Month: May 2020

If your city is growing at 5% per year, is this a good thing? What will the size of the city be in 10 years? Is that a linear or exponential growth?  If your checking account has a 10% interest rate, how long until you double your money? All good questions.

It’s been said that no layperson understands exponential growth and unfortunately, if that’s true, then neither do the media or popular TV shows. Try to explain exponential growth to someone and you may be greeted by a blank stare. Why does any of this matter?

First things first…

What is an exponential function?

An initial explanation might be that exponential growth is when something is growing at a very fast (non-linear) rate though possibly not noticeable initially. In normal everyday life we tend to think of things linearly getting faster, slower, bigger or smaller, but at a constant rate.  Exponential growth is different. It is not linear as it gets very large, or quick, at some point, and that point is sooner than you might think.

In high school, most students learned about functions like 2^x (or, “2 to the x”: 2 raised to the power of  x). Here, we have an exponential function since the variable is in the exponent itself. Having a variable that increases while in the exponent is the basis of what an exponential function is. Of course, things can, and usually do, get more complicated, but understanding the variable in the exponent is a the first step.

Graph — Look at the data vs. the graph below to see how the graph changes exponentially vs linearly

Note that the linear portion (right side) of the graph has the variable “x” not in the exponent. The linear portion has a line with constant slope.

Why does it matter?

Exponential growth is everywhere. Understanding it is important not only for day to day activities, but to understand how things work. Something that may not seem to matter with a few trials may actually be extremely important once proper analysis is done.

Examples?

Example1: Your bank’s interest rate on your investments.

Simple Interest: Simple interest is when you get, say, 10% per year (or other fixed amount) interest on your account or investment. Not much going on there. With a $100 principal amount, that’s just $10 per year. Easy.  So, if your initial amount, or P, was $100, you would have $10+$10+$10+$10+$10 more in five years. Simple interest, or $100 + $50 = $150. The interest is growing linearly. If you looked at the formula for simple interest, you’d see there is no variable in the exponent.

Compound Interest: Compound interest gets more interesting, since the interest, if compounded yearly (or otherwise), takes into account all the money you’ve earned (including the previous interest) to calculate your future amount. A quick example.

Using the formula:   Balance = P * (1 + r) ^ n, where P is the principal amount, r is the interest rate, and n is the number of compounding periods. Here, exponential growth quickly outpaces simple linear growth. If we start with the same values and assume a 10% interest rate, we would have:

Balance = 100 * (1 + 0.1) ^ 5 = $161.

Not impressed yet? How about after 10 years?

Balance = 100* (1+0.1) ^ 10 = $259.

—
The side question often comes up as to how long it would take to double your money (dust off your college algebra for this one…)

    M = P (1+i)n

    Say you start with $100 and a 10% interest rate compounded yearly. How long would it take to double your money?
    200 = 100 (1+i)n
    2  =  (1 + 1)n
    or
    log(2) = n log(1.1)
    n = log(2)/log(1.1)

    napprox = 7.28 years.  (to double your money)

With compound interest, the money you earn is growing exponentially, not linearly.

Albert Einstein was supposedly quoted as saying the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest.

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Example 2:

Doubling your money every day for thirty days starting with just one penny.

Say someone offered to give you (A) $500,000 or a (B) penny and double it every day for 30 days. Which would you take A, or B?

If you chose B, you’d be a lot better off since that daily penny doubling goes like this:

Day:            Pennies
———————————————————
1                1
2                2
3                4
4                8
5                16
.
.
.
…
30              536870912 pennies, or dividing by 100, $5,368,709.12 (over 5 million dollars!)

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Example 3:

Paper Folding until you reach the Sun

Assuming you could physically fold a piece of paper in half over and over, how many folds would it take you to reach the Sun?  We can see that this is as 2^x exponential growth since each fold is doubling the paper thickness. We quickly realize that there is no way we could “physically” fold the paper in half more than a few times, but what if we could, at least theoretically? How many folds would it take to reach the Sun? You might (incorrectly) assume it would take too many folds since folding the paper once, then twice, then three times, doesn’t amount to much. Ah, but that’s the problem with exponential growth: the growth kicks in later.

Here are some possible answers to the question about how many folds, approximately, it would take to reach the Sun (which is closest).

What’s your guess?

A. 50

B. 500

C. 5,000

D. 5,000,000

Guesses?

Well, if you answered A or 50, you’d be right.

Here is the output of a computer program that actually computes this paper folding (you could get the same result manually).

We assumed the thickness of a piece of paper is 0.0001 feet and the distance to the Sun is 491,040,000,000 feet.

Let’s start folding…. (notice that nothing really happens on the first 10 to 12 folds, but then, with exponential growth, it gets interesting)

Let’s calculate this!

Number of Paper Folds so far: 1, distance traveled toward the Sun: 0.0002 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 2, distance traveled toward the Sun: 0.0004 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 3, distance traveled toward the Sun: 0.0008 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 4, distance traveled toward the Sun: 0.0016 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 5, distance traveled toward the Sun: 0.0032 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 6, distance traveled toward the Sun: 0.0064 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 7, distance traveled toward the Sun: 0.0128 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 8, distance traveled toward the Sun: 0.0256 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 9, distance traveled toward the Sun: 0.0512 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 10, distance traveled toward the Sun: 0.1024 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 11, distance traveled toward the Sun: 0.2048 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 12, distance traveled toward the Sun: 0.4096 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 13, distance traveled toward the Sun: 0.8192 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 14, distance traveled toward the Sun: 2 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 15, distance traveled toward the Sun: 3 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 16, distance traveled toward the Sun: 7 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 17, distance traveled toward the Sun: 13 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 18, distance traveled toward the Sun: 26 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 19, distance traveled toward the Sun: 52 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 20, distance traveled toward the Sun: 105 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 21, distance traveled toward the Sun: 210 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 22, distance traveled toward the Sun: 419 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 23, distance traveled toward the Sun: 839 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 24, distance traveled toward the Sun: 1,678 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 25, distance traveled toward the Sun: 3,355 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 26, distance traveled toward the Sun: 6,711 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 27, distance traveled toward the Sun: 13,422 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 28, distance traveled toward the Sun: 26,844 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 29, distance traveled toward the Sun: 53,687 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 30, distance traveled toward the Sun: 107,374 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 31, distance traveled toward the Sun: 214,748 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 32, distance traveled toward the Sun: 429,497 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 33, distance traveled toward the Sun: 858,993 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 34, distance traveled toward the Sun: 1,717,987 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 35, distance traveled toward the Sun: 3,435,974 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 36, distance traveled toward the Sun: 6,871,948 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 37, distance traveled toward the Sun: 13,743,895 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 38, distance traveled toward the Sun: 27,487,791 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 39, distance traveled toward the Sun: 54,975,581 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 40, distance traveled toward the Sun: 109,951,163 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 41, distance traveled toward the Sun: 219,902,326 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 42, distance traveled toward the Sun: 439,804,651 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 43, distance traveled toward the Sun: 879,609,302 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 44, distance traveled toward the Sun: 1,759,218,604 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 45, distance traveled toward the Sun: 3,518,437,209 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 46, distance traveled toward the Sun: 7,036,874,418 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 47, distance traveled toward the Sun: 14,073,748,836 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 48, distance traveled toward the Sun: 28,147,497,671 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 49, distance traveled toward the Sun: 56,294,995,342 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 50, distance traveled toward the Sun: 112,589,990,684 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 51, distance traveled toward the Sun: 225,179,981,369 feet
Number of Paper Folds so far: 52, distance traveled toward the Sun: 450,359,962,737 feet

Total Number of Paper Folds without going past the sun was: 52

WOW.

Conclusion.

Exponential growth is all around you. We use it in so many things in everyday life we sometimes aren’t aware it’s there.

People say (typically on “the news”) that things are (loosely speaking) “exponentially” bigger worse or whatever. This loose terminology is, unfortunately, slang for “getting really bigger! (or worse, etc.)”. In many of the circumstances where you might hear exponential growth used (again, often, sadly, in the media), the growth is really not exponential.  Note that a^x type function is also geometrically increasing since it’s a constant raised to a power.

We recently blogged another example of how exponential growth works when using a longer and longer key space with an iPhone passcode. With six characters and only numbers we had 6^10 permutations, but with letters and numbers (lower case) we had 6 ^ 32 permutations. Thus, the key space is getting larger exponentially (since the exponent has the number of letters possible) but it’s getting larger linearly with the passcode length itself.

Exponential growth is not difficult to understand and it’s everywhere!

Enjoy!

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Please read our disclaimer available from our home page

Most software developers work under tight deadlines so finding software that makes their jobs easier or helps getting the job done more quickly is always a good thing, right?

Well, maybe not.

Consider the case when the company that makes your cool Rapid Application Development (RAD) software tool decides to do something “it” considers important, but you don’t see the benefit for you or for your organization at all.

For example, maybe the company decides it’s time to jump onto the “Forced Subscription Model” (as opposed to the “perpetual license”, which has long been the norm). Maybe the company never tells you anything about future direction leading to more uncertainty.

Then, after multiple software versions, you find that company won’t support the current product version the instant the new product version ships. And, to make matters worse, that product may not function properly when there’s a new version of the OS. And, of course, the company’s only suggestion at this point is to “upgrade”. Yeah, right.

And you have work to do, but now the software isn’t working!

Assuming only constant costs increases, when costs go up, the money for those costs needs to come from somewhere. Either you eat those costs or you pass them along to your customers.

Say you decide to stick with the current version, but that version all of a sudden has bugs with a new OS release. You don’t want to upgrade since could mean you have to sign up for a new subscription model. But, best case, if the fixes are only in the new product, you’d at least have to upgrade for “bug fixes”.  

How do companies get away with this behavior? (Hint: a basically good product in a niche market with little or no competition.) Look at ever-increasing cable company prices for another example.

In any case, you now decide it’s time to look for alternatives, but because you picked this unique (read: Proprietary) product, there really aren’t any readily available alternatives like one that could read your files natively and let you keep working.

You lack, for example, an alternative like OpenOffice, LibreOffice, or any of the other MS-compatible office suites if you wanted to, say, ditch MS Office.  Or, say you use a Java IDE and the company starts to charge money for a subscription model. Now, in this software space, you have other alternatives, some free, so you can leave quickly if you want. Yes, you may lose some productivity, but you can keep working. It’s interesting to note that the Java IDEs that charge yearly fees don’t charge that much. Hmmm, maybe we’re on to something.

But without these alternatives available, you may be stuck for the time being.

It’s unlikely that anyone considers a vendor “lock-in” issue when they get that fancy software that lets them “be more productive” right away. And of course it’s always possible that you’ll still be able to stick with that company too, despite the lock-in, even if you can pass along the costs.

But what about future cost increases and uncertainty in general.

Thus, it’s a good idea to consider the cost of proprietary solutions up front as they’re not always the cost saver, due to productivity increases found, as hoped or even promised.

If the software you’re using was database software, as one example, a possible solution would be to come up with a migration plan to move to another vendor. That plan’s costs would need to be carefully considered up front and for the long term.

So, carefully consider that RAD software up front and possible migration alternatives to handle various (not only the ones mentioned here) scenarios!

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Please read our disclaimer available from our home page

Not too long ago, a community college might charge up to $100 for all the classes you might want to take after the “full load” of classes. Today, a single 3 credit class can cost over $500!  Then, you have to buy books, parking, and possibly pay other fees previously not charged.

Various studies have shown that college tuition increases have outpaced other costs of living such as housing.

Without examining the causes of constant tuition increases, what are some of the effects these increases have?

1.  Huge debt loads for students
2.  Deciding if college is even worth it
3.  Only taking classes that are absolutely required
4.  Community colleges not offering some interesting classes (side effect of 3)
5.  Difficult without a community college financial commitment to find instructors who can teach specialized classes for working professionals
 
Thus, unlike in the past where you could count on a community college to offer a class that could be helpful to you as a working professional, nowadays the offerings are much more vanilla. Given the huge cost of a single class, professionals have better options that take less time:

1. A one-week class for a given software product or framework
    (Expensive, but focused, and fast. Exactly the content you need.)
2. Harvard, MIT, and others have plenty of FREE online courses
3. A yearly subscription to Lynda.com or similar
    (Huge course offerings.  No instructor support.  Some plans include sample files.)
4. You-Tube Videos
    (Free)
5. Tutorials
6. User groups

So, why spend $500+ for a single community college class, assuming there even was a course that could help you improve your professional skills, when there are plentiful cheaper options that are more focused, have less hassle, and have more user interaction?

Several reasons to opt for the community college approach include the slower and methodical pace, evaluated assignments, and instructor feedback. The college environment is compelling for many students — especially those changing fields. Yet, this option is moot if the classes simply don’t exist for the working professional

Thus, except for being a better deal relative to four-year colleges for “required” courses, community colleges are indeed pricing themselves out of the market for working professionals looking to improve their skills. This market exclusion is from either by not having the financial commitment to hire specialized instructors for those classes or by continually raising prices on the vanilla classes that might help career changers.

Some people are thus now rethinking the value of college, in general, for reasons stated here and for other reasons.

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Please read our disclaimer available from our home page

Introduction:

The data you entrust to third parties like colleges, your credit card processor, or data you have no control over (OPM, IRS, or other “organizations”) has likely been compromised. In fact, there have been shocking data breaches reported in the last ten years. So many breaches that you may no longer really pay attention to the newest breach on the news.

The biggest breaches get the headlines, like the OPM breach that affected over 20 million federal workers. The numbers are staggering. From 2005 through 2016 (partial data), there have been 898,590,196 total records reported breached!

To make matters even worse, more than half (53%) of all breaches reported zero records breached — meaning an “unknown” number of records breached. Therefore, the total breached count is potentially much bigger than the nearly 900 breaches reported above.

These breaches happen in various ways. From hacking, unintended disclosure, fraud, insider threats, and other methods (see “Types of Breaches” below). Organizations affected run the gamut — from retail to government, financial, education, and other types.

The data in this article is from the publicly available information at https://www.privacyrights.org/data-breach. Using this publicly available information from the privacy rights clearinghouse, this article describes the breaches grouped and summarized in various ways. Below you will see breakouts of that data, many possibly surprising.

Conclusion:

Based on the data breakouts below, you should be concerned about the security and privacy of your information and the nearly total lack of security organizations (and, yes, the government) have.

What’s shocking about these results is that encryption for databases has been around for a long time, which would mitigate many of these breaches completely or at least to some extent. Yet, it seems few, if any organizations, actually bother to encrypt their data. Thus, when they’re hacked, and it’s clear from publicly available data that they are getting hacked, the hackers get the juicy raw (unencrypted) data.

Although there is little you can do about this remote data when businesses and government fail to protect your information due to outdated computers, computers not updated with security patches, insider threats, susceptibility to phishing attacks, lax security policies, or whatever, you can consider taking steps on your own to protect your local data and data in transit (a few possible ideas below):

(Note: You might need technical help or other support for some of these ideas below. Please see our disclaimer on our Web site.)

• Encrypt your hard drive
• Encrypt your emails
  • consider PGP or a third party email service like Protonmail.com
• Use a strong password (different) for every Web site
  • (use a password manager)
• Use an up-to-date anti-virus program and keep it updated
• Use an up-to-date anti-spyware program and keep it updated
• Avoid email systems that have the ability to run programs from emails or have been used as virus vectors
• Avoid running as “root” or “Administrator” except in rare, controlled, circumstances
• Do multiple backups and keep backups off site
• Use an Ad blocker with your browser (for example Ad Block Plus)
• Consider using Ghostery or similar to stop trackers
• Avoid using tracking search engines like Google
  – (Note: Google appeared four times in the data results, all with “zero” records reported compromised.)
• Get your own domain name and email hosting
• Other strategies…

Thus, organizations need to be held accountable for data breaches with financial penalties and possibly legal action. Until this day arrives, and the laws catch up to the data breach threats, additionally consider credit watches, freezing your credit, regularly checking your credit report, and taking all the possible steps you feel comfortable with to protect your privacy.

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Data Breakouts:

Types of Breaches:

1. Unintended disclosure (**DISC**) – Sensitive information posted publicly on a website, mishandled or sent to the wrong party via email, fax or mail.
2. Hacking or malware (**HACK**) – Electronic entry by an outside party, malware and spyware.
3. Payment Card Fraud (**CARD**) – Fraud involving debit and credit cards that is not accomplished via hacking. For example, skimming devices at point-of-service terminals.
4. Insider (**INSD**) – Someone with legitimate access intentionally breaches information – such as an employee or contractor.
5. Physical loss (**PHYS**) – Lost, discarded or stolen non-electronic records, such as paper documents
6. Portable device (**PORT**) – Lost, discarded or stolen laptop, PDA, smartphone, portable memory device, CD, hard drive, data tape, etc
7. Stationary device (**STAT**) – Lost, discarded or stolen stationary electronic device such as a computer or server not designed for mobility.

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Organization Types:
– Unknown or other (UNKN)
– BSO – Businesses – Other
– BSF – Businesses – Financial and Insurance Services
– BSR – Businesses – Retail/Merchant
– EDU – Educational Institutions
– GOV – Government and Military
– MED – Healthcare – Medical Providers
– NGO – Nonprofit Organizations

Years of Data: Years of Data: 2005-2016 (partial)
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High-level Results:

Of all the data brach types, “HACK” is the highest occurring, with 1,281 separate incidents. The Insider threat also was high with 555 separate incidents.

As stated above, there were 898,590,196 total records exposed

Below is a table showing the type of breach and the number of incidents:

(see “Organization Types” above for to decode the Type below)

TYPE NUMBER

NULL – 46

CARD – 66

UNKN – 149

STAT – 248

PHYS – 542

INSD – 555

DISC – 846

PORT – 1113

HACK – 1281

You might not think that from the numbers of separate incidents above, that not that much data was exposed, but the table below breaks down the number of records exposed per hack type:

Number of total records exposed by hack type:

UNKN — 6,306,078

CARD — 7,203,035

STAT — 11,568,743

DISC — 32,113,235

INSD — 36,268,831

PORT — 172,876,499

HACK — 629,035,293

Data breaches by Entity (government, financial, etc.):

NGO — 107

BSR — 552

BSF — 633

GOV — 722

BSO — 740

EDU — 772

MED — 1274

Note that medical is the highest breach type followed by education. Government is also high with 722 incidents.

Looking at the actual number of records exposed by Entity Type, we have:

NGO — 2,038,766

EDU — 14,790,624

BSO — 21,505,346

MED — 45,403,049

GOV — 178,534,105

BSR — 257,517,157

BSF — 378,801,149

Above, we see that the number of total exposed records was the highest in the business financial area (BSF), followed by businesses retail/merchant. Government brings up the third highest breach count. So, although education and medical had the highest breach counts by entity, the number of total exposed records is by businesses and then by government.

Below, due to space limitations, is very small representation of the organizations involved in these hacks. The list shows only the first 25 characters of the company name. And, since there are so many breaches by company name, we limited the list to only those breaches with 100,000 total records exposed or more. And, even then, there were too many organizations (229) to list them all!

Partial list of organizations with at least 100,000 data hacks:

Finally, if you think things are getting better over time, 2015 was the second worst year on record for total records compromised with 2009 being the reigning champion.

Records compromised by year (2016, partial):

2009 — 218,903,159

2015 — 160,162,774

2007 — 130,261,978

2014 — 71,138,652

2011 — 66,131,642

2013 — 57,651,691

2005 — 52,821,610

2008 — 49,734,455

2006 — 48,607,177

2012 — 27,777,064

2010 — 12,861,822

2016 — 2,538,172

One more thing…Some organizations have multiple data breaches over multiple years so they don’t seem to be fixing things or learning from their mistakes. The short list below shows the top 10 organizations with at least 1,000 records exposed but with at least two breaches in different years. The actual list is quite long and you would recognize many of the organizations.

Name Number Breaches Total Records Exposed

Name — Number of Breaches — Most Recent Breach
—————————————————————————————

University of South Carolina – 5 – 2013-06-28 00:00:00

Texas A&M University – 4 – 2012-04-14 00:00:00

UC, San Francisco (UCSF) – 4 – 2013-11-25 00:00:00

Ohio State University – 4 – 2010-12-15 00:00:00

Columbia University – 4 – 2012-04-30 00:00:00

AT&T – 3 – 2015-04-08 00:00:00

Eastern Illinois University – 3 – 2009-12-04 00:00:00

Merlin Information Services – 3 – 2007-09-25 00:00:00

Purdue University – 3 – 2011-08-16 00:00:00

University of Florida – 3 – 2013-05-29 00:00:00

(IRS was number 11 in the list above.)

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The publicly-available data file we used (see URL above) for this blog has other useful or interesting information. For example, there is a field that describes how the data were actually stolen. Another field that documents when the breach became public.

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Please read our disclaimer available from our home page

One of the questions we often get in our intro to databases (conceptual intro) course is…in what kinds of real world problems could we use a database? One answer is consider using a database to help track a lot of data or complicated data, or both.

We wrote a recent blog on stopping junk mail so we won’t duplicate that, but instead expand on it to explain how you might use a database to track contacting companies to opt out of mailings and other activities.

Although in our intro to databases class we go through several case studies explaining different types of applications for which students could use databases, this blog posting discusses an applicable example. As with blog postings, we won’t go into any implementation details (see our Programming Tips for coding!), but rather just pose certain questions. This blog is by no means assumed to be the best way or only way to stop junk mail; it’s just one idea.

The basic idea is to model the opt out workflow that captures the data and automates as much of the letter writing, label printing, reporting, and other activities.

Getting started…

So how exactly would you stop all junk mail? What would the database need to look like (table structure)? What types of responses from companies would you need to track? How long does it take to stop all junk mail?

All good questions.

Considering the OPT OUT portion of the database:

To set up a database, first consider that you need to capture the company information but also each response you get from the company. Should you have a separate address table? (Probably) In database terminology when you have a single table possibly related to multiple items in another table, this is a “one to (possibly) zero or many” relationship. In our intro to database course we talk about different types of relationships that you would model in most databases. We also discuss the cardinalities with these relationships (1:M, 1:1, M:M, M:1).

Document Your Assumptions for the System Up Front:

One initial “getting started” activity is to write down all your assumptions and then examine them later for refinement. It’s nearly impossible to get it all right the first time since what happens in the real world will sometimes defy logic. Your assumptions could be perfectly reasonable, yet the real world may challenge them.

One assumption you might reasonably make would be that you could just call the company one time and they’ll stop sending you junk mail, but this is rarely the case. Sadly, often, it will take two, three, four, or more attempts to get the company to stop sending you junk. Your contact attempt may include letters, phone calls, and in the worst case even submit a USPS prohibitory order so the USPS will contact that company on your behalf. Do you see this might be a “one to many” relationship somewhere in our database?

Determine if Your Application Is a “Workflow”.

Since all of these activities involve workflow (do step 1, then step 2, …) you want to have the the database’s data entry, and other activities, fit that model.

With a prohibitory order, for example, you can automate much of the data entry using the data you already entered on the OPT OUT form. You already have, for example, the company information from the OPT OUT form so you could copy it (or just “link it”, referentially, depending on your design). Also, since at least two prohibitory order dates depend on the date the order goes into effect, then the database should calculate these two dates automatically after you enter the initial date.

Create a workflow diagram

The diagram below is a (early, draft) starting point to model what we want using a workflow approach. Once you diagram the system, it’s easier to spot workflow problems or other things in the database that might still need attention. You’ll more easily see that the diagram may be missing some decisions or flows. Or, possibly the flows that are there need refinement. Don’t focus on trying to get everything perfect in version 1, but rather get the basic flows as close as possible to how you envision they would actually work.

Note that the diagram below uses a UML “State Diagram”, which is useful for modeling workflow models.

Automate Letter Writing

Your database could also have multiple form letters you pick when you write a company to “OPT OUT” of receiving junk mail from them. You could modify the form letter for each company, if needed. You could automate printing a label for the envelope, too. The database could then save each letter you sent into the multiple contacts (as many as needed) for that company. You could even track postage.

Reports

You’ll also probably want a report showing you which orders are still in effect on the date you run that report. Another key use for a database: reporting.

Graphs:

Maybe you want a graph showing the worst junk offenders or possibly junk mail by type of mailing. How about a report showing the list of companies and the number of contacts for each company ordered by date? Your database may offer graphics or you may need a plug-in for your existing database.

Scanned Images

You’ll have to decide how much to scan and keep as part of the database. In this actual working example database, we captured the prohibitory order application, and the USPS prohibitory order received as searchable PDFs. Back in the OPT OUT form, we had the ability to capture an image in any of the possibly many interactions with a particular company (remember that the company table is related to one or possibly many contact actions. You could conceivably have zero actions if you chose to enter a company in by itself with no junk mail from them.)

Surprises along the way.

One of the things you will probably notice, once you start calling and writing companies to stop sending you junk mail, is that many companies are not really in charge of their data. Either they “farm out junk mail sending” to some third party or they don’t have sophisticated database folks you can talk to on their toll free number(s). If the company farms out their junk mail sending to a third party, you may never be able to get the message to the right person. It’s also possible since these companies like to send junk mail, that their hearts are not in stopping it just because you called or wrote them.

USPS Prohibitory Order – When they just refuse to stop sending junk

Fortunately, the supreme court decided in the ‘70s that you can stop any mail you do not wish to receive. Simply fill out PS-1500 and send it to the USPS (note the instructions). As described above, the workflow would capture all that information as well.

Conclusion:

We’ve covered a lot. Specifically, in our database, we are:

1. Enforcing a workflow
2. Automating date calculations
3. Reporting so we know how we’re doing
4. Graphing for getting the big picture quickly
5. Supplying canned form letters
6. Automating other activities including data validation
7. Fixing user entry errors: if they enter “ca” for California, automatically change this to “CA”. Use Title Case fixes in other case, all automated!
8. Tracking stamp costs in OPT OUT and Prohibitory Order forms
9. Doing basic accounting for stamp payments
10. Tracking the average time between junk mail for both new junk mail and junk mail actions with existing companies. This display uses a nice bar graph on our OPT OUT form.
11. Tracking the average time it takes USPS to process a prohibitory order after we send it (about a month!)
12. Printing labels if desired
13. (More!)

Here is the nice graph that we show for 10 above:

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It’s probably clear that trying to do all these activities with complicated data, without a database, would be difficult if not impossible.

Even with automation, expect stopping junk mail to be, probably, a six month effort. (Companies don’t always make this easy.)

The database makes tracking and reporting straightforward, but for even low to moderate junk mail (a few pieces a day), stopping junk mail will take serious dedicated effort.

Finally, getting a “perfect” database application to model the real world is quite difficult. Consider all the bug fixes and updates for every piece of software you use. No other company, anywhere, can get any of their software defect free either. Perfect software does not exist so expect your database application to be a work in progress as you make it better and better over time.

Enjoy!

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Please read our disclaimer available from our home page

Introduction:

 
Many computer users are too young to remember mainframes typified by large cooled rooms with raised floors, dumb terminals. and the data center overlords who “granted” you access to data, memory, and applications. Control was the key. And the computer overlords had it.

Fast forward to today.

You may have noticed that more and more software companies are going to the “Forced Subscription” (aka “Take It Or Leave It” — pay monthly) model often with their proprietary and required cloud access. This forced approach is similar in many ways to the mainframe model. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, this forced software model yields the best cash flow for the company. Shocking!

Control? As with mainframes (or other centralized control): you lose it.

This new forced subscription model, simply put, means you pay regularly – whether you use the software or not — or, usually, your software stops working. While this model is great for the company with regular cash flow (or else!), the model may not match how you use the software or want to pay for it.

Whether this software model bothers you is largely personal, but your choice to not pay until you are ready for a new version is currently being eroded with forced subscription software models. Also, as stated, loss of control of your data can go hand in hand with this subscription model, especially if the company forces their cloud solution on you.

The Case for Software Subscriptions

The case for software subscriptions includes always having the most up to date software, often not needing to configure, install, or maintain subscription software. No licenses to keep track of. For teams of people, a subscription often means making one regular payment for working software for the team. Whether these subscriptions should be forced on you as the only option available is the key point here.

The Case Against Software Subscriptions

The case against Forced Subscription software is compelling.

Number one among the various reasons against forced software subscriptions is that forced software subscriptions are, well, forced. Take it or leave it.

If the company then also forces their cloud “solution” on you to use their software, do you want these companies to have access to and even control your data? You should read the fine print in your Terms and Conditions before simply clicking “Accept”.

Moreover, do you want the drip…drip…drip of your money now regularly going to a third party for software you can, or used to, just update (and then pay for) when you wanted to?

Other Questions…

1. Who at the software company has access to your “Cloud” data (aka, simply your data they store on their servers) Programmers? Admins? Others?
2. What happens if you stop paying (credit card expires, for example)? Is your data access terminated, your data deleted, or what exactly? How soon is the data deleted if deleted?
3. What happens if your data is lost by the company?
4. Does the company have and guarantee backups?
5. Is your data encrypted on a cloud (Internet) servers?
6. Where exactly is your data stored?
7. How private is your data?
8. Do you need this software up to date all the time as a subscription might offer?
9. What happens when the company is hacked? Security in general?
10. Do you have control do permanently delete your account and your data?
11. Once you’re roped into Forced Subscriptions, will companies try as hard to come out with new exciting software?
12. Why pay a monthly free for software you might rarely use?

Unexpected Consequences—Where Did My Data Go?

The costs of forced software subscriptions can add up, both financially, and from unexpected consequences.

One of our readers had an issue, for example, with a well-known company she used for email. She paid a monthly fee for that email service and had used this company for over twenty years. Yet, one month, her credit card expired. And, in just 6 hours, before she could update her credit card information, the company had deleted all her server email going back 20 years! Multiple calls to the company, letters to the president, and other attempts went nowhere. Her email data was gone. Period.

We’ve Got You!

When using software that needs “The Cloud” (aka “a hard drive somewhere on the Internet” others control) to run, companies could use this dependency to implicitly force a software subscription model on you. Consider when, at some point, cloud access itself ceases to be free, or becomes more expensive over time (as you become more dependent on it), etc.

A Ray of Sunshine — Lots of Software Options

Fortunately, there are many companies that don’t force a software subscription model on you. Instead of Office 365 (subscription), consider OpenOffice or LibreOffice. Both these MS Office alternatives are free for personal and for commercial use. Instead of TextExpander (previously recommended, but now recently changed model to forced subscription and forced, currently un-encrypted, cloud storage of your data), consider aText (one time $4.95 fee). Programmers can use the free “Eclipse” instead of now-subscription IDE offerings. With IDEs as well as other software, there may be tradeoff between cost and productivity that you should consider.

Let Companies Know How You Feel:

Companies are really thinking about jumping on the bandwagon and moving to this model. When you contact companies with questions for support or other contacts, let them know how you feel about forced subscription models.

Conclusion

Harkening back to the mainframe computer days, “The Cloud” and Forced Subscription models put the control with a third party, not with you. And of course, that’s the point: keep you paying … or else (software stops working, data gone, …) While you may get convenience or slightly more up to date software, you are also giving up control and are now paying regularly just to use your software.

Forced software subscriptions are becoming more common, but many choices for avoiding forced software subscription exist and should continue to exist. Unless forced software subscriptions are right for you (they’re not bad in all cases), look around for alternatives and take back (or keep) control of your software!

Enjoy!

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Please read our disclaimer available from our home page

It’s difficult to understand exactly why technical writing is often mostly gobbledegook. But it seems that when people write, for example, regular emails, those emails are often short and concise. Yet, those same writers, when writing technical documents, often end up writing gobbledegook. Sadly, this phenomenon seems to also be true with (non-trained) technical writers. Unfortunately for their audience (readers), technical writers are often document “assemblers” and take for granted the “boilerplate” and other poorly written text they receive and sometimes even write.

Most technical writing problems fall into several readily-noticeable categories. Below, we list those categories (see: “Change this” and “To This:”) to show how to improve otherwise gobbledegook writing.

Outline: get organized —> Don’t write linearly.

Modern word processors present a page metaphor. This metaphor encourages us to jump in and to write linearly with little if any up-front organization. While writing linearly may be acceptable for a short letter or email, technical writing demands planning. To help plan, consider using an outlining tool or at least a writing environment that includes, or can import, outlines. Having this outline roadmap of what you want to say is critical as you dive into the writing details. Said another way, an outline is your roadmap and will help keep you on track.

(Note: Programmers who “jump in and start coding” with no preparation often end up with buggy programs, difficult-to-maintain code, or, worse yet, never actually finish their tasks.)

Avoid boilerplate gobbledegook

Many companies have so-called “boilerplate” text. This text is often full of unnecessary text, jargon, and other gobbeldegook to make their documents appear “professional” and consistent. Some companies believe more-pages-is-better (wow, look at all this text we can present to you!). Most of this boilerplate text is so poorly written nobody reads it. Therefore, if boilerplate text is required, and if you’re allowed, write that boilerplate text yourself or modify the jargon-laden existing boilerplate text so that it fits your writing project.

Know your audience and write for them

One of, if not the, the most important issues you face is writing to the correct audience. For example, if your audience is management staff, but you’re writing about a program’s algorithms and threading assumptions, then you’ve clearly missed the mark. Conversely, if you’re writing to the technical staff, but you are focusing on corporate objectives and other strategic goals, you probably also have missed the mark. Therefore, one of the first steps to take is to figure out who your audience is and then write to them.

Below are a few examples of typical technical writing issues…

Avoid redundant expressions

Avoid redundant expressions like “in the area of” or “green in color”. Redundant expressions unnecessarily tell us something we already know.

Change this: “He is experienced in the area of technical writing.”

To This: “He is an experienced technical writer.”

—

Change this: “The purpose of this document is to outline the corporate objectives.”

To this: “This document outlines the corporate objectives.”

(Note: Funnily enough, you’ll see redundant expressions even on sites that are supposed to help technical writers write better.)

Avoid ambiguous antecedents

When you start a second sentence with the word “It”, or other pronoun, it’s up to the reader to puzzle over what actual noun in the previous sentence “It” is referring.

Change this: “Many students use a computer to help them write a paper for an exam. It is often stressful.”

(Does “It’ in the second sentences refer to “computer”, “paper” or “exam”?)

To this: “Many students use a computer to help them write a paper during exams. Writing a paper is often stressful.”

Avoid passive voice

Passive voice has no actor and lacks action or interest.

Change this: “The proposal was written by the team.”

To This: The team wrote the proposal.

Because active voice has a subject acting, active voice is easier to read.

Avoid weak verbs

Drop-kick weak verbs like “provide”, “perform”, and similar. These verbs add nothing to technical writing. Instead of these verbs, use more descriptive verbs.

Change this: “The work to be performed in the area of task analysis will be completed by June 1.”

To this: “The team will analyze tasks by June 1.”

Which of the two above was easier to read for you to immediately grasp?

Use short sentences

Keep your sentences short. Don’t use commas, semi-colons, and other punctuation to justify longer sentences.

How to Be a Better Technical Writer (and Have Your Readers Better Understand What You Write)

Write simply. Use simple English.

Avoid Elegant variation:

When writing, avoid using synonyms to keep from repeating a word — even if that original word is the right choice.

The tendency by some writers is to look up in the thesaurus some synonym for a word to avoid using the same word over and over.

Simple language is always appreciated by the reader.

Change: “The use of software to write software modules has increased productivity. Modular utilization of software has also cut costs.”

To this: “The use of software to write software modules has increased productive. Modular use of software has also cut costs.”

In other words, don’t use “utilization” just to be different from using “use” the first time. “use” is fine in both sentences. (The examples above also have redundant expressions that the writer could have better worded.)

Avoid needless word complexity. For example, rather than writing “utilize”, try “use” (And similar).

Avoid long variants of verbs.

Include graphics or report samples to back up text

The old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words is applicable when clarifying complicated technical content. For example, when describing a complicated system output, such as a report, consider including a report output sample. Similarly, when describing a graph, show what a perspective graph would look like.

Including graphical output will help you get better feedback from users and from current and prospective customers. There are many tools that will help you prototype system outputs for reports, proposals, and for other technical documents.

Conclusion:

Writing for most people is difficult. Keys to success include:

1. Getting organized
2. Doing your research
3. Outlining your writing to stay organized
4. Writing simply
5. Knowing and writing for your document’s audience
6. Revising as necessary
7. Reviewing with others

Writing is something we all do every day. Fortunately, becoming a better technical writer is not difficult. Strive to keep your writing simple with short sentences. And, use simple English. By making just a few adjustments to your technical writing, you will make it easier for your readers to better understand what you are trying to convey.

Enjoy!

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Please read our disclaimer available from our home page

It’s fascinating watching the endless, and worsening daily traffic backups on the local news, which begs the question —why don’t more people telecommute – at least a day or two a week? Why isn’t there a national telecommuting initiative?

And, with the Coronovirus of 2020, a teleworking society is even more crucial.

Although telecommuting isn’t for every job, there are so many jobs where telecommuting can work (also called “teleworking”), telecommuting could make a huge difference not only in traffic congestion, but in other areas as well.

Below is a brief list with both the benefits and the challenges that exist.

Telecommuting Benefits:

• Reduced traffic – with coordinated effort, virtually eliminate severe traffic tie-ups
• Reduced need for a car in the first place
• Reduced gas and other car expenses
• Reduced environmental damage from car exhaust
• Higher productivity – instead of sitting in traffic for hours a day, employees can be doing productive work
• Smaller office spaces needed (money savings for company)
• Employees are more awake since they don’t have to up early to “beat the traffic” (and for some still being exhausted after getting home late from traffic the previous workday)
• Reduced daycare cost for kids
• Be at home for sick family, pets, other needs
• Reduced distractions (talking coworkers, unproductive meetings, and such)
• Empowerment – feeling valued by the company
• No need to endlessly build new or wider roads for ever-worsening traffic (hint: traffic is winning)
• Happier and healthier employees

Telecommuting Challenges

• Some don’t want to do it
  • There will be employees who want to work in an office. Management needs to therefore have a “plan” so folks who are able to telecommute share in telecommuting.
• Some can’t do it
  • Some employees aren’t able to focus or be productive without an office environment. Some exceptions must be made in these circumstances as these employees might be less productive telecommuting.
• Some jobs aren’t right for it
  • Service jobs require on-site, for example.
• Management by attendance mindset
  • Need for metrics
    • Managers need to measure productivity. Sometimes, managers use management by attendance. Simply stated, this attendance method means that …If you’re at work, you MUST be doing something. Seriously?

Not to create a false equivalency in the benefits and challenges section above, the argument for telecommuting, at least part time, far outstrips the arguments against.

Conclusion

The technology for a telecommuting workforce is here today (and has been for 20 years or more) so why are we still sitting in cars, in traffic, hours each day? By working offsite, for those jobs (many of them), which allow it, we could reduce our carbon footprint, be more productive, and happier. And, companies who embrace telecommuting could enjoy greater profitability with more productive (and better rested) employees.

There is more hope than in years past for teleworking. So, as workers have worked remotely during the Coronovirus pandemic, many, if not most, managers, have realized that remote work isn’t so bad after all.

Let’s get with it!

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Please read our disclaimer available from our home page

What’s up with Email Hacking?!

With so many stories about email hacking, you’d have to think it’s inevitable, right?

NO! NO! NO! EMAIL HACKING IS NOT (AND SHOULD NEVER BE CONSIDERED) NORMAL!

The Problem:

Because of weak email passwords and no email encryption as “the norm”, email sits on (Internet) servers unprotected behind, often, weak front-end security. Just like a plain text file, if a hacker successfully attacks the server, then all the emails are there for the taking and can easily be read.

Popular web-based email services ALL WORK THIS WAY (Protonmail being one obvious exception). Thus, if you don’t take steps to protect your email, your un-encrypted emails might be in the next email hack you read about. But you say, you don’t have anything in your emails “to worry about”. That’s not really the point. And, upon closer inspection, you probably wouldn’t want your emails totally open to hackers, either.

The Solution:

With just two basic steps, you can almost totally avoid the chances of your email ever being compromised.

Step 1: Use strong passwords on your email accounts!

It’s a sad fact that year after year, most people do not use strong passwords and even re-use weak passwords across email accounts. “Password1” remains the most popular password since it “passes” most password checkers for upper-lower case, a number, and length. Unfortunately, if you use this password, you aren’t using a password at all since this is one of the first a hacker would use in an attack on your email server!

How about a much stronger email password like: 8Y6N2U}(@8N2u8/?Rie9@b=9. ?

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Step 2: Encrypt your email!

This isn’t new technology, either. Hello, it’s been here for…decades. So, what do we mean by “encryption”?

Two types:

(1) Transport. That is, when you send your email the transport layer should be encrypted. But, transport encryption only encrypts your email on its way to your own email server (and not beyond your server to other email servers). Therefore, what’s the point of securing your email for only part of its journey and then again if the email finally just sits unprotected on the server itself? So, then there’s:

(2) End-to-End encryption. Here, novices will suggest to you that you can encrypt your email and send them the “password” to the recipient. This “Symmetric Encryption”, where the same password encrypts and decrypts, is weak since you must transmit the password itself. The weakness with this approach is that hackers could also intercept that password thus voiding your encryption attempt.

A much stronger approach is to use PGP or other Public Key Encryption email setup for your sensitive emails. With this method, you share your “public” key, but keep your private key private. Thus, this approach overcomes the weakness with symmetric encryption: you do not need to transmit the password.

Setting up PGP can be a little daunting for computer novices. You need to install the program, set up a “keyring”, generate keys, and other one-time setup items. You can also select how long a “key” you want to generate. (A skilled computer user could set up an email client to use encryption as described in about 30 minutes.)

Best yet, popular programs like Mac Mail, Thunderbird (on Mac/Windows) and others, have support for email encryption once you set up the keyring.

You can also just encrypt some text in a window and save that without even using an email program or encrypt a file on your computer. These encryption programs like PGP (and GPG, the free alternative) install right-click menus (shell extensions) so you can encrypt files/text in other places rather than just in emails.

KEY POINT: With encrypted email, your emails remain encrypted on the server until you decrypt them, thus making them useless to hackers (and to other snoops)

Hackers (and other snoops): Good luck decrypting and reading this email:

hQIMA1n71tMYS1g+ARAAryKaRxDQcyd3zjiCRzZe2ZFu9z27ZUFQvPp+NT+8fA2E 8cDDTHPH1gqtlXMKexz4+lsXK73DahsiE9horLJCCF8l5gfsjaj4kWle+XkhBZD8 UAYFyoyWJ6x2AFlh1S2f7vm/xpg3NxAjWyBVD9GypN88xiCk/J154kzHgGm52aCo EwqJ97SiRnPl+/EzbxfouJp9uFPX+VP1b3PMMk6jGLC7+Clhd6sng4YGHvr4OTqH S7DvFxeq7YB9CJFxe76DS6ipEcQqpWEud63VnYrbcJ1r0EU6fAmEvvXDIaoyEL6b pZ8Vz9UM2gsSKQ6zyJqSUo3XHqCsWLstVH1tzJUgFRbnOmJ9LYzwMrrbQykB/BX3 lEZNKLtHNgvtYUKXzmKcZeMKClvvcU/JVDgh5pMUYu1EIB19tPRQtBMre/HqSt+p 5R6edPuZ9PQbNrgfZ49lIbE01ZzrvW6wEhRpn7m33F9xnkrmGNuH0VwwHWuuQ0na ovVj/uXjZeCnHoCsNiqiV7tBZ9czzGq81emCE5CMswKBciO9EB72laXeebQNqFEu XhhmA8yLeANWlk+PogYQh4drrh1VVroK8eTJMN6n1wcICjTL5QDyaFHfX4C7jSMX k7ERBYKU7sJI4KqTvMREbLB9Mse7o7AebdPfwUY2bvIRjcSlPk4z2XlXbAPW2ofS TwEAo0hVPS1Uq1hbhnZemjFzoVy1gCoRUniA234Vm8TAA6ckZ4d1v1jRCgBRHVvZ
oylFIyXuvcnEGGIx57xucxI8XBe6WeGEur2ZUDUrwLg==jxG6

Best yet, the tools mentioned here, like GPG, and the related PC and mac encryption plug-ins are….FREE.

Conclusion:

While it’s disconcerting in 2016, from all the email hacking disclosures, that our elected officials, and government in general, remain clueless about basic email security, that doesn’t mean you have to! Just do a couple basic steps as outlined above to all but eliminate (if not totally eliminate) hackers getting to your email (or being able to read your email even if they do!).

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Please read our disclaimer available from our home page

In the world where “opinions” travel through the Internet at light speed often presented as “facts”, how do you know what you can believe? If there is a single skill that is necessary for day to day living it’s being able to think critically. That is, being able to separate the silly from the factual, the rational from the irrational, and the biased from the unbiased. Of all the skills taught in schools, critical thinking never takes front stage. Thus, sooner rather than later, you’re on your own to think, or to try and think, critically.

Here Is a Common Example:

Say an advertisement says their product cleans better than “the leading competitor” by 500%. Of course, 500% sounds big, but 500% just means five times “something”. If the “something” is small to begin with, then five times that amount may not be significantly greater. So, when an advertisement says that a product cleans 500% better than the “leading competitor”, some of the questions that might come to mind include:

– Was there any serious investigation done at all or is this ad just a silly claim?

– Is that cleaning increase significant? What if the leading competitor’s cleaning metric is only 0.00034. Then five times that number is only 0.0017. Significant? Should I care?

– What does “better” mean in this context?

– Who is the leading competitor?

– 500% of “what” (objectively-obtained) cleaning metric?

– How did the investigators measure this claimed cleaning improvement?

– Can I trust the numbers from this source (the advertiser itself)?

– What kind of data were gathered? Nominal, ratio, etc?

– Were the cleaning tests done objectively or subjectively by (possibly paid by company) human “evaluators”?

– How many cleaning trials did the company do?

– What kind of lighting did the investigators use to view/measure cleaning differences?

– How did the company make comparisons to the “leading competitor”?

– Did the company use statistical methods? If so, which ones? At what significance level? With what assumptions? (where can I find those analyses data?)

– What types of clothes did the company use for comparisons (all white cotton clothing or clothing with colors more difficult to judge cleanliness differences between products)?

– What types of stains (dirt, oil, etc.) did the company use?

– Does the company have a “celebrity spokesperson”? Almost always, a celebrity endorser is a red flag. Logically speaking, a celebrity endorsor is: “The Fallacy of the Irrelevant Authority”. Of course, a celebrity endorser who is paid just to endorse the product doesn’t mean the product doesn’t work. In any case, since the celebrity endorsor rarely knows anything about the product he or she is endorsing, a celebrity endorsor demonstrates persuasion via personality – not logic.

With these critical questions, and others you might think of, you’ll be in a better position not to have, in this case, advertising, sway you with their (often unsubstantiated) messages.

From the critical questions above, we can generalize to say that good general critical thinking skills include:

• Curiosity – Wanting to learn more information about things around us.
• Skepticism – Not always believing, without investigation, and not blindly accepting what we hear.
• Objective Research Methods – Objective methods to test hypotheses. Verify data. Repeat results. Break a large problem into smaller ones if necessary.
• Humility– The ability to rationally admit we were wrong about a belief or idea.
• Thinking logically not emotionally

Example of Critical Thinking in Action:

When researchers start an experiment, they often have a belief on what the outcome will be. Yet, if the objective experiment’s results don’t match those pre-conceptions a researcher had, the researcher accepts the results.

Stop! You’re Not Making Sense to Begin With!

Be wary of claims where the claim itself makes no sense to begin with. If a claim says that something is 2 times smaller, or takes 4 times less time, you need to clarify that claim’s hypothesis. Since “1 times” = 100%, you can’t exceed that amount for something that’s less than 100% in some dimension (time, space, etc.). In other words, it’s impossible that something can be 2 times smaller or take 300% less time. (a measurement could be one-half as large, but not twice as small.) With imprecisely or incorrectly (or mathematically impossible) stated claims, you might correctly conclude that the claims themselves need serious investigation or clarification (and doubt).

Secondary Data

The additional problem we have is that all of the data we get is (at best) secondary data. That is, since we didn’t get the data ourselves, we have to believe (or somehow verify) that the data we got are accurate. Thus, we need to know who got the data, what their agendas might be, if any, and so on. Can we dismiss diet claims from diet company commercials? Well, show us the data! How was the data gathered? By whom? Etc. (Having a healthy diet and exercise and avoiding diets – in the first place – would be recommended, but never mentioned on these commercials.).

Conclusion:

Thinking critically is the a critical skill you need to have your entire life. You may never need to use Avogadro’s number or solve a differential equation, but critical thinking is something you can use every day to separate the silly from the factual, the rational from the irrational, and the biased from the unbiased.

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Please read our disclaimer available from our home page