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Scientific data suppressed for dogma?

As a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business Schools, two institutions noted for doing empirical, statistically-valid research in their areas, I like the idea of data. Science is cool. You can actually tell things about the way the world works. This isn’t the same thing at all as believing how the world works, however.

Beliefs are nothing more than things we don’t question. When things fit our beliefs, they feel familiar. When they feel familiar, we feel safe and secure. Beliefs don’t affect the underlying reality one iota, though they certainly affect our behavior (and possibly our health, but that’s for the placebo researchers to document).

You see, the cool thing about science is that although it has its share of politics, it’s about finding out how the world works, independent of our beliefs. We can believe the world is flat. We can believe heavy objects fall faster than light objects. Scientists can point out that the empirical, measurable, repeatable observations are not consistent with our beliefs. We can then change our beliefs or hang the scientists. Hanging the scientists has, until the latter 20th century, often been the popular choice.

And now, it seems it’s happening again. Yesterday, the Union of Concerned Scientists—a decades-old MIT-founded society with 100,000 members concerned with seeing scientific data used properly in policy—released a report.

Policy-makers generally start with facts and then argue about how to best respond to those facts. For example, let’s say that a study shows that bussing promotes racial integration as measured by the racial diversity of a schoolchild’s friends. We can argue about whether we want our children bussed around, but it’s important to have that argument with our hands on whatever data we have that we can use to understand the implications of our policies. (By the way, this is a made-up example. I have no idea about bussing whatsoever.)

The UCS’s document, heavily footnoted with all references and supporting sources included, concludes that the Bush Administration has been suppressing the data before it even makes it to conversation. That’s extra-bad, because without the data, intelligent policy can’t be made by anyone on any of the related topics. (Not to mention that we look like fools to the rest of the first world, whose scientists aren’t suppressed by the government.)

One example:

The document says the CDC (Center for Disease Control’s) website used to mention several studies that show abstinance-based sex education simply doesn’t reduce teenage pregnancy or sex. No matter how much people want to believe it does, it doesn’t. In fact, studies show regular sex education may reduce or delay teens becoming sexual, while abstinance-based education may be linked to higher rates of teenage male sexuality. After the Bush administration took over, the CDC, the Govt’s supposedly trustworthy source for medical information, replaced its content with a vague discussion of epistemology talking about how condoms don’t work all that well. No mention of studies, science, or any of that unpleasant fact-based stuff.

It’s scary. Very scary. So scary that the people I’ve told all have the same reaction: “Nonsense. That couldn’t happen in America. Surely someone would have publicized it by now.” Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, no one has. Until now, and it’s barely getting a mention in the press.

Go read the document for yourself. Tell your friends. If science is suppressed, if the proper use of facts is suppressed, then democracy suffers. Please take the time to spread the word.

Think twice before buying “activation required” software

Microsoft has certainly endorsed a dangerous trend: software that requires activation to install and run it. More and more, it’s not enough that you purchase software and install it with a serial number they give you; you must also be connected to the internet or call their telephone activation center to activate the software when you run it.

The reason for this is simple: the software publishers basically don’t trust their users, and want to monitor every installation of the software closely. It makes sense from their point of view, as long as you assume your users are out to screw you. But from our point of view, this trend is dangerous.

The first of these activation schemes was Adobe Corporation’s “Type on Call.” They would sell you a CD full of fonts, and you would call Adobe to “unlock” fonts you had purchased.

Over the years, I purchased over $2,000 worth of fonts from Adobe. That really isn’t as many as it seems, as some of the nicer faces cost upwards of $500 to purchase all the different weights and styles. My corporate identity was built using the Adobe fonts.

Then a couple of years ago, I bought a new computer. I went to install my Type-on-Call fonts and discovered that the activation servers had been shut down. Adobe had decided to discontinue the service, and suddenly I was no longer able to access fonts I’d paid dearly for. No one at Adobe was able to help, until bombarding the upper management with letters led one marketing manager sent me a CD-ROM of the fonts in question.

Herein lies the danger: in the interests of their fraud protection, you are integrating the business fortunes and decisions of the software vendor into your infrastructure. If they go out of business, get acquired, or just decide to stop supporting their service, the next time you need to install their software, you can’t do it. If that software is critical to your business, you’re just plain out of luck.

And even if they’re still in business, it’s still a business burden for you. You won’t always have a net connection when setting up a new machine. Sometimes–for security reasons or otherwise–you might want to install your software with your new machine disconnected from the network. Whatever the case, you’ll now have to jump through activation hoops. Windows already takes way too long to reinstall, thanks to its convoluted architecture. If you have to make activation phone calls and convince the $3.95/hour clerk on the other end that you own the software you’ve already bought and paid for, you’re spending more of your time and money just to satisfy their paranoia.

Of course, no company would ever use this as a technique for forcing you to upgrade. Microsoft, for example, would never abuse their activation system by dropping activation of old products, forcing you to upgrade. But if a Microsoft doobie reads this article, watch out, they just may change their mind.

Some of the best software I’ve ever used (and continue to use) has been discontinued over time. If it had required activation, I’d be out of luck, forced to use inferior software. Some great software has started requiring activation, so I’m sticking with the last version I could install at will:

• Windows 2000. XP is nice, but requires activation.
• Macromedia Dreamweaver MX. MX 2004 is nice, but requires activation.
• AdSubtract Pro 2.55. AdSubtract Pro 3 is nice, but requires activation.

Anyone have anything else to add to the list? It’s a sorry state of affairs when vendors so callously disregard the business integrity of their customer, but as a customer, be wise and pressure vendors to sell us software that works the way our businesses require.

Put your trust in technology and you’ll enjoy an interesting life

Well. Isn’t that special? It seems someone put our home voice line into a fax database somewhere. Though unsolicited faxes are illegal, we’ve been awakened virtually every morning for the last several months by a happy ringing and fax machine trying to send us a 5 a.m. fax. Finally, I had call forwarding installed on the line. Now, when a fax comes in, I forward the phone to my work fax so at least I can receive the fax and call up to have myself removed from their database.

Most are for mortgages, leading me to think it may have been a bank or mortgage company that accidentally put our voice number into a fax field.

Interestingly, we have a system where a number can be put into a database and spread far and wide, but there’s no way to get the number back out of the database. Individual merchants may let us opt out of their fax database, but there’s no mechanism for complete removal.

This is a serious problem. The current systems and laws may take different positions about whether one should opt-out or opt-in, but all of them assume the number on a fax call list is, indeed, a fax. There’s no mechanism for correcting these mistakes.

Similarly, as we trust our lives more and more to databases compiled by $3.50/hour clerks in huge data warehouses, we’re happily giving up our privacy on dozens of levels. “So what,” you cry, “I have nothing to hide anyway.” And well you may not. But has it ever occurred to you that that isn’t the issue you should be worrying about?

The deeper issue is that there are no controls on these databases. You can’t find out what databases exist. You can’t find out who controls them or who can access them. Does your mortgage company outsource customer service to India? If so, do you know the laws on privacy and theft of information in India? Probably not. But even if a company swears up and down they’re secure, if you were a $8,000/year worker with the chance to pull in a hundred grand by selling ten thousand valid credit card on the black market in a country where it’s not a crime… well … once the information’s out there, it’s hard to get it back.

Even worse, our court systems are more and more accepting records, paper trails, and databases as evidence. Phone records are used to trace who was calling whom where, with no real examination of whether those records could be easily forged or tampered with. What if someone with a grudge (or just someone gleefully malicious) forges an entry on your record that could incriminate you for a crime? You have no way of examining your records and no way of correcting them.

So in short, we’re quickly becoming the victims of our own technology. We’ve made it easy to create and compile data in vast quantities, while deploying it within a system where there is great economic incentive to exploit the data, and very little incentive to make sure it’s not misused.

What can you do? Probably nothing. We trust technology to save us and it often disappoints. So don’t bother worrying about your lost privacy, or your inability to protect yourself from corrupted databases; worry instead about handing over the integrity of our democracy to electronic voting. See this article and this one for the barest touch of the discussion on why e-voting (which can never be made secure short of having a parallel pencil and paper record) is one of the worst threats to our Democracy around today.

Ain’t technology wonderful?

For Goodness Sake, Use Precautions!
Another email virus trashes the net. We’re surprised?

Wow. The internet is once again being crippled by a ho hum computer virus. And surprise, surprise–it spreads via the Microsoft Outlook address book and by people clicking on attachments without know what they are. Can we have a little more Hollywood formula tragedy, please?

C’mon people. It’s 2004. Face it: Outlook is a piece of non-security crap and has been since its inception seven years ago. It’s always been the biggest security hole in Windows (other than Internet Explorer), and its open-API address book has been used by just about every email virus to propagate far and wide. I know one company that lost about $400,000 due to two Outlook-spread viruses. They still use Outlook! What’s up with that?

Furthermore, if you know anyone who still clicks on attachments trustingly, please tell them to stop. It requires a driving test to get behind the wheel of a car. Perhaps we shouldn’t let people click a mouse without answering a multiple-choice test about some basic computer smarts.

Now Microsoft could take steps to protect us. They could stop allowing people to embed random programs in the middle of web pages and email messages. They could launch attachments in a “sandbox” where the attachment wouldn’t be allowed to muck with the rest of your system. They could even ship Windows with its security turned on instead of turned off, by default.

But they don’t do this. I don’t know why not, but they don’t. So it’s up to us. Practice safe computing, my friends:

• Never, ever use Outlook. Just don’t do it. Use Eudora or Opera for email. If you must use Outlook, at least don’t store your address book there.
• Don’t open attachments unless you know what they are and are expecting the attachment.
• If you’re a techie, check out “Tiny Personal Firewall,” which gives you the sandbox around your programs I mention above.
• Don’t open attachments unless you know what they are and are expecting the attachment.
• Use an outbound firewall (e.g. ZoneAlarm at www.zonelabs.com) so if something invades your system, you’ll know it when the something tries to dial back out to the net.
• Did I mention? Don’t open attachments.
• Back up your system regularly to something write-only. That means a CD-R, folks–something no virus can destroy. I recommend Retrospect Backup software set to do a daily incremental backup of your critical data files.

Above all, compute safely!

Plan to Keep Achieving Your Dreams!

Have you ever noticed how many people stop dreaming once they hit 30? The daily grind just sort of becomes habit, and they develop into a comfy routine, where the familiar settles in where the dreamer once lived.

I spent yesterday working through the book, “Your Best Year Yet” (by Jinny Ditzler) with a group of friends. It’s a great little book, that helps you review your past year, get back in touch with your dreams and values, and put together goals for the new year for each major area of your life.

Does it work? I’d love to say every goal comes to pass. They don’t. But the process keeps me focused. My #1 2003 goal was to join the National Speakers Association, an organization with tough membership requirements. Twelve hours before starting my 2004 BYY, the acceptance notice arrived. Woo hoo!

What’s odd is that the whole process only takes a day. Yet how very, very hard it is to set aside those six hours! People had to get time off work. One friend kept his laptop by his side, with email and instant messenger open—just in case. Just in case something important needed his attention.

But you know what? Spending a day redirecting your life is something important. It’s probably more important than anything that could happen at work. Planning your life isn’t “time off”; it’s time ON.

Reflecting, learning, and setting direction can change the entire trajectory of your life. Rather than assuming you’re getting you where you want to go, stop and ask where you want to go. You may not know! The answer you found compelling at age 23 may still be driving your life 20 years later. It’s worth asking.

Then ask if you’re truly making progress. Are you 40? At current life expectancies, that’s about middle age. Are you halfway to where you want to be? At the age when I finally started pursuing my passion, Mozart had been dead for four years. Take a good look at where you are, and give yourself a good kick in the pants if needed to get those dreams back in gear.

There’s an old Chinese saying:

“If we don’t change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are going.”

Take the saying to heart. Block out a day for reflecting and planning. This is more important than your job. This is more important than family time. This is time ON, and it’s time ON that only you can spend making sure your life is going in the right direction.

Go do great things! I’ll meet you there.