Peter Gabriel – Music from the Film Birdy This was Gabriel’s first soundtrack, and as such the predecessor to the Passion soundtrack. It’s atmospheric but contains more typically western melodies and song structure than Passion. It’s something I must be in the mood for.

The Cure – Fascination Street 12″ Contains a nice remix of Fascination Street plus Babble and Out Of Mind, both of which are exclusive to this record.

The Cure – The Walk six cut LP I love this song and the cover art. The record is a great little collection of Cure tracks: The Upstairs Room, Just One Kiss, The Dream, The Walk, La Ment and Let’s Go To Bed.

Lard – The Last  Temptation of Reid There was a time when Al Jourgensen (billed as “Alien Jourgensen” on this record) was way out of control with the side projects. Lard was one of my favorites. With Al, Paul Barker, Jeff Ward and Jello Biafra on vocals, how could you go wrong? I love that if you look at the cover art very closely, you’ll see “OPEN WIDE” in the crane’s jaws.

Ministry – With Sympathy You might think that A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste represents Ministry’s “dark days,” but you’re wrong, my friend. Before Ministry went industrial, they were a Depeche Mode-esqe new wave pop duo. Oh, Al. Such dark days. “Work For Love” is catchy none the less.

Ministry – For Love 12″ I told you “For Love” was catchy! I went out and bought the 12″. Contains two remixes.

Ministry – Everyday (Is Halloween) 12“. Contains two tracks: Everyday (Is Halloween) and All Day. I bought it for the former.

Ministry – I Wanted To Tell Her 12″. Another gem from pre-industrial Ministry. Check out that picture of Al. Oh, my.

Bruce Springsteen – Nebraska In my top two Springsteen albums (The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle sits at number one). Bruce recorded this himself on a four-track, and listening to it on vinyl does it justice. A truly stellar album.

New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle 12″. Two remixes of a killer song.

Nine Inch Nails: Happiness in Slavery advance copy – I begged this off of a DJ in Boston. It wasn’t easy, but it worked. Contains 4 remixes of Happiness. I love this one.

Nitzer Ebb  - I Give To You 12″ I got this one in Philadelphia. After waiting for what seemed like an age for a new Nitzer Ebb album, this track offered a look into what that new album would be.

Nitzer Ebb – Isn’t It Funny How Your Body Works 12″ Super remixes of Isn’t It Funny. I can remember listening to this on my Walkman at 2AM while walking home from Cambridge. Ah, memories.

Nitzer Ebb: Warsaw Ghetto 12″ Here’s one of my absolute favorites. It contains just two epic remixes: Warsaw Ghetto and So Bright So Strong. Just as great as the music is the packaging. Check out the statement on the back as well as the detail on the sleeve (all pictured below). You don’t get that with iTunes LP, folks. Yes, it’s neat to look at pretty pictures in HD with your Apple TV, but that experience does not compare to holding this stuff in your hands, smelling the aging paper and looking at the printed sleeves. Take that, technology.

Various artists: Party Party motion picture soundtrack – Go ahead, laugh. I’ve never seen this stupid movie and I bought the record for Sting’s cover of Need Your Love So Bad. It was worth it.

Prefab Sprout – From Langley Park to Memphis Whatever happend to this band? I got this album and then they seemed to disappear. It’s one of my favorites. The Golden Calf and The Venus of the Soup Kitchen are not to be missed.

Prince – Purple Rain ‘Nuff said.

Squeeze – Singles 12 killer tracks from a great band.

Meat Beat Manifesto – Storm the Studio Another great album with killer art (pictures follow). Also, notice the super-cool Wax Trax mail order catalog that was included. Remember mail order? Remember Wax Trax? I love this record.

Yes, that’s Boston’s John Hancock building.

And that’s my collection of wax. What have you got?

–

This post is going to be a little “Inside Baseball,” so bear with me. Time and again I hear people, mostly parents, use “negative reinforcement” and “punishment” synonymously. I hold my tongue. I sit idly by.

I can’t anymore.

They are not the same. At long last, here is the difference between positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment.

Prior to my life as a professional nerd, I was a special ed. teacher. I spent over 10 years in a classroom of kids with autism and other developmental delays. I also have a scar on my right shin that will bear witness to those days. My classroom was a part of a residential school that implemented the Lovaas Method of Applied Behavior Analysis. Ole Ivar Lovaas and B.F. Skinner were our Steve Jobs and Jonny Ive. I even met Dr. Lovaas once. Shook his hand. Yeah, it was cool.

During my tenure as a teacher and ill-fated stint as a graduate student (dropped out 9 credits short of my M.Ed. in Intensive Special Needs. My parents are proud), I learned a thing or two about Behaviorism. Its most basic tenet is the concept of positive reinforcement.

Positive Reinforcement

What is positive reinforcement? If someone put this question to you, how would you answer? You might say an edible treat, or maybe a paycheck. Perhaps public, social praise (“Good job with the new TPS reports”) or nookie from your spouse. All of these can be examples of reinforcers if they meet the criteria of the actual definition:

Positive reinforcement is anything that increases the likelihood that a behavior will be preformed in the future.

In other words, you perform a behavior and are immediately given access to something desirable as a consequence. Making the connection between the two, you’re likely to perform that behavior again in hopes of receiving that same special something.

Here are a few concrete examples. First, a Seaworld employee wants to train a seal to “shake hands” with its flipper. The trainer knows that the seal loves to eat smelts. ¹ During training, the seal is given a smelt whenever it extends its flipper to shake the trainer’s hand. Eventually it figures out what’s going on and will whip out that flipper to receive a smelt all on its own.

Of course, the technique isn’t limited to marine life. Many of us work 40 hours a week to receive a paycheck. My kids make their beds and I kiss them and tell them what a great job they’ve done. They enjoy the praise and affection from dad, so they’re likely to clean up again to get more kissie face.

Negative Reinforcement

Here’s where we get into trouble. Many believe that negative reinforcement, being “negative,” must be the opposite of its counterpart, positive reinforcement. And what’s the opposite of receiving something good? Why, receiving someting bad, right?

Wrong.

Here’s the definition of negative reinforcement:

Negative reinforcement is the removal of an aversive stimulus.

In other words, you perform a behavior and consequently, something in the environment that you just can’t stand is taken away.

Here’s a concrete example. Imagine a young mom in a grocery store with a 2-year-old. It’s past lunch time, and Jr. is a little cranky. At the checkout line, he notices the rack of candy that’s conveniently placed at toddler eye-level ². He asks mom for a candy bar.

She says no. He asks again. She refuses again. Jr. starts to whine, then squirm, then shout and finally noisily demand a candy bar. He’s wailing, red-faced, and the other shoppers have turned around to look. Finally, the mother breaks down and gives it to him. Jr. shuts up. He’s quiet.

In this scenario, mom is negatively reinforced by the presentation of the candy bar because it made the aversive stimulus — Jr.’s noisy, embarrassing fit — stop ³.

Here’s another example. Let’s say there’s a man who owns a real jalopy of  a car. One day he notices  a strange sound underneath the dashboard. He gives it a whack and the sound goes away. What do you think he’ll do the next time the sound returns? That’s right, he’ll give that dashboard a good, hard punch.

Punishment

This one is easy.

Punishment is the application of an aversive stimulus.

For example, when you vandalize a car in Singapore, you get caned. Unfortunately, many people confuse punishment with negative reinforcement. But now you, dear reader, finally enlightened, will no longer make this error. If you stuck with this post all the way through, good job! Well done! Thank you! There’s your positive reinforcement for the day.

Much like the driver approaching a stoplight, I must survey the obstacles before me. The driver must determine which vehicle will hit the gas the quickest once the light turns green, and who’s busy texting, daydreaming or filling out GED forms.

As I approach the row of cashiers, it’s imperative that I figure out who’s going to give me change the right way. Yes, there’s a right way and a wrong way. First, here’s a description of the latter.

If I pay you with cash, dear cashier, chances are good that I’ll receive both bills and coins in return. When you hand them to me, do not stack the coins on top of the bills like you’re David Blane. Why? Because I am not David Blane, and performing a street magic-worthy balancing act as I try to shuttle 2 dollars and 78 cents into my pocket while holding a bag of groceries is not my idea of a good time.

Instead, here’s what I’d like you to do. First, put the coins into my hand. Then, allow me the fraction of a second it takes to curl my third, fourth and fifth fingers around the coins before placing the bills between my extended index finger and thumb. I guarantee you the impatient-looking woman behind me who seems like she’ll fly into a violent rage if she can’t pay for her Redbook RIGHT NOW OH MY GOD RIGHT NOW will be fine.

Now, go off and tell your co-workers this is how it’s to be done. If you don’t, I’ll be forced to use those automated checkout robots, hastening the demise of your job.

This site will become a hub for my work on the web, and a repository for things I want to discuss that A.) are not about Apple and B.) require more than 140 characters. For Apple-y goodness, check 52 Tiger.

Thanks.

• Comment management is very time consuming.
• The vast majority of comments detract from the experience of reading a blog.

Management

If all I had to do was respond to constructive comments, I’d keep them enabled. However, when I accepted comments, I spent most of my time repelling spam, adding IPs to blacklists and hitting the delete button. By the way, that’s a war than can never be won. Therefore, it’s a waste of time. As WOPR will tell you, “The only winning move is not to play.”

Trolls

I deal with hundreds of comments per day at TUAW. Many of them are left by thoughtful readers. Many are not. While Marco contends that comments follow a many-to-one model (many commenters converse with one blog author), I say comments are many-to-many. As any database designer will tell you, that’s a no-no.

Comments quickly devolve into an off-topic discussion among the commenters, of which the original post’s author is omitted. That discussion too often mimics the vibe of a junior high school playground. No one is better for it and the blog owner is forced to either ignore it, leaving a mess on their blog, or play referee. I don’t have time for that.

If you want to respond to something I’ve written, do so via email or Twitter. Better yet, write a post on your own blog. For now, comments are closed.

I’m a tech guy — a former IT Director — yet I have no idea what this dialog box means.

“You can see the work that went into every inch of [iPhone 4], the obsession Apple has with coming as close to perfection as they can. This is what I love about them–they never settle, and never accept something as good enough. Nothing is good enough for them, and they work relentlessly in the pursuit of perfection. There is little more admirable than that.”

I’ll add to that Apple’s incredible patience. Of course their designers knew that iPhone customers have wanted, for example, a front-facing camera for years. But they held back until they identified the absolute, undeniably best way to pull it off. Even if it meant years of public moaning and complaining. They’d rather take flack than put their name on a solution that isn’t perfect. That’s what I admire. Thoughtful patience.