2013

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“I Don’t Even Know What A Computer Is”

September 13, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From another great obituary in the New York Times by Margalit Fox, this one about a nonagenarian typewriter repairman who triumphed in a small way over time itself:

“Mr. [Manson] Whitlock was often described as America’s oldest typewriter repairman. He was inarguably one of the country’s longest-serving.

Over time he fixed more than 300,000 machines, tending manuals lovingly, electrics grudgingly and computers never.

“I don’t even know what a computer is,’ Mr. Whitlock told The Yale Daily News, the student paper, in 2010. ‘I’ve heard about them a lot, but I don’t own one, and I don’t want one to own me.’

Whitlock’s Typewriter Shop once supported six technicians, who ministered to patients with familiar names like Royal, Underwood, Smith and Corona, and curious ones like Hammonia and Blickensderfer.

The shop, near the Yale campus, attracted a tide of students and faculty members; the Pulitzer Prize-winning writers Robert Penn Warren, Archibald MacLeish and John Hersey; the Yale classicist Erich Segal, who wrote the best-selling novel Love Story on a Royal he bought there; and, on at least one occasion, President Gerald R. Ford.

In recent years, however, until he closed the shop in June, Mr. Whitlock was its entire staff, working with only a bust of Mark Twain for company.”

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“Technical Advances Usually Bring Unforeseen Consequences”

September 13, 2013 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From a Five Books interview with journalist Caspar Henderson about our so-called Anthropocene Age, an excerpt about an intriguing title by Braden Allenby and Daniel Sarewitz to be published this month:

“Question:

Tell me about your final choice, The Techno-Human Condition.

Caspar Henderson:

Climate change is likely to be a huge challenge in this century and beyond, but it’s unlikely to be the only one. Some challenges may come as a surprise but among those we think we can see coming are how we will feed nine to twelve billion humans, how we will keep a lid on deadly conflict and how we will increase the likelihood that what is most valuable and marvelous in the rest of the living world thrives.

Responses  and debate often focus on how science and technology can ‘save’ us.  Sure, there will be no solutions without advances in science and technology. Equally surely, science and technology alone almost never provide a solution. Technical advances usually bring unforeseen consequences. More importantly, poor political and social choices can lead to terrible outcomes.

There is a large and serious literature emerging on how to ‘manage’ the planet in the Anthropocene. Books for non-specialists include Mark Lynas’s The God Species and Al Gore’s The Future.  There is also a growing array of writers and thinkers who are sceptical of the very idea of planetary management, often accusing the ‘managers’ of overly simplistic analysis and recommendations. I recommend Allenby and Sarewitz’s book not because it is especially critical of, say, geo-engineering – in fact their first target is transhumanism – but because it can help the reader to think more clearly about the actual complexity and inherent unpredictably of the situation in which we find ourselves. They are not suggesting that we should cease to act rationally or ethically, just that we understand more fully our ignorance about most complex systems, not least the human context for science and technology and our frequent inability to control them. We need, they say, to ‘add a degree of psychological and institutional flexibility that acknowledges and dignifies our ignorance and limits. Rehabilitate humility.’ This is, if you like, about thinking slow as well as thinking fast about the planet, and there is nothing here that a good and wise scientist would disagree with. Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist who has looked carefully into geo-engineering, stresses the uncertainties – and, by the way, emphasizes that other options such as reducing emissions are likely to be cheaper and more effective. The late Carl Woese, one of the most eminent biologists of recent times, argued that our first priority should be ‘not to engineer nature but to listen to its harmonies.’

Science and technology are key to our future but even more important are the ethical and political challenges we have to overcome if we are truly to grow up in the Anthropocene. If Jared Diamond was right in Collapse, societies disintegrate when those in charge cease to think about the interests of the people as a whole. This looks like one of the clear and present dangers facing us today. To find the resources to fight the necessary battles we need to find strength inside ourselves. This means allowing plenty of room for the inner child to play. Music, the arts and the sciences, which are making discoveries of surpassing beauty almost daily, can help us find plenty of space, amidst all the uncertainty, for wonder and celebration.”

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“[These] Submerged Unmanned Platforms Can Be Deployed At A Moment’s Notice”

September 13, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

An autonomous, underwater military system is the goal of DARPA in this age when figurative piracy hasn’t complete replaced the literal kind. From Wired:

“DARPA, the Pentagon’s research agency, has recently revealed its plans to boost the Navy’s response to threats in international waters by developing submerged unmanned platforms that can be deployed at a moment’s notice.

Hydra, named after the serpent-like creature with many heads in Greek mythology, would create an undersea network of unmanned payloads and platforms to increase the capability and speed the response to threats like piracy, the rising number of ungoverned states, and sophisticated defenses at a time when the Pentagon is forced to make budget cuts. According to DARPA, the Hydra system ‘represents a cost effective way to add undersea capacity that can be tailored to support each mission’ that would still allow the Navy to conduct special operations and contingency missions. In other words, the decreasing number of naval vessels can only be in one place at a time.”

Today New York City Smells Like:

September 13, 2013 in Humor, Misc. | Permalink

Sewer rats haggling over the price of a blowjob.

 

Nine dollars for the both of you.

Nine dollars for the both of you.

We'll give you six.

We’ll give you six.

Done.

Done.

“It’s Almost More Comfortable For Me To Be Joe Buck Now Than It Is For Me To Be Me”

September 13, 2013 in Books, Excerpts, Film, Videos | Permalink

Jon Voight is at least two things in life: a racist a-hole and a brilliant actor. In the aftermath of David Frost’s death, when I was done sitting shiva, I got my hands on a copy of The Americans, a book of transcribed interviews from the TV presenter’s conversations with prominent U.S. citizens. (If you’re interested, there are quite a few 1¢ used copies at Amazon.) It features talks with all manner of accomplished Americans: Orson Welles, Tennessee Williams, Clare Booth Luce, Helen Hayes, Johnny Carson, Dennis Hopper, James Baldwin, etc. I think my favorite one is with Voight. In one exchange, he explains how he readied himself for Midnight Cowboy and responded to its astounding success. An excerpt:

“David Frost:

How long did you prepare yourself for the part in Midnight Cowboy?

Jon Voight:

I had read the book about five years earlier, so I just was sitting around thinking about it for a long time. It was probably the only part I really wanted to do. I turned down an awful lot of things. But finally when we got to it, and they gave me the role, we had a couple weeks’ preproduction shooting in New York. I had a week with a voice coach in New York, fellow by the name of J.B. Smith who did a lot of accents. And then I went  down to Texas and I spent a week in Texas. And then when I came back, we rehearsed it for fourteen or eleven days, and then started shooting.

David Frost:

How much of you is there in the character in Midnight Cowboy?

Jon Voight:

I really don’t know. I think it’s very easy for me to be Joe Buck. It’s almost more comfortable for me to be Joe Buck now than it is for me to be me. I like him a lot. But he goes on his own steam, as a character does when it takes off.

David Frost:

What kind of experiences did you have in Texas?

Jon Voight:

Well, I did very cliché things in a way. I’d say, ‘I’m going out tonight to a bar, and I’m going to sit there and talk with the people.’ Now they have liquor bars in Texas, and then they have beer bars, and I went to a beer bar. And I sat there, and there was one guy sitting there, and somebody listening to the jukebox, and me. And I’m waiting for a conversation to start up so I can just maybe get into the accent a little bit. And half an hour goes by, and he doesn’t say anything. And we’re nodding to the music and tapping out a few things and looking at each other. ‘I’ll have another beer, please.’ He looks up at me. Like we had some kind of thing going. I don’t know what it was.

(Laughter.)

And then finally I said, ‘You in cattle?’ He said, ‘Oil.’

David Frost:

He ad-libbed.

Jon Voight:

Yeah. ‘Oil.’ ‘Oil, oh.’ ‘Yeah.’ Another half hour.

(Laughter.)

It was like that. I mean it was a whole night like that, see. And it was funny. We talked about the water.

(Laughter.)

I said, ‘The water’s hard here in this part of Texas.’ He said, ‘Yeah, it’s good for your second teeth, though.’

(Laughter.)

And then I went to a boot shop and worked there with a bunch of people, and I really got to love them.They knew that I was an actor in town and some of the local characters would stop by the boot shop in Stanton, Texas. They were terrific guys. They’d be these old guys that’d come in. They have nothing to do, see, and they’re just sitting by the drugstore up the street. And they’d come in and say something about the weather. They say, ‘The wind’s down.’

(Laughter.)

I can’t really represent them properly because they make jokes about the wind, and they’d come in with a little thing they had to say. And it was really sweet. Really nice people. And I talked with this fellow by the name of Otis Williams, who was maybe nearly seventy. He used to be a bronc buster in the rodeo. We talked for long periods of time, and he wanted me to go to a rodeo with him, and I wanted to go, but I knew that we had to leave shortly, and I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it. I found out later that he’d gotten tickets for me, and really was excited about the fact that I might go, and I feel kind of disappointed that I didn’t. Anyway, I was leaving that day, and I said, ‘Well, Otis, I’ll see you, I’m gonna go. You know, maybe I’ll be back in New York. Maybe I’ll come up and see the rodeo. I’d like to. But, you know, if I don’t, it’s been real good talking.’ So I walked out of the store, and I’m getting in my car. And Otis comes out of the shop with his saddle, and he’s walking away. And it’s like he wanted to say goodbye, because he probably knew that I wasn’t going to see him again, right?

So I walked over toward the car, and Otis walked this way and said, ‘Yep.’ And he looked at me and I said, ‘Yep.’ And we stood there for a long time. And he’s looking and trying to think of something nice to say. And I didn’t know what to say either, but here we were along in the street of this old ghost town of a place, this old cowboy and me. And I’m standing there, and he finally looks up and says. ‘There’s a lot of good horseflesh up there.’

(Laughter.)

It was really touching.

David Frost:

And good for your second teeth, too. Jon, what’s it been like after the fantastic success of Midnight Cowboy? You’ve become a sort of youth-sex, or sex-youth, symbol? Did the reaction knock you out when it first happened?

Jon Voight:

I suffered a lot of different reactions. When something like that hits, it hits very heavily for me. I was really unprepared for it. A lot of things happened. Like when I walk down the street, and somebody knows the work and understands it and likes Joe Buck maybe as much as I like him says, ‘Hey, terrific!’ And he walks on. That’s a great feeling.

I came in today to check something, and I walked out front, and a bus driver was driving by, and he said, ‘Hey, Joe! How you doing?’ I said, ‘Terrific!’ That kind of acceptance is really a nice thing to feel. But I’m an actor, and I feel that I have to keep trying other characters. Maybe Joe’s the only one I’ll ever feel that I ever fulfilled. But I just have to keep going and keep trying other things and getting interested in other things and trying to make those things work. I’ll succeed and I’ll fail and I’ll fool around a little bit.

David Frost:

You said something about when the movie first hit you almost wanted to hide.

Jon Voight:

Yeah, I did. I didn’t know what I could follow it with it was so big. I almost didn’t want to follow it. It says so many nice things that I really like, and it’s so powerful a movie. It’s like I want to take a break for a while. But I also want to prove that I’m fallible too. I was thinking of going back on the stage right away and just test my stage legs again. Somebody said, ‘Why don’t you do Streetcar, but I’m not right for it in many ways. I could build up to it, like I built up to Cowboy, and have a lot of fun doing it. I thought, why not? And then I thought, well, somebody’s going to say, ‘There he is. That’s Jon Voight. He’s a fifth-rate Marlon Brando’ And I’m going to say, ‘Hey! Wait a minute. Third-rate!’

(Laughter.)”

••••••••••

“Where’s that Joe Buck?”:

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

September 12, 2013 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

Mets player with a body like a woman’s (Queens)

I don’t know who he is but there’s a guy on the Mets who has a female shaped body. I don’t know his name or number. I’m curious who he is. It’s kind of fascinating. He’s white or Hispanic/Latin. Any idea who he might be? Thanks.

“To Modern Man, The Sun Is A Vast Nuclear Power Plant”

September 12, 2013 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

A 1976 report (with spooky score) on solar power. The sun will be the answer, but when?

Quick Thoughts About Politics, NYC And Global

September 12, 2013 in Politics | Permalink

  • You see some terrible things living in New York. Like Bay Ridge, for instance. How awful. But there was nothing awful about Election Day here this week. Bill de Blasio and Bill Thompson seemed like the best candidates in an uninspiring field, and they finished one-two. (It may or may not take a run-off to decide things.) Much is being made about de Blasio using his multiracial family to woo voters–Mayor Bloomberg stupidly called it a “racist campaign”–but the candidate did so well because he’s the only one who identified and addressed the overwhelming worry of most New Yorkers: the fear of falling. Larger and larger swaths of this city are for the wealthy and tourists, with middle-class and poor residents wondering whether there is still room for them. If de Blasio emerges as Mayor, we’ll see if he has any answers. But at least he knows the question.
  • In order to beat Eliot Spitzer in the Democratic primary of the NYC Comptroller’s race, Scott Stringer had to show himself to be as credible (or nearly as credible) as his opponent. If Stringer fumbled, he would have lost. This wasn’t a victory won out of moral outrage. This was New Yorkers seeing a pair of strong candidates for the post and giving the victory to the one who hasn’t previously disappointed them. Spitzer ran a strong campaign and didn’t lose this election; Stringer won it.
  • On the inernational front, I was pleased with President Obama’s brief address on Syria Tuesday night. If we can stop the atrocity of chemical weapons and send a message to the whole world that such a tactic is a tipping point, that would be great. Though I certainly hope that result comes from diplomacy rather than explosions. Blowing up stockpiles of chemical weapons will release those chemicals into the environment, and that can’t be good for anyone.
  • Two issues Obama wanted to avoid at all costs–gun control and new military intervention abroad–chipped away at his conscience until he couldn’t avoid them any longer. But while Sandy Hook deeply saddened him, Syria is the first time in his Presidency that he hasn’t been able to contain his fury publicly.
  • We all need to stop using the phrase “line in the sand,” or at least use it more honestly. As horrifying as it would be if, say, the Chinese government used chemical weapons on its people, we would not bomb that country. Sure, there’d be international pressure and sanctions, but there would not be bombing. The line always depends on whose sand we’re talking about.

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“That’s A Damn Nasty Cough”

September 12, 2013 in Film, Videos | Permalink

Goldfinger’s henchman Harold “Odd Job” Sakata destroys Johnny Carson’s New York-based Tonight Show set. Apparently the skit was inspired by a Vicks commercial, hence the “cough” comment.

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A Brief Note From 1911 About A Wealthy Baby

September 12, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the June 5, 1911 New York Times:

“Russell Hopkins, Consul General of Panama, has purchased the house at 1,045 Fifth Avenue for his baby son, John Randolph Hopkins, who was born two months ago in the St. Regis and who is now at his father’s country home, in Irvington-on-Hudson. The baby’s grandmother, Mrs. Lawrence, widow of Dr. J..J. Lawrence, who lives in the Hotel Plaza, said yesterday she would spend $25,000 in furnishing a suite of five rooms in the new house for her grandson.

Mr. Hopkins wished to purchase Mrs. William B. Leeds’s house, and offered $250,000 for it, but it was refused, so he bought the Fifth Avenue house, between Eighty-fifth and Eighty-sixth Streets.

The roof of the house will be covered with a steel wire cage and half converted into a playground. The other half will be used as a small private zoo. Mr. Hopkins has maintained a private zoo at Irvington for years for the entertainment of his guests and the instruction of the village children.

Mr. Hopkins had a baby hippopotamus there last Summer, but, owing to its splashing propensities and inordinate appetite, he had to get rid of it. A bear cub will arrive form the Rocky Mountains this week, sent by one of his old guides to the son and heir.”

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“They Are Tantalized By The Possibility That The Universe Is Not Just A Birthplace Of Alien Cultures But Also Their Necropolis”

September 12, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

An excerpt from “Distant Ruins,” Paul Gilster’s Aeon article about interstellar archaeology:

“Today, a small group of interstellar archaeologists is looking for evidence of those civilisations. They are tantalised by the possibility that the universe is not just a birthplace of alien cultures but also their necropolis.

We use the word ‘archaeology’ to describe this effort, because looking into deep space takes us deep into the past. The photons that strike our telescopes’ detectors take time to reach us: the light of Alpha Centauri, the nearest stellar system, is 4.3 years old when it arrives. It travels at 300,000 kilometres per second but has to cross 40 trillion kilometres to get here. Dig gradually into the soil and you push through layers accreted by wind, rain, construction, and flood. Dig deep into the sky, beyond local stars such as Alpha Centauri, and you push the clock back with the same inexorability. Epsilon Eridani, another nearby star, is seen as it was over 10 years ago. Light from the fascinating Gliese 667C, a red dwarf with three planets in its habitable zone, takes 22 years to make the journey.

In the cosmic scheme of things, these are trivial distances. Our green and blue world circles its star some 27,000 light years from the galactic centre. The glow we see at the Milky Way’s core began its voyage towards us at a time when prehistoric hunters were chasing mammoths across Europe’s ice sheets. The galaxy itself spans 100,000 light years, and its nearest equivalent, the great disc of Andromeda, is 2.5 million light years away. We see it as it looked when humanity’s ancestors walked the African savannah. When interstellar archaeologists tilt their telescopes to the sky, they are gazing into the deep history of the cosmos, but to find a civilisation more advanced than ours, they have to tilt their imaginations into the future. They have to plot out a plausible destiny for humanity, and then go looking for it in the cosmic past.”

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“No One Joins Facebook To Be Sad And Lonely”

September 12, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I’ve said many times that social networks makes us sadder. Living inside a perpetual high-school or college yearbook, living in the past, is unhealthy. You can’t go home again, even with Google Maps. And we can never realize the expectations–and the the ideal of ourselves–that we create online. The icons lie and connectedness is not contentedness.

The opening of “How Facebook Makes Us Unhappy,” Maria Konnikova’s New Yorker blog piece about emoticons and emotions:

“No one joins Facebook to be sad and lonely. But a new study from the University of Michigan psychologist Ethan Kross argues that that’s exactly how it makes us feel. Over two weeks, Kross and his colleagues sent text messages to eighty-two Ann Arbor residents five times per day. The researchers wanted to know a few things: how their subjects felt overall, how worried and lonely they were, how much they had used Facebook, and how often they had had direct interaction with others since the previous text message. Kross found that the more people used Facebook in the time between the two texts, the less happy they felt—and the more their overall satisfaction declined from the beginning of the study until its end. The data, he argues, shows that Facebook was making them unhappy.

Research into the alienating nature of the Internet—and Facebook in particular—supports Kross’s conclusion. In 1998, Robert Kraut, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, found that the more people used the Web, the lonelier and more depressed they felt. After people went online for the first time, their sense of happiness and social connectedness dropped, over one to two years, as a function of how often they used the Internet.

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“Multiple Joints Give The Brain Bot A Range Of Probing Motions”

September 12, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

You don’t want maggots eating your brains, but you do want robotic, remotely controlled maggots eating your brain tumors. From Nic Halverson at Discovery:

“Maggots are typically a telltale sign of death and decay, but the legless larva have inspired a new robotic prototype that could one day help brain surgeons preserve the lives of their patients.

For the last four years, J. Marc Simard, a neurosurgery professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, and his team have been developing an intracranial robot that will help remove brain tumors. Shaped like a mechanical finger, multiple joints give the brain bot a range of probing motions. An electrocautery tool at its tip heats and destroys tumors, while a suction tube sucks out debris. The robot can also be remotely controlled by a surgeon while a patient is inside an MRI scanner, giving the surgeon an excellent view of hard-to-see tumors.

Simard was inspired to develop such a robot after watching a TV show where plastic surgeons were using sterile maggots to remove damaged or dead tissue from a patient.”

••••••••••

“The Caterpillar,” via Rod Serling in 1972



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“You’ll See Foreign Films Over Phoenix”

September 12, 2013 in Film, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

petersellers898989

Another of the 1970s TWA ads featuring Peter Sellers, with the protean actor this time portraying a jolly if condescending British chap.

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Today New York City Smells Like:

September 12, 2013 in Humor, Misc. | Permalink

The Wendy’s girl being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

 

But I'm only fat on the inside.

But I’m only morbidly obese on the inside.

Just to be safe, let's take both of her legs.

Just to be safe, let’s take both her legs.

Old Print Article: “Educated Monkey Here For Vaudeville Takes A Cigarette With The Reporters,” New York Times (1909)

September 12, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"

“Um, I-ee-ug-crrrr-ssssk.”

Monkeys look and act enough like humans so we usually don’t kill and eat them. One exceedingly human-ish primate was Consul, a chimpanzee promoted by the original William Morris Agency, who dazzled New Yorkers more than a century ago with his ability to act world-weary and chain-smoke. From an article in the June 21, 1909 New York Times:

Dressed in a sailor suit with patent leather shoes on his feet and his sailor cap set flat aback with a slight list over his port ear, Consul, the monkey, which is to be the newest star of the vaudeville stage, received reporters and photographers yesterday on the sun deck of the incoming North German Lloyd liner George Washington. He is an intelligent-looking monkey, about three feet in height when he stands erect. He came originally from Rhodesia, Southeast Africa.

Ivan Drowski, his manager, who has brought the chimpanzee over under contract to the William Morris vaudeville syndicate, said that Consul was not at all shy, but liked attention. He was fond of children, but did not like them to play tricks on him. Drowski spoke to Consul in French, and the chimpanzee responded with guttural sounds that seemed to be understood by his manager.

Here is a specimen of the dialogue which ensued when the reporters asked Consul questions through his interpreter:

“How do you like New York, Consul?” a reporter asked.

When it had been put in French by Drowski the monkey looked at the crowd and said something that sounded like: “Um, I-ee-ug-crrrr-ssssk.”

According to Drowski, what Consul said meant, “Have any of you got a cigarette holder?”

An amber holder was produced by a photographer and handed out to Consul, who put it in his mouth.

To the next question, “Do you like wearing clothes?” the chimpanzee replied, “garrrrr-egre-grummm-goora-umn.” This was translated by Drowksi to mean: “Have any of you got a cigarette, I want to smoke.” Consul was promptly handed a box of Egyptian cigarettes. He selected one carefully, put it in the tube and then said: “Rrr-rag-bwa-gu-gu-.” This meant “give me a match.” He got one at once. “Do you admire the tall building?” the monkey was asked.

Lighting the cigarette Consul leaned carelessly on his hand, blew the smoke lazily through his nose and said something that sounded like ‘Jilde jallou grugru,’ which Drowski said was the equivalent of the American phrase, ‘You make me tired.’

Then his manager took Consul off the rail, where he had been sitting, and put him on the deck, where he tickled the monkey under the arms until he laughed out loud like a schoolboy and turned somersaults to show his joy. William Morris, who was also on the liner, said that Consul had played shuffleboard with his little boy on the awning deck, but they had to be careful, as he was so fond of going up the rigging.

Once, it is said, Consul climbed up to the crow’s nest and played with the lookout man.

During the trip Consul dressed for dinner and had his meals served at a small table with his manager. In the evenings he held receptions, to which the passengers were invited. Apparently he did not like brass bands, and took delight in throwing brazil nuts at the trombone player. Consul is insured for $100,000, and will make his appearance to the New York public at the opening of the roof garden of the American Theatre on July 4.•

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

September 11, 2013 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

come and video my wife and i making love (staten island)

We are in need of cash and some fun.

If u want to have some fun come join in on it.

We are in need of some cash..so we are asking for 100.

Email us now.

“Let’s Go, MacDougal!”

September 11, 2013 in Film, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Almost as amusing as Peter Seller’s buffoonish international playboy character was his enthusiastic Scotsman, which was also used to sell TWA in the 1970s.

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“It’s Easy To Forget That The Late Eighties And Early Nineties Saw As Strong A Backlash Against Consumer Culture As We’ve Seen In The Post-Vietnam Era”

September 11, 2013 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

At the New Yorker‘s “Currency” blog, Vauhini Vara and Vijith Assar have published “What the Dow Tells Us About Ourselves,” a fun, interactive timeline that explains how companies were viewed in America in the year they were added or subtracted from the Dow. From “1991 through 2004”:

“It’s easy to forget that the late eighties and early nineties saw as strong a backlash against consumer culture as we’ve seen in the post-Vietnam era: it was in those years, remember, that Nirvana and Clerks happened. It also happened to be the period in which the Dow added both McDonalds and Walt Disney, two of the era’s most memorable symbols of capitalism’s effect on our culture. By the time Walt Disney joined, in 1991—the year it released Beauty and the Beast—the company had long been seen in some quarters as an evil empire. In a 2006 article for the magazine, Anthony Lane, quoting a 1971 broadside by the writer and activist Ariel Dorfman, wrote, ‘Disney has somehow become shorthand for the cushioning with which, knowingly or otherwise, we protect and console ourselves against experience: ‘All the conflicts of the real world, the nerve centers of bourgeois society, are purified in the imagination in order to be absorbed and co-opted into the world of entertainment.’’ (The broadside’s title: How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic.) By the end of the nineties, of course, people were distracted by a new trend in consumer culture: the rise of the technology industry, which brought Hewlett-Packard to the average in 1997, followed by Microsoft and Intel in 1999.”

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“Has Your Win Brought You Happiness?”

September 11, 2013 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

If your dreams come true, you better have dreamed wisely. Working class Viv Nicholson won millions in a football pool in 1961 and found herself isolated the way billionaires sometimes are. Did she spend, spend, spend herself back into modest financial means because of a poor foundation in economics or was she driven by survival instincts?

From a 1966 interview with Nicholson by Alan Whicker:

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“Some Of These Systems Are Already Finding Their Way Into Non-Premium Vehicles”

September 11, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

There’s nothing blindingly new in Chris Bryant’s Financial Times piece about autonomous cars, but it wisely points out that the transition will be incremental, that the process has, in fact, already begun. An excerpt:

“Ralf Herrtwich, director of driver assistance and chassis systems at Mercedes-Benz, says the networking of cameras, sensors, actuators, data-processing and back-up systems required to deliver autonomous driving is of ‘almost mind-boggling complexity.’ Still, the marque’s owner Daimler aims to be the first to introduce other autonomous functions in series production vehicles this decade.

Indeed, self-driving cars, long a staple of science fiction movies, are step by step becoming science fact and autonomous driving technologies will be very much in evidence when the Frankfurt motor show commences on Tuesday.

Ralf Cramer, board member at Continental, the German parts supplier, explains: ‘Autonomous driving will come about from a base of advanced driving assistance systems. Technically, we can do it already today [in testing and development] but if we put all this technology into a production car, the vehicle would be too expensive.’

Some of these systems are already finding their way into non-premium vehicles. The new Ford Focus can parallel park itself without the driver touching the wheel and the Ford S-Max Concept, to be shown in Frankfurt, includes perpendicular parking capability and automatic braking if a collision with a pedestrian is imminent.”

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“After Decades Of Seeming Like A Sci-Fi Fantasy, The Cyberwar Is On”

September 11, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Cyberwar hasn’t replaced traditional war–not yet, at least–it’s just added to it. The opening of “The Geeks on the Front Lines,” David Kushner’s Rolling Stone state-of-the-state about hackerdom in 2013:

“Inside a darkened conference room in the Miami Beach Holiday Inn, America’s most badass hackers are going to war – working their laptops between swigs of Bawls energy drink as Bassnectar booms in the background. A black guy with a soul patch crashes a power grid in North Korea. A stocky jock beside him storms a database of stolen credit cards in Russia. And a gangly geek in a black T-shirt busts into the Chinese Ministry of Information, represented by a glowing red star on his laptop screen. ‘Is the data secured?’ his buddy asks him. ‘No,’ he replies with a grin. They’re in.

Fortunately for the enemies, however, the attacks aren’t real. They’re part of a war game at HackMiami, a weekend gathering of underground hackers in South Beach. While meatheads and models jog obliviously outside, 150 code warriors hunker inside the hotel for a three-day bender of booze, break-ins and brainstorming. Some are felons. Some are con artists. But they’re all here for the same mission: to show off their skills and perhaps attract the attention of government and corporate recruiters. Scouts are here looking for a new breed of soldier to win the war raging in the online shadows. This explains the balding guy prowling the room with an ‘I’m Hiring Security Engineers. Interested?’ button pinned to his polo shirt.

Hackers like these aren’t the outlaws of the Internet anymore. A 29-year-old who goes by the name th3_e5c@p15t says he’s ready to fight the good fight against the real-life bad guys. ‘If they topple our government, it could have disastrous results,’ he says. ‘We’d be the front line, and the future of warfare would be us.’

After decades of seeming like a sci-fi fantasy, the cyberwar is on.”

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Today New York City Smells Like:

September 11, 2013 in Humor, Misc. | Permalink

Vladimir Putin making a dolphin sex tape.

 

Use your mouth.

Put it in your mouth.

I think I saw Putin getting blown by a dolphin.

I think I saw something very wrong.

“Right Now I’m Flying TWA Over Pitts-A-Burgh”

September 11, 2013 in Film, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

In the 1970s, Peter Sellers did several TWA commercials. Here’s my favorite.

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“Each Has Its Own Very Unique Qualities And Aesthetics, And, Ultimately, Sort Of Present Themselves As Separate Planets”

September 11, 2013 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

I love Land Art in general and especially when the focus is the desert, which, at the right moments, can look like a painting that’s melting. Photographer Jim Mangan’s new book, Bastard Child, and its related series, Time of Nothing, study the splendid isolation of the American Southwest, with photos taken with a 1976 Leica R3 SLR. From Christian Storm’s new Vice interview with him:

“Vice:

Your previous work featured humans in landscapes, but now you seem to have moved more toward documenting the landscape itself.

Jim Mangan: 

Almost all the images (three images represent California, Wyoming, and Nevada) were shot in the Utah desert, which to me, strictly from a landscape standpoint, is the most interesting place on Earth. I’ve spent so much time exploring these different areas in the southern portion of Utah—each has its own very unique qualities and aesthetics, and, ultimately, sort of present themselves as separate planets even though they’re only 30 to 40 minutes away from one another. The imagery you see in the photos represents the places I kept getting drawn back to. Initially, I wanted to only see new locations, but as I searched I realized how special certain ones are. The more I kept going back to the same ones the more of connection I developed. I think if I was stripped of the privilege to spend time in these magical places it would be sort of like a girl I was totally in love with breaking up with me and never wanting to see me again—I would be totally devastated!”

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