2013

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“They’re Fed Up With Drinking White Wine And Riding Jet Skis”

September 29, 2013 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

Racing yachts is fine, if that’s all you can afford. I won’t laugh at you–not aloud anyhow. But it’s submersibles–lavish submarines–that are really all the rage these days among the non-99%. From Tara Patel at Bloomberg:

“Graham Hawkes, inventor of the ‘underwater plane,’ made his debut at the Monaco Yacht Show this week in a bid to entice billionaire boat owners to take the plunge.

‘This is literally like flying underwater,’ Hawkes, a U.K.-born ocean engineer who has spent decades designing cutting-edge diving suits and submarines, said in an interview. ‘Once you’ve done that, you don’t want to do anything else.’

Hawkes is one of four submarine vendors who for the first time are all at the Monaco show — one of the world’s top yacht gatherings — to display multimillion-dollar high-tech wizardry they say makes perfect accessories for the wealthy.

U-Boat Worx, Triton Submarines LLC and Seamagine Hydrospace Corporation, along with Hawkes Ocean Technologies are betting the superrich will want to go beyond cruising on luxury boats worth tens of millions of dollars. They see annual sales of private, small luxury submarines going double-digit over the coming decade from a few now.

As the yacht size has stretched — this year saw the launch of a record-holding 590-footer called the Azzam — so has the list of distractions onboard. Soaking in a jacuzzi, shooting hoops on a floating court or playing a baby grand Steinway piano no longer cut it.

‘There is a change in attitude of super-yacht owners,’ said Bert Houtman, founder and chairman of the Netherlands-based U-Boat Worx, surveying two of his submarine models on display quai-side in Monaco. ‘They’re fed up with drinking white wine and riding jet skis so they’re looking for another thrill.'”

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“Chances Of Being Killed In A Mass Killing Are Probably No Greater Than Being Struck By Lightning”

September 29, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

There are modern problems: precious time wasted tweeting, people unduly worried about the casting of Batman, disgusting fast-food meals for children, a lack of privacy, etc. But, as hard as it might be to believe, we’ve never been safer or smarter. From Jesse Washington at AP:

“Global terrorism deaths as defined by the consortium reached almost 11,000 in 1984, then dipped before approaching 11,000 again in 1997. Deaths fell once more before rising in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. There were 3,144 killings in 2003, then 12,761 in 2007. In 2012, after the consortium made its data collection more comprehensive, it counted 15,514 deaths from terrorism — mostly in about 10 countries.

The Nairobi attack, by the fanatic Somali Islamic group al-Shabab, stood out. It touched points across the globe, killing at least 60 civilians from countries including Britain, France, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, Peru, India, Ghana, South Africa and China. Five Americans were among the nearly 200 wounded.

Al-Shabab is ‘a threat to the continent of Africa and the world at large,’ Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said.

That attack came five days after a man who heard voices brought a shotgun through Navy Yard security and killed 12 people. It was the latest in a series of mass shootings, which are defined as killing four or more people: the December massacre of 26 in Newtown; 12 slain in a Colorado movie theater; other 2012 killings at a café, temple, sauna, colleges.

‘What troubles us so deeply as we gather here today is how this senseless violence that took place here in the Navy Yard echoes other recent tragedies,’ President Barack Obama said at a memorial service.

That’s not to mention the narrowly averted disasters: a man arrested this week on a charge he planned to shoot up a Salt Lake City mall; a gunman last month who was talked into laying down his weapon after invading a Georgia school.

Yet chances of being killed in a mass killing are probably no greater than being struck by lightning, according to Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass killings in America.” 

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“I Study When They Remember Things That Didn’t Happen”

September 28, 2013 in Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

I guarantee you at least one thing that you believe occurred in your life didn’t happen. Or it didn’t happen close to the way you think it did or when. Maybe it’s a piece of a rationalization or dust from a dream that you came to accept as the real thing. And the more times you recall it, the more it becomes a part of your memory’s bedrock, the more “real” it seems. Usually these small malfunctions mean little. But sometimes they can have profound effects.

Elizabeth Loftus, who studies false memories, in a recent TED address.

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A Brief Note From 1897 About Flame Broiling

September 28, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the October 13, 1897 New York Times:

“The manager of Shanley’s restaurant, at 1,476 Broadway, informed his patrons a 7 o’clock last night that the place was on fire, but that there was no danger. He then told the leader of the orchestra what was the matter, and instructed him to play the liveliest air in his repertory. After that the police were informed, and finally the Fire Department.

The arrival of the fireman was hailed with a syncopated arrangement from the orchestra of the appropriate melody, ‘There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.’ The guests accepted the situation and remained at their tables, while the men rushed in with hose and picks.

The fire was discovered over the boiler room, where it had been started by the crossing of electric wires. It was extinguished with a loss of about $1,500. Thomas J. Shanley remained in the restaurant while the smoke filled the place and assured the men and women at the tables that they could eat their dinners and depend on him to keep them posted as to the fire’s progress.”

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“I Can’t Get No…No, No, No”

September 28, 2013 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Saturday Night Live begins its 39th season tonight, and if I had to consider every musical performance in the show’s history, I would vote for Devo’s cover of “Satisfaction” on the October 14, 1979 episode as the best of all. Performed just a week after the Rolling Stones was the program’s musical guest, this reimagination did for the head what Michael Jackson’s Motown 25 showstopper later did for the feet: It was moonwalking with the brain. They took the soul and put it into the machine.

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This Week’s Afflictor Keyphrase Searches

September 28, 2013 in Misc. | Permalink

 

10 search-engine keyphrases bringing traffic to Afflictor this week:

  1. salesman maysles documentary 1968
  2. what will people smuggle in the future?
  3. futuristic predictions about los angeles
  4. pocket reading machine from 1930
  5. 20 minute oral sex scene
  6. hive behavior in insects replicated in humans
  7. koch brothers faux old west town
  8. bell labs computer ballet from 1965
  9. plan to power new york city without fossil fuels by 2030
  10. marvin minsky on telepresence

Highlights From Yet Another Week Of Afflictor

September 28, 2013 in Misc. | Permalink

Afflictor: Belieiving that Canadian weirdo Ted Cruz

Afflictor: Believing Canadian weirdo Ted Cruz may have spent too much time on his feet this week.

My dogs are barking.

My dogs are barking.

too bad you don't have Obamacare, Fatty.

Too bad you don’t have Obamacare, Fatty.

Let's take them both just to be sure.

Let’s take an arm, too. Just because we can.

  • Junot Diaz recommends a few short-story collections.
  • Jack Shafer suggests ESPN become a hard-news benefactor.
  • Robots can fool us into loving them.
  • A brief note from 1901 about boaters.

“Nothing’s Been Done About That Story, It’s One Big Lie, Not One Word Of It Is True”

September 27, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

Seymour Hersh doesn’t buy the official line about the raid that erased Osama bin Laden–or much else the media says these days. He tears into his industry in discussion with Lisa O’Carroll of the Guardian. The opening:

“Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider. 

It doesn’t take much to fire up Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s and who was once described by the Republican party as ‘the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist.’

He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth. 

Don’t even get him started on the New York Times which, he says, spends ‘so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would’ – or the death of Osama bin Laden. ‘Nothing’s been done about that story, it’s one big lie, not one word of it is true,’ he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011. 

Hersh is writing a book about national security and has devoted a chapter to the bin Laden killing. He says a recent report put out by an ‘independent’ Pakistani commission about life in the Abottabad compound in which Bin Laden was holed up would not stand up to scrutiny. ‘The Pakistanis put out a report, don’t get me going on it. Let’s put it this way, it was done with considerable American input. It’s a bullshit report,’ he says hinting of revelations to come in his book.

The Obama administration lies systematically, he claims, yet none of the leviathans of American media, the TV networks or big print titles, challenge him.

 ‘It’s pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama],’ he declares in an interview with the Guardian.”

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“32 Percent Say It’s Challenging Or Frustrating To Go Online”

September 27, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

It seems impossible that a considerable number of Americans are willing and able to avoid the Internet, but it’s true. A breakdown of why they shun the dominant media of our time, from Greg Sterling of Marketing Land:

“In terms of the reasons for not going online, Pew found the following:

  • 34 percent believe the Internet isn’t relevant to their lives; they have no interest or need
  • 32 percent say it’s challenging or frustrating to go online; some of these people are also afraid of spam, spyware, and hackers’
  • 19 percent don’t want or can’t afford to pay for a computer and the associated access cost
  • 7 percent ‘cited a physical lack of availability or access to the Internet’

Some of these non-Internet users (44 percent) have asked family/friends to go online for them. Another group (23 percent) live in households where the Internet is available. And another contingent (14 percent) are ex-Internet users.

Most of these non-users are quite content to remain offline, with only 8 percent saying they would like to go online or use email. What that then suggests is that US Internet penetration has reached almost all of the ‘addressable market.'”

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“It’s Not A Zero-Sum Game”

September 27, 2013 in Excerpts, Film, Politics, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

Economist Robert Reich, small but perky like a Tina Fey tit, just did an Ask Me Anything at Reddit to promote his new documentary, Inequality for All. He makes the comment that “the rich have done the best when everyone else is doing well.” That’s historically true, but have the rich ever done better than they’re doing now? (I’m talking about the super-rich, of course.) What’s really bad for most has been great for them. A few exchanges follow.

_________________________

Question:

Professor Reich, you are a noted supporter of free trade and outsourcing. From a neoliberal economics perspective, these policies are justifiable, but don’t they dramatically undermine the bargaining power of the American working class?

Robert Reich:

Not if they’re done correctly. For example, our trade treaties should require that our trading partners have a minimum wage that’s half their nations’ median wage (and we should do the same) — thereby helping ensure that the benefits of trade are spread widely.

_________________________

Question:

You appear to be a strong advocate for growing the economy as a way to pay off America’s debt obligations. What are your thoughts on the idea that economic growth is ultimately unsustainable, given the accelerated depletion of key natural resources that would be required to fuel such growth?

Robert Reich:

Growth isn’t the problem. It’s what the growth is used for. Rich economies have healthier environments than poor economies in large part because they can afford to protect their environments. Productivity gains — through invention and innovation — will enable us to save more energy in the future. But we need a carbon tax to get incentives right.

_________________________

Question:

Realistically, what are some policies that could pass this Congress that would be good for the country. We hear so much about what wouldn’t pass, but where is there bipartisanship. I’d love your input, Professor.

Robert Reich: 

I think the Democrats should introduce a bill to raise the minimum wage to at least $10.50/hour — which is what it would be if the 1968 minimum wage had just kept up with inflation. The vast majority of Americans agree. Many Republicans would come along. It would be a worthy fight.

_________________________

Question:

Professor Reich, I am a big fan and looking forward to seeing the film. However, I believe the rich & powerful in this country actively DO NOT want a successful middle class in the U.S., because that means the laborers have too much power. (Also a reason why they’re against Obamacare – health insurance binds people to jobs they hate.) As it is now, employees are scared to ask for raises and demand better working conditions. Multinationals can do better selling to China, India, Brazil etc. What can we do about this situation?

Robert Reich:

Look at American history and you’ll see that the rich have done the best when everyone else is doing well. Today’s rich would do far better with a smaller share of a rapidly-growing economy (growing because the middle class and poor had a larger share) than their currently large share of an economy that’s barely growing at all. It’s not a zero-sum game.•

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Today New York City Smells Like:

September 27, 2013 in Humor, Misc. | Permalink

Cuckoldry in the ICU.

 

Let's go, baby.

Let’s go, baby.

How can we? My husband's hogging up the bed.

How? My husband’s hogging the bed.

How about a three-way?

Move it, Fatty. I gotta operate.

You got it, Fatty. I’m ready to operate.

I hate you, Obamacare.

I hate you, Obamacare.

“Clean Water May Be The Biggest Lifesaver In History”

September 27, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From “Why Are You Not Dead Yet?” Laura Helmuth’s recent Slate article examining how the American lifespan doubled in the last century and a half:

“How did we go from the miseries of the past to our current expectation of long and healthy lives? ‘Most people credit medical advances,’ says David Jones, a medical historian at Harvard—’but most historians would not.’ One problem is the timing. Most of the effective medical treatments we recognize as saving our lives today have been available only since World War II: antibiotics, chemotherapy, drugs to treat high blood pressure. But the steepest increase in life expectancy occurred from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s. Even some dramatically successful medical treatments such as insulin for diabetics have kept individual people alive—send in those #NotDeadYet stories!—but haven’t necessarily had a population-level impact on average lifespan. We’ll examine the second half of the 20th century in a later story, but for now let’s look at the bigger early drivers of the doubled lifespan.

The credit largely goes to a wide range of public health advances, broadly defined, some of which were explicitly aimed at preventing disease, others of which did so only incidentally. ‘There was a whole suite of things that occurred simultaneously,’ says S. Jay Olshansky, a longevity researcher at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Mathematically, the interventions that saved infants and children from dying of communicable disease had the greatest impact on lifespan. (During a particularly awful plague in Europe, James Riley points out in Rising Life Expectancy: A Global History, the average life expectancy could temporarily drop by five years.) And until the early 20th century, the most common age of death was in infancy.

Clean water may be the biggest lifesaver in history.”

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“More Than 40,000 People Adopted Hilda’s Number”

September 27, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

A brief anecdote from Adrianne Jeffries at the Verge about how Social Security numbers, which were not actually intended to be national ID numbers, were misused and confused from the start:

“Social Security numbers were poorly understood from the beginning. In 1938, a leather factory in Lockport, New York attempted to capitalize on the excitement around the country’s newly-formed social insurance program by tucking duplicate Social Security cards into its wallets. Company vice president and treasurer Douglas Patterson thought it would be cute to use the actual Social Security number of his secretary, Hilda Schrader Whitcher.

Real Social Security cards had just begun circulating the year before, so many Americans were confused. Even though the display card was marked ‘specimen’ and sold at Woolworth’s, more than 40,000 people adopted Hilda’s number as their own. According to the Social Security Administration, no fewer than 12 people were still using their Woolworth’s-issued SSN in 1977.”

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“Maybe The Human Eye Can’t Do Better”

September 26, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports | Permalink

I’ve said before that I favor computers calling balls and strikes in baseball as soon as that becomes viable. A human error can decide the outcome of a game, but it should be a miscue by a player, not an official. Until the system is automated, umpires should be paid much better than starvation wages in the minor leagues, which is the case now. With no guarantee of ever making it and no real salary, it’s hard to attract and keep the best. That leads to the most stubborn people, not the most qualified ones, ending up in the majors. That’s why you see so many argumentative umps in the bigs.

From “Five Important Issues for Next Commish.” by David Schoenfield at ESPN:

“Instant replay and quality of umpiring 

We finally get expanded replay next season, so that should help resolve some of the controversial and blown calls. It remains to be seen how effective and efficient the system will be, but it can be adjusted as necessary. Just as importantly, the new commissioner has to work to improve consistency of ball/strike calls and reduce the episodes of ump rage. 

Right now, the best umps (Eric Cooper, Chad Fairchild, Phil Cuzzi) get about 90 percent of ball/strike calls correct, according to our pitch data; the worst umps (Wally Bell, Tim Welke, Kerwin Danley, Jerry Meals) are at 86 percent. That difference may not seem like a lot, but that’s a spread of 10 incorrect calls per 250 pitches. Even a 90 percent correct rate means thebest umps are missing about 25 to 30 ball/strike calls a game. Maybe the human eye can’t do better, but MLB needs to pay its umpire better, and in particular pay minor league umpires a living wage, so you can recruit from a wider field of candidates.”

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“He Is An Artist Who Creates His Mystic And Original Work”

September 26, 2013 in Excerpts, Film | Permalink

Michelangelo Antonioni was great at many things, but he never filmed sex or dance convincingly. Why was that? Self-consciousness? Guilt? In 1970, at the time of his remarkably infamous film, Zabriskie Point, the director was given the cover treatment by Look. An excerpt from the article:

“When Blow-Up became a money-maker in the U.S., Antonioni had a prompt invitation from MGM to do a film here. Partly because of Antonioni’s temperamental reputation, MGM officials kept their distance. He went to the Chicago convention (where he was Maced), SDS meetings and the Free Church at Berkeley, arousing suspicions in some vigilant quarters that he might be going to emphasize the trouble spots of America. MGM still claims it doesn’t know what Zabriskie Point, an expensive production, is all about.

Antonioni worked on his script with two young American writers, Sam Shepard and Fred Gardner. No one was permitted to discuss the ever-changing plot (‘political events go by too fast for the cinema to keep up’). His company never knew where they would work the following day. Press agents and crew members, unused to his impromptu methods, were fired.

‘Our relationship was purely platonic,’ Mark Frechette says of the director, because Antonioni (politely embarrassed by Mark’s ardor for a ‘spiritual revolution’) never discussed with him the character he was playing, although he spent hours with Daria [Halprin]. Rangers at Death Valley National Monument clashed with hippie members of the Open Theatre during filming of a love-in. College militants didn’t trust Antonioni and suspected he was exploiting them.

So it went. No matter what he did, Antonioni provoked resentment. His maverick methods hark back to the times of I-am-the-boss directors D. W. Griffith and Josef von Sternberg. He is an artist who creates his mystic and original work in absolute control of what he wants, and to hell with busybodies and gossips who don’t understand. Long before this point in his career, he had been bruised by censorship of church and state in Europe. A tense man with a nervous facial tic, Antonioni has become superstitious, suspicious and easily hurt.

Within the shell of his absorption in his work, he is genuinely surprised that some people don’t ‘like’ him. He ‘likes’ Americans and is amused at himself for thinking them a much happier people than he expected. At his return to Rome, he announced that his fellow Italians were unbelievably provincial compared to Americans and were still vainly arguing problems that Americans had resolved 50 years ago.

‘America has changed me,’ he says. ‘I am now a much less private person, more open, prepared to say more. I have even changed my view of sexual love. In my other films, I looked upon sex as a disease of love. I learned here that sex is only a part of love; to be open and understanding of each other, as the girls and boys of today are, is the important part. But it is not fair to ask questions of me before I put my picture together. The responsibility is mine. It is me in front of the camera saying what I feel about my America.'”

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“Even That Whispered Conversation In The Park May No Longer Be Safe From Prying Ears”

September 26, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

You can legislate what can barely be seen, but enforcement is something else. From “Matchstick-Sized Sensor Can Record Your Private Chats,” a post by Jim Nash at New Scientist about what used to be between you and I:

“EVERYONE knows that to have a private chat in the NSA era, you go outdoors. Phones, the internet, email and your office can all be compromised with ease. But soon even that whispered conversation in the park may no longer be safe from prying ears.

Carrying out covert audio surveillance along a city street or a wooded path, say, currently requires parabolic microphones, which look like large, clear salad bowls and need a direct, unobstructed view of the subject. Hardly 007 territory.

Now, a Dutch acoustics firm, Microflown Technologies, has developed a matchstick-sized sensor that can pinpoint and record a target’s conversations from a distance.

Known as an acoustic vector sensor, Microflown’s sensor measures the movement of air, disturbed by sound waves, to almost instantly locate where a sound originated. It can then identify the noise and, if required, transmit it live to waiting ears.”

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Old Print Article: “Giant Skeletons Found,” New York Times (1902)

September 26, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"

“The chest of the being is reported as having a circumference of seven feet.”

Some sort of excavated bones led to hope that the remains of an extinct race of giants could be unearthed in New Mexico, according to an article in the February 11, 1902 New York Times. The story:

“Los Angeles, Cal.–Owing to the discovery of the remains of a race of giants in Guadalupe, N.M., antiquarians and archaeologists are preparing an expedition further to explore that region. This determination is based on the excitement that exists among the people of a scope of country near Mesa Rico, about 200 miles southeast of Las Vegas, where an old burial ground has been discovered that has yielded skeletons of enormous size.

Luiciana Quintana, on whose ranch the ancient burial plot is located, discovered two stones that bore curious inscriptions, and beneath these were found in shallow excavations the bones of a frame that could not have been less than 12 feet in length. The men who opened the grave say the forearm was four feet long and that in a well-preserved jaw the lower teeth ranged from the size of a hickory nut to that of the largest walnut in size.

The chest of the being is reported as having a circumference of seven feet.

Quintana, who has uncovered many other burial places, expresses the opinion that perhaps thousands of skeletons of a race of giants long extinct will be found. This supposition is based on the traditions handed down from the early Spanish invasion that have detailed knowledge of the existence of a race of giants that inhabited the plains of what now is Eastern New Mexico. Indian legends and carvings also in the same section indicate the existence of such a race.”

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“What She Made Me Think About Is Bioengineering”

September 26, 2013 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The opening of “Margaret Atwood: Our Most Important Prophet of Doom,” Judith Shulevitz’s New Republic meditation about bioengineering, which has the potential to be wonderful and terrible:

“Every generation takes for granted beliefs or practices that strike later generations as unconscionable. Just try explaining to your children public executions, chattel slavery, or eugenics. Your offspring will gape, stunned, until it dawns on them that the society you’re raising them to take part in has an astonishing capacity not to think things through. So, what’s not being thought through right now? The competition is stiff: the continued use of fossil fuels when catastrophic storms batter our shores, feeding our children off toxin-leaching plastic tableware, etc., etc.

You’d think that the professionals most likely to predict our regrets would be statisticians, trained as they are to rank the likelihood of negative outcomes. But prognostication of this sort is more gift than skill, since you need a finely tuned moral sensor as much as, if not more than, advanced numeracy. You can’t say what history will deem barbaric unless you feel a punch in the stomach every time you encounter it. This is why it was a novelist, not a statistician, who first sounded the alarm—for me—about a fast-tumbling cascade of changes I hadn’t thought hard about before.

The novelist is Margaret Atwood. What she made me think about is bioengineering.”

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

September 26, 2013 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

"All my booze was gone!"

“All my booze was gone!”

Haven’t you any manners? (Brooklyn, NY)

Who does this? I am sharing my house with a middle age woman in her late 40’s and my job takes me away for months at a time. I just stocked up on booze before I left, buying all types of stuff I don’t drink. Ciroc, Hennesy, Jack Daniels (black & green labels). And something else I can’t remember what. Nevertheless I spent well over $100.00 for the booze. I came back home after being away for 5-6 months and all my booze was gone! Once I mentioned it to her she said she was planning on replacing it. When? She is moving and hasn’t mentioned replacing it. Should I take it out her security deposit? Or should I just leave it alone? I was taught never to mess with anyone’s stuff. Who does this???????? I am so pissed right now. My GF said leave it alone, at least I came back and she didn’t clean me completely out furniture and all!

Today New York City Smells Like:

September 26, 2013 in Humor, Misc. | Permalink

A telemarketer working from a hobo’s colon.

 

A Federal Pell Grant, unlike a loan, does not have to be repaid.

Do you have ten minutes to save ten percent on your auto insurance?

He's inside my crapper.

There’s a break room in my urinary tract.

“If You’re Doing It For Money Or Fame, Don’t Do It”

September 26, 2013 in Books, Videos | Permalink

In the poem “So You Want to Be a Writer,” Charles Bukowski cautioned, “If you’re doing it for money or fame, don’t do it.” But his estate has gone for the cash and let that piece of writing be used for a really crappy Dewar’s commercial, which is populated with the kind of faux tough guys and artists and carefully disheveled males he would have deplored. Hank was an ass, sure, but he was right about such people. The spot only would have been acceptable if it included footage of Chinaski vomiting scotch or showing X-rays of his damaged liver.

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“Hey, This Thing Is Happening Without Us”

September 26, 2013 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

Following up his authorized Steve Jobs bio, Walter Isaacson is writing a book about the icons of the Digital Era. Let’s hope he employs a large team of fact-checkers because such people tend to be fabulists. There’s an excerpt at Harvard Magazine from the forthcoming volume, about Bill Gates, who’s told a yarn or two in his day and is no stranger to the author. The opening:

“IT MAY HAVE BEEN the most momentous purchase of a magazine in the history of the Out of Town Newsstand in Harvard Square. Paul Allen, a college dropout from Seattle, wandered into the cluttered kiosk one snowy day in December 1974 and saw that the new issue of Popular Electronics featured a home computer for hobbyists, called the Altair, that was just coming on the market. He was both exhilarated and dismayed. Although thrilled that the era of the ‘personal’ computer seemed to have arrived, he was afraid that he was going to miss the party. Slapping down 75 cents, he grabbed the issue and trotted through the slush to the Currier House room of Bill Gates, a Harvard sophomore and fellow computer fanatic from Lakeside High School in Seattle, who had convinced Allen to drop out of college and move to Cambridge. ‘Hey, this thing is happening without us,’ Allen declared. Gates began to rock back and forth, as he often did during moments of intensity. When he finished the article, he realized that Allen was right. For the next eight weeks, the two of them embarked on a frenzy of code writing that would change the nature of the computer business.

What Gates and Allen set out to do, during the Christmas break of 1974 and the subsequent January reading period when Gates was supposed to be studying for exams, was to create the software for personal computers. ‘When Paul showed me that magazine, there was no such thing as a software industry,’ Gates recalled. ‘We had the insight that you could create one. And we did.’ Years later, reflecting on his innovations, he said, ‘That was the most important idea that I ever had.’

In high school, Gates had formed the Lakeside Programming Group, which made money writing computer code for companies in the Pacific Northwest. As a senior, he applied only to three colleges—Harvard, Yale, and Princeton—and he took different approaches to each. ‘I was born to apply for college,’ he said, fully aware of his ability to ace meritocratic processes. For Yale he cast himself as an aspiring political type and emphasized the month he had spent in Washington as a congressional page. For Princeton, he focused only on his desire to be a computer engineer. And for Harvard, he said his passion was math. He had also considered MIT, but at the last moment blew off the interview to play pinball. He was accepted to all three, and chose Harvard. ‘There are going to be some guys at Harvard who are smarter than you,’ Allen warned him. Gates replied, ‘No way! No way!'”

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“The Computer Is My Timekeeper, It Is My Courier And Library”

September 25, 2013 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

I clearly have no qualms about reading off of a screen, but posting Junot Diaz’s improvised reading list made me think of this passage from Terrence Holt’s “Charybdis,” a short story about a troubled space mission to Jupiter:

“The computer is my timekeeper, it is my courier and library. It stores in its memory the pages I call up on the screen. For my collection I chose Shakespeare, Melville, the old myths. My crewmates left their libraries with me. Stern loved mysteries; Peterson was more a western man.

I spend hours at the screen now, and though I am grateful for the machine, it leaves me skeptical. I wish often for the weight, or at least the solidity, of a book, instead of the image of words on glass. The transience of the picture worries me, and I have caught myself calling back earlier pages, comparing them to my own memory to see if the text has been altered by the computer’s traffic with so much other information. Sometimes, I am tantalized by a suspicion—surely that word was not noses, but something starting with a g; and that was cave, not save; not screen, but—I catch myself, and read on.”

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“G.M. Crops Have Been Consumed By Hundreds Of Millions Of People Across The World For More Than Fifteen Years With No Reported Ill Effects”

September 25, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

It would be a good idea for us to not be close-minded about genetically modified and lab-grown foods, because we’re going to need them eventually. The climate that supports our agrarian culture won’t last forever. Sure, be vigilant with all food corporations regardless of what they’re producing, but don’t set your default mode to artificial = evil. There’s apparently a new fear-mongering documentary about the perils of GMOs that has the blessing of Oprah chucklehead, Dr. Oz. At the New Yorker blog, Michael Specter cuts through the bullshit. The opening of his post:

“I recently watched OMG GMO, Jeremy Seifert’s aggressively uninformed ‘documentary’ about the corporate duplicity and governmental callousness that he says drives the production of genetically engineered crops—which are, in his view, such barely concealed poisons that he actually dressed his children in full hazmat gear before letting them enter a field of genetically modified corn. Seifert explained his research process in an interview with Nathanael Johnson of Grist: ‘I didn’t really dig too deep into the scientific aspect.’

Fair enough. Normally, I would ignore anyone who would say that while publicizing his movie. But Seifert has been abetted by Dr. Mehmet Oz, the patron saint of internally inconsistent scientific assertions, and Seifert’s message of fear and illiteracy has now been placed before millions of television viewers.

Seifert asserts that the scientific verdict is still out on the safety of G.M. foods—which I guess it is, unless you consult actual scientists. He fails to do that. Instead, he claims that the World Health Organization is one of many groups that question the safety of genetically engineered products. However, the W.H.O. has been consistent in its position on G.M.O.s: ‘No effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of G.M. foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved.’ Britain’s Royal Society of Medicine was even more declarative: ‘Foods derived from G.M. crops have been consumed by hundreds of millions of people across the world for more than fifteen years with no reported ill effects (or legal cases related to human health) despite many of the consumers coming from that most litigious of countries the U.S.A.’ In addition to the W.H.O. and Royal Society, scientific organizations from around the world, including the European Commission and, in the United States, the National Academy of Sciences, have strongly endorsed the safety of G.M. foods. I could cite quotes from a dozen other countries. But let’s leave the overkill to Mr. Seifert.

What else can you call it when a man sends his children into a field of genetically modified corn wearing gas masks?”•

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“I Think It’s The Most Critical Problem We’ve Faced So Far In Manned Space Flight”

September 25, 2013 in Politics, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

Huntley, sans Brinkley, reporting in 1970 on the troubled Apollo 13 mission, which was salvaged in part because of an MIT hippie lost to history.

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