Purple Squirrel Doesn't Stand Out

A few caveats here: I'm a Wally personality. You know Wally, from Scott Adams' Dilbert comic strip. He believes, among other things, that God created the world because he hates people and that coffee tastes better if you stir it with your finger. He prefers inertia to action. And thought I do a hell of a lot more work than Wally does because I actually enjoy what I do and want to keep on getting paid to do it, I've got to admit that when it comes to job-seeking and career advice, I'm more likely to turn to the likes of Wally, Dr. Peter Hull, and Stanley Bing than earnest go-getters like Michael Junge.

There will be many who like this book. That's fine. I'm not one of them.

I guess I'm more of a fatalist/realist who sees more truth in the works of Barbara Ehrenreich when it comes to finding jobs in modern America. I went through a stage of underemployment starting on April Fools Day 2005 (it lasted for just over a year) so I'm not just whistling Dixie when it comes to this review. Junge is very keen on helping you find a job with a Fortune 500 company and offers some sound career advice, but I've got to admit the advice he offers isn't all that extraordinary -- I've read similarly powerful stuff in ehow articles. So I'm glad I got this book for free.

The book lacks a certain professionality, which surprised me, considering how much Junge insists we put our best foot forward. There are myriad copy editing mistakes that a geek like me notices instantly. And there's a certain lack of humanity throughout the book. Junge doesn't even explain the title -- which despite its clear meaning in the recruiting world, tells the average reader nothing because we're not able to marvel at the jargon. A Purple Squirrel, for the uninitiated, is a job description written so narrowly it's difficult to find the right candidate to fit it. Junge never explains the term and only uses it once, in the conclusion. Where he could have use the term to add some personality to the book as a whole, he leaves it as an opportunity wasted.

Global Discussion/Awareness Raising Begins . . . Now!

Today, apparently, is Blog Action Day, a day wherein bloggers and other similar back-porch pundits, studio prognosticators, basement bloviators, uptown agitators and their associated hangers-on are to discuss poverty in an attempt to increase “awareness” and to “start a global discussion” on the subject.

Never one to shy from useless gestures, this blog, too, will join the discussion, even though this blog has already started fourteen other global discussions on equally easily verbosed topics this month. Here goes:

Poverty is bad. Very bad. Soo bad, in fact, I will take ten minutes out of my day – Blog Action Day, October 15, 2008 – just to say how bad poverty is and how I wish we had gobs of money we could throw at the problem to make it go away. Nevermind that the regular readers of this blog already share this general sentiment and are probably out doing other, better things to combat poverty, like getting ready for the Scouting for Food campaign (which we shouldn’t mention, because, you know, Scouting is politically incorrect because they have (whisper) tolerance issues). Or they consistently donate cash to their church, knowing full well that the money goes directly to those who need it the most (i.e., those suffering poverty firsthand) but we probably shouldn’t mention that either, because churches, as you know, are worth millions or billions and tie up that wealth in property, Pope hats and political activism meant to show (whisper) that they have tolerance issues.

In case bloggers are having trouble figuring out what to blog about on Blog Action Day, the folks at BAD have a few suggestions; pre-fabricated and slightly misspelled positions for the blogger on the go who only has a few minutes in which to raise awareness and spark a global discussion on the subject. Choose one that best fits your blog flavor and/or political views:

• A Design Blog might analyze a set of charity posters and how they convey their message.
• A Tech Blog might look at pro-poor technologies and projects.
• A Political Blog might examine the relevant agendas of leading candidates.
• A Sports Blog might look at recent charity activities of a major sports franchise.

They neglect to suggest what a smartass blog might do. But I think anyone reading this blog has a good idea of what kind of awareness such a blog might raise on the issue.

So, has the global discussion started yet? I think I can hear one starting up on those charity posters. Hm. Apparently Bodoni doesn’t convey as much poverty awareness as Futura. Interesting.

Insert indignant screeds below:

Only a Tech Writer (or English Major) Would Notice. . .

As I was shaving this morning, I noticed the following instructions on my Barbasol Ultra Gel shaving cream:

Directions: Wash face with warm water. Leave wet. Hold upright and press top to release gel.

I'm unclear on the antecedent. The only time I've had gel come out of my face when I held it upright and pressed its top was when I had sudden relief from a severe sinus blockage. I'm not sure I'd use that gel to shave my face.

The following, by the way, was tacked on after the "directions," because, by the looks of things, they didn't want to use a larger font to help their existing, comical text fill the space available:

High tech, his touch Barbasol (R) Ultra may cause a severe increase in attention, compliments and confidence.

Let's take those nouns one by one:

Attention. The only time I get attention in relation to my shaving gel is when I haven't used it for a few days.

Compliments. They're usually in the form of "Don't you feel better not looking like a Sasquatch?"

Confidence. Usually counterbalanced by the blob of foam I leave near my ear, where the foam dries out makes me look as if I've got a boil.

The advertising copy, I suppose, I can forgive. But please don't make me shake my head to produce my own shaving gel.

Confused

CNN.com has started doing something that I just don't understand: They're selling t-shirts with headlines on them.

Now, as an American, I can understand that people will buy any fool shirt as long as it has writing on it, especially writing that could be considered ironic or an inside joke. But do people relaly want t-shirts that bear the following headlines (pulled from today's Web site; the stories indicate t-shirts are available with this text on them):

40-lb. hunk of metal hits driver in face

Man vs. gator in 7-minute battle for life

Courtroom razor attack caught on tape

Snoozy baby bear can't stay awake

That's it and that appears to be all. No accompanying photo. No real context at all, except for the CNN.com logo. Who is going to wear these things?

Brouhaha Update

NASA has chimed in:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/apr/HQ_08103_student_asteroid_calculations.html

Good for them. Very diplomatic.

Apophis Brouhaha

There’s been a proliferation lately of “Young Genius Proves Adult Experts So Very Wrong” stories popping up on the Internet lately. There was something about some kid pointing out an error at the Smithsonian Institution, and now this:
http://www.physorg.com/news127499715.html, “German Scoolboy, 13, corrects NASA’s Asteroid Figures.” This website’s story is a little confusing. The story claims the schoolboy calculated the asteroid Apophis has a 1 in 450 chance of hitting the Earth. It’s not clear whether this 1 in 450 chance applies to the asteroid’s 2029 approach (when, the story claims, the asteroid will approach to within 32,500 kilometers of the Earth) or in 2036 when the story claims the asteroid will hit the Earth.

Here’s the kicker: The story claims the young boy calculated the change in the asteroid’s chances of hitting the Earth by calculating trajectory changes if the asteroid hits one of 40,000 satellites orbiting the Earth. Here’s a direct quote from the story: “If the asteroid strikes a satellite in 2029, that will change its trajectory making it hit earth on its next orbit in 2036.” I’m aware of only one satellite with enough mass to make this kind of change. You may have heard of it. The cow jumped over it, and it’s made of cheese.

A strike from a satellite – they may weight a few tons at a stretch – is going to alter a 200-billion ton asteroid’s trajectory enough to make it hit the Earth? No way.

So let’s search the original source of the story, the German paper Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten. A web search calls up three – THREE – hits on this paper’s name. One is the original physorg.com story. The others are reprints of this story in the Daily Telegraph of Australia’s website and cyberpresse.ca, in French. I can read French so I know this is just a reprint of the original story.

So, no Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten, eh?

First, what does this mean in German. I find an online translator. Potsdam I know is a city in Germany. Nachrichten seems to have several meanings, all along the lines of news, tidings, et cetera. Neuerster doesn’t seem to exist, but it’s close enough to “neuester,” or “trendily,” that I’ll accept there could be a newspaper called the Potsdam Trendy News, roughly translated. But no website? That’s suspicious.

Turns out there is a newspaper called the Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten (http://www.pnn.de/). So now we’re getting somewhere. So far, we have a very iffy story that gets the name of the source wrong. That’s okay. Still within the realm of journalistic reason, if I can use those concepts in the same sentence.

Even better. A search of the paper’s archives turns up the story: http://www.tagesspiegel.de/weltspiegel/Astronomie;art1117,2512033 (all in German, which I do not read. I used babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/tr to get a rough translation).

The story claims NASA and the European Space Agency agree with young Nico Marquardt. But here’s something fishy: The story makes the claim, but it does not quote anyone form either agency. No perplexed astrophysicist. No stammering public relations flunky. Nobody.

Ya gotta have proof before you can say something like that. At least that was the rule when I was a journalist. But I know journalists love the story of the amateur proving the experts wrong. I wrote a few.

To continue:

The ESA is not reporting any agreement with young Marquardt.

Nor the Planetary Society, which looks to Apophis as a funding opportunity: http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/near_earth_objects/asteroid_alert/letter.html

Nor the International Astonomical Union.

Not even the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, http://www.aip.de/, where the story says Marquardt used telescopes to aid in his discovery, is trumpeting the news.

Neither is NASA.

Question: Should they? If they do, they get pilloried as the snotty people who lost two shuttles and that satellite that crashed into Mars because someone forgot what the metric system is and can't admit that this 13-year-old might be smarter than them because the public, as well as the media, LOVE these kinds of stories. Doesn't matter that this is just a kid making these claims. he used actual math! And these highly-trained astrophysicists are too worried about cahing their big, fat paychecks to check their estimates to the proper decimal places!

Now, I can find this information about Apophis on NASA’s website: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/apophis/, but there’s no information about that German wunderkind.

Conspiracy, you’ll yell. Of COURSE they won’t have anything up about a 13-year-old fixing another NASA boneheaded blunder.

But there are some clues here. First, NASA calculates a 1 in 45,000 chance of the asteroid hitting Earth in 2036. At least we know what date we’re talking about now.

Aha, you’ll say, pointing to this very page. NASA itself says “For Apophis, scaling up to distribute 250 kg (550 pounds) of a reflective or absorptive material (similar to the carbon fiber mesh being considered for solar sails) across the surface could use the existing radiation forces to produce a 6-sigma trajectory change” The smoking gun against my satellite impact argument, eh? Uh-uh. They’re talking here of using a reflective or absorptive material to harness the solar wind to change the ssatellite’s trajectory. Over time. Lots of time. Read further in the same quote. This six-sigma change could be affected over 18 years, not in the second or two of a satellite impact.

NASA researchers go on to conclude: Using criteria developed in this research, new measurements possible in 2013 (if not 2011) will likely confirm that in 2036 Apophis will quietly pass more than 49 million km (30.5 million miles; 0.32 AU) from Earth on Easter Sunday of that year (April 13).

I am no math or physics wizard. But I know fishy journalism when I read it. This story has too much of a codpiece about it to ring true.

And it's not. the British technology blog The Register today has a story citing an unnamed ESA spokesman (why unnamed? but at least it's a comment) saying the boy's figures are wrong, that NASA is right and that the German paper's claim that the ESA backed his claims are wrong. Here's the link: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/16/esa_german_schoolboy_apophis_denial/.

Bad Astronomy.com (http://www.badastronomy.com/) has also chimed in, placing this story at about 9.9 on the Horseshit-O-Meter. They point to another blog, Cosmos4U, http://cosmos4u.blogspot.com/2008/04/apophis-risk-not-increased-science-fair.html, that has a quote from actual NASA and German scientists denying the boy's claims. Finally. But, as many have pointed out, the news agencies that picked the story up haven't done much backpedaling, nor is such backpedaling likely, given the industry norms. This was a wire story. We're sorry, we say, in a correction buried somewhere, if at all.

I feel bad for the kid. He sounds pretty eager to learn and is at least thinking about things. The news people who handled this story, however, did him a great disservice.