Anecdotal evidence is often the best evidence

Anyone who ever had any interest in science will know that anecdotal evidence is the worst type of evidence possible. This is what scientists and science teachers repeatedly tell their audience.

But is this statement true? If you have a look at the subject matter closely, it doesn't appear to be so.

There are many situations where anecdotal evidence is the best evidence possible. In fact, even the most hardcore scientists use it regularly for very important life decisions.

There are certain aspects of reality that are extremely hard to research scientifically. And there are those aspects of reality that the mainstream science refuses to research. For both of those, anecdotal evidence is the only evidence available.

On the other hand, there are areas of science that deem anecdotal evidence perfectly acceptable. And there is an important reason for it - those branches of science would cease to exist otherwise.

In this article, you will find out how anecdotal evidence received its bad reputation and why you shouldn't always trust those people who say it's bad.

Why I won't support anti-human Extinction Rebellion

Extinction Rebellion is a group that has recently blocked some streets in London, vandalised some building, caused inconvenience to commuters and got some of its members deliberately arrested. All of this was done in the name of fighting man-made climate change.

As a group, Extinction Rebellion is of opinion that climate change is way bigger than any other problem facing mankind. Bigger than famines. Bigger than wars. Bigger than oppressive dictatorial regimes. And if we don't take an immediate action, we, as species, will go extinct. This is why the movement is called Extinction Rebellion.

However, the reality is precisely the opposite. If all of the "solutions" to the climate change problem that are proposed by Extinction Rebellion are implemented, the chances of us going extinct will increase, not decrease. And there are certainly problems that are way more urgent than climate change.

So, let's have a look what exactly is wrong with the Extinction Rebellion movement.

Being toxically masculine to become a greater coder

There were days when boys were boys and masculinity was respected. Well, not anymore.

Recently, American Psychological Association (APA), the body that sets professional standards for people employed in the field of psychology in the US, has defined traditional masculine personality traits as "toxic". And those are not the traits that feminists quote in defense of the phrase "toxic masculinity". No, the listed traits don't include violent behaviour towards women.

What APA defined as "toxic" are, in fact, the traits that have been traditionally respected, especially in men. Those include stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression.

All you need to know about Cisco router vulnerability email scam

Recently, a lot of web users started reporting a new scam email that sounds really convincing and menacing. The email comes from someone who claims to be a spyware software developer. Allegedly, this person was able to exploit the so-called Cisco router, vulnerability CVE-2018-0296, which has supposedly allowed them to gain access to the victim's device and take many pictures and videos from its camera, some of which are supposed to be really compromising.

As a "proof" of this, the self-proclaimed hacker highlights the fact that the email was sent from the victim's own email account, which looks like it is the case, as both "From" and "To" fields of the email have the same email address.

The full text of the email, with some variations, is as follows:

Biggest misconceptions about full stack developers

There are many different types of software developers out there. Some are generalists, while other are more specialised. And the distinction in specialism is not only between application types, such as web vs native. Even in the same type of app, there are programmers who can build the whole thing and there are the ones whose expertise is only limited to one part of it, such as user interface.

This distinction is particularly prominent in the world of web apps. There are those who only ever do the front-end. There are those who don't touch anything other than the back-end. There are those who are experts in databases that wouldn't do anything else. And there are also full-stack developers, who are seen as the ones who would be able to tackle all these parts of the software.

However, many people wonder if there is even such thing as a full-stack developer. Technology moves forward at a fast pace; therefore even being a specialist is hard. In the web front-end alone, new libraries and frameworks get released at an incredibly fast rate. So, even in that narrow domain, keeping up with all of the changes is incredibly difficult. So how can somebody keep themselves up to dat with front-end technologies while, at the same time, keep up with the developments in back-end and databases?

The truth is, however, that full stack developers do exist. And they are neither geniuses nor mediocre programmers who have a superficial knowledge of many technologies, but aren't masters in any. Perhaps, some do fall into either of these categories, but this is not how the things are overall.

It's not Capitalism that's the problem

Whenever you watch a news report, you see that the world has many severe problems that cause people to needlessly suffer. Very often, free market, which is commonly referred to as Capitalism, is what is blamed for creating those problems. After all, this is the dominant economic system in the world.

The irony is that, whenever people say that Capitalism is bad, they often do so by posting it on Facebook from their iPhone while having a coffee at Starbucks, none of which would have existed without free market. So, essentially, critics forget about the fact that the economic system that they love to hate is the same system that brought them all their daily comforts and enabled their lifestyle.

Although it is true that a lot human suffering happens under the Capitalist system, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is the Capitalist system that directly causes all of this suffering. Saying that it does is pretty much the same as saying that water is lethal due to the fact that everyone who has ever died used to regularly drink water.

In fact, "water is lethal" statement provides a good example of how manipulative political ideas are pushed. The proponents of a particular idea would first tell you some solid facts that nobody can argue against and then would try to use these facts to express a pseudo-logical conclusion to support their view. As you will see, framing free market as the sole cause of some of the world's problems is one of such pseudo-logical conclusions. In many of such cases, Capitalism per se is not to blame.

The most important skill for 21st century

We are living in the information age. Many traditional industries and jobs associated with them are on the way out. Internet and smart technologies have radically changed how we live and work.

Although technology has improved our lives overall, it also made certain things much more challenging. One of the biggest of these issues is the fact that our attention span has been substantially reduced.

Therefore, if you want to be successful in the 21st century, the most important skill is probably not what you think it is. It is not the knowledge of programming languages. Neither it is the knowledge of online marketing or SEO. Without a doubt, those skills are in demand and are great to have. But they will mean nothing unless you have mastered one particular meta-skill:

The ability to focus for prolonged periods of time

How to think like a hacker

Contrary to the popular belief, hackers are not always the people who breach website security and steal personal data. The word also refers to the software developers who build revolutionary software by putting together some components in such a way that nobody thought of before. This is why when you hear somebody referring to Mark Zuckerberg as a hacker, this doesn't necessarily mean that he is out there to steal your data, as many assume. What it means in the context is that he has built the most successful social media network in the world from his university dorms.

What is more interesting, however, is that the hackers think in a particular way and this way of thinking is not only applicable to technology. It can be applied anywhere. Regardless of who you are and what you do, if you learn to think like a hacker, the quality of your life will improve significantly.

This mode of thinking is not exclusively present in those who are traditionally referred to as hackers. Some of the best scientists, artists and other creative individuals have it too. And, at its base, it is quite simple. It is all about thinking out of the box and not accepting the status quo. This is the core skill that needs to be developed before anything else if one aspires to become a hacker or learn to think like one. This way of thinking is what allows the hackers to use various things for something other than their intended purpose. The rest of the equation, the specialist skills, are much easier to learn.

One human trait that slows down humanity's progress

There is one thing in the IT industry that happens often, yet makes no sense. When a given project is not progressing at the pace it was planned to, quite often this has nothing to do with how efficient the participants of the project are. More often than not, this is due to underestimation of the effort required at the beginning of the project. In such case, unless there are clear indicators that there are other factors affecting the speed of the delivery, there is little that can be done to improve it.

Unfortunately, this is not how some project managers think. In some teams, when certain deadlines aren't met, the measures that are introduced from the above are increase in length and frequency of meetings and the requirement on each team member to write all of their tasks into a weekly, or sometimes even daily, time report. Of course, as stretched as the team members already are, they can now spend even less time doing the actual project work. So do the managers themselves. After all, they are the ones who have to read all of those time reports. After these measures are implemented, the progress usually slows down even further.

The practice is obviously irrational, so why is it so widespread? The answer to this is simple. These seemingly irrational actions are driven by a deeply ingrained human trait:

The irresistible urge to take action when things aren't fully satisfactory, regardless of whether any action is appropriate in a given situation or not

See everything that Facebook and Google know about you

Not very long ago, Facebook has, once again, ended up in the middle of controversy related to personal data of its users. Although many people were outraged, nobody was surprised. After all, it wasn't the first time a global tech giant compromised privacy of those who entrusted their data to it.

But if you do use Facebook, how would you know what the company knows about you? Quite conveniently, the company itself has provided its users with tools that will enable them to do exactly that. So did another tech giant, Google.

Want to know everything that Facebook and Google know about you? If you do, read on. Here is the set of links that will allow you to view or download all of your data. You will probably be surprised.