Lauren and I have been watching those ghost huntin' shows before going to sleep. It's a pleasant enough diversion even though they tend to be a bit silly. Plenty of times the evidence these folks have of ghosts is nothing more than a misreading/misuse of their equipment, something entirely explainable by normal events, misperceptions of events, and the like.

Every now and then these shows will have something pretty wacky that isn't easily explained. At the least, not easily explained by me, for what that's worth.

Regardless, there are events that are being captured by these ghost hunter people. The events could be as simple as air pressure differences causing doors to open, windows acting as mirrors showing the cameraman as an "unexplained" thermal image, etc.  In other words, something is happening. And sometimes that something isn't easily explained.

Sceptics and debunkers, however, nearly always argue that this is all a bunch of hokum. They will offer up some reasonable explanations and some unreasonable ones. In my mind the sceptics are no better than the believers because neither approach these phenomenon objectively. Both tend to come from a sort of religious faith where their beliefs will not be challenged regardless of the evidence.

This has led me to a logical dilemma, and perhaps you would care to help solve it.


The Sunnyland Dilemma

There is a town called Sunnyland where lightning never ever strikes. They occasionally get rain storms but have never had any lightning strikes. The people of Sunnyland are generally smart and good natured, but tend towards scepticism. No one in Sunnyland is an atmospheric researcher, theoretical physicist, or some other type of scientist.

Occasionally visitors to Sunnyland will tell the residents about lightning. Some stories are rather cosmic in nature, such as, "When the gods are very angry with us they will bring terrible storms and shoot brilliant fire down from the sky." Other stories are simpler. "Occasionally there will be a flash of bright light when there are lots of clouds."

The people of Sunnyland believe that lightning is hokum, and perhaps reasonably so. No one of credible authority has proven to them that lightning exists and is a real phenomenon.

Your job is to prove to the people of Sunnyland that lightning is a real phenomenon. How would you do it?

Bear the following in mind:
- Even now lightning is not fully understood and an explanation for the cause of lightning has not been agreed upon
- There are differening opinions currently on whether lightning bolts can be seen going "up" or "down"
- Would it be more dificult to explain if lightning happened 10x less often? 100x? 1000x?

So there ya go. I'll try to respond with my perceptions of how Sunnyland would argue.

Yr fthfl bddy,

Mike

Dream Theater and Kenny Rogers - The New Metrics of Music 

My old college roommate - Mark M'Roommate - and I used to discuss the comparative merits of bands.  Because the qualities that make music good are pretty intangible we quickly found that this wasn't easy.  How does one rate Wesley Willis?  He's awful and yet so enjoyable.  Can you compare him to Yngwie Malmsteen and say that Yngwie is categorically better?  (The answer is no, by the way.)

The problem is that what makes music good is only related to the performer's ability to extract an emotive response from the listener.  A good example would be Elliot Smith who is a very good guitarist, yet his music is stripped down to only what he needs to communicate.  Highly technical music that doesn't say anything more than, "I can play fast" tends to be nearly unlistenable.  It lacks the passion that music deserves yet is not bad enough to become unique or amusing in its own right.  

In other words, it's Dream Theater.

Dream Theater are the nadir of music.  Yes, they've got great chops but that is all there is to them.  Their music is dreadfully tedious with the speedy unison licks and precise chops being their only redeeming qualities.  Bleh.

But for all that is lame about them, Dream Theater might be one of the most important bands in music because they define the bottom end of music's listenability, yet there are bands who are arguably worse.  It's fairly undeniable that Tay Zonday is worse than Dream Theater, and yet I would rather listen to Chocolate Rain for an entire day than anything from Awake for thirty seconds.

Where is the limit for music that is worth the effort to listen to?  Kenny Rogers.

Ask youself if any music you enjoy is better than Kenny Rogers.  Yes, it most likely is.  Now ask yourself if any music you enjoy is worse then Kenny Rogers.  Probably not.  Kenny Rogers is right at the edge of bland mediocrity and yet is still acceptably listenable.  Through the Years, The Gambler, She Believes In Me - These are all the epitomy of just fine songs.  

The chart below illustrates how music can be so bad it's good, so bland it's bad, and so good it's great.





(Click on the image to see a larger version.)

Obviously the truly great acts are on the right side of this graph.  The Beatles, for instance, would be right around a .95 on both listenability and quality.  Notice, also, the plateau where quality is better than average, but listenability stays relatively flat.  The majority of music sits in this neighborhood.  It's good, but not great.

The absence of quantitative metrics like the ability to play super burnin' fast licks is intentional because that bears little impact on the quality of music.  As an anonymous poster commented, Nirvana was a great band while not being technically proficient.  Similarly, King Crimson and Mahavishnu Orchestra are great bands with virtuosic playing abilities.  Dream Theater—and Paul Gilbert, to a lesser extent—have amazing chops but suck balls.

Not only does this chart validate listening to bad music, but it also validates that good music really is good and that technical proficiency isn't an inherent indicator of quality.  You can finally listen to your Hall and Oates albums without shame.

Have fun figuring out where your favorite bands sit on this chart.

Yr Fthfl Bddy,

Mike

Single Spacing is Un-American

Recently,  my boss told me to stop using two spaces after a period. I've heard this before but felt that it was just a passing whim of language. Much like the saying,  "Cool beans, " which has thankfully passed.

Mr. Bossman explained that a computer is not a typewriter and that proportional fonts – as opposed to monospace typewritten fonts – have extra white space added to periods. It was an interesting point that led to the question: "Why did they double space on a typewriter?" The answer is that monospace fonts need the extra spacing to visually delineate sentence breaks. That didn't quite satisfy me,  so I continued to research it.

Lemme tell ya now that the pitched battle between the Singlies and Doublies is far from over. In between jabs using thin spaces,  em-dashes,  and tildes,  en-space mortar shots are ceaseless. The reason? We've been severely misled by dead typesetters.

There's an excellent article in Wikipedia about "French Spacing" which is less a review of French punctuation and more a treatise on why we have been told to use only one space. The truth is pretty fascinating.

Before the Linotype revolutionized printing in 1885,  standard typesetting added an em-space after a period. Replicating this on a Linotype was difficult due to a mechanical problem. Though workarounds were developed,  Linotype operators preferred the same spacing after a period as between words. (For an interesting discussion that includes the personal experiences of a former Linotype operator,  go to Typophile.)

What's fascinating is that this one-space standard became encouraged and codified. Most likely,  publishers realized they could save money by reducing the white space between sentences. Typesetters were satisfied because they prefer the look of full text without empty gaps. Because typesetters were the innovators of desktop publishing (DTP) these rules were enforced and the typewriter emerged as the scapegoat.

The Singlies argue that DTP applications use heuristics to determine the end of a sentence and add extra spacing. The logic and implementation of these heuristics is never explained. How could the program distinguish a proper noun following a punctuated abbreviation? Without a lexicon of all proper nouns it simply can't. The truth is that the heuristics just don't exist. There's some added whitespace after a period. That's it.

Take a look at the image below illustrating spacing using ems in InDesign:

The serif makes it hard to see,  but the period and word spacing are differentiated by an extra point. One point. The blue line behind the period is one point wide.

Truthfully,  the justification for increased spacing after a period in pre- and post-Linotype print is simple: It's easier to read. Research has demonstrated that added space between sentences allows for improved reading and comprehension. Unfortunately, the legacy of the Linotype has begun to erode the quality of our printed text.

The image below illustrates the different spacing options available:




Notice that two spaces is almost exactly the same as adding an en-space. 



As you can see in the em-space example,  the font kerning causes the gap to be a bit larger than one em. Personally,  I like the look of an en-space. It fits our modern sensibilities and is easily reproduced using two spaces.

At this point you may be wondering,  "How is this un-American?  I salute mom,  god,  and apple pies – am I actually a commie?"  If you are one of the Singlies,  then yes,  you are a commie. Take a look at this:



That's right,  kids,  it's the Declaration of Indepence of the United Freakin' States of America! The view above is the Dunlap Broadside which was printed on July 4th,  1776. Given the extreme importance of this document,  it is safe to assume the Founding Fathers printed it using the highest standards of the day.

For us Doublies there remains some hope. An unsubstantiated blog comment indicates that some publishers prefer two spaces because it gives them greater control over the spacing without screwing up the author's text. The debate on the aforementioned Wikipedia article continues and updates happen frequently.

Ultimately it is time to realize that the computer is neither a typewriter nor a Linotype.

Yr Fthfl Bddy, 
Mike

For an overview of the challenges in adding visually distinct spacing to printed and online text,  see my first comment entry.

The Great Resume Challenge 

Writing a resume is one of the most difficult things you will do in your professional career.  Not only do you have to remember what it is you have done over the course of employment at a company, you also have to express this to someone you've never met.  Though that doesn't seem like an easy task, there are some freedoms inherent in this situation of which you can take advantage.

While at work you are usually responding to immediate needs and not thinking about how your particular cog fits into the larger machine.  Imagine being a small part of a car, such as a venturi in the carburetor of a Facel Vega.  You might not realize that your contribution, though seemingly small, is critical in making this whole car move down the road.

Having a comprehensive view of where you fit in can be challenging, especially when you're that carburetor part and can't see everything else that's happening.  

So I have a few of my own personal tips for writing a resume that may help with gaining perspective and enticing your future to look at you with more interest:

• Write your resume from your future employer's perspective.  They don't want to know what you do now, they want to know what you will do for them.  Even though you might not know where the next job is, you can take a good guess at what they want from you.
  
  
• Demonstrate the fruits of your labor, not just what you have done.  Employers know that most people do a fair bit of routine work.  But they also want to see someone who has a head for their business and can bring unique skills.  Illustrate how you have met your business' challenges and benefited your current and past employers.  Separating routine work from your results will help make it easier to avoid giving details on boring stuff.
  
  
• Focus your resume on the job you want.  It's easy to list everything you've done at work, but some of that must have been unenjoyable.  Drop the stuff that you don't want to do again and detail the work you found engaging.
  
  
• You are a product - sell yourself.  Think of the times you've wanted to purchase something expensive like a car.  Odds are you didn't just go out and buy the first thing you saw, but rather comparison shopped.  The informed consumer tries to find the product that best suits their needs.  A company trying to find a new employee does the same thing.
  
  
• Presentation matters.  A resume is your own marketing material, so make it as attractive as possible.
  
  
• Two-pages or more.  That's right.  I think the old one-page rule only applies to people fresh out of college or moving onto their second job.  If you don't have enough content to spill onto a second page then you might not be the right person for the job.  Aim for a minimum of a page and a half.
  

The above rules have a few specifics that derive from them:

• Make it look like you put some effort into creating your resume.  As your first introduction to a company you don't want to communicate that you are lazy and do slap-dash work - even if that's fundamentally true.
  
  
• If you perform repeated tasks then describe the function you are doing and not the actual task.  E.g., completing a daily report could be written as "kept management informed of daily progress through standardized reporting."
  
  
• Don't make references to products or tools unless they are commonly known.  You can reference your mad Excel skillz but don't mention that you are an expert at your company's proprietary Florbco 9000 system.
  
  
• Write your resume in Word.  Even though this is marketing materials, using desktop publishing applications will just cause problems down the road.  Recruiters want the document in Word, and online job sites like CareerBuilder want a text version.  Word converts more easily to text than InDesign.
  
  
• Use color.  Color can draw the eye to specific content.  Delineate different sections of the page with subtle color use, or with small amounts of overt color.  Focus the reader on content you think is important.  Make your future employer want to go through the effort of using their color printer down the hall.
  
  
• Use columns.  A full page spread is very challenging to read.  You want this to be readable, and scanning across 7" of text is tiring on the eye.  Word's tables are better for creating the variously sized columns you will need to describe your work.
  
  
• If you really can't fill more than a page and a half due to a lack of experience, try changing your layout to something that increases white space.  You can also adjust the kerning of your text.  Conversely, you can drop everything down to just one complete page that appears denser.
  
  
• Send a PDF copy at first.  The stability of PDF on various platforms along with the control over printing means that this is the preferable way of presenting yourself to a prospective employer.  Send a Word or text version only at someone's request.
  

The overarching concept is that your resume should show your ass-kickingness through text, visuals, and readability.

To see a copy of my resume (with my address and phone number removed) click here.

If you look at my resume you will see how I have broken out the routine work from my results.  I personally believe that a skills section is very important because it allows you to reference all of your technical assets in one place.  Then you can leave those out of your successes.

Additionally, I have dropped nearly all of the work I don't want to do again.  A good example is that at Time Warner Cable I developed a lot of Captivate training for our products.  It was a laborious and dreadful task.  But I'd love to tell other people to do it and guide them in making it right.

I hope these tips are valuable to you.  

Yr Fthfl Bddy,
Mike