"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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"Belgian-Style India Pale Ale"

Washington D.C. Pacifica radio station WPFW refers to the local professional football team as "the Washington professional football team" in order to avoid saying its name.

We would like to suggest, to those NeuroCooking friends who drink beer, that you may want to sample the remarkable 20th anniversary ale from Flying Dog brewery. But we will not print its name here.

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[Please note: All trademarks are property of their respective owners; their use here does not denote endorsement or sponsorship. Specifically, NeuroCooking is not supported by the good people of Flying Dog brewery, whose upcoming tour of fine establishments serving their superb ales you absolutely should attend, if you possibly can! To locate this "Belgian-Style India Pale Ale" on the Flying Dog website, see their online beer list, and click on the Latin "canis major".]

The Ethics of Working with Story

When working with story and building a narrative organization, it is imperative that one maintain high ethical standards. I recently explored the ethical use of story in a lecture delivered at Kent State University’s Graduate Program in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management. You can watch the full 16-minute lecture here, and you can read written excerpts at PhilanTopic.

My colleague and mentor Cynthia Kurtz responded to my essays with smart and practical advice on her blog.

A perverse incentive?

"Publish or perish" is so twentieth-century. Today, it is not enough to publish – your papers must be cited. Citation indices abound, and many a scientist monitors their own h-index.

So, as citations have become such an important metric, a shrewd strategy for professional advancement would be to publish papers that are wrong.

Because then, others will publish papers correcting yours, and cite you in the process, thereby making you a highly-cited researcher.

Who said that?

Stigler's law of eponymy says: "No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer."

"See also Lamellophone."

Just one sentence from the Wikipedia article on "Musical instrument classification":

"Metal idiophones are frequently called metallophones."

I read that, and I thought, well, how frequently? Would any old idiophone, just minding their own business, be at risk of being called a metallophone? Several times a day?

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.

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

Six.

Today we heard Steve Wozniak on "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me!" talk about how he has six smart-phones, and six brackets to hold all of them on his car dashboard, and six different navigation apps running on them, so he gets six different sets of advice on how to get to his destination.

No, what time is it, really?

In the 19th century, Captains in the British Navy who could not afford their own marine chronometer (used to determine longitude by celestial navigation) were issued one by the Navy, but Captains who provided their own were issued two, so that they would have three chronometers aboard ship – because you need three to know which one has gone wrong.

Who wrote that?

Scientists are used to anonymous review, but not to anonymous publication.

Manuscripts submitted to scientific journals undergo peer review, which is usually anonymous, such that the authors do not learn the names of the reviewers. The editors know who the reviewers are, but the names of the reviewers are hidden from the authors (and usually also from the other reviewers).

Of course, when we read articles in scientific journals, the names of the authors are not hidden.

But.

In 1970, the prestigious journal Nature published, anonymously, an article entitled "Effects of Sexual Activity on Beard Growth in Man".

[h/t: Andrew Sullivan]

What do alginate beads have to do with brain motion?

This is a brief note about an odd footnote in a thoughtful paper.

In a "Technical Note" last year in NeuroImage entitled "Functional imaging of the human superior colliculus: An optimized approach", Matthew B. Wall, Robin Walker, and Andrew T. Smith cite a 1992 paper by D. Poncelet et al., entitled "Production of alginate beads by emulsification/internal gelation".

Why? Well, presumably because they meant to cite the 1992 paper by B.P. Poncelet et al., on "Brain parenchyma motion: measurement with cine echo-planar MR imaging".

Same year, same first-author surname, but otherwise, rather different.

[Yes, people really do read citations!]

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?

"bar soap", "conventional oven", "film camera", and now, "task-fMRI"

"A 'retronym' is a new name for an object or concept to differentiate the original form or version of it from a more recent form or version."

Examples include "acoustic guitar" & "analog watch".

At the recent resting-state conference in Milwaukee, a new acronym was proposed: "T-fMRI", for task-fMRI, as distinguished from R-fMRI, for resting fMRI.

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...

Nuclear Power (and Knowledge Management)

Yesterday, I had the incredible opportunity to tour the PSEG nuclear power facility in Salem County, NJ, the second-largest nuclear campus in America. It was a great experience: I pressed buttons in the simulator room! I walked among the turbines and the generators of the Salem I reactor! I looked through a temperature scope used to spot infiltrators! My overall impression is that it is a highly secure, extremely well-run facility, staffed by extremely smart, exceedingly well-trained professionals, with a deep commitment to safety and community. Having had the experience of touring the facility and meeting the staff, I will certainly be more, and differently, engaged in future discussions about nuclear power.

I am also left with questions about the staff's preferred sense of balance between self-policing and oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And, with many questions about nuclear waste, reprocessing, and the responsibilities of privately run nuclear facilities for disposal and reuse.

Here are some reflections on communications from staff, their use of knowledge management techniques and rhetoric, and some facts I gleaned:

• The first speaker commences by pointing out the osprey that live on the transformer wires right outside the facility, setting a pleasant frame of natural beauty. (The facility is in a bucolic setting of wetlands, cornfields, and grazing pastures.)
  

• 50.5 % of all electricity generated in NJ comes from nuclear energy! This compares to 19.4% nationwide. (Texas, fyi, generates 25% of their power through wind.)

• In the last 10 years, electricity use in NJ has grown by 25%. Much of this is due to large, flat screens TVs.

• Preferred term for nuclear energy: "Clean Central Station Power".

William Levis, the President and COO of PSEG Power, is a gifted narrative leader, using story to motivate, teach, and lead. He opened his remarks by reflecting on how, in 1973, his after high school activities were cancelled due to the energy shortage, and his senior prom was almost cancelled. And then, during the second energy crisis of the '70s, he slowly drove from PA to ID, to his first Naval assignment, buying only the allotted 8 gallons of gas at a time. These experiences, he said, motivated him to work in energy. A terrific example of how to connect with and establish trust with listeners.

In response to my question about sharing knowledge between an older generation of highly experienced staff and a younger generation of new employees, Bill said they employ a rigorous program of knowledge transfer:

First, they go through a program to determine critical knowledge. Then, knowledge is transferred in three ways:

1. Through painstakingly detailed procedures and protocols
2. Through extensive training (for instance, every six weeks, nuclear operators spend 2 full weeks training in the simulator)
3. Through the quality of management supervision. This includes the sharing of Bill's poignant story about visiting Chernobyl.