In recent years, major news corporations seem to dedicate an increasing amount of time and space to "fluff," reporting on celebrities, entertainment and crime stories, rather than more essential national and international news. As such news content is increasingly gathered online, it has become feasible to aggregate large amounts of data from a wide range of sites. This report proposes a model for collecting information from news agencies, then applying the techniques of Data Mining to organize this reporting in a way that identifies the priorities of individual organizations.
In addition, the rise of user-based taxonomies has made it possible broadly to evaluate the interests of people who actively read and recommend news. In the final analysis, data collected from users of Digg.com are compared with data collected from media sites. This provides a benchmark for determining whether the delivery of "fluff" news is delivered is a fair response to popular demand, or whether typical news readers are dissatisfied with the level of serious event coverage found in the media.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Paper abstract
For anyone who's interested. I want to take this opportunity to repeat my thanks to those people who suggested directions to go in when I asked for help earlier this year.
Thesis saga continues: It's working
As per my last post, I'm now sitting here in Schlotzsky's Deli, which has free wi-fi, and my data mining program is just blazing along. I have my flag set to yell at me immediately if I get the "Are you human?" warning.
Maybe it's just because I've been listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on tape, but my current frame of mind is that this is kind of exciting. Sort of like I'm sneaking around to my safe houses in order to avoid being apprehended by the authorities. It's the nerdiest cloak-and-dagger story you've ever heard, I bet. And by comical coincidence, I just checked my progress and it's looking at a story about Harry Potter from March '06 right now.
In a weird kind of way, this has actually helped me refocus my attention on how to attack the problem, a bit. Previously I was just indiscriminately grabbing all kinds of data, without regard to whether it was useful or not. Now that I know that my time is limited and I could be "captcha'd" at any moment, I've tightened my focus in a way that makes a lot of sense. I'm focusing on stories only within a specific time range, and only bothering to look at clusters of approximately average size. This way, I know that even if I'm interrupted in the middle and can't collect any more data at all, I'll still have plenty of information to work with.
This has also given me some new ideas on how to interpret the data, and I'm looking forward to analyzing it later. Eventually I won't need to worry about what Google thinks of me, because I can just read their stuff from my own private database.
Maybe it's just because I've been listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on tape, but my current frame of mind is that this is kind of exciting. Sort of like I'm sneaking around to my safe houses in order to avoid being apprehended by the authorities. It's the nerdiest cloak-and-dagger story you've ever heard, I bet. And by comical coincidence, I just checked my progress and it's looking at a story about Harry Potter from March '06 right now.
In a weird kind of way, this has actually helped me refocus my attention on how to attack the problem, a bit. Previously I was just indiscriminately grabbing all kinds of data, without regard to whether it was useful or not. Now that I know that my time is limited and I could be "captcha'd" at any moment, I've tightened my focus in a way that makes a lot of sense. I'm focusing on stories only within a specific time range, and only bothering to look at clusters of approximately average size. This way, I know that even if I'm interrupted in the middle and can't collect any more data at all, I'll still have plenty of information to work with.
This has also given me some new ideas on how to interpret the data, and I'm looking forward to analyzing it later. Eventually I won't need to worry about what Google thinks of me, because I can just read their stuff from my own private database.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
An unexpected hazard of mining other people's websites for information:
Sorry for the deluge of long computer sciency posts. The thing is, it's helping me to blog about my thesis. Earlier this week when I posted some comments about my research, I pasted the whole post into my paper and got another three pages out of it. Awesome! It needs some editing, but there's plenty of solid material in there. So, let's see if I can get away with writing the whole paper just by blogging. You, dear readers, will just have to decide whether to suffer through these posts or skip them. Unfortunately, tonight's commentary is about a big setback.
My web skimming program has been having a field day with the Google news archive. I'm currently pulling stories from back to a year and a half ago. Before dinner tonight, I picked up 2000 new Google clusters on "John Edwards." I was pretty cheered by this progress.
When I got home, I fired up the program again and started searching the year for clusters of "Anna Nicole Smith"... and got nothing. Not a single hit.
This was kind of bewildering to me. I tried a few more times, digging through it with the debugger. Nothing. So finally I pulled out the URL of the search page my program was looking at, and pasted it into my browser. I got this message:
UH-oh. I experienced a bit of temporary jumpiness as I realized that Google noticed I've been hitting their server really hard and really fast. I typed in the confirmation text, of course, and it let me view the page. But I tried the program again, and it still didn't work.
I did some research, winding up at this post. I don't really get the details, but it sounds like Google has been targeted by malicious spyware programs in the past, which do tons of web searches that somehow uncover target servers that are vulnerable to attack. Then they install copies of themselves on those target servers, which in turn do more malicious searches on Google's site.
So, yeah, that's pretty neato that they catch bad guys. Unfortunately, they also catch me. That's bad. I have a thesis that needs finishing.
I decided to wait a few hours, and in the meantime I put in some code that makes it pause for five seconds before it gets a web page. I don't want to annoy them.
A few hours later, the spam catcher stopped harassing me. I let the program run for a while longer, and it managed to walk through a couple thousand more clusters, all from the month of March. But then it stopped again, with the same message. This time I had a break in there to kill the program before it started failing a bunch more challenges.
This is going to be a slow process. I want my data. Now. I might consider bumping the delay up to thirty seconds in the morning.
Also, I suspect that Google is making a note of my ISP to determine that I am an evildoer. If that's the case, then maybe I can get around it by wandering around town with my laptop. I'll go from one wireless hotspot to the next, grabbing a few thousand entries here and there, until I've got the whole year's worth of material.
My web skimming program has been having a field day with the Google news archive. I'm currently pulling stories from back to a year and a half ago. Before dinner tonight, I picked up 2000 new Google clusters on "John Edwards." I was pretty cheered by this progress.
When I got home, I fired up the program again and started searching the year for clusters of "Anna Nicole Smith"... and got nothing. Not a single hit.
This was kind of bewildering to me. I tried a few more times, digging through it with the debugger. Nothing. So finally I pulled out the URL of the search page my program was looking at, and pasted it into my browser. I got this message:
403 forbidden
We're sorry...
... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer
virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process
your request right now.
We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon.
In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been
infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to
make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious
software.
We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we'll see you again on
Google.
To continue searching, please type the characters you see below:
[Typical captcha text returned]
UH-oh. I experienced a bit of temporary jumpiness as I realized that Google noticed I've been hitting their server really hard and really fast. I typed in the confirmation text, of course, and it let me view the page. But I tried the program again, and it still didn't work.
I did some research, winding up at this post. I don't really get the details, but it sounds like Google has been targeted by malicious spyware programs in the past, which do tons of web searches that somehow uncover target servers that are vulnerable to attack. Then they install copies of themselves on those target servers, which in turn do more malicious searches on Google's site.
So, yeah, that's pretty neato that they catch bad guys. Unfortunately, they also catch me. That's bad. I have a thesis that needs finishing.
I decided to wait a few hours, and in the meantime I put in some code that makes it pause for five seconds before it gets a web page. I don't want to annoy them.
A few hours later, the spam catcher stopped harassing me. I let the program run for a while longer, and it managed to walk through a couple thousand more clusters, all from the month of March. But then it stopped again, with the same message. This time I had a break in there to kill the program before it started failing a bunch more challenges.
This is going to be a slow process. I want my data. Now. I might consider bumping the delay up to thirty seconds in the morning.
Also, I suspect that Google is making a note of my ISP to determine that I am an evildoer. If that's the case, then maybe I can get around it by wandering around town with my laptop. I'll go from one wireless hotspot to the next, grabbing a few thousand entries here and there, until I've got the whole year's worth of material.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Data mining the news (ongoing work)
My thesis is about using data mining to analyze the relative emphasis that traditional media outlets give to various types of stories. Then I'll be comparing this data to the emphasis that actual news consumers who inhabit Digg.com give to the same stories. My point is to discover which types of stories are overplayed or underplayed, and come to some sort of conclusions about which types of news sources best reflect the pubilc interest.
To that end, I've written a big Java program around an online MySQL database. In the last few days I've cataloged about 22,000 news pages, although only a small number of them will ultimately turn out to be important to the study. I've labeled roughly a dozen web sites and a dozen news topics as "interesting." The sites are:
With the web sites, the idea is to have a variety of media sources. Some are considered serious news sites; some are "fluff" news (I picked USA Today specifically for that reason, and it's possible that CNN will tend to fall in that category as well); and several are explicitly right wing rags. To be fair, I really would like to have included left wing rags, but the only ones I can identify are blogs, which are not treated much as news sources. The news is all pulled off of news.google.com. I search for the topics of interests, then read the resulting stories more or less indiscriminately and identify which site each one comes from.
Based on this, I have a total of nearly 2000 "news" sources, ordered by the number of stories found in searches since I started collecting data. In the stories I've pulled so far, after about three days of serious searches on the 13 topics, the New York Times and the Washington Post (my main "serious news" sites) each account for 104 stories. But dailykos.com has shown up zero times, so I guess there's a master list that they're clearly not on. TPM Muckraker and TPM Cafe both show up, and those are both explicitly liberal sites, but there are only 8 stories from them. "The Nation": 9 stories. So, liberal sites = small sample size. No use.
By contrast, townhall.com, whose "about" page proudly announces that they were founded as a "conservative web community," accounts for 123 stories. Yes, you read that right: for the topics I picked, townhall is treated as "news" more often than either the New York Times or the Washington Post. So, bottom line, I get to pick on right wing news sources more than left wing news sources, simply because left wing news isn't "news."
Almost time for the Daily Show now, so I've managed to procrastinate this long. Go me!
If anyone would like to make further contributions, feel free to suggest other story topics that are in the news. Anna Nicole Smith and Harry Potter aren't actually generating very many headlines these days, so I need more unserious topics that the media uses as padding these days. Suggestions? And if you have more right-wing, left-wing, or "mainstream" news sources that I should be looking at, make some suggestions. I'll check my database and see if there are enough stories represented to get something useful out of them.
To that end, I've written a big Java program around an online MySQL database. In the last few days I've cataloged about 22,000 news pages, although only a small number of them will ultimately turn out to be important to the study. I've labeled roughly a dozen web sites and a dozen news topics as "interesting." The sites are:
- www.washingtonpost.com
- www.nytimes.com
- www.foxnews.com
- www.guardian.co.uk
- online.wsj.com
- www.usatoday.com
- www.cnn.com
- www.townhall.com
- www.washingtontimes.com
- Rudolph Giuliani
- Anna Nicole Smith
- Harry Potter
- Tiger Woods
- Rupert Murdoch
- Barack Obama
- Gulf Coast
- Mitt Romney
- New Orleans
- Hillary Clinton
- Britney Spears
- Blackwater
- Ron Paul
With the web sites, the idea is to have a variety of media sources. Some are considered serious news sites; some are "fluff" news (I picked USA Today specifically for that reason, and it's possible that CNN will tend to fall in that category as well); and several are explicitly right wing rags. To be fair, I really would like to have included left wing rags, but the only ones I can identify are blogs, which are not treated much as news sources. The news is all pulled off of news.google.com. I search for the topics of interests, then read the resulting stories more or less indiscriminately and identify which site each one comes from.
Based on this, I have a total of nearly 2000 "news" sources, ordered by the number of stories found in searches since I started collecting data. In the stories I've pulled so far, after about three days of serious searches on the 13 topics, the New York Times and the Washington Post (my main "serious news" sites) each account for 104 stories. But dailykos.com has shown up zero times, so I guess there's a master list that they're clearly not on. TPM Muckraker and TPM Cafe both show up, and those are both explicitly liberal sites, but there are only 8 stories from them. "The Nation": 9 stories. So, liberal sites = small sample size. No use.
By contrast, townhall.com, whose "about" page proudly announces that they were founded as a "conservative web community," accounts for 123 stories. Yes, you read that right: for the topics I picked, townhall is treated as "news" more often than either the New York Times or the Washington Post. So, bottom line, I get to pick on right wing news sources more than left wing news sources, simply because left wing news isn't "news."
Almost time for the Daily Show now, so I've managed to procrastinate this long. Go me!
If anyone would like to make further contributions, feel free to suggest other story topics that are in the news. Anna Nicole Smith and Harry Potter aren't actually generating very many headlines these days, so I need more unserious topics that the media uses as padding these days. Suggestions? And if you have more right-wing, left-wing, or "mainstream" news sources that I should be looking at, make some suggestions. I'll check my database and see if there are enough stories represented to get something useful out of them.
This is it. I'm officially in grad school hell.
Bless me father, for I have sinned. It has been two weeks since my last blog post.
So -- ha ha -- did I think that semesters like this one and this one were tough? Bugger that, this one takes the cake. The first draft of my 50-ish page Master's Report is supposed to be done in early October, so I've been focused on that for the week since my last class. Meanwhile, in my next class weekend I have one homework and two midterm exams.
I spend an entire weekend working non-stop on my thesis, then I got to enjoy going back to work fresh on Monday. My boss gave me Friday afternoon off, which was a nice gesture, except of course for the fact that I used it to do schoolwork.
I spent most of Saturday at a coffee shop on campus. Actually driving to campus was a stupid plan, because apparently there was this little football game going on that I wasn't thinking about. I was originally planning to go to the library and renew my TexShare card, but parking turned out to be impossible. So, coffee shop. Nice thing about UT is that it's so wired you can actually get wireless internet from everywhere, included some parking lots.
My work's really taking shape now. I've filled out the 14-page template for my report, which feels like I've accomplished some real work even though only two pages of actual double spaced text are written.
I meant to start working on the homework tonight; however, I've been so brain-fried that I mostly just ran the data collection program, stared at the news for a while, and did a whole lot of nothin' else. Blogging is just another form of procrastination, which I think I will continue to do until the Daily Show starts, at which point I will concede defeat for the evening. There's always tomorrow.
I was going to write more about my thesis in this post, but I'd rather keep this one strictly a post wherein I bitch about the trials of being a grad student, and cleanly separate the stuff about what kind of work I'm doing into a separate post. I think blogging will help me overcome writer's block in adding more detail to the report, so humor me, dear readers. See you in the next post.
So -- ha ha -- did I think that semesters like this one and this one were tough? Bugger that, this one takes the cake. The first draft of my 50-ish page Master's Report is supposed to be done in early October, so I've been focused on that for the week since my last class. Meanwhile, in my next class weekend I have one homework and two midterm exams.
I spend an entire weekend working non-stop on my thesis, then I got to enjoy going back to work fresh on Monday. My boss gave me Friday afternoon off, which was a nice gesture, except of course for the fact that I used it to do schoolwork.
I spent most of Saturday at a coffee shop on campus. Actually driving to campus was a stupid plan, because apparently there was this little football game going on that I wasn't thinking about. I was originally planning to go to the library and renew my TexShare card, but parking turned out to be impossible. So, coffee shop. Nice thing about UT is that it's so wired you can actually get wireless internet from everywhere, included some parking lots.
My work's really taking shape now. I've filled out the 14-page template for my report, which feels like I've accomplished some real work even though only two pages of actual double spaced text are written.
I meant to start working on the homework tonight; however, I've been so brain-fried that I mostly just ran the data collection program, stared at the news for a while, and did a whole lot of nothin' else. Blogging is just another form of procrastination, which I think I will continue to do until the Daily Show starts, at which point I will concede defeat for the evening. There's always tomorrow.
I was going to write more about my thesis in this post, but I'd rather keep this one strictly a post wherein I bitch about the trials of being a grad student, and cleanly separate the stuff about what kind of work I'm doing into a separate post. I think blogging will help me overcome writer's block in adding more detail to the report, so humor me, dear readers. See you in the next post.
Monday, September 10, 2007
I sure did fall for that one!
This weekend I got email from a "Paulraj JY" in India. It said:
Now, it's actually not all that uncommon that I get email from other countries. I am a regular contributor to two podcasts that have some small measure of notoriety, and I get people I never heard of commenting on my blog from time to time.
Nevertheless, there WAS that small voice that said to me, "Hey, this sounds a little bit like the stilted language in some of those Nigerian scam emails." But then I thought, "Nah, those guys mostly shotgun form emails when they're looking for new suckers. This guy was very specific about my blog and my atheism. Be a good atheist emissary and answer him."
So I wrote:
Then he wrote:
Well, that's a shame. So finally I wrote:
Subject: Greetings from a New Friend fm India
Dear Sir and Mr.Russell,
Greetings from India. It was a surprise for me to read your blog and it is full of surprises. Though you addressed yourself as an athiest, you are full of human virtues and you are a nice person to befriend.
Though I'm a Christian Missionary, I'm interested in your views, thoughts and way of life.
When you consider yourself to be an athiest it may not be meaningful for me to ask you to pray for our service among children those who are left uncared. These Children are very special to us and we enjoy working with them. You, as I estimate, full of good values for human values and relationship, would be happy to hear more about our work among such children. We would be very happy to win your heart and have you as one of our wellwishers of our program.
You have a beautiful family. Please convey our greetings to them. Bye for now....
With special love and regards
Paulraj JY
Now, it's actually not all that uncommon that I get email from other countries. I am a regular contributor to two podcasts that have some small measure of notoriety, and I get people I never heard of commenting on my blog from time to time.
Nevertheless, there WAS that small voice that said to me, "Hey, this sounds a little bit like the stilted language in some of those Nigerian scam emails." But then I thought, "Nah, those guys mostly shotgun form emails when they're looking for new suckers. This guy was very specific about my blog and my atheism. Be a good atheist emissary and answer him."
So I wrote:
Dear Paul,
Part of the reason why I openly identify myself as an atheist is because theists rarely encounter people who are willing to say that they don't believe in God, and so they may have a lot of misperceptions. While I don't believe that atheists are better people than Christians, I do think that we are just as likely to care about humanity and have compassion.
In any case, thank you for your friendly email and have a good day.
Then he wrote:
Dear Friend Russell,Thanks for your prompt response, which makes me happy. I just appreciate your openness. Please receive our special love and we really feel proud about your heart full of compassion for mankind....Since you have a great concern for the betterment of mankind, I think it may not be improper to let you know that we are working with AIDS orphans and we've a formal inagural function our Grace Foster Home on the fifteenth of this month. Please remember us on this special day....Kindly find an attached picture of our special children with we love to fellowship with and care for their better future.... I'm sure that you will appreciate our work... Bye for now...lovingly yours friend from IndiaPaulraj JY
Well, that's a shame. So finally I wrote:
Dear Paul,
I have to give you credit for making the extra effort to personalize your scam email. However, since I now believe that you are a Nigerian con man attempting to perpetrate a 419 fraud, I would like to invite you to kindly go to hell. Of course, I don't believe in hell. But since you are in Nigeria, I reckon that's close enough.
Sincerely,
Russell Glasser
Presidential candidate or Buffy villain?
Yeah, we already know I'm a sucker for those side-by-side similarity pictures. The similarity in these pictures at AmericaBlog really is impressive.
If you're not a Buffy fan, you can look here to see who the creepy guys are.
If you're not a Buffy fan, you can look here to see who the creepy guys are.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Paradox of omniscience and free will
Lots of theological debates center around the religious idea of free will. Some varieties of theists, i.e. Calvinists, don't believe in free will at all. Some atheists (like my friend Denis Loubet) don't believe in free will either, believing that the notion is incompatible with a completely materialistic universe.
Those are all interesting topics, but one issue I find equally interesting is whether "God," as Christians define him, can have free will. I think I'm borrowing this line of reasoning from an old Raymond Smullyan book, although I can't remember exactly where.
God is supposed to be omniscient. He knows everything about the past, present, and future. In fact, his knowledge is so complete that he must know every action that he himself will take in the future.
Now, suppose you yourself were granted the power of omniscience -- not omnipotence or any of the other useful attributes, but you know everything. Suppose it comes time to make a fairly mundane decision, like what you will eat for breakfast. You can have scrambled eggs or oatmeal. So you wonder, what am I in the mood for? Scrambled eggs, or oatmeal? But this is an easy decision: you are omniscient! Simply use your unlimited knowledge to peer a few minutes into the future, and see what it is that you will have for breakfast. And when you look at your future self, you know, as a matter of absolute certainty, whether you will be eating eggs or oatmeal.
But wait a minute. What if you are in a perverse frame of mind and wish to exercise your free will? So you say to yourself "Okay, here's what I'll do. I'll check the future, but I won't do what it says. If I see myself eating oatmeal, then I'll pick scrambled eggs. If I see myself eating eggs, it'll be oatmeal."
Now what does that mean for your powers? If your vision is guaranteed to be accurate, then you don't have the free will to change your decision. But if you can change your decision, then your vision was wrong, and you are no longer omniscient.
This is one reason why I conclude that no being can be both omniscient and free.
Those are all interesting topics, but one issue I find equally interesting is whether "God," as Christians define him, can have free will. I think I'm borrowing this line of reasoning from an old Raymond Smullyan book, although I can't remember exactly where.
God is supposed to be omniscient. He knows everything about the past, present, and future. In fact, his knowledge is so complete that he must know every action that he himself will take in the future.
Now, suppose you yourself were granted the power of omniscience -- not omnipotence or any of the other useful attributes, but you know everything. Suppose it comes time to make a fairly mundane decision, like what you will eat for breakfast. You can have scrambled eggs or oatmeal. So you wonder, what am I in the mood for? Scrambled eggs, or oatmeal? But this is an easy decision: you are omniscient! Simply use your unlimited knowledge to peer a few minutes into the future, and see what it is that you will have for breakfast. And when you look at your future self, you know, as a matter of absolute certainty, whether you will be eating eggs or oatmeal.
But wait a minute. What if you are in a perverse frame of mind and wish to exercise your free will? So you say to yourself "Okay, here's what I'll do. I'll check the future, but I won't do what it says. If I see myself eating oatmeal, then I'll pick scrambled eggs. If I see myself eating eggs, it'll be oatmeal."
Now what does that mean for your powers? If your vision is guaranteed to be accurate, then you don't have the free will to change your decision. But if you can change your decision, then your vision was wrong, and you are no longer omniscient.
This is one reason why I conclude that no being can be both omniscient and free.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Surprise, we have bigots for neighbors
We have a couple of agave plants decorating the sidewalk on both sides of our driveway. They're sharp spiky plants, but that's not so unusual; there are a number of neighbors around the block who have a cactus or two.
We also have a couple of very prickly neighbors. They're an old retired couple living two doors down from us. We've been living at our current residence for nearly six years, and those folks haven't spoken a word to us in about five. Ginny says she smiles and waves at them and they scowl back at her.
When we first moved in, they were friendly and invited us to church, which we politely declined. We used to host a regular gaming night with our mostly atheist friends. They started asking "Why are there so many cars here on Mondays, and what are all those bumper stickers about?" So my wife told them. And that's about the time they stopped talking to us. I never felt like it was outright hostility, but she did. In any case, we haven't had much contact.
We have a couple of our own bumper stickers. She has a Darwin fish and a "Freedom from religion" sticker. Mine is more humorous; it says "Knowledge is Power. Power corrupts. Study hard, be evil."
This weekend one agave was cut. I don't mean carefully trimmed, I mean completely hacked up all across the front. Ginny has some pictures on her blog. We found pieces of spiny leaves in another neighbor's trash can on trash day, but we knew that they had been away on vacation so it wasn't them. Ginny was sure it had been this unpleasant couple. She was angry about it. Since I tend to have a bit of a more diplomatic approach to people than she does, she asked me to go over there and talk to them. I wasn't looking forward to it, but I wanted to hear their side of the story without prejudging them, hoping it was perhaps a big misunderstanding.
So I rang the bell and greeted them in as friendly a manner as possible, all smiles. I reintroduced myself to the woman and asked if she perhaps knew anything about the chopped plant. Despite giving me a fairly frosty reception, she invited me in and called her husband down. I had a seat on their couch, they took positions opposite me, and the husband had his arms folded the whole time and a very sullen scowl on his face.
Yes, he cut down the agave. I received a lecture on how dangerous it is to the neighborhood kids, and all sorts of gruesome scenarios about eyes being poked out. But what struck Ginny and me as weird later was when we realized that they hadn't cut any of the spines facing the sidewalk -- only the side on the street. (Again, see the picture.)
They then went on to lecture me about the general awful nature of our yard. Now, our yard may not be the most beautiful and well-kept in the neighborhood, but it is mowed regularly and there are quite a few houses that look worse than ours. I'm not a gardener myself, and I'm really busy with school, but I think Ginny does a reasonable job with it.
I took all this politely and said I understood their concerns, and is there anything else? Then we got into the bumper stickers. The wife said several times that they "make her sick" and she is very angry that we disrespect her religion. That she could never be friends with someone who doesn't "share her values." That she is firmly set in her beliefs and would never change them.
I said I don't want or expect her to change her beliefs, I have never asked her to. I don't proselytize to people who haven't approached me about the subject. And while I sympathized with her feelings, the very fact that she is willing to announce that the bumper stickers sicken her is unfortunately one of the chief reasons why we feel the need to express ourselves in this way. That Christians -- not you, I stated -- feel that it's acceptable to go door-to-door inviting people to their religion, and that we are expected to keep quiet about our opinions because they are supposedly offensive. We are sad that you view our bumper stickers that way, but we see it as a small but legitimate exercise of our free speech.
I then went on to state that while I understand the safety concerns regarding the spikes, it would have been polite if he had come over and brought them up with my wife. Then perhaps they could discuss the appearance and come up with an effective way of trimming it, or let her handle it. His wife restated the fact that they could never be friends with us. I said "I would never refuse to be friends with somebody just because of their beliefs. Only their attitude would make it difficult." Then I said I am not asking to be their friend; I'm only asking them to be friendly as neighbors and be a little more willing to open up lines of communication with us before taking it upon themselves to redecorate our property. I nicely asked him to come over some morning and discuss his concerns with my wife so that she can understand them as well. He agreed, but I'm pretty sure he didn't liked it.
As I mentioned before, I'm the more diplomatic one in the family. Just for good measure, this morning Ginny called the local police to talk about the incident, describing it as trespassing and vandalism. Before I left for work we were visited by a very cheerful and friendly cop, who got to hear all about the history and laughed at the notion that our yard would be an eyesore to anyone.
We didn't want to file charges. He offered to go over there and talk with them, even give a warning that they could be arrested if they were on our property again. We declined that too. I said I'm still hoping that the husband will come over and work things out amicably.
But I did happen to glance over at the neighbor's house while the cop car was in our driveway, and I saw the window blinds being pulled up. It was bright outside and I didn't get to see the expression on her face as she watched us talk to the policeman, clearly discussing our plant. But I have a pretty good imagination and I have to admit, it was kind of satisfying.
We also have a couple of very prickly neighbors. They're an old retired couple living two doors down from us. We've been living at our current residence for nearly six years, and those folks haven't spoken a word to us in about five. Ginny says she smiles and waves at them and they scowl back at her.
When we first moved in, they were friendly and invited us to church, which we politely declined. We used to host a regular gaming night with our mostly atheist friends. They started asking "Why are there so many cars here on Mondays, and what are all those bumper stickers about?" So my wife told them. And that's about the time they stopped talking to us. I never felt like it was outright hostility, but she did. In any case, we haven't had much contact.
We have a couple of our own bumper stickers. She has a Darwin fish and a "Freedom from religion" sticker. Mine is more humorous; it says "Knowledge is Power. Power corrupts. Study hard, be evil."
This weekend one agave was cut. I don't mean carefully trimmed, I mean completely hacked up all across the front. Ginny has some pictures on her blog. We found pieces of spiny leaves in another neighbor's trash can on trash day, but we knew that they had been away on vacation so it wasn't them. Ginny was sure it had been this unpleasant couple. She was angry about it. Since I tend to have a bit of a more diplomatic approach to people than she does, she asked me to go over there and talk to them. I wasn't looking forward to it, but I wanted to hear their side of the story without prejudging them, hoping it was perhaps a big misunderstanding.
So I rang the bell and greeted them in as friendly a manner as possible, all smiles. I reintroduced myself to the woman and asked if she perhaps knew anything about the chopped plant. Despite giving me a fairly frosty reception, she invited me in and called her husband down. I had a seat on their couch, they took positions opposite me, and the husband had his arms folded the whole time and a very sullen scowl on his face.
Yes, he cut down the agave. I received a lecture on how dangerous it is to the neighborhood kids, and all sorts of gruesome scenarios about eyes being poked out. But what struck Ginny and me as weird later was when we realized that they hadn't cut any of the spines facing the sidewalk -- only the side on the street. (Again, see the picture.)
They then went on to lecture me about the general awful nature of our yard. Now, our yard may not be the most beautiful and well-kept in the neighborhood, but it is mowed regularly and there are quite a few houses that look worse than ours. I'm not a gardener myself, and I'm really busy with school, but I think Ginny does a reasonable job with it.
I took all this politely and said I understood their concerns, and is there anything else? Then we got into the bumper stickers. The wife said several times that they "make her sick" and she is very angry that we disrespect her religion. That she could never be friends with someone who doesn't "share her values." That she is firmly set in her beliefs and would never change them.
I said I don't want or expect her to change her beliefs, I have never asked her to. I don't proselytize to people who haven't approached me about the subject. And while I sympathized with her feelings, the very fact that she is willing to announce that the bumper stickers sicken her is unfortunately one of the chief reasons why we feel the need to express ourselves in this way. That Christians -- not you, I stated -- feel that it's acceptable to go door-to-door inviting people to their religion, and that we are expected to keep quiet about our opinions because they are supposedly offensive. We are sad that you view our bumper stickers that way, but we see it as a small but legitimate exercise of our free speech.
I then went on to state that while I understand the safety concerns regarding the spikes, it would have been polite if he had come over and brought them up with my wife. Then perhaps they could discuss the appearance and come up with an effective way of trimming it, or let her handle it. His wife restated the fact that they could never be friends with us. I said "I would never refuse to be friends with somebody just because of their beliefs. Only their attitude would make it difficult." Then I said I am not asking to be their friend; I'm only asking them to be friendly as neighbors and be a little more willing to open up lines of communication with us before taking it upon themselves to redecorate our property. I nicely asked him to come over some morning and discuss his concerns with my wife so that she can understand them as well. He agreed, but I'm pretty sure he didn't liked it.
As I mentioned before, I'm the more diplomatic one in the family. Just for good measure, this morning Ginny called the local police to talk about the incident, describing it as trespassing and vandalism. Before I left for work we were visited by a very cheerful and friendly cop, who got to hear all about the history and laughed at the notion that our yard would be an eyesore to anyone.
We didn't want to file charges. He offered to go over there and talk with them, even give a warning that they could be arrested if they were on our property again. We declined that too. I said I'm still hoping that the husband will come over and work things out amicably.
But I did happen to glance over at the neighbor's house while the cop car was in our driveway, and I saw the window blinds being pulled up. It was bright outside and I didn't get to see the expression on her face as she watched us talk to the policeman, clearly discussing our plant. But I have a pretty good imagination and I have to admit, it was kind of satisfying.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Long live the laptop
I bought a new laptop computer at Fry's just over a month ago. My old one was enough to surf the web and take notes, but impossible to use for any programming work. (Or, let's be honest, games either. But I didn't focus on that. Honest.)
Anyway, I've been fairly happy with my new laptop, an HP Pavilion. But last week one of the buttons on the touchpad stopped working -- to be precise, it was the equivalent of the left mouse button. Now, this was not a huge issue, because you can click on something by tapping the touchpad itself, and also I bought a small wireless mouse that does the job better anyway. But it was annoying, especially since the button felt like it should be working just fine. I thought it might even be a software problem.
So I brought it back to Fry's and asked them take a look at it. They took a few minutes and then said "We'll get you a replacement." That's it. So I quickly wiped all my personal data (they say they wipe the hard drive immediately, but I figure you ought to be careful) and then they just walked up, pulled a replacement fresh out of the box, and slipped it in my carrying case. It took about 30 minutes of paperwork, but not too bad.
Now on the one hand, I appreciate Fry's replacement policy, and think that was extremely handy. On the other hand, this episode doesn't make me very confident in the quality of my purchase. I spent much of today reinstalling all my essential software (Eclipse, MySQL data manager, Firefox, Thunderbird, Google Earth... and yeah, World of Warcraft) and that was a huge pain in the butt. I hope that I don't just need to keep returning to Fry's for replacements every month.
On the other other hand, this incident does make me appreciate the new decentralized way of managing data that I've gotten used to. I didn't have to go home and back up my work, because every document I need is in a briefcase or source control program on my desktop. My contacts are online in Plaxo; my bookmarks are in Del.icio.us; my web feeds are on reader.google.com. All the work was to get the programs running, and mostly you can quickly download the latest versions of everything straight from the web without inserting any discs. That's awfully convenient.
Anyway, I've been fairly happy with my new laptop, an HP Pavilion. But last week one of the buttons on the touchpad stopped working -- to be precise, it was the equivalent of the left mouse button. Now, this was not a huge issue, because you can click on something by tapping the touchpad itself, and also I bought a small wireless mouse that does the job better anyway. But it was annoying, especially since the button felt like it should be working just fine. I thought it might even be a software problem.
So I brought it back to Fry's and asked them take a look at it. They took a few minutes and then said "We'll get you a replacement." That's it. So I quickly wiped all my personal data (they say they wipe the hard drive immediately, but I figure you ought to be careful) and then they just walked up, pulled a replacement fresh out of the box, and slipped it in my carrying case. It took about 30 minutes of paperwork, but not too bad.
Now on the one hand, I appreciate Fry's replacement policy, and think that was extremely handy. On the other hand, this episode doesn't make me very confident in the quality of my purchase. I spent much of today reinstalling all my essential software (Eclipse, MySQL data manager, Firefox, Thunderbird, Google Earth... and yeah, World of Warcraft) and that was a huge pain in the butt. I hope that I don't just need to keep returning to Fry's for replacements every month.
On the other other hand, this incident does make me appreciate the new decentralized way of managing data that I've gotten used to. I didn't have to go home and back up my work, because every document I need is in a briefcase or source control program on my desktop. My contacts are online in Plaxo; my bookmarks are in Del.icio.us; my web feeds are on reader.google.com. All the work was to get the programs running, and mostly you can quickly download the latest versions of everything straight from the web without inserting any discs. That's awfully convenient.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Beautiful sentiments about programming
Wrapped up in grad school as I am, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture, and why I got involved in this career path in the first place.
For my classes in Software Engineering and Management, I have to read The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks. I know the book by reputation; as it was first published in the 70's, I presume that the material is very old news to many people who share my interest in programming. Even so, this is new to me, so I wanted to share a passage from the book that I personally found very inspiring.
Oh yeah.
For my classes in Software Engineering and Management, I have to read The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks. I know the book by reputation; as it was first published in the 70's, I presume that the material is very old news to many people who share my interest in programming. Even so, this is new to me, so I wanted to share a passage from the book that I personally found very inspiring.
"The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures.
Yet the program construct, unlike the poet's words, is real in the sense that it moves and works, producing visible outputs separate from the construct itself. It prints results, draws pictures, produces sounds, moves arms. The magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor could be.
Programming then is fun because it gratifies creative longings built deep within us and delights sensibilities we have in common with all men."
Oh yeah.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Speaking of schooling...
Ben started kindergarten today. Ginny and I have very different feelings about it. Ginny has had Ben staying at home with her for the last five years, and she's undergone some separation anxiety. She's worried about whether he'll adapt to the new environment, whether he'll behave, whether he'll eat well when he's not at home, and whether he'll be homesick.
I have different feelings about it: I'm really excited. Of course that's easy for me to say: I work all day, and I'm used to not having him constantly there anyway. So I mostly only see the good side of this new milestone in his life. I mentioned most of the reasons for my positive feelings in my earlier post about homeschooling. He'll be expanding his horizons, meeting lots of kids his own age, having a teacher with a different perspective on the world than ours. He'll spend time learning to read and draw and use numbers (which he's already very good at for his age). He'll have his time divided between two very different environments, and have raised expectations about how he spends the weekdays.
I met his teacher and some classmates last week. They all seem great. Mrs. Snyder struck me as a very cheerful and sweet young lady with a lot of teaching experience. We watched him go in this morning, and she took charge of the class right away.
I talked to him on the phone when Ginny picked him up. He sounded very tired but said he had had lots of fun. He couldn't be even a little bit specific about what kind of fun, so I had to pry it out of him with leading questions. :) But overall, I think it was a positive experience.
I have different feelings about it: I'm really excited. Of course that's easy for me to say: I work all day, and I'm used to not having him constantly there anyway. So I mostly only see the good side of this new milestone in his life. I mentioned most of the reasons for my positive feelings in my earlier post about homeschooling. He'll be expanding his horizons, meeting lots of kids his own age, having a teacher with a different perspective on the world than ours. He'll spend time learning to read and draw and use numbers (which he's already very good at for his age). He'll have his time divided between two very different environments, and have raised expectations about how he spends the weekdays.
I met his teacher and some classmates last week. They all seem great. Mrs. Snyder struck me as a very cheerful and sweet young lady with a lot of teaching experience. We watched him go in this morning, and she took charge of the class right away.
I talked to him on the phone when Ginny picked him up. He sounded very tired but said he had had lots of fun. He couldn't be even a little bit specific about what kind of fun, so I had to pry it out of him with leading questions. :) But overall, I think it was a positive experience.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
A parable
Hapless Citizen: "DARN IT! Oooo, curse my AWFUL luck. This rotten dagnabbertiblabbit car of mine will not start. Again! I'm going to be late for work."
Masked Superhero: "Fear not, Citizen!"
Hapless: "Who are you?"
Hero: "I'm the Ayn Rand Crusader!"
Hapless: "Are you here to solve my problems?"
Ayn Rand Crusader: "No, even better! I'm here to motivate you to solve them yourself!"
Hapless: "Well that does sound useful, I guess."
ARC: "Now, what seems to be the trouble?"
Hapless: "Well, it's this stupid car of mine. It's got some years on it, it doesn't run very well, and I've had to spend a fair bit of money on a regular basis to keep it in running condition."
ARC: "Aha! This looks like a job for... the Ayn Rand Crusader! Citizen, your problems are as good as ended. Observe!"
[ARC whips out a comically large sledgehammer from the pockets of his colorful tights.]
Hapless: "You're going to solve my problems with a hammer? What are..."
[ARC brings down a mighty blow on the car, proceeding to pulverize it into a metal pancake.]
Hapless: "OH MY GOD, what the fuck??? You just totally smashed my car!"
ARC: "Yes, and now all your problems will be solved!"
Hapless: "...Oh. Really? Does that mean you're going to get me a new car?"
ARC: "Of course not! I don't do handouts! But fear not, you will have a new car soon enough."
Hapless: "I don't follow you."
ARC: "Well, now that your old car has been destroyed, I have created a market demand for a new car. Before you know it, the Amazing Free Market will surely be knocking on your door, begging to replace it with a much better car."
Hapless: "But... there aren't any decent car dealerships around here for miles. And it's going to cost me a lot more to get a new car than it did even to keep my old car in working order."
ARC: "Never fear! Thanks to the Incredible Free Market, new car dealerships will soon open up within walking distance! And not only that, they are sure to make you a car that is both excellent and affordable! And besides, even if that doesn't happen, you can easily make a new car for yourself that is just as good."
Hapless: "But I'm a software engineer. I don't know how to make a car."
ARC: "What are you, lazy? You said your old car was bad. Anyone can build a car that's better than a bad one! Get off your butt and learn how to do it properly."
Hapless: "Let me get this straight. You 'helped' me by destroying my old car, and now you're just going to leave me with nothing."
ARC: "LIAR!!! Have you not heard a word I've just said? Why do you misrepresent my position so egregiously? As I have been trying to explain to you, the Magnificent Free Market will replace your car for you."
Hapless: "But right now I don't even have the car I did before. How am I supposed to get to work?"
ARC: "Perhaps some enterprising private charity will come along and give you a lift."
Hapless: "Thanks for nothing."
ARC: "No need to thank me, citizen, I'm just doing my job. Thank the Incomparable Free Market for the generous bounties that will soon be yours. Ayn Rand Crusader, AWAY!!!!!"
...and as for the rest of Johngalt666's "points", I'll have to get back to those a bit later.
Masked Superhero: "Fear not, Citizen!"
Hapless: "Who are you?"
Hero: "I'm the Ayn Rand Crusader!"
Hapless: "Are you here to solve my problems?"
Ayn Rand Crusader: "No, even better! I'm here to motivate you to solve them yourself!"
Hapless: "Well that does sound useful, I guess."
ARC: "Now, what seems to be the trouble?"
Hapless: "Well, it's this stupid car of mine. It's got some years on it, it doesn't run very well, and I've had to spend a fair bit of money on a regular basis to keep it in running condition."
ARC: "Aha! This looks like a job for... the Ayn Rand Crusader! Citizen, your problems are as good as ended. Observe!"
[ARC whips out a comically large sledgehammer from the pockets of his colorful tights.]
Hapless: "You're going to solve my problems with a hammer? What are..."
[ARC brings down a mighty blow on the car, proceeding to pulverize it into a metal pancake.]
Hapless: "OH MY GOD, what the fuck??? You just totally smashed my car!"
ARC: "Yes, and now all your problems will be solved!"
Hapless: "...Oh. Really? Does that mean you're going to get me a new car?"
ARC: "Of course not! I don't do handouts! But fear not, you will have a new car soon enough."
Hapless: "I don't follow you."
ARC: "Well, now that your old car has been destroyed, I have created a market demand for a new car. Before you know it, the Amazing Free Market will surely be knocking on your door, begging to replace it with a much better car."
Hapless: "But... there aren't any decent car dealerships around here for miles. And it's going to cost me a lot more to get a new car than it did even to keep my old car in working order."
ARC: "Never fear! Thanks to the Incredible Free Market, new car dealerships will soon open up within walking distance! And not only that, they are sure to make you a car that is both excellent and affordable! And besides, even if that doesn't happen, you can easily make a new car for yourself that is just as good."
Hapless: "But I'm a software engineer. I don't know how to make a car."
ARC: "What are you, lazy? You said your old car was bad. Anyone can build a car that's better than a bad one! Get off your butt and learn how to do it properly."
Hapless: "Let me get this straight. You 'helped' me by destroying my old car, and now you're just going to leave me with nothing."
ARC: "LIAR!!! Have you not heard a word I've just said? Why do you misrepresent my position so egregiously? As I have been trying to explain to you, the Magnificent Free Market will replace your car for you."
Hapless: "But right now I don't even have the car I did before. How am I supposed to get to work?"
ARC: "Perhaps some enterprising private charity will come along and give you a lift."
Hapless: "Thanks for nothing."
ARC: "No need to thank me, citizen, I'm just doing my job. Thank the Incomparable Free Market for the generous bounties that will soon be yours. Ayn Rand Crusader, AWAY!!!!!"
...and as for the rest of Johngalt666's "points", I'll have to get back to those a bit later.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Continuing the homeschooling discussion
Some people may not be following the active discussion that was going on for a week or so in the comments section of my post about homeschooling. I've been planning to reply to johngalt666's last comment, but as I mentioned originally, it takes me a while to keep up with a long discussion while I'm also in school. Since the conversation is now buried under two months worth of posts, I thought I'd take this opportunity to start a fresh thread. Be warned, this is going to jump around a bit, as I try to organize a fairly disjointed conversation.
When I suggested that Johngalt666 was looking to replace public schools with private school vouchers, he wrote:
I apologize for making this unwarranted assumption. I have spoken to several advocates of abolishing public schools, and most at least claim to want to put in temporary measures to fill in the gap, in the form of vouchers. Perhaps most of them do, ultimately, want to eliminate the public funding of schools entirely, but most couch the discussion in terms of private vouchers in order to mask that intention.
Johngalt666 then wrote:
Followed by:
So now, taking all of the above into account, let me try to make sure I understand you correctly.
You don't like public schools, that much is clear. You seemed downright offended that when I presumed that you would support vouchers, which is the commonly suggested alternative. You also acknowledge that homeschooling is not the right choice for everyone. You wish that there were more and better private school options in your area, but there are not.
Essentially, your solution to the issue of public schools is to eliminate them altogether. And then you propose to replace them with...
Nothing. Nothing at all.
Your position is that "government" should be out of schools entirely: no funding, no standards, no support whatsoever. Parents who can afford private schools will send their kids to private schools. Parents who have the time, inclination, and ability to homeschool will do so. All other kids are left to fend for themselves.
Really? I want to make totally sure I'm not misstating your position, but I can't wait around for the conversation to synchronize, so let me just work with the assumption that this is what you mean.
Clearly this goes way beyond your issue with how public schools are performing. If the problem were simply the fact that kids aren't getting a good enough education, then your solution might have involved doing something to improve it. But instead, you are apparently advocating a system that eliminates many existing schools entirely, thereby ensuring that large swaths of the country have access to no education whatsoever.
By your own statement, there are no quality private schools in your area, and therefore you are forced to homeschool. So under your plan, you wish to essentially nuke funding for the public schools so that other parents who already send their kids there will now have no recourse apart from choosing from the private schools -- which by your own claims are evidently just as bad in your area -- or devoting the same amount of time that your family does to homeschooling. I suppose we'll have to assume that those people don't all have jobs or anything.
I'm just stumped about how you think this will improve the overall state of education in your area. Surely there are quite a few parents who will wind up opting not to bother with education at all -- I mean, if the oppressive government isn't to be involved in education, then there are no longer any educational standards or requirements. That doesn't worry you? Having a new generation of kids growing up who, instead of receiving below standard education, will now be completely lacking in any education whatsoever?
I didn't throw out the studies; I accept and agree with your claim that public schools are not doing as well as they ought to be doing (and, based on the examples provided by other countries, could be doing). This is a point where you seem to think we disagree, when in fact I'm letting you know that we don't.
The problem I have is that you seem to have jumped from a premise: ("public schools are not doing well") to some kind of conclusion. Either that conclusion is: "Homeschooling and private schools are an adequate replacement for what they actually do" or: "Maybe there is no adequate universal replacement for public schools, but I'm willing to eliminate the benefit that those schools do provide so that I don't have to pay any taxes towards them." Neither of these conclusions seems to follow naturally from the premise, nor from the sparse and sketchy studies that you've provided (about which I'll say more shortly).
You said:
As I read it, your four choices were:
But of those four, you've expressed a desire to sandbag one of them, so that leaves three, or perhaps two since option 3 is really just another angle on 1 and 2. Not only that, the one that you'd get rid of is the choice that most parents choose. My parents both worked, and they chose the place to live where they could get the best jobs. Roughly 3/4 of my education took place in public schools, as did the vast majority of other professional adults I have met. Why so eager to eliminate this system entirely?
Now, let me turn to your studies on homeschooling.
I did follow your studies on public school performance earlier, and my comment about them still stands. As I said, I simply don't disagree with you that public schools underperform their stated goals, but that it doesn't make the case for the argument you're trying to make -- i.e., it is worse than no public school at all.
I've now gone through the article you linked. At first glance, it appeared to contain a whole lot of references to independent studies. On further examination, it seems to me that it contains just two original studies, followed by numerous other articles that merely cite those studies. The first one was performed by the president of the "National Home Education Research Institute." The second one was published and underwritten by the "Home School Legal Defense Association," which is also the source of the original post you submitted gathering all these different studies in one place. Those are a useful place to start, but difficult to take seriously as an unbiased source.
Looking further into these articles was even more troubling. For instance I found that Lawrence Rudner's study was in fact published in the peer-reviewed educational journal, Education Policy Analysis Archives, which is a good sign. But it was shortly followed by a related article that neatly underlines the overall issue surrounding the way these studies are conducted.
This article, entitled "Contextualizing Homeschooling Data: A Response to Rudner", looks at article published by Lawrence Rudner and points out some serious flaws in his methodology. What they agree on is the premise of the article: among students who took a test administered by Bob Jones University, the homeschooled kids who were picked for the study performed better than the private and public schooled kids who were picked for the study. However, they then go on to highlight a number of reasons why this is not nearly as relevant as it sounds:
Interestingly enough, I tried to find out more information about HSLDA, and found to my somewhat distaste that they are themselves an explicitly fundamentalist group. HSLDA supports Christian Dominionist causes such as, for example, working to outlaw gay marriage, and they also advise parents on how to get away with beating their kids without getting in trouble. Again, this in no way invalidates the study, such as it is, but it still seems to me a poor choice to use as an authority on the efficacy of homeschooling.
Later, you write:
Ultimately, this is exactly my point. You want to demonstrate that homeschooling is more effective than public schooling, but that is a side issue for you, because the bottom line is that you don't really care whether the end result is kids being better educated. That's the difference here: I do care about what is the most effective strategy for getting kids educated. That's my bottom line. It so happens that I also disagree with your political viewpoint that government involvement is nearly universally evil, but that's beside the original point that I was making.
My previous post was about the remarkable lack of serious, comprehensive, and unbiased data on how well homeschoolers perform as a whole. There is almost nothing in the way of regulation or standards when it comes to homeschooling. Some parents do a great job, absolutely, but there isn't any rigorous analysis on the success rates. Mostly, support for homeschooling just seems to take the form of public school bashing.
Please understand that I am not meddling in your business and telling you that you need to stop homeschooling your own kids. I have no reason to doubt that you are one of those families that teaches your kids well and holds them accountable for learning some amount of necessary material, and provides them with an enriching environment. But as for your belief that we should therefore apply your experience across the board and pull support away from those kids who do partake of the public school system -- which will include my son, beginning in about two weeks -- I'm afraid I must respectfully disagree.
When I suggested that Johngalt666 was looking to replace public schools with private school vouchers, he wrote:
Here is where I get really confused. You list two issues that I am bringing up and yet I did not bring up either of the issues you name. I never said homeschooling was a superior alternative for most students. I also never said anything about vouchers. So though it LOOKS like you are responding to me, I find myself looking around for the person you are actually talking too.
I apologize for making this unwarranted assumption. I have spoken to several advocates of abolishing public schools, and most at least claim to want to put in temporary measures to fill in the gap, in the form of vouchers. Perhaps most of them do, ultimately, want to eliminate the public funding of schools entirely, but most couch the discussion in terms of private vouchers in order to mask that intention.
Johngalt666 then wrote:
But right now, where I live, there are no better alternatives to homeschooling. There are no excellent public schools near me. There are no excellent private schools near me. I know at least one school that would be an excellent choice for my children but I can not move several states over to enroll them.
Followed by:
Further, the facts remain that: (a) most parents are effectively compelled to send their children to public schools, since they are taxed to support these schools and cannot afford to pay the additional fees required to send their children to private schools; (b) the STANDARDS of education, controlling ALL schools, are prescribed by the government; (c) the growing trend in American education is for the government to exert wider and wider control over every aspect of education. Well, by now the government basically does control every aspect of education.
So now, taking all of the above into account, let me try to make sure I understand you correctly.
You don't like public schools, that much is clear. You seemed downright offended that when I presumed that you would support vouchers, which is the commonly suggested alternative. You also acknowledge that homeschooling is not the right choice for everyone. You wish that there were more and better private school options in your area, but there are not.
Essentially, your solution to the issue of public schools is to eliminate them altogether. And then you propose to replace them with...
Nothing. Nothing at all.
Your position is that "government" should be out of schools entirely: no funding, no standards, no support whatsoever. Parents who can afford private schools will send their kids to private schools. Parents who have the time, inclination, and ability to homeschool will do so. All other kids are left to fend for themselves.
Really? I want to make totally sure I'm not misstating your position, but I can't wait around for the conversation to synchronize, so let me just work with the assumption that this is what you mean.
Clearly this goes way beyond your issue with how public schools are performing. If the problem were simply the fact that kids aren't getting a good enough education, then your solution might have involved doing something to improve it. But instead, you are apparently advocating a system that eliminates many existing schools entirely, thereby ensuring that large swaths of the country have access to no education whatsoever.
By your own statement, there are no quality private schools in your area, and therefore you are forced to homeschool. So under your plan, you wish to essentially nuke funding for the public schools so that other parents who already send their kids there will now have no recourse apart from choosing from the private schools -- which by your own claims are evidently just as bad in your area -- or devoting the same amount of time that your family does to homeschooling. I suppose we'll have to assume that those people don't all have jobs or anything.
I'm just stumped about how you think this will improve the overall state of education in your area. Surely there are quite a few parents who will wind up opting not to bother with education at all -- I mean, if the oppressive government isn't to be involved in education, then there are no longer any educational standards or requirements. That doesn't worry you? Having a new generation of kids growing up who, instead of receiving below standard education, will now be completely lacking in any education whatsoever?
When you talk of public schools you seem to want to throw out studies of the nation as a whole and when you talk of homeschoolers you only seem to want studies that include the whole nation. If national studies of public schools leave you unsatisfied, why would national studies of homeschoolers be more satisfying?
I didn't throw out the studies; I accept and agree with your claim that public schools are not doing as well as they ought to be doing (and, based on the examples provided by other countries, could be doing). This is a point where you seem to think we disagree, when in fact I'm letting you know that we don't.
The problem I have is that you seem to have jumped from a premise: ("public schools are not doing well") to some kind of conclusion. Either that conclusion is: "Homeschooling and private schools are an adequate replacement for what they actually do" or: "Maybe there is no adequate universal replacement for public schools, but I'm willing to eliminate the benefit that those schools do provide so that I don't have to pay any taxes towards them." Neither of these conclusions seems to follow naturally from the premise, nor from the sparse and sketchy studies that you've provided (about which I'll say more shortly).
You said:
Look back again, Kazim. I do not state or imply that all these students would be better served by homeschooling. Later I even list four options for parents (not intending it to be an exhaustive list) and then state that ANY CHOICE can be correct.
As I read it, your four choices were:
- Public school.
- Private school.
- Move somewhere where there are better public and/or private schools (how is this a different option from the first two?)
- Home schooling.
But of those four, you've expressed a desire to sandbag one of them, so that leaves three, or perhaps two since option 3 is really just another angle on 1 and 2. Not only that, the one that you'd get rid of is the choice that most parents choose. My parents both worked, and they chose the place to live where they could get the best jobs. Roughly 3/4 of my education took place in public schools, as did the vast majority of other professional adults I have met. Why so eager to eliminate this system entirely?
Now, let me turn to your studies on homeschooling.
While I am starting to doubt seriously that any study by any source will satisfy you if it doesn’t agree with you, I will point you to some more info you may not have seen here. Though it seems you didn’t follow the link to the national studies of public schools above (based on your writing), I hope you will follow this one and read it. Google the articles sources and that sort of thing. I won’t spoon-feed it to you, as I don’t really think it matters too much. See below.
I did follow your studies on public school performance earlier, and my comment about them still stands. As I said, I simply don't disagree with you that public schools underperform their stated goals, but that it doesn't make the case for the argument you're trying to make -- i.e., it is worse than no public school at all.
I've now gone through the article you linked. At first glance, it appeared to contain a whole lot of references to independent studies. On further examination, it seems to me that it contains just two original studies, followed by numerous other articles that merely cite those studies. The first one was performed by the president of the "National Home Education Research Institute." The second one was published and underwritten by the "Home School Legal Defense Association," which is also the source of the original post you submitted gathering all these different studies in one place. Those are a useful place to start, but difficult to take seriously as an unbiased source.
Looking further into these articles was even more troubling. For instance I found that Lawrence Rudner's study was in fact published in the peer-reviewed educational journal, Education Policy Analysis Archives, which is a good sign. But it was shortly followed by a related article that neatly underlines the overall issue surrounding the way these studies are conducted.
This article, entitled "Contextualizing Homeschooling Data: A Response to Rudner", looks at article published by Lawrence Rudner and points out some serious flaws in his methodology. What they agree on is the premise of the article: among students who took a test administered by Bob Jones University, the homeschooled kids who were picked for the study performed better than the private and public schooled kids who were picked for the study. However, they then go on to highlight a number of reasons why this is not nearly as relevant as it sounds:
- Participation in the testing is voluntary. That means that the only homeschooled students who worked on the tests were those whose parents emphasized tests, while students who are "unschooled" or otherwise opposed to testing are excluded from the sample. In other words, this is a very specific and unrepresentative cross-section of all home schoolers. This point can't be understated: The author of the article admits that it wasn't a scientific sample. The response to the article highlights just how much that lack of objectivity undercuts the main point.
- The testing was performed by Bob Jones University. I mean, come on, those guys weren't even accredited until last year, and before that point they were well known as a weird racist fundamentalist outlier. As an atheist (I think you said?), I'd be surprised if you took anything seriously that comes out of Bob Jones University.
- As I noted before, Rudner's being paid by something called the Home School Legal Defense Association, which is a homeschooling advocacy group. That fact in itself does not make their study wrong, but it does call into question their status as a group conducting an objective, impartial study.
Interestingly enough, I tried to find out more information about HSLDA, and found to my somewhat distaste that they are themselves an explicitly fundamentalist group. HSLDA supports Christian Dominionist causes such as, for example, working to outlaw gay marriage, and they also advise parents on how to get away with beating their kids without getting in trouble. Again, this in no way invalidates the study, such as it is, but it still seems to me a poor choice to use as an authority on the efficacy of homeschooling.
Later, you write:
Personally, I don’t really care if homeschoolers outperform public schools or not. There are many indicators that they do but that is irrelevant to why I don’t want public schools.
Ultimately, this is exactly my point. You want to demonstrate that homeschooling is more effective than public schooling, but that is a side issue for you, because the bottom line is that you don't really care whether the end result is kids being better educated. That's the difference here: I do care about what is the most effective strategy for getting kids educated. That's my bottom line. It so happens that I also disagree with your political viewpoint that government involvement is nearly universally evil, but that's beside the original point that I was making.
My previous post was about the remarkable lack of serious, comprehensive, and unbiased data on how well homeschoolers perform as a whole. There is almost nothing in the way of regulation or standards when it comes to homeschooling. Some parents do a great job, absolutely, but there isn't any rigorous analysis on the success rates. Mostly, support for homeschooling just seems to take the form of public school bashing.
Please understand that I am not meddling in your business and telling you that you need to stop homeschooling your own kids. I have no reason to doubt that you are one of those families that teaches your kids well and holds them accountable for learning some amount of necessary material, and provides them with an enriching environment. But as for your belief that we should therefore apply your experience across the board and pull support away from those kids who do partake of the public school system -- which will include my son, beginning in about two weeks -- I'm afraid I must respectfully disagree.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Happy class day
It's here already: the first day of the last semester. I have roughly three months to finish my master's thesis -- about which I probably write more pretty soon.
I'm taking "Introduction to Software Engineering" and "System Engineering Program Management and Evaluation." This is the only semester when I've taken two classes that are both "concepty" rather than "mathy" or "programmy." However, since my thesis is both mathy and programmy, that more than fills this particular void in my life.
Anyway, here's my term paper from summer. The professor mailed me an evaluation, writing simply:
That sounds pretty complimentary. Anyone out there who works for a computer magazine? :)
I'm taking "Introduction to Software Engineering" and "System Engineering Program Management and Evaluation." This is the only semester when I've taken two classes that are both "concepty" rather than "mathy" or "programmy." However, since my thesis is both mathy and programmy, that more than fills this particular void in my life.
Anyway, here's my term paper from summer. The professor mailed me an evaluation, writing simply:
The paper describes issues in web tagging with several examples. The paper
is in the form that it can be submitted to a computer magazine with
little effort.
That sounds pretty complimentary. Anyone out there who works for a computer magazine? :)
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Cargo cult comedy canned
The cargo cult comedy show, "The 1/2 Hour News Hour," has been canceled.
All together now: "Awwwwwwww."
Of course, I wouldn't even know this if it hadn't been for liberal radio, since lately it hadn't even occurred to me to wonder whether it still existed.
All together now: "Awwwwwwww."
Of course, I wouldn't even know this if it hadn't been for liberal radio, since lately it hadn't even occurred to me to wonder whether it still existed.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Two movies
I just wanted to share a couple of funny movies I ran into. Not all audiences will get them, but I think they're both brilliant.
Minesweeper: The Movie
Mementos
If you've seen the movie AND the commercials, you should get it; if you haven't then you'll probably be confused.
If you've seen the movie AND the commercials, you should get it; if you haven't then you'll probably be confused.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
What's in the pipeline
This is just a "what's going on" type of post, because I'm trying to blog more often but I have this bad habit of starting big, long posts and then letting them languish for weeks, not willing to pull the trigger until they're complete.
For the last month or so I've been dividing my time between writing a twelve page term paper on the topic of Web Tagging (due by email tonight) and a program for my thesis project (which is due in November). It's a wee bit scary. My stepdaughter Caitlin has moved to Colorado to live with her aunt on a ranch and train horses for a year. I've turned her bedroom into a makeshift "office" by plugging a wireless adapter into my computer and setting it up on a card table. The main advantage of this is that the door locks and I can hide from my very demanding five year old. And if I'm pulling a most-of-the-nighter, I can go to sleep on the bed in here without disturbing Ginny in the middle of the night. It's a good arrangement, but it makes my family miss me and vice versa. This is grad school crunch time -- doubly so when the fall semester starts -- and will likely remain so until December. Wish me luck.
I'm also getting a new laptop soon, maybe this weekend. I might go work at a coffee shop more often, once I have worked out the best scheme for keeping my project synced.
I do have a few posts in the works, namely:
For the last month or so I've been dividing my time between writing a twelve page term paper on the topic of Web Tagging (due by email tonight) and a program for my thesis project (which is due in November). It's a wee bit scary. My stepdaughter Caitlin has moved to Colorado to live with her aunt on a ranch and train horses for a year. I've turned her bedroom into a makeshift "office" by plugging a wireless adapter into my computer and setting it up on a card table. The main advantage of this is that the door locks and I can hide from my very demanding five year old. And if I'm pulling a most-of-the-nighter, I can go to sleep on the bed in here without disturbing Ginny in the middle of the night. It's a good arrangement, but it makes my family miss me and vice versa. This is grad school crunch time -- doubly so when the fall semester starts -- and will likely remain so until December. Wish me luck.
I'm also getting a new laptop soon, maybe this weekend. I might go work at a coffee shop more often, once I have worked out the best scheme for keeping my project synced.
I do have a few posts in the works, namely:
- I'll post my term paper after it's turned in, and nobody can accuse me of helping anyone else cheat.
- I've been meaning to go back and reply to johngalt666 on the homeschooling thread comments. This would be an example of me starting a long post and letting it sit for a while.
- I've been kicking around the idea of writing something longish on the annoyance of those 9/11 Truth disciples who are always calling in to the Atheist Experience, C-Span, various Air America shows, and everything else. I have a few things in mind to say, but not much written yet. Short version: The notion that there is a massive cover-up of the U.S. government personally organizing terrorist groups or firing missiles into the World Trade Center or whatever, for me ranks pretty close to Scientology in terms of credibility. More later.
Friday, August 03, 2007
I loves me some Chris Dodd
Hmmm, never cared about him that much before, but I gotta give Chris Dodd props for his utter smoothness in facing down Bill "O'Really?"
If you haven't been following this wacky controversy, Bill's been looking for ways to smear the political blog Daily Kos, and hit on the brilliant strategy of highlighting a bad photoshop image posted in the one of the thousands of comments they get every day. Now he's trying to intimidate presidential candidates into staying away from the Yearly Kos convention. Dodd wasn't having any of it.
To me, the funniest part of the video is when Dodd calls O'Reilly to task for saying hateful things on his own show, like talking about al Qaeda bombing San Francisco. Bill loudly denies that he EVER SAID ANY SUCH THING: "You don't know what the hell I said! You got it from Media Matters!!!"
Well, of course, that story is on Media Matters, among other places. There's also an audio clip of him saying it. So in addition to all the other "smearing" that Media Matters does, they apparently have an incredibly convincing Bill O'Reilly impersonator on the staff!
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
The Daily Show blows a comic opportunity
I was waiting in eager anticipation for last night's "Daily Show," since they didn't discuss the YouTube Democratic debate on the night of the debate itself.
In one sense I wasn't disappointed, because they focused the first 2/3 of the show on the debate and it was funny. But they focused mostly on the form of the debate, and very little on the candidates' responses. For my money, easily the most mockable moment in the entire debate was when someone asked the question "How many of you arrived on a private jet?"
Several candidates (mainly Clinton, Obama) confidently put their hands up, at least being honest about the question. Bill Richardson put his hand halfway up, glanced nervously around at the others to see who else was copping to it, and then sheepishly raised his hand the rest of the way. That had my home audience busting up. Unfortunately, Team Stewart must not have seen the comedy potential in that incident.
In one sense I wasn't disappointed, because they focused the first 2/3 of the show on the debate and it was funny. But they focused mostly on the form of the debate, and very little on the candidates' responses. For my money, easily the most mockable moment in the entire debate was when someone asked the question "How many of you arrived on a private jet?"
Several candidates (mainly Clinton, Obama) confidently put their hands up, at least being honest about the question. Bill Richardson put his hand halfway up, glanced nervously around at the others to see who else was copping to it, and then sheepishly raised his hand the rest of the way. That had my home audience busting up. Unfortunately, Team Stewart must not have seen the comedy potential in that incident.
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