Excerpts

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“It’s Very Odd That It Hasn’t Translated Into Economic Well Being”

August 28, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

During a sparring match with Google’s Eric Schmidt, libertarian Peter Thiel restates his belief that technological progress has largely stalled during the last four decades:

“But I think that when you look at this question of how much technological progress has been happening, we get into all these complicated measurement issues. The one that I cite as the big data point is that if you look at the U.S. say in the last 40 years, 1973 to today, median wages have been stagnant. Maybe the mean wages have gone up maybe a small amount, not very much.  The 40 years before that, 1932 to 1972, they went up by a factor of 6.

So, if you looked at how people did from ’32 to ’72, you had a six-fold improvement, and it was matched by incredible technological progress. Cars got better. You had the aeronautics industry got started. You went from no planes to supersonic jets. You had the computers invented. You had all sorts of incredibly important dimensions in which progress took place.

And so I agree we’ve had certain narrow areas where there’s been significant progress, but it’s very odd that it hasn’t translated into economic well being. And this is not just a problem with capitalist countries, like the U.S.”

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“I Didn’t See The Gorilla”

August 27, 2012 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

“It turns out very few people saw the gorilla.” (Image by Kabir Bakie.)

From a Five Books interview at the Browser with behavioral economist Dan Ariely, a passage about The Invisible Gorilla, which demonstrates that we see more with our brains than our eyes and that our brains are often “blind”:

“Let’s go through the books, and you can tell me what’s important about them and why you like them. The first one on your list is The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us, by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons.

These are the guys who did one of the most important pieces of research in social science, which is to show how little we actually see in the world around us. The basic demonstration of this is a movie in which there are two groups playing basketball. One group is wearing white t-shirts and the other group is wearing black t-shirts. They are passing the ball, and the viewer is asked to count how many times the people in white t-shirts pass the ball to each other. What then happens in the background is a gorilla passes through. He stops right in the middle and thumps his chest. When the clip is over, the viewer is asked, “How many times did you see the people in white t-shirts pass the ball?” Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong. But when you ask, ‘How many of you saw the gorilla?’ it turns out very few people saw the gorilla.

I didn’t see the gorilla.

There’s also another demonstration in the book that I really like. This involves going up to someone on a campus with a map and saying, ‘Excuse me, can you help me figure out how to get to the student centre?’ They take the map from your hand and start explaining it to you. While they’re explaining, two people in workmen’s clothes come between you with a door. For a moment, they obscure your view. What the person you’ve asked for directions doesn’t know is that you’re going away. You’re walking off with the door and a new person is standing in front of them. The question is, do people notice this change? And the answer is, again, no.

These are findings that are incredibly powerful and important. We think we see with our eyes, but the reality is that we largely see with our brains. Our brain is a master at giving us what we expect to see. It’s all about expectation, and when things violate expectation we are just unaware of them. We go around the world with a sense that we pay attention to lots of things. The reality is that we notice much less than we think. And if we notice so much less than we think, what does that mean about our ability to figure out things around us, to learn and improve? It means we have a serious problem. I think this book has done a tremendous job in showing how even in vision, which is such a good system in general, we are poorly tooled to make good decisions.”

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“We Are Living Through The Most Exciting Period Of Human History”

August 27, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I have great respect for the inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, though I usually think his predictions are very aggressive. In his defense, he is way smarter than I am. From the Sun:

“WE are living through the most exciting period of human history.

Computer technology and our understanding of genes — our body’s software programs — are accelerating at an incredible rate.

I and many other scientists now believe that in around 20 years we will have the means to reprogramme our bodies’ stone-age software so we can halt, then reverse, ageing. Then nano-technology will let us live for ever.

Already, blood cell-sized submarines called nanobots are being tested in animals. These will soon be used to destroy tumours, unblock clots and perform operations without scars.

Ultimately, nanobots will replace blood cells and do their work thousands of times more effectively.

Within 25 years we will be able to do an Olympic sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath, or go scuba-diving for four hours without oxygen.”

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“Can We Ever Expect Sanity From Our Government Again?”

August 27, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

“How about this: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, in a freeform talk-show-type discussion. “

That excellent James Fallows of the Atlantic has just done a lengthy Ask Me Anything on Reddit. A few segments follow.

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Question:

If you could have any two presidential candidates from any of the recent elections (2000-now) debate, which two would you pick and why?

James Fallows:

How about this: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, in a freeform talk-show-type discussion. That would be fun.

Fun in a different way: Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney.

Bonus point: I submit that Dick Cheney has become the most malign major figure in modern American politics. Which is interesting and disturbing because at an earlier stage of his existence he was “moderate,” open-minded, pleasant, non-vindictive, and so on. He was chief of staff under Ford, and was in charge of the transition to the Carter team (which included me as an underling). An entirely different kind of guy then. For later discussion.

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Question:

What’s your whole view on the upcoming election? How different do you think the candidates are? (They both seem to be similar to me with their plans, Romneys health care plan etc.)

James Fallows:

How different are the candidates? They (Obama and Romney) are actually more similar, as human beings, than in some previous elections. (Clinton v Dole, Clinton v George HW Bush, Obama v McCain). Both Harvard Law guys, both more introverted than classic-pol extroverts, both “left brain” rather than right brain people.

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Question:

I’m just curious, can we ever expect sanity from our government again? Even if they only consider it the last option… if they run out of options, if they run out of steam on this consensual reality kick they’ve been on, I can see a little old-fashioned honesty swaying a huge chunk of the populace, regardless of which party it comes out of. Traditionally though, or at least over the last century, the Republicans did their fair share of straight talk… I’m curious if I can expect to see that again in my lifetime or if it is more likely they become a marginal, religious, party and a new party, of a necessity, rises to replace what they’ve left behind.

James Fallows:

This is a good point and a really major question, and one that I have seen debated quite a bit among Republicans.

There has been an active theme on the right this year, arguing that the 2012 election is the GOP’s “last chance” for a while. The argument is that if Romney wins the White House, the party will have some leverage for a while. It wil probably have a few Supreme Court appointments; the modern vetting process is such that people will be chosen young, and for “reliable” views; other changes with some carry-over can be made. Meanwhile, the rural-state skew of the Senate also magnifies GOP influence there.

But if Obama is re-elected, by this argument, the Republicans are in trouble. Their recent positions have weakened them among the following voting blocs: women, Latinos, blacks, gays-lesbians, Asian-Americans, the highly educated, the young. All the growth in the electorate is in these groups. The nightmare vision from this point of view would be California — reliably Republican a generation ago, now the other way.

I would hope that if Romney loses, especially if he loses big, it would be the occasion for systematic re-thought in the party — like what happened after Goldwater (though that led to Nixon) and what happened after the Carter and Mondale defeats in 1980 and 1984, leading to Clinton. My fear is that the hard-liners in the party will say that the problem was that the 2012 GOP was not conservative enough. If only Paul Ryan had been at the top of the ticket.

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“So Much For Ryan’s Fiction Of The Isolato With A Platinum Card!”

August 27, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

Paul Ryan: Chiseled abs, no remorse,

Grover Norquist, whose name I have never espied while within a voting booth, wants the U.S. government to return to the GDP levels of 1900, when the average lifespan of our citizens was 47. (There truly were no second acts in America then.) While that fact doesn’t suggest only causation–medical progress played a large part in the elongation of life–it can’t be reduced to mere correlation, either. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other government programs have helped us live longer and better than humans ever have in our nation’s history.

GOP VP nominee Paul Ryan is also more in love with ideology and fudged math than human life, more beholden to ingrown, adolescent fantasies of rugged individualism. If his policies were ever enacted, really good people would die sooner than they have to. Talk about your death panels. In his latest column in the New Republic, Leon Wieseltier spits his considerable bile at a worthy target in Ryan, that Objectivist altar boy, dismantling his subject with reason and rage. An excerpt:

“‘I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.’ That is how John Galt concludes his testament, which Paul Ryan demands that his staffers in Congress read. What a frail sense of self it is that feels so imperiled by the existence of others! This monadic ideal is not heroic, it is cowardly. It is also dangerous, because it honors only itself. In his Roadmap, the intellectual on the Republican ticket lectures that “the Founders saw [Adam] Smith not only as an economic thinker, but as a moral philosopher whose other great work was The Theory of Moral Sentiments.’ Never mind that everybody else also saw Smith that way, because he really was a moral philosopher and he really did write The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Has Ryan ever opened The Theory of Moral Sentiments? Has he ever read its very first sentence on its very first page? ‘How selfish soever man may be supposed,’ Smith begins, ‘there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.’ That is the least Galt-like, least Rand-like, least Ryan-like sentence ever written. And from there the conservatives’ deity launches into a profound analysis of ‘mutual sympathy.’ So much for Ryan’s fiction of the isolato with a platinum card! If there is anything that Adam Smith stands for, it is the reconcilability of capitalism with fellow feeling, of market economics with social decency. But Ryan is a dismal student of Smith, because he likes his capitalism cruel.”

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“My One Ambition Is To Contribute To The Success Of This Program. I’m No Romantic.”

August 26, 2012 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

I don’t think people should be exalted, any of us. No statues should be built. Even the best of us are disappointing–small and petty and vain and vengeful. We often take out our unhappiness on others. Even when being seemingly generous–celebrating our country, our community, our family, our friends–we’re often just celebrating ourselves. And we should never do that. We should remain humble.

Neil Armstrong was just flesh and bones like the rest of us. He had his bad days and his flaws. But it’s amazing that he displayed such humility while accomplishing so much and braving every challenge. Not everyone can afford to be so modest. Some people have so many strikes against them that they have to convince everyone else–even themselves–that they belong. But it’s great that the one of us who went the furthest, and got there first, stayed so down-to-earth. Neil Armstrong was above and beyond, and I’m not only talking about atmosphere and stratosphere. 

From Oriana Fallaci’s 1966 book about the space program, If the Sun Dies:

“The third old man was thirty-four and looked like John Glenn’s young brother: the same freckles, the same fair coloring, the same ease; he had even been born in Ohio. Nevertheless certain things distinguished him from John Glenn–his lack of vivacity, his diplomacy and his shoulders that were extraordinarily rounded for such a strong physique. His mouth was ironical, but an irony full of caution. His voice was quiet, his movement economical. His name was Neil Armstrong and they picked him with the second group. The most interesting piece of information about him, for me, was that he didn’t have a service background. The only astronaut civilian I was to meet. And perhaps because of this he entered like someone visiting the dentist. And I felt indeed like a dentist, I was tempted to ask: Is it a molar that hurts or a canine? I would not have been at all surprised if he had answered: ‘No, Doctor, it’s an incisor.’ Sound track:

‘What a fine thing, Mr. Armstrong! You’re not from the service!’

‘I came from NASA, where I was an electronics engineer and a jet test pilot. It isn’t different. I mean, I’ve got as much discipline as the others and discipline is the main thing you need if you’re going into space. Besides, the reason they pick servicemen isn’t because they’re more suitable than civilians; they pick them because they’ve got them all neatly packaged and pre-selected so it’s easier to dig up the right man. You know everything about a serviceman, including how far you can trust him. But they knew everything about me too: I’ve been with NASA for several years.’

‘However, becoming an astronaut must give you great joy.’

‘I wouldn’t know. Let me think….”

‘Haven’t you thought about it before?’

‘To me it was simply being transferred from one office to another. I was in one office and then they moved me into this one. Well, yes, I suppose I was pleased. It’s always nice to gain in status. But I don’t have any personal ambition. My one ambition is to contribute to the success of this program. I’m no romantic.’

‘Do you mean that you don’t have a taste for adventure?’

‘For heaven’s sake, I loathe danger, especially if it’s useless; danger is the most irritating aspect of our job. How can a perfectly normal technological fact be turned into adventure? And why should steering a spacecraft be risking your life? It would be as illogical as risking your life when you use an electric mixer when making a milkshake. There should be nothing dangerous about making a milkshake and there should be nothing dangerous about steering a spacecraft. Once you’ve granted this concept, you can no longer think in terms of adventure, the urge of going up just for the sake of going up…’

I observed his mouth. Perhaps not the molar, not the canine, nor the incisor. It was probably the wisdom tooth.

‘Mr. Armstrong, I know somebody who would go up even if he knew he wouldn’t come back. Just for the urge to go up.’

‘Among us astronauts?’

‘Among you astronauts.’

‘I rule him out. If you knew him, he’d be a boy, not an adult.’

‘He’s an adult, Mr. Armstrong.’

‘But who?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Let’s talk about you. Leaving aside the milkshake, I suppose you’d be sorry not to go up?’

‘Yes, but I wouldn’t get sick about it. I don’t understand the ones who are so anxious to be the first. It’s all nonsense, kid stuff, just romanticism unworthy of our rational age. I rule out the possibility of agreeing to go up if I thought I might not come back, unless it were technically indispensable. I mean, testing a jet is dangerous but technically indispensable. Dying in space or on the Moon, is not technically indispensable and consequently if I had to choose between death while testing a jet and death on the Moon, I’d choose death while testing a jet. Wouldn’t you?’

No, it wasn’t the wisdom tooth that hurt. That one was healthy. It was something else, Father, a lack of pain, I would say, a good cry such as children have when they want the Moon, no matter if they have to die to get the Moon, that exquisite infancy which stays in us, as a gift, even when we are adults with all our teeth, our prudence.

‘No, confronted with such a dilemma, I’d unhesitatingly choose to die on the Moon: at least I’ll get a look at the Moon.’

‘Kid stuff. Nonsense. Die on the Moon! To get a look at the Moon! If it were a matter of staying there for a year or two…maybe…I don’t know. No, no, it would still be too high a price to pay because it’s senseless.’

‘Did you spend all your young years at NASA, Mr. Armstrong?’

‘I spent them traveling: Europe, Asia, South America. So I saw what there was to see, I understood what there was to understand, and here I am.’

‘Were you in the war, Mr. Armstrong?’

‘Sure, I was in Korea. Seventy-eight combat missions. I’d be lying if I said they’d done me any good.’

‘Do you have any children, Mr. Armstrong?’

‘Sure. One seven and one two. How could I not have children at my age?’

‘Ten minutes,’ said the Bureaucrat. ‘Hurry!’

He stood up. ‘I’d better say goodbye. I have to go in the centrifuge.’

‘I don’t envy you, Mr. Armstrong.’

‘Yes, it’s very disagreeable: perhaps the thing I hate most. But indispensable.’

‘Time’s up! Stop!’

‘Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye.'”

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“I Felt That This Was A Crucial Moment In My Life”

August 26, 2012 in Excerpts, Sports | Permalink

Basketball is the one major sport without antecedent that America invented, the handiwork of Dr. James Naismith, who realized in 1891 that peach baskets could be repurposed. Sean Newell of Deadspin has a post about the notes Naismith wrote after watching the first ever basketball game. It wasn’t always clear, for instance, that the game should begin with a jump ball. The transcript from the auction site that handled the papers:

“The First Game

When Mr. Stubbins brot [sic] up the peach baskets to the gym I secured them on the inside of the railing of the gallery. This was about 10 feet from the floor, one at each end of the gymnasium. I then put the 13 rules on the bulletin board just behind the instructor’s platform, secured a soccer ball and awaited the arrival of the class. I busied myself arranging the apparatus, all the time watching the boys as they arrived to observe their attitude that day. I felt that this was a crucial moment in my life as it meant success or failure of my attempt to hold the interest of the class and devise a new game.

I had neither the advantage of age nor the benefit of experience to help me put this across. But I did then what I have found universally successful since. I gathered the class around the platform and frankly stated the difficulties confronting me-telling them how I tried my best to give them the kind of work I thought suitable for secretarial students, frankly stating that I had made a failure of my attempts to modify games but told them that I had an absolutely new one and asked them to give it a trial assuring them that I thought it would be good.

The class did not show much enthusiasm but followed my lead. I lined them up, called the roll and asked T.D. Patton & E.S. Libby to step out and divide the class into two teams. I then explained what they had to do to make goals, tossed the ball up between the two center men & tried to keep them somewhat near the rules. Most of the fouls were called for running with the ball, though tackling the man with the ball was not uncommon.

If we had rules there must of necessity be some one to interpret and enforce the penalty. Two officials were appointed, one to watch the play with the ball, the other to watch the actions of the players & call the fouls.

We were ready to try out the game but as yet had no goal. I went to Mr. Stubbins, the supt. Of the building, and asked him if he had a couple of boxes about 18 inches square, as I had concluded that the goal must be small enough so that a goal could not be made at every attempt. He replied, ‘No,’ and after a moment’s hesitation he said, ‘I’ll tell you what, I have a couple of peach baskets about that size if they will do you any good.’ I asked him to bring them up to the gym floor-I nailed them to the gallery one at each end and the equipment was ready.

First court, Springfield, Massachusetts, 1891.

We now had a team game with equipment and an objective. The next question that arose was how are we going to start the game? I reviewed the games and found that the intent of the start was to give each side an equal chance of obtaining the ball. In water polo the teams were at each end of the pool and the ball was thrown into the center. I felt that this would not do as two teams rushing at each other would at least make for roughness. The plan of soccer was dismissed as it gave too much opportunity to keep the ball in the hands of the thrower’s team, thus giving them a decided advantage.

I then recalled the method of putting the ball in play in Eng. Rugby when the ball had gone over the side lines. The forward lined up in a row perpendicular to the side line, the teams opposite each other. The umpire with his back to the field threw the ball in between these lines with no chance for determining who would receive it.

I then thought of lining the teams up across the center of the floor and tossing it in between these lines. At this point I had a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach caused by the recollection of events that occurred in such a play. When one of our opponents saw that the opposite side secured the ball he would arrange things in such a way that as the player descended with the ball in his hands over his head his shoulder, elbow or knee was in the spot where his stomach was landing. This again made for roughness.

I then thought that if two men were selected to jump for the ball that it would eliminate roughness and give each side an equal chance.

Again a problem presented itself and no solution appeared. By what line of association it occurred I do not know but I was back in Bennie’s Corners, playing duck on the rock. The whole scene came before me–across the road that led to Walter Gardner’s home was a large rock higher than our knees & larger than a washtub. On this rock one or more would place their ducks-a rock twice as large as our fists. The rest of us stood behind a line about ten feet away from the rock. The object of the game was for ‘it’ to tag one of the boys who was retrieving his duck. He could do this only when his duck was on the rock. It was the object of the men behind the line to knock ‘its’ duck off the rock when he would need to replace it before he could tag anyone.

In throwing at the duck on the rock, I recalled that at times we would throw our duck as hard as we could & thus knock his away some distance. If, however, we were all back of the line and ‘it’ was ready to tag us we would throw our duck in a curve so as to knock his off & ours would fall on the near side & thus be easily retrieved. In this other case the duck was thrown in a curve and accuracy took the place of force. The idea occurred to me that if the goal was horizontal instead of vertical the player would be compelled to throw in a curve and force which made for roughness would be of no value. I then concluded that the goal into which the ball should be thrown would be horizontal. I then thought of a box, somewhat resembling our old rock, into which the ball should be tossed. It then occurred to me that the team would form a nine man defense around the goal & it would be impossible to make a goal. The shot would need to be highly arched to win any chance of entering the goal.

It then occurred to me that if the ball did not need to reach the ground the defense would be useless in that condition. I then thought of putting the goal above the heads of the defense & their only chance to prevent a goal was to go out & get the ball or prevent his opponent from throwing to the goal.”

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“How Long Do You Want To Live?”

August 26, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The United States ranks 34th in infant mortality rate, but some of us dream of life-extension beyond belief, we dream of an end that never arrives. That’s our strange reality right now, though perhaps the Affordable Care Act will improve those numbers, should it survive one more mad charge in November. From David Ewing Duncan in the New York Times:

“How many years might be added to a life? A few longevity enthusiasts suggest a possible increase of decades. Most others believe in more modest gains. And when will they come? Are we a decade away? Twenty years? Fifty years?

Even without a new high-tech ‘fix’ for aging, the United Nations estimates that life expectancy over the next century will approach 100 years for women in the developed world and over 90 years for women in the developing world. (Men lag behind by three or four years.)

Whatever actually happens, this seems like a good time to ask a very basic question: How long do you want to live?

Over the past three years I have posed this query to nearly 30,000 people at the start of talks and lectures on future trends in bioscience, taking an informal poll as a show of hands. To make it easier to tabulate responses I provided four possible answers: 80 years, currently the average life span in the West; 120 years, close to the maximum anyone has lived; 150 years, which would require a biotech breakthrough; and forever, which rejects the idea that life span has to have any limit at all.”

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“It Had Been A Crazy Summer In New York”

August 24, 2012 in Excerpts, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

Michael Steinberger has a fun, brief New York Times Magazine piece this weekend, “Queens Was Burning, Too,” which recalls another incendiary borough, which roiled all throughout the steamy months of 1977, the Summer of Sam, like John McEnroe on the wrong side of an “out” call at the U.S. Open. The opening:

“On a Sunday night midway through the 1977 U.S. Open, nearly 7,000 people gathered in the stadium at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, Queens, for a third-round match between the ninth-seeded Eddie Dibbs and an 18-year-old named John McEnroe, who was making his debut at the tournament that year. Two months earlier, McEnroe surprised the tennis world by reaching the semifinals of Wimbledon as a qualifier. His feathery touch dazzled the British fans while his combustive behavior led the British tabloids to nickname him Superbrat. Now McEnroe, who grew up in nearby Douglaston, looked poised to make a deep run at the Open. First, though, he had to get past Dibbs, a short, speedy player known as Fast Eddie.

Soon after the match started, a commotion in the stands halted play. A spectator had been shot in the leg; the bullet, the police later surmised, was fired from a nearby apartment building. At the time, New York was still reeling from the citywide blackout in July and the looting that followed. It had been terrorized for much of the summer by the Son of Sam, and now a scene straight out of Black Sunday, a film about a planned attack at the Super Bowl released earlier that year, seemed to be unfolding at the Open. ‘It had been a crazy summer in New York,’ says Bud Collins, the famed tennis commentator, who left the press box to investigate the disturbance, ‘and we were all up there wondering if another bullet was going to appear.’

Dibbs and McEnroe didn’t want to stick around to find out. As McEnroe later recalled, when an umpire told them what happened, Dibbs announced, ‘I’m out of here.’ Then the story was coincidentally revised: the fan hadn’t been shot, he’d gone into shock. The match eventually resumed with McEnroe beating Dibbs two sets to one. (At that time, early-round men’s matches at the Open were best-of-three.) Only later did they learn that it had indeed been gunfire.”

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“More Mobile, More Capable, And Less Expensive Robots For The Battlefield”

August 24, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Airplanes have been inflatable for decades, but what about robots? DARPA, which loves you to death, has the answer. From Ars Technica: “A DARPA-funded research project at Massachusetts-based iRobot has developed a series of prototype robots with inflatable parts. The robots, developed with researchers from Carnegie-Mellon University and inflatable engineering company ILC Dover, are part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s program to create more mobile, more capable, and less expensive robots for the battlefield.”

“He’d Sold The Eiffel Tower To A French Scrap-Metal Dealer”

August 24, 2012 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

This is so great. Gilbert King has put up a very well-written post at the Smithsonian site which recalls Hall of Fame con man Victor Lustig. Counterfeiters, confidence men and impostors are just like you and I, except they have more initiative. An excerpt:

“Secret Service agents finally had one of the world’s greatest imposters, wanted throughout Europe as well as in the United States. He’d amassed a fortune in schemes that were so grand and outlandish, few thought any of his victims could ever be so gullible. He’d sold the Eiffel Tower to a French scrap-metal dealer. He’d sold a ‘money box’ to countless greedy victims who believed that Lustig’s contraption was capable of printing perfectly replicated $100 bills. (Police noted that some ‘smart’ New York gamblers had paid $46,000 for one.) He had even duped some of the wealthiest and most dangerous mobsters—men like Al Capone, who never knew he’d been swindled.

Now the authorities were eager to question him about all of these activities, plus his possible role in several recent murders in New York and the shooting of Jack ‘Legs’ Diamond, who was staying in a hotel room down the hall from Lustig’s on the night he was attacked.

‘Count,’ one of the Secret Service agents said, ‘you’re the smoothest con man that ever lived.'” (Thanks Browser.)

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“It Creates A Completely New Biology Toward Our Understanding Of How Cells Age”

August 24, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have made a breakthrough in returning cells to pristine form, perhaps making possible an endless summer, a fountain of youth. What will it be like when we have all the time in the world? From the press release:

“Johns Hopkins scientists have developed a reliable method to turn the clock back on blood cells, restoring them to a primitive stem cell state from which they can then develop into any other type of cell in the body.

The work, described in the Aug. 8 issue of the journal Public Library of Science (PLoS), is ‘Chapter Two’ in an ongoing effort to efficiently and consistently convert adult blood cells into stem cells that are highly qualified for clinical and research use in place of human embryonic stem cells, says Elias Zambidis, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of oncology and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering and the Kimmel Cancer Center.

‘Taking a cell from an adult and converting it all the way back to the way it was when that person was a 6-day-old embryo creates a completely new biology toward our understanding of how cells age and what happens when things go wrong, as in cancer development,’ Zambidis says.”

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“You Might Be Able To Grow An Animal That Was Close To The Common Ancestor”

August 23, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

Rachel Bilson was busy, so Playboy interviewed Richard Dawkins this month. From a give-and-take about what genetic mapping might mean to us:

“PLAYBOY: You’ve said you expect mankind will have a genetic book of the dead by 2050. How would that be helpful?

DAWKINS: Because we contain within us the genes that have survived through generations, you could theoretically read off a creature’s evolutionary history. ‘Ah, yes, this animal lived in the sea. This is the time when it lived in deserts. This bit shows it must have lived up mountains. And this shows it used to burrow.’

PLAYBOY: Could that help us bring back a dinosaur? You have suggested crossing a bird and a crocodile and maybe putting it in an ostrich egg.

DAWKINS: It would have to be more sophisticated than a cross. It’d have to be a merging.

PLAYBOY: Could we re-create Lucy?

DAWKINS: We already know the human genome and the chimpanzee genome, so you could make a sophisticated guess as to what the genome of the common ancestor might have been like. From that you might be able to grow an animal that was close to the common ancestor. And from that you might split the difference between that ancestral animal you re-created and a modern human and get Lucy.” (Thanks Browser.)

“It Is Carried Out Either At Home Or In Piercing Shops”

August 23, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I’ve never used an illegal drug in my life, so I’m the last person who would suggest other people turn themselves into pharmaceutical guinea pigs. And bio-hackers don’t only experiment with drugs, but with all sorts of gizmos they insert beneath their skin, hoping to push human evolution to its next phase. I think they’re crazy, but it still hard to criticize them.

What pioneering enterprise isn’t fraught with danger? Those who moved westward in America making Manifest Destiny possible were taking huge risks, and a number of them died. Astronauts exploring space for NASA (and for us) take great chances, and a number of them have perished. But I can’t say either gamble lacked great value. Now that a lot of exploration has moved inside of us, I likewise can’t condemn bio-hackers and their experimentation. It probably will lead to greater knowledge, but, you know, you go first.  From “Grinders: The Cult of the Man Machine,” by Leo Benedictus at the Guardian:

“A common procedure is to implant a strong neodymium magnet beneath the surface of a person’s skin, often in the tip of the ring finger. This causes nearby magnetic fields – and even their strength and shape – to become detectable to the user, thanks to the subtle currents they provoke. For a party trick, they can also pick up metal objects or make other magnets move around.

Calling this a procedure, though, gives rather the wrong impression. Biohacking is not a field of medicine. Instead it is carried out either at home or in piercing shops, cleanly and carefully with a scalpel, but without an anaesthetic (which you need a licence for). If you think this sounds painful, you are correct.

Britain is the birthplace of modern transhumanism, as the field is known. Probably the most sophisticated implantation ever made can be found inside the left arm of Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, who can now control a robot arm by moving his own. The system also works the other way, so he can now sense his wife’s movements in his own body, after she had a similar implantation.”

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“None Of This Is Science Fiction – It’s Just Around The Corner”

August 23, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From Mark Potts’ Recovering Journalist (via the Atlantic), the opening of a 1992 letter by Bob Kaiser, Managing Editor of the Washington Post, which pinpointed exactly where print news was headed: 

“August 6, 1992

To: Don Graham, Alan Spoon, Ralph Terkowitz. Tom Ferguson, Tuesday Group Vice Presidents
From: Bob Kaiser

John Sculley’s invitation to attend an Apple-organized conference
on the future of ‘multimedia’ – computers, telecommunications,
television and other entertainment media, and traditional news
media – gave me a good opportunity to learn and to think about The
Post’s place in a fast-changing technological environment. This is
a brief report on the conference and thoughts that occurred to me
while attending.

+ + +

Alan Kay, sometimes described as the intellectual forefather of the
personal computer, offered a cautionary analogy that seemed to
apply to us. It involves the common frog. You can put a frog in a
pot of water and slowly raise the temperature under the pot until
it boils, but the frog will never jump. Its nervous system cannot
detect slight changes in temperature.

The Post is not in a pot of water, and we’re smarter than the
average frog. But we do find ourselves swimming in an electronic
sea where we could eventually be devoured — or ignored as an
unnecessary anachronism. Our goal, obviously, is to avoid getting
boiled as the electronic revolution continues.

I was taken aback by predictions at the conference about the next
stage of the computer revolution. It was offered as an
indisputable fact that the rate of technological advancement is
actually increasing. Dave Nagel, the impressive head of Apple’s
Advanced Technology Group, predicted “the three billions” would be
a reality by the end of this decade: relatively cheap personal
computers with a billion bits of memory (60 million is common
today), with microprocessors that can process a billion
instructions per second (vs. about 50 million today) that can
transmit data to other computers at a billion bits per second (vs.
15-20 million today). At that point the PC will be a virtual
supercomputer, and the easy transmission and storage of large
quantities of text, moving and still pictures, graphics, etc., will
be a reality. Eight years from now.

I asked many purported wizards at the conference if they thought
Nagel was being overoptimistic. None thought so. The machines he
envisioned will have the power to become vastly more user-friendly
than today’s PC’s. They will probably be able to take voice
instructions, and read commands written by hand or an electronic
notepad, or right on the screen. None of this is science fiction –
– it’s just around the corner.”

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“You Don’t Radically Restructure How The Novel’s Distributed And Not Have An Impact On Its Form”

August 22, 2012 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

A section from a great bundle of ideas about the future of books presented by China Miéville in a lecture at the Edinburgh International Book Festival:

“In fact what’s becoming obvious – an intriguing counterpoint to the growth in experiment – is the tenacity of relatively traditional narrative-arc-shaped fiction. But you don’t radically restructure how the novel’s distributed and not have an impact on its form. Not only do we approach an era when absolutely no one who really doesn’t want to pay for a book will have to, but one in which the digital availability of the text alters the relationship between reader, writer, and book. The text won’t be closed.

It never was, of course – think of the scrivener’s edit, the monk’s mashup – but it’s going to be even less so. Anyone who wants to shove their hands into a book and grub about in its innards, add to and subtract from it, and pass it on, will, in this age of distributed text, be able to do so without much difficulty, and some are already starting.

One response might be a rearguard clamping down, as in the punitive model of so-called antipiracy action. About which here I’ll only say – as someone very keen to continue to make a living from writing – that it’s disingenuous, hypocritical, ineffectual, misunderstands the polyvalent causes and effects of online sharing, is moribund, and complicit with toxicity.” (Thanks Browser.)

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“Visitors Arrive At Glittering, Architecturally Arresting Airports Before Being Whisked By Electric Taxis Into City Centers”

August 22, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Who really knows what the economic future holds for China? But that country is currently pouring huge amounts of money into infrastructure, trying to create an advantage for its next several generations. From “Cities of the Future: Made In China,” Dustin Roasa’s new Foreign Policy article, which collects many of that country’s boldest ideas for tomorrow and beyond:

“For much of the 20th century, the world looked to American cities for a glimpse of the future. Places like New York and Chicago had the tallest skyscrapers, the newest airports, the fastest highways, and the best electricity grids.

But now, just 12 years into the Asian Century, the city of the future has picked up and moved to China. No less than U.S. Vice President Joe Biden recognized this when he said not long ago, ‘If I blindfolded Americans and took them into some of the airports or ports in China and then took them to one in any one of your cities, in the middle of the night … and then said, ‘Which one is an American? Which one is in your city in America? And which one’s in China?’ most Americans would say, ‘Well, that great one is in America.’ It’s not.’ The speech raised eyebrows among conservative commentators, but it points out the obvious to anyone who has spent time in Beijing, Hong Kong, or Shanghai (or even lesser-known cities like Shenzhen and Dalian, for that matter).

In these cities, visitors arrive at glittering, architecturally arresting airports before being whisked by electric taxis into city centers populated by modular green skyscrapers. In the not-so-distant future, they’ll hop on traffic-straddling buses powered by safe, clean solar panels. With China now spending some $500 billion annually on infrastructure — 9 percent of its GDP, well above the rates in the United States and Europe — and with the country’s population undergoing the largest rural-to-urban migration in human history, the decisions it makes about its cities will affect the future of urban areas everywhere. Want to know where urban technology is going? Take the vice president’s advice and head east.”

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“Why The Stubborn Insistence On Self-Determination, In Spite Of The Facts?”

August 22, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

We tell ourselves stories in order to live, yes, but what if we are telling the wrong stories? The ones that flatter our egos, drive us into the false security of a mythical past instead of an uncertain future, expand our delusions? From Firmin DeBrabander in the New York Times:

“In Chisago County, Minn., The Times’s reporters spoke with residents who supported the Tea Party and its proposed cuts to federal spending, even while they admitted they could not get by without government support. Tea Party aficionados, and many on the extreme right of the Republican party for that matter, are typically characterized as self-sufficient middle class folk, angry about sustaining the idle poor with their tax dollars. Chisago County revealed a different aspect of this anger: economically struggling Americans professing a robust individualism and self-determination, frustrated with their failures to achieve that ideal.

Why the stubborn insistence on self-determination, in spite of the facts? One might say there is something profoundly American in this. It’s our fierce individualism shining through. Residents of Chisago County are clinging to notions of past self-reliance before the recession, before the welfare state. It’s admirable in a way. Alternately, it evokes the delusional autonomy of Freud’s poor ego.

These people, like many across the nation, rely on government assistance, but pretend they don’t. They even resent the government for their reliance. If they looked closely though, they’d see that we are all thoroughly saturated with government assistance in this country: farm subsidies that lower food prices for us all, mortgage interest deductions that disproportionately favor the rich, federal mortgage guarantees that keep interest rates low, a bloated Department of Defense that sustains entire sectors of the economy and puts hundreds of thousands of people to work. We can hardly fathom the depth of our dependence on government, and pretend we are bold individualists instead.”

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“We Live In A Continuous State Of Manufactured Normalcy”

August 22, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The opening of “Welcome to the Future Nauseous,” a really fun Venkat Rao essay that argues that the future is always arriving and that we are unwilling or unable to process and acknowledge it so we instead assign it to some distant point:

“Both science fiction and futurism seem to miss an important piece of how the future actually turns into the present. They fail to capture the way we don’t seem to notice when the future actually arrives.

Sure, we can all see the small clues all around us: cellphones, laptops, Facebook, Prius cars on the street. Yet, somehow, the future always seems like something that is going to happen rather than something that is happening; future perfect rather than present-continuous. Even the nearest of near-term science fiction seems to evolve at some fixed receding-horizon distance from the present.

There is an unexplained cognitive dissonance between changing-reality-as-experienced and change as imagined, and I don’t mean specifics of failed and successful predictions.

My new explanation is this: we live in a continuous state of manufactured normalcy. There are mechanisms that operate — a mix of natural, emergent and designed — that work to prevent us from realizing that the future is actually happening as we speak. To really understand the world and how it is evolving, you need to break through this manufactured normalcy field. Unfortunately, that leads, as we will see, to a kind of existential nausea.” (Thanks TETW.)

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“The Concept Of An Elevator From The Earth To Orbit Has Been Around For More Than A Century”

August 21, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Some scientists believe that space elevators, which would replace dangerous and costly rocket launchers and lift crafts into orbit rather than blasting them there, may be just a decade away. That doesn’t seem like a realistic timeline even if we master the concept, though further down the line it’s plausible. From Richard Hollingham at the BBC:

“Rockets are dangerous, complicated and relatively unreliable. No-one has yet built a launcher that is guaranteed to work every time. A misaligned switch, loose bolt or programming error can lead to disaster or, with a human crew, a potential tragedy.

Rockets are also incredibly expensive – even the cheapest launch will set you back some $12 million, meaning the cost of any cargo costs a staggering $16,700 per kilogram. Although the funky new space planes being developed, such as Britain’s Skylon or Virgin’s SpaceShipTwo, will slash the costs of getting into space, they are still based on rocket technology – using sheer brute force to escape the clutches of gravity.

But there is a radical alternative. Science fiction fans have long been familiar with space elevators. Popularised by Arthur C Clarke, the concept of an elevator from the Earth to orbit has been around for more than a century. In the space operas of Iain M Banks or Alastair Reynolds, space elevators are pretty much taken for granted – they’re what advanced civilisations use to leave their planets.”

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“Currently Five Of The Donkeys Are Walking Wi-Fi Hotspots”

August 21, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

It’s not April 1st, so I’ll trust this Gizmodo story by Tom Pritchard which reports that an Israeli theme park has enabled donkeys with wi-fi. The opening:

“Step aside Hobo Wi-Fi, there’s a new, better way for people to get their internet on the go. Introducing Wi-Fi enabled donkeys from Israel – ancient transport now updated for the 21st century.

Kfar Kedem is a historical theme park with the purpose of reenacting life as it was 2000 years ago, including the ever popular donkey ride, now with a twist. Currently five of the donkeys are walking Wi-Fi hotspots with future plans to expand to the other 25 donkeys the park owns. If you ever take a visit it, watch yourself in case you’re run over by a wayward child on the back of the donkey who’s too busy Instagramming to look where he’s going.”

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“The Defendant Had Inherited A Gene Linked To Violent, Aggressive Behavior”

August 21, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

You can keep going around in this circle for a long time: Criminals who have brain defects have less control over their actions so judges have a tendency to give them shorter sentences so they are returned sooner to society where they have less control over their actions. That’s at least the in vitro conclusion drawn from a recent experiment that presented neurobiological evidence to judges in hypothetical cases. From Benedict Carey in the New York Times:

“In the study, three researchers at the University of Utah tracked down 181 state judges from 19 states who agreed to read a fictional case file and assign a sentence to an offender, ‘Jonathan Donahue,’ convicted of beating a restaurant manager senseless with the butt of a gun. All of the judges learned in their files that Mr. Donahue had been identified as a psychopath based on a standard interview — that is, he had a history of aggressive acts without showing empathy.

The case files distributed to the judges were identical, except that half included testimony from a scientist described as ‘a neurobiologist and renowned expert on the causes of psychopathy,’ who said that the defendant had inherited a gene linked to violent, aggressive behavior. This testimony described how the gene variant altered the development of brain areas that generate and manage emotion.

The account is an accurate description of one theory of how brain development may underlie aggressive behavior. Its applicability to any individual is unknown, however, given that many other factors could increase the likelihood of violence, researchers said.

The judges who read this testimony gave Mr. Donahue sentences that ranged from one to 41 years in prison, a number that varied with state guidelines. But the average was 13 years — a full year less than the average sentence issued by the judges who had not seen the testimony about genetics and the brain.”

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“Passengers Were Lodging An Inordinate Number Of Complaints About The Long Waits At Baggage Claim”

August 20, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

In case you missed Alex Stone’s smart NYT piece yesterday about the psychology of waiting on lines, here’s the opening:

“SOME years ago, executives at a Houston airport faced a troubling customer-relations issue. Passengers were lodging an inordinate number of complaints about the long waits at baggage claim. In response, the executives increased the number of baggage handlers working that shift. The plan worked: the average wait fell to eight minutes, well within industry benchmarks. But the complaints persisted.

Puzzled, the airport executives undertook a more careful, on-site analysis. They found that it took passengers a minute to walk from their arrival gates to baggage claim and seven more minutes to get their bags. Roughly 88 percent of their time, in other words, was spent standing around waiting for their bags.

So the airport decided on a new approach: instead of reducing wait times, it moved the arrival gates away from the main terminal and routed bags to the outermost carousel. Passengers now had to walk six times longer to get their bags. Complaints dropped to near zero.”

•••••••••••

Waiting on line in Akron for 23-cent pizza at Papa John’s, which is still four cents more than I would pay for it:

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“It’s An Unpopulated, Faux Western Town That Might Boggle The Mind Of Anyone Who Ever Had A Playhouse”

August 20, 2012 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

One of the other billionaire Koch brothers (Bill) is building a replica Old West town and filling it with his considerable collection of Western memorabilia. He is doing it merely to amuse himself; the public will never be allowed to visit. Who said the Bush tax cuts wouldn’t work? From the Denver Post (via Slate):

“KEBLER PASS —There’s a new town in Colorado. It has about 50 buildings, including a saloon, a church, a jail, a firehouse, a livery and a train station. Soon, it will have a mansion on a hill so the town’s founder can look down on his creation.

But don’t expect to move here — or even to visit.

This town is billionaire Bill Koch’s fascination with the Old West rendered in bricks and mortar. It sits on a 420-acre meadow on his Bear Ranch below the Raggeds Wilderness Area in Gunnison County. It’s an unpopulated, faux Western town that might boggle the mind of anyone who ever had a playhouse. Its full-size buildings come with polished brass and carved-mahogany details and are fronted with board sidewalks and underpinned by a water-treatment system. A locked gate with guards screens who comes and goes.”

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“The New York Times Reported ‘An Increase In Twilight Zone-Type Reports Of Sheep And Rabbits With Cataracts’ In Patagonia”

August 20, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Matt Ridley’s new Wired cover story, “Apocalypse Not,” reminds of the many endgames wrongly predicted over the past few decades for humanity, from post-peak oil to variants of flu to the hole in the ozone layer. It’s a wise piece, though we shouldn’t relax about doing things in a cleaner, more energy-conscious way. An excerpt:

“The threat to the ozone layer came next. In the 1970s scientists discovered a decline in the concentration of ozone over Antarctica during several springs, and the Armageddon megaphone was dusted off yet again. The blame was pinned on chlorofluorocarbons, used in refrigerators and aerosol cans, reacting with sunlight. The disappearance of frogs and an alleged rise of melanoma in people were both attributed to ozone depletion. So too was a supposed rash of blindness in animals: Al Gore wrote in 1992 about blind salmon and rabbits, while The New York Times reported ‘an increase in Twilight Zone-type reports of sheep and rabbits with cataracts’ in Patagonia. But all these accounts proved incorrect. The frogs were dying of a fungal disease spread by people; the sheep had viral pinkeye; the mortality rate from melanoma actually leveled off during the growth of the ozone hole; and as for the blind salmon and rabbits, they were never heard of again.

There was an international agreement to cease using CFCs by 1996. But the predicted recovery of the ozone layer never happened: The hole stopped growing before the ban took effect, then failed to shrink afterward. The ozone hole still grows every Antarctic spring, to roughly the same extent each year. Nobody quite knows why. Some scientists think it is simply taking longer than expected for the chemicals to disintegrate; a few believe that the cause of the hole was misdiagnosed in the first place. Either way, the ozone hole cannot yet be claimed as a looming catastrophe, let alone one averted by political action.”

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