LinkedIn Maps are fun

I mentioned my social map from LikedIn a few weeks ago. I’ve done a little seeding and thought you might like the new look.

Here is the one from February:

And here is April:

Besides the color change, which I have no control over, there are a couple of noticeable changes. The blue network has broken into two distinct but interconnected groups, at least by this programs algorithms. I have not myself been able to discern what the difference is but I’ll keep looking

The lower right portion of the graph has been enhanced.The right seems to mainly be filled with acquaintances who really aren’t connected to many others in my linked in network. I guess I could make them all tighter by inviting them to a party and having them connect online but I don’t think that will really add much.

I guess it’ll be interesting to see how it changes a year from now.

Apple does create novel new jobs in the US

iPad 2 resellers camp out overnight for $400/day profits
[Via Edible Apple]

If you thought the iPad 2 was a hot commodity here in the US, then it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Apple’s next-gen tablet is even higher demand overseas, and especially in countries where the device has yet to go on sale.

Case in point – China, where iPad 2s are selling for so much money that they’ve created a mini burgeoning industry where folks lineup outside of Apple stores here in the US for hours to get their hands on the iPad 2 where they can then turn around and re-sell the device in China at huge markups.

The New York Times recently profiled this not-so-old strategy at an Apple Store in SoHo. When reporter Nick Bilton was told that the store was out of stock, he asked an Apple employee what time he should arrive the next day when a new shipments of iPad 2s was scheduled to arrive.

[More]

Netting $400 a day because of Apple. Not bad at all.

See, Apple has created jobs here in the US. No other computer company has created jobs like these. In fact, I am not aware of any other consumer company here that has.

Take that Google!

Of course, waiting a day and a half to get that $400 does mean that the hourly wage is $11.11, still much better than the minimum wage of $7.25 in most states with Apple stores.

Not very interesting though. I guess they can use Apple’s free WiFi to connect with the world. And have ‘co-workers’ hold their place when they go to the bathroom.

Facts don’t change people’s minds. People change people’s minds

by *clairity*

The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science
[Via Daring Fireball]

Chris Mooney on why cold hard facts and scientific evidence seldom change the minds of those who already hold a strong opinion. (E.g., climate-change deniers, vaccines-cause-autism believers.) Fascinating but utterly depressing.

[More]

While a depressing observation, it is true. Scientists may be able to deal with a world in shadowy shades of gray but most people do not have that luxury. So they have developed rules of thumb that help them deal with a complex world.

And they will simply not make changes in those rules because some facts come along. They know that gray is a mixture of black and white so they emphasize the white and explain away the black.

That is why so many researchers, whose training and experience provides their own rules of thumb, often get very frustrated with lay people. Facts do change researcher’s minds. But seldom do they change non-scientists.

So, how to change minds? The article has the best advice we have learned so far: If you want someone to accept new evidence, make sure to present it to them in a context that doesn’t trigger a defensive, emotional reaction.

Context and framing do work. But it can take time, much longer than the simple recitation of facts and data. And it smacks of marketing – twisting peoples perceptions by presenting emotional arguments rather than factual.

Scientists try to remove the emotional aspect from their work since they know how confirmation bias can cloud the results. So having to use emotional appeals to convince others goes against the researchers own set uf rules.

That is why it is so hard to find effective communicators between science on the general populace.

However, we no longer have the luxury of using just a few great communicators. we have too many complex problems to solve that will require all of us to take a part. Researchers must do a better job finding the contextual frames to get people to hear and to change.

And, I think, it will need to be an emotional sort of frame rather than strictly factual.