Better yet, I also got around to configuring the FTP setup for my parent’s farm website. They’re starting a goat cheese dairy, and my brother’s girlfriend has offered to build the site. Since she’s going to school for graphic design it makes more sense for her to build it than me.  Especially after I accidentally nuked their old one when registering a new domain name. My “quick fix” is pretty obvious…

Maybe I’ll get around to reading some of this later today too. Kinda fits with everything I’ve talked about over the past year or two.

I kid. But, I am also somewhat serious. So it’s not unexpected that Mitt Romney’s “Believe in America” plan seems to be somewhat lacking.

Make no mistake, I’m not qualified to judge his proposals. They might even be what the country needs. But, they aren’t presented in a form that reflects what they are; politically motivated sketches that have been crafted, no pushed, during a Republican Party primary.

Case in point: the file is available online in .pdf format and through Amazon as an e-book. It looks slick. It contains lots of charts. It even references 127 endnotes. On the verso it provides copyright information and notes that this is its “first edition.” Romney’s plan is, in every sense of the form, a traditional publication.

Except it isn’t.

Though the plan reads like a book and looks like a book, it’s not one. It’s a slick, self-published document. And, that is something very different from what politicians have produced in the past. To my knowledge anyway.

No doubt, similar material has been produced by other presidential candidates. But, Romney has done something different… and potentially misleading. His campaign has produced an plan that takes full advantage of digital publication tools. It presents the facade of procedural rigor without the underlying requirement of it.

That is to say, his plan has not been scored by the Congressional Budget Office. It has not been peer-reviewed. It has not jumped through numerous procedural hoops. And, it did not get approved by an editor who had to take into account if it’s conclusions would reflect poorly on the publishing organization. In a sense, Romey’s plan has gone directly to “go.” It has collected $200 without rolling the dice.

Thanks to Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word, and other tools the Romney campaign has created something that, once upon a time, would have required a formal process. Self-publishing is so pervasive, so cheap, so convincing, today that it doesn’t require a critique of content anymore. Now anybody can make their document look like a formal publication.

Therein lies the problem.

Because Romney’s plan is stamped with the “Paid for by Mitt Romney for President” identifier, we can tell it’s not an objective set of prescriptions. We can tell it was put together using campaign dollars; likely in-house.

Objectivity may only be something to aim for, but it a world where anybody can make a plan look well-reasoned the processes used to create it matters most of all.

Stay tuned. Hopefully not for too long.

If you turn up the volume to a bad song, its still going to suck. Sorry Milli Vanilli. You can sing “Girl You Know” as loud as you want, but that won’t help.

So, how can we solve this problem? I’m not sure but it seems to me that Librarians need to start pushing educators to emphasize the scientific method (and basic principles of evidence) more. It’s not enough to know how to research things. People can find anything they want. Instead, the public needs to be able to: 1) test the information they find and 2) be able to identify how well reasoned it is. Because not every question can be tested, the second skill will likely be used more often than the first.

As to the first? I can’t help but wonder, “are there ways to better test the validity of online information?” Is there a way to apply the scientific method that integrates clearly into the electronic environment?

It’s the public library movement of our time.

It’s a sort of paradox. Which comes first?

Missouri, my home, has been moving to the right over the past ten years. It’s a mix of Midwestern, Southern, and traditional Americana. So, it comes as no surprise then that given the stagnation of the middle-class and rapid changes brought by globalism there’s a tenancy here to hold on. For dear life. Our nickname is the “Show-Me” state. We don’t trust idealistic prescriptions.

Off-shoring jobs will help everyone? Really? Global warming? Where’s the bulletproof proof? Government can solve our problems? Show me how.

This isn’t to say we’re dyed in the wool conservatives. We’re not. We just just have a tenancy to be skeptical of fantastic claims. You say taxing less won’t hurt the deficit? I call bullshit. There’s a reason Harry Truman was a Democrat.

But, if who we are is a product of our circumstances and personal choices, then I can’t but help wonder what the consequences of globalism will be for us. Missouri’s two biggest cities, St. Louis and Kansas City are fighting suburbanization. Cheap transportation has relegated us to “flyover country” status. Cheap labor and free trade has extended the “rust belt” west.

It’s difficult for us to compete for “creative” knowledge-based jobs too.

Certainly, there are areas in-state that can compete, but they tend to be removed from today’s issues. Springfield, my hometown, can fight back with a low cost of living and lax regulations. Jackson County can’t. And, this environment is pitting urban against rural, members of the working class against business owners. Evangelical Christians against non-believers.

In short, we’re a microcosm of America… as it was.

You see, Missouri is too white to reflect America today because it’s not changing with the country. We’re staying Christian. We’re staying isolated from trendy cultural centers, and we’re staying rooted in the past. That’s why we’re “moving” right. That’s why our  bellwether trend ended in 2008. Our healthy skepticism targets what is actively hurting us and ignores what isn’t. When you are a WASP you don’t tend to have the problems that people on Welfare do.

Then again, if who we are is a product of where we live and the choices we make… all of that could change. There could be a realization that what happens abroad impacts us in St. Charles County. Or a limited government model could fail to provide on it’s promise.

If that does happen, just as quickly our skepticism will turn on other things.

What scares me the most, however, is that if we keep moving from being a political bellwether what  happens? I don’t know. But, I am afraid that it would cause us to lose our “Show Me” mentality. It’s been created by a longstanding of balance powers. One forged in the depths of guerrilla warfare during the Civil War, solidified after World War II, and maintained through today.

It’s loss would be a shame.

Check it out at: http://digitalcampus.tv/.

There’s another threat out there, and we ignore it all of the time.

Big Brother, in our current situation, isn’t who we think he is. He can be an overly powerful person or group, but in America I’d argue that he doesn’t just take this form. He’s us. And we love him.

Take the Tea Party. Championing small government and free markets, this group of conservatives have hyperventilated over the past two years about an alleged infringement of our liberties by the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. Conversely, liberals routinely are up in arms about powerful monied interests like the Koch brothers… who, they argue, wield a disproportionate amount of power.

In each case, there is a fear that “other” groups are trying to control what we see, know, and hear. Be it Rupert Murdoch or NPR, Americans distrust other people’s interpretation of fact. We’re vigilant for external censorship, but never seem to be when looking in the mirror.

Over the past few years, I’ve railed against what I see as technology-enhanced information biases. Among their problems and causes:

• The Internet makes it easy to produce, proliferate, and share information. So [...]
• [...] traditional news sources have segmented allowing people to pick among them. Moreover, [...]
• [...] our biases provide an incentive for us to read, watch, or listen to things that fit our world-view. Worse yet [...]
• [...] this is made worse by a saturated media market full of producers competing for our attention. Of these, those those who reinforce our world-view usually win out. [Also,]
• [...] many cost barriers to media production have disappeared, so professionalization has decreased. So, [...]
• [...] anyone can pretend to be an “expert” while [...]
• [...] it’s difficult to tell who creates what.

Yes. I know that this is an argument that I’ve repeated ad-naseum, but reading Wired today I came across another example that changed my perception of the problem.

In a TED presentation, Eli Pariser argued that the Internet has allowed us to encase ourselves in “information bubbles.” Taking my assessment of bias, he attacks it from another direction by highlighting  ”junk food algorithms.”  You see many web tools are behaviorally driven. Using Facebook as an example, if I click on links from liberal friends then it will eventually learn to show only links from my liberal friends.

Pariser argued, essentially, that we as a society have moved from an age were people acted as the gatekeepers of information to one where programs do. Next, he pointed out his desire for developers to make sure that their programs ensure diverse and representative information continues to be shared. A diversity of viewpoints is, after all, necessary to arrive at an informed conclusion.

While his point is interesting, I’d argue that he still opens himself to a dangerous counter-argument.

Algorithm driven or not, web search results are queried by people. Not programmers. Ultimately, people are responsible for the material they search for; both past and present. Since this is the case, doesn’t tinkering disregard their ability to choose? Doesn’t it amount to censorship? Here is where my perception shifted.

The answer, I would argue, depends on how “freely” you believe that people can choose to search for information, and how biased they can be.

On one hand, if people can independently and freely choose what they search for, then creating an algorithm which “learns” preferences isn’t a bad thing. Adjusting to ignore past choices must then amount to censorship. But, on the other hand if they are like I argued – they have biases and habits (exacerbated by new media) which create a self-reinforcing cycle – then the answer is no.

The answer is no because algorithm programmers aren’t choosing winners and losers. Instead, they are directly combating censorship. They’re targeting self-censoring behavior.

Sometimes, people get so caught up in the pursuit of personal liberty that they fail to realize it’s possible to censor oneself without consciously choosing to do so. In a way, then, we arrive at an instance of Big Brother not being an external person. It’s one where Big Brother is us.

It’s ironic then that the mirrors and televisions from 1984 were windows into people’s lives; a tool for direct censorship. In America today, the same is true but it just as quickly reveals a rarely noticed source. Oneself.

You can’t search for what you don’t know about or want to see. And if you can’t search for anything, then you aren’t truly free.

• The quality of data that Watson uses is hugely important. If it’s premises are false then so will be it’s answers.
• Apparently, IBM programed the computer to learn patterns. But, what kind of patterns does it look for? Patterns aren’t as simple as we would like to think, because they’re bound by the rules of what they are – conceptual, physical, or otherwise.
• In stances where Watson can’t decide, “he” relies on probability. The software can’t override this function.

So, what does this mean?

Essentially, it appears that IBM has created a super search engine that integrates voice-to-text technology with the ability to “learn.” It’s not intelligent, but it certainly pushes the boundaries of what that means. The question in my mind is, “what’s next?

Intuitively, the next step is problem solving. Yes, Watson relies on textual cues to solve them already, but he can’t answer them without this context. Moreover, he can’t create information from scratch.

While search and retrieval are important elements when answering questions, being able to answer questions often requires creating new information. Or, a taking non-textual data into account.

Case in point – Hubble and the expanding universe. Prior to Hubble’s use of redshift to determine that certain objects in the sky are far away, astronomers thought that the Milky Was was the only galaxy in existence.  But, Hubble’s ability to 1) collect raw, primary data led him to b) create unique information that used redshift to prove that distances between celestial bodies are often vast.

Watson is limited to using text. He has no ability to call into question the status quo, and without this, no new information can be produced.

I’ve gotta admit, though, I like the idea of a real-time speech driven, computational search engine. And, if the answers are given in terms of probability then it’ll let me do my job even better than now.

This isn’t something new, and it’s a continuation of past efforts. For example, in 2001 a group of transportation libraries – in conjunction with the National Transportation Library – formed the Midwest Transportation Knowledge Network (MTKN). Since then, two more “TKN’s” have formed to serve both the eastern and western portions of the country.

On top of this, the  American Association of State and Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO), Standing Committee on Transportation Research (SCOR) formed the Research Advisory Committee Taskforce on Transportation Knowledge Networks (RAC TKN Task-force). They act as an advisor to the regional knowledge networks.

These are voluntary grassroots associations, by the way. They’re trying to make sure that transportation research, policy-making, and outcomes are well-informed. Why? Well, for starters, in 2007 transportation accounted for 11% of the economy.

This is where I come in. You see, the alphabet soup of technocratic groups that I mentioned earlier are all informal. They have no funding or statutory authority.

Recognizing this, in 2005 a group of states decided to pitch in some money. Taking advantage of the Transportation Pooled Fund Study Program (TPF) through the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Wisconsin Department of Transportation started the TPF-5(105) Library Connectivity Pooled Fund. This study didn’t provide funding for non-libraries, but it did offer resources to a segment of the TKN community. As of 2011, Missouri – my home state – has taken the lead in directing it.

In essence, transportation is trying to bake from scratch using an bunch of acronyms.

Like any good cook knows, the final outcome is going to depend on the ingredients used. The problem is, considering how much libraries have changed over the past twenty years, nobody knows what they are anymore. Not only are we baking from scratch, but we’re using a completely new recipe.

• Electronic media has changed user expectations.
• Given government budgets, financial flexibility is not an option.
• Oil and commodity instability hints that we may see a transportation shift within our lifetimes.
• Lines between information producers, providers, and users are blurring.

This represents a great opportunity, but I have to confess that I’m not completely sure what the end result will be. If given a chance to build a modern library network, what would it look like? And, how would it be different from those constructed in the past? Any ideas? It’s important we get this right.

What do you think? Should I build something on my own? Or, do I bite the bullet and use something I won’t have complete control over?

It was obvious that the rally was going to be an extension of their shows. The two have made a career of openly spoofing the media for it’s worst failures. Sure, Stewart and Colbert are liberals, but at the core their criticism has never been one of ideology. It’s been of messaging.

A lot of people don’t realize that.

Keith Olberman, for example, disliked the rally’s message to “take it down a notch.” Apparently, that would risk conceding to Fox News and the right.

Others have argued that the rally accomplished nothing. Or, that it simply mocked legitimate activism by Glenn Beck and the Tea Party.

David Carr’s piece in the New York Times was one of the few that caught the rally’s point while countering that Stewart is wrong in his analysis. TV pundits only reach a small audience. We really are in serious times.

Browsing though the blogs out there, everyone appears to have their own interpretation. That makes sense. Satire is complex. It thrives on individuals drawing their own conclusions. To crystallize things though, I’d like to highlight a few key passages from the rally’s closing.

Reflecting on these passages, Stewart’s point should be clear. The press and the media are guardians of our national discourse. And, for whatever reason they don’t always communicate properly. They mess up. This mislead us. They blow things out of proportion. They sometimes cater to the lowest common denominator, and if you need evidence?

Well, just watch the Daily Show.

Stewart is thriving because the media is seen as failing. And, if anything Saturday’s rally showed that he doesn’t necessarily want them to. Neither does this librarian.

“She was wrong.” Sarah muttered. “I should have corrected her. The country didn’t run out last year. Wal-Mart ran out, and the country rationed them for ‘at-risk’ groups.” To clarify, Sarah just got her M.A. in Public Health. She’s about to move to Boston for her Ph.D.

I run into this situation quite a bit: one where someone says something wrong, misguided, or outright false. Where, they don’t bother to check if they are right or not before they speak. The librarian in me is losing hair over this.

Well, maybe that’s not really why, but I’m reminded of a quote from the Confucian Analects – “A gentleman wishes to be slow to speak but quick to act.” The idea here isn’t only that someone should focus on action (Confucius especially valued learning), but that it’s important to make sure you are right before speaking.

It’s an idea that extends well beyond ancient China.

Unfortunately, I’m pessimistic about the ability for most people to develop this trait. It’s all too rare. Naturally, humans have a sort of “bounded rationality,” a problem solving mindset that hones in on answers through fits and starts. The problem is, so long as this is our default behavior, people will always be quick to speak. In any sort of self-governing society this is a bad – or at least an inefficient – thing.

I’ve made the case before that technology doesn’t resolve the problems related to our tenancy toward intellectual laziness.

The idea, of course, that I’ve sought to counter is that the Internet has created a vast democratizing network which gives  a voice to everyone. I’ve opined, “so what?” I have a voice. Does anyone read my blog? Not really. So, does it matter if I have a voice or not when everyone else does? The right and wrong alike? Frank Rich in an op-ed column in the New York Times cuts to the heart of this. He points to ghost written Twitter accounts, an explosion in web-based falsehoods (i.e. that President Obama is a Muslim), and astro-turf political sites that mislead people about popular opinions.

Without touching on how this happens, Rich notes that dishonesty, carefully crafted communication, and our behavioral tendencies all undermine the web’s potential. In short, the things that have made democracy tough to manage before (lies, money, tendencies to not fact-check, and a misinformed electorate) exist today today. Moreover, these problems haven‘t been eliminated by the Internet and it’s ability to provide easily accessible information.

All that the web has done is supercharge who we are – flawed people.

Improving the quality of public information is important. But, it can’t be achieved by simply making more of it accessible. The problem is us. It’s our inability to separate the truth from the lies. It’s our intellectual laziness. It’s our dishonesty. It’s our desire to get what we want and sell our personal beliefs.

So long as technology fails to address the limitations we have, it will always be limited by them. And, this is why an old-school librarian approach still matters.

To balance out the “feelings of euphoria and weightlessness,” here are some reasons why users should to come back to Earth:

All-in-all, I’m pleased with the changes they’ve made. Given some of the hype out there, though, these points sum up exactly what Google Instant is: a nice tweak. We aren’t seeing anything new, it’s not special, and it certainly isn’t a fundamental breakthrough.

Bricks in the Wall: 5.75/10.