BLOG by zaiss

This is the first (of many, no doubt) posts that will showcase breakdowns in my everyday life. Often, it will probably involve breakdowns in my own process, because I figure it’s a safe bet that I won’t offend anybody by making fun of myself. In my HCI Project team, we joke that all should beware of my red marker. If you screw up in front of me, I’ll scribble on you with red marker and mark you as a human breakdown. I think all of us fall into that category from time to time.

On to the topic of this particular breakdown. A few months back, I determined that “routinize” wasn’t a word. I did this, in fact, because I had routinized my own “look up definition” process as follows:

1. Type “define:[the word]” into Google.
2. Read definition.

By that process, I was correct in my assumption. But get your red markers ready.

I originally had this discussion with my buddy Alex, and two weeks ago, he told me, “Routinize must be a word. I just heard it on NPR.” I acknowledged that it did in fact sound like a word… but… I had my doubts. Google said no.

However, not two hours ago, I was sitting in a presentation and heard an official from the City of Pittsburgh say it in a question they were asking a few of my friends. I thought, “Surely, something must be off.”

Apparently, if Google fails on a definition search, the trick is to click the “Search the Web” link. That takes you to many dictionary sites that verify: routinize is, in fact, a word.

In fairness, this breakdown should not be entirely mine. For a word that sounds as cool as routinize (just say it…), I would expect Google to have a definition loaded up and at the ready. On the other hand, the HCIer in me is disappointed that I didn’t fully explore the page and click the only link present in the center. I guess I own the breakdown this time…

Today I heard on the news that President Bush doesn’t like pay much attention to public opinion polls, since it’s like “a dog chasing it’s tail.”

I’d consider chasing after a 1% slip in the polls chasing your tail. But drastically falling numbers would tend to indicate something worth pursuing.

In general, I empathize with the lack of faith in public opinion polls (more to come on that topic later), but when all the random samples start to indicate a plummet in approval, I don’t think the meaning is very ambiguous.

I was chatting with my buddy Alex the other day, and he said, “Dude… check this out.” He sent me a paper that we had apparently co-authored together. “That’s funny,” I thought, “I don’t remember co-authoring a paper with Alex.” But then I read the title, “Decoupling the Transistor from Simulated Annealing in IPv6.” Ah ha! While I wouldn’t put it past myself to sleep through coauthoring a paper with someone, something must be awry if behaviorists are putting out complex comp sci papers.

Welcome to SCIgen, an automatic CS paper generator created by a few folks over at the CS / AI Lab at MIT. It pulls in elements from a bunch of currently existing CS papers to create a new one. Works cited included! Hilarity is sure to ensue… if you have any idea what the concepts are addressing in the first place. Even a CS degree from UNO is leaving me scratching my head at times…

But might this tool have more purposes than just crazy hijinks for CS students? According to the SCIgen website, it can also be fun to submit said random papers to conferences and see if they get accepted. Apparently, one did. You can read all about it (including the letters back and forth) on their site.

Now, while I can appreciate the motivation behind trying to debunk some of the lame conferences out there, I have a few problems with how this is being pursued. First of all, it says something about your discipline (and I’m not sure it’s positive) if the experts in the field can’t distinguish between a random, nonsense paper and an actual publication. Secondly, I think the ethics are a little shady. Check out the Works Cited in “my publication.” You’ll notice that Alex and I are cited repeatedly; sometimes with other authors, sometimes individually. While that’s a clever consideration on the joke angle, once you submit that paper, you are citing non-existant sources or, even worse, citing actual sources incorrectly. I feel both are inappropriate in academia, and inadequately citing a course could be considered plagiarism.

I’m fine with this site as a joke, and I’m happy to have “co-authored” a paper with Alex. But when you submit a paper, I think there’s a reasonable expectation that the paper is legitimate. Therefore, it should be held to the same level of scrutiny and code of ethics as any other submitted paper, especially when it comes to citation of other sources.

In my last post, I mentioned my rationale for choosing a blog over other means of journaling, but this is the post that really spurred it in the first place. As I thought of how I would phrase this topic, I realized, “I can’t let another one of these just slip by without writing it down.” So a domain registration and a blog install later, here we are. Let’s get to the purpose of the post, shall we?

I’ve told a few of my friends (maybe it’s you) that I participated in the National Day of Silence a few weeks ago. For those unfamiliar with the day, the National Day of Silence is a day sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) primarily observed by high school and college students. Participants remain silent for a full day to represent the silence that (stereotypes, homophobia, harsh legislation) afflicts on the GLBT community and their allies. The message: “Mine is the voice you silence.” I think there is a lot of potential in that message, and plus, I enjoy the personal challenge of trying to remain silent for a full day. But I digress.

A few lucky friends got to hear my rant about how CMU held the “National” Day of Silence a week late. While I have plenty to say on that subject, that is not what I want to discuss today. Instead, my focus will be on a T-shirt.

Namely, the T-shirt shown above. This is the shirt created by a member of CMU’s ALLIES organization for the National Day of Silence.

My first glance at the shirt gave me pause. (1) The CMU nerd in me wasn’t sure if the typography was effective, which was proven when the shirts were worn. Up close, you see “MORE”; while from far away, you see “What scares you… might hate?” (2) I wasn’t sure it was sending exactly the right message for the Day of Silence. Nevertheless, I bought a shirt… if only to try and contribute to the organization so that they can continue to do good on the CMU campus. I even wore it on CMU’s Day of Silence.

While I was wearing the shirt, someone stopped me in the hallway. “Excuse me, can I ask you about your shirt? I’ve seen four people wearing it today, and I wanted to know what it meant.” Sweet! Our shirts were generating intrigue and were getting a message across. I proceeded to explain to him the idea behind the Day of Silence, that CMU expanded the day to include any who had been silenced by a hate or sex crime, etc., etc.

“Well, that’s all well and good, but who’s silencing the children?”
“…Excuse me?”
“Who’s silencing the children? I mean, there’s a teddy bear on the back… and some blocks… so I figured your shirt was protesting some sort of child abuse or neglect or something.”

We were getting a message across alright… “We oppose child abuse.” Whoops! Not that I don’t oppose child abuse, mind you… I just didn’t intend to be opposing it so blatantly on that day. I called up Jessica (who had also purchased a shirt, kudoz to her) and told her about the conversation. She acknowledged the point (it’s a good one, yeah?), but said that one could interpret it as a message to people to raise their child with a critical focus. While it is easy to worry about your child being hated, equally important is whether your child is hating others. If every child were taught to not hate one another, we wouldn’t need things like the Day of Silence in the first place.

So what’s the point of all this? Just another crazy, “Hey, look what happened to me” story? Maybe. But more than that, it’s a wakeup call to pay at least as much attention (if not much more) to the message being sent as is paid to how the message gets sent. While we all feel gratified to stand up for a cause we believe in, if nobody else is picks up on what it means, then all we’ve done at the end of the day is wear a shirt.

“I’m so excited! I switched web hosts today and I’m going to set up my blog tonight.”
“Why are you making a blog again?”

I guess its a legitimate question, and one I feel I should answer before I get too carried away. So here we go.

First of all, to have a place to express my thoughts. That’s what a journal is for, right? But that answer won’t suffice, because it’s a lot more straightforward (and a lot more private) to just keep it on your computer.

So what else is there? Not much. My good friend Vince had an awesome blog while it lasted, so maybe I just want to take up the torch. See if I can match wit with an expert. Or, as with Vince, this can be a way to communicate the fun stories of my life (or the trite and boring ones) to my friends and family at home.

I’m not gonna push this or complain if nobody reads it. Really, it’s primarily for me, so if it goes unread I could care less. That said, if you check back every now and again, I might just have something profound to say. And if I happen to encourage someone to think about something in a new way, then I guess thats a good enough reason to blog.