Is Social Networking Evolving?

This week I was fortunate to have dinner with some old college buddies.  We talked about families, wives or girlfriends, kids, and of course, jobs.  All of us studied computer science and took classes together.  What struck me is that years later everyone had specialized in a particular area.  In fact, it was almost difficult for us to communicate.  Each person worked at a specific task, usually using a single programming language.  While we might have heard of the software the others used, we really weren't familiar enough with the other jobs or languages to discuss them in depth. 

Gone were the college days of studying an entire field, replaced by the need for specialization.

When we think of social networking, we probably think of 'friending' people and the progression from MySpace to Facebook to Twitter.  However, you could make the argument that the Internet has been a social network since the first computers were connected, and that what we really have is a period of growth and specialization.

Every year the Internet reaches out further around the planet as more people gain access.  But there are still billions of people who have never sent an email or updated their status or wrote a 140-character tweet.  So the potential for growth is still large and continual.

At the same time, I think we're going to see an increase in specialization among people who've used the Internet for a while.  While the biggest social networks like Facebook and Twitter are 'general purpose' sites, we also have LinkedIn for business or Goodreads for reading.  A natural sorting or organization has occurred as people on the Internet seek out others who share their interests. 

For instance, I frequently visit Boardgamegeek, which is all about table top games.  It has areas where people post images of the game boards, reviews of the latest games, games for sale, videos explaining how to play, forums and blogs.  This site does not use 'friending' or 'following,' so it may not fit what most people think of as a social network, but it is an active community of people with similar interests. 

Absolutewrite is another good example because the interface may not look like a social network, but the site's extensive forums provide for a constant flow of information and opinion among those who read and write.  And recently I happened on the Hardcorenerdity site, which provides news about science fiction and fantasy across the spectrum of media from television to movies to books and comics.  What's interesting here is that their 'About' page makes it clear they hope to get contributions from members both in the form of comments and blog posts.  So again, it may appear to be a standard news site, but it contains the information sharing and interactivity we associate with social networks.

With Facebook there is an initial flurry of activity when you join, followed by an eventual leveling out of 'friending' as you track down all your old high school pals.  Twitter's model is different since you can choose to 'follow' someone without going through the 'friend' request transaction, so you may interact with more strangers, but separating out what you are interested in can be difficult.  Just as other writers have described the flood of data on the Internet as 'trying to take a sip from a fire hose,' Twitter can flood you with tweets from people you don't know, about things you're not interested in.

This is why I think we'll see a natural sorting take place as people seek out others with their particular interests and socialize with them.  And in many ways, that's not much different than what we do at parties, where hopefully you find yourself in the kitchen talking about astronomy or hiking or whatever with an enthusiastic group of new friends.

(The pic is of Shibuya in Tokyo, Japan, from everything-everywhere.com.  Lots of people crossing the street, each heading to their particular destination, but moving with the larger flow.)

A Crash of Rhinos

Along with monkeys and turtles, rhinos have always fascinated me.  I even keep one of Schleich's realistic rhino toys on my desk.  Last week I was reading Deon Meyer's novel TRACKERS, which deals with rhino smuggling in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Meyer's book mentioned a rhino's horn can sell for 60,000 USD, which in that area of the world is a fortune to most people.  The markets that support poaching come from two sources.  The first is in Asia, where the horns are thought to have medicinal value.  This is completely false, since a rhino's horn is simply a growth of thick hair with no medical properties.  The other market is the Middle East, where the horn is used to make the handles of daggers.  This is unnecessary since renewable materials like wood could easily be substituted.

Due to their size and strength, rhinos have no enemies in nature except humans, and both the causes used to justify rhino poaching have no scientific validity.

The terms 'white rhino' and 'black rhino' have always confused me because every African rhino I've seen was gray.  The name may come from the Boers' Dutch words 'widje' or 'weit,' which mean wide.  The white rhino has a wide, square mouth adapted for grazing on grass, while the smaller black rhino has a narrow mouth better for pulling leaves off plants.

These two, the black and white, constitute all the African rhinos.  However, Asia has three types:  the Javan, the Sumatran, and the Greater One-Horned rhinoceros.  While the African rhinos grow very large, with the White weighing up to 5,000 pounds/2,300 kilograms and 6 feet tall/1.8 meters at the shoulder, the Asian animals are smaller, with the little Sumatran at 1,765 pounds/800 kilograms and 4.8 feet/145 centimeters at the shoulder.

Rhinos can live 35 to 45 years.  Their hearing and sense of smell are good, but their vision is poor, which leads them to charge when startled.  If you did alarm a rhino, you would not be able to outrun it since they can sprint at 30 to 40 miles per hour.  And despite their size, they are agile when turning.  Often charges are the result of people disturbing a mother and her calf.

Due to loss of habitat and poaching, rhinos are in trouble.  In Africa, the White is endangered and the Black is at critical risk.  While in Asia, the Javan and Sumatran are in critical status, and the Greater One Horn is endangered.   

While zoos are trying to save the rhinos with captive breeding programs, the results have been mixed.  Rhinos only birth one calf at a time, so the process is slow, and breeding of Sumatran rhinos has not seen much success.  However, one White rhino in the San Diego Zoo has sired 50 calves.  Greater One-Horned rhino populations in Nepal and northern India have seen some recovery, but poaching continues in both Africa and Asia, with some 230 animals killed for their horns in 2010.

The rhino may be an intimidating creature in appearance, but really they are mostly solitary creatures who simply need a certain amount of room to wander while they eat plants.  Bringing the rhino back from the brink of extinction requires education to eliminate the market for their horns, along with protection of the animals, preservation of their habitat, and continuing efforts at captive breeding.  It is a large task, but a worthwhile and possible one.

(Here is a site from the San Diego Zoo with lots of interesting rhino facts.  And an informative article from the AfricanWildlife Foundation.  The YouTube video is from a zoo in New Zealand.)

Merry Christmas 2011

No matter what holiday you celebrate this season, take a moment to be grateful not for what you have, but for who you have around you.

The War in Iraq finally ends.

Last week the war in Iraq ended.  Or at least it ended for United States forces and their allies.  Whether the Iraqis will keep the peace without outside help will be revealed over the coming months.

The US Congress authorized military action in Iraq back in 2002, but the war didn't begin until March of 2003.  In my memory, it seemed like it took years to capture Saddam Hussein, but US forces found him by December 2003.  However, the new Iraqi government didn't execute Saddam until 2006.  A friend of mine always said that the day after Saddam died, we should have declared 'victory' and left.  Perhaps he was right.  Instead, the US and its allies stayed until December 2011, a total of almost nine years.

The human toll has been high, both for soldiers and civilians.  You can find detailed accounts of soldiers killed or wounded, but with civilians, it gets murky.  Estimates vary.  And it's important to remember that many of the Iraqi dead were not the result of military operations, but rather terrorist bombings and civil strife.

It's natural to look at the war and wonder about its purpose and costs since it affected the lives of millions in physical, psychological, and economic terms.  I think we can point to the fall of Saddam's regime as the biggest positive factor.  His removal, plus the death of his sons in 2003, brought to an end a very evil tyrant's hold over his people. 

We should never underestimate the importance of that.  Saddam's own people were unable to overthrow him for decades, but the coalition forces did it in less than one month.

When we look back, the reasons for the war are hard to pin down.  After 9/11, America was desperate to prevent future attacks, and there was evidence that Saddam had allowed terrorists to establish some training camps in Iraq.  Still, that was not sufficient cause for an all-out ground invasion.  Then the reason morphed into a hunt for weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but either our intelligence was faulty or our own government lied because we never located significant amounts of any WMDs.

Iraq was a dictatorship, and a brutal one.  Now it is a fragile democracy, and the coalition can take credit for that, along with Iraqis who took the opportunity to build their country into something better.  Unfortunately, there are still deep political and religious divisions in Iraq between Sunni and Shia Muslims, Kurds, and various minority groups.  It's worth pointing out that despite the presence of thousands of troops, Iraqi Christians have suffered greatly over the last decade and many have fled the country.

The civil strife isn't all Iraqi centered, though.  So many foreign terrorists flooded the country for a chance to fight US troops that they changed the makeup of Iraqi society.  Fortunately, many of these terrorists died there, but their use of car bombs and improvised munitions have injured or killed thousands of Iraqi civilians and fellow Muslims.  In fact, the first major car bombing took place all the way back in 2003 and was an attack on the Jordanian embassy.  A few weeks later, a car bomb wrecked the United Nations building in Baghdad and killed 22 people.  Throughout the war, many of the terrorist actions have been against civilian targets.

In 2006, US forces killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaida in Iraq.  This was a major blow to the terrorists.  And in 2007, additional US forces went to Iraq in the famous 'surge.'  It is interesting to me that during the war, members of the US media constantly told us how badly it was going and how we couldn't win against an insurgency.  They appeared to view all wars in terms of Viet Nam. 

Dissatisfied with what I saw as biased reporting, I began to read military blogs--actual soldiers on the ground writing about their experiences.  In their view, the surge was working and they were accomplishing their objectives.  I concluded that the mainstream media is more concerned with their own political agenda than with the truth.

There were many other aspects to the war:  the widespread use of contractors/mercenaries; the slow progress of the new Iraqi army and police to take over responsibility for their country; weapons smuggling from Syria; constant interference from Iran; massive amounts of money spent on the US military/industrial complex and how these companies benefited.  Strangely, the constant cry about 'wars for oil' fell apart as an argument since the US and its allies did not see a sudden flood of new oil wealth or supply.

As the years rolled on, the Iraqi army became a more effective partner, which was essential since the various coalition members left to go home.  In 2009, the last British combat troops departed, the staunch US ally having hung on despite political turmoil at home.  The US ended official combat operations in August of 2010 and left on 15 December of this year. 

Looking back, it's odd to see how the war seemed to drift from terrorism to WMDs to Saddam, and finally to a long, hard-fought nation building phase.  It bothers me that the US is ending its major efforts in Iraq without really taking the time to recognize the sacrifices of our troops, and I wonder how the coalition troops were treated when they returned to their homes in Europe and elsewhere.

Perhaps the one thing the US and Iraqi people can share is a sense of relief, and a hope for the future.  After all, Saddam and his killers are gone.  If the Iraqis can put aside their hatred of each other, maybe they can build their country into a place they can be proud of.

Note 1:  No matter what your feelings on the war and no matter where you live, if you see a service member, take a moment to thank them or pray for them.

Note 2:  Wars are divisive.  I respect your right to disagree with my opinions.

(Here are two useful timelines at CTV News and About.com.  The pic is from:  lonelyplanet.com)

I have joined the Borg Collective at Twitter

I'm on Twitter now, but will only post when I:

A.  think of something stunningly brilliant
2.  think about monkeys
c.  if someone else writes something clever that I can re-tweet

2 of the 3 cases above will occur more frequently than Case A.  If you would like to 'follow' me on Twitter, but not in real life, I believe this link will get you there.

https://twitter.com/#!/markbosswriter

However, if this link does not work, simply look me up on Twitter:  @markbosswriter

I'm not entirely certain how Twitter works, but people post things that make me laugh.  All the rest is ads.  I plan to use it for blatant self promotion, but I'm sure I'm the only one doing that, so it's okay.

Thank you,
Mark

Two new elements look for seats at the Periodic Table

When I was a kid, we studied chemistry in middle school (we called it junior high school back then), and then again in high school.  It's no fault of my teachers, but if you asked me to tell you how many elements are in the Periodic Table I'd guess 130 or so.  And if I had to name the elements I know? Iron, gold, silver.  Um.  Helium for balloons at parties.  Oxygen. 

Hydrogen, who makes friends with about any element.  Plutonium and Uranium for atomic bombs.  Rhodium, the most expensive non-radioactive element on Earth--but I only know about that one because I used it in the plot of one of my novels. 

Fortunately, science didn't stop when I graduated high school.  Scientists did not hang up their lab coats and say, "Well, Mark graduated.  Our work here is done."  No, thankfully, science continues and amazing new discoveries are made all the time. 

In 1789 when Antoine Lavoisier published his list of elements, he had 33.  About 200 years later, my 1997 Webster's Dictionary has a table with 105 elements.  And the latest tables list 118.  Now scientists are preparing to add two new elements to the chart.

On 1 December, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (or IUPAC) put forth the proposed names of these elements:  flerovium (Fl) 114, and livermorium (Lv) 116 (first called ununhexium).  There is an approval process to go through, including a time for public commentary, but if the names pass, the elements should be added to the table this coming spring or summer.

There are two interesting things about these elements.  The first is how they came about.  Scientists from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia collaborated with folks from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States.  For those of us old enough to remember the Cold War, the idea of chemists from the USA and the USSR working together would be unthinkable.  It's nice to see that old hatreds can eventually be set aside in favor of science.   

And the names are a nice split, too.  Flerovium is named for Georgi N. Flerov, who founded the Russian lab where flerovium was discovered.  And livermorium is a tribute to the city of Livermore, California, home of the famous Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.

The second interesting thing is that these elements are combinations of other elements.  I thought that an element was something that can't be broken down further to anything else, but apparently my definition is wrong.  Flerovium is calcium and plutonium, while livermorium is calcium and curium.

These combo-elements are not stable, so it is difficult to experiment on them before they collapse into their parts.  Also, they are not found in nature and have to be made in a laboratory.  Scientists are working on other, similar combo-elements, but they have to be observed by IUPAC before they can enter the process for admittance to the periodic table.  Still, it may not be long before elements 113, 115, 117, and 118 find a seat at the table.

The really interesting part will be seeing what can scientists do with these new elements.

(Here is the original Mental Floss article.  And the press release from IUPAC.  And a helpful articles from the Christian Science Monitor and Wikipedia.  The picture is from: webelements.com.  And yes, it does look like Chinese Checkers.)

Snow Monkeys!

In the northern hemisphere, it's wintertime and traditional holidays like Christmas and Hanukkah will soon be celebrated.  So what monkey is appropriate for the holidays? The Snow Monkey!

The popular name is Snow Monkey, but this animal is really a Japanese macaque (muh kak'), or Macaca fuscata.  These monkeys are famous for one particular behavior--they sit in natural hot springs near volcanos to bathe and escape the harsh winters of northern Japan.

While the hot spring monkeys live farther north than any other non-human primate, other Japanese macaques actually live in several different regions of Japan, in all sorts of temperatures and environments.  Japanese macaques grow gray or brown coats, have red faces, 32 adult teeth, short tails and fully opposable thumbs.  In the wild, macaques live 20 to 30 years.

The various articles I read disagreed on certain facts.  For instance, the numbers of macaques in Japan is listed at anywhere from 35,000 to 150,000.  One article said they were endangered due to loss of habitat.  Since Japan's human population is shrinking and rural villages are going empty, it seems like there would be more room for monkeys.

Also, the monkeys themselves cause controversy.  The Japanese people love their snow monkeys and have featured them in their art for thousands of years.  But for farmers, the monkeys are pests that steal crops.  Also, some monkeys have lost their fear of humans and each year tourists and villagers are bitten by aggressive monkeys looking for food.

In their natural gathering and hunting mode, these monkeys are omnivores who eat everything from crabs and bird eggs to sweet potatoes and fruit.  During tough winters, they strip the bark off trees to get to the softer bark below.

Troop size for these monkeys is also difficult to pin down.  I read they live in groups of 20 to 30, which would seem right for macaques.  However, another article stated there were also large troops of 100 or more monkeys.  Whatever the troop size, these macaques are very social, and establish a hierarchy based on dominance and order of importance.

An advantage of living in troops is that the monkeys can learn behaviors from each other than make their lives easier or simply more fun.  For instance, after one female ventured into the hot springs to retrieve some soy beans, the other monkeys learned to sit in the warm water and escape the cold for a while.  Other macaques learned to wash the sand off their food in both fresh water and salt water.  Since the monkeys on the beach repeatedly dip their food in the ocean, it is assumed they like the salty taste.

During snowy months, scientists have observed monkeys rolling snow to form snowballs.  However, no one has seen a monkey throw a snowball.  This made me think about primitive humans and how the idea of throwing a rock or spear might have occurred.  I predict that eventually a snow monkey will witness humans throwing snowballs at each other and learn.  At that point, the tourists had better watch out.

If you travel to Japan and would like to observe the Japanese macaques in the hot springs, you can go to the Wild Monkey Park in Nagano prefecture in the north during the winter months.  Near Kyoto is the monkey park at Mount Iwata, which has a viewing platform for tourists.  And Mount Takasaki in Oita prefecture has over 1,000 wild monkeys.  However, do not feed the monkeys, and it would be wise to avoid direct eye contact, which might be seen as a challenge.

Macaques are some of the smartest and most adaptive primates, much like humans.  The sight of a snow monkey rolling a snowball or soaking in a hot spring with a look of deep contentment will bring a smile to anyone's face.

(Articles used for this blog, include:  blueplanetbiomes, jigokudani-yaenkoen.co.jp, gojapan, and factsanddetails.  The pictures are from:chiefsworld.activeboard.com, and blueplanetbiomes.)

Safety, Privacy and Surveillance

There is a natural push and pull between safety and privacy, but the Information Age is changing the tactics of this contest so quickly that it is hard for legal systems, military and police, and private citizens to keep up.

Alert reader Olaf sent me a link to story featured on National Public Radio this week about the new book "Constitution 3.0:  Freedom and Technological Change," edited by Jeffrey Rosen and Benjamin Wittes.  The book addresses timely topics including government surveillance and electronic monitoring, warrants, the future of the US constitution, and the role of social media companies.

Much of the NPR article revolves around a case where law enforcement placed a global positioning system tracking device on the vehicle of a cocaine dealer without a warrant.  That case leads to larger questions about the rights of citizens to privacy versus the government obligation to provide a safe environment.

This is tricky ground.  We all want to live in a world where we can enjoy life without being assaulted by criminals or murdered by terrorists.  But at the same time, we have a basic human need for privacy.  Some may argue that if you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide.  I always respond with the argument that when you're going to the bathroom you're not doing anything wrong, but you still shut the door.  Privacy is a normal need for humans.

Governments and many citizens justify the widespread camera surveillance systems in use in London and other cities as tools in the fight against terrorism.  But really, these systems do not prevent crimes or attacks.  They only gather data for use after a crime has occurred.  And in gathering that data, they collect on everyone that passes by, both the innocent and the guilty.  This opens the door to the reasonable counter argument that when you're in public, there is no expectation of privacy.  But how far can this be stretched?

The NPR story also brings up the point that governments and individuals are not the only players here.  Companies like Facebook, Google, YouTube and Twitter--I call them third party information holders--control a massive amount of data about you and your movements and habits.  Rosen calls them 'gatekeepers' because they, not the courts, are often the ones who make decisions about privacy and free speech.  Rosen writes, "After all, Facebook is a private actor, the Constitution and the Fourth Amendment only prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures committed by government actors."

When you add in the information gathering potential of your cell phone provide, Internet provider, and even your car to the social networks, it's possible to see how your life can be under constant electronic surveillance.

The formation of new laws has lagged behind medical breakthroughs, and so too we are facing the same problem with our data.  For instance, let's say your drive your car to the metro station and park, take the metro down town, then walk and do some window shopping, stop at a coffee house that has Wi-Fi and check your email and social media on your cell phone or laptop computer, and maybe buy some music MP3 files or download an eBook that looks interesting.  For you, this may be a pleasant Saturday afternoon.  But in these simple, non-criminal actions, you generate an astounding amount of data for use by local, state and federal agencies, as well as third party information holders and private companies. 

Technology is moving so fast it's difficult for us to keep up.  Can a US Supreme Court justice who has never used a GPS system in their car or posted a note on Twitter truly understand the impact of these tools on our lives? Can you trust your own government to make the best choices when confronted with vicious terrorists and vague, outdated laws? And where do third parties fit in, and can we count on a company whose main and understandable goal is profit to make the right ethical choices concerning our data?

These are difficult questions, and I don't have easy answers, but I'm glad people are thinking about these issues.  I support privacy, but I loathe crime and terrorism.  Push and pull.

(Here's a link to the article at NPR.  For those that want to investigate further, you may want to check out the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has been looking at these problems since 1990.  The pic is from:whatsonningbo and is from a story about a Chinese plan to install 500,000 cameras in the city of Chongqing.)