It's going to snow

So I guess there's supposed to be this winter storm thing hitting tonight. Last time I checked, this was the northeast where things like that happen during winter. So, umm... relax already. What the heck is the deal with bread and milk prior to a snow storm anyway? Folks out here are very, very strange sometimes.

First shoot with the new pistol AAR

Took the Para Carry 12 out for a first shoot (FINALLY) today. I was joined by 3 coworkers, 2 of whom owned guns of their own (worshipers at the altar of Glock). One person who came had fired a gun only once before in his life.

The Para is brand new and I've never put a round through it. The total by the end of our 2.5 hour play session had 200 rounds through it and another 300 rounds combined through the 3 Glocks that were on hand.

The Para performed reasonably well. I was expecting some issues starting out. It wasn't broken in, and with the temperature inside the indoor shooting range hovering around 40 or so, and the outdoor temperature being 20, the gun was pretty cold.

I also was working with the new glasses covered by shooting glasses. Needless to say there were to many new things here for me to overly worry about accuracy.

Starting off I had plenty of jams. The first magazine had a failure to feed. The second magazine went smoothly. A repeat of the first magazine had several jams this time, mainly feeding problems. This continued for about half the shoot as I debated whether it was the ammo, the magazine, the pistol or combos thereof. Finally I just took the magazine that seemed linked to the biggest issues out of the equation all together. The gun smoothed right up and the last few rounds of shooting with the good magazine functioned smoothly. Time will tell for sure, but I'm pretty sure the first magazine is going to need some work. On a side note, 100 of the 200 rounds fired were Winchester. That ammo seemed to produce the most malfunctions. The last 50 rounds were Blazers and they had zero malfunctions with the good magazine.

The Para has the Light Double Action trigger on it. This leads to a smooth pull for me and, as I got used to the gun and the awkward vision setup from the glasses, I found that I was routinely grouping my shots in an area maybe a little bit bigger than a fifty cent piece. This was pretty much true for all distances from 10 to 25 yards. We didn't shoot any further out than that, this time. I did find that either I or the gun was shooting low. I suspect it's me. When I focused on trying to correct for shooting low, I started shooting to the left of center. Clearly, in all my downtime from shooting I have developed a problem with my grip and sight picture.

The new guy had a ton of fun shooting all the different guns. Sadly, with mine he also learned more than necessary about malfunction clearance. However on the drive back from Salisbury all he could talk about was how badly he wanted a gun of his own to go target shooting with. Score another convert for the good guys!

In conclusion, I think that with the gun close to being broken in I really like it. I have to work on the bad magazine, really make certain that I have the kinks worked out the gun, and then I need to spend some time getting my old mojo back. Fun times all around, regardless.

Now if you all will excuse me, I have some cleaning to do. :)

(Unedited) The improbability of surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

Yes, I've been playing way too much L4D on the weekends.

I had an idea for a survival short story I was going to write this weekend. Thinking on it last night, I came to some interesting conclusions.

Character: A late twenties male investment banker who lives in Boston, and spent his whole life in that general area of the country with exception of business travel, vacations, etc.

Setting: The Zombie Apocalypse

Goal: Surviving and getting to a safe place to rebuild/restart.

How the story has to end: He dies and becomes a Zombie. There is no other option for him.

Why?

The assumption is that this character is generally smart, quick witted, and probably a moderate democrat. This means that he's perfectly capable in the modern world. In fact, he's rather well off as his abilities have propelled him to great heights in the banking profession. And, like a surprisingly large number of Democrats that I know, he's reasonably well versed in some form of Karate.

When the Apocalypse hits it starts as a slow wave marching around the world (think Swine Flu but deadlier :D ). But, as is classical for a zombie story, a bite, a scratch, any form of wound at all is generally infectious and results in the individual becoming a zombie.

Now, luckily for our hero, he manages to avoid becoming undead in the initial outbreak. But the city is in ruins. Nothing is going to work. If you really think about an urban area in this sort of situation, he MUST get out. Municipal water supply will probably be tainted if it works at all. Who knows what sort of debris will be strewn around. No electricity... oh, and a city full of zombies. Take New Orleans after Katrina and add several hundred thousand zombies (that would be a great level for L4D 2).

Now since most transactions are electronic these days, our hero will not have much cash on hand. He won't have stockpiled any food, water, batteries, medical supplies, anything really. The last time he got gas was probably a week ago. Luckily he has close to a full tank since he normally would take the T into work. No weapons either. The only gun he's ever seen were in the movies and the one time he visited a brother who is in the army. Generally speaking he's pretty neutral on the gun issue. Knows nothing about them, can't see why you need them, but is okay with others having them (remember he's a moderate Dem).

So step one is he gets out of Boston. This is okay, he has gas and can get pretty far out of the city. Easy enough (assuming he doesn't get bitten by zombies on the way to his car and the roads aren't blocked.

Now he's probably going to try and city hop until he finds a safe location. He's an urbanite. Cities are "safe". Now, since he's quick witted and knows he's in a survival scenario, he does his best to bring what he has lying around with him. Some bottles of water (that he normally used when bike riding), some oil for his car (it was leaking last month), a couple of batteries and a flashlight (everyone has those). Etc.

The drive out of the city is going to be a pretty harrowing journey. Zombies are everywhere. Tunnels are blocked. He barely gets everything into his car and gets it started. Makes it out of the city okay but the roads have debris (cars, trucks, etc.) all over them. Slow going.

Now assume he passes out of MA into NY state (he's going generally west). He comes across a food store that seems generally untouched. Does he go in? Okay if he does, he grabs what food and water he can find. Smart. What about alcohol or chocolate? These are vices that probably don't cross his mind. He almost certainly will not consider them for their value in what has probably become a survivors bartering economy. And he has limited space. He does have the foresite to grab some empty gas cans that the store luckily had for sale. Even though without power anywhere and no money, he doesn't know how he's going to fill them.

Luck! He finds a gun store! Being luke warm about them he's still decided that long range protection is better than the risky hand to hand zombie fighting that is his only weapon right now. The store offers pistols, rifles, shotguns (a bunch of dead zombies and a shop keep who looks like he committed suicide rather than become one of them). Ammo. Magazines. Knives. Woohoo!

Now what's the best to take? How does it work? What ammo does it take (all those hundreds of boxes in different colors with strange numbers on them do not help him). How much can he carry. Can he find spare magazines for the correct weapon? Rifles? Does he realize that he might be able to barter with the ammo too?

He moves on. Fifty miles later he runs out of gas. Now he has to keep moving, and ditch everything save some water, food, and he decides to hold onto a pistol and a rifle.

Of course the story ends in him shooting as the zombies mob him. Doubtful he found a survivor enclave. It's a sad story. And his entire journey was essentially doomed from the start.

:(

Effectiveness of simulators

Okay, weird topic but...

How many would be interested in an article on the effectiveness of PC based simulators on training for the zombie onslaught?

The Big Tuna

So with today being my Friday off I proceeded north, along the coast to Kittery, Maine. Along the way I stopped in Portsmouth, NH for some lunch (Portsmouth Brewery Restaraunt, yum). But it was a historical sign that pulled me off the highway originally. After lunch I visited it.

Hull number 569. USS Albacore. An unexpected treasure. Yes, I went inside of her. The following pictures show her off a bit.

The forward berthing area (tight bunks)

Hatch to somewhere, I forgot to actually see where it went.

Chart room

Controls

Engine room (that thing running along the center is the propeller shaft housing.

A very fine rear if I say so myself.

View from starboard looking forward.

Quite a pretty little boat isn't it?

A quote borrowed because it is just that awesome.

"The pacifist helps give war its point, to make the exercise worthwhile, by allowing you to enslave him, to take his wife to serve yours, his daughters to warm your bed, and his sons as machine gun fodder, safe in the knowledge that he will not lift a hand to stop you, lest he risk compromising his "principles.""


Colonel Kratman and R. Cruze Jr.

Yes, I do agree. --> TEMD

Epidemiology

So I whippped out my epi text this evening since all the fuss about "swine flu" gave me a good excuse to remind myself how all that stuff works. I was going to make a lengthy post (and if the news keeps being stupid I still will) on the entire topic, but there isn't really any point. Epidemiology is a fascinating subject but the more I read, the more I realize that while the governments response is appropriate, the news's response (and coverage) is not.

Consider these few facts:

1) We've had a couple of handfuls of this flu in the US (and I've spoken with a couple of folks who think they may have had it). Only one case has resulted in hospitilization. No fatalities in the US.

2) Mexico's healthcare system is decades behind ours.

3) This variant of the H1N1 virus responds to at least some of our vaccines.

4) Yearly, regardless of strain, the US has something like 36,000 hospitilizations from the flu.

It's the flu folks. It's strange in that it is striking in the spring-summer season. Cytokine storms are possible (I presume) and they do suck. It does seem to target the 20-40 year old demographic like the 1918 pandemic. But it's no pandemic maker. Calm down, have some chicken soup. Stay home from work if you think you need to. If you're elderly go to the hospital.

There are more frightening things happening out there (like global cooling).

*Edited to provide fun 1918 pandemic linkification:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol12no01/05-0979.htm

Work in progress

To all those who read the blog (yeah, all four of you),

I'm researching my next major post. The topic will be Human Factors in space flight. I intend to write it as if it is the missing chapter to Doc Travis's Introduction to Rocket Science and Engineering. Should be a good one. Look for it soon.

Human Factors in Space Engineering

http://www.eraualumni.org/s/867/index.aspx?sid=867&gid=1&pgid=252&cid=1661&ecid=1661&crid=0&calpgid=15&calcid=889

ERAU Daytona is gaining support for a space transportation R&D institute. Among the fields the institute will be pushing is HFE in space flight. I'm still working on getting a contact for more info, but this is definitely interesting.

As a note, in Doc Travis's latest book "Introduction to Rocket Science and Engineering" (Travis S. Taylor, CRC Press. Copyright 2009) he covers all the basics of rocketry and space flight. He covers government acquisition phases and how detailed such acquisition programs need to be. He even slightly hints at the need for human factors... but there is no HFE chapter. :(

Maybe I should write it for him? XD

Lets switch gears for a moment.

Safety.

What is safe? Can something ever truly be safe? Should we define a new word (safe-ish) instead? Is there a reason for everything to be "safe".

What would the shifts be. Instead of the most common last words being "hey watch this!" perhaps we could change it to "well, it was safe-ish".

:D

There is a new post coming

It's simply taking a little more time than usual. :D

Empire: Total War

Come on, admit it! You're really jonesin' for a chance to coop with me and take over the napoleonic world. :D

Yerkes-Dodson Law

I'm being evil today and giving everyone homework.

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Yerkes/Law/

This paper is the work that eventually led to the "inverted U" Yerkes-Dodson law of human performance. The law posits that as stimulation increases, arousal (think alertness not the other, more fun version) increases to a point. After that point further stimulation theoretically results in a decrease in arousal. Sounds valid on the face of it (I love that phrase). There are issues with the initial paper (obviously the first issue would be that the study involved mice, not people).

Now others have done studies trying to apply the conclusions of this paper to humans (and the studies are arguable as to their validity). Your homework is to read this original work and tell me what some of the other issues are with the conclusions.

:D

On politics...

Okay, for the most part I'm too darned busy showing the flaws in modern pseudo-science to want to do much on politics here but...

They moaned and complained as George Bush orchestrated one of the largest expansions in the US Government in history. They whined about his policies, the war, the money he spent, and ultimately about the economic crisis (even though the evidence points to the possibility (I won't say fact here because I'm too lazy to find a citation right now) that the Dem's are the ones that finally caused the housing collapse).

Someone please explain to me something. If what Bush did was so bad, how is Obama doing even more than that better? Is a massive increase of the items that made Bush so disliked really the hope and change the American people wanted? Really?

We're leaving Iraq (were gonna do that anyway) but we're pumping up Afghanistan with out a plan. (At least "the surge" had a communicated plan behind it along with a change in command).

We borrowed and over-spent ourselves into an economic crisis... now the solution is to borrow more and spend EVEN MORE! Huh? Something does not compute.

Obama touted "hope and change"... The increase in people who voted for him going to gun stores and saying the reason is they're afraid of him! Terrifying!

But here's the most frightening thing. Nobody can talk to a person with a differing point of view anymore because we no longer can even understand the ideas of the other side. You must have common ground to hold meaningful political discourse. We seem to be engaged in political tit-for-tat.

It is time to kick everyone out of office (on both sides) and hold some meaningful discussions. We're all Americans, we'd better find some common ground quick.

It is conspicuous

Have you ever noticed that growing up everyone told you that your teachers knew what they were talking about... and now as an adult you realize they were full of it? In fact, it sometimes seems that those who teach in the grade schools have an IQ that is lower than the dumbest kid in the class.

Pseudo-science Part II

A friend of mine brings two articles to my attention this evening.

The first one concerns Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who famously produced a study on the MMR vaccine demonstrating a possible link with Autism. The result of this study was frightened parents who refused to allow the vaccine, an increase in measles followed, as well as a rise in death from this disease.

Article Here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5683671.ece

It turns out that the doctor may have falsified some data on the 12 patients who took part in the study. Now, I have not verified this article, although it does site its own sources for those who wish to check the claim. I personally have a huge issue with basing conclusions of such a staggering nature on just 12 patients... that's taking the art of lying with statistics to an extreme that is... Well, it gives those who lie with statistics a bad name. The unjustified panic this study caused is perfect grounds for a serious ethical review. At a minimum.

The second article reports that "nightlights do not cause nearsightedness".

Article Here: http://www.personalmd.com/news/n0310114743.shtml

This article explains that the original findings, that nightlights cause nearsightedness, was incorrect. It turns out, again I haven't checked the findings for myself and am just going off what I read, that more often than not, the parents of the children were myopic. As the friend who pointed this article out to me said (paraphrased here), "nightlights don't cause nearsightedness in childred, nearsighted parents cause nightlights!"

This article provides a perfect example of confirmation bias. That is, your idea, with the backing of a tiny bit of data, all of a sudden grows in your mind to the exclusion of all other data and possibilities as you focus on that "ah ha!" moment. Ah the "ah ha!" moment. That one rears its ugly head in accident investigation rather often as well.

There is another article, recently published in the journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, which is even more egregious in its committing of this error. I will not go further into this for professional reasons other than to say A) I'm a member of HFES, and B) the topic of the article was confirmation bias.

So what is the takeaway about pseudo-science this time? Did we learn that some scientists are blatantly incapable of doing real research? Perhaps they are blinded by that amazing "ah ha!" moment? Hey, I've been there! It's darned hard to avoid these traps if you are not mentally and emotionally prepared to search for them. Especially since the first person to suspect is always yourself! Who wants to criticize themselves? Yes, perhaps we can say we learned these things. Perhaps we can righteously hammer these scientists for either unethical behavior in the first article (which he/they were in my opinion) or simply ignorant/intellectually dishonest in the second.

A small aside here. Why didn't the people responsible for peer review catch this? It's their JOB after all.

But let us look at a different take away. Both articles found evidence of something (albeit in one case the statistical significance is highly questionable). Yet that evidence indicated their hypotheses should be rejected (good statistics speak there). Well, okay. So what?

Consider this. If they had published the failure of their studies (or been more rigorous in searching for alternate hypotheses/confounds in those studies) and published those results instead, would the studies have been any less valuable? I would argue that, especially in the case of the first article, they would have been just as impactful and just as valuable! Perhaps more so. WE LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES!

The second article, if this was a topic I was enamored with (which I am not), would have provided a great topic for further research. "We looked at the kids and nightlights, but found that the parents caused the nightlights. Let's go look at the parents now!"

These articles both highlight poor scientific methodology and a lack of scientific and intellectual humility that boggles the mind. Yet out of the dust we pull a lesson on why it is vital to publish our failures as well as our successes. We learn in either case. Since science is the pursuit of knowledge... I believe you all get my point. Comments?

Oh! One more thing. My friend who shot me these articles? Follow his blog HERE:
http://brertiger.blogspot.com

Poetry!

Tom Kratman brings this poem to my attention today. The background is rather interesting. The poet, Patrick Pearse, was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916. He was executed following the uprising and apparently came to represent the rebellion.

The Rebel http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rebel_(Pearse)

Here's a personal favorite.

Horatius by Thomas Babington Macaulay http://www.englishverse.com/poems/horatius

As a final offering, something truly classic and entertaining.

Scotch Drink by Robert Burns http://www.online-literature.com/robert-burns/2369/

QED

Sometimes I go off on tangents. I'll start wondering what little things, used regularly in language, actually mean. In the future I will probably do little posts on interesting items such as "i.e" and "e.g.", or phrases like "drinking-the-koolaid". But this is not one of those posts.

Hmm... Of course I'm also not like those evil people out there who dangle an idea, and then totally leave you hanging. "Q.E.D" A latin abbreviation for "quod erat demonstrandum" which literally means "that which was to be demonstrated". Here, go to Wikipedia and read the rest for yourself, I want to get back to the original purpose of this post. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q.E.D.

What was the original purpose of this again? Oh, yeah. I remember now.

FEYNMAN!

That probably is 'nuff said for those of you out there who follow science and/or science fiction. For those of you who don't...

QED stands for quantum electrodynamics, which is a field that Richard P. Feynman achieved great reknown in (like nobel prize level reknown).

QED also happens to be the title of a book containing a collection of lectures by Feynman on the topic. In classical Feynman style it starts off humorous, is easily understandable, and very enjoyable to read. For example (perhaps I should use e.g. or i.e. in here somewhere 'eh?) this excerpt is from the second paragraph in lecture one:

"I prepared some lectures , and I went to New Zealand to try them out--because New Zealand is far enough a way that if they weren't successful, it would be all right! Well, the people in New Zealand thought they were okay, so I guess they're okay--at least for New Zealand!"

And that has nothing to do with QED (or does it? One can never tell exactly which direction Feynman is going to come from during a lecture).

I'll probably put up a mini review once I've finished. Hopefully this will capture the interest of a few people out there and we can push the bounds of the Feynman meme.

Anyhow, let's finish this off with a list of books I'm reading:

Bone Crossed. Patricia Briggs

Agincourt. Bernard Cornwell

QED: the strange theory of light and matter. Richard P. Feynman

"Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman", adventures of a curious character. Richard P. Feynman

Ender in Exile. Orson Scott Card

Kill Zone: A sniper novel. Gunnery Sgt. Jack Coughlin, USMC (ret.) with Donald A. Davis

Human Factors Part 1

Engineering and the Human Factor

In the last hundred or so years a new science has been introduced to the various industries of the world. This science, known as human factors, has made great strides in areas such as usability, safety, situation awareness, work load, and efficiency. Yet it has also run into its own problems. The vast majority of individuals out there, be they engineers, scientists, workers, managers, or any of the miriad professions out there, do not understand what human factors is.

To put it as generically as possible, human factors is the science of how humans interact with and become an intregral component of a system (be it mechanical, software, or environmental). The field involves the diciplines of psychology, engineering, human-machine interface, human-system interface, ergonomics, and safety.

Coming out of this science is an even newer discipline. The Human Factors Engineer. This individual must have an integral understanding of how the human behaves to a given stimuli,situation, or technology in order to aid technical innovators, systems engineers and leaders in applying known standards in order to affect the techonology.
Of course, this only explains what a Human Factors Engineer does in a broad sense. It gives an idea of the disciplines required to be effective, and hints at current issues hendering it's continued importance. So what does human factors engineering do for anyone?

Let's start with the direct impact to the consumer. It is often said that form follows function. In this day of computerized everything, the great battle in both form and function is being fought by two giants who offer perfect examples. Microsoft, and Apple. One company has, through business strategy and a "be everything to everyone" mentality, become the number one computer software business in the world. The other, through the ability to cater to the user and developing a form that a good deal of people find easy and stylish, has been able to great inroads on its competitor while making great strides in expanding product lines. Neither company would be able to compete against the other if it weren't for the thousands of hours spent in usability testing for every piece of hardware and software either company manufactures.

That is simply an immediate example of how human factors (in this case the study of human-system interface) impacts our every day consumer decision. Let's look at the industry that, arguably, human factors arose from, aviation. Safety is paramount in the aviation industry. If an aircraft is not safe, it won't sell. If an airline has a poor safety record (or even a perceived poor safety record) it will not be successful. Yet when an accident happens, seventy to eighty percent of the time a phrase is used that agitates the accident investigator, safety professional, and human factors engineer. This phras is "pilot error". It is not that this phrase is necessarily incorrect that causes such angst, but rather that it does not mean anything. The pilot made an error. What does such a statement tell us? Nothing. Pilots are highly trained professionals. Everything they do has a purpose based on experience and technology. That they make an error is simply human, understanding the underlying psychological and technological reasons for that error can prevent it from happening again. This is the guiding principle that has made our fastest form of transportation also our safest.

But let me relate the disconnect between engineers and human factors engineers. In a recent experience of my own a group of human factors specialists were aiding a systems engineering team in dry-run testing of a new meteorology system for the United States Marine Corps. During the course of testing, there was a problem with the upper air sensor. This sensor gathers data from a GPS enable radiosonde on temeperature, wind speeds, wind direction, and upper air pressure. The sonde is attached to a helium filled balloon that can climb as high as sixty-thousand feet before the balloon pops and the whole thing falls out of the sky. A Marine techinician and I managed to troubleshoot the system and launch a sonde that gathered the proper data. There was nothing particularly difficult about this. Yet I was struck that evening, over beer and dinner with the engineering team, when the program manager began expressing surprise and pleasure in how quickly the technician and I had solved the problem, and at how we then sat down and used the system to gather the needed data without any training whatsoever. He was surprised at the initiative, but also at the fact that a person in human factors could, and would, do such a thing. All of this he expressed to me.

Why? I asked myself, was this so surprising to me. After months of observation of many different projects and the human factors scientist involved (in truth they were research scientists and the word engineer does not belong any where near a reference to them) I began to realize something. 1) Nobody understands why human factors people are involved in a project, and 2) most of the human factors people tend to be psychologist, with little to no technological and engineering capability. In short, the people designing the systems don't see fellow engineers in a human factors team, they see a bunch of psychologists whose inputs to a project often cost a lot of money and time, but provide little in the way of impact to the system.

The biggest problem however, is not the outside worlds understanding of human factors, it is the internal dynamics of the science and the people who currently control it that causes the problem. Human factors specialists, especially in system design and acquisition, are overrun by psychologists (you begin to understand that I am highly critical of psychology as a science even though it is critical to what I do). And while psychology is an extremely important science, the lack of technical ability in most psychologists means that most human factors teams literally don't know what to do or, even in the rare case where they actually do know what to do, cannot represent their ideas to the individuals in the necessary fashion. In short, they are not engineers and cannot speak to or influence the engineers they work with. This is compounded by the low respect their total lack of technical exprtise brings to the field.

This brings me the main point of this post. The name of the field is human factors engineering. Most people insist on placing emphasis on human factors and disregard the engineering aspects inherent in the discipline. I would like to propose a new focus for the science. Engineering for the human factor. Not Human Factors, and certainly not Human Engineerin. Unfortunately such a discipline does not currently exist in education. Why? Most individuals who end up involved in human factors (again, not necessarily true human factors engineer) come out of either the psychological profession or the medical profession. Both bring absolutely necessary components to the makeup of human factors the science, but they lack the understanding and ability required to impact the technologies through human factors engineering.

So given that industry doesn't really understand human factors, and that human factors is generally made up of people from disciplines that, while necessary, are not the total of the science, it is time to give some thought to what goes into the making of a good human factors engineer. The disciplines of psychology, human-system interface, engineering, software design, usability, physics, mathematics, etc. All should go into a curiculum that creates competent human factors engineers who are well rounded in the required knowledge and have the ability to speak confidently in all areas. These individuals will be skillfull enough to become not just tertiary parties to system design, but integral members of the engineering team. Individuals whose knowledge and technical expertise will bring the science of human factors into a respected light. Most of all, creating these professional will mean that the next time I tell someone I'm a human factors engineer the response will be "Cool"! Rather than, "what's that"?

In the next post I'll take a closer look at the human factors ENGINEER, and we'll explore how vital a discipline it is (and how it can save your system time and money all while providing that "gee whiz" factor that will make it a hot sell).

And now for something completely different

The cover for "The Tuloriad" (Tom Kratman (okay and John Ringo), Baen Books October 2009) is up on Kurt Millers site. Click on over and check it out.

http://www.kmistudio.com/blog/index.php/gallery/image_full/170/

And don't forget, the new Michael Z Williamson is out in April. You can read samples of "Contact with Chaos" on Baen's site.

http://www.webscription.net/chapters/1416591540/1416591540.htm?blurb

Yeah, I know... I schlepp for Baen.

On Fitness

It was ten degrees F this morning. Currently (18:10) it has warmed up to 18 degrees. I can't run in this cold, it's just not fun. My cold weather running gear is fine for anything above 35 degrees, but not below that. And I have a desk job. So I broke down today and purchased the P90 basic fitness plan.

It will come with resistance bands and I ordered a multifunction push-up/pull-up bar along with it. I'm getting desperate for some physical activity so I even overnighted it. It will be here when I get home tomorrow afternoon. I. Can't. Wait.

I'll post as to how effective the system is. Who knows, 90 days on this and maybe I'll be up for the p90 extreme program.

Pseudo-science

This is meant as a discussion topic. Since I have not provided supporting articles here, please ask me if you are THAT interested and I will gladly provide cites from my library on cognitive studies. Also, if I’m wrong, tell me why. I am testing my own critical thinking skills with this post.

Over the last couple of years, as I have developed experience in the science of Human Factors and Human Factors Engineering (they are different; one being a pure research endeavor, the other an engineering discipline), I have begun to notice something that is very troubling. This phenomenon is most noticeable in the field of psychology, but other sciences tend to succumb to it as well. Nobody seems to follow the scientific method anymore. They believe everything they read. Critical thinking seems to be a buzzword that has lost its true meaning.

The most easily identifiable error that is consistently identifiable (again, especially in the field of psychology) is the error in the scientific method that is identified as the logical fallacy of "affirming the consequent".

Affirming the consequent is the error of conducting a scientific experiment, but rather than looking for data that disproves your hypothesis, only looking for data that supports it. The result of this is setting yourself up to never fail. I.E. your hypothesis will always turn out to be true.
Doing this once is a misuse of the scientific method and results in junk science. But when you never repeat an experiment, never apply critical thinking to try and alleviate the tendency to affirm the consequent, and then proceed to build further work upon this faulty foundation, there is a problem. An entire body of work is created that may have face validity but mistakes face validity for fact. Confound this further with people who, even though having been told throughout their lives to "not believe everything they read", proceed to take your work as vetted fact and you can understand that an entire modern research industry could have a very serious problem.

Now offering pure criticism in a posting without offering a solution is egregious. I offer this as a solution: When reading, even something that is known to be absolute fact, assume it to be wrong. Don't automatically believe anything. This assumption could easily turn into peer bashing, so it should then be followed with some questions. Why is it wrong? What is good about it? Is there a better way to do it? Can it be fixed? So on and so forth. This is basic critical thinking. With a reeducation on critical thinking, perhaps the pseudo-sciences can be brought back to the methodological fold.

Furthermore, publish failures. Every now and then an enterprising researcher will actually do this, and in the process will learn more about his research topic than he dreamed possible.
Finally, and unfortunately the least likely to occur due to how funding works in this day and age, repeat the experiment/research your work is based upon before embarking on your own research journey. The scientific method insists that studies be repeatable in order to confirm the conclusions reached. If it's never BEEN repeated and you base research off of it, then you might as well not pay attention to it to begin with. Afterall, how do you know that the results are correct unless you've checked for yourself.

It's a complex topic overall. Yet with a little intellectual humility and honesty, squishy sciences can become something more worthwhile.

We're not there yet. I recommend taking anything a Psychologist (especially one with a PhD) tells you with a very large grain of salt.

The initial post

Yes, I know! Finally!

This will be where I expound on everything. I'm certain you will all learn fascinating things and I'll be allowed to make thousands of spelling and grammar errors in the process.

Stay tuned. My first planned post of content will cover pseudo-science (AKA psychology), and will be followed by dissertations on the difference between human factors and HF Engineers.