julian/blog

From Cognitive Science I have held onto the notion that one should always be looking for a way to disprove your theories or beliefs. It is from the attempts to disprove (and the reactions to those attempts) that one can form a strong argument. It’s nice that I now have a concise phrase for a similar notion applicable to everyday life. Strong opinions, which are weakly held:

A couple years ago, I was talking the Institute’s Bob Johansen about wisdom, and he explained that – to deal with an uncertain future and still move forward – they advise people to have “strong opinions, which are weakly held.”

…

Bob explained that weak opinions are problematic because people aren’t inspired to develop the best arguments possible for them, or to put forth the energy required to test them. Bob explained that it was just as important, however, to not be too attached to what you believe because, otherwise, it undermines your ability to “see” and “hear” evidence that clashes with your opinions.

Bob Sutton - Strong Opinions, Weakly Held - via Daring Fireball

As a designer who interacts with websites, airport and subway signage, nasty little cell phone interfaces, and other variously successful communication attempts by designers and engineers (in short, as a user), I not infrequently write about my user experience—especially when my experience is not what the designers and engineers intended.

I do this not as complaint, which is of no use to anyone, but as critique and information-sharing. It is critique when, by examining a specific case, it illuminates a point of interest or failure in many designs. When it’s less broad in implication it still has value as data about a particular path that hit a particular wall.

Jeffrey Zeldman — The Power of Positive Whining

Looks like we’re significantly closer to having a Scorpionman than a Spiderman:

Making Radioactive Scorpion Venom Therapy Safe

At this week’s meeting of the Health Physics Society in Providence, researchers will describe how they have helped establish the safety of a surprising new treatment for an aggressive, essentially incurable malignant cancer called high-grade brain glioma, diagnosed in more than 17,000 people in the U.S. every year.

The treatment is based on the discovery that the venom in the Israeli yellow scorpion (Leiurus quinquestriatus) contains a protein that binds selectively to the glioma cells. The procedure uses a compound called TM-601, a synthetic version of the venom protein attached to a radioactive substance called I-131 that kills the glioma cells. When injected into the bloodstream, the radioactive scorpion venom protein travels to the brain and attaches to the glioma cells, with the I-131 releasing radiation that kills the cells.

Describing the second sequence of phase II clinical trials involving human patients, health physicist Alan Jackson (AlanJ@rad.hfh.edu) of the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit will report that he and his colleagues recently established safe procedures for the therapy. Patients in the trial received a radioactive dose of 40 millicuries per week. This dose is not tremendously high compared to a thyroid cancer treatment, in which patients receive up to 200 millicuries of I-131 in a single treatment.

As Jackson determined, patients could safely return home several hours after the treatment, as their families would not be exposed to any more radiation than is typical with a thyroid cancer patient returning home after the procedure. And according to a separate group’s study of the first sequence of phase II trials, patients receiving up to 40 millicuries of weekly dose did not show evidence of any adverse reactions attributable to the radiation. The phase II trial at Henry Ford involves 3 patients, with a total of 54 patients across the U.S. currently in investigational trials for the therapy.

Paper WAM-B.11 at the HPS 51^st Annual Meeting, Wednesday, June 28, 2006. Study Demonstrates Safety of Promising Investigational Treatment for Deadly Brain Cancer (press release from TransMolecular, Inc.)

AIP Physics News Update 782

In all seriousness, though, I’m always amazed when several sciences come together to help people. Physics in particular seems to be constantly helping in the battle against cancer, disease, and injury (fMRI anyone?).

Wow it’s lonely back here. Where’d everybody go?

Something ELSE blue
Originally uploaded by jmissig.

At the same time.

I was planning on coming back home to go to my brother’s graduation. I was trying to decide whether to leave Thursday night or Friday morning. My father hinted that they had something for me to do Friday morning, so I should probably come in Thursday. I simply figured that they were celebrating my birthday early. I decided I would let this surprise get by without inquiring at all so it truly would be a surprise.

Friday morning they take me out on a little road trip. I quickly realize that we’re heading to my parents’ insurance agent. I begin thinking that they’re probably either signing a car over into my name or else getting me a used car of some sort.

Then at the agent’s I see the piece of paper. “2007 Honda Fit.” I simply had absolutely no idea what to say or think, so I pretended I didn’t see that text until someone else brought it up.

Here I was, having all these plans for going out and getting a car in December… with it all done for me. My parents knew I wanted a compact hatchback. They had heard my various ramblings about Scion, then Yaris, and then finally the Fit. They went out and did some test drives, and they called a bunch of different Honda dealers to find one which could get me a car in June. And so here I am.

It doesn’t feel real at all; I got to skip right by all the boring and hard stuff and just magically have a new car.

Not only that, but it’s a car I can add to my something blue collection!

I can’t even begin to thank them. Of all the things I thought I might be getting as a graduation present, this wasn’t even close.

I regularly receive quite a few links via instant message in any given day. I like this, as it’s a part of the social and connectionist processes which make the Internet function, and it’s part of how things can progress in “Internet time”.

Unfortunately sometimes I’m in a state of busyness in which I’m free to chat with people off and on (since it only requires a limited amount of attention), but I just don’t have the time or attention to pull up a link and check it out. This is where my idea for the Link History window comes in.

Very similar to Safari’s Downloads window, this window contains all of the links I’ve recently received. I can just pull this window up and click on a link. It makes it much easier for me to go back and find links that people sent me which I have yet to visit.

Once a link is visited—either in the Link History window or in the original chat window—the entry for that link fades out (as in the first entry from temas). It could be automatically removed every day, or on quit, or whatever.

Next to each link is a little arrow—similar to the arrow in the display of iChat or the magnifying lens in the Downloads window—which when clicked pulls up the chat in which the link was mentioned, with the specific message highlighted. This allows me to see the context in which the link was sent.

Obviously this is not something I expect users new to chat to make much use of—but like the Downloads window in Safari, it’s something the expert users might enjoy. If I were still working on Gabber I’d certainly try to throw together something like this quickly to see how well it works in practice.

Julian and Alice Graduating
Originally uploaded by jmissig.

Four years, two majors, and a lot of work. Now it’s over. It still doesn’t feel real. I managed to graduate from Carnegie Mellon University, being conferred a degree of Bachelor of Science with University Honors in the field of Cognitive Science with an additional major in Human-Computer Interaction.

Alice received her BS in Computer Science with minors in Music Technology and Business Administration.

Now I go straight through December working on my Masters.