Begs the question is the idiom that you aren't using wrong, but some think you do

Are you begging the question?  What is begging a question?  Well, it depends.  There are two different terms that are very similar, but have very different uses.  The first is beg the question fallacy.  This is the traditional use of the term. This is a type of fallacy where a premise includes the claim or assumption that its conclusion is true.  (This is covered in some brief detail at Fallacy: Begging the Question (backup link).)

For example, "All cats are evil, otherwise you would not see cats do evil things."

The premise of this statement is that cats are evil, and the justification is that you see cats do evil things.  The statement forms a circular argument.

But, there's another common use of the term that often appears as , "begs the question", as in, "your statement begs the question of who will do this work".  It means that there is an obvious or ignored question that arises from a statement.

There are grammarians and logicians that will argue that this is somehow the wrong use of the term, such as the website begthequestion.info (backup link) (which dedicates itself to this topic).  Ironically, these individuals often employ logical fallacies to disregard the modern usage of the term.  There are people that seem gleefully unaware of how English works.  Common usage is correct usage. Dictionaries now list the modern usage on equal weight as the logical fallacy definition.  See idioms area on freedictionary.com (backup link).

There is often a claim that using the phrase in the modern sense is somehow confusing (see some of these claims on QuickAndDirty.com (backup link) by Grammar Girl). However, common usage is so prevalent, there is no confusion as to when the term is being used one way or another.  If someone wishes to distinguish between the logical fallacy and the assertion of an obvious/ignored question, then they do so with context, just as they would for the use of any other common terms with multiple meanings.  This begs the question, why is denial of the validity of the modern definition so important to some people?

Awesome hall of shame devices - Interesting link

There's a cool article with ten hall of shame automotive devices that are/were supposed to do something or another to improve your vehicle's gas mileage, performance, and even ectoplasm removal (because I guess ghosts are slowing your car down؟). Popular Mechanic Gas Saving Gadgets (backup link) covers it all.  My favorite is the magnets used to "straighten" fuel molecules to improve ignition efficiency. (If anything, the magnets would add more weight to your car, thus reducing fuel efficiency).

"To good to be true" - Criticism of scientific studies grows

It is almost ironic, the other day I posted this article Reason Why I'm Skeptical of Skepticism which criticized over reliance on many study conclusions without actual supporting or valid data within the studies.  Now, just a few days later, there is a new published "study of studies" which reinforces the idea of being skeptical of scientific study conclusions, Excess Success for Psychology Articles in the Journal Science.  This study exposes that many studies in Psychology have issues, where the declared conclusions are simply "to good to be true" based on the strength of the data.  The inference being that there may be a general problem with all fields of science.

"Not every experiment is methodologically sound, and some experiments (even if methodologically sound) do not clarify the status of a theoretical idea. There is little reason to publish such experimental results, whether they are statistically significant or not. Unfortunately, in day-to-day scientific practice it is quite easy to interpret an unsuccessful outcome as being irrelevant to the theory or as being methodologically flawed and therefore not worth reporting."

In other words, data is cherry-picked in support of the theory rather than attempting to take contrary results into account.  This is basically throwing out the Scientific Method when it doesn't result in data this supports a theory.  In other cases, data collection is just too imprecise to form a suitable theory.  Kind of like garage-in-garbage-out.

I have a feeling a growing criticism of the current system is going to force changes into the process of study publishing and utilization.

Reason why I'm skeptical of Skepticism

There is a plague on modern science and Skepticism.  That plague is over reliance upon research reports.  Research report is a gathering of pre-existing data (the "re" in "research"), repurposed to find patterns.  The problem is that many research reports are created to find correlations in support of predetermined conclusions (assumptions).  Research reports are often formatted as scientific studies and published in science journals along side scientific studies that use the Scientific Method.

What is the Scientific Method?  First, wonder about a phenomenon and ask a question.  Conduct research on that question.  Then, construct a hypothesis (a proposed explanation for the phenomenon). A hypothesis must be formed in such a way to be tested for being  false (falsifiability). The subsequent test must be done in such a way as to try to disprove your hypothesis.  Only after all of this can you analyze your data and form a conclusion from that data.  The final step is to share your results for others to review and check, often in the form of their own studies.  For a study to have value, its results must be replicated by others.¹

The Scientific Method is valuable because it helps eliminate incorrect explanations for a phenomenon.  For example, say someone as a hypothesis that lemons are yellow because someone paints them with yellow paint.  You can test this in any number of ways.  You can go to an orchard and watch the lemons grow, changing color as they mature.  You can buy a lemon at a store and cut it, looking for a layer of paint.  You can peel the lemon and send the skin to a lab to search for significant amounts of paint.  Any of these tests would prove the hypothesis false.  Someone else could create a new hypothesis about why lemons are yellow, knowing that the cause is not paint.

The limitation of an unscientific research report is that it only requires you to visit a grocery store to see that the lemons are yellow in order to confirm your assumption that they've been painted yellow by a person.

Research reports often lack several crucial steps compared to Scientific Method.  First, the purpose of a research report is often to collect data in support of a pre-existing assumption.  An assumption is different than a hypothesis because an assumption is not a proposed explanation for a phenomenon; rather an assumption is that there is a phenomenon ("someone is painting those lemons yellow", instead of asking "why are lemons yellow?").  Second, no test is performed in support of this assumption.  Data is unscientifically collected from different studies, reports and other sources rather than being the results of a direct test.  There is certainly no falsifiability test.  Third, the results of the collected data are often correlated to the original assumption rather than standing on their own within the conclusion.

What's wrong with correlation between data sets?  Correlation is an indicator, but it is not a identifier. The common phrase is "correlation is not causation."  It is extremely easy to correlate unrelated things.  There is a website dedicated to just this.  This is why the Scientific Method requires a falsifiability test.  It eliminates the reliance on correlation.

Now, this is not to say all research reports are bad.  A research report that uses the Scientific Method to analyze data in a way that can be demonstrated with falsifiability does have value.  But, it is very hard tell good reports apart from bad reports using quick Twitter or reddit title links.  You have to read the report to know if it has value or if it is pseudoscience.  You have to read the whole report because the report's title and conclusions often do not even match-up the data within the report.

This is where I run into issues with Skepticism.  Skepticism tends consider any conclusions of a published research report (in support of presumed consensus) to be the same as studies using the Scientific Method.  Opinions regarding concepts outside the presumed consensus are immediately rejected (even if they are published) without regard to the quality of the report or study.  I cannot count how many times I've read a promoted research report, only to find that the evidence in the report is based correlated cherry-picked data.  Blind acceptance of research report conclusions is a big problem with Skepticism, especially as it grows in popularity among Atheists and other non-religious folks.  I've seen seen sources such as "skeptic" magazines that site unscientific research reports as though they are undeniable fact.  It is a problem being exacerbated by the ease with which (mis)information flows on the Internet through various social media and various other media outlets.

Other reading

In researching this topic, I found a very interesting "study of studies" about the flaws in most studies, Why most published research findings are false. Nothing in my article here is based on this study, so take this as a completely different source.  It is worth the read, and more fuel for the fire to be skeptical, not just of Skepticism, but of anyone trying to use a "study" to promote a notion.

Sensless Sunday: Mammoth Star

1. The last pyramids in Egypt where finished before the last of the Woolly Mammoths died out.^{1 2}
2. The World as we know it was designated to end by a Viking myth on 2/22/2014³ and by a modern economist on 3/4/2014.⁴ The quote from War Games rings through my head right now about "We're still here! We're STILL HERE!".
3. Our Solar System is traveling at an average speed of 514,000 mph relative to the Milky Way galactic center.⁵

Senseless Sunday: Rubbing dreamt cources

1. Only five words in the English language actually end with the letters "mt": dreamt, daydreamt, undreamt, redreamt, and outdreamt.
2. The invention of matches (rubbing a chemical dipped stick to create a flame with friction) came about in 1826.  The invention of the lighter (mechanical device to produce a flame) was first developed in the 1500's.¹
3. As of 2008, the USA has more golf courses than the rest of the world combined.²

Old School: Pager Code

There are/were several types of pager codes in the 1990's before cellphones become common with inexpensive data/text plans.

Calculator Method

The simplest (and prolly earliest) pager code was the Calculator Method.  This method replaced letters with numbers that resemble those letters when held upside down (similar to how you'd create words using upside down numbers on a calculator).  These were typed backwards so that the effect was easy to read.  Examples:

• HELLO would read 07734.  4 kinda looks like an H, 3 is clearly an upside down E, 7 is clearly an upside down L and 0 is O in either direction.
• GUESS WHO would read 04177*553176.  6 kinda looks like a G, 17 looks like an upside down U, 5 looks like an S, * is a space, 177 looks like an upside down W.

Beeper Codes

Another common pager code system consisted of a string of numbers that were typically 3 letters long used to represent specific words and phrases. Though I doubt there is consensus regarding a name for the collection of these pager codes, these seem most closely associated with the term "Beeper Codes".  Beeper codes were really a collection of many individual codes that were derived from several cipher methods.  Many codes used letter count, but other methods were also employed.

• I LOVE YOU was commonly typed as 143.  This required foreknowledge of the code, as any combination of words can share common letter counts.  143 could've easily meant I CAN'T FLY if you didn't know the established meaning. 
• I LOVE YOU was also 831 from the phrase, "8 letters, 3 words, 1 meaning."  Again, foreknowledge is necessary to decipher the code.  

There were a lot of these individual Beeper Codes.

Number look alikes

The most versatile pager code was a slightly more formal substitution method.  Letters were represented by a look alike number or string of numbers. This is similar to the Calculator Method, but can be read rightside up and used to spell any word without a lot of forethought (or turning your phone upside). Different varieties existed, but the most common was this:

Pager Code
Letter	Number Look Alike
A	8
B	8
C	6
D	0
E	3
F	4
G	6
H	4
I	1
J	7
K	15
L	7
M	177
N	17
O	0
P	9
Q	0
R	12
S	5
T	7
U	11
V	11
W	111
X	25
Y	4
Z	2
Spacebar	- or *

With this method, complex messages could be sent without a lot of effort. Even after texting and cellphones become more common, this was still a good system to encipher messages from casual interloping.

• HELLO becomes 43770
• WISH YOU WERE HERE becomes 111154 4011 1113123 43123 (a special symbol for spacebar wasn't necessary once texting was available)
• FOUR SCORE AND SEVEN YEARS AGO becomes 401112 560123 8170 5311317 438125 860

Pager codes were still used by some people even after texting become available because most early texting-capable cellphones didn't have an alphabet keyboard.  Typing words was still tedious using the texting system.  It was prolly around the time when type-ahead appeared that use of pager codes finally become uncommon.  Once smartphones become common, there was really no need for pager codes anymore at all, except for fun.  I still find myself using some of the old 3 digit beeper codes if I don't feel like typing out a common phrase.

Tuesday Two: Tracking balls

The aptly name  Bounce Imaging Explorer is a throwable camera that allows you to see around corners simply by rolling or throwing it into the area.  Great for cops, firefighters, and military.

You can track yourself, your kids, your phone and your car.  Now you track your luggage with Trakdot.  This device can send  text messages, emails or updates to an app.  This allows you to know where luggage is, even if the airline doesn't.

Yahoo's Blunder with unnecessary changes to their services is well explained on slashdot.org

Yahoo's blunder with unnecessary changes to their services such as Yahoo! Groups is well explained on slashdot.org by anonymous poster.

If you have no userbase, the Agile concept of ship (garbage) early and ship (garbage) often even before you really have an MVP actually makes some sense. If you have a 6-month runway of capital before you go belly-up and start over (oh, I'm sorry, "pivot"), there's no point in wasting another month to get it right.

But if you already have a userbase, the developer-centric attitude of leaving what, to users, is core functionality in the backlog while you release half-assed stuff that merely shows off how good you are with AJAX, or how quickly your UX people can change the design from one week to the next, doesn't work. It's bad for your customer base, it alienates them, and it eventually drives them to your competitors.

More of this person's comment can be found here. If you are interested in exploring the topics brought up by this person, click on the links I added to their quote above.  That will take you to Wikipedia articles that will explain each of the terms.  

Senseless Sunday: Mort fog tail

• Micromort is the unit of measure assigned to determining the risk of mortality in terms of one-in-a-million chance of dying.
• The invention of the toothbrush has no well defined origin, but the first bristle toothbrush has been discovered in China from the Tang Dynasty (circa A.D. 619–907).  It used hog bristle.  Not quite the same as brushing your teeth with bacon flavored toothpaste, but close.
• A cubic mile of fog is made up of 56,000 gallons of water.
• The word coward original comes from Latin word couda, meaning "tail".