All Fun and No Work Makes Jack a B-Lister?

On Wednesday, I was on a panel on "How to Find, Fund, Protect and Launch New Technologies" sponsored by WBBA, University of Washington School of Law, and Fenwick & West. The panel was moderated by Fenwick's Stephen Graham and the other panelists besides me were WRF CEO Ron Howell, supernetworker Janis Machala, and UW Law's Sean O'Connor.

Luke Timmerman reported it under the title "Seattle’s Lifestyle Keeps Us Trailing the Bay Area, Says UW Startup Maven Janis Machala." That pretty much sums up Luke's take-away from the meeting. Luke certainly reported the most newsworthy event of the panel: Janis saying that quality of life gets in the way of startup success in Seattle. “There’s a lifestyle element here. People want balance. People in Silicon Valley don’t know what balance means.” Janis specifically faulted Microsoft Millionaires for not starting enough new companies.

My comments on the panel were in a different direction. A big problem Seattle has starting companies is lack of a ready bench of people in all roles who have started companies. Seattle is just barely big enough to really make it, or maybe not quite big enough. Seattle has bobbled just above or below critical mass for decades without really breaking out or really failing. Also, the current crisis is a potential opportunity for Seattle. The current uncertainty gives us a chance to redefine Seattle's role in the nation’s and world’s biotech community.

RAMROD

Did RAMROD again. The weather was beautiful, from a scenery standpoint. A little hot, though. Actually, it was pleasantly cool all the way to Packwood. Then it was hot. Then later, hotter, then on the way to Crystal, hotter still. And the last five miles? Even hotter.

I finished in about exactly 11 hours. Considering the heat and that I'm still recovering from being hit by a car a few weeks ago, I was entirely satisfied with that performance.

Sunflower

Gyula Krúdy wrote 60 novels. He loved at least that many women, and this book, like many of those loves, is intense, abundant, and memorable, but not the labor of many years. Sunflower was instead serialized around 1918 in a Hungarian newspaper.

Sunflower tells the story of a well-born Hungarian woman, her friend, and their mutual and mutually exclusive loves. Also, much is reputed to be lost in translation. If that doesn't sound promising, let me recommend Sunflower as among the most lavish books ever conceived. A meandering plot yields wistful views of a lost Hungary, from sharp, snow-laden nights to hazy, sweltering summer afternoons, and everything in-between. Plus, it's funny and not a little saucy. I think of Krúdy as a kind of Hungarian Czesław Miłosz. Put down that forgettable Harlequin penny dreadful and get your lovin' from the house of Krúdy.

STP 2009

Took the first 100 miles fast. Too fast, actually, and I spent too much time on the front of pacelines. Got to within 10 miles of Centralia by about 9:00. The next 100 miles were a constant dance on the edge of bonking. Finished a few minutes before 5pm anyway. Had dinner with the family then went out and saw my brother's band. A good day. Thanks to Aki and Sven for meeting me at the finish. It is always nice to see a familiar face after a long day like that.

Three Cups of Tea

The remarkable story of Greg Mortenson, who got lost climbing down K2, and wandered into a world he could hardly have imagined in rural Pakistan. As Pakistan becomes an increasingly critical key to world stability, Mortenson's book is a fabulous window into some of the peoples who live there, what they want out of life, and how outside forces can change their and our lives for the better or otherwise. (Oh, and Mortenson goes to rural Afghanistan, too.) Read this book as a great human story, and as one point of reference to personalize news from that part of the world.

Tweak

Nic Sheff is a meth addict. The first 130 pages of his book Tweak detail a harrowing 27-day train-wreck of late-stage meth addiction. (Nic Sheff hadn't actually been using for all that long before this time —apparently meth addiction can come on very fast.) It's remarkable he isn't dead several times over, by the end. It's also remarkable that someone who has messed up their head that badly can still write very, very well.

But that's not the whole way down the rabbit hole. It gets far deeper, and hard as it may be to believe, darker. It's odd that some of the darkest moments of the book are when Nic starts trying to clean up. I won't tell you how the book ends, but since Nic is still alive at the end of the book, the book in any case isn't a whole life story. So however bleak or hopeful the end, it's not really the end.

David Sheff, Nic's Father, wrote Beautiful Boy as a companion to Tweak, but it's really an alternate reality. For one thing, while Nic always knows more or less what is happening to him, David quite often doesn't know whether his son is using or not, or even if he is still alive. David details the pervasive, consuming anxiety that becomes a companion illness to his son's.

Beautiful Boy is a well written book, but surpisingly not as well-written as the best parts of Nic's book. It's almost beyond belief that Nic could macerate his psyche to the extent he has, and still write better than his father. One can't help wondering what kind of writer he could have been.

The other interesting insight that only comes from comparing the books is how comprehensively dishonest Nic's addiction is. Surely, one important point of meth is to try to avoid life's hard truths. The cruel irony is that meth makes those hard truths so much harder. But it seems that meth comprehensively poisons away the truth from every aspect of Nic's life. Nic lies to everyone including himself. In the end, he even lies to us, his readers.

Most of Tweak is flayed down to a raw, festering honesty. Nic does change certain facts to protect the privacy of people who appear in the book. But reading David's book, we realize that Nic changed more facts than he absolutely had to. Perhaps lying is a habit and nothing more, but in a very subtle way this is a window into the Sheff's joyless funhouse. We realize we can't trust Nic as much as we thought we could. Just as David discovered over and over that every time he trusted his son it was a mistake, and just as Nic learned over and over than even he couldn't trust himself.

Day of Empire

Amy Chua's first book World on Fire, was a fascinating mix of personal and global observations about how small communities make big economic impacts within their larger societies. Here, Chua examines all of the global powers (by her definition) throughout recorded history. Her conclusion is that they all practiced what she calls strategic tolerance: a willingness to embrace new ideas and make use of capable people, whatever their provenance.

Strategic tolerance is an interesting concept. It articulates the self-interested motivations for diversity, as independent from altruistic motives. Chua notes that Genghis Khan didn't form his inner circle from widely diverse ethnic and religious groups because he saw diversity as a social good. He merely wanted the best and brightest people available, so as to be a successful as possible. Diversity has an inherent moral value, at least to some people, including me. Chua articulates the practical benefits that have historically motivated diversity, and documents the world-changing consequences.

Mirroring People

Marco Iacoboni, Mirroring People. I found out about this book through Charles Mudede's review of it. Actually, I didn't read the whole review. I read the first sentence. Halfway through the second sentence, I had already ordered the book from Amazon. Yep, it's an interesting book.

Lakoff and Johnson's 1999 book Philosophy in the Flesh persuades that a philosophy of mind should be motivated by our knowledge of cognitive science and neurology. That is, what we believe about minds should be consistent with what we know about brains.

Iacoboni's work on mirror neurons, described in his book, thus provides a new foundation on which to address critical philosophical questions. What does one person really know about another? How do we know that we understand another person, or have been understood? In mirror neurons, Iacoboni and his collaborators have uncovered the specific neurological machinery by which we comprehend and imitate the actions of others, and by which we empathize.

The answer is fascinating and unexpected: when we perceive an action by others, we experience the action as if we had performed it ourselves. In a real and visceral sense, we empathize with others by experiencing what they experince. We are far less trapped in our own brains than was once thought. Specific neurological mechanisms allow us to understand the actions and emotional states of others as if they were our own. Iacoboni shows us a world far less lonely than almost anyone has ever imagined.

Good Name for a Band

One of my guilty pleasures is taking the news commentarium as an I Ching of names for popular music acts. Here are new arrivals:

Amish Mantle David Eugene Edwards' hot new Pennsylvania-based band.
Blago Midwestern power punk.
Trample Mart Thrash metal with a pop edge.

Why is Sex Fun?

Jared Diamond, Why is Sex Fun? My friend Heather Holmback loaned me this book, after a typically interesting discussion. (Aki and Heather are old friends, and used to work together.)

In this case, the discussion was on the evolutionary value of menopause, a phenomenon (nearly) unique to humans. Diamond raises and dismisses some typical arguments that don't make much sense, then advances the one widely-heard argument he (and FWIW I) find sensible: by skipping the last child or two, old women can help raise their grandchildren, and do more to ultimately increase their genes' survival than would a risky pregnancy. Grandmothers help not just with childcare: in some traditional societies such as the Hadza of Tanzania, grandmothers are the most economically productive people.

But then Diamond raises an argument of his own, a very interesting argument at the heart of Heather and my discussion: in traditional societies, old people are the library people turn to in times of crisis.

Any human societies that included individuals old enough to remember the last event like a [hurricane] had a better chance of surviving than did societies without such old people.... At times of crisis... prior death of such an older woman also tended to eliminate all of her surviving relatives from the gene pool.... The importance to society of the memories of old women is what I see as a major driving force behind the evolution of human female menopause.

The book is about a good deal more than menopause. And, like sex, the book is also fun. Thanks for loaning it to me, Heather. I'll have it back to you real soon now.

P4 Medicine

I maintain a biotech/health blog called P4 Medicine. The name comes from Lee Hood's concept of a new medical practice that is "Predictive, Preventive, Personalized, and Participatory." (Other people use different combinations of words beginning with P to get across the same idea.)

But, there is a new P4 appearing in the Google rankings, and it's strong medicine: the Cervelo P4 bicycle. It's very nice.

Now, I'm not a time trialist, so there's no chance I'd actually buy this bike. But it's a very pretty bike all the same. If I saw one in person, I would stare at it. For a good long while.

This brings up a point that has been bothering me for some time: how strong a concept is P4 Medicine anyway? Really, it's not a coherent concept so much as a laundry list of objectives (or adjectives). We have a bike, a revision control system, and a medical revolution all competing for the top of the same Google search. That's less than ideal.

But what are the alternatives? Prospective Medicine is a different, narrower idea. Likewise, Personalized Medicine seems to me inadequately ambitious. PM is personalized medicine as opposed to what? Impersonal medicine? Bulk medicine? Medicine is already personalized. Yes, I know, PM is about medicine that is more personalized in very specific ways, but again that's really beside the point. I don't want my medical care to be more personalized, I want it to help me feel better and live longer, for the same or less money. "Personalized" isn't a value proposition, and it isn't a recipe for how to achieve value any more than four copies of the letter P.

Hmm, maybe I just need to go on a bike ride....

Burrill Personalized Medicine Meeting 2008

Just got back from the Fourth Burrill Personalized Medicine Meeting. I blogged it on my biotech/health blog here.

The conference wasn't exactly upbeat. But given the economic turmoil, it was certainly optimistic. People see a bright future for Personalized Medicine and diagnostics, which is good news both for America's health and for my day job, so I shouldn't complain.

My 150ms of fame on 538

I made a comment on that crackpipe of election information fivethirtyeight.com, related to voting and tangentially to e-deceptive campaign practices. My comment elicited favorable response. Believe it or not, there were suggestion that the comment should be its own thread. (No really, more than one. OK, two.) So here it is in all its glory:

@MsMike said...
> Erik: Thanks for the info on vote protection. Very helpful. I will be wathing for more.

OK, the report on deceptive electronic practices is here: http://votingintegrity.org/pdf/edeceptive_report.pdf Non electronic deceptive elections practices are still a danger, but are for the most part understood in the elections community. This report explores some deceptive practices specifically using electronic (primarily internet) means. Deceptive practices are attempts to affect voter registration, turnout, or vote choice by means of deception. I am an author on this report, which was produced by the National Committee for Voting Integrity a project of the highly esteemed Electronic Privacy Information Center.

The Voter Suppression Wiki has a list of list of election protection initiatives and a nice incident tracker page that lists prominent suppression incidents in an organized way.

There is also a Twitter VoteReport Project that looks promising.

The Verified Voting Foundation has a wealth of information on elections technology. This is not directly related to elections incidents, but may be helpful if you are trying to understand what kinds of known problems exist with different voting systems.

To reiterate my previous message, if you personally experience what you consider to be a voting incident you think might be worthy of follow-up or investigation, I recommend you call 866-our-vote or visit voteprotect.org.

In places that permit early voting, you can take stress off of what will in many places be an overburdened elections system by voting early.

Take a minute to visit your county's elections web site (assuming it has one), especially if you're new to the county, and most especially if you're new to the state. Rules vary. In some places, if you go to the wrong polling place, you can vote provisional, but in some places, it's basically impossible to vote in the wrong polling place. Worst of all are places where you can vote provisionally in the polling place, but unless you visit the county elections department in person before the elections results are finalized, your provisional ballot gets thrown out. It's important to know the rules.

If you are voting in person on election day, try to vote early if possible. Mid-day is often a quiet time. The county elections web site may have recommendations. Employers by law have to give you "adequate" time off from work to vote. (I'm not a lawyer and not an expert on this particular law, but if an employer will not reasonably accommodate your voting, then I recommend you call 866-our-vote right now.) Bring ID with you to the polling place regardless of the rules, just in case.

If you experience something bad (an "incident,") try to be a good reporter. Make notes in writing, if you can. Note the names of people you talk to and the time you talked to them. If it's relevant, note precinct numbers, brand names, model numbers and serial numbers. Generally and for very good reasons you can't take pictures inside a polling place, but if you have a camera or camera phone, take pictures outside the poling place and where permitted that might be helpful later. (Long lines, illegal behavior, etc.) If you don't have anything to write with, call yourself on your cell phone and leave yourself a voicemail message. This information can be valuable real time in getting injunctions, and better yet helping elections staff do a better job before an injunction even becomes necessary. Be firm but polite. More elections incidents are caused by bad information than by malice, and even in the case of malice, being hostile probably won't help you gather valuable information.

Do not, of course, forget to vote. If you fall ill or break your leg or something, you can still vote. Have a friend drive you. (Or if none of your friends have cars, contact your campaign to see if the GOTV people can help.) Many places offer curbside voting for handicapped voters, and it is now common to establish a temporary handicapped parking space in front of polling places. Rules vary, but I doubt many places would deny you assistance if you say you need it. I know a poll watcher in South Africa. One of the voters was an elderly, arthritic man who walked four hours one way on a very hot day to get to the polls. Then he waited in line several more hours. Then he walked home again. Oh, and he was carrying his handicapped wife on his back. If they voted, you can get your a** to the polls. Hear? Better yet, help somebody else who might not vote get to the polls.

Finally, as you enjoy the election night drama at an election party or quietly at home, give a moment's thanks to the election workers and election protection volunteers, whose work is not finished on election day. They will be toiling through the night and the next day. Many of them will not sleep for 30 or 40 hours straight, only to grab a brief rest and begin again. All for generally low pay or no pay at all, in the service of our precious democracy.

E-Deceptive Practices: Now with added blogos.

The report E-Deceptive Campaign Practices Report: Internet Technology & Democracy 2.0 I recently blogged about is getting some traction on the web.

• Sarah Lai Stirland at Wired picked it up for Threat Level.
• TechPresident's Daily Digest gave us a knuckle-bump.
• My man Andy Oram over at O'Reilly Blogged it.
• Jon Pincus blogged it too. (Like me, he's a contributor. Actually, a much bigger contributor than me.)

Deceptive Election Practices

The report E-Deceptive Campaign Practices Report: Internet Technology & Democracy 2.0. has released under the auspices of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. The list of contributors is (me aside) quite impressive. This ambitious and useful project was led and pulled together in remarkably short order by the remarkable Lillie Coney, also a contributor. The report discusses how deceptive campaign practices have changed in the age of ubiquitous internet.