As winter weather is likely to affect many this Christmas season, my handsome friends at the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) need your help. The Precipitation Identification Near the Ground (PING)¹ project compares radar data with your observations. The goal is to improve precipitation detection algorithms used in radars.

If you experience any winter precipitation during the upcoming days, whether it be rain, hail, freezing rain, snow, or the tears of my fellow Dallas Cowboys fans, report it and help out the PING project.

It is simple - you needn’t be an expert. Just head over to the their website, or download the app for iOS or Android. Fill out the easy forms and then you are done.

The project is doing some really cool work. Help them out if possible. You can rest easy knowing that you contributed to science - NSSL would appreciate your efforts.

Cabel Sasser:

Somewhere in Portland, there’s a very old building, and that very old building has a very, very old basement. An incredible basement, a video-game-level basement, a set-decorator’s dream basement.

Sasser tells the story of this basement, in part, through stunning photos. Check it out.

Lauren Davis, io9, with a touching story of nerd love:

This particular fellow and his lady friend both happen to be biologists, so he decided to let his polymerase chain reaction products do the talking, giving his girlfriend a big surprise when she imaged his electrophoresis gel.

Dave Pell on always being connected:

I need to turn off once in awhile. I work with people all over the world, so there’s always someone online who’s ready to collaborate. My email inbox has become so cluttered that I spend more time managing it than the rest of my life. I’m distracted all the time. I’m never fully present when I’m with my family. Even when I know I should be taking a break, I feel the vibrating phone in my pocket and I get sucked back in.

Pell described me exactly. He suggests one idea to disconnect that I want to do more often - long, quiet walks. Whenever I travel overseas, I walk everywhere. I always find it a great exercise to live in my head and reset any worries. I need to do that more often at home.

John Branch, reporting for The New York Times:

The very thing the 16 skiers and snowboarders had sought — fresh, soft snow — instantly became the enemy. Somewhere above, a pristine meadow cracked in the shape of a lightning bolt, slicing a slab nearly 200 feet across and 3 feet deep. Gravity did the rest.

Beyond the gripping story, this article is one of the best examples of how the web can be exploited to enhance the experience for readers. And this piece really is an experience - you’ll be enthralled. I hope this encourages companies to extend online news beyond merely transferring text from paper to text on screen.

Asawin Suebsaeng, writing for Mother Jones:

Lately, you’ve probably heard rumors that the world will end on December 21, 2012. You’ve probably brushed them aside as piffle on par with theories about Barack Obama being a lizard overlord. Yet, polling data shows that 12 percent of Americans believe the end is indeed upon us, while 14 percent of people worldwide think Earth will be a goner in their lifetime.

After reading Suebsaeng’s exhaustive guide, introduce yourself to some of the people who comprise the 14% of worldwide believers.

As the end of the world is once again nigh, The Economist’s daily chart takes a look at previous doomsday predictions:

IT IS not only wild-eyed prognosticators, in lonely towers with an owl for company, who predict the exact date of the end of the world. It has been marked in the diaries of popes, preachers and reformers. It has shivered the blood of a navigator nearing the edge of the globe, a delicate painter of the rites of spring, a serial killer, and the great brooding scientist who uncovered the secrets of gravity and light.

I’m sure this prediction is right, though.¹

Last week I completed a Ph.D. in meteorology. Professor Matt Might puts the degree in perspective:

Every fall, I explain to a fresh batch of Ph.D. students what a Ph.D. is.

It’s hard to describe it in words.

So, I use pictures.

Read below for the illustrated guide to a Ph.D.

Yesterday, I posted about Instagram’s updated Terms of Use and the rage it created around the internet. It wasn’t my intent to complain:

Frankly, I’m not sure why this is surprising to anyone

I do, however, deserve a bit of ridicule for my last statement in the article (more on that later):

I will probably cancel my Instagram account since I do not agree to those terms. I will instead use Flickr Pro. The new app is really good and I can pay for an ad-free experience.

Matt Gemmell aptly summed it today:

Instagram: <decides to sell its customers and their data to advertisers>

Users: <complain about it on _Twitter_>

Specifically, let’s check out Twitter’s Terms of Use:

You agree that this license includes the right for Twitter to provide, promote, and improve the Services and to make Content submitted to or through the Services available to other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with Twitter for the syndication, broadcast, distribution or publication of such Content on other media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such Content use.

Such additional uses by Twitter, or other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with Twitter, may be made with no compensation paid to you with respect to the Content that you submit, post, transmit or otherwise make available through the Services.

and Privacy Policy:

We may use and store information about your location to provide features of our Services, such as Tweeting with your location, and to improve and customize the Services, for example, with more relevant content like local trends, stories, ads, and suggestions for people to follow.

Translation: Anything you post to Twitter can be used by advertisers, including your location information. You will receive no compensation for their use.

Let’s read Google’s Terms of Use:

When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones.

and Privacy Policy:

We use the information we collect from all of our services to provide, maintain, protect and improve them, to develop new ones, and to protect Google and our users. We also use this information to offer you tailored content – like giving you more relevant search results and ads.

Translation: Anything you post to Google can be used by advertisers, including your location information. You will receive no compensation for their use.

Similarly, here are Facebook’s Terms of Use:

You can use your privacy settings to limit how your name and profile picture may be associated with commercial, sponsored, or related content (such as a brand you like) served or enhanced by us. You give us permission to use your name and profile picture in connection with that content, subject to the limits you place.

We do not give your content or information to advertisers without your consent.

Translation: Assuming your privacy settings allow it, anything you post to Facebook can be used by advertisers, including your location information. You will receive no compensation for their use.

To recap, the new terms from Instagram are the exact same as those used by Twitter, Google, and Facebook. Perhaps the hangup with the Instagram news was their directness (emphasis mine):

you agree that a business or other entity may pay us

The other three companies I referenced don’t describe their relationship with advertisers as clearly as Instagram, but the terms are the same. So if you want to quit Instagram over their new Terms of Use, you should equally want to leave Twitter, Google, or Facebook. Which leads me back to the ridicule I deserve.

I spoke heatedly and without proper consideration of the other services I use when mentioning the possibility of quitting Instagram in favor of Flickr Pro. I do believe Flickr is nice and I love the ad-free environment that is offered. Those are great reasons to quit Instagram. However, by using “I do not agree to those terms” as a reason to quit, I opened myself up to deserved criticism.

After a day of reflection, I realize I am no more likely to quit Instagram than I am Twitter. So while I was clear that such policies are not surprising, I wasn’t clear how I approached them. My apologies.

The main point stands: When you pay for something, that something is the product. When you don’t pay for something, you are the product.

The question is, are you willing to be the product?

Today, people on Twitter were abuzz about Instagram’s updated Terms of Use. Specifically, this clause:

2. Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising revenue. To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.

Frankly, I’m not sure why this is surprising to anyone, but we’ll get to that in a minute. First, let’s break down the clause.

Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising revenue.

Translation: We, Facebook, paid an ass-ton for a service with no business model because it had a bunch of users and we sucked at mobile. It turns out that our investors expect to make money. Accordingly, all of the Service will be paid for by advertisements since we aren’t creative enough to devise another solution.

To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions

Translation: We wanted to see if we could actually write “interesting” to describe advertisements without you laughing at us.

you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.

Translation: Since we are not creative and must rely on ad revenue, you need to become the product for our customers. The problem is that most of your photos suck - we’re looking at those of you who post every damn piece of uninteresting food you eat or every non-unique thing your smelly animal does.¹ Just in case you do post something that looks decent, we’re going to need to use it to promote our site. If your photos do stink, worry not, you are still valuable. Advertisers care about what you are interested in and where you are located. Since we don’t want to seem creepy like your Uncle Lou, we will use jargon like “metadata” in place of terms like “demographic information” or “your location”. Unfortunately, since you are the product, we can’t pay you. You see, that would hurt our efforts to make money.

Now that we understand what the terms say, can you understand why this is nothing new? Instagram is the perfect example of today’s classic startup revenue model:

• Person has a cool idea
• Person secures funding from investors to help make the idea real
• Person wants as many people to use the product as possible, so the service is made free
• Person is happy about launching product and will worry about making money later
• Service is popular and the user-base explodes
• The more people use the service, the more money the company loses
• Investors are happy about the service’s success and now want to make a return on their investment
• Person informs them he doesn’t have a business model yet
• Investors turn up the heat and “encourage” the Person to find one
• With a lack of ideas and a desire to make money, the Person either defaults to an uncreative ad revenue system, or sells the company to a larger company who will then default to an uncreative ad revenue system
• The company owners are now the advertisers’ biotch
• Users go from using the product to being the product

Here’s the thing: If you desire any expectation of privacy or sole ownership of the things you create, you must pay for the service or product you used to make them. That establishes a direct relationship between you and the service provider. When you choose to use a service at no cost, there is no direct relationship and you will instead be subject to the terms agreed upon by the parties that do have such a relationship - namely the service provider and the advertisers.

When you pay for something, that something is the product. When you don’t pay for something, you are the product.

I will probably cancel my Instagram account since I do not agree to those terms. I will instead use Flickr Pro. The new app is really good and I can pay for an ad-free experience.