Istanbul Vacation Checklist

• Sultanahmet (Blue) Mosque
  
• Hagia Sophia
• Topkapı Palace
• Spice Bazaar
• Grand Baazar
  
• Yerebatan Cistern
• Bogazici Universitiy
• Rumelihisarı Fortress
  
• Sakıp Sabancı Museum
• Büyükada Island

Wikipedia for the win. Details to follow -- this seems to always be the case...

Istanbul was Constantinople

I've spent the past week and a half in Istanbul on a family vacation. Istanbul, and Turkey as a whole, are really very interesting geopolitically, but that is a thought for another blog post. We just returned from biking around the island of Büyükada, and I am overdue for a shower. In preparation for the trip I purchased a new camera; below is a slideshow of selected photos I have taken so far.

Grad Student in Space!

I know that a large fraction of astronauts have graduate degrees, but this is still cool. Yi So-Yeon got her PhD from KAIST two months ago ("biotech systems" says Wikipedia), and just touched down, slightly off target, after ten days on board the International Space Station. Korea's first astronaut, Yi turns thirty later this year.

I doubt I'll get into space without paying the eight-figure tourist rate. That is, I doubt I'll get into space at all. But now, at least I can live vicariously through a young and promising scientist.

WWT: Day Two Report

Consumed: two Red Bulls
Written: 4.5 pages (double-spaced)
Musical Score: Stunna Glasses at Night (what, you don't wear yours?)

I'm actually reasonably satisfied with my progress. Page count is lower, but I got a skeleton down for some of the nastier sections. Thanks to Chris for very helpful and frequent feedback . Another 4 or 5 pages tomorrow would almost see the end of the main technical chapter. Out of redbull, and free lunch tomorrow. Looks like I'll be heading into Stata.

I leave for a two week vacation in Turkey on Sunday. Should have some fun things to write about when I get back. Hopefully life will be more interesting once thesis has been slain.

WWT: Day One Post Mortem

Consumed: two Red Bulls
Written: 8.5 pages (double-spaced)
Musical Score: Imperial March

Analysis: Must be better, harder, faster, more eloquent. Page rate reasonable assuming it holds up for the trickier parts. Two Red Bulls in eight hours turns out to be a mistake. Should wake up before noon on Thursday. Damn you, thesis! I'll see you in the morning -- there is no escape.

World War Thesis: Road to a Masters

When it comes to a Masters Degree, I'm going to have to agree with Juvenile -- I need it in my life, I want it in my life. What is between me and the object of my desire? One itty bitty thesis. So, in the spirit of Timo Maas, it's time to get down. I hereby declare preemptive war on my thesis, with tactical engagements to start tomorrow. I have prepared the battlefield!




I have also secured a fuel more precious than oil, treasured by thesis writers for millennia.




On April 16th, the final fight for freedom begins. Madness? THIS IS THESIS.

Much ado about a torch

Being from San Francisco, and generally up on current events, I have not missed the brouhaha over the Olympic torch relay. In case your head has been under the sand, here's the deal. The Summer Olympics are in China this year, and at the same time much of the (Western) world is concerned about China's record on human rights. Recent protests (riots?) in Tibet seem to have broken the camel's back. The international torch relay has become the flashpoint, with massive protests in London, Paris, and San Francisco. There is a lot of press about the issue, so I will simply summarize each viewpoint with a classic song:

• China - Playa Hata, Luniz
  
  


• West - Yakety Yak, The Coasters
  
  

Facebook faux pas?

At present, I have roughly 450 friends on Facebook. The problem is that plenty of these people are not my friends -- or colleagues, or people I ever expect to see or talk to again. I estimate that between 10-20% of my "friends" fall into this category. This is mostly my fault; I did approve or initiate all of the friend requests. But in the age of Facebook-as-platform, this means 10-20% more worthless application notifications, event invites, and the like.

This brings me to my question; is it polite to delete these connections? Ideally none of these people really know who I am, so they shouldn't notice. But in general, social networks seem to be built in the 'insertions only' model, with friend deletions being a rare occurrence and a design afterthought.

I think I'll just do a purge and see what happens :-).

Finally a shout out, this time to Chris, for another nifty psychology piece in the New York times. Evidently, the whole field of "cognitive dissonance" is based on results from an experiment which are better explained by statistics (in particular, the Monty Hall problem). Owned. I may take a closer look in a full blog post. The third chapter of Influence is coming soon; it's sixty pages and I had to push out two papers this week!

Willpower

Facebook is an excellent procrastination tool, but occasionally yields an entertaining and enlightening surprise. In this case, Matt Fong posted a fascinating New York Times Op-Ed on willpower.

The article, coauthored by the EIC of Nature Neuroscience and a Princeton professor, frames willpower as a currency that can be spent and earned. In particular, any time you exercise self control, or otherwise change your behavior to reflect long term over short term goals, you are spending willpower. What's devious here is that your willpower depletes. If you eat radishes instead of cookies before attempting an impossible puzzle, you give up sooner. This isn't a metaphor, it's published experimental research.

The eggheads are less clear on the actual physical mechanics of willpower "storage", although blood sugar has been suggested. Besides maintaining elevated blood sugar (I hope this doesn't give you diabetes), there are no suggestions for how will power accrues in the short term. My layman's guess is that it regenerates slowly, perhaps overnight. However, in a very Influence-esqe way, you can put knowledge of willpower mechanics to practical use. The authors suggest not attempting to clean your room before studying for finals.

Finally, in line with common sense, willpower "capacity" can grow over time, like a muscle. So the more you exert your better judgement, the easier it should become. Even small things count; evidentially, switching the hand you brush your teeth with has a measurable effect on willpower after two weeks.

As a computer scientist, I always enjoy seeing the mysteries of the brain reduced to algorithmic problems. It also gives me a good excuse for posting so late. I spent the entire weekend preparing a paper for submission to a conference, and I don't want to overwork my willpower by attempting for a reasonable bedtime. GG!

Tallahassee Love

I just had an epiphany -- one can only write so many chapter summaries in a row before enthusiasm flags. For this post, I consider a more pressing issue: I like the bartender.

In case you aren't feeling all good inside, I'm talking about Faheem Najm, the musical phenomenon better known as T-Pain. Pain (a.k.a Tebunan Pedalofogus, from the planet Telegusa) is a Florida rapper best known for his distinctive (and ever present) use of the Auto-Tune vocal effect. But don't take my word for it! Here is one of T-Pain's best known masterpieces, Buy U A Drank (the first sixty seconds are probably sufficient):

Now, do you wonder what it would sound like if a white guy recited these lyrics? Today is your lucky day, thanks to Cute With Chris:



Another thing that might be bugging you at this point is what Faheem thinks can be done to combat poverty and other societal ills. Well, I can't help you with that, but here's Chris again, with the transcript of a T-Pain interview.



See here for the actual, honest to God, huge meat (no homo!) interview that was the inspiration for that last video. Most recently, and inspiring this post, a conversation between T-Pain and Akon.



I'm definitely feeling like a butternut reduction. Please leave any further T-Pain awesomeness in the comments!

Influence, Chapter 2: Reciprocation

I continue my chapter-by-chapter summary of Influence, by Robert Cialdini. Previously: Introduction, Chapter 1.

Chapter two introduces the first major weapon of influence, reciprocity. The automatic compliance rule in effect here is that if someone does you a favor, you owe them -- even if you didn't ask for anything in the first place. Cialdini argues that this rule is good for the growth of society. Essentially, if society adapts reciprocity, I feel more comfortable trading and loaning with others (because my sense of their future obligation is clear). The downside is that if I want to get you to do something, I can influence you by doing you a small favor first.

The strongest example in the chapter is certainly that of Hare Krishnas. The Krishnas form a religious sect and, like many others, need donations to support themselves. Their tie to reciprocity is that before asking for money, they give the target (victim?) a small gift, like a book or a flower. The gift has an immense impact on donations, because people feel obligated to return the favor.

One particularly interesting special case of reciprocity is reciprocal concessions, which is basically a fancy word for bargaining. Rather than doing someone a favor, here you request something larger than you actually want, and then bargaining downwards ("Can I borrow $20? No? How about $5, then?"). In this rejection-then-retreat technique, you are doing a favor for your borrower by conceding that the amount of money you first asked for was too high. So, by reciprocity, they feel obliged to make a concession as well ("Sure, I can lend you $5"). This techniques "stacks" with the contrast principle of Chapter 1 -- comparing $20 to $5, the latter seems like not a very large amount of money to lend.

The chapter closes with defensive techniques. They boil down to this: detect if someone is trying to use reciprocity to play you (as opposed to just doing you a favor), and if so, switch to "sales-person defender" mode. All is fair when people misuse social compliance rules, so feel free to take their gift and show them the door.

Next up: Chapter 3, Commitment and Consistency.

Influence, Chapter 1: Weapons of Influence

Previously: Introduction

This chapter is an extended introduction to the idea of an automatic compliance response, by way of a number of examples "stereotypes" that people follow mindlessly. I'll skip right to the human ones, as I find animal psychology uninteresting.

The first example is that it is sometimes easier to sell jewelery to tourists by marking it up than by marking it down, simply because of the stereotype that expensive things are of high quality. The second is that people are more likely to do you a favor if you give them a reason -- even if your reason is useless. That is, you are more likely to get a friend to bring you a glass of water if you ask "Can you bring me a glass of water? I'm thirsty." Plain old "Can you bring me a glass of water?" doesn't work quite as well.

Two broader points are made. First, these mindless actions are not all bad; in fact the ability to do things without thinking about them is what allows us to keep up with the fast pace of our society. However, being unaware of how they work can leave someone vulnerable to exploitation. The second point is that marketers and others can take advantage of these "weapons" in a very subtle manner. For example, the principle of contrast says that when someone compares two sufficiently distinct items, their difference will percieved as larger than it actually is. A sales person uses this principle to show you a suit before a tie -- once you see the price of a suit, the price of the tie doesn't look that bad. In the same way, if you tell your parents about how much pot your friends smoke, your C- in history may not seem as horrible.

Next post: Chapter 2, Reciprocation

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

To inaugurate my new desire to blog, I pulled a book of my shelf and decided to reread it and post summaries as I go.

The lucky book:

"Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert Cialdini. (amazon)

To start off, here's a summary of the introduction:

Cialdini is an experimental social psychologist, whose research interests lie in the psychology of compliance. In particular, he wants to know "which psychological principles influence the tendency to comply with a request". Shades of Dale Carnegie, certainly. Since every pop-psychology book needs some fanciful terminology, these principles will henceforth be known as weapons of influence.

The six primary weapons are: consitency, reciprocation, social proof, authority, liking, and scarcity. The ability of each principle to produce " a willingness to say yes without thinking first" will be examined in future chapters.

Look for my next post on Chapter 1: Weapons of Influence soon!