I received another suspicious text message about Ask Mozoot the other night. The next morning, I checked my AT&T account and there was another $9.99 charge for Ask Mozoot. I called AT&T again and asked what was going on. It turns out that purchase blocking is available for iPhone. The previous customer service rep said it was not available. His misinformation was based on the fact that the blocking service does not work in iTunes, but does block all mobile “purchases,” such as Ask Mozoot. iTunes does not trick you into buying things, so it’s not an issue. I added purchase blocking to my account. Though, it’s taking several calls and several confusing bills. Carriers should make purchase blocking (at least pin validated) default, but that would  cut into their profits (similar to this scheme http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/verizon-how-much-do-you-charge-now/)

My advice: Be proactive and add purchase blocking to your cell account. It’s free for AT&T and I would imagine is for other carriers as well.

Somehow I was signed up for (I use passive voice because I do not recall or know if this was there was an action on my part that precipitated this) a text messaging service called MoZoot. Users text them questions and they answer them; not terribly useful considering I have Google and the full internet available on my phone. Worse still, I never remember
(or at worst never actually did sign up for it) signing up for this service. Unsolicited text messages aside, this service insidiously adds a $9.99 recurring montly charge to your mobile phone bill, until you opt out.

As far as I can tell, the vector of infection (I consider this despicable company not so much a service, but more malware/virus upon my mobile phone) was an unsolicited text message that I merely opened. Granted this could just be a symptom, meaning they got my number elsewhere and just texted to inform me that my phone has now been infected with their “service.” It seems you have to reply with a “stop” text message, otherwise the monthly billing persists, despite never actually using the “service.” Such services should only be opt-in, not opt-out.

It took two months to realize this (thanks to auto-billing), but fortunately AT&T refunded both months of charges. I didn’t lose any money, but what a hassle. There was little information about this online, so I thought I would do this service for others similarly afflicted.

This may be an artifact of an import from SAS, but the Legacy Dialogs and Descriptives treat both variables as if they are Scale. Even though, I was able to get a correct graph by changing the variables to Nominal and back to Scale, I am left just as befuddled how this even happened in the first place. It seems that you may be better off using Excel (or Numbers!) for graphing.

This error really calls into question most analyses I (and others) run in SPSS. Considering that much of the published research in psychology relies on the accuracy of SPSS in reporting statistics, I am very concerned.

Moral of the story: Use SAS or R. Unfortunately, I can’t use SAS (it hasn’t had a Mac version since OS 9). Maybe it is high time to give R a serious look, but the lack of GUI makes for a huge learning curve.

Having done a fair amount of reading on expertise (though it is not my research area), I can say the 10,000 hours figure for expertise attainment is arbitrary and quite problematic. Psychological research generally shuns these magic numbers because they oversimplify reality. I don’t fault Gladwell for wanting to simplify the dizzying complexity of research in this area, but I do take issue with his tendency to make claims that are not warranted from the research, yet claiming support from the research. This is quite disingenuous for someone with such clout. More on Gladwell, later…

The 10,000 hours figure does not coincide with the cognitive psychology research into expertise. The rule of thumb is that 10 years of effortful practice is needed for expertise. I will stress that this rule of thumb (or average tendency) is not the same as a magic number because there is considerable variance in human behavior contributed by existing experience (e.g., expertise in another area) and natural ability, among other things. I have played saxophone for over 10 years, but I do not have the natural ability and have not put forth effortful practice enough to become an expert. Thus, I am still a dilettante after easily 10,000 hours playing and 10 years of practice. Others have become expert saxophonists in less time. That does not change that the average tendency is still about 10 years.

The figure of 10,000 hours does not match up with the 10 year standard supported by the research. Say someone devotes 40 hours a week to practice (as if it were a full time job) that comes out to 4.8 years. Devoting 30 hours a week comes out to 6.4 years. Neither of these are reasonably close to 10 years. I’m not saying that it is impossible to achieve expertise in less than 10 years, but it is the average amount of time needed.

Lest you think Mr. Gruber believes this figure: when I sent a version of this post, he replied with a quote from Merlin Mann: “If I were half as smart as Malcolm Gladwell, I’d already have statistics and a clever name for my theory that he’s mostly full of shit.” (from here).