FailCon: Learning From Failure

"FailCon Fails to Fail, Returns for 2010"
Epicenter, Wired (October 23, 2010)

"Failcon, a Silicon Valley conference focused on stories of failure, was so successful last year that's it's back again in 2010. Which means it either failed to fail or succeeded at failure, depending on how you look at it.

"In 2009, some of the Valley's prominent tech figures including former Paypaler and now Slide founder Max Levchin, David Hornik and Zynga founder Marc Pincus talked about the projects that didn't work - the ones few people remember, including the first four companies that failed for Levchin before PayPal sold to Ebay for $1.5 billion....

"...Failcon, the brainchild of event producer Cass Phillipps, along with associate producer Diane Loviglio, isn't about celebrating failure, but about talking about why ventures failed, how failure can be acceptable, and even how to fail gracefully e.g. how do you lay off employees, shut down a company and explain to investors that their money was for naught.

" 'Failure is interesting,' Phillipps said. 'My goal with FailCon isn't to make money, it's to not lose money and change people's opinions about failure.'..."

Learning about failed ventures is by far not the worst idea that the Lemming's run across recently. 'Success stories' seem to be more popular - at least with the 'get rich quick' set. Reviewing how business ideas that looked good at first - but didn't work - may not be calculated to quicken the pulse and have folks whipping out their credit cards. But it seems like a common-sense approach to not repeating the same mistakes.

Then there's that abysmal failure, Thomas Edison: who tried 1,500 filament materials without finding one that would be practical in an incandescent light.

And, no: Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb. All he did was develop one that people could use. And that's another topic. ("The History of the Incandescent Lightbulb," "The Inventions of Thomas Edison," About.com; "Inventing Edison's Lamp, Lighting a Revolution, National Museum of American History)

"If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward."
Thomas A. Edison, The Quotations Page

A Thought for the Day, About Knowledge

"If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."
Attributed to Benjamin Franklin

Using Facebook Can (Hey! That's Cool!) Result in - Something

"Using Facebook 'can lower exam results by up to 20%' "
MailOnline (September 7, 2010)

"It is what parents of teenagers who 'revise' in front of the computer have long feared.

"Students who use Facebook while they study get significantly lower grades than those who do not, according to psychologists.

"A study has found that the exam results of those who used the social networking site while working, even if it was on in the background, were 20 per cent lower than non-users.

"Researchers say the findings undermine the theory that young people's brains are better at multitasking on digital gadgets.

"Study author Professor Paul Kirschner said: 'The problem is that most people have Facebook or other social networking sites, their emails and maybe instant messaging constantly running in the background while they are carrying out other tasks.

" 'Our study, and other previous work, suggests that while people may think constant task-switching allows them to get more done in less time, the reality is it extends the amount of time needed to carry out tasks and leads to more mistakes.'..."

The Lemming wishes to point out that this blogger has nothing against Facebook, or social networks in general. On the other hand, I don't pretend to "multitask."

I'll have social networking active in the background during some tasks - while I'm 'doing research' (surfing the Web) for these posts, for example. That's partly because I'll occasionally see something interesting mentioned. Like this MailOnline article. (Thanks, RBLevin!) But when the Lemming is writing one of these things, social networking goes off the screen.

My guess is that talking on the phone while reading that statistics textbook, or watching television while studying algebra isn't a terribly good idea, either.

Appealing - even tempting - as the idea is.

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A tip of the hat to RBLevin, on Twitter, for the heads-up on this article.

The Naked Mole Rat: Ugly, but Weird

"The Naked Truth about Mole-Rats"
Zoogoer, Smithsonian National Zoological Park (May June 2002)

"Endowed with pinkish-gray, wrinkly skin, scant hair, and long buck teeth, naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus glaber) aren't likely to win any beauty contests. Some might refer to them as downright ugly, resembling an overcooked hotdog with teeth. Nonetheless, biologists and zoogoers are enchanted with these bizarre rodents.

"Naked mole-rats spend virtually their entire lives in the total darkness of underground burrows...."

The Zoogoer article points out that, despite the name, mole rats are more closely related to porcupines, chinchillas and guinea pigs than to either moles or rats.

It's longer than most pieces on the Web: over 2,500 words.

The language is fairly non-technical, but Zoogoer's "The Naked Truth about Mole-Rats" gives a fairly detailed description of the behavior and biology of mole rats, or sand puppies, as they're called in sub-Saharan Africa.

Their oddness goes 'way past appearance. They're "eusocial" creatures - the only mammals that live in colonies with physically distinct castes, like the social insects. They don't regulate their internal temperature, either - which makes them very odd mammals.

I wouldn't recommend the article for light reading during coffee break, but it's a quite good resource for someone wanting the inside scoop on Africa's mole rats.

No Such Thing as an Uninteresting Subject: a Thought for the Day

"There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person."

G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, 1905, from The Quotations Page.

That's the Size of It: Local Galaxies to Quarks

"Secret Worlds: The Universe Within"
Molecular Expressions

"View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf...."

A pretty good way to get a feel for the size of things, probably inspired by the Charles and Ray Eames 1977 short film, "Powers of Ten." "Secret Worlds: The Universe Within" is interactive - you can go from frame to frame after the whole thing has loaded.

There's a bit of artistic license here and there: orbits of the planets in the Solar system are shown as colored ellipses, and colors are assigned to parts of the 'foam' down at quark scales. But I think that helps get the points across. Besides, considering the physics involved, we can't see anything that small: units of the part of the electromagnetic spectrum we sense are too big.

The "Powers of Ten" film may be available alone, or as part of a collection, on amazon.com.

And, there's an 'Eames online' website: powersof10.com.

Quasars: 'A's for your 'Q's

"Frequently Asked Questions About Quasars"
Virginia Tech Physics

The first two are "What is your definition of a quasar?" and "What do quasars have to do with black holes?"

The answers are in fairly non-technical language, considering the subject.

Like the earlier post about the Lewis and Clark expedition's inventory, this quasar Q and A isn't the most immediately practical bit of information you'll find.

But, if you're curious about how the universe works: it might be worth reading.

Drawing Eyes - Joined in Progress

"The Wet Look - The First Steps to Drawing Eyes"
Pencil Portrait Lessons (September 27, 2008)

"In the last lesson on eyes we talked about the various problems that artists run into when trying to draw eyes as realistic as possible. In this lesson, we will begin the drawing process. There are two things that you need to do in order to in order to get started. The first is to make sure you are using the right tools. If you have trouble finding...."

It's part of a series of 'how-2' tutorials on drawing, with step-by-step instructions and illustrations. There's even a 'correcting the mistakes' step - which is refreshing.

Most tutorials assume that the learner won't goof - or gives that impression. It's nice to be reassured that making corrections and changes is part of the creative process.

Looks like a good resource.

A New History Channel Show is About History!

"Surviving the History Channel
My Adventures in History (June 30, 2008)

"I finally sat down and watched the first three episodes of the History Channel's brand new show Surviving History. In the past couple months, I have been disappointed in the History Channel by the lack of real "history" shows in prime time, shows like Ax Men, Tougher in Alaska, and MonsterQuest. This new show impressed me and I'm anxious to see more!

"On Surviving History, craftsmen from the Scarefactory...."

This is good news for me, too: but then, I'm one of those people who are interested in humanity's story to date.

Cute Photo

(From Dream Awakener,
a blog by J. R. Woodward,
used w/o permission)

How Not to Usage English Wrecklessly in Writting

For those who want to take a different tact in making usage of correct English, I suggest a study of "Common Errors in English."

Theoretical Skills are Practical, Too

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox post of February 26, 2007, identifies "Life-Long Computer Skills" as generalized skills like search strategies, how to tell if information is credible, and basic debugging techniques (the digital equivalent of "is the unit plugged in?).

This would be a good read for parents or educators. Learning specific button-pushing skills for this year's software can be handy, but such skills get obsolete very fast.

Learning how to think about problems, how to evaluate information, and how to search for data are getting more important as the Internet is becoming as important as the telephone.

My own experience relates here: Back in the early 1970s, I developed a search/evaluate/collect system for gathering information and quotes for term papers.

Later, in library science classes, I learned how hierarchal indexing systems worked: not just what codes applied to which subjects in one system, but why information was organized the way it was.

Much later, in computer science classes, I learned how information is stored, transmitted, and processed in computers: again, not just the 'flange A goes in slot B' stuff, but how and why data is handled.

Today, I believe I use Google and other search resources more effectively because I apply the essence of that term-paper research process to online research.

Understanding how hierarchal systems work, and the how-and-why of how computers and other information systems handle data has been a huge help at work, and at home.

If you're still reading, and agree with me, check out "Life-Long Computer Skills" - it might be useful.

Blogs: Windows on Lifestyles of the Not-Exactly-Famous

And now for something completely different: a blog about a Merino sheep farm.

Shari's Gone Country isn't entirely about sheep. "Discover how four 'boomer+' women are creating a working Merino sheep ranch (farm) in the middle of nowhere. You'll laugh 'til your sides hurt as you help us round up sheep, herd chickens, and clear tumbleweed," is how the blog's author puts it.

This is "sheep week" there, Monday's post says. A somewhat earlier post tells how the 21st-century sheepherders defended their garden against jackrabbits, cottontail bunnies, chipmunks, birds, and "a handful of unidentified bugs."

I think this is a good example of blogs that let people learn how others live: not by reading what some expert thinks about life as a sheep rancher, small town parent, or whatever; but by reading what someone who is actually living that life experiences.