  "m" becomes "Ju", "i" becomes "8*", "c" becomes "de" and "r" becomes "4$" yielding the password - "Ju8*de4$".  No, don't try to memorize this mess, just watch your fingers as they move.  


See the pattern?  The visual pattern is the trick.  This password meets the all the standard criteria, yet you don't have to memorize it - just look at the name, then map it visually with your personal method.

Notice I capitalized the first character and had to shift to get the "*" and "$" because I ran out of room moving up the keyboard.  That's one way of including special characters and caps.  If you don't want special characters, wrap to the bottom of the keyboard instead.

The beauty is, memory was not a factor.  It's simply visual.  It's best to not even think about what keys you're hitting - just hit the two above your seed character.  I honestly have no idea what my passwords are, I just know the pattern that produces them.

It's easy once you define a method.  For the above approach:

Gmail would produce "T5juq18*"

Yahoo would produce "6^q1y69("

FaceBook would produce "R4q1de3#"

Again, no memorizing.  OK, go ahead and use my example method if you like.  It's better than using your dog's name.  And you won't need to read any further.  But remember you'll have the same passwords as every other person who happens to read this blog and goes to the same sites you do.

Or...  You can quickly customize.

Just invent your own method (algorithm).  There are literally millions of ways of doing it.  Here are a few aspects to keep in mind while you think about it:

First, the seed - it should be at least four characters which will produce nearly a half a million unique passwords.  Two characters will only create 676 unique passwords - not enough.  A three character seed is on the border.  And I don't suggest using more than a seven character seed because you'll either be creating very long passwords, or have poor distribution in the mapping phase as described below.  

Since the objective here is to leave the mob behind, it might be best if you mix up your seed a bit.  How about a backward flip - "iamg" for Gmail.  Or better yet, replace the "g" with your dog's middle initial.  Or yours.  It doesn't matter much as long as it's an easy method to remember.  Personalizing with an initial or two will also make your passwords different from most others who visit your sites.  After all, Microsoft or Hotmail will be a common starting point for many.

How about taking every other letter then step back? Gmail could become "gami".  Or ignore the first letter and get "mial".  You get the idea, there are a lot of ways of doing this - make yours unique.  I've only discussed a couple of aspects of seed generation as examples.  It's best to come up with something I haven't even talked about.  Just be consistent so your method is easy to use.

Now as to the keyboard mapping phase.  Our first example was OK, but did you notice how "q1" occurred three times in the last three examples?  That's because each seed contained the letter "a", which is a common letter.  Also these simple examples only have a fair distribution over the key-map.  To produce a good pseudo-random number you need a good distribution across the random field.  The keyboard itself makes for a decent random field, as long as you span it well.  For instance, "mmiiccrr" for Microsoft stays close to (and IS) your seed.  That's poor distribution.

In contrast, an expansion of three or four going up will always capture a number, and often a special character.  Or if you go down instead, then wrap back up, it's almost as good (but no special characters).  Three up will get a number two thirds of the time, and a special character one third of the time.  See how you can control how many and what types of characters are likely to end up in your password?

There are obviously lots of ways of getting similarly distributed results.  Go up for the first seed character, down for the second, capitalize the third and shift the forth to possibly add a special character.  Or expand the first seed character once, the second twice, the third three times, etc.  You choose - that's the beauty.  No one but you knows your method.

Or ignore the first character, right one and three up.  Or one up, two left.  Or skip a couple.  The objective of distribution is to break up patterns of common letters (a, i, e) by applying different directions to different seed letters. This key map phase is where you can really express your unique nature.  Try diagonals.  Or leaps. There is no right or wrong method, just some are better than others.  Scramble your seed.  Scramble your map.  But in a way that's visual to you.

One challenge you'll face are sites that require you to change passwords every few months.  An easy (if less secure) solution is simply to add a number starting with 1 to the end (or beginning).  Increment the number each time you have to change passwords.  In a few tries you'll get it, and have plenty of time before you have to use 1 again.  Or add the last digit of the year to your seed and shift it after June 30th.  Do what works for you.

It's a good idea to have a  backup method for when you encounter other conflicts (such as some sites not allowing special characters).  If your password doesn't work, try your simpler method B.


Also, don't use your method for any password you have to share with anyone else, or they might guess your trick and put all your other passwords at risk.  This is another good reason for a more simple method B or C for shared passwords.

Finally, don't make your method TOO complex.  There's a point of diminishing return.  Other capture or social cracking will make a "perfect" method irrelevant anyway.  Video cameras are common and getting smaller, so even a perfect password can be stolen.  If you're still concerned, add Iris Scan and go multi-factor.  But for most, pseudo-random is good enough.  And FAR better than your dog's name.

By the way, Seed Mapping is just one approach that happens to give a fairly good result.  There are many other methods.  Be creative.

Now go change all your passwords so you can burn that cheat-sheet in your desk drawer.

And let me know how Seed Mapping works for you.

Rod Coleman

General Manager

Sierra Computer Group