What I Learned Today

I read Douglas Rushkoff’s book, Program or Be Programmed with a mixture of fascination and criticism. I didn’t agree with every argument (e.g., that computer networks have no notion of time; many internet protocols use timestamps to ensure reliable communication), but each chapter gave me something to wrestle with mentally, and the book as a whole made me see various aspects of my life (interacting with technology) in a new light. Rushkoff’s thesis takes a historical view of how new technology penetrates society gradually, and those who develop the ability to manipulate and create, rather than just to use and consume, are the ones in control. Arguing from examples based on the development of writing, print, and electronic media, he notes that for us today, it’s the ability to program that gives us control over the new technological world, and that (somewhat chillingly) willful or accidental ignorance about the motives of Those Who Program may cause you to execute their Program without even knowing it.

This great, short video lets Rushkoff summarize his points in two minutes flat:

I am already a “programmer,” in that I have programming skills, but even so I consume most of what’s on the net as a user, rather than getting out there and being actively involved myself. Programming is what I do at work. On the other hand, I’ll never forget the thrill I experienced when I first contributed to an Open Source project. My art, my creation, uploaded into the ether after building on, complementing, and extending the work of complete strangers! And who knew where others might take it! It was like Free Love, but in C.

But after reading his book, I couldn’t help but think a while about what built-in biases about how various technologies work are shaping my own thoughts, habits, and ability to create.

This point, however, is the tenth of his 10 commandments. The earlier ones have value too; it never hurts to get another reminder of the value of not always being “on”/”connected,” and of being present in the here and the now.

Yesterday I got to hang glide for the first time. Windsports Hang Gliding offers introductory lessons at Dockweiler Beach. Under the guidance of an instructor, you get to launch and sail out over the sand dunes on your own!

For my first few flights, the instructor served as a set of training wheels as well as a source of useful shouted instructions. He held on to one side of the glider and kept it stable until I got a feel for its motion. A 30-foot wingspan makes it quite unwieldy to manipulate unless you’re working with the wind and can sense the glider’s position through your body. Here I’m learning how to stabilize the glider, before launching, which at that point genuinely feels like having a giant kite strapped to your back (I’m clipped in behind my back via carabiner).

Next, you run forward and launch off the hill. Running is harder than it sounds, since the glider immediately wants to lift you up, at which point you lose the ability to run. You have to hold it down until the right moment when it lifts you (so smoothly) upward.

Pushing the bar forward shifts your weight back relative to the glider and makes it climb (and slow). Pulling the bar towards you does the opposite (and makes you go faster). Turning is not accomplished by any kind of leaning. Instead, you pull the right bar towards you to turn right, and pull the left bar to turn left. This makes sense, as it simply moves your body weight around and controls the kiteglider with simple physics.

Except it takes a while to figure out how to implement this. You only need to pull briefly, then return to center, and a second or so later, the glider responds with a turn. That kind of delayed response is initially challenging to deal with. Everyone in the class over-steered, holding the bar until the glider actually turned, which is when you want to already be back in a neutral position (unless you’re aiming for a real bank, not just a bit of trim). Apparently for an even stronger turn, you can yaw the glider (make it pivot around its vertical axis) by pushing outward with the non-pulling hand, but I didn’t get to try this.

Here I am up in the air, with the helpful instructor trotting below and giving instructions:

You land by losing altitude (natch) and, just at the end, pushing the bar out to raise the nose, slow the glider, and give you a gentle stop as you land on your feet. One time I forgot to do this, or did it too late, and landed dragging my knees, which was amusing rather than painful (beach sand!).

Overall, this was a surprisingly tame experience. There wasn’t one moment when I thought “yikes!” The glider moves so smoothly that you barely notice you’re off the ground. No crashes, no calamities. Our instructor commented that hang gliding is no longer considered an extreme sport (!). There are, of course, still accidents and casualties. One source says that the chance of dying while hang-gliding is 1 in a thousand pilots, which seems extremely high. But this is calculated over “regularly participating pilots beyond the student level”; apparently there are very few student casualties. A U.K. source, however, reports a rate of 1 in 116,000 flights (and note that the risk of dying from childbirth is an order of magnitude higher, at 1 in 8,200 maternities). Hmm.

Each of our flights were about 30 seconds long (so short!). The same company offers tandem glides off a cliff, where you get 15-minute flights and, presumably, much more time to actually to feel the glider’s response. Tempting!

I think I’ve finally figured out the longtime mystery about why tea both wakes me up and calms me down (anxiety-wise). I consistently feel a physical effect after drinking a cup of tea, as if a knot inside my stomach dissolves, and problems don’t seem quite as pressing, and it’s easier to be friendly and sociable. This sounds like the opposite of caffeine, which is known to increase irritability.

But just recently, I stumbled on a possible explanation. It’s not the caffeine at all! It’s something called L-theanine:

“Theanine is able to cross the blood-brain barrier and appears to have psychoactive properties. […] it appears to increase levels of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA, and to a lesser degree, dopamine.”
Source: livestrong.com

L-theanine is often mentioned in conjunction with green tea, but it is also found in black tea. This article says green tea has about 8 mg per cup, while therapeutic doses of the stuff (for anxiety disorders) are more like 200-600 mg. Another source indicates 15-30 mg per cup, and that “L-theanine increases the production of dopamine and serotonin, two brain chemicals associated with alertness, pleasure, and a good mood.”

Further, there’s evidence of a lack of side effects (at least in rats):

“In 2006, a study conducted on rats administered super-high doses of L-theanine daily for a 13 weeks found no consistent or significant negative effects on behavior, food intake, body weight, clinical chemistry, urine, blood, morbidity or mortality.”
Source: livestrong.com

Therefore, I should be free to experiment away. And if theanine is the active agent, then I should get the same mood benefits (though not the wake-me-up effect) from decaf green tea. If only it were easier to do controlled experiments on oneself!

Week 1 of LIBR 200, “Information and Society”, has begun. I dove eagerly into our textbook, “Foundations of Library and Information Science” by Richard E. Rubin. Since we don’t have in-person meetings for interaction and discussion, instead we’re required to post to an online discussion forum about what we learned from our reading. And hey, here’s where I also like to post about What I Learned!

What is library and information science?

The element of our assigned reading that struck me most was the open portrayal of Library and Information Science (LIS) as a field with something of an identity crisis. There’s an ongoing debate about whether it’s all about libraries, “librarianship”, service, and education, or whether it’s more about information, technology, and data, perhaps prioritizing knowledge over people. Information technology obviously is a major help in providing services to library patrons, which is where the line gets blurred. But how much of this can be said to be “science”? How much of it needs to be? How much should LIS “compete” with fields like “computer science and business administration”?

It is a novel experience for me to see a field deliberately asking existential questions of itself. My prior education is in computer science and geology. Only rarely do questions arise such as “Why do we study computer science?” or “How can geology stay relevant to today’s public?” or “How should computer science distinguish itself from mathematics, engineering, and information technology?” I was astonished, and delighted, to see these big-picture questions being raised as one of the first topics in this introductory course. Indeed. Why does it matter?

Further, this is evidently not a side topic that attracts the attention of only a few individuals, but instead a pivotal issue in how the field defines itself. These questions convey a sensitive humility, in contrast to an academic arrogance that assumes whatever the field carves out for itself is axiomatically important. They can only arise from a community that genuinely cares about staying relevant, and therefore notices when changes occur in the needs and habits of its primary users or beneficiaries. Perhaps this is what distinguishes a service profession from a science or engineering field. I find the intense push to stay relevant and useful to be refreshing and motivating. One of the primary reasons I volunteer at the library is that it gives me a direct connection to helping people, something that is rather missing from my research position at NASA.

How should Library and Information Science be taught?

I was also fascinated by a historical discussion of how librarians were and are trained, and the evolving debate about what information and skills they need. It is a bit odd to be told, just as we’re beginning our studies, that the field itself isn’t quite sure what we should be learning. There is no agreement on a basic shared curriculum beyond a few core classes (organization of information, reference, foundations, and management (!)). But once again, I find this openness refreshing, and being presented with these questions up front feels like an invitation to get involved in the conversation.

I did wish that Rubin’s book were a little more updated. Despite being a 2010 edition, most of the heavily researched statistics (e.g., on media consumption or librarian demographics) come from 2004-2008, and I kept wanting to know what the current values were. Most jarringly, the section titled “Looking to the Future” relies primarily on a study published in 2000 (Rubin p. 110). How many of the six identified trends still hold? What about the future beyond 2012? A description of “the librarian of the twenty-first century” is quoted on p. 112 that comes from a 1985 paper (Debons, 1985)! These outdated references are at odds with the text’s intended message about the necessity of adapting to a rapid rate of changes in patrons and the workplace.

What spoke to me most was the view that “LIS professionals are educators, enriching the lives of others through their advice and guidance” (Rubin p. 119). That is what I would like to aspire to in my studies, in my time at the library, and truly, in how I interact with all whom I encounter.

As part of Kids Building Things, we’re hoping to offer kids a basic electronics workshop. Our current plan is to show them how to make Digital Dominoes, which are about the size of an analog domino but, instead of physically toppling, they propagate using LEDs. The first step was for me to give the project a test-run to see how difficult it is and how long it might take.

At right you can see the parts (click to enlarge) that come in a kit of four ($20). (If you look closely, you’ll note that my kit is missing one red LED, so I’ll need to swap in from my own supplies to make all four.)

I carefully inventoried the kit and read through the assembly instructions. Then it was time to plug in the soldering iron and get started! Below you can see the empty board.

Below is the back of the board, after I soldered all 40 joints. The first tricky bit for me was the NPN transistor, whose three joints (the triangle cluster at top) were so close together that I accidentally soldered all three together. This was quickly solved with the solder sucker and re-soldering them separately. The other tricky bit was that due to a “bug” in the board, you have to patch in a connection between two pins from separate components by bending the soldered leg of one onto pin 2 of the IC. Soldering the leg to the already-soldered pin seemed to suck the solder up out of that joint, and I worried that I’d lost the connection. I used my multimeter to check connectivity, and happily all was well. I trimmed the extra leg bit after this image was taken.

And below is the final product! (I manually triggered one for the photo — they don’t actually interact in this configuration.) The black photoresistor at left receives light, turns on the red LED, and also activates the clear IR LED at right, sending out a signal for the next digital domino in a chain.

It took me 70 minutes to make the first one, going carefully, and only 25 minutes to make the second one. Excellent soldering practice! I can’t wait to make some more and play with them — and then teach kids how to make their own!