tee is a Unix command that displays the output of a program and copies it into a file. lint program.c | tee program.lint

1 cup flour (I’ve been using white whole wheat)

1 egg

~2tbps cool water

1. Mix flour and egg, adding water until flour is just moistened and sticks together

2. Let rest for 5 minutes

3. Knead the dough for 2 minutes. Or you can do it for 10 minutes; more kneading means better developed gluten and a “smoother” noodle.

4. Let rest 10 minutes

5. Roll out or whatever

(adapted from a cooks.com recipe

Info on Hemp Milk.

I just bought some of this (Manitoba Harvest brand, the chocolate kind) at Whole Foods. It’s not soy milk, but I’m not sure if it’s any better. I kind’ve got a bit of a choke in the back of my throat on the first sip, though after that it was pretty smooth.

Thoughts of mortality make people entrench their beliefs. (via boingboing). It also makes people act in ways that boost their self-esteem, which, importantly, affects their consumer behavior (via google).

These seem to both be domestic studies. I wonder how the US compares internationally in “mortality awareness”. (I’m guessing pretty low).

A great list of functional verbs for writing resumes or their reverse situational equivalent: job descriptions. (via Google)

ADMINISTRATIVE ACTION VERBS

PUSH ALONG VERBS

STOP VERBS

HELPER VERBS

GET & GIVE VERBS

CREATIVE VERBS

APPRAISE/STUDY VERBS

CONTROL VERBS

back to top

Just saw this demo of an algorithm that rates the trustworthiness of Wikipedia articles. It computes the “trust” of authors by how long their edits stick around, then applies that to articles. (via Slashdot)

I wonder how it works on entries that are intentionally misleading, like the entry on Discordianism.

CCK’s single checkboxes require a strange configuration in the Allowed Values list:

0

1	Checkbox title

My associate, Rebecca, and I have been starting to think critically about Panlexicon.com, the unique, tag-cloud based thesaurus I’ve written about previously. We’re hoping to put some more time and effort into the project and in the process, learn some more about what’s happening with the language and the underlying structure of the thesaurus taxonomy.

The thesaurus data we’re working with is the Moby Thesaurus from the Project Gutenburg library of free electronic texts. Like many thesauruses, it’s structure in an interesting way. Every word is assigned to one or more groups based on it’s general meaning or idea. Each group has a keyword, also known as a headword, that is a general encapsulation that idea—this is why, for example in Roget’s, you must first look up a word in the index to acquire its keywords. Each group has only one keyword, but a keyword can exist in other groups (but as an ordinary word).

This thesaurus structure allows us to do some easy simplifications and analysis on the data. For many functions, we can treat the groups as supernodes, performing operations and storing connections upon them in place of the words themselves. For example, when determining relatedness between words, we only have compare the groups they are a part of; while there are approximately 100,000 words in our database, there are only 30,000 groups, which greatly diminishes the size and complexity of the data set we’re working on.

Currently Panlexicon works by comparing the overlap between groups of words. When typing in a search term, Panlexicon looks up all of the groups that word is a member of. It then returns a list of words that are also in those groups. The weight of each word (or size in our word cloud model) is calculated according to how many groups—-of those groups that include the search term—that word is a member of. A property of this is that no other returned word will have a heavier weight than the search term. When searching multiple terms, Panlexicon creates a set of groups such that all search terms are a member. In the case when there exists no groups that contain all the search terms, Panlexicon returns nothing.

Already we’re digging into some interesting relations that turn up in the thesaurus data. For example, one of my favorite linguistic myths is that Eskimos have 50 different words for snow. The supposed lesson was that eskimos had a different conception of snow than us (the non-Eskimos). I always wondered, “Well, is 50 a lot?” The largest group in our thesaurus has the keyword cut with 1448 related words or synonyms. This is followed by set (1152), turn (1108), run (1025), and color (1007). That’s quite a bit.

Also, interestingly in our dataset, are the most versatile words. These words are members of the most groups. The list shares four out five of the same words as those of the most synonyms, beginning with cut, being a member of 1120 distinct groups. This is followed by set (928), run (750), turn (715), and check (699).

Right now, we’re investigating paths between words. This will allow us to play the Kevin Bacon game, making connections between words that may not share the same group. It will be interesting to determine what words are connected (even through a medium) and which ones are disconnected. Lastly on our list of things to do is determine the eigenvectors of our groups in relation to how their connected to other groups. This will allow us to determine—without using fancy words like Markov chains—which words are probably used the most. I say probably because we’re analyzing a taxonomic work, rather than actual speech. Who knows if they match up; we’ll find out.

I recently had an idea for a story and upon going through my other drafts, realized I already addressed it, though differently. So here they both are. Also, the second story is not a criticism of the Buddha—though if you asked me, “Surgeon General” is a more apt description than “Great Physician”—or Jesus for that matter (or anyone else that calls themselves a physician).

The Disciples

A wanderer entered a town to find a most pious people living there. In the market center he found a man in simple dress surrounded by disciples.

“Who is this man that attracts such a following?” the wanderer asked.

“This is our master, a most wise and blessed man. He has righted many people and teaches us his ways. Please, eat with us tonight and you will see but one of the miracles he can bestow.”

That evening the wanderer came to share their meal. He and the disciples waited solemnly with empty plates and glasses for their master to appear.

When the master arrived he but touched each plate and on it appeared food of the most delicious and nourishing variety; he placed his finger to a glass and it filled with the most refreshing of nectars.

“This is no trick,” a disciple said to the stranger. “It is evidence of the wondrous knowledge from which he teaches us.”

“I accept the miracle,” the wanderer replied, “But why must your master serve you?”

Midwife

The death of the king’s spiritual adviser called for the grandest of ceremonies and the richest of processions. To match the respect given in life, the king called all of his subjects in number to mourn. Among them, the king noticed a man, in the simple garb of a sage, and surrounded by disciples.

“Bring that wise man to my court this evening,” the king said, and it was so.

That evening, the sage was brought before the king and introduced as a most learned and wise teacher of philosophy and faith.

“Of my spiritual adviser,” the king spoke, “He was a brilliant and enlightened man whose help and support was a great constancy to my rule. Day or night I could call upon him to minister to my needs. He was physician to my thoughts and spirits.

“What could you provide of me in my court?” the king asked.

“To the health of your mind and soul I could provide much. I am though but a midwife: I can aid you in becoming, but from there it is up to you.”

I’ve recently come into a major upgrade in duties at my job, which has always been heavy on the Human Resources responsibilities. As it is, not only am I supervising several subordinates locally, I am also the clearing house for supervisory advice and information for our many-dozen affiliates all across the nation; like the surgeon general is to doctors. Because of that, I find myself often intently reading HR manuals, strategic planning frameworks and, like today, conflict resolution.

Today I was leafing through the relatively good “How to Be a Better Supervisor” that was produced by the National Crime Prevention Council (the McGruff people) specifically for AmeriCorps (which is convenient considering that’s what I primarily deal with). I was clued into the publication by my friend and fellow nonprofit technologist Felicia Sullivan.

Most of this stuff is Communications 101. In other words, it’s that type of common sense that isn’t as common as you’d like it to be. Beyond that, and perhaps more importantly, it creates a framework and vocabulary for describing common sense in order for it to be more easily remembered, analyzed and communicated.

So the nice piece of common sense I ran across today was DESC Scripting, which was developed by Sharon and Gordon Bower.

One of many, many acronyms, DESC Scripting is a four step approach used to effect a change in behavior. I’ve also seen it called the DESC Model. It is (somewhat paraphrased):

1. Describe the actions or behavior that you see as taking place;

2. Express why that behavior is an issue?

3. Specify the resulting actions or change of behavior you would like to effect;

4. Clarify the consequences for failing to change behavior or meet demands.

It’s a rather good model for dealing with issues as they come up, mostly because it isn’t overly complicated or far outside the norm of typical interactions—no one could claim you didn’t deal with an issue.

Not to be meta about conflict resolution, I do have a critique of it: as acronyms go, it’s pretty lousy. The four acronym forming words have very similar definitions and in fact the meaning of the statement is defined in the words that follow—not merely expanded upon. In light of that, I propose the IRCC script:

1. Issue: Describe the actions or behavior that you see are taking place.

2. Result: Why are those actions or that behavior an issue?

3. Correction: What are the resulting actions or change of behavior you would like to effect?

4. Consequences: What happens if the actions or behavior changes aren’t met?

Of course, the issue with that is the double Cs at the end, but I’m open to suggestions (maybe later I’ll get into Conflict Resolution styles.)

More Info:

A BBC’s h2g2 has a good write-up on DESC Scripting and techniques for being more assertive.