The Blog of Steve Schwartz

SOPA for Non-Techies

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:44:00 -0500

By now, you’ve probably noticed sites such as Google and Wikipedia “blacked out” in opposition to a couple bills in congress called SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (PROTECT Intellectual Property Act).

There are quite a few good write-ups explaining exactly what SOPA is and what it’s implications are. I suggest starting with the SOPA Wikipedia page, or even reading the SOPA bill itself (pdf). The problem is that all of these articles, and the bill, require a technical understanding of how the internet works; it’s easy for many of us doing the writing to take such a technical understanding and background for granted, which I think creates a disservice to the vast majority who merely use the internet.

I hope to give you, the “non-techie”, an understanding of the proposed bill so that you can understand the gravity of the situation, by using some everyday analogies. Will this explanation be 100% technically accurate? No, they are analogies after all. But I hope that’s better than giving an accurate explanation that you don’t understand.

Starting a movie theater

Let’s say you are watching a movie one night with your significant other, and you have an idea. You think, “I’m going to start a theater with premium seating. And cell phones aren’t allowed in the theater. And a candybar won’t cost $5!” And so you start this theater. Starting a theater is expensive, so you don’t have much money for marketing or advertising, you’re going to rely on providing an excellent experience and word of mouth.

Only a couple of the other theaters in town start getting nervous. They don’t want you taking their market. So they complain to the government that you’re playing movies you didn’t get the rights to play. No worries, when the authorities ask, you’ll just show them your licensing agreements.

All of a sudden, patrons stop walking in the door. You walk outside and notice someone has taken your sign down! There’s a notice on the post that says you’ll be legally prosecuted if you put it back up. You search google your theater to see if something comes up, and you realize you no longer show up in search results. You finally get an email with more information, and you’ll be allowed to present your case and prove your innocence (which will be easy since you have all the proper licensing agreements in place).

Your court date is in 30 days. It doesn’t matter. You’ll be out of business by then.

Think this is crazy? This is basically what happened to MegaUpload when they posted a music video containing artists like Will.I.Am endorsing the website (and which they were requested to post by the artists themselves)! Universal Music Group (UMG) filed a takedown notice ordering MegaUpload to immediately remove the video until they could get a court hearing.

Opening a bar

Beaten but not broken, you decide to start a new company. To avoid the mess that happened last time, you decide to clear completely clear of the media industry this time around. You decide to open a bar. Without TVs. It’ll just be an awesome social atmosphere with an excellent selection.

Everything goes well this time around, until one night customers inexplicably stop walking in the door. Remembering last time, you walk out front and your sign has been taken down again! “What happened this time?! I don’t even have a TV in the bar!”

You finally get the email and it says your bar has facilitated the distribution of unauthorized goods via the bulletin board, and you will not be allowed to serve customers while under investigation. You walk over to the board and see a small yellow flier offering counterfeit watches for sale.

You know how this story ends. Again.

Think this sounds crazy? This happened to a Canadian blogger running a climate-change blog, called ClimateAudit.org, which was hosted on servers are in the US, when a random visitor posted in the comments that they had a file containing over 5,000 emails from respected climate scientists in which they expressed doubts about the robustness of their climatology findings. The government ordered WordPress to freeze the blogger’s account for 90 days while they investigated.

In the real world

In both of the related real-world accounts, neither MegaUpload nor ClimateAudit.org actually went out of business as a result of the events, since they were one-time isolated events for each that were eventually worked out. However, this would not necessarily be the case given the new powers granted to the government by SOPA and PIPA.

They would allow the government to order Google, Facebook, and others to blacklist your website from being returned in search results or shared, and order internet service providers like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T to prevent people on their networks from accessing your domain, without the need to access your servers or invade your business. Essentially, they can take down your sign before you’re actually found guilty.

Imagine a world in which large corporations and conglomerates have the ability to hire departments of attorneys who can file frivolous notices with the government and have you go out of business simply as a side effect of the actual due process involved!

Again, this is all highly simplified and analogized, so I encourage you to read more technically accurate articles if you are so inclined.

And contact your local representatives!

The Science Behind "Having a Bad Day" (and how to solve it)

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:17:00 -0400

Update: This article was republished on Lifehacker on July 26, 2010.

Sometimes you wake up, and within the first hour or so, you know it’s going to be a bad day. It happened to me a couple days ago, and it happened to my girlfriend just this morning. So I’d like to take this opportunity to go on the record saying this entire notion of having a “bad day” is bullshit! Don’t worry, this is not a rant, there’s real science behind it. Let me explain.

A Bad Day is as Real as You Make It

Think for a minute… when is the last time you had a bad day? When is the last time a couple things happened, not quite as you had planned, and you thought, “I cannot wait until today is over!”

Here’s the thing… there is absolutely no such thing as a bad day in reality. A bad day only exists in our interpretation of reality, which then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When asked in an interview [1] if there is any science behind why a bad day occurs, Peter J. Bentley, PhD, writer of Why Sh*t Happens: The Science of a Really Bad Day, responded:

Yes, and it’s our fault, I’m afraid! The statistics show that people who believe in bad luck will have more accidents on Friday the 13th. Those who have a negative attitude are more likely to endow normal little mishaps with some mystical significance. Some psychologists even suggest that it’s a way of subconsciously avoiding responsibility for our actions. “It was Friday 13th, so I was bound to stick my fingers with superglue” or “Accidents happen in threes, so after the first mishap the next two were inevitable.” Of course it’s nonsense.

So there you have it, we have the ability to make a bad day exist if we believe it to exist.

Disclaimer: I have not yet read the book mentioned above, and only came across it when doing research for this essay. I have added it to my queue and look forward to posting an update once I’ve read it. If you’ve read this book and have some feedback, let me know in the comments!

Simplification Turned Against Us

The question then becomes, if we know that a bad day is all in our heads, then why do we allow it to occur? Why do we give in and throw away the rest of our day, simply by accepting and believing that we are indeed having a bad day?

The answer: it’s a convenient over-simplification.

The brain’s facility to simplify, in most contexts, is very useful and beneficial. Our brains develop symbols, or abstract representations of complex ideas, that allow us to connect the represented ideas with other ideas, and to build upon them, without having to keep the full details of every complex idea at the forefront of our minds.

In other words, simplification clears our minds, freeing our brains to draw additional connections and conclusions from complex ideas, data, and experiences.

But what happens when we simplify experiences with the wrong symbolic conclusion? This is precisely what happens when we conclude that we are having a bad day. We blame our misfortune on factors outside of our own control, in order to avoid analyzing the real reasons things happened as they did (or perhaps even to eschew our own responsibility). Hence, it is easy for us to believe we’re having a bad day. The obvious downside is that once you accept the convenient conclusion that the entire day is for naught, it will actually cause the rest of your day to go horribly awry.

I’m not exactly saying you should discard all belief in the notion of luck. In fact, a recent study published in Psychology Today indicates that people who believe in luck are in fact luckier and happier throughout their lives than those who don’t [2]. Perhaps we should believe in good luck, but not bad luck, if such a thing is possible.

The Waterglass of Expectation

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Placebo Effect. More specifically, studies examining the neurobiological effects of placebos, such as analgesia, have shown definitively that our expectations directly impact our interpretation of reality. Medical subjects who are told they will experience pain, experience heightened pain. Subjects who are merely told that they have been given something to reduce pain, experience a greatly reduced level of pain. The only difference was the expectation each subject had going in. [3]

Furthermore, Robert Coghill, PhD, a pain researcher at Wake Forest, has taken MRIs of subjects and found that this placebo-induced analgesia occurs at the most basic level or our perception of pain. It’s not just a matter of patients fooling themselves into experiencing lesser pain. The brain regions that interpret pain actually show far less activity when subjects have lowered expectations for the pain they will experience. [4]

We’ve already established that if you expect bad things to happen, you are more susceptible to having bad things happen to you. As the cherry on top, negative expectations will also cause you to interpret things in a negative manner. So, even if the rest of your day is average, you won’t see it that way.

Experiencing the world with negative expectations is like viewing reality through a muddy waterglass. Your view will be distorted and you won’t like what you see.

Ending Our Bad Day

Neurobiology is fun and interesting, but how does this help us fix our bad day? After all, even when we know a bad day is all in our heads, it can still be very convincing and real to us when we’re having one. Here are a few steps that can help turn a bad day around:

Reflect on the negative feeling you have right now. Is it stress? Anxiety? Frustration? What caused it? Try to label it in one to three words, but no more! For instance, it might be “frustration with clients” or “anger from assholes.” You know, something like that. Once you’ve labeled it, do not think about the feeling or events anymore. Move on and only refer back to the label if necessary.

Matthew Lieberman, an associate professor at UCLA, has shown that the simple act of putting our feelings into a word or two can dramatically reduce the effect of those feelings. When you’re angry, simply attaching the word “anger” to your feeling makes you less angry. [5]
Re-evaluate the situation or events that lead to this stress. Find some conceivable positive outcome. Did you just lose a client? Figure out why, and you’re left with a powerful experience from the school of hard knocks, which you can use to your advantage in the future.

Or if that fails, try to imagine some way it could have gone worse (your mileage may vary with this technique… I’ve just found that it works for me).

Reevaluation is often much easier said than done (it’s the most difficult step in this list by far). There are a few tricks you can use to help you get in the right mindset to reevaluate your situation. These tricks rely on the fact that the brain responds to novelty by releasing dopamine, which puts you in a good mood can help to reset your outlook. [6]

The crazy thing is that you can trigger your brain’s novelty response with seemingly small and trivial changes. The main idea is to simply change your environment in some small way so as to cause an out-of-the-ordinary experience. Some examples (which I’ve had a lot of luck with) include heightening or lowering your chair (or moving the seat in your car slightly aft or fore, but so as to still be comfortable and safe). You may also try listening to a different type of music; if you normally listen to rock, listen to some hip hop for the day. Go for a bike ride or walk in an area you’ve never explored (again, stay safe). For lunch, go to a restaurant at which you’ve never eaten.
Remember that the outcome of the last minute is not indicative of the outcome of the next minute. Likewise, the last hour has no bearing on the next hour, and this morning is no indication of what this afternoon will bring.
There is no step 4, just get on with your life already!

You may also try talking to someone you trust, but beware. As stated in #1 above, thinking too deeply can cause you to dwell and can heighten your sense of frustration or anger with the events that have gone unfavorably, which may lead inevitably to the downward spiral otherwise known as “a bad day”.

Many of these ideas were inspired by or adapted from David Rock’s book, Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long. If you’re interested in why our brains work as described here, or why some of these techniques work, I highly recommend it. It’s not just a bunch of self-improvement, believe-in-yourself fluff; it explains how the latest discoveries in neuroscience and neurobiology can impact your day-to-day life.

[1] Interview with Peter J Bentley, PhD

[2] Study published in Psychology Today on effect of believing in luck

[3] Studies examining the neurobiological effects of the placebo effect

[4] MRIs showing placebo-induced analgesia

[5] The effects of putting feelings into words

[6] Response to novelty predicts the locomotor and nucleus accumbens dopamine response to cocaine

Want to be an Entrepreneur? College May Help.

Mon, 03 May 2010 12:31:04 -0400

Caterina Fake recently wrote a post entitled “Want to be an entrepreneur? Drop out of college.” You may know Caterina better as the co-founder of Flickr, or more recently of Hunch.com. And she certainly has some good points. I especially like her observation that “College works on the factory model…” while “Entrepreneurship works on the apprenticeship model.” If you have a moment, her article is a quick and insightful read. However, I think she glosses over some facts that make her advice to drop out of college short-sighted at best.

Keep in mind that I understand and agree with Caterina’s view that there is no better way to be an entrepreneur than to get out there and do it. For this post, I am focusing on her end advice, rather than her motivation.

College Is More Than Academia

If you’re focusing on college as an institution solely to teach you academia in the classroom, then yes, it wouldn’t much further you on your path to entrepreneurship. However, college has many other, less quantifiable benefits. For instance, it vastly expands your network, teaches you how to relate to people with whom you have very little in common, and helps you improve your ability to learn.

I wrote an essay discussing the misperceptions of the purpose of college, involving the Imposter Syndrome and the Dunning-Kruger Effect. I think that applies perfectly here, so I won’t delve into it again.

Drop Out For a Concrete Reason, Not Some Abstract Concept

There is one thing that Caterina seems to have glossed over concerning every one of those people she mentioned that dropped out of college to become great successes. Each one had a very immediate and pressing need to drop out. None of them randomly said, “I don’t feel like staying here, I think I’ll drop out and spend some more time becoming an entrepreneur.” They each reached a tipping point in their careers where they needed to decide between one or the other. They reached a point where college legitimately got in the way of their companies and their opportunities.

I’m going to go out on a limb here (though I would never presume to speak for Caterina, as I do not know her) and assume that Caterina is not advising young entrepreneurs to drop out of college before they have some idea of what they’re trying to do. And for my part, I would never advise anyone to pass up an amazing opportunity just to stay in college. If I had ever been forced to make the decision, I would have dropped out as well. But I never had to choose. And I think many people don’t need to choose. There’s often no reason you can’t do both.

For some, dropping out of college may indeed be the right thing to do. I personally couldn’t and didn’t need to, so I finished college while running my companies.

College Can Create Opportunities

Furthermore, when you’re a young entrepreneur, you face a lot of skepticism from older, more experienced entrepreneurs. Try introducing yourself as the founder/owner/CEO of anything at the ripe-old age of 23 and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Having a degree or two goes a long way toward building credibility for yourself and your endeavors. It shows that you do, indeed, have the wherewithal to follow long-term struggles through to completion without giving up. In many ways, it can create opportunities for you that you couldn’t imagine.

No, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did not need the credibility of a college degree. But they were also very fortunate to have amazing luck throughout their lives. I’m not saying they aren’t extremely intelligent; they were able to take advantage of their luck in ways most are not. Just give Outliers and Founders at Work a read for a chronicling of their amazing luck (and the luck of many other famous founders).

Sure there are some great entrepreneurs who dropped out of college, but there are also great entrepreneurs who earned a college degree. How about Warren Buffet, Dan Gilbert, and Donald Trump just to name a few? Just because there are a few high-profile entrepreneurs who dropped out of college to find their success does not mean dropping out was the main cause (or even a contributing cause) of their success. This causal oversimplification is known as the Fallacy of the Single Cause.

Understand the Real Benefits of College Before Dismissing It

I suppose it’s time for some sort of point here. What am I trying to say exactly? I’m saying that college is an amazing learning experience for anyone fortunate enough to have the opportunity. It doesn’t just allow you to grow, it teaches you how to grow.

No, college isn’t for everyone. Great arguments could certainly be made both for and against finishing college. But it can be a great experience if you make it a great experience. Don’t get so caught up in the academia and the grades. Go ahead and start a company (or two). Start a rock band. Join as many clubs as possible. Play some sports. Go to house-parties. Begin new relationships. Build a network that you can keep for the rest of your life. Keep your eyes open for opportunity. Drop out if necessary. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to finish college and get your degree.

New Release: jQuery EasyTabs Plugin

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 19:53:10 -0400

New Release: jQuery EasyTabs Plugin

Rails, Prototype, and JQuery in Harmony (or how to replace Prototype with JQuery)

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 22:36:34 -0400

Rails, Prototype, and JQuery in Harmony (or how to replace Prototype with JQuery)

Equality and Governmental Responsibility

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:43:58 -0400

I recently read a great book called Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman (on Amazon). One point Friedman touched on was that of graduated income tax and the redistribution of wealth. This struck a chord with me as I began to think of wealth, not just in a monetary sense, but as a measure of happiness. This line of thinking brings about some interesting implications.

Graduated Income Tax

Graduated income tax (or progressive income tax), in the simplest terms, is the act of taxing higher income brackets a higher percentage on their income than lower income brackets. For instance, someone who makes $20,000/year may be taxed 15% of their income, or $3,000, while someone who makes $100,000/year may be taxed 28% of their income, or $28,000, rather than 15% like the lower income tax bracket.

If an individual makes $20,000/year, and basic living expenses are assumed to cost $15,000/year, then that individual’s disposable income is $5,000/year, or 25% of their annual income.

If an individual makes $100,000/year, basic living expenses would still be $15,000/year, leaving that individual with $85,000 in disposable income, or 85% of their annual income.

There are number of arguments for graduated income tax, the strongest of which address a common standard of living and the redistribution of wealth. I’d like to get to my point, so I’m going to glaze over these, as they are outside the scope of my point. However, I encourage you to read up on these arguments in favor of graduated taxation.

The argument concerning a common standard of living is based on the fact it takes a fixed amount of money to afford the very basic of necessities for living in our society: food, housing, clothing, education. This amount is fixed, regardless of income earned, and it is the minimum amount needed to live. No matter how much money you make, this amount cannot be spent on anything else, since it must be spent to live. All other income that is left over after this amount is known as disposable income. This is the amount that typically gets taxed (the government determines the exact amount for the standard of living each year). Now, this argument for graduated taxation says that the higher income brackets should be taxed a higher percentage, simply because they can better afford it beyond the most basic standard of living.

The second argument for redistribution of income says that it is the government’s job to ensure the welfare of its citizens. At first glance, this seems a fairly reasonable assumption. Note that this is different than saying that it’s the government’s job to protect and ensure the freedom of its citizens to pursue and create their own destiny. As with most subjects, I am split between viewpoints. On one hand, I’d like to say that the government’s job is simply to protect the freedom of its citizens, and it is the citizen’s responsibility to ensure their own welfare. On the other hand, if taken to the extreme, without compromise, this would mean that there is no justification for programs such as state-funded mental health facilities, orphanages, etc. This is an extreme with which I disagree.

Graduated income tax aims to make the disposable income of each bracket more equal. If the low-income individual is taxed 20% of their income beyond standard living expenses (e.g. $5,000), then they would be left with $5,000-$1,000=$4,000.

At its extreme (and this is an exaggeration for illustrative purposes), let’s assume taxation leaves both brackets with exactly equal disposable income. This means the high-income individual should also be left with $4,000 of disposable income. Of the $85,000 left over after standard living expenses ($100,000-$15,000=$85,000), they would need to be taxed at 81% in order to leave them with $4,000 of disposable income.

The Point: What Is Equality?

The point I wanted to address concerns the issue of equality and redistribution of income. Let us assume that we do want equality in welfare for all citizens, regardless of each person’s capabilities and advantages. And let us also assume that it’s the government’s responsibility to help redistribute income in order to promote equality in welfare among its citizens.

The fallacy is that this is practiced today with the assumption that equality in welfare means simply fiscal equality; it is widely assumed that for all people to be equal, they must have more or less equal disposable incomes. But who decided that disposable income be the measure of equality? Is happiness not the real goal of the individual? Sure, many would argue that higher disposable income allows for a higher level of comfort, which directly contributes to an individual’s happiness. However, even if this were completely true (and many will argue it’s not), is happiness not still the ultimate goal? So wouldn’t true equality mean an equal distribution of happiness?

Where Does Happiness Come From?

Let’s look at two specific personalities, we’ll call them Frank and Fred. Frank loves being productive and creating things above all else. Fred loves relaxing and leisurely activities above all else. I’m sure from personal experience, you can agree that these two (overly simplified) types of people do in fact exist.

In order to satisfy his own enjoyment, Frank may spend his life starting and running his own business, at the expense of his social and personal life. He has little free-time, and may even fail repeatedly. But that’s okay, because it’s what makes him happy. Not to mention, he may one day enjoy the rewards of such a productive lifestyle in the form of monetary compensation, resulting a higher disposable income and affording a greater level of comfort.

For the same reason as Frank (to satisfy his own enjoyment), Fred may spend his time hanging around and playing video games. He is employed, but has no interest in putting forth extra effort or moving up in the company, so long as he can afford his leisurely activities and keep his free-time. Again, this is okay, because it’s what makes him happy. In doing so however, he has accepted that he most likely will not enjoy the eventual pecuniary rewards of Frank’s productive lifestyle.

When left alone, people tend to find their own balance to achieve the greatest happiness.

After paying a graduated income tax, though, Frank and Fred will be left with a more equal disposable income. Frank is taxed more heavily so that Fred may be taxed less heavily. In other words, Frank is picking up Fred’s slack. The argument for equality says that every individual should enjoy an equal amount of disposable income, regardless of capabilities and advantages. However, in redistributing income through a gradual income tax, the government has actually made the distribution of happiness more unequal, in favor of the lower income bracket. Not only is Fred now able to enjoy his more leisurely lifestyle and greater amount of free-time, but he gets to enjoy the a portion of the monetary rewards of Frank’s more productive lifestyle. Meanwhile, Frank still has less of a social life and less leisurely time to enjoy. And now he also less monetary reward to enjoy.

Governmental measures such as a graduated income tax attempt to create equality by redistributing income and thus making monetary rewards equal across the board. This tends to make the distribution of happiness unequal.

If you’re an Ayn Rand reader or a fan of Objectivism, this is where you’ll argue that Frank will eventually realize that his time is better spent relaxing, rather than producing. I.e. he will be left with more enjoyment from relaxing rather than producing. The government may take a disproportionate amount of his monetary rewards for producing, but it won’t take away his free-time for relaxing and notproducing. The overall result is a drive toward lower production and more wasted resources. However, this is not the argument I’m shooting for in this essay, largely because it relies on speculation rather than observation.

How Can Government Redistribute Happiness?

My point is that it is important to realize that different things make different people happy and comfortable to a different extent, and that disposable income is only one factor. If left alone, people tend to spend their time as best they can in order to satisfy their own enjoyments. This includes expectations for monetary rewards and desired disposable income. Sure, almost everyone would like to have a lot of money to play with, but it is evident in how people spend their time, as to who places more importance on this in relation to other factors in their lives. Is governmental distribution of income really the best solution toward equality?

Flat Tax

For completeness’s sake, I will simply point out that there is another solution for income taxation known as the Flat Rate Tax, or flat tax for short. It simply states that all income beyond the basic standard of living is taxed at a constant percentage rate. If you are not familiar, I encourage you to read more about it.

Update: Daniel Kahneman on Happiness

Since this post has been sitting in my drafts folder, I stumbled upon this TED 2010 talk by Daniel Kahneman, a Professor of Psychology at Princeton University. His talk analyzes the psychology of happiness, distinguishing the part of us that remembers happiness and the part that experiences happiness. At the end of the presentation (around 18:28 into the video), Daniel is asked how the study of happiness might influence governmental regulation and taxes. Needless to say, I’m glad I’m not the only one thinking of this stuff, and it was just the motivation I needed to finally post this essay. So, if you have the time, this is a great presentation to watch and well worth the 20 minutes:

Make Sure Your Rails Application is Actually Caching (and not just pretending)

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:53:29 -0500

Make Sure Your Rails Application is Actually Caching (and not just pretending)

Performance Tuning for Phusion Passenger (an Introduction)

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 01:36:24 -0500

Performance Tuning for Phusion Passenger (an Introduction)

Unless You're Changing It, Quit Your Bitchin'

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:55:00 -0500

Life Often Doesn’t Meet Expectations

Not to single her out, but this post resulted again from a conversation with my girlfriend a few weeks ago (much likemy last post). She called me, very upset with the results of an exam she had recently taken. I knew if she was calling me about it, it couldn’t be good. I remembered her spending a decent amount of time studying for that exam, and she had felt unusually uneasy going into it. Sure enough, my suspicions were right, she had not done as well as she had hoped (keep in mind that she has unusually high standards for “satisfactory” when it comes to her own achievements).

She was particularly down on herself, as this exam covered topics that she found especially interesting. News of her grade had basically ruined her day. She was filled with angst and worry… “What if I don’t improve?… What if I fail the next one?… What if I don’t graduate?…”

Here’s the thing… life likes to throw shit in your face. But there’s two kinds of shit it hits you with: the shit you can change and the shit you can’t. Now if this happens to be one of those things you can’t change (someone close to you passing away would fall into this category), then I am truly sorry and I will be here for you and listen to everything you have to say.

However, if you’re dealing with shit you can change…

Do Something Or Don’t

Believe it or not, I’m really not an insensitive jerk. In fact, quite the opposite; I know exactly how my girlfriend was feeling because I’ve been there many times. It took much stress and worrying of my own to realize one simple fact that has changed my life over and over again.

When life is less than satisfactory, you really have only two choices: do something, or don’t.

Like I said, I’ve been there. Case in point: my college had somewhat of an uneven gender ratio. Kettering University (formerly General Motors Institute) was about 87% male while I attended. As a result, Kettering had three major pastimes among students:

Studying (what else were we going to do?)
Drinking (admittedly I participated in this much more than #1)
Complaining

Yes, it was very popular to complain about the lack of females on campus and the IPS exhibited by many of the on-campus ladies (IPS is Instant Princess Syndrome, and for your sake I hope you did NOT know that). But I was constantly annoyed by the complaints. For my part, instead of complaining, I decided to do something about it. With my free-time I did many things worthwhile toward this end. These included:

starting a rock band
starting a company (then 2 companies, then 3)
traveling (study-abroad is a great opportunity)

Why did I do these? Why does any guy do anything? It’s for the shorties! And they were all relatively successful. Not only did I now have nothing to complain about, but I actually enjoyed and learned from each and every experience.

Success Is Irrelevant

Now don’t get me wrong, when you do something to change your life, it won’t always be successful. Hell, I learned to play guitar and started a band in high school, and it didn’t really get me any ladies at all. And rightly so, we kind of sucked.

Then again, it really depends on your definition of success. Some of my greatest memories were of practicing in our garage, playing shows with my best friends, and hanging out at bars we weren’t old enough to be in. Even my first experience dealing with clients happened when a bar refused to pay us and I had to step up and be the hard-ass to get our money. But I digress…

License To Bitch

This leads me to the main point of this philosophy: if you choose to do nothing, you have no right to bitch.

Do you hate your job? Unless you’re polishing your resume and applying for other jobs, I don’t want to hear it. Is your car broken again? Try being thankful for the millions of people throughout history who have made the miracle of the automobile, interstate commerce, and suburban sprawl possible. Oh, and go get your car fixed or pick up a book to learn to fix it.

Did you do worse on your exam than you had hoped? Figure out where you went wrong and fix it. And this is just what my girlfriend did. She setup meetings with the three professors who taught that course to discuss her exam. As it turned out, her professors were surprised to see her following up; she actually performed much better than the majority of the class. Her professors actually said that it looked like she knew the concepts and studied enough, she had just been too hasty on many of the easy ones, not noticing when there was an “all of the above” choice, for instance.

She immediately felt better. Not to mention, she now knows to spend more time reading the questions on the next exam. And best of all, I got to say, “I told you so,” concerning my advice to stop worrying and start doing something about it.

Sometimes Complaining Is Changing It

It’s important to remember that sometimes complaining actually is doing something. This applies mostly to those who have a voice and are in the business of persuasion. Democracy, for example, is a numbers game. Changing our system usually requires you to first persuade a great deal of people to agree with you. In this case, complain away! Just don’t complain that no one is listening unless you’re doing something to make them listen.

No One Else Is Going To Fix Your Problem

The thing to take away from all of this is that, no one is going to fix your problem for you. Life can be cruel, it’s up to you to punch it in the face. No matter how much you complain, no one is going to simply hand you a solution. They’re not even going to fight for you. The best you could hope for is that they’ll be able to relate and be motivated to go to bat with you. But even then, they’re not fixing your problem, they’re fixing their own (the two just happen to align).

Don’t be afraid to fight for what you want. Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to try again. You only get one life, so do your damnedest to screw it up. If you can get really good at failing, eventually you’ll fail at that, and wind up with a success. The only way to avoid failure altogether is to sit on your ass. But if you ask me, that’s the greatest failure of all.

Update: Further Discussion

See a great discussion of this topic on Hacker News.

How to Include Your Rails App Layout in Your Wordpress Theme (or any PHP application)

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:11:27 -0500

How to Include Your Rails App Layout in Your Wordpress Theme (or any PHP application)

Disturbing Misinterpretations: No One Knows What the F*** They're Doing

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:03:00 -0500

I recently published an article that talks about the tendency we have to feel ashamed for not knowing or knowing how to do something, entitled No On Knows What the F*** They’re Doing, which has received a lot of feedback and discussion. First and foremost, I’d like to thank everyone for all of their great feedback and contributions to the discussion.

Though 99.9% of feedback was spot-on (which I’m pleasantly surprised about… we’ll chalk it up to beginner’s luck), I feel a responsibility to point out and correct a few misinterpretations I’ve seen popup a few times in some of the feedback and discussion that has taken off in the past week from this article.

But first, a commenter also pointed me to this ~~related~~ hilarious comic at phdcomics.com.

Ignorance Is Okay (misinterpretation)

I’ve read at least one comment saying that my advice is bullshit, because ignorance should not be condoned and people should get off their lazy asses and learn stuff. Well, if I had interpreted my article to be condoning ignorance and laziness, I would think it’s total bullshit as well.

In fact, I am not condoning either… just the opposite. In the concluding paragraph to the article, I alluded to my observation that fear and shame seem to be common obstacles that keep people from speaking up when they don’t know something. My point is that you should not feel either. My objective was to eliminate a common barrier that people feel when encountering new situations or information, when they approach the limits of their comfort zone.

What I’m not saying: “It’s okay to be ignorant.”

What I am saying: “Everyone is ignorant at some time about some thing. So get over it, and pull yourself through it.” I.e. “Get over yourself and figure it out.”

Fake It ‘Til You Make It (misinterpretation)

I think/hope this one was mostly said tongue-in-cheek, but I’ve seen this in a few comments and tweets about the article. People seem to be relieved that others are just as clueless as they are; this is good, this is what I wanted. But then they go on to conclude that, as a result, it’s okay to pretend to know stuff you don’t, because no one actually knows anyway.

If anything, this is the exact opposite of the intended interpretation of the article. For one, my point isn’t that when you don’t know something, neither does anyone else. Hell no, there will always be someone who knows the things you don’t know. Rather, my point is that no one knows everything, so when you do encounter something you don’t know, seek the answers and ask someone if needed. They will not think less of you for not knowing already, because they have been there and they know what it’s like; they can relate.

What I’m not saying: “No one really knows X, so it’s okay to pretend you do at least until you learn X.”

What I am saying: “Everyone doesn’t know something, so don’t be ashamed when you find something you don’t know. Ask, discover, figure it out, and turn it into something you do know. Then there will be no need to pretend or fake.”

Confidence and Ego Are Bad (misinterpretation)

I’ve seen a couple ad hominem comments (comments that refute my point based on my perceived personal character, rather than on the point itself), concluding that I must have a strong dislike of people who are confident and have an ego.

On the contrary, I have quite healthy confidence and ego myself. My only guess is that these people must have skimmed the article and missed the first of two types of people with confidence and ego. From my original post:

They have figured out everything written here, and thus, are on an even playing field as you. They deserve it no more (and no less) than you do. They (and you) have a very large shit you know you don’t know category. Not only that, but they (and you) can only imagine how immense the shit you don’t know you don’t know category is (since it’s impossible to know by virtue of being the stuff you don’t know about). It’s easy to see how small the shit you know category is by comparison. And it is this awareness that makes them (and you) feel so clueless at times.

What I’m not saying: “People with confidence are only confident because they don’t realize how much they don’t know.”

What I am saying: “People with confidence are one of two types: 1) those who realize it’s okay to not know everything, but who strive to nonetheless, and 2) those who don’t realize how much they don’t know. Confidence built on a firm grasp of reality and humility is good. Confidence built on ignorance is bad. Be one of the former, never the latter.”

Ignorance Is Only Okay If It’s Temporary

A healthy outlook on life, learning, and knowledge, is to remember that ignorance of any one thing is only okay as a temporary state. When you encounter something you don’t know, learn it. Try (and enjoy trying) to eliminate ignorance, but remember that the universe is big, and you will never finish your pursuit.

But it’s okay, because that’s not really the point, is it? The point is not to fully eliminate all ignorance (well, maybe as a civilization it is, but we’re talking about the individual here); the point is to enjoy trying.

Update: Another Comic

Another commenter just pointed me to yet yet another related comic, again at phdcomics.com.

How to Monitor Your Rails/Passenger App with Munin

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:54:12 -0500

How to Monitor Your Rails/Passenger App with Munin

No One Knows What the F*** They're Doing (or "The 3 Types of Knowledge")

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:37:00 -0500

Be sure to check out my follow-up to this post, clarifying and addressing a few misinterpretations that have been making their way around the internet.

Feeling Like a Fraud

Have you ever received praise, or even an award, for being great at something despite having no clue what you’re doing? Do you feel like a fraud, wondering what sort of voodoo you’ve unwittingly conjured up to make people think you know what you’re doing, when the reality is quite the contrary?

I recently had a conversation with my girlfriend (going to school for her nursing degree) when she expressed her confusion with some praise she had received from her professor. Her professor had told her that she was the best nursing student she had had in years. “But how the hell could that be true?” she asked me. See, she sometimes struggles studying, is often worried about doing poorly on exams, and stresses about all of the things she doesn’t quite understand or can’t quite remember. At the same time, she sees other people stroll into test-time confident and carefree. She sees others never asking questions and always seeming to just “get it”. By comparison, how could she possibly be any professor’s “best student in years?”

I could see she was distressed. Lucky for her, I could relate. In fact, one of many similar experiences I’ve encountered occurred just over a year ago. I had entered a competition called the Great Lakes Entrepreneur’s Quest (GLEQ), which is a business plan competition for new business ideas and up-and-coming companies. My company had not won any awards at the competition that year. There were over 100 companies that entered, with nearly 500 total participants. Then during the awards ceremony they announced a brand new award that they were going to start giving out, the Spirit of Entrepreneurship Award, which would go to one individual who they felt exhibited the qualities of a great entrepreneur outside of just being able to write a good business plan. And the winner of the inaugural award was me. I was startled, confused, and amazed. If they had said my name half a second earlier, the person in front of me would have had a mouthful of Coke in their hair.

How could I win such an award, being in a room with so many great entrepreneurs and so many exciting companies and business ideas? There were companies in the competition already making a million dollars in yearly revenue (eligibility for the competition required that your company be making less that $3 million annually). By comparison, I wasn’t even making enough to quit my day job yet. I had to fake a doctor’s appointment that day just to attend the awards ceremony. Don’t these other people know what they’re doing more than I?

The answer to that question is the title of this post. No one knows what the fuck they’re doing. Not me, not those guys making bank, not anyone.

The 3 Types of Knowledge

To really understand how it is that no one knows what they’re doing, we need to understand the three fundamental categories of information.

There’s the shit you know, the shit you know you don’t know, and the shit you don’t know you don’t know.

Note: this chart is not to scale; the red slice is unimaginably large.

Imagine being lost in the woods.

An example of shit you know would be knowing that it’s okay to eat an apple should you come across an apple tree (however unlikely that may be).

An example of the shit you know you don’t know would be wondering if you can eat these berries. As a result, you may decide to play it safe and keep moving, or you may decide to eat one now, see if you get sick, and if not, eat some more.

For an example of shit you don’t know that you don’t know, imagine if you were raised in an extremely sheltered environment, and you were never taught that some plants are poisonous. Finding yourself suddenly stranded in the wild, you would probably just start eating plants at random as you become hungry, without thinking twice. Pretty soon you would likely fall sick and die from dysentery or mycetism.

As illustrated by this example, you can see that the only dangerous category is the shit you don’t know that you don’t know (excluding extreme situations of life and death, where only the first category [shit you know] could save you). The same goes for any profession.

If I’m an engineer designing a bridge, I know that I need to account for that location’s climate when choosing the materials for building the bridge… this is stuff I know. I may not know exactly which materials have stress limits within boundaries set by the climate, but I can look it up… this is stuff I know that I don’t know. However, if I were a Veterinarian, and someone asked me to design a bridge, I may not even realize that different materials are affected differently by environmental factors… this would be stuff I don’t know that I don’t know. And in this situation, someone would probably die.

In my girlfriend’s case, say she’s a nurse that needs to administer a drug to a patient. If she knows that the prescribed drug reacts negatively with another drug the patient is taking, she knows not to administer the drug. If she remembers that the drug has twenty side effects and tends to react with other drugs, she knows to either look it up or ask someone else who knows, perhaps a doctor, before administering it. The only dangerous scenario could be not realizing that there could be any side-effects or reactions, and thus administering the drug without any second thoughts. Again, the only dangerous category is the shit you don’t know that you don’t know.

Wisdom and the Art of Being Not Dangerous

Along these lines, “wisdom” may be defined as the ability to not be dangerous. So what then is the point of education and experience? Your professors and teachers (and typical exam structure) would lead you to believe that you must cram as much information as possible into the shit you know category.

I am going to be bold and suggest that this is wrong. The goal isn’t to put as much as possible into the first category, it’s to take as much as possible out of the third category.

Now whether this means putting it into the first or the second category isn’t as important, as long as it’s not in the third category. In other words, the goal is to be not dangerous.

Everyone is as Clueless as You, If Not More

This is where the disconnect is. This is why you, my girlfriend, and myself at times feel like a fraud amidst praise and recognition. We feel that we have no clue what we’re doing, yet we see others confident and able. Surely they’re the ones that deserve the praise and recognition.

Here’s the secret though. Those other people fall into one of two categories, and neither one of those categories is more knowledgeable or able than you are.

1) They have figured out everything written here, and thus, are on an even playing field as you. They deserve it no more (and no less) than you do. They (and you) have a very large shit you know you don’t know category. Not only that, but they (and you) can only imagine how immense the shit you don’t know you don’t know category is (since it’s impossible to know by virtue of being the stuff you don’t know about). It’s easy to see how small the shit you know category is by comparison. And it is this awareness that makes them (and you) feel so clueless at times.

2) They legitimately think they know everything. The thing is, they don’t. These people are usually very egotistical (not to be confused with simply having a healthy ego) and don’t realize how little they really know. In other words, they have far more in the third category (shit they don’t know they don’t know), and far less in the second category (shit they know they don’t know). The first category is probably more or less the same.

One thing to note about this second type of confident people is that they are dangerous in two ways. For one, they exhibit a much larger third category as discussed above. They can be likened to a stereotypical teenager in thinking they know everything and not realizing how much there really is to know. However, unlike teenagers, they have a tendency to make others think they know what they’re doing, which makes others tend to rely on them. It causes others to put them in charge of things it seems like they know how to handle. And of course, since these people legitimately think they know how to handle these things, they are likely not to look it up or defer to people who actually know. As you can imagine, this causes their potential to be dangerous much more real than that of teenagers.

The Reason You Feel Like a Fraud

The real reason you feel like a fraud is because you have been successful in taking a lot of information out of the third category and put it into the second category; you know of a lot of stuff you don’t know. The good news is that this makes you very not dangerous. The bad news is that it also makes you feel dumb and helpless a lot of the time.

Relax, Be Realistic, You Can Do It

I hope that this helps if you find yourself sometimes feeling conflicted, recognizing the contradiction between your abilities and what other people say about your abilities. When you find yourself in a situation where you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Don’t ever feel ashamed for not understanding something, even it seems like it should be obvious; if you don’t understand it, then it’s not obvious, plain and simple.

In fact, if you never feel clueless, and you always know better than everyone else, please let me know, so that I can be aware of how dangerous you are.

Update: Rumsfeld, Dunning-Kruger, The Black Swan, and Hacker News

Since writing this, I’ve been pointed to Donald Rumsfeld’s poem, The Unknown, which quite concisely describes the 3 Types of Knowledge I’ve written of here.

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.
—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

Reformatted by The Slate.

Another related idea that has since been pointed out to me is the Dunning-Kruger Effect, which describes a bias in people’s consciousness in which they reach erroneous conclusions and lack the ability to realize or recognize it.

Also, I’ve been told that The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, though it discusses the impact and improbability of random events and uncertainty in history, also describes some similar ideas. I have not yet read this book though, so I cannot comment much beyond that.

And for some really good relavent discussion on this post, check out the thread on Hacker News.

Update: Sub-categories of Knowledge

As a few people have pointed out in the comments and on Hacker News, there are also a few sub-categories of knowledge that are worth mentioning.

Shit you don’t know you know:

This is most closely a sub-category of the shit you know you know (1st category), but for one detail… you don’t realize that you know it. This category delves into the Freudian theories of the subconscious.

Shit you know you don’t know *anymore*, a.k.a. the shit you know you forgot:

This is a sub-category of the shit you know you don’t know (2nd category). As has been humorously pointed out, this is one of the main ways your second category grows to its overwhelming size as you get older.

Shit you think you know, but don’t:

This is a sub-category of the shit you don’t know you don’t know (3rd category). This is the most dangerous of all knowledge. This is mis-knowledge.

Update: Comments are Disappearing

As many have pointed out, the comments keep disappearing from this post. There have been MANY great comments, and I’m working with Disqus to get this issue resolved, so that they show up again. The comments are NOT being deleted, and hopefully they’ll be back up shortly.

As of now (Feb 18, 2010), this post has received over 150 great comments and over 750 reactions on Twitter. However, Disqus seems to be experiencing a lot of problems and isn’t displaying them on this page.

Update 2: The comments are fixed!

Thank you everyone for all of your awesome feedback.

Google One-letter Suggestions

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:45:20 -0500

Google One-letter Suggestions

Cool Libraries for Ruby

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 11:13:03 -0500

Cool Libraries for Ruby

If You’re Nervous About Quitting Your Boring Job, You’re Sane

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 13:46:45 -0500

If You’re Nervous About Quitting Your Boring Job, You’re Sane

My new personal blog

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 12:56:00 -0500

Hello to everyone new to this blog, which is everyone, since this blog is new. In this blog, I will be writing about all of the things that interest me, including entrepreneurship, engineering, the web, auto racing, music, soccer, and observations of the world at large.

Hopefully you will enjoy the coming posts and stick around. It should be fun.

If you’re interested in finding out more about me and what I do, check out my LinkedIn profile and Twitter page. You can also check out the things that keep me busy, like:

-running a software consultancy, Alfa Jango, LLC, and a university rental housing portal, RateMyStudentRental.com

-being lead guitarist for Moment of Inertia

-racing cars, at the moment preparing my 1978 Ford Fiesta for the 2010 racing season