The Story of Technology

is a monochromatic, "I'm not quite sure what it does, but it is new and shiny."

Technology is better used to help tell a story.

Teaching technical analysis of neuroimaging data is a story I frequently tell. A digital recording of a relevant talk is easy to share. The person I'm mentoring can watch it at their speed. I do not give the same foundational lecture again (and again).

Sometimes the ideas are better communicated in the journal article format. The digital version of journal article is far easier to share than the paper version.

Technology is better suited to facilitate the telling of already great story, rather than be the story itself.

Solving A Better Problem

I do not have to solve low-level problems (e.g., physical security, physical wants, or paying bills).

If I choose, I can try to solve high-level problems (e.g., enchanting everyone I meet, adding value to the communities I care about, and doing meaningful, creative work).

What Teaching Should Look Like ...

Teaching, at its best, should be a life-changing message delivered well.

Seth Godin's idea in this video:
1) Know the successful strategies
2) Be great at the tactics
3) Care

What I Use: 15% Time

Stephen Covey makes a distinction between production and production capacity. In factory work, the former is cranking widgets today and the latter is greasing the gears to crank more widgets tomorrow.

Since I am a scientist, I have to operationalize the conceptional definitions I use. Enter - My 15% Time. I spend 85% of time "cranking widgets" (e.g., designing studies, running subjects, analyzing data, writing, and answering email). I spend 15% of the time improving my ability to do those tasks. For every six hours on a task, I will spend ~1 hour thinking and tinkering with methods to increase efficiency (do more in less time) or even better, increase effectiveness (do the work that matters). These activities include reading books, learning keyboard shortcuts, and going on coffee dates with people that I can learn from.

What makes this work for me is blocking out the time with a timer.

A Personal Reminder to Publish (or cast)

On a recent visit to National Gallery of Art, I was moved by Degas's "The Little dancer" sculpture.

Most of his scluputres were in wax, a material that does not last or display well. He choose to cast very few of them. Once a statute is cast it is no longer malleable. Degas did not readily commit to his sculptures.

That is an act of The Resistance. His job as an artist was to bring art into the world. Commit to the art.

The world is a poorer place due to that lack of commitment.

The Last Data Point

The last data point is an important data point.

You have all the emperical evidence for your case. Now is the time to synthesize and share.

Open-book/Open-note Environment

Section 70 - "Grammr and the decline of our civilization" of Stop Stealing Our Dreams has a deep resonance with me. It makes the case that the how of education is built on the why of education.

A teacher's job should be preparing students for the world-as-it-is-now. No one has a clue about the long-term future so it impossible to specifically prepare for it. The world-as-it-is-now is Open-book/Open-note. It is a contrivance to assume otherwise.

I am preparing to teach an undergraduate class in the fall on a topic I find fascinating but could be perceived (wink, wink) has a collection of obscure facts. I have hundreds of choices to make, including the content and format of the test. In the past, tests have accessed how well student memorized disjointed facts in the short-term. Instead, I am developing tests requiring the synthesize of given, or easily looked-up, facts. I have never written that style of test. It is frightening and necessary (for both me and the students).

Addressing Formal Instruction in Music and Language Research

There is a debate on whether music and language share common neural basis. In legal terms, the field is in the discovery phase. Experiments are being run, and the data is being collected. My intuition says the final story will be nuanced, it will be a matter of degree and definitions. I am motivated to contribute to the current conversation.

In order to have a productive conversation, there needs to be guidelines for fairness and civility. One of my conversational guidelines is reciprocity; whatever the standard, it should apply to all sides.

Music and language should be judged by the same standard. That is not frequently the case in the literature. For example in Functional Anatomy of Language and Music Perception: Temporal and Structural Factors Investigated Using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging by Corianne Rogalsky, Feng Rong, Kourosh Saberi, and Gregory Hickok, participants self-reported formal music education but not formal language instruction.

Almost everyone is an expert in their native language and music. That expertise is implicit for both. Most people receive formal, explicit language training. Some people receive formal, explicit musical training. The scientific literature should treat formal instruction as an equally confounding variable for both language and music.

Step Zero in Research Hiring

What do you look for in someone to fill an academic research position? Do you seek someone with deep domain knowledge, the same domain knowledge that will be obsolete in a couple of years. Do you seek someone with expertise in the technology you are currently using, the same technology that will be obsolete in a couple of years.

Or do you seek out someone that possess the meta-skills for the job? Primary academic research meta-skills being self-starting and project management (self and others). Then train for specific domain and technology knowledge.

It is a decision based on a belief in which skills are more difficult to acquire and more difficult to change.

The Hold Steady

There is a frequent lament that the next generation will not have an increased standard of living. I usually ignore that rhetoric as just another version of the narrative of decline, a unfortunately popular refrain in America. If that doesn't work, I remember people are not skilled at making specific predictions about the future. The world is a complex, nonlinear system thus making those type of predictions futile.

Let's assume the next generation will not have a higher standard living. Is that so bad?

We live the longest lives in the most abundant, peaceful time in human history. It ain't a bad time to possibly plateau.

The Neurobiology of Intuition

In this engaging talk, Daniel Kahneman outlines his main argument in Thinking, Fast and Slow.

The book and the talk are full of insights into the power and limitations of human thought. However, he misses an opportunity to make a stronger case by willfully ignoring neurobiology. Outlining the neurobiological mechanisms underlying human thought and behavior is not necessary; it is an additional, powerful class of evidence.

I have made a contribution to this topic by co-proposing the SPEED Model. The SPEED Model describes the neurobiology of procedural learning and procedural expertise. Procedural behavioral can be considered a manifestation of intuition. In addition to explaining and predicting behavioral phenomenon, SPEED model propose a neurobiological mechanism linking learning and automatcity.

The First Data Point

The first data point is significant because it is the first foot strike on the empirical path.

Theorizing and planning are a helpful foundation of any endeavor, but higher value comes from the interaction of ideas with the world.