roomthily

Before about 1918, surveyors would faithfully measure snow exactly on the first of the month, regardless of what day of the week it was. From 1919 to 1957, the surveyors would tend not to measure on Sunday, but didn’t mind going out on a Saturday if the schedule demanded it. Nowadays, if the first of the month is anywhere close to the weekend, the surveys are typically taken on the Thursday before (not even Friday). Today’s surveyors are three times less likely to work on a weekend than their predecessors. Certain sites have gone decades never measuring on a weekend. This reminded me of recent studies in the US and Australia showing how climate observers falsify recording zero without checking the gage if they think it didn’t rain. People often skip out of measuring on Sundays (reporting a zero), waiting until Monday to see what accumulated in the gage. People also like to record numbers divisible by 5 or 10, preferring to write down 0.45 inches even if the gage says 0.47.

— Tom Pagano (The River Seers)

1 year ago

May 2, 2012

On “Mind Over Mass Media” By Steven Pinker

Likewise, Facebook — as a way for college kids to meet and greet one another — was a terrific program. As a mirror through which young people forge an identity, however, the program is lacking the nuance of real life. Facebook — more than a program to be feared for its code — is a business plan to be feared for its ubiquity. The object of Facebook is to monetize social interactions. This is the bias of the program, and a bias of which most people are painfully unaware.

Meanwhile, the positive effects of new media — such as their destabilization of centralized currencies and challenge to the forced monopolization of value creation — will remain unrecognized until we move beyond our artificially polarized reaction to the tools, and engage in a more qualitative study of their influences in different circumstances.

The real power of our computers and networks to expand human capacity, promote a global consciousness, and catalyze the evolution of our species will only be realized if we rise above this endless tit-for-tat between “pro” and “anti” technology camps, and instead begin to reckon with the very real biases of these media, as well as how they amplify or diminishes the biases of the systems in which they are operating.

Douglas Rushkoff (via Edge: THE REALITY CLUB)