Andrew Gianni

I’ve started a new blog that’s focused on the IT Craft called You Can Do IT, Self Help for the Information Technology Professional.

I get a fair amount of spam and a lot of the messages have what seem to be randomly generated subject lines, perhaps in an attempt to get by spam filters. Today I received a spam with the subject line Pepper Tunnel Pyramid Pants. I just found that amusing and thought I’d share. That’s all….

Some time ago, I saw Harry Shearer on some late night talk show talking about the Partnership for a Poll-Free America that he and Arianna Huffington thought up. At the time I though it seemed like a great idea and it mostly still does. But this Tuesday on the day of the New Hampshire primaries, I came to a realization. Polls are actually a very important part of the political process. In fact they’re essential. I’m not talking about the kind you hear about prior to the election, although I’ll get back to those. I’m talking about the actual process of voting. They don’t call it the polling place for nothing.

The truth of the matter is that our election process is based on a polling process, it’s just a different one. And if you think back to your statistics class for a minute, you’ll realize why it’s flawed and why there are probably differences between pre-election polls and election outcomes: elections are biased. Now I can’t pretend to know a lot about how political polls are performed (apart from exit polling, which is pretty straight forward), but assuming that randomization is employed, the results of pre-election polls are probably a better indication of the will of the people if done right. As such, it’s disappointing in a way when they two don’t match. It likely means that our democracy isn’t working as well as it ought to.

All that said, I still think that the place of pre-election polls in influencing election outcomes is troubling. I would hope that everyone would do their own research, but I know that’s just not going to happen.

I rarely sing the praises of a retail outlet, but Wegmans has been at the top of my list of supermarkets for many years and I’ve lived in a number of parts of the country with many options for comparison. What can I say, their store-brand and prepared foods are great, their customer service is excellent, their natural foods section is like an entire small health food store, they’ve been on Forbes 100 best places to work list for ten years (#1 in 2005) and, perhaps most noticably, their checkout lines are the fastest anywhere, no matter how busy they are.

And now they’ve decided to stop selling cigarettes even though they know it’ll cut into their profits. This simply reinforces their recent addition to the worlds most ethical companies list. Way to go Wegmans!

I’ve been thinking about this for several months now and it’s official: I’m dropping out of the Informatics program at UB and applying to the Communications program in its stead. Between the instability of the Informatics Masters program and the fact that I’m finding myself less than excited about the remaining curriculum requirements it’s the right choice for me. To put it simply, though, I find the Informatics program a little too practical. I know that sounds a little weird, but it focuses more on technology than I’d like. If it was a more general program on social informatics that would have been nice. in fact, if Alex’s intro class was a little more representative of the program I think I’d still be engaged. Unfortunately that’s not the case.

So I’m excited to be moving on to something a little more to my liking. I’ll be focusing primarily on systems and network theory, not anything quite so concrete as one might assume from the popular notion of what academic com programs usually are. In fact, UB’s is a bit off the wall regardless of your assumptions of the academic studies of communication — just what I’m looking for, actually. I’ll be blogging more about this as it unfolds.

So it’s been nearly four months since I’ve posted to my blog. Things have been busy and, honestly, I just haven’t been that inspired. Perhaps its because I’m taking a statistics class this semester. I admit that I am thoroughly enjoying the topic and the class (yes, I’m a complete dork) but it doesn’t generate the kind of thinking that other classes I’ve taken have. It’s not that I haven’t thought of things to blog about, I’m just not so excited about it. Add that to my rather limited audience and I’m just not too motivated. Hopefully I’ll be more inspired soon. I’m taking a Com theory class in the Spring, so hopefully that’ll springboard some thoughts. Until then hold tight… all three of you.