Sniffing out the dooky

Don’t take anything you read online at face value. It’s easy to be misled by online content that appear legitimate unless you know what you’re looking for and how to filter out the good from the bad. People that are not trained nor have the skills to identify credible material will continue to be the targets of advertisers and peddlers of misinformation. Some websites are easy to identify as fake but others can be built to appear trustworthy when in fact they are not.

The most obvious of the websites to avoid when searching for the most factual information possible are blogs (excluding this one), personal websites and certain wikis. Any website that contains an article that doesn't immediately declare that the expressions or thoughts of the author are just opinion should be avoided. A source that wants to be taken seriously will freely admit when they are wrong and quickly make their corrections public. Today’s public debate on the validity of global warming science is a very good example of fact being challenged by fiction.

A trustworthy site for the global warming topic can be found at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/indicators/ . This site contains massive amounts of factual scientific evidence on the impact of fossil fuel pollution with easy-to-read charts and graphs compiled by unbiased researchers. In contrast to a website full of reliable sources and data is a website from The Heartland Institute http://heartland.org/issues/environment . The articles on this website are full of accusations, fallacy and seem to push their beliefs with no credible sources.

A recent website constructed and written by the Department of Defense commemorating the 50^th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War has been the subject of historical accuracy in recounting the events of that terrible time. One would think that a government funded educational outreach tool would appear to be honest about the facts presented. Apparently that’s not the case. It seems that the Pentagon is rewriting history to continue to support the lies that got us into that war in the first place as well as downplaying the atrocities that happened during it. It can be found here: http://www.vietnamwar50th.com/timeline/ An article identifying the missing information is posted at: http://www.thenation.com/article/178427/misremembering-americas-wars-vietnam-iraq

I have been saving the best for last! The National Republican Congressional Committee recently bought hundreds of URL’s of which were used to create up to 20 fake websites. They appear to endorse their rival Democratic candidates when in fact they are a platform to smear the politician in hopes of having them voted out of office. The website only discloses this fact in small fine print and links to a Republican controlled donation fund in the hopes of misleading the voter. Here are a couple examples: http://nancypelosi2014.com/  - http://annkirkpatrick.com/

It can be clear that some websites are obviously not credible while others are harder to detect. Yet if one follows just a few rules reliable information can be found with a little extra work and tenacity. First find sources that have verifiable credentials in the subject area you’re looking for. Those sources should be proven to be an authority in whatever it is they are declaring. Intelligent readers and researchers are skeptical and a good source will anticipate that skepticism by providing background information

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Human beings by nature are biased. This should be always on the mind of the researcher. Even when the facts seem correct, it’s unfortunate that there is an inevitable bias from the source and should be taken into account. The best and most reliable information should be as bias free as possible.

Good information will have a thick skin. It will stand up to scrutiny and will follow the standards of scientific research in that the experiment can be replicated. Also that information can be verified and corroborated to be true everywhere.

The Internet has almost boundless opportunities in gathering, disseminating and using information. Getting to know the difference between the good and bad is not hard. A little skepticism can go a long way in separating the valuable from the crap.

Blind Spots

Blind Spots

For over 10 years I worked in luxury resorts throughout San Diego County California as both a bartender and a bar manager. During these times I both witnessed and regrettably participated in what would be considered unethical behavior. There was an old saying that I heard when I first started bar tending it went something like this”Show me a bartender who doesn't steal and I’ll show you a liar”.

I had just left the military and moved to San Diego to use my G.I. Bill and go to college. Being in one of the most desirable vacation towns in the country the hospitality industry was the obvious choice for a part-time job while I took classes. The first job I accepted was at a place that I normally wouldn't think I would end up working at but it was staffed by a bunch of people my own age(mostly cute girls) and being new to the area I definitely wanted to make friends. It was really busy most the time and was in a part of San Diego(La Jolla) that attracted all types of people with money.

The first night I worked behind the bar, the guy that was training me stuffed a wad of crumbled up bills into my back pocket. I didn’t know what to do because having just left the military the thought of stealing was alien to me. I didn’t know how he got the money, why he was giving it to me and even more disturbing was the thought of what he expected from me. Within a week the bartender who stuffed the money in my pocket and another guy who work there stole the nightly cash deposits and we never heard about them again.

That experience had a great impact on me as I continued to work in nicer and more exclusive places. The way I looked at it was I had no reason to steal because I was a good enough bartender that my tips always were more than enough to keep me happy. This rationality worked out well for me and despite knowing how other bartenders behaved unethically, I remain true to myself. That is until I moved up into management and started working at one of the most luxurious resorts in the country.

The new place was top-notch! It was a famous, historical five-star resort with 36 holes of championship golf, ridiculously nice spa and 90,000 ft.² of banquet space. I was hired as a banquet bartender and quickly moved into a Beverage Captains position. This was at a period of time where the real estate bubble was close to its peak and the corporate dollars were flowing endlessly. We catered to Fortune 500 companies, private equity firms and any other successful business you can think of. This is where I first experienced what I know now to be defined as motivational blindness.

The structure of how we were paid was dependent upon the amount of sales we generated for the resort. It was a union job and our contract specified the employee’s pooled 14.5% service charge on all events. Now you have to realize we were hosting events that could have more than 1000 people for five days, breakfast, lunch and dinner with nightly events and up to a dozen open bars. I personally presented checks to clients for more than three quarters of $1 million. It was really easy and never questioned to inflate the beverage bill by up to 20%. Who cared, right? These companies had money falling out of their you know what’s!

I wasn't motivated by greed because in hindsight it really wouldn't have mattered much in my paycheck whether I had done it or not. How different was it then taking cash out of the till? Or taking payment for a drink and not ringing it up? That was the status quo there. It really was expected of me and that was how I was trained to do things. I didn't feel at the time that I wasn’t being true to myself because it was such a condoned act of unethical behavior all the way up the chain of command in management. I guess I felt as if my actions were benefiting all of the employees more so than myself. So in addition to the motivated blindness my blind spot included me overcoming my own values.

This is a fascinating topic of ethics which I find extremely interesting and relevant in today’s world. I hope that I am never faced with the situation like I had at the resort but if I am I have the tools and knowledge to try and make the right decision.

Try To Pay Attention To My Attention

Try To Pay Attention To My Attention

As I sat down to begin recording my periods of attention span, or lack thereof, I was reminded of the various times where not paying attention either caused me harm, inconvenience or frustration. It was easy to come up with the techniques that don’t work. The real challenge was discovering for myself what does. I have been fortunate to have never been seriously harmed by not paying attention like in a car accident, but could come up with a few dozen other examples of both mundane every day nuisances and serious life-changing mistakes.

I couldn't even begin to count how many times I've said to myself while driving that it was a good thing I was paying attention. So much so that at a young age I began to be hyper diligent in paying attention while driving that I became accustomed to expecting the unexpected. One time in particular while I was returning home from a bar-tending shift on Halloween night I approached a red light that turned green before I needed to slow down. In any other scenario like that it is normal to just keep on going through the green light, but I had this feeling. I slowed down a bit and sure enough a car came barreling through the intersection crossing the exact spot I would have been in had I not been paying attention.

I wonder sometimes if I am the exception to the normal in regards to tasks like driving or any other potentially dangerous scenario. I am military trained having gone through enlisted flight school where paying attention to detail could be a matter of life or death. Does that same training and experience I had then transfer to the everyday attempts at keeping focused when it is important? I will try to find the answer to that question by recording and making observations of my attention span over the course of one week.

Thursday February 6, 2014

Tuesdays and Thursdays are a long days for me. I have three lectures starting with Intermediate Microeconomics from 9:30 AM till 10:45 AM then MIS 411 from 12:30 PM till 1:45 PM followed later in the day with a computer programming course from 5 PM until 6:15 PM. I usually get up before 6 AM on Tuesdays and turn on the local public radio station then the computer before brushing my teeth etc. I don’t have a TV nor do I subscribe to any cable service other than high-speed Internet and I don’t think I ever would pay for cable again. I realized very soon when I decided to go back to college that having cable TV would be a huge distraction and I am pleased with that decision. So not having cable TV or a big screen HD certainly works in my favor to minimize distractions. TV sucks anyway!

After I eat and get ready for the day I sit down and usually go to both Blackboard and D2L to check for anything new from my instructors as well as checking my email accounts both personal and for school. I observed that if there was something new or unexpected that my attention would become focused on the content and away from the task of preparing for school. This happens a lot. For example when I get email messages from my advising office I am drawn and compelled to read them because they usually contain interesting and useful announcements that I otherwise would have no idea about. They certainly distract me if they are particularly interesting and from those observations I decided to create a folder in my Cat Mail to save them for later.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

I decided to make observations on the weekend because this seems to be a period of time where I am least likely to pay attention to the things I need to. As far as being distracted by a mobile device I really don’t have a problem with that. I’m not saying I wouldn't if I had more friends in Tucson but most of my friends in fact all of my friends live in other states and I definitely don’t communicate as much as I would if I still lived close to them.

So having no friends to distract me means I usually don’t have any plans on the weekends but sometimes struggle with keeping on with my studies. One behavior I learned that I struggle with is when I try to do everything at once. I saw that I would begin work on one subject and in the process of researching a relevant topic I would find an interesting news article or website that took my attention away from what I had initially begun work on. I cleared off my desk of all unrelated material and kind of by mistake found that if I use a web browser that doesn't have all of my hundreds of bookmarks I am much less likely to be distracted.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

I discovered as my math proficiency increased I would need to follow a particular routine to begin work on such rigorous material. After I decided not to go to business school and pursue a degree in Information Science and Economics I took on the requirements of a much higher difficulty level needed to get into upper division classes. I’d always noticed that I can’t just sit down and immediately feel confident when working out homework problems or exercises.

This behavior has been consistent with all of my difficult classes. I need a warm up phase of about 20 to 30 minutes before I feel as if I am in the “zone”. Any distraction while I am in the “zone” inhibits my focus and it takes another five or 10 minutes to get back to where I was. In one of our required readings Net Smart they referred to what cognitive scientists call attentional blink and I observed that if I had my computer on while working out some math problems for my intermediate micro economics course I could be tempted to surf the web.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

In reflecting on the past weeks observations in regards to my attention span I came to some conclusions about myself and what I could do to help mitigate periods of distraction. When I attempted to multitask I ended up getting less done when doing schoolwork. I wrote on a 3 x 5 index card in orange colored sharpie ink the phrase ”One Thing At A Time” and taped it to the mirror right by my desk where I do work. I guess I kind of stole that from the phrase that recovering alcoholics use but it works for me!

I try to be consistent with performing some type of exercise every day whether it just be push-ups and situps or trips to the gym. I absolutely observed that when I didn’t work out I would become irritable and less likely to focus on my assignments. Additionally, I have been trained in the beginning steps of mindfulness meditation and I benefit greatly throughout the day when I meditate for at least 10 minutes. I also have a little electronic device that tracks your pulse rate and helps me be aware of how my breathing affects my stress levels. I use it at least three times a day.

Taking the above steps to try to control my level of distraction in addition to what I've been learning in this class has had an immediate impact on my performance in school. I began to make regular appointments at the Campus Health Center to attend a healing touch session and have found that to be a huge benefit. The little reminders and set routines contribute to my ability to stay on task when I need it most. The more I learn about how easy it is to lose my attention and the underlying neurological causes the more I am able to come up with ways counter act distraction.