Structured Thought . ORG

I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with this site (obviously posting isn’t one of those, amirite?!), and I believe I’ve come up with an idea that will work for me. Let’s see if I can follow through with it.

I heard a story the other day on NPR about a new thing in publishing called a ‘Wovel’. Goofy name aside, the idea is that the writer will post a chapter online for all to read, and accompany it with a poll that will dictate the direction for the next chapter. In the current ‘Wovel’ publishig space, the ‘Wovelist’ (I’m repeating this word because I think it’s goofy and trying to either make people sick of it, or learn to like it) asks the readers an either or plot point question (ie. Should Steve buy bread or a gun?). While I like the idea presented by the current model, I think I would like to do something similar, but add elements that aren’t there yet.

I’ve always had a problem with writing (note: I haven’t published anything, so you can see part of my problem, heh): I get stuck easily. I’ll have a great idea, have the first parts of it fleshed out in my head, and *poof*. Stuck. And it generally takes me so long to get un-stuck, I end up saying ‘ah, screw it’, and moving on to something else.

So, all 3 readers of mine, this is my idea: I have the seed of a story in my head. I know roughly where I want it to go. I have the beginning and the end pretty much played out, but the details of the middle are where I’m having issues. My plan is to get down as much as I can until I hit a sticking point, then provide what is written open to comments plus a poll. My hope is that through your suggestions and voting, I will be able to move things along and finally get this thing written.

If (and this is a BIG if) it ever gets published, all contributors will be mentioned in the dedication.

So stay tuned. I’ll create a separate section for this on the site somewhere, and provide a link when it’s ready for prime time.

I have done some rearranging of things.

If anything appears off, let me know and I’ll fix it.

Thanks.

I sent the following e-mail to MiCAUSE via the contact address posted on their site (info@micause.com). I urge every supporter of Proposal 2 to do something similar, but not to gloat. I urge you to do this because it is right to tell this group that we called their bluff, that we were informed enough to see through their lies, and show them that Michigan voters will not tolerate the causes of ignorance.

I was elated this morning to see that Michigan’s Proposal 2 passed, despite your organization’s efforts to stop it through deceit, race-baiting, and flat-out lies. Though, it does sadden me that it passed by such a thin margin, which shows that my work toward educating people against ignorance such as that forwarded by your organization is just now getting started.

Ignorance is a terrible thing.

Witnessing ignorance in action is a painful experience.

Forwarding and furthering ignorance is unconscionable.

Your continual campaign of spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt (what we call in the technology world “FUD”) has shown that, even though you were already aware that the majority of Michigan residents felt that Proposal 2 was right, you simply could not fathom the concept of being proven wrong.

You accuse us of promoting human cloning. A lie.

You accuse us of attempting to create human-animal hybrids. Another lie.

You accuse us of creating additional tax burden on an already overburdened population. Yet another lie.

Finally, you accuse us of being racists. Not only a lie, but offensive and simply childish. If you want to see what race-baiting creates, simply research Cynthia McKinney and her security situation, or (for a more local flair) some of Kwame Kilpatrick’s speeches after his indictment. You are no better than these two, and many others that abuse race issues.

I’m glad to see that a majority of Michigan voters were able to see through your lies and smokescreens to the truth.

I hope that if, at any time, any of your members find themselves in need of any treatment derived from embryonic stem cell research, that they refuse it and live with the consequences. This is the only way to show that you, as an organization, REALLY believe in everything you have said during this election season. By accepting any treatment based upon research legalized by Proposal 2, you show that you truly are what everyone believes you are: Liars and opportunists of the worst kind.

Thank you for showing me how truly informed I can be.

So, MiCAUSE is at it yet again. Their fifth (and hopefully final) ad is a quick little primer in the ideas of semantics an context. Unfortunately, they are failing to understand that they are killing their own cause by quoting out-of-context statements and trying to relate them to the current proposal.

The REAL Bull:

This new ad starts by showing a few animals and stating that they are not their common name (cat, for example), but another name (feline). It does this with the cat and a pig (swine), with a segue into a quote from the director of the organization sponsoring proposal 2, which states: “… embryonic stem cell research … should be publicly funded”. I took a moment to listen to MiCAUSE’s audio evidence of this, and yes, it’s true, he does say that. But the recording is so tightly clipped at the beginning and end that we have no idea in what context he is speaking. The words literally start and end exactly as the quote I copied here. I’ll get back to this in a moment.

After showing this statement, the ad equates an out-of-context statement from over a month ago with the current text of the proposal, effectively accusing the proposal 2 proponents of lying about the tax burden contained in the proposal. Again, if you haven’t read it before, read it again in my first post about this issue. The proposal is very clear in its complete and utter lack of addition of funds to current research.

The fact that the chairperson for Proposal 2 believes that embryonic stem cell research should be funded publicly has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the content of the proposal. I repeat, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. There is no provision in Proposal 2 for the addition of public funds for stem cell (embryonic, or otherwise) research. ABSOLUTELY NONE. That’s right, I’m saying it again. NO ADDITIONAL TAX BURDEN.

Now, back to the context from which the quote in the ad was taken. What question was the chairperson asked? Was he asked flatly “Do you believe stem cell research (embryonic, or otherwise) should be publicly or privately funded?” Was he asked “Will proposal 2 increase public funding for stem cell research?” Was he asked to clarify his statement in the context of proposal 2? We don’t know. I haven’t been able to find the original recording anywhere at this point. If I do, I’ll be sure to update this post with it.

By not providing voters with the context in which the statement was made, they are able to make it say whatever they want. What is the rest of the story, MiCAUSE? What was said before or after that statement? What was the question? We know you won’t publish the rest because it’s very strongly possible that the context of the statement completely negates your point. By completely eliminating context, you put your own credibility at risk.

Of course, that’s assuming that there was any to begin with.

UPDATE: I was, sadly, wrong. There is another, even worse ad out now. I will have to dissect this one tomorrow, as I don’t have the time or the strength to sift through the amount of ridiculousness in the ad at this time.

See what I did there? Yeah, I know. Genius.

On to real content: Yesterday, I was treated to a new ad by our wonderful friends at MiCAUSE, the group that is trying to stop Michigan’s proposal 2 (allowing existing stem cell research to use to-be-discarded embryos as stem cell sources) from passing. The group has resorted to tactics that amount to nothing more than spreading FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt), a practice well-understood in the tech community.

Something I didn’t mention in my last article about MiCause (MiCAUSE Thinks You’re an Idiot) is the reasoning behind the use of FUD. People/companies/organizations typically resort to FUD when all other avenues have been closed, and they realize that they are fighting from the inferior position. My guess is, MiCAUSE has come to the conclusion that they are fighting a losing battle, and possibly that they’re on the wrong side of the argument. Since all tactics have been used up, they have resorted to playing on the fears and abhorrences of Michigan citizens in a last-ditch effort to win voters to their side. Unfortunately for them, those of us with a reasonable amount of intelligence see right through their attempts, and feel it is our duty to inform others of the unconscionable things these groups are doing to further their (arguably incorrect) cause.

As an example of this, I bring to you the latest ad by MiCAUSE, which compares Proposal 2 to the Tuskegee experiments:

So here we have a voiceover that talks about the dangers of “unrestricted scientific research”, while showing pictures and news clippings related to the Tuskegee experiments that lasted from the 1940s to the early 1970s. The experiment took 400 African American sharecroppers that had been infected with the disease and studied the effects when left untreated. This was an unbelievable abuse that was fortunately (though not soon enough) shut down, and led to the creation of informed consent and other patient rights laws.

The ad also states that the proposal allows for “unregulated scientific experimentation on live human embryos”, which is a complete fabrication, and should get them strung up for libel. Proposal 2 simply allows the addition of embryonic stem cells harvested from to-be-disposed lab-created embryos that were created for the purpose of in-vitro fertilization to the available stock of stem cell lines.

Read that (and the proposal) again.

Proposal 2 does NOT allow for ”unregulated scientific experimentation on live human embryos”. In fact, the proposal does not allow for any type of experimentation to be performed on embryos at all. The ONLY thing the proposal allows for is the use of stem cells from to-be-discarded embryos that were originally created for the purposes of IVF.

Read that (and the proposal) again.

I feel like I’m repeating myself (and I am, purposefully), but I can’t stress enough the REAL details of the proposal, and the outright lies being propagated by MiCAUSE.

I haven’t even addressed the racial implications of this new ad which are, frankly, horrifying to me. The ad blatantly plays the race card on an issue that has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with race. In a roundabout and underhanded way, they are equating scientists with hate groups.

I consider myself a color-blind person when it comes to people. I don’t care if your skin is white, green, yellow, black, red, orange, or purple. All I see is a person. Coming from this angle, there is nothing more insulting to me than to be accused of racism. It is also my opinion that those who make baseless accusations of racism are just as bad as, if not worse than those who are actually racist. At least truly racist people are honest, which is more than I can say for MiCAUSE. Look up the term racebaiting, I think you’ll see that it applies to this situation quite nicely.

So, to conclude: MiCAUSE not only thinks you’re stupid, they also believe that supporters of Proposal 2 are racists who want to kill babies. They spread FUD because they know they are fighting from an indefensible position and anyone with even a shred of logical thinking ability can see right through their arguments.

Again, when making decisions concerning legislation, don’t simply take my (or anyone else’s) word at face value. Do your research. Investigate both sides of the argument. Come to your own conclusion. This is how a democratic society works.

I was talking with a friend today over Yahoo! IM. I don’t normally sign in to YIM, and haven’t for several weeks. This is due to the fact that every time I sign in, I get bombarded with spam IMs. Most of these have been sent while I was offline, creating a serious mess whenever I decide to grace the few friends I talk to on YIM with my online presence.

Something that was suggested was a method to only accept messages from people already on your contacts, similar to e-mail whitelisting. It appears that AIM offers something of this type, but only in their ‘Pro’ version.

Why can’t we, by default, set ourselves up to automatically stop IM spam at the source. If someone is not on your contact list, and you have this turned on, they will not be able to contact you. It should be that simple. It should not be a premium or ‘Pro’ feature. It should simply be a flag you check in your account settings that says “Block IMs from anyone not on my contact list”.

Now, if I’m way off base on this, and I’m simply looking in the wrong place, PLEASE leave a comment and let me know where I can set this in either (or both) YIM or AIM. I’ll send you a virtual cookie in appreciation.

As I stated in my previous post, mainframe education has been lagging very badly for quite some time. One of the things IBM has done is to create the Master the Mainframe student competition. This competition gives students a chance to play around with a real mainframe, and learn about its inner workings, and why it’s such an important platform.

This week, IBM has announced a scholarship program that is designed to give students a real reason to pursue mainframe education. The press release can be found after the more link.

I think this is a really good thing. If I plan to extend my education beyond this current degree, I will definitely pursue this scholarship and get myself some more mainframe education. Mainframes aren’t sexy, they don’t have flashy GUIs, and (contrary to a statement in Monday’s premier of ‘My Own Worst Enemy’) you can’t game on them. They are workhorse systems, designed to handle massive amounts of data and process it quickly.

Press Release:

Read the rest of this entry »

The last two years, I have participated in a student competition sponsored by IBM that has been designed to keep interest in Mainframe operations in the younger generations.

Mainframe systems have been around for decades, but over the last 10 years or so, they have fallen out of the public eye, and interest in learning how these systems work has waned. Consequently, the population of Mainframe experts is aging quickly, and some companies are ending up in crisis as these people retire with nobody to take their place.

IBM began this contest with the idea of rekindling interest in Mainframes within student populations.

The competition consists of three parts:

1. General How-To and Getting Around - A simple set of tasks that are designed to give even the absolute beginner an idea of how the system is laid out, how to work with data, and basic operations.
2. Practical Experience - Part 2 gets more involved and gives the student competitor a chance to see what kind of operations real Mainframe admins perform  on a daily basis. This also includes some debugging and job control operations, and actually gets fairly in-depth in the operations of the system.
3. Real-World Challenges - This is a much longer part that pits the student against problems and challenges that have been seen in the real world. There are job control, debugging, coding, administration, and many other challenges.

Last year, I managed to make it through Part 2, but didn’t get a chance to start working in Part 3. This year, I completed Part 2 on the first day of competition, and have started working on Part 3. I plan to work as much as I can on Part 3 until the deadline of December 29.

So, what does all of this have to do with blogging? Well, as part of attempting to get the word out among the younger generations, IBM has offered to work with bloggers and other social media consumers. By feeding us information and soliciting us to share our input and opinions, we can help IBM show the world that Mainframes are still a big thing and worth learning.

Once in a while, you will see a post here with information about the Mainframe world from IBM. I do this because I think it’s a worthy endeavor. Mainframe systems are still the supreme workhorse of the processing world. (These are my own opinions and experience, BTW) While many of the systems with which we interact with Mainframes feel antiquated and counter-intuitive in our point-and-click computing world, they are purpose-built and work perfectly for the system. Getting over the hump of transitioning from a graphical interface to a textual one is one of the biggest challenges for people attempting to get into Mainframe systems anew.

But I think it’s worth it.

Bear with, this is going to be a long one, even by my standards (have you READ my last few? )

There are some TV ads going around in Michigan touting the evils of Ballot Proposition 08-2 coming up for a vote this November (I will post the content of the ballot initiative under the ‘More’ link at the end of this post). To get it out in the air quickly, and get it off my chest before I see another ad, I must say this: These ads are complete, total, and utter spreading of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). Check the link for a ton of information about this particular tactic, but in short: FUD is the practice of spreading information about a topic in order to scare people to their side of the issue by creating feelings of uncertainty and doubt, without actually addressing the issue itself. This is EXACTLY what MiCAUSE (Michigan Citizens Against Unrestricted Science & Experimentation) is doing, spreading pure FUD. And here is why.

Proposal 2 provides several things:

1. The ability to use unneeded lab-created embryos for stem-cell research under Michigan’s existing stem-cell research restrictions. Only embryos that fall under three conditions are allowed for use:
   1. They were created for the purpose of in-vitro fertilization. No other purpose is allowed.
   2. They are unneeded and would otherwise be destroyed. In most cases, several embryos are created in order to pick the most viable, several are implanted, the rest are frozen and eventually discarded.
   3. They are not viable, and would never be implanted. As in nature, not all lab-created embryos are viable for implantation. These are typically immediately discarded.
2. A restriction on any compensation of any kind being offered to the donors. In other words: Nobody is allowed to offer or accept any type of compensation, monetary or otherwise, for their consideration of donation of embryos to research. It is simply, essentially, a second checkbox on the disposal form. Much like organ, tissue, or full-body research donation forms.
3. All stem-cell research performed on embryos MUST conform to state and local laws, except for in two cases:
   1. The law directly interferes with appropriate research as provided by existing constitutional provisions regarding stem-cell research in the State of Michigan. In other words: Opposition groups, such as MiCAUSE cannot come in later and pass a ballot initiative that effectively negates the provisions in this proposal. This is probably the provision that MiCAUSE has the most issue with, as it clamps the door shut on them pretty firmly.
   2. No organization (or person) may offer a disincentive to donating their embryos. This ensures that insurance companies, health organizations, etc. cannot decrease benefits to someone based upon their decision to donate. This is a companion to #2 above: You may not entice someone to donate, and you may not punish someone for donating.
4. If any of the above provisions are ruled unconsitutional, the remainder of the provisions will remain intact. This, again, disallows groups like MiCAUSE to cherry-pick a single point of the amendment and invalidating the entire thing.

That is quite literally the extent of it. Now, let’s have a look at some of MiCAUSE’s FUD. I’ll let you be the judge of what is truth, and what is entirely manufactured from the air (and the belief that you are, in fact, stupid).

Ad #1: Bricklayer

This ad would have you believe that there will be large additional costs to allowing the use of to-be-discarded embryos. Now, click the ‘More’ link and read through the text. Is there anything in there that has anything to do with adding research dollars, creating tax havens for research institutions, or anything at all? That’s right, it’s not there. If you listen carefully, the ad speaks to tax burdens that occurred in other states due to the specific laws passed in those states. Those state laws have NOTHING to do with the Proposal 2 initatives at all.

What MiCAUSE is playing on are the economic woes of Michigan. I’ll be the first to admit, we’re in a bad place right now. The economy is failing, jobs are being lost left and right. We’re fighting to bring more industry in, but it’s not coming nearly fast enough to match pace with the losses. By bringing the fear of increased taxes, MiCAUSE attempts to play on the fear that more businesses will leave the state, taking with them more jobs, and leaving more heartache.

Ad #2: In The Wrong Hands

This is the ad that REALLY caught my eye, and raised my ire. There is so much concentrated FUD here, as well as absolute ridiculousness that it’s actually sad to me to see someone stoop so low to attempt to bring people into their camp.

The ad simply scans across business marquees (all CGI, of course) while it talks about how the proposal will allow ‘profit-driven companies’ to get into the research game. For your entertainment, I have extracted some of the names of these ‘companies’ that they use in a blatant attempt to associate Proposal 2 with practices that are, strangely enough, specifically prohibited by Proposal 2:

1. Human Harvest
2. Cloneway
3. Human Double, Inc.

I think you would find it hard to come across anyone, in Michigan or otherwise, who would be for the creation of human clones,  particularly for research. Yet, this ad firmly attempts to plant these thoughts in the minds of voters. The ad clearly uses cloning when the proposal clearly provides no provisions for cloning, or the creation of anything at all, for that matter. The ad also provides a quote from a CNN Money article that states “Scientists say egg shortage threatens stem cell research, seek ways to pay for eggs”. Again, Proposal 2 specifically prohibits the ability to offer any compensation of any kind. Additionally, Proposal 2 has nothing to do with eggs, but embryos that have already been created for a specific purpose.

This ad is unconscionable. Not only in the idea that it treats every single one of its viewers as a complete and total idiot, which is insulting, but that it takes a very minimal set of facts and manufactures a doomsday scenario that is already provided for in the existing language. In short MiCAUSE is lying to your face without saying anything untrue.

Ad #3: Teacher’s Pet

This ad takes data gathered completely out of context and attempts to apply it to the current proposal. It attempts to say that Proposal 2 will allow for the creation of human-animal hybrids, and even goes so far as to say that, by allowing Proposal 2, we will eventually have part human part animal things walking around in the streets.

This is not only scientifically impossible, but completely, utterly, and downright comically ridiculous. The research that the ad points to has, for one, already been in place for several years. The idea being that if we can create (primarily, though other animals have been researched) pigs that share some genetic code, particularly in the areas of immunity, with humans, we could potentially use pigs and other animals as growth farms for organs. Rather than having to wait for someone to die, a patient that needs a heart could have a heart taken from one of these pigs, and significantly reduce the risk of rejection, as well as the risk of dying while waiting for a viable match.

So, to quickly refute the points of all three of these ads:

• Proposal 2 WILL NOT create an additional tax burden on Michigan residents.
• Proposal 2 WILL NOT create a market for human clones, or require any institution to begin paying for research subjects. In fact, Proposal 2 specifically prohibits it.
• Proposal 2 WILL NOT facilitate the possibility of part human, part animal hybrids to be created. Anything that has been done in the past will be completely unaffected.

Finally:

Please, please do not take what I have stated here at face value. Do your own research, and come to your own conclusions. I post this to make sure that people understand that they simply cannot believe everything they see on TV, or are told by action groups with a singular purpose. You must look at both sides of an issue. This is what I have done, and that is why I post this here.

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I’m getting pretty good at drawing analogies to our current economic woes. Here’s another one I came up with today.

I give you the “South Park: Spontaneous Combustion” analogy:

The credit markets are like Kenny, and the rest of the South Park population…. Observe:
Kenny got a girlfriend. To ensure she continued to like him, he held in his farts. All of them. Eventually the pressure built up and he exploded.

Randy Marsh (Stan’s Dad) discovers this and tells everyone to let their farts out all the time. This causes global warming, which is analogous to the overheated credit market we saw over the last few years.

Eventually, they figure out that you’re only supposed to let your farts out some of the time. Letting them all out, or holding them all in causes problems.

The order is off, as right now we’re in a state where the credit markets are holding in all of their farts, but the parallels are there. Right now, the credit markets have a girlfriend (withholding all credit), and they’re going to spontaneously combust unless Stan’s dad gets them to go back to only letting them out some of the time (lending where appropriate), and not all the time (lending to anyone with a pulse).