Keeping the Internet Old

The internet has never been a place for antiques. In fact, much of its creation was based upon expediting everyday tasks. And for the most part it has improved the world around us. My 'Gmail' account alone can house 35 times more information than the '95 collection of 'Encyclopedia Britannica'. The internet is growing faster, larger and increasingly precise, but i think in some ways relevance has injured something precious: finding the great things we weren't looking for.

I haven't been able to find it again, but I vividly remember a a kid I had an Encyclopedia that gave me one of the definitions of 'dude' not as I expected, but instead as an "ingrown hair on elephants' butt." I met a lot of 'dudes' that summer. That isn't a solid argument as to what we are missing, but the internet is losing its ability to serve up something we wouldn't have searched for specifically, but is pertinent to creating a more rounded individual.

Stumble Upon  is a site where users enter interests, and general search topics, and are then taken to sites based on users with similar interests, and is one example of a partial solution to this problem. But the problem still remained of a site learning from me, and catering information to what i liked. What I felt is missing that the old encyclopedia's got write was anecdotal information on multiple topics; not just the ones I needed. I likened it to a school reading list because just like there are some books we love that we would have never read without requirement, there are facts, and stories and information we miss with the ease of relevance searching.

There are assuredly more, but three sites that do this well are TED Talks, Futility Closet and Letters of Note. And they all cover it in a variety of ways. TED Talks focuses more on bringing fascinating talks from every field imaginable, and condensing these ideas into around 20 minute videos. Futility Closet is a blog run by an ex- editorial manager, Greg Ross, who covers topics from curiosities in history to mathematic equations and philosophy. Letters of Note is a compendium of historical and interesting letters gathered from all over, and brought into blog format. The point is it's there if you look, I just wish there was more.

How to Pass Sixth Grade

When it comes to Internet literacy, I feel that I am at a sixth grade level. If I want to successfully make the transition from a student to a professional journalist, I need to become more Internet savvy.

I'm just starting middle school, so obviously I can read. But at the same time, I am entering this scary new place full of people who are bigger and smarter than I am. The popular kids don't know my name yet, and I still have to ask people how to get to the cafeteria.

Beginning my career as a photojournalist, I am starting at the bottom, just hoping to pass sixth grade. I dream of the day when big names will recognize mine, and I will be able to find publishing outlets on my own. A major part in being able to accomplish these things is making myself searchable. To be searchable, my name needs to be out there. In today's technological age, out "there" not only applies to word of mouth, but to be present on the Internet. With the Internet becoming a more central part of basically everything, I don't want to find myself out of the loop.

When I searched "Meghan Nolt" in Google, I was both surprised and amused by what popped up. One of the search results was a Myspace account of a young, maybe 13-year-old, girl wearing glasses, whose URL ends in "tubachick77." Definitely not me. The majority of the other things that resulted in searching my own name were my various personal social media sites and photos of mine that have been published in different places over the last couple years.

One of my goals over these coming months is to create my own website where I can market myself professionally. When someone searches my name, I want them to end up somewhere that accurately represents me and who I am as a professional photojournalist. I want my portfolio and information to be organized, but still extend across broader reaches of the Internet. This knowledge of how to create a desired online presence will only come if I put in some serious study time.

If I am going to be taken seriously among the popular kids in the photojournalism world, I need to start reading less Beverly Cleary and more Harper Lee. I need to know where to go in this big scary Internet world if I hope to make it to seventh grade.

Fantasy Football and the Google Fallacy

It’s that time of year once more.  The slow descent into maddening school work, the stress of maintaining a social life during fall semester and the difficulties of drafting your fantasy football team.

In researching what running backs were poised for huge years for 2013, I turned to what millions of other fantasy owners turn to when in doubt.

Google.

Here is where I encountered the problem of the Google fallacy, and why you as a fantasy owner should not let the search engine assist you on Sundays. 

The results Google turns up will throw you a number of ways of determining who you should draft and start.  ESPN, CBS, Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, and even Yahoo all have hired individuals whose responsibility it is to help lead you to victory, but even they are prone to the Google fallacy. I’ve chosen to single out one individual to show this.

Jamaal Charles, running back for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Jamaal Charles is listed as a top ten player according to those various sites, and even a top five running back for most, but there’s one problem.

He’s not.

There are two problems with Mr. Charles being your lead man:

• He’s on year two of coming off a major ACL tear.
• He’s now playing for Andy Reid.

No running back, excluding Adrian “I am the 1%” Peterson, has come back from such a major injury and returned to be even a top 15 running back the following year.

Andy Reid, who was Head Coach of the Philadelphia Eagles from 1999-2012 and now the play caller for the Chiefs, is not a fan of the handoff.

In his last four years in Philly, Reid's average number of run plays was only 40% of all plays from scrimmage. Accounting for the times that weren’t Michael Vick making magic happen on broken plays, a running back saw a carry roughly 12 times a game in Reid's offense. 12 touches for Jamaal Charles is not going to do more for you than any running back you could’ve picked in the 4^th.

In all of those expert sites combined, not once are these crucial things mentioned. These were things learned from investigating the team, the coach, and the system.  Not just the player.

That simple Google search you thought would help you win your league has now transformed your team into a dud and this all could’ve have been avoided with just a little more research.

That is the Google fallacy.

Even though this is just fantasy football, which I hear is Latin for ‘blood sport’; how you research and the way you research with Google can leave huge holes in your information. 

These holes can turn to heartache when you gradually find out that your supposed workhorse isn’t as beastly as desired.

Don’t be stupid. Avoid the holes.  Do some research without that deity search engine. Investigate the whole picture, talk to buddies who are fans of the team and field through the maze of information out there before you make that potentially damning pick.

Though you think you’ve learned what you wanted from your search, you’ve only learned what Google wants you to know and apparently Google wants you to lose.