Technically Incorrect

Sometimes it's truly curious who or what inspires us to achieve our best.

There are those sports teams who, sadly, sing "Wonderwall" by Oasis before entering the arena.

There are artists whose muses turn out to be more Pamela Anderson than Laurie Anderson.

And now, according to the Telegraph, some rather honest scientists from Wake Forest University confess that they have been inspired to create rather progressive cybersecurity software by staring at ants for a very long time.

I've never realized this when I've stood on a few hundred of them heading for my kitchen waste basket, but ants are apparently quite clever at defending themselves.

They use something called swarming intelligence.

Inspirational.

(Credit: CC SnapR/Flickr)

It seems to be a little like the strategy the police use when confronted by protesters at an event like the G20 conference. Once an ant senses a danger, he is joined by more and more ants until the threat is repelled.

A team at Wake Forest was so inspired by this approach to antagonism that it wondered whether it could create security software in which digital "ants" could call for reinforcements the minute they sensed the unwanted presence of a disaffected Swedish 14-year-old.

Professor Errin Fulp told the Telegraph: "In nature, we know that ants defend against threats very successfully. They can ramp up their defense rapidly, and then resume routine behavior quickly after an intruder has been stopped. We were trying to achieve that same framework in a computer system."

The Wake Foresters believe that this new software will allow for much quicker detection and return to normal computer function.

Glenn Fink (what fine names this research team seems to enjoy) told the Telegraph: "Our idea is to deploy 3,000 different types of digital ants, each looking for evidence of a threat. As they move about the network, they leave digital trails modeled after the scent trails ants in nature use to guide other ants."

This Fink and Fulp ant idea seems rather clever to me. If only I could use it to repel people on the street who ask me to sign petitions, give money or offer directions to the Hustler Club.

I know those chaps at MIT get involved in some strange pursuits.

But here's one that might make some readers feel that the world is now irreversibly eerie.

According to the Boston Globe, two MIT students, Carter Jernigan and Behram Mistree, seemingly fascinated with ethics and law and, possibly, other people's sex lives, became enraptured by how much information people are revealing through their Facebook profiles.

So they delved into some Facebook profile data and believe they have created software that can tell whether someone on Facebook is gay, merely by looking at his or her friends.

Especially, it seems, his friends.

(Credit: CC Todd Huffman/Flickr)

Although the students couldn't actually prove that what they surmised was true, they used what they seem to describe as personal knowledge and concluded that their program was especially accurate when it came to identifying gay men.

One of the students' professors, Hal Abelson, used some interesting imagery to describe their apparent discovery, now excitingly dubbed Project "Gaydar." Said Abelson: "That pulls the rug out from a whole policy and technology perspective that the point is to give you control over your information - because you don't have control over your information."

I'm not sure I am quite as excited by this rug-pulling as Professor Abelson.

In the real world, one's choice of friends may, indeed, send out signals about all kinds of characteristics and predilections one might have.

And in the Facebook world, who cares if someone is gay or straight? They're not real friends anyway, are they?

However, I am not frightfully fond of the concept of even well-meaning uberbrains trawling through my personal things in order to make assertions about who, what, how or even where I am.

I am sure, for example, that if I were to come to your house and examine your underwear drawer I might be tempted to reach certain conclusions about your lifestyle.

I might, though, just be wrong, mightn't I?

I met a perfectly lovely young woman this weekend who told me that when she was a teenager she took Ecstasy, snorted coke, and inhaled pot as if it were dim sum on a Sunday morning.

So I found myself relieved beyond the effects of a hot stone massage to discover that research on teenage girls has shown that when they play Tetris it has a wonderfully positive effect on their brains.

The Mind Research Network, which appears to be a nonprofit organization that examines brain injury and mental illness, decided to spend three months of its life and donations on watching what happens when teenage girls play Tetris.

The network's scientists seem giddy about the results: consistent practice on the pleasantly mind-numbing little game seems to have given the girls a thicker cortex, as well as creating more brain efficiency in other parts of their tender gray areas.

Now, I'm not sure that every teenage girl on earth will be excited about having a thicker cortex, but the brain of Dr. Rex Jung, one of the boffins behind this experiment, is veritably bursting with joy.

"We did our Tetris study to see if mental practice increased cortical thickness, a sign of more gray matter," Dr. Jung said Monday in a press statement.

(Credit: Cc TotalAldo/Flickr)

He continued: "If it did, it could be an explanation for why previous studies have shown that mental practice increases brain efficiency. More gray matter in an area could mean that the area would not need to work as hard during Tetris play."

Essentially, the excitement engendered by this little game playing seems to revolve around the notion that the brain's structure is not as fixed as scientists of old had assumed.

However, I feel I need now explore the frisson of doubt that overcomes me every time I read research. You see, this study does not help us discover the actual relationship between a thicker cortex and increased brain efficiency.

How might I know this? Why, because I read the smaller print, in which Dr. Richard Haier, a co-investigator of the Tetrisettes, said: "How a thicker cortex and increased brain efficiency are related remains a mystery."

You see, the functioning of teenage girls' brains is, as one has always thought, an utter befuddlement.

While the scientists claim that they used girls in the study because boys tend to have too much video game experience, I am now wondering just one thing: were these Tetrisettes drug-tested?

I know you might think this is far fetched. I know you may think I only meet lovely girls who are strange and tell outlandish tales of teenage drug use.

But, you see, there were only 26 girls in this study. And if I'm to believe that the actions of teenage girls will somehow inform our knowledge of the brain, I want them tested for coke, pot, E, and, definitely, crystal meth.

Interestingly, the study's notes say that none of the girls was taking a prescription medication. But neither were so many baseball players in the 1990s.

Perhaps my zeal for scientific purity, otherwise known as my skepticism, may be excessive here.

But perhaps it was made excessive by some small print in the study. I know your cortex will become thinner on receiving this information, but the study was funded by "Blue Planet Software (BPS), Inc., the company holding exclusive licensing rights to Tetris".

Who do you share your iPod playlist with?

Your lover? Your lover's husband? Your colleagues at the office? The strangely smelling man who sits next to you on the bus?

Well, researchers at the University of Cambridge have a message for you. It reads: "Don't."

According to these flatland boffins, your values, your personality, even your ethnicity, and social class (well, it is England, after all) will be judged by what you slip onto your iPod.

Jason Rentfrow, the chap who dreamed up this vital and surprising study at the university's Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, declared to the Telegraph that letting others sneak a peek at your Blondie and Mahler may "reinforce stereotypes and, potentially social prejudices."

He added: "This research suggests that, even though our assumptions may not be accurate, we get a very strong impression about someone when we ask them what music they like."

You will, I know, both fear and adore some of Rentfrow's conclusions. Those who have a predilection for jazz are, supposedly, liberal, friendly, and sociable. Well, of course. That's what pleasantly discordant music has always said about anyone.

Clearly a cheerful, optimistic, quiet-spoken, philanthropic type.

(Credit: CC Stephen Hucker/Flickr)

However, those who love classical music should beware of showing their iPod even to their children. Especially to their children. You see, while classical music elicits some positive traits, such as intelligence (really), it also rings with it an aura of dullness, ugliness, and a lack of athleticism.

And, please get this (and keep it), those committed to electronica are viewed as "a bit neurotic".

Yes, someone paid for this wisdom. Sadly, not Rentfrow. Perhaps I am too cynical, too liberal, or just too into Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel. Perhaps I am made slightly intemperate because I am a graduate of this Cambridge University. Yes, in those social and political sciences.

However, what I learned in my studies is that people are generally quite a wicked lot. They make judgments about others all day. They do this mainly in the hope of making themselves feel better. They do this mainly so that they can take a rest from confronting their own deeply trifling lives.

They judge your shoes. (God, not Aldo) They judge your shirt. (Has to be Ross Dress-For-Less) They judge your hairdo. (Supercuts, surely) And they judge your taste in men, women and pets. (I fear he likes all three)

It constitutes nothing other than a reflection on their own fine, deteriorating selves. Yes, you can choose to be moved by their prejudices. And many are. Especially those who adore Kraftwerk.

However, an alternative is to fill your iPod with Nigel Kennedy's wonderful rendition of Beethoven's Violin Concerto, followed by some Arctic Monkeys, followed by a little A-Ha and Abdullah Ibrahim.

And then perhaps a couple of Brahms's Hungarian Dances, some Argentinian folk music, a dollop of Steel Pulse and a little T-Rex, not forgetting some Waylon Jennings, some Lambchop, a small sprig of mid-period Britney, some Glasvegas, some Sweet Billy Pilgrim and a little Southside Johnny. All smartly rounded up by a touch of Wagner, some of William Shatner's finest recordings and a sprinkling of Big Squirrel.

Before you know it, they'll be calling you Renaissance Man.

And before you know that you really may not be Renaissance Man, you'll be thinking up some more pressing subjects to research.

Yes, we are all vulnerable, pathetic beings. But if we really have to worry about telling others what music we have on our iPods, then we might as well relinquish what remains of our selves and join the Miley Cyrus Fan Club.

I know there are many in the tech world who believe people just shouldn't be trusted. Or listened to. Or even believed.

So it may be heartening to these defenders of our cyberfuture that there is yet another piece of evidence suggesting people aren't quite as clever as they think they are.

The Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics decided to test a very simple form of human judgment: the ability to know where you're going when you're hiking.

You see, many intrepid humans believe it is enough for them to follow the sun, the moon, or the howling of wolves to reach their destinations and find their way home.

However, as the Institute's Jan L. Souman so elegantly put it to The New York Times: "People really do walk in circles."

As in life, as on a hike, you might conclude. And so it seems.

Could crop circles have been formed by incompetent hikers?

(Credit: CC Kecko/Flickr)

Souman's fearless objectifiers followed a number of hikers as they made their way around the dense forests of Bavaria and the rather more sandy parts of Tunisia.

They discovered that without some celestial object to guide them, people fail to recognize a straight line and double back on themselves like drunken drivers being questioned by the police.

Apparently, if one just walks along and trusts either the images one sees at ground level or even the inner sense provided by the inner ear, the brain gets more than a little confused.

Perhaps it might seem obvious, but even clutching a compass doesn't provide one with the surest of answers. A small dissonance between the arrow and your brain and you could be off at tangent that soon describes a circle.

It's a little like golf caddies. While many still believe they can judge distance by trusting their eyes, there is an increasing prevalence of technological devices because they simply measure distance more accurately.

Similarly, most experienced hiking guides suggest GPS because, well, it doesn't see the sun or the moon and it doesn't hear ululations.

And it does tell you if you were in this very place just half an hour ago.

Oh, Wikipedia. Have you really become just another political organization?

I only ask because some clever people with nothing better to do have dedicated their bright gray matter to poring through Wikipedia's pages and drawing conclusions. The members of the Augmented Cognition Research Group at the Palo Alto Research Center could probably solve health care over a nonfat latte and a blueberry scone. Instead, they have examined who makes edits on Wikipedia and whose edits are reversed.

It makes for the same kind of dispiriting reading that you might once have expected from a Politburo travel brochure. You see, it appears that a hierarchy has emerged at Wiki Central, one that seems to have a significant influence in what is published and, indeed, what is removed.

These days, there are between 650,000 and 810,00 active editors of the world's most beloved unofficial encyclopedia, figures that suggest Wikipedia activity has plateaued rather than grown. And this has been accompanied by a jostling for authority that reminds one only of, well, Congress. You know, the place where senior senators seem to be able to get away with, well, I was going to say "murder," but that would be inappropriate until proven.

Has Jimmy Wales become Nancy Pelosi?

(Credit: CC KerryJ.com/Flickr)

The researchers seem convinced that editors who make more than 100 edits per month are less likely to have their entries reversed than those who contribute fewer. The group that contributes more than 1,000 edits per month (when was the last time these people saw the sky?) are enthusiastic about acting as the factual bible-writers of our time, to say the least. Between 2005 and 2008, their average number of edits has increased from 1,740 to 2,095.

The boys from Palo Alto seem to believe that those in the editing oligarchy rarely have their contributions deleted, or reverted, as seems to be the parlance. However, those who occasionally take a step away from their normal lives to make an entry are far more likely to have their contributions incised.

The researchers, led by Ed H. Chi, concluded: "We consider this as evidence of growing resistance from the Wikipedia community to new content, especially when the edits come from occasional editors."

It seems, from the Palo Altans' brightly colored graphs, that elite editors only have their work questioned 1 percent of the time, whereas occasional editors can now expect a 15 percent deletion rate.

Oh, Lordy. It's just like the Senate, isn't it? The bigwigs know best, control the most important committees, and generally swan around in limos with the finest companions of the day and night. All the while, the junior senators toil for influence, beg for their voices to be heard, and dream of becoming senior senators.

The Guardian newspaper offered this plaintive quote from a frustrated junior editor, Aaron Schwarz: "There's no place on Wikipedia that says: 'Want to become a Wikipedia editor? Here's how you do it.' Instead, you basically have to really become part of that community and pick it up through osmosis and have the tradition passed down to you."

Oh, why can't people find a more beautiful way to organize themselves? This is the only knowledge our children will ever have. I mean, we don't really expect any of them to read books on a Kindle, do we?

Some intellectuals want to study humanity. Others just want to study humanity's e-mails.

Which can, sometimes, be more fascinating than the people who wrote them.

A couple of researchers at the Florida Institute of Technology seem to be in the e-mail study camp. Or perhaps there was simply nothing better to think about in Melbourne, Fla., recently.

In any case, they took it upon themselves to examine the e-mails sent at Enron, specifically, how the e-mailing patterns changed as Enron was revealed to be channeling the spirit of Bernie Madoff, rather than Bernie Mac or Bernie Kosar.

The researchers, Ben Collingsworth and Ronaldo Menezes, concluded, according to a report in New Scientist, that e-mailing patterns just might be a rather accurate barometer of your company's innards.

I wonder who else was in their e-mail group.

(Credit: CC Alex-S/Flickr)

Collingsworth and Menezes thought it might be fun to see whether the pattern of e-mails written at the time of the resignation of Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling in 2001 might carve out a dainty paisley or the Rorschach inkblot of a disturbed dipsomaniac.

They simply looked at who sent e-mails to whom and how many were sent.

What they discovered was that a month before Skilling fell on his letter-opener, the number of active e-mail cliques--the researchers defined them as e-mail groups in which every member had direct e-mail contact with each other--rose from 100 to 800.

Here's the other characteristic that seemed to foreshadow the spilling of corporate o-positive: more messages were sent within these groups to the exclusion of anyone else in the company.

There is one small downside to this kind of research: most organizations won't let you look at e-mail logs because of concerns about privacy, which is totally understandable.

However, I have a fanciful notion, perhaps slightly fueled by the high level of discourse in the tech world, that techies can, in the privacy of their own PC world, discover everything that is electronically occurring in their domain.

So I wonder whether, in the depths of corporate IT departments across the world, there are clever people studying the finely-weaved patterns of their company's e-mail behavior.

Not out of some misplaced, droopy-headed snoopiness. But because, well, there's a recession out there and they need to know whether their employers will still be their employers when the sun rises.

Social crises come upon us like paparazzi down the alleyways of Hollywood. In what seems like a flash, we turn around, smile, and see what we have become.

So it is imperative that I warn you of a deeply concerning trend that may well be sweeping the world: the use of laptops and mobile devices in bed.

A company called Credant Technologies, which appears to specialize in something called endpoint data protection, suspected that the world was heading toward something untoward between the sheets. So it commissioned a survey to discover whether workaholia was causing melancholia.

The results will numb.

It appears that 57 percent of those who said they worked in bed (more than a quarter of those surveyed) said they whipped out their devices between 2 and 6 hours a week. Eight percent said they spent more evening time on their devices than talking with their partners.

Does she seem happy to you?

(Credit: CC Riot Jane/Flickr)

I am sure your first thought (after counting the number of hours you are mobile while prostrate) is to consider the effect this must have on these poor people's loved ones.

Do they screech and howl in frustration? Do they scour the bars, the health clubs, and the monasteries for new lovers, ones who are less inclined to connect with others while reclined? Or do they, perhaps, have makeovers that cause them to look slightly more like something designed by Apple, BlackBerry, or Dell?

While you consider the possibilities, might I attempt to ease your involuntary eyelid-twitch by describing a little of the methodology of this survey.

A mere 300 people were asked about their digital proclivities. And all 300 were employed in the City of London, where it is perhaps inevitable that workers need to use their laptops just before snoring, being a city with a proclivity for more than few afterwork pints.

However, I would be interested to hear from those whose relationships; television viewing; trashy novel reading; hygiene of the hands, feet, nose, or other bodily areas; oh, and sex lives have been affected by a deep and lasting need to be connected to work, when they should be connected to their reason for living.

People, if you don't put your Apple or BlackBerry away...your gadgets may be the only things joining you in bed.

In five minutes, please walk away from your computer, take out your moral compass, and ask it for an update. Then, please tweet the results.

Yes, after the powerful and persuasive arguments of M'lady Greenfield of England--she who declared that Facebook was making us infantile--we now have further cause to worry about ourselves and our children.

Scientists at the University of Southern California have broken away from their task of finding the next 20 or so great football talents for the university to conduct research suggesting that Twitter may take the nerve endings out of our sense of morality.

Here's how researcher Mary Helen Immordino-Yang put it to CNN: "If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people's psychological states, and that would have implications for your morality."

The idea is that information is coming at us at such great speed that we don't have time to experience the pain or the joy that such information should engender.

But can he tell how you react to tweets?

(Credit: CC Jurvetson/Flickr)

Apparently, when scientists scan our brains, they find that we are pretty quick at responding to any sign of physical pain in another human. But we are painfully slow at showing such feelings as compassion or admiration.

In this particular piece of research, the scientists relied on telling people different kinds of stories, and then scanning their brains and asking them to recall the stories, and the emotions attached to them, to see what effect the storytelling might have had.

I have to say that, given my occasional skepticism about research, there were only 13 people who had their brain scanned for this study.

Your brain might, at this point, be scanning the thought that if all the subjects of this research were from Los Angeles, it might be surprising that the scientists found any moral compass at all.

Of course, I couldn't possibly comment on that. I have at least three friends who live there. However, isn't the more general point that the demands of western life seem to have tended toward greater speed for the last 100 years?

Every piece of technology somehow offers a greater speed of something--information, communication, healing, pleasure. Somehow, one has a sense that humans do adjust. (But should they? Should they?)

Surely, any moral compass that exists in our souls is still more heavily influenced by those perennial scourges, like parents, teachers, lovers, social environment and, naturally, reality television.

Sorry. Must go and check my tweets.

OK, I'm back. Mark Cuban just tweeted: "Thought of the Day: "You don't live in the world you were born into" - think about it #FB."

Seems like a pretty moral tweet to me.