Such ugliness should be an opt-in, not a secret vice. (An open letter.) [Puzzling color corruption in uploaded images turns out to be Google "auto-enhancement."]

Dear Google, please consider making the "auto-enhancement" of uploaded images an opt-in choice, rather than a hidden default.

I like your picasaweb cloud-based photo-hosting service, which I've been using for years. Recently, though, I discovered that I had a problem: newly uploaded photos had corrupt colors. Ugh. I tried deleting and repeating; same problem. What could the issue be? Was this a color management problem for which I was somehow responsible? Actually, no. Turns out, it was something that you, Google, see as a feature.

A few months ago, I found that it was necessary to upgrade my Google account to a "Google plus membership," in order to attend a meeting via a "Google plus video hangout." So, I did. Turns out that you processed all my image uploads thereafter using a feature that you, Google, call "image auto-enhance." Those bad colors were your idea of "enhancement:"

"ENHANCED"

"REVERTED TO ORIGINAL"

(Idiots.)

I've now cancelled the "enhancement" of those photos (individually, as you gave me no way to do so en masse; I was relieved that I did not have to re-upload everything). And I've also turned off the "auto-enhancement" of newly uploaded photos, going forwards.

In general, I do not alter my photographs. Light goes through a lens, and hits a sensor, and electrons get happy, and a file is written; that is what I want to see. How dare you, Google, presume that you should "auto-enhance" any image that I entrust to you for storage? And how dare you, Google, presume to do so without even telling me?

In closing: Dear Google, without mentioning that you would modify the images I uploaded, you made them ugly. I've fixed this issue with respect to my own image uploads. I respectfully suggest that in order to spare other people similar ugliness, confusion, and delay, that you please make image "auto-enhance" an opt-in choice, rather than a hidden default.

Respectfully,
Jim Pekar
Kensington, Maryland, USA

Your functional neuroimaging update (with study questions).

1. "Graphs are the new blobs."

Discuss. How are graphs and blobs similar? How are they different?

2.  A leading search engine gives no hits on that phrase:

Do you expect this to remain true for long?

"Bucky is not like other dogs. But he is like ..." Part III. ("Visually similar images" from Google's "search by image")

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Bucky is not like other dogs. But he is like a motorcycle, or Gerald Ford, or Harry Potter... ("Visually similar images" from Google's "search by image")

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Title of the week!

"Of Toasters and Molecular Ticker Tapes" by Dr. Konrad P. Kording appears in the journal PLoS Computational Biology.

Seeing without reading. Or, visualization without (local) comprehension.

Last week I received via email a movie file in .avi format that would not play on any of our Macs, until I uploaded it to YouTube; now I can watch it just fine from any device – further proof that "the cloud" has (to some degree) eliminated the old requirement that a file's format be locally readable in order for the data in that file to be visualized.

Request for advice.

My wife has a first name that is not very common. So, she grew up having to spell it for people, and, in the late twentieth century, I was able to gift her with an eponymous top level domain. (Something like "susan.net" or "sally.org", only with her distinctive first name.)

Yesterday, we received an unsolicited offer of a significant amount of money for the domain.

So, what should we do? Should we say forget about it – it's not for sale! –, or should we make a counter-offer?

And, the question arises, who is the would-be buyer? If it's just another person with my wife's name, that's one thing. But what if it's an organization whose acronym happens to spell her name? In that case, wouldn't we have a moral obligation to find out who they are and what they do? Perhaps, if they're a good cause, we'd donate the domain to them at no charge; but if they're evil, then, the domain would not be for sale to them at any price...

We would value your advice on this, dear NeuroCooking friends.

Reading us is ok everywhere, we think.

NeuroCooking friends reading this from a computer at the United States Air Force may continue to do so, even though their access to the New York Times has been cut off; we have no word on whether they are physically searched upon entrance, to prevent them from bringing onto the base print copies of the newspaper.

_______

[While we know of no classified information on NeuroCooking, we cannot guarantee that NeuroCooking comments are free of classified information.]

Name that (opera) blog!

NeuroCooking friends seeking either free tickets to a dress rehearsal at the Washington National Opera, or merely the glory concomitant with winning a challenging contest of wits, may be interested in entering the WNO's "name the blog" contest:

To enter, email contest [at] dc-opera [dot] org with the subject line “Blog Contest.” In the body of the email, include your name, contact information, and blog name submission. All submissions must be received by November 30, 2010.

Of course, we think the WNO's blog should be named "Killing the soprano", but we feel it is very unlikely that our suggestion will be adopted.

The most pressing question of our time?

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

– Daniel J. Boorstin (1914 – 2004)

I respectfully submit that the greatest puzzle of our time is how we managed to eliminate ignorance while elevating nonsense.

If I ask you, say, how old Buddy Holly was when he died, then, using the same device you are using now to read this, you can find the answer to that question. You cannot not know how old Buddy Holly was when he died, once you've been asked, because getting the answer is just a matter of touching your smartphone or tablet or laptop or what have you the right way, and the answer will be yours.

So, we have, in a sense, eliminated ignorance. But how is it then that there so much nonsense? How is it then, that a substantial fraction of the population believes that our President's religion, or birthplace, or even nationality, are different than the truth? How does such nonsense thrive?

Dear NeuroCooking friends, I do not have an answer. I just think this is perhaps the most interesting – and pressing – question of our time. How is it that we have, simultaneously, managed to eliminate ignorance while elevating nonsense?

On rails?

That blue icon – it indicates the transit option on google maps – is it a train, or a streetcar?

Not that it matters in our neighborhood, because google maps doesn't know about the DC Metro system. Busses, yes; Metrorail, no. Google won't put you on a train.

Look what happens when you ask for directions from the Bethesda to the Grosvenor stations. That's five minutes on the Red Line – but google puts you on a bus for more than half an hour:

Maybe they should use an icon of a bus, if that's what they mean.

[Not that we mind busses; we rode the 31 & the 33 today.]

Ken Rockwell is Wrong about the Rich.

"Rich people are doing great."

– Mr. Ken Rockwell, 7/8/2010.

"Wealthy Reduce Buying in a Blow to the Recovery"

– New York Times headline, 7/17/2010.

Mr. Rockwell is often right about photography – but he's wrong when he claims that demand from the rich for high-end goods and services is strong and sustaining.

[Those poor dear rich people; they've been hit hard too by These Trying Economic Times.]

Ken Rockwell is Wrong on Executive Pay.

"No one gets rich working for someone else."

– Mr. Ken Rockwell, 7/8/2010.

Mr. Rockwell is often right about photography – but he's wrong about executive pay. The average income of large company CEOs in 2009 was $10.4 million ($9.25 million for CEOs of the S&P 500 companies). Bank of America's Thomas Montag got $29,930,431.

Ken Rockwell is Wrong on the Economy.

"More than 14 million Americans are out of work, and nearly half of them have been jobless for six months or longer."

– Mr. Bob Herbert, 7/13/2010.

"The myth of an economic crisis is just a crutch so that people who aren't doing that great right now can blame their problems on someone else instead of themselves."

– Mr. Ken Rockwell, 7/8/2010.

Mr. Rockwell is often right about photography – but he's dead wrong about macroeconomics, and about the millions of Americans who want to work but can't find a job. They may be "mythic" (in the sense of "heroic") – but they are not "mythical" (in the sense of "fictitious"). They are no myth. They are real.

Want data? Here (from Wolfram|Alpha):

Unemployed Americans:

Median Duration of Unemployment, USA:

Timber!

The commonplace book of Ben Jonson (1572-1637) was published posthumously in 1640, entitled "Timber, or discoveries made upon men and matter". It is fascinating and fun.

Seven years ago, in a puppy-related incident, our copy of that book was destroyed. Recently, in thinking about why we blog, and what a blog is, I was reminded of commonplace books, and of my late, lamented copy of Timber. So, online, I found and ordered a copy of the same edition we'd lost – the 1892 edition, edited by one Prof. Felix E. Schelling of the University of Pennsylvania.

It arrived yesterday, and I was pleased to see that this replacement volume was in much better shape than our old one (even before it was chewed up). I showed the book to my wife, mentioning that it was more than 100 years old, but had cost less than 20 dollars (including shipping).

"Oh," she asked, "would that be on Project Gutenberg or something?"

Well, no*. But it turns out that, yes, it is available on Google Books. In the very same 1892 Shelling edition. And yes, it's free to download.

So yesterday, I also got a free pdf of Timber. And today, NeuroCooking friend, you too can get a free copy, if you wish. My, how the book business has changed.

___________

*Whoops, um, yes, you can find Timber on Project Gutenberg. [late edit, with apologies; but forgive me for missing it the first time, because Project Gutenberg lists this work simply as "Discoveries" with no "Timber" in sight!]

99 >? 100

When I was a kid I loved figuring out "brain teasers" and "one-minute mysteries" and the like.

But I am afraid that now, search engines have made such things almost passé.

Consider this one: When is 99 more than than 100?

It's a good puzzle. It's a fun puzzle. But it's also one you can solve in a flash, just by typing it into a search box. So, I suppose that we could see this as a test of character: Today, it's not enough to enjoy doing puzzles; you also need sufficient self-control to eschew the search engine, and figure things out on your own...

adventures in minimalism

Long ago, before google, I belonged to an internet writers' group that ran as a listserv. Members contributed stories, mostly autobiographical, which were distributed without editing or annotation; everything happened via email. Many of the members wrote daily. I too contributed regularly, but in a minimalist vein, sending in, for some time, an almost-daily report consisting, in its entirety, of either:

Breakfasted; walked dog.

Or:

Walked dog; breakfasted.

The choice depended simply on in which order I had done those two things that morning.

One Saturday, it happened that my wife woke early and walked the dog without me. So, I contributed, on that day, to this story-writers' list, an email that consisted of a single-word sentence:

Breakfasted.

In reply, I received, from people in many nations, emails asking – some quite anxiously! – about the health of my dog.

Invisible High School or Invisible College?

“The beneficiaries of the system where making things public was a privileged activity, whether academics or politicians, reporters or doctors, will complain about the way the new abundance of public thought upends the old order, but those complaints are like keening at a wake; the change they fear is already in the past. The real action is elsewhere....

"Given what we have today, the Internet could easily become Invisible High School, with a modicum of educational material in an ocean of narcissism and social obsessions. We could, however, also use it as an Invisible College, the communicative backbone of real intellectual and civic change, but to do this will require more than technology. It will require that we adopt norms of open sharing and participation, fit to a world where publishing has become the new literacy.”

Clay Shirky, pondering How Has the Internet Changed the Way You Think?