The Curmudgeon Speaks

Once I thought of this title, I had to generate a post to go with it.

Most citizens are familiar with the controversy related to the 2016 Presidential election and Russian meddling. I am not addressing collusion although collusion may yet be demonstrated. It is well established that Russian actors worked to use social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to encourage likely Democratic voters either to ignore the election in frustration over the poor options on the ballot or to vote against Hillary. It would be difficult to establish just how effective these efforts were, but we at least know that the Russians made the effort to favor Donald Trump in the election. The content circulated to targeted voters has become known as “fake news”. In other words, this content sent by the Russians was false.

While it has been established that this happened, it is still debated whether the volume of this shared content could have been large enough to matter. However, the impact of the original volume was magnified by the sharing of those who received the initial posts. The reshared posts were reshared again. This is how viral propaganda works.

So, what does any of this have to do with old fogies. The release of a recent study provides the answer. It turns out those over 65 are more prone to share fake news than those from other age groups. Older individuals are also historically more likely to vote and to take conservative views on things. You may start to get the picture.

Get off my lawn you young liberal whippersnappers!

You might find articles related to this age group and fact news propagation research of interest (Verge article, Verge article2).

I am 70. I comment on political news stories on Facebook. Maybe I am the problem. I certainly hope not. I know a few Russians fairly well, but I doubt very seriously I was targeted by the Russian group supporting Donald. Very unlikely I would say. I voted for Bernie in the Minnesota primary. I believe in supporting those less fortunate than myself. I believe that the U.S. has an important role to play in the world and cannot hide behind a real or virtual wall. I was even a college professor. It definitely could not have been me.

However, as a proud member of this age group, I am interested in what about my peers would lead to this willingness to pass on falsehoods and what might be done about it. I kind of understand why older people get more conservative and defensive. They understand things are changing and they tend not to be part of this change. They assume things as they understood them are superior to the world of today and feel they have little opportunity to impact what they see as a slide. This is depressing and at best leads to a group of grumps (my alliteration skills are really working today).

I understand that action is one way to address feelings that you lack control. However, the effort to share is an action that is just too easy to take. It is pretty much mindless and offers little in the way of personal benefit. So, here is the thing old folks. For your own benefit, take the time to read before you share (and not just the title) and take the time to write about why you shared what you did. Mental activity is as important as physical activity at our age. Better yet – walk to the coffee shop and then do your read, write, and share thing.

Hang in there old folks.

One last thing. It turned out I was unsure how to use the phrase “old fogey”. Most of us speak this phrase, but seldom write it. I had to Google the term to find the proper spelling. It turns out there are options. I went with fogey because I found an explanation that claimed fogey was a derivation of a French word. I am doing what I can to develop my cultural side. I am still unsure how to generate a plural. I am going with fogies.

There are folks who blame educators for some of the ideas their kids pick up. Most of us might have thought that this was the goal, but the reaction seems to change when ideas are spun in different directions by politicians. The typical complaint is that educators, at least educators in higher ed, are filling learners’ heads with liberal ideas. There must be some situations in which conservatives are similarly targeted, but I just don’t see these complaints.

This issue gets to the point that some politicians want to legislate the perspectives that can be shared with students.

I guess I would need to be shown specific situations before I would become concerned. To me, many topics of political interest are of interest because the issues are controversial. Reasonable controversy results from different positions that should have some basis in fact or at least logic and the examination of such differences of opinion offer great opportunity to develop critical thinking.

Argumentation is a great way to develop critical thinking and to make important topics meaningful. Argumentation should not be confused with yelling louder or repeating a position without offering evidence or making the effort to understand the position taken and the evidence offered by others. Too often, consideration of reasons and associated evidence is what is lacking.

Climate change makes a great example. The physics and chemistry of climate change are certainly relevant. The willingness of some to reject the consensus of the vast proportion of scientists great opportunities to study the psychology and sociology of human behavior. Of course, there is the economic angle and even the political (civics) perspective.

We are presently involved in a government shut down. A great topic for teaching about the government and the checks and balances of the different branches. Who controls the money? What can be done when branches disagree (the executive and the legislative)? What pressures are brought to bear when the different branches act in ways that conflict? So many opportunities for analysis, position taking, reasons, and justification.

I am a fan of Newsela. The company offers learners examples of high-interest current event content with related tools for learning. When school districts look to invest in online resources that can be used in many areas, Newsela is great example of both content appropriate to many disciplines and integrated learning tools. Of course, Newsela also offers the content it provides at multiple reading levels which is a feature educators cannot really duplicate when attempting to find free online content for their students.

I happen to see today that Newsela is featuring a story on the situation in National Parks resulting from the lack of paid staff. Too political? I guess this depends on how you think kids respond to the facts (and other stuff) on the ground.

This is a recommendation for a podcast you would be unlikely to consider without my suggestion. This suggestion is a weekly addition to the Triangulation TWIT network series and is an interview with Francis Dinha, CEO of OpenVPN. I promote this specific podcast because it is a combination of two stories and believe you will find at least one to be interesting.

When I listened, I had no idea who Francis Dinha was, but because of a general concern for personal privacy I have been exploring the use of VPNs. I learned quite a bit about VPNs and the specifics of OpenVPN from this program. I also found the story of Francis Dinha – probably the first 20 minutes of the program – to be even more interesting.

Dinha was born in northern Iraq and later moved with his parents to Baghdad. The Dinhas are Catholics (hence the first name) and were persecuted for their religion in Iraq. Francis and later his family made several moves to escape oppression in Iraq culminating with Dr. Dinha co-founding a company in Silicon Valley. As I listened to his story, I wonder if Dr. Dinha would even be allowed into the U.S. if he tried to immigrate today. The story of multiple moves learning a different language at each stop and the focus on learning math and since and later on developing a successful company offers a great example of what it takes to be successful and the commitment some individuals are willing to make.

I have an appreciation for those who must try to provide technical support. When they interact with me, I have already tried to problem solve an issue and possibly already created new problems through my trial and error and efforts. Those who try to help as part of another job face significant challenges.

I have been struggling with an app called Libby. This app is provided by Overlook as a way to request and make use of audiobooks and ebooks from libraries. I like to listen to audiobooks and have a 24 books per year Audible account. I discovered the opportunity to download audiobooks from libraries and I have been trying to use this option, too.

I have accounts with two libraries. One located near my “home” in Richfield, MN, and a second with the small country library near our lake place in northern Wisconsin. If you have not tried accessing books, ebooks and audiobooks through your local library you may find the digital option a surprise. The problem is that it may take a long time to be able to read or listen to the book you want. I am just being provided books I put on my list in August (this is the end of December). If you want to read or listen to the currently hot book you will need to make a purchase.

Here is the problem I was trying to resolve. The audiobooks I was provided through the library in Richfield gave me 21 days to complete the book. The book from the library in Northern Wisconsin gave me 7 days. Getting through a 14 hour book in a week was not feasible and I wanted to know if there was something I was missing. The librarian who tried to help was not an iPhone user and even when provided my iPhone was confused. She said she could select either 7 or 14 days when downloading books on her phone, but was unable to show me how to do this. I am guessing someone who addressed Libby problems full time would have the breadth of experience that would make explaining the problem a simple matter.

I think I have this figured out, but for practical reasons it will take some time to test. Libby offers an automatic download option. This was the option I selected. I use the Gmail tool InBox that will automatically shunt different kinds of emails into different folders. This can be very useful as much of the email we receive is not necessarily the messages we want to review daily. With the clock ticking on my access to audiobooks, I thought the automatic download option made the most sense. The problem seems to be that the auto download option applies the default of the library to the time allowed to complete. I have no idea why any library would expect patrons to complete a book at average two hours of listening time a day, but this was evidently the approach taken by one of my libraries. I have changed my use of the auto download feature to see if this will fix the problem.

I have encountered an interesting problem in testing my hypothesis. I have to wait until I have the opportunity to actually download a book. This might seem to be easy enough to test. Pick an old book that would seem unlikely to have a backlog of interested patrons and test the idea. The problem turned out to be that we could not think of such a book that allowed this opportunity and I did not really want to waste a lot of the poor librarians time tyring. We tried “Tom Sawyer” and a few other classics, but all are now on my wait list. I guess this is good.

Be kind to those who cannot be expected to be experts with a specific application. The factors that can be mixed and matched to create unique situations are difficult to anticipate.

I haven’t written a Christmas letter in several years. However, we have been receiving cards and notes with season’s greetings so I am starting to fell like I am no longer doing my share. I write online almost daily, but this probably doesn’t count for much with many folks. I have found a couple of pictures so everyone can see how Cindy and I have aged and I will try to write something here without complaining about the sad state of the country and that low life now in the White House.

First, a little personal history. Cindy and I are retired. We have moved from North Dakota to Richfield, Minnesota, with a second residence on a small lake in Northern Wisconsin. The location in Minnesota allowed us to be close to our kids and grandkids who all also live in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area. We think we have adjusted well and have avoided all of the “issues” the oil patch downturn brought to North Dakota. Leaving North Dakota has given me less to complain about, but I am adjusting and have taken to posting things on Facebook (I guess I already explained just what I mostly write about). I miss the gang at the university. I also try to be productive and have revised our book once and wrote a second. None of my writing really pays for my nearly daily trips to think deep thoughts in local coffee shops, but Cindy thinks it great that I have a hobby. Cindy continues to explore technology herself and provides equipment to the grandkids and tutorials to pretty much anyone else who needs help. It looks like we are joining a group to offer suggestions to our local school system.

We travel as much as we can. At first, we thought we could purchase a small camper and go south like the Iowa farmers do. We tried this and found that it is more complicated than we thought. We thought you just showed up and paid the fees and you could hang out with the other old folks. Not so. Evidently, to get good spots and any spot in many locations, you have to reserve spots a year in advance. It also turned out that Texas and Florida were not as interesting as we had hoped. It would probably help if we played golf, but we don’t. We have decided to spend parts of the winters in Hawaii instead. This year we are headed to Kona (Big Island) late in January and will be joined by various friends and family members. The coffee is great and it is warm. The vegetation is green and far more interesting than what we found in south Texas.

Our kids are all doing well. Our kids and their spouses all have interesting jobs – a couple in education (Jess and Jim), three in health care, administration, and research (Lynn, Kim, and Josh), and Todd in media production. Family gatherings occur regularly and we have the opportunity to hear many stories as their careers mature and their accomplishments accumulate. We have lots of time with the grandkids, watching their events and spending time at the lake. We have been able to include everyone in our travels. If we could just get to the point I could convince them that the sour beers they prefer are intended only for those with a younger palate, all would be good.

We are headed to the lake to celebrate the holidays. We are forever thankful to mom and dad for leaving us the money to purchase this retreat for our family. We could not have done this on our own. We hope everyone has the opportunity to spend the holidays engaged in whatever traditions they find meaningful.

Best wishes,

Mark and Cindy

The concept of the “filter bubble” has received both public and scholarly attention. The notion is that online services want to make us happy and using our past data show us what we want to see. Hence, the argument goes, we end up seldom challenging our personal beliefs rather than search for actual truth.

Most folks, including me, have been persuaded that the filter bubble exists because we have at least some understanding of the interest of online companies in collecting data about our interests and behavior and because we have heard that if multiple individuals conduct the same search at the same time on topics that tend to encourage differences of opinion (e.g, political positions), they will see different things. It all makes some sense.

The recent article from Neiman Labs offers a counter position. This article claims that people self-report bias in their online preferences, but actual data on their behavior suggests they actually consume a much greater variety of positions than they claim. Why – they prefer to affiliate with a particular position and make the claim that their consumption habits fit their preference.

What about the claim that people experience different things from the same search? The Neiman Labs article says that this happens, but it also happens for search engines such as DuckDuckGo that claim their company collects no personal information that would bias search results.

I think it is great when a scholarly approach is taken to investigate claims such as the filter bubble. I admit I don’t know what to believe at this point, but I look forward to reports from those who collect data.

BTW – the Knight report from which the Neiman Labs post was derived offers some additional interesting insights. Among the insights – the online focus of many and the many viewing options on cable television actually means many actually consume little political news. Political junkies consume more, but many consume none at all focusing on ESPN or some other personal interest. So asking questions about online influence needs to be more specific about exactly who they are talking about. A second observation – the priority of online sources for news has encouraged a focus on national issues at the expense of local issues. Many are now unable to name local politicians, but are aware of the nuances of national politics. They may not read the local paper, but they constantly check Facebook.

During today’s appearance before the House Judiciary Committee Representative King (IA republican) asked CEO Sundar Pichai for the names of Google employees who worked on search algorithms. King suggested that the employees’ social media could be searched to see if they were liberals. Mr. Pichai explained that Google did not make an attempt to determine the political affiliation of their employees.

This request reminds me of the concern expressed by political figures that college profs are liberal. I worked in higher education and spent quite a bit of this time as an administrator and as such responsible for many hiring processes. I have tried to imagine where the claim that we have too many of this or that “orientation” of any type would be heading. I know for certain that I was told that it was my responsibility to avoid asking for several types of information that could be interpreted as irrelevant to the job. For example, you don’t ask if a candidate has children. Why? Some might assume you are concerned that the candidate would not have total commitment to the job. I cannot recall if political affiliation was on the list of no-nos. As interested as I am in some political issues, I can’t imagine ever asking someone interviewing for a job about how they vote.

This type of position by politicians seems completely out of touch with reality. It is such an obvious breach of privacy that to have individuals so clueless as to the appropriateness of such behavior serving in any official capacity should be an embarrassment to those who sent this individual to Washington.

Mr. King – tech companies and institutions of higher education are searching for talent relevant to their job requirements. We are even expected adhere to ethical hiring practices that are not biased by gender, race, religious affiliation and even political leaning. I think these guidelines apply in Iowa as well.

BTW – your question of Sundar Pichai regarding your daughter’s iPhone was also clueless. Pichai is with Google. Tim Cook is the Apple guy.

We are in the midst of the “hour of code” week. I am a bit unclear on the intended purpose of this focus. I have no quarrel with the vocational opportunities in knowing how to code as I have benefited greatly from developing this proficiency. I did it later in my life and it certainly required that I spend hundreds of hours in acquiring the basic skills I needed. A more formal educational approach probably would have been helpful.

I am less of a fan of efforts to promote “coding for all’ and the benefits of computational thinking. I tend to view coding for all as not accomplishing much and in the big scheme of things I think brief exposure to other skills and knowledge bases could be more beneficial. I admit that coding for all offers an exposure to what coding is and this exposure may encourage the later commitment that is required to develop skills that are useful. Computational thinking is kind of a mystery to me. One reaction is that it is an alternate way of describing problem solving skills which I know can be developed in a variety of ways and some experts argue are domain specific and thus of limited transfer value. Note at one time educators believed learning Latin would have transfer value and some still make similar arguments for activities such as chess.

Another argument is that some exposure to coding takes the mystery out of experiences that influence our daily lives and few truly understand. This used to be called computer literacy which fell from favor as teaching things that were transitory skills and knowledge and could best be acquired in the context of actual application rather than as a stand alone experience.

It is certainly the case that Google’s algorithms and AI are opaque and not available for examination anyway. Consider that to understand issues such as the commitment of so many to Facebook and the types of information that get shared, the basics of how we engage in online behavior are not best understood by learning to code but by understanding the findings of Pavlov and Skinner. Perhaps we should invest in a few hours of basic psychology for all.

We are spending a few days in Chicago and I am puzzled by this sign which is stationed just outside the front door of our downtown hotel.

I do understand the warning. We are staying on the 24th floor of this very tall hotel. Evidently, ice can form on this fall building and fall onto the sidewalk below. Of course, falling ice could be a serious danger. So now that I have been warned just what am I expected to do. What purpose is this warning expected to serve. Should I retreat back into the hotel? I have been here for several days, but eventually I will have to leave. I am betting that sign will still be there. Should I move more quickly to reduce my exposure? Should I look up to see if a dangerous icicle is about to do damage to my head? I doubt I would be agile enough to dodge. Is this one of those warnings that serves little value to possible victims, but does serve some legal function?  So, if this ends up to be my last post, I leave it to you to address the absurdity of my situation.

I have probably been overly optimistic regarding the benefits of an open Internet and continually try to determine for myself if there is a way to salvage what I saw as the potential. I read a lot about the vulnerabilities of the online behavior mostly focused on personal privacy and manipulation. Less of my time has been focused on the efforts of nation states to direct attacks of different types. Both issues are easy enough for most to avoid, but these are not issues without conseqiuences for all.

I just finished Dawn of the Code War: America’s battle against Russia, China, and the rising global cyber threat coauthured by John Carlin and Garrett Gaff. John Carlin was the assistant attorney general for national security during the Obama administration. The book covers the online damage caused by North Korea, Iran, China, and Russia. Russia, Iran, and North Korea to weaken the United States and China to steal military and corporate secrets.

The Russian meddling in the presidential election of 2016 was covered in the final chapter. There was a few things in the account of this event. The specific insight I gained from this chapter was that national security experts were aware of and tracking Russian meddling. President Obama was conflicted about making a strong public statement on Russian efforts for fear of being accused of attempting to use his office to influence the election. In September an effort was made to take a bipartism statement on Russian meddling by involving Mitch McConell and Paul Ryan, but the Republican leaders refused to publicly acknowledge Russian activity in this collaborative way. What was not said, but I assume, was that Democratic leaders made the decision not to push that matter until after the election because it was thought Hillary would win.