Category Archives: Gadgets and Technology

Expanding your “weak ties” on Facebook

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An article from NewScientist looks at the usefulness of “weak ties” among Facebook friends. This term dates back to a very influential sociology paper from the early 1970s:

In 1973, sociologist Mark Granovetter showed how the loose acquaintances, or “weak ties”, in our social network punch far above their weight in their influence over our behaviour and choices (American Journal of Sociology, vol 78, p 1360). Granovetter found that a significant percentage of people get their jobs as a result of information provided by a weak tie. Subsequent studies have revealed that weak ties benefit our health and happiness. Granovetter suggested that this is because these friends-of-friends aren’t like you, yet they are likely to be similar enough in social outlook and personal interests to have a positive influence.

Interesting suggestion in the article that we can only handle about 150 “genuine social relationships.” Even with tools like Facebook, relationships still require more focused interaction and we are limited in this regard. So if we have more than 150 Facebook friends, are we simply fooling ourselves?

Sites like Facebook allow for a broad friendship network with little maintenance needed by either “friend.” A question I have: while these “weak ties” may now be more accessible, how often do people use them to their direct advantage? Say I am looking for a job – can I find one on Facebook? I have several friends that are selling products or services and this seems to be a good way to get word out.

Slow reading and the Internet

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An article from the Guardian discusses “slow reading” and whether reading on the Internet has made us all stupider.

Which all means that although, because of the internet, we have become very good at collecting a wide range of factual tidbits, we are also gradually forgetting how to sit back, contemplate, and relate all these facts to each other.

Because of these developments, critical thinking and analysis skills will be vitally important in the 21st century. For many, the problem is no longer getting information – the issue is now how to put it all together.

Problems for green technology in America

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Wired explores five reasons why the green tech sector has had a difficult time in the United States.

These five reasons are primarily cultural: green technology faces an image issue. Either dire circumstances or a breakthrough technology might be needed to push forward.

Another proposal for Internet sales taxes

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Many American consumers can purchase goods online without paying a state sales tax. That may change in the future. While this article specifically references a proposed bill from a Massachusetts House member, it has some interesting background on the legal issues behind gathering state sales taxes from Internet purchases.

One problem with e-voting: roll-off

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This Newsweek piece explores how unknown Alvin Greene might have won the Democratic Senate primary. While some have alleged fraud at the voting booth, the issue of “roll-off” is a more reasonable explanation.

Roll-off describes a process originally found in paper ballots where voters cast less votes toward the end of the ballot. This can be exacerbated if voters don’t recognize names – perhaps in those races like local judges, forest preserve commissioners, township officials, and more. Between the Greene race and the one listed above it, for education superintendent, there was only a 10% drop in votes cast. Newsweek says political analysts consider this a low roll-off figure for a race that garnered little public attention.

But there was another step with the e-voting machine: when a user submitts a ballot, the machine passes on a warning if all the races are not voted for. If a user saw the warning and hadn’t voted in the Democratic Senate primary, they then might have just picked the first name, Greene’s, as he was the first candidate listed based on alphabetical order.

Summary: by asking voters to double-check their input, the machine may be skewing voting results as voters just want the warnings to go away and vote for the most accessible candidate.

As local governments consider purchasing e-voting machines, this is an issue to consider.

Learning from the country’s largest urban solar plant

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The Chicago Tribune reports on a 40 acre solar power plant on the south side of Chicago, the largest urban solar plant in the United States. While the plant is not very big (generating 10 megawatts), some things I learned that shed light on the broader issue of clean energy:

-Benefits of a plant this size: “The solar plant generates enough electricity to power about 1,500 homes, and its clean power means less greenhouse gases are emitted, the equivalent of taking 2,500 cars off the road each year.”

-Perhaps Chicago is not a bad place to build solar facilities: “The sun in Illinois is more intense than in Japan or Germany, the world’s two largest solar markets.”

-On a national level: “Nationwide, there are more than 22,000 megawatts of large-scale solar projects under development, or enough to power 4.4 million homes.”

-“Green jobs” generated by building solar plants do not necessarily last over time: “Exelon’s West Pullman plant, for example, created about 200 jobs, but only during the six months of construction, he said. “It certainly wasn’t something that went on for years,” Lynch said.”

-Wind power is the main green energy for the near-future in Illinois: “Power companies in the state must get at least 25 percent of their electricity from green sources by 2025. Of that amount, 75 percent must come from wind, while only 6 percent must come from solar”

Summary: this plant has some clear benefits including cleaner energy and construction jobs. But there is a long way to go before solar plants, particularly in urban areas, can generate enough electricity at a reasonable price.

And you thought your commute was bad

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Wired writes about a report released by IBM Research regarding traffic in large cities. Using a web-based survey, IBM  included 8,192 drivers in 20 cities. IBM developed a “Commuter Pain Index” that is comprised of ten criteria.

The worst cities, starting with the worst and then declining on the index: Beijing, Mexico City, Johannesburg, Moscow, and New Delhi. The first US city, Los Angeles, shows up at #14 with New York and Houston at #17 and #18, respectively.

If you were curious, IBM recommends as a solution new technologies to “empower transportation officials to better understand and proactively manage the flow of traffic.”

Discovering fake randomness

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In the midst of a story involving fake data generated for DailyKos by the polling firm, Research 2000, TechDirt summarizes how exactly it was discovered that Research 2000 was faking the data. Several statisticians approached Kos after seeing some irregularities in cross-tab (table) data. The summary and the original analysis on DailyKos are fascinating: even truly random data follows certain parameters. One takeaway: faking random data is a lot harder than it looks. Another takeaway (for me at least): statistics can be both useful and enjoyable.

The three issues as summarized on DailyKos:

Issue one: astronomically low odds that both male and female figures would both be even or odd numbers.

In one respect, however, the numbers for M and F do not differ: if one is even, so is the other, and likewise for odd. Given that the M and F results usually differ, knowing that say 43% of M were favorable (Fav) to Obama gives essentially no clue as to whether say 59% or say 60% of F would be. Thus knowing whether M Fav is even or odd tells us essentially nothing about whether F Fav would be even or odd.

Issue two: the margin between favorability and unfavorability ratings did not display enough variance. If the polls were truly working with random samples, there would be broader range of values.

What little variation there was in the difference of those cross-tab margins seemed to happen slowly over many weeks, not like the week-to-week random jitter expected for real statistics.

Issue three: the changes in favorability ratings from week to week were too random. In most polls like this that track week to week, the most common result is no change. Research 2000 results had too many changes from week to week – often small changes, a percent either way.

For each individual issue, the odds are quite low that each would arise with truly random data. Put all three together happening with the same data and the odds are even lower.

Besides issues regarding integrity of data collection (and it becomes clearer why many people harbor a distrust toward polls and statistics), this is a great example of statistical detective work. Too often, many of us see numbers and quickly trust them (or distrust them). In reality, it takes just a little work to dig deeper into figures to discover what exactly is being measured and how it is being measured. The “what” and “how” matter tremendously as they can radically alter the interpretation of the data. Citizens and journalists need some of these abilities to decipher all the numbers we encounter on a daily basis.

Blood gadgets

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Many consumers don’t ask, and presumably often don’t care, how their newly purchased products came to be. Certain products have drawn attention, such as “blood diamonds” (accompanied by a preachy Hollywood film by the same name) or Nike shoes made by sweatshop laborers.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof draws attention to another set of consumer goods: high-tech gadgets including cell phones. These devices often include hard to obtain minerals, such as tantalum which is found in Congo. There are some activists who are planning to bring attention to this by taking their argument to tech companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Intel:

A humorous new video taunting Apple and PC computers alike goes online this weekend on YouTube, with hopes that it will go viral. Put together by a group of Hollywood actors, it’s a spoof on the famous “I’m a Mac”/”I’m a PC” ad and suggests that both are sometimes built from conflict minerals.

“Guess we have some things in common after all,” Mac admits.

Stay tuned. A strong-enough consumer/activist push will likely lead to these companies pledging to use responsible materials.

Also: one wonders how this decades-long situation in mineral-rich Congo might inform decision-making regarding recent finds of vast amounts of valuable minerals in Afghanistan.