Data Motivates

Wired's cover story this month is about feedback loops. The open the story by talking about how those trailers you sometimes see parked on the side of the road that tell you your speed are one of the most effective ways to actually get drivers to slow down.

In essence, people make changes to their behavior when they have more information about it.  The mind gets into ruts, and data provides the outside perspective that allows us to make the small changes we need to make to improve our lives.  I may be mangling the thesis a bit since it has been a couple weeks since I read the article, but it is worth checking out in full.

This is one of my favorite passages:

The true power of feedback loops is not to control people but to give them control. It’s like the difference between a speed trap and a speed feedback sign—one is a game of gotcha, the other is a gentle reminder of the rules of the road. The ideal feedback loop gives us an emotional connection to a rational goal.

And today, their promise couldn’t be greater. The intransigence of human behavior has emerged as the root of most of the world’s biggest challenges. [emphasis added] Witness the rise in obesity, the persistence of smoking, the soaring number of people who have one or more chronic diseases. Consider our problems with carbon emissions, where managing personal energy consumption could be the difference between a climate under control and one beyond help. And feedback loops aren’t just about solving problems. They could create opportunities. Feedback loops can improve how companies motivate and empower their employees, allowing workers to monitor their own productivity and set their own schedules. They could lead to lower consumption of precious resources and more productive use of what we do consume. They could allow people to set and achieve better-defined, more ambitious goals and curb destructive behaviors, replacing them with positive actions. Used in organizations or communities, they can help groups work together to take on more daunting challenges. In short, the feedback loop is an age-old strategy revitalized by state-of-the-art technology. As such, it is perhaps the most promising tool for behavioral change to have come along in decades.

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I've talked about components of feedback loops before, but not directly.  Most recently, I talked about the Fitbit.  A while ago, I wrote about the Wii Fit.  These are all tools that can help with weight loss by providing that data I need to make better decisions.  In the case of the Fitbit, it's shown I don't walk as much as I thought I did. In the case of the Wii Fit, the fact that it gave me scores at a minute level allowed me to make minor adjustments.

These benchmarks can provide a small, frequent, daily update of what I do.  To change the big things, I don't have to change the big thing.  It's about changing those little things.  Do enough of the little thing consistently well, and that results in the big change.

These other items provide the feedback necessary for the loop discussed in the article.

As sensors and mobile technology get smaller and ubiquitous, I wonder what kind of inputs to the feedback loop I'll be seeing in the future.

How do feedback loops and personal data impact your life?

Nuclear power and Thorium

I've long been a fan of nuclear power.  It deserves a significant place in the future of America's energy policy.  Any overall energy portfolio that we pursue should rely on a variety of sources, including geothermal, solar, wind, hydroelectric, waste-to-energy, clean coal, and nuclear.

Our infrastucture needs an overhaul in design, to support the large scale power generation design of today, and the home or neighborhood power generation technologies of tomorrow. 

A diverse portfolio of electric strategies is essential to the environment, national security, disaster preparedness/recovery, and economic leadership in the coming decades.

Traditional nuclear power scares a lot of people.  While no one has died in the US as a result of any nuclear power plant problems, there are concerns over waste and the remote possibility of a major failure.  On balance, the benefits of nuclear power do outweigh the risks, and new nuclear technologies make nuclear an even better option.

Wired has a fascinating article about a new (actually old) type of nuclear power plant that relies on Thorium instead of Uranium to produce power.  They explain that the reason plants use Uranium today is that when designs were being created in the 50s and 60s, the plutonium waste was considered a benefit.  The material could be recycled into nuclear weapons.  Thorium doesn't allow for that possibility and was there for over looked.

There are a number of advantages to the material cited in the article:

After it has been used as fuel for power plants, the element leaves behind minuscule amounts of waste. And that waste needs to be stored for only a few hundred years, not a few hundred thousand like other nuclear byproducts. Because it’s so plentiful in nature, it’s virtually inexhaustible. It’s also one of only a few substances that acts as a thermal breeder, in theory creating enough new fuel as it breaks down to sustain a high-temperature chain reaction indefinitely. And it would be virtually impossible for the byproducts of a thorium reactor to be used by terrorists or anyone else to make nuclear weapons.

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Even better, Weinberg realized that you could use thorium in an entirely new kind of reactor, one that would have zero risk of meltdown. The design is based on the lab’s finding that thorium dissolves in hot liquid fluoride salts. This fission soup is poured into tubes in the core of the reactor, where the nuclear chain reaction — the billiard balls colliding — happens. The system makes the reactor self-regulating: When the soup gets too hot it expands and flows out of the tubes — slowing fission and eliminating the possibility of another Chernobyl. Any actinide can work in this method, but thorium is particularly well suited because it is so efficient at the high temperatures at which fission occurs in the soup.

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It's a fascinating article and if you are a fan of nuclear power, or a foe of its current incarnation, check it out.  As we look for new energy solutions, this could be one avenue we would be foolish to ignore.

New Math Symbols

Somehow I managed to do well in Calculus many years ago, even though towards the end of the Reagan administration I was submitting answers of "Christopher Columbus + C" and getting partial credit.By that point I'd had enough of math class, though. 

I learned something today. Apparently there are no longer enough mathematical symbols.  Their like oil.  Apparently this is the era of "Peak Math Notation."  So someone created new ones.

According to Wired:

For 70 years, mathematicians have been stuck on the Halting Problem: Computers occasionally hang on one line of code and fail to move on to the next, and no one can reliably predict when that will happen. (The result is the unending hourglass or pinwheel of death.) But a few years ago, Microsoft researcher Byron Cook and his colleagues did the unthinkable — they hacked a fix. When Cook tried to describe the workaround, however, he found it impossible to explain with existing mathematical symbols.
His only option, he decided, was to invent new ones.

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I think I understand the problem they are addressing.  It's something hyperthreading, multi-tasking, predictive branch execution, and dual core CPUs (among other technologies) tried to solve through brute force multi-tasking.

But then they start talking about the math.  And I have no idea what their talking about.  But it sure sounds cool.

What's inside a cup of coffee?

In this month's issue of Wired (17-10), they give Cromely's World a treat and explain exactly what chemicals you will find in coffee.  It turns out to be filled with stuff that's good for you.  At least that's I how choose to read it.

Trigonelline
Chemically, it's a molecule of niacin with a methyl group attached. It breaks down into pyridines, which give coffee its sweet, earthy taste and also prevent the tooth-eating bacterium Streptococcus mutans from attaching to your teeth. Coffee fights the Cavity Creeps.

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The power of limits

In the recent issue of Wired (17.03) they included a spread focused on design. Wired has often been know for its design -- some hailing it, and some condemning it, especially for white text on neon orange pages. For many years I avoided the magazine because I was simply not cool enough to read it.

Either I got cool or they got lamer, but regardless, I've been reading it cover-to-cover for several years now.

The design spread talked about how good design comes from limits.

At Wired, our design team sees this constraint as our daily bread. On every editorial page, we use words and pictures to overcome the particular restrictions of paper and ink:

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The idea of operating within constraints—of making more with less—is especially relevant these days. From Wall Street to Detroit to Washington, the lack of limits has proven to be a false freedom. With all the economic gloom, you might not be blamed for feeling that the boundless American frontier seems a little less expansive. But design teaches us that this is our hour of opportunity.

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I've been tossing that idea around in my head lately. Effective design comes not from a lack of rules, but from creatively using limited resources. Whether that limited resource is space on paper, time, bandwidth, or even money, the best ideas come from people doing extraordinary things within those limitations and transcending them.

And while the challenges facing the economy today are serious, these limitations we face are what will take us into the next great period of growth and strength. I'm not minimizing the pain people are going through. Nor am I saying there is no reason to be afraid for the immediate future.

But right now, the economy is going through a purge. We are facing limitations unimaginable just 2.5 years ago.

Those limitations will reinvigorate the American entrepreneurial spirit.

New companies will be born from people who lose their jobs. There is a need for companies to save money and resources through new processes and ways of doing business. Entrepreneurs will find new ways to address those problems.

While we face severe limitations, we also have more tools available than anytime in the past. The country is filled with dark fiber left over from the dot.com bust. Cloud computing and server farms offer huge IT resources at low cost. People have more ways to connect with like minded people than they ever had before. And, unfortunately, millions of people have more time on their hands than ever before.

Economic limitations mean we all face new constraints. Panic and fear from companies and consumers that are afraid to spend money, even when they have it, create even more limitations. Success in the coming years will depend on how successfully we can manage those constraints and use the new tools to transcend them.

We have a blank page in front of us. Now the only questions is, "How do we fill it?"

Location Aware Lifestyle in Wired

In the current issue of Wired (17.02), author Matthew Honan takes a look at GPS enabled services.

I wanted to know more about this new frontier, so I became a geo-guinea pig. My plan: Load every cool and interesting location-aware program I could find onto my iPhone and use them as often as possible. For a few weeks, whenever I arrived at a new place, I would announce it through multiple social geoapps. When going for a run, bike ride, or drive, I would record my trajectory and publish it online. I would let digital applications help me decide where to work, play, and eat. And I would seek out new people based on nothing but their proximity to me at any given moment. I would be totally open, exposing my location to the world just to see where it took me. I even added an Eye-Fi Wi-Fi card to my PowerShot digital camera so that all my photos could be geotagged and uploaded to the Web. I would become the most location-aware person on the Internets!

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This article is the story of his 3 week experience.

It highlights some of the advantages and pitfalls of using these devices. What I found particularly interesting is how he talks about the privacy problems with these devices in a non-fear-mongering way. It's also about just his personal experiences which makes it entertaining and accessible.

Obviously this is all just anecdotes, but Honan does give the reader some interesting points to consider.

GPS devices are making their way into cars, cell phones, MP Players and digital cameras. Blogger and Flickr both support geo-tagging.

If you are a tech enthusiast and not yet thinking about the implications of this change, and the impacts it may have on your life, now is a good time to start. And this article is a nice entry into the world.

Wired's profile on Ray Ozzie

This month (issue 16.12), Wired's cover story is a profile on Ray Ozzie. Ozzie is the creator of Lotus Notes and Groove. Currently, he is Microsoft's Chief Software Architect. The last person to have that title? Bill Gates. While Steve Balmer may run the business of Microsoft, it's Ozzie who is developing the vision. Recently, Ozzie introduced Microsoft's new cloud computing initiatives and related products.

It's an interesting profile, and it offers some insight as to where Microsoft plans to go from here.

A short list of what the Internet is about today would inlcude video sharing, eCommerce, file trading, social networking, telecommuting, news dissemination, and blog based commentary. A longer list could go on for pages and encompass a range of activities legal and illegal or wholesome and seemy.

But at its core, it's about bringing people together -- about letting people be who they can and want to be without the limitations of geography, appearnce, age, or physical ability. Sometimes that gets lost in the noise coming from the latest buzz word.

This story from the article was particularly telling. The core of what network communication was about in the 70s is what it's still about today. Here is my favorite passage from the article.

One incident in particular introduced Ozzie to the magic that comes when people connect via computer. He had taken a part-time assignment helping a professor finish writing some courseware. The prof lived on the other side of town, so Ozzie collaborated with him remotely. Ozzie came to know and like his boss, save for one annoyance. "He was the worst typist ever," Ozzie says. "He was very eloquent on email, but on Term Talk [early form of instant messaging]it was just dit-dit-dit, sometimes an error, but agonizingly slow." At the end of the project, the man threw a party at his house, and Ozzie discovered the reason for the typing problem: The professor was a quadriplegic and had been entering text by holding a stick in his teeth and poking it at the keyboard. Ozzie was floored.
Plato terminals at the University of Illinois gave users interactivity.

"I remember really questioning my own attitudes," Ozzie says. "I had been communicating with him mind to mind. Technology lets you do that, unprejudiced by what anyone looks like. From that era forward, I just knew I wanted to work on something related to communications and interactive systems."

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Electric Car Business Model

Recently Wired profiled Shai Agassi and his company, Better Place.

The company is pushing electic cars and is working on a pilot rpogram in Israel and Denmark.  What makes things different is that he approaches is like the cell phone model. The plan is not to make money selling cars; it's to make money selling subscriptions to battery charging stations and battery swap facilities.

Speaking without notes, Agassi roams the stage, preaching the inevitability of his plan. He has a way of describing things that is never zero-sum; everybody wins in his version of the future, even when he's selling massive disruption.

"For the car companies, we made it simple," he says. "We separated the ownership of the car and the ownership of the battery. See, car companies don't know how to assess the life of the battery. So they go through these complicated programs of testing them for a long period of time. And we told the car company, you know what? Just like you don't sell a car with a card that says 'Here is oil for the life of the car,' you don't sell cars with the batteries for the life of the car, because the battery is crude oil." He explains that his plan alone, once scaled up, could produce a 20 percent drop in the world's CO₂emissions. And he wasn't stopping there. "If we also buy clean generation, we reduce the price of clean electrons so that at the end of 10 years, clean electrons are cheaper than coal-based electrons, and nobody builds another coal plant at that point. That's another 40 percent of CO₂ emissions; that's the treaty Tony Blair is now working to get for the world by 2050. I'm telling you, we can get there a decade after we finish the car side. We can get there in 2030—60 percent reduction in our CO₂ emissions."

It's a great story.  I don't know if it will work, but it is refreshing to see new, potentially plausible ideas and business models in this space.

You can read the whole article here.

Pain is a bug

Last month's issue of Wired featured an article on two pioneers in Artificial Intelligence. They were both working to build thinking machines by first teaching the machines basic things about the world. And them both committed suicide in a similar manner just weeks apart.

The article itself was interesting, but what really caught my attention was this quote from Marvin Minsky:

In The Emotion Machine, Minsky suggests that chronic pain is a kind of "programming bug." He writes that "the cascades that we call Suffering' must have evolved from earlier schemes that helped us to limit our injuries — by providing the goal of escaping from pain. Evolution never had any sense of how a species might evolve next — so it did not anticipate how pain might disrupt our future high-level abilities. We came to evolve a design that protects our bodies but ruins our minds."

It makes sense that pain is a good thing for a creature who can't think through the potential for injury. Pain is an incentive not to do something. Humans still need pain, too, to stop us from being too stupid.

But at some point it is no longer a warning; rather it is a superfluous condition of life that prevents people form living their lives to the fullest. And it does this for no good reason. There seems to be no evolutionary benefit to chronic pain.

Modern science in many ways seems to turn evolution on its ear. Hundred or thousands of years ago, the weak or sick or injured might die out, resulting in a physically stronger gene pool. However we now have the ability to prevent them from dying out. We have become more interested in the survival of the all than in the survival of the fittest.

I don't really have a point here. I am just fascinated by the idea of chronic pain as a programming bug that needs to be fixed in version 2.0.