From Pine View Farm

Geek Stuff category archive

The Myth of Multitasking 0

Many years ago, I tried out for a tech support job where my potential employers had built “multitasking” into the job description. One was expected to deal with phone calls, emails, and chats simultaneously. It was a great experience, but I ended up not making it through the training period.

Now comes Peg Streep at Psychology Today Blogs to explain that multitasking is a myth (emphasis added); follow the link for the complete piece.

Yes, the very organ that sets us apart from all the other creatures, and it is truly fabulous in myriad ways. But it does have its limits and those limits come into play when we try to multitask. The brain’s huffing and puffing in these moments makes us think we’re getting more done but, in Marci’s words: “When we multitask, we don’t get more done. We just expend more effort and strain areas of our brain.” The area of the brain in question is the prefrontal cortex, the command center of executive function, and multitasking just creates bottlenecks, disrupting communication between the parts of the brain as neuroimaging makes clear. But our thought processes collude and, because multitasking feels like more work, we’re likely to believe that, like a physical workout, feeling the strain is a good thing and that we’re being more productive. Nope.

Aside:

The rock that sank my boat had nothing to do with my technical or people skills. Rather, this company placed great emphasis on telling callers and chatters when you would get back the them. I wasn’t able to get that down.

Driving away from that office for the last time was one of the two times in my life I have felt as if a physical weight were being lifted from my shoulders.

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Unimaginable 0

Little girl:  Grandma, how are kids today different than kids before video games, the internet, and cable TV.  Grandma:  How do you think they are different?  Little girl:  I have a hard time imagining.  Grandma:  I think you just answered your own question.

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The Future of Education 0

Title:  The Dorm.  Two college students walk into their dorm room.  One looks at the scene and says,

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We are doomed.

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The Crypto Con 0

Alex:  A lot of my friends are buying

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The Crypto Con 0

Michael Graham wonders why so many reputedly responsible fiscals were looking the other way.

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It’s All about the Algorithm Ambulances 0

Yet one more indication that “social” media isn’t.

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The Anti-Social Algorithm 0

Emma talks with Dr. Nicholas Kardaras about how and why “social” media isn’t.

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It’s All about the Algorithm, the Snaring Economy Dept. 0

Emma talks with Adrian Hon about the “gamification” of the work place in this, the snaring economy.

It’s not a pretty picture.

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The Crypto Conundrum 0

If it’s not real in the first place, can you be penalized for stealing it?

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It’s All about the Algorithm 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry charges you with being addicted to your phone.

Yes, you (but certainly not me–well at least to the extent that I avoid “social” media like the anti-social plague that it has become). They further argue that this is no accident:

Your phone is designed to be addictive. Multibillion-dollar corporations have used all its features to play your brain like the instrument it is and give you little shots of dopamine all day long like a rat in an experiment being dosed with sugar, food pellets, or cocaine. The more attention you give it, the more money they make, so they made it work like drugs work, and if you are at all susceptible you are down the rabbit hole just as surely as you would be if you were addicted to cocaine, with tolerance, withdrawal, and ongoing use despite it causing problems with work or relationships, an inability to cut down, and so much time devoted to its use that the rest of your life begins to be organized around it.

Follow the link for some recommendations on how you can get your life back.

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Digital Security Theatre 0

Bruce Schneir thinks that the efforts to ban TikTok, which seems to be the new “in” thing in the West, miss the point. A snippet:

If we want to address the real problem, we need to enact serious privacy laws, not security theater, to stop our data from being collected, analyzed, and sold—by anyone. Such laws would protect us in the long term, and not just from the app of the week. They would also prevent data breaches and ransomware attacks from spilling our data out into the digital underworld, including hacker message boards and chat servers, hostile state actors, and outside hacker groups. And, most importantly, they would be compatible with our bedrock values of free speech and commerce, which Congress’s current strategies are not.

The entire article is worth a read.

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Artificial, Yes. Intelligent, No. 0

Rebecca Watson cautions us not to believe the hype about “artificial intelligence.” An excerpt:

. . . it’s unfortunate that “AI” caught on years ago to describe these chatbots because at this point we just have to use it so people know what we’re talking about, but this kind of “AI” has absolutely nothing to do with anything that could be called “intelligence.”

Or you can read the transcript.

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Digital Quicksand 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Phil Reed discusses several recent studies that indicate that “social” media isn’t. He makes three main points.

  • Several recent studies have shown that high levels of social media use can negatively impact physical health.
  • Evidence suggests that social media can damage psychological welfare and physical functioning if its use is taken too far.
  • In one study, the group asked to reduce their social media use had an average 15 percent improvement in immune function.

Follow the link for a detailed discussion of each.

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Do You Find All the Scripts on Websites Annoying and Intrusive? 0

Then try w3m.

As far as I am concerned, it is easily the best text web browser.

It should be in your repos.

Oh, yeah.

You can’t do this on Windows. And probably not on Macs (I have no way of testing that, and don’t want one).

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It’s All about the Algorithm 0

Vultures representing social media sites sit on electric wire.  One says,

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The back story.

One more time, “social” media isn’t.

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How Stuff Works, Internet Influencers Dept. 0

Agnes:  Welcome to my cooking show.  Trout:  You have a cooking show?  Agnes:  Anyone that asks nicely may have one.  Do you want to be my celebrity guest?  Trout:  But I'm not a celebrity.  Agnes:  So?  I'm not a cook.  They world has thrown all its standards into the toilet.  Trout:  OK.  I'm in if you promise th have no standard.

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Facebook Frolics 0

Pay to play Cash-grab frolics.

Aside:

I wonder just how many persons will be willing to pay the Zuckerborg for the privilege of being assimilated?

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Spy Patrol 0

Pilot in fighter plane approaches mass of balloons labeled

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“The Algorithm Made Me Do It” 0

The ChatGPT Bot claims that it is above–or, perhaps, beyond–the law.

For some reason, I find this disquieting.

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Facebook Frolics 0

The Ghost of Cambridge Analytica comes back to haunt cost the Zuckerborg a relative pittance.

Remember, “social” media isn’t.

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