Categories
technology

Genealogy Collaboration Online

I have been thinking about how to effectively use the internet to work with other people in my family on the same line from different locations. I have thought about using a wiki structure. I am now thinking that it should be based on some widely used genealogy software such as Personal Ancestral File so that the web pages can be easily converted to offline editable forms.

The next consideration I thought about was ensuring the integrity of the information being added to the files. That is as easy to ensure online as offline if you limit the people who can contribute to the people you know who participate in genealogy offline already. The problem is that I expect the list of names to grow and converge with other lines so that new people would like to participate who I don’t know. If I open it up to unknown users I have to find a way to know if someone is playing a prank on me or really interested in adding to my genealogy file. Actually I know that very few people would waste their time playing a prank on my genealogy, but I do not want people adding information if the information is based on poor research. I think that the solution is to require logon credentials and only allow people to log on if they can prove a connection to the line. This will give them a vested interest in keeping the information as accurate as possible. The logins would be simple and not designed for security, but we would also be able to trace who was entering information and contact them if the information was consistently suspect.

Categories
Uncategorized

Impartial – or not

I had an immediate reaction when this Slashdot post about an “independent” study that resulted in Newham and Microsoft signing a 10 year deal for Microsoft providing IT support for the city of Newham.

It really caught my attention when it was revealed that the study had been funded by Microsoft. It looks a whole lot like our practice in the United States of having pharmecutical companies doing all the drug research and then having the FDA approve or reject the drugs without the FDA having the power to publish the results of the studies the public cannot be confident that any impartial information has been disseminated. All we know is that there is a pretty good chance that the new drugs that get approved are not likely to cause widespread negative side-effects.

It’s just further proof of the need for unbiased study as the root of any problem-solving endeavor such as I suggested for the education system. All this was on my mind because I heard an interview on NPR about giving impartial information to doctors so they could make their decisions based on more than glossy photos and free lunches.

Categories
Uncategorized

Experts vs Everyone Else

Alan has a good point about the Irony of always leaning on the experts whenever we do things. I am one of the regular bloggers with little to no readership that Alan contrasts the experts against. One of the reasons that I blog is that I would like to get some ideas out in public and hear some feedback on those ideas.

From what I have experienced the world or practice of blogging has the potential to “[break] down traditional power structures” but until it becomes more accepted in mainstream culture as a valuable resource for ideas and discourse there will still be very little voice for those of us “little guys” who are trying to find a voice through their blogs.

Categories
Uncategorized

Real Solutions

I found it interesting to see the results of the first comparison between charter schools and public schools which founds that the Education > Nation’s Charter Schools Lagging Behind, U.S. Test Scores Reveal” href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/17/education/17charter.html?hp”>Nation’s Charter Schools Lagging Behind the public schools.

I have nothing against charter schools and nothing against “No Child Left Behind.” The only thing I am interested in is improving our education system in the United States. I don’t know how to do that right now, but I have an idea of how to find out some answers.

We need two very broad studies an our education system. One study should be a widespread inspection of those schools and districts which have consistently performed well above the national average. The study should take special note of those schools which have been performing above average which have the lowest budgets both overall and per student. The second study should be a study of students who have performed individually well above average again making sure to look closely at those from underpriveledged backgrounds.

Neither of these studies should look at a particular aspect of the schools or the students. It should be a matter of gathering as much information as possible and trying to find some commonalities that might suggest the causes for their success. Then we could look at ways to foster in less successful schools and students any common traits found in in the successful schools and students.

I would honestly be very surprised if I were the first person to think of this. Perhaps I am not reading the right sources to know who is doing this work already. If that is the case I would be very grateful if anyone could point me to the work of people who are doing this type of study.

Categories
thoughts

Perception

I have often said that perception is more important than reality. That always gets people to look askance at me and begin to disagree with me. Nobody has ever succeeded in changing my mind, but I have been thinking about it again lately and thought I would record it here and hope for others to add their perspectives.

People do not act based on reality. They act based on their perception of reality. If everyone acted on reality they would always act the same in as others in the same situation. If someone argues that reality differs from person to person they have fallen into a trap of semantics because it has to be more accurate to say that the perception of reality differs from person to person than to say that reality itself differs.

My next argument is the one where this fact makes a difference in our lives. If we act based on our perceptions of reality then our success in achieving what we are trying to achieve in life will be based largely on how accurately our perception of reality reflects the way things really are. That is why it is so important for people to continue seeking knowledge until they can see things as they really are.

Categories
meta technology

Validation

I really enjoyed Alan’s Best Quote (Today) About HTML. It was worth a laugh but it also got me thinking about the value of code validation. That is a concept that is at the forefront of my mind right now because I just re-designed my website and as I did so I made sure that it would validate as good XHTML. Ironically the only pages that did not pass as valid XHTML were my blogs because of some built-in numerical id tags – apparently id tags cannot be numerical to validate. One thing that I can say from going through that process is that getting your code to validate forces you to really think about what you are doing, how you are doing it and why you choose the things that you do. That is probably more valuable to me than the fact that I have validated code.

As for Microsoft, they don’t care to write good HTML, but where’s the incentive for them? I had to tweak my code after it validated to keep IE from displaying it incorrectly. Why write good code if you are busy supplying a browser that cannot interpret the code correctly?

Categories
culture

Learning for Life

Laura was talking about the need to do better at preparing young women for motherhood. This is not the first time that she has talked about this lack in preparing for life. It has not taken her very long to figure out that her expectations of motherhood were not accurate to the realities of motherhood. She was talking about a great idea which would help young mothers and young women who are not mothers yet.

Laura was proposing that teenage girls be given the opportunity to help young mothers during the early months after their first children have been born so that the new mothers have a little extra help and the young women get a very real perspective on what motherhood is like. They would have fewer incorrect ideas of what to expect.

As we talked about it a little I realized how much things have changed in the way we learn about life from the way they were less than a century ago. Back then children learned what to expect from life when they grew up by participating in the adult activities of their parents. Children might help on the family farm or for those who could not participate in the work that their parents did they might be required to work a job to help support the family. Back then young women learned what motherhood was like by being close to their mothers and by spending a fair deal of time taking care of younger siblings and helping around the house.

In our current society where children are not expected to do anything for their families but instead are supposed to devote their time to learning in the abstract (school) and being cared for as if they were guests at home, it is no wonder that childhood activity is often extended past college with people not knowing what they want out of life. I know that is not always the case but that seems to be the prevailing trend in society.

Categories
life

The Web is Slower Than Life

Society has grown impatient generally because of how fast computers can get things done. I remember when waiting 30 seconds for a program to load on the computer was considered acceptably fast. Now I see people complaining when they do not notice any response from the computer within 10 seconds of them trying to do something on it. I thought that computers had made things generally faster.

I have fully immersed myself into this accelerated culture and I decided that I wanted to make my website more up-to-date by maintaining it as a blog so that I could put new thoughts up as often as they happened. That required that I restructure the site so when I got a break I did so. It took less than a week for me to completely restructure the site. That is when I started looking back at what had happened since I made the decision to change the site. Savannah got run over by a car in the library parking lot (thankfully she didn’t get hurt), Alyssa started walking, Laura got hit by a second car in the same library parking lot (no damage to the cars again) and I flew down to Albuquerque to see my new niece. All of that took place in about a week.

I guess the lesson that I learned as I looked back on all of that is that we like the speed of computers because life is fast. No matter how fast computers get life is faster. The reason that we get impatient as we start becoming accustomed to the instantaneous lifestyle is that we forget that the speed of the computer gives us only the illusion of going at the pace of life and not actually the reality of going as fast as life. We’re still behind even at the speed of life.

If the speed of light is “c” (from e=m*c^2) then the speed of life, “l”, must be close to “c^2” thus e=m*l . . .

Categories
politics

The final gamble

The New York Times > Washington > News Analysis: Fresh Starts: One for Iraq, One for Bush
Here it is, the final gamble on Iraq. What happens in the next couple of months will largely determine how Bush is viewed in averything he has done over the last 18 months.

Will he be vindicated or vilified?

If for no other reason than the sake of the Iraqis I hope he is vindicated.

Categories
National politics

Running mates

While reading Maureen Dowd’s column (The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Are They Losing It? ) I began to think some old thoughts that I believed I had forsaken. When things started getting worse for the Bush administration I briefly flirted with the idea that the president would be best served by getting rid of the vice president and a few of his other hawkish advisors. Eventually I decided that it would be enough to get rid of the others and that the VP could stay. I’m rethinking that position. I would not blame Cheney for all the administrations problems as easily as Ms. Dowd does, but the only benefits that Mr. Cheney brought to the ticket in 2000 no longer apply. He was a face of experience in a rather novice administration. He brought a familiar face for the world, but that was a world at peace where America was fairly well respected. No matter how experienced any memeber of this administration is or isn’t now they will be judged based on the last four years. The world is no longer at peace and America is not nearly so well respected in the world as it was before. Neither of those things is strictly the fault of this administration (circumstances beyond anybody’s control played a part) but the fact is that the problem is worse than it could have been because of some poor advice from Mr. Cheney, among others. I think the best thing for the Bush re-election campaign would be to unload the baggage and start with a fresh VP.

For all the talk of a cross-party Kerry/McCain ticket, I think a Bush/McCain ticket would be a formidable sight next to a Kerry/Anyone Else ticket. John McCain is closer to the center than the president while Dick Cheney is closer to the right than the president. McCain is a known uniter and nobody doubts that he means what he says even if it is not popular. McCain could be a very trustworthy face next to Bush which would be a great step up from the controversy laden Cheney.