Enjablog

Happy Halloween!

I started my morning off with a nice little treat for myself:

It turns out absentee-in-person voting is just like early voting, but with more paperwork. I thought it would be like absentee voting, but with less postage. Got to use the voting machines like usual and still get a sticker!

LOTD: Implicit Association Test

Linked this a while back, but they have a new test just for the election! Plus, I retook the male/female science test and am now neutral. I definitely have my coworkers to thank for that, as well as the many competent female engineers I have befriended over the past few years.

Today is National Depression Screening Day. So if you’ve been thinking about getting screened or know someone who should, consider doing it today.

I know most (all?) of you are registered already. But I wouldn’t be doing my bloggy duties if I didn’t make sure. So, if you haven’t already, do it. Do it now. We’ll wait…

For as long as I can remember, I’ve slept with a comforter at night. Always.

Even in the summer, I get very cold at night, so I have to have some kind of insulation in order to regulate my body temperature.

I was told that this isn’t normal. So, I decided to do some research to see if I had some kind of disorder… (Can you tell I have been procrastinating recently?)

As it turns out, I’m narcoleptic. Yeah, no kidding, right? We already knew that.

But this is a relatively recent finding that demonstrates a relationship between skin temperature and sleepiness: Altered skin-temperature regulation in narcolepsy relates to sleep propensity.

There is an inverse relationship with core body temperature and the temperature of extremities. When your core temperature drops, the heat is dispersed through your skin, causing your extremities to get warmer. Narcoleptics have more extreme variations and slower changes in temperature, which is why I get so cold (core temperature) while radiating so much heat (distal temp) when I sleep and have so much trouble waking up.

… narcoleptics were reported to show an attenuated circadian amplitude and slower morning rise of the core body temperature, as well as an earlier temperature minimum, which both fit the present finding of a continuation into sleep of the increased distal skin blood flow and consequently heat loss.

As a follow-up to this study, there have been experiments with thermosuits and hot/cold foods and drinks to see the effect on excessive daytime sleepiness. Clearly, the solution is here: Electric Coat.

Which, of course, reminds me of Squidgey’s recommendation to me a few years back: The No-Contact Jacket.

I came across an article on the Psychology of voting that cited a study that was done a few years ago:
“Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.” (PDF of original paper)

I think I’ve seen references to this in passing before, but I decided to look it up today and read the actual paper. It was marginally reassuring to me that the concluding remarks in their paper expressed similar apprehensions as I experienced when reading their results:

In sum, we present this article as an exploration into why people tend to hold overly optimistic and miscalibrated views about themselves. We propose that those with limited knowledge in a domain suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach mistaken conclusions and make regrettable errors, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Although we feel we have done a competent job in making a strong case for this analysis, studying it empirically, and drawing out relevant implications, our thesis leaves us with one haunting worry that we cannot vanquish. That worry is that this article may contain faulty logic, methodological errors, or poor communication. Let us assure our readers that to the extent this article is imperfect, it is not a sin we have committed knowingly.

This also brings to mind the confidence that many people have in job hiring processes and their personal judgment when it comes to interviews. I have witnessed the failures in this process enough times to recognize that I certainly don’t trust my own judgment, much less that of others. While I recognize that it is a necessary part of the process to meet and interact with a potential hire in order to finalize the decision, I find it rare that interviewers put in the effort to learn anything new about a candidate aside from what they might have learned from a sheet of paper or a brief phone or email interview. And yet, most interviewers believe that they are a good judge of character and that meeting this person will make all the difference.

Right.

Try telling them otherwise.

But really… After an interview, ask yourself:
- What have you learned about this person that you didn’t already know before?
- How does this person stand out from the average population?
- Do you ask standard questions when you interview? What information are you gaining by asking these aside from what the person explicitly wants you to believe?
- Do you have a better idea of how this person thinks, works, etc?
- How does this person’s opinion of him/herself compare to their actual abilities?
- Do you ask for references? Do you contact those references?

I was discussing in passing with Ian the other day how people should have references from ex-bf/gfs when starting new relationships. But isn’t it the responsibility of the person doing the hiring to ask for those references? So, if you’re dating someone and don’t know their friends, history, etc. it’s your responsibility to do your research. It many cases, it’s not in a person’s interest to offer that information up front. So why wouldn’t you ask?

This is great publicity for this project, but I just think the headline sounds funny:

Excessive emails and text are a mental illness:

PEOPLE who send excessive texts and emails may have a mental illness, according to an article in a leading psychiatric journal.

2 more weeks and I’ll be back to blogging. I have such a backlog that I’m not even angry about all the rants I had prepared. Sigh…

And I thought I was so clever…

So the latest thing is this gcal to outlook synching program that google just came out with. Except that I don’t have outlook on Dellilah, which is what I sync with. But I do have it installed on my old computer, which is sitting right next to me when I have Dellilah on my desk to sync. That seemed like a reasonable solution. Except that the program doesn’t work with Windows 2000. Then I thought maybe I could copy the files over from my old computer and not have to find my install CD from when I installed it… 4 (?) years ago. No dice. Then I tried running it on Dellilah by sharing over the network. No luck there either.

Now my options are to install outlook on Dellilah for realz or sync with my computer at work. Not sure I want to fill my work calendar at work with all my personal appointments. I’ll try to think up a better solution.

Sigh.

The Dumbing Of America:

The problem is not just the things we do not know (consider the one in five American adults who, according to the National Science Foundation, thinks the sun revolves around the Earth); it’s the alarming number of Americans who have smugly concluded that they do not need to know such things in the first place. Call this anti-rationalism — a syndrome that is particularly dangerous to our public institutions and discourse. Not knowing a foreign language or the location of an important country is a manifestation of ignorance; denying that such knowledge matters is pure anti-rationalism.

Is it bad that the fact that they’re talking only about Americans here gives me hope for the rest of the human race? Or is it just because Americans are so narcissistic that they only want to hear about themselves (bad or good), even if it applies to everyone else too? In any case, most of the people who read this blog are Americans, so this message is to you: don’t be dumb. kthxbye!

I don’t know if I could love Google any more than I do right now. Love love love Google.

Official Gmail Blog: Gmail + chat + AIM = crazy delicious

The world continues to look away. Don’t

By rights, Ombeni should be nearing the end of her university life, perhaps fending off marriage requests or applying for teaching posts in the city. But her schooling, and her life’s journey, were brutally interrupted almost five years earlier.

Back then she was a typical 15-year-old with dreams of university and a better life. Her home was a village in the countryside, where, when she wasn’t studying, she helped in the fields. It was while out working one evening that rebel forces captured her carefree innocence. For months she became their slave, both sexual and physical, as they lived in various wooded compounds along the Rwandan border. Heavily pregnant, and near death from lack of food, the rebels returned her to her village so her parents could watch her die.

Hm… How relevant this week. Ten Minutes Of Talking Improves Memory And Test Performance:

Spending just 10 minutes talking to another person can help improve your memory and your performance on tests, according to a University of Michigan study to be published in the February 2008 issue of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Bride sues over flower color

“The flowers cost $27,435.14.”

That’s more than my entire college education. Four and a half years of knowledge spent on 6 hours of flowers. What is wrong with people??

What?? And Stephen Colbert is running for President? I need to catch up on my TV.

I am so happy for Al Gore!!

Gore, U.N. Body Win Nobel Peace Prize:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee characterized Gore as “the single individual who has done most” to convince world governments and leaders that climate change is real, is caused by human activity and poses a grave threat. Gore has focused on the issue through books, promotional events and his Academy Award-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”