Always in Motion

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s Comments on YouTube.Com
Ohio Voting Systems Review Findings (EVEREST)

Several friends went to ShmooCon, the big annual hacker convention in Washington, D.C. last weekend (February 15-17, 2008). I’ve heard so many tantalizing ShmooCon security breach stories now that I really need to experience this event myself.

My friend Kimberly heard a presentation there by security investigators commissioned by the State of Ohio to conduct the Evaluation & Validation of Election-Related Equipment, Standards & Testing voting system review (EVEREST). This team tested Ohio’s voting machines and systems for performance and security risks. These voting machines and systems are used throughout our country.

According to this State of Ohio online article Kimberly pointed out to me, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said, “To put it in every-day terms, the tools needed to compromise an accurate vote count could be as simple as tampering with the paper audit trail connector or using a magnet and a personal digital assistant.”

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s Comments on YouTube.Com
Ohio Voting Systems Review Findings (EVEREST)

Johnson, Kirk. “U.S. Ends Protections For Wolves In 3 States.” New York Times. Feb. 22, 2008: A14.

The U.S. Government plans to end federal protection for gray wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho in March 2008.

Gray wolves were one of the first animals to be protected under the Endangered Species Act in 1974 when there were no gray wolves in the West.

Sixty-six wolves were brought into Yellowstone National Park and Idaho in the mid-1990s. They have multiplied to almost 1,300 wolves. About 230 wolves have migrated into the West from Canada. The population has been rising at a rate of about 24 percent a year.

State governments now allow wolf hunting and aim for target populations of 150 wolves in each state.

Several environmental groups and biologists think that federal protection should not be dropped and that a population of 2,000 to 3,000 would be more stable.

Some conservation groups are filing lawsuits against this action.

Read Kirk Johnson’s full article.

Gulati, Richa. “Their Double Life: Some take the plunge, while others learn to slash.” Little India. Feb. 2008: 31.
Richa Gulati’s web site (click on “Articles” to read other articles)

While waiting to meet a friend for lunch at my favorite restaurant, Bombay Cafe in Fairfax, Virginia, I found myself intrigued by this article in Little India magazine.

What in the world is a “slasher?” It’s someone who has dual careers. Richa Gulati writes about many interesting people “leading a double life” as, for example, lawyer/writer, doctor/journalist, businessman/actor. The term “slasher” comes from the slash in each career description.

Probably Marci Alboher first coined this term in her book One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success (Business Plus: 23 Feb. 2007). She says that “slashers are a personality type” who participate in diverse activities throughout their lives (Gulati, “Their Double Life”).

Richa Gulati writes about how Indian Americans have to deal with family pressure to pursue conventional education and careers. To enter better schools, they are also introduced to the arts and other more expressive pursuits at a young age. So they get a taste of “the other side” early on.

This well-written article works through the many issues we all deal with nowadays as we have to invest so much in our careers. Yet quite a few of us, once we’re “there,” still feel unfulfilled after investing so much time and effort.

Richa Gulati discusses some practical tips as to how you can implement your own dual career track by consulting and identifying blocks of free time when you could, say, write or take a course in acting.

She also points out that if you decide to pursue dual careers, you may have to give up the competitive “fast track.” However, some likely payoffs are a broader perspective and avoiding career burnout.

This is an enjoyable article well worth reading. Read Richa Gulati’s full article.

McBride, Sarah and Kane, Yukari Iwatani. “As Toshiba Surrenders, What’s Next for DVDs?” Wall Street Journal. 19 Feb. 2008: B1.

Sony’s Blu-Ray high-definition DVD format has won the “most expensive format battle since the VHS videocassette format trumped Sony’s Betamax in the 1980s” (McBride and Kane, “As Toshiba Surrenders, What’s Next for DVDs?”).

After Warner Bros., Best Buy and Wal-Mart said that they would only back high-definition movies formatted in the Blu-Ray technology, Toshiba has decided it will no longer produce its HD DVD formatted discs.

Toshiba will keep supporting their HD DVD players, which cost much less than the Blu-Ray players. Perhaps the lower prices of the Toshiba HD DVD players caused the Blu-Ray players’ ticket prices to lower over time.

Consumers who have invested in the HD DVD formatted movies over the years fought back with an online petition that drew 30,000 signatures, but to no avail. Understandably, quite a few people are upset at their investment in a disappearing technology.

Read the full Wall Street Journal online article.

Alicia Keys singing “No One” on YouTube.com
Alicia Keys singing “Like You’ll Never See Me Again” on YouTube.com
Bono & Alicia Keys, “Don’t Give Up Africa” on YouTube.com (live version)
Alicia Keys’ Web Site: http://www.aliciakeys.com
CD: As I Am

When it comes to music, I’m a hopeless pop-culture junkie. If you play a song twenty times every day on the radio, it’s embedded in my subconscious and, yes, I have to own it. I guess I’m a music marketer’s dream.

So I bought Alicia Keys’ CD, “As I Am” because I’ve heard and like the big hit song “No One” so much.

I didn’t expect the pleasant surprise that this CD has a lot of depth to it. I find myself listening to it over and over again. I really like this CD because it’s soft and tough at the same time. There’s a lot of variety — in words, moods and music — on this one. It’s rich.

I’m still exploring Alicia Keys’ music and want to hear more of her work. I know now I have to buy her older CD “The Diary of Alicia Keys,” a top-seller, which I almost bought once before.

According to Wikipedia, Alicia Keys turned down Columbia University to pursue her music career after graduating from the Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan. She grew up in Harlem and is now 27 or 28 years old.

Alicia Keys is very prolific. She’s acted on television and has recorded several CDs. She is a songwriter and author.

Alicia Keys is a spokesperson and co-founder of the non-profit organization Keep A Child Alive, which provides HIV/AIDS medicines to families in Africa. Hear Bono and Alicia Keys perform “Don’t Give Up Africa” on YouTube.com (live version).

Rihanna, “Don’t Stop the Music” on YouTube.com
Rihanna and Jay-Z, “Umbrella” on YouTube.com
CD: Good Girl Gone Bad
Rihanna’s Web Site: http://www.rihannanow.com

I like Rihanna’s dramatic hairstyle almost as much as her big hit “Don’t Stop the Music.” Happily my officemates were out the first day I listened to this CD so I played “Don’t Stop the Music” about a dozen times straight in a row. It just makes you want to L-E-A-P out of that office chair and dance amidst the desks. Maybe not great for productivity, but I was much more JOYFUL while working.

Finally I’m exploring the rest of the CD after getting over my obsession with that one infectious song. I also like “Umbrella” and “Shut Up and Drive.” The first day I was listening to this CD I was at my desk working, looked up all of a sudden and said to my officemate, “Is she saying ‘Rehab?’” Sure enough, that’s the name of another song.

Rihanna turned all of twenty years old on February 20, 2008, three days ago. According to Wikipedia, she is from Barbados. She got her big break when, at age fifteen, she met music producer Evan Rogers and soon afterward, on Jay-Z’s recommendation, signed with Def Jam Records.

Click each image above to see the detailed Facebook privacy settings discussed below.

Vara, Vauhini. “It’s Hard to Hide From Your ‘Friends.’” Wall Street Journal. 30 Jan. 2008: D1.

Wall Street Journal web site

Vauhini Vara’s article discusses three new loss-of-privacy situations in which you may unknowingly be a participant.

1. Facebook now lets your online friends view your purchases from participating online vendors’ sites, whether or not you are aware of it.

2. Google, Inc. news service sends lists of articles you’ve read to your friends and acquaintances, whether or not you know it.

3. Sears Holdings Corp. used to let anyone in the world know about anyone else’s Sears purchases with a simple, open online search. So many people complained about this “feature” that it was removed from the site.

The only situation that applied to me was Facebook. As soon as I finished Vauhini Vara’s article, YOU KNOW I scurried off to my computer to see what my Facebook settings were. Sure enough, my settings were wide open — the default behavior. However, no one knew about my purchases yet and, thanks to this article, no one will because I changed them. I never, ever noticed the “External Websites” privacy setting in Facebook until I read through this article.

All of these social networking “features” were implemented without users’ knowledge.

I really recommend that you read this article and doublecheck YOUR settings.

Read Vauhini Vara’s full article.

Saranow, Jennifer. “The Cut-and-Paste Personality.” Wall Street Journal. 16 Feb. 2008: W1.
Wall Street Journal web site

On online dating web sites such as Match.com and PlentyOfFish.com, some folks are cutting and pasting others’ witty and attractive “About Me” profiles rather than crafting their own. This is in an attempt to more effectively “market themselves” to whomever they want to date.

There are a few colorful stories in this article about people who got caught, mostly when they actually went on dates and their in-person conversations contrasted sharply with their online descriptions.

I also learned from this article that now people can hire dating coaches.

And there’s a book out called Online Dating for Dummies.

Read Jennifer Saranow’s full Wall Street Journal article.

Dillon, Sam. “Online Schooling Grows, Setting Off a Debate.” New York Times. 1 Feb. 2008: A1.

In this article Sam Dillon writes that half a million American children are now taking classes online.

Some of the online schools, such as the Florida Virtual School, offer courses that only supplement regular schooling. Others, like the Wisconsin Virtual Academy, provide full-time education.

Online schools are raising some controversy because they are publicly financed. They are not considered home schooling.

Read the full article at NYTimes.com.

Carey, Benedict. “You Remind Me of Me.” New York Times. 12 Feb. 2008: D1.

This New York Times article discusses how teams of psychologists around the world have been measuring social interaction involved in developing rapport.

When we bond with people we are getting to know and like, we often subconsciously mimic them. If they cross their legs, a few minutes later we cross our legs. If they speak loudly, we speak loudly. We may even pick up on each other’s accents.

Benedict Carey’s article delves into how there are subtleties to mimicry. Just copying the other person’s behavior doesn’t automatically build rapport. It has to be done in the right way.

His article also describes how Dr. Jeremy Bilenson at Stanford University (Virtual Human Interaction Lab) tested mimicry with a computer-generated avatar, moderating how “in sync” the avatar was with human subjects.

Benedict Carey writes about how Robin Tanner and Tanya Chartrand, psychologists at Duke, performed tests that could be correlated to sales and marketing. Mimicry could improve your bottom line. (Tanner, Robin, et al., “Of Chameleons and Consumption: The Impact of Mimicry on Choice and Preferences,” Journal of Consumer Research, 27 Aug. 2007)

He also relates some of Dr. Jean Decety’s work (Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, University of Chicago) on human empathy to mimicry.

Read Benedict Carey’s very interesting article at NYTimes.com.