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Old Print Article: “Floating Hotel Off Tonight,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1901)

March 27, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Photography, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

John Arbuckle’s dream stayed afloat far longer than many expected. The coffee magnate and humanitarian decided, at the dawn of the twentieth century, to combat the lack of affordable lodgings in Manhattan by converting ships into floating apartment buildings for single, working-class folks. For roughly three dollars a week, hundreds of renters would get room and board and motion sickness. It wasn’t meant to make money (and did not since it never became as popular as the proprietor had hoped) but to be a gift to struggling people from a kindly man who was known as both a capitalist and a trust buster.

There were problems from the start, and the New York Times even sank the plan prematurely, but the company continued to offer “water beds” for a pittance until 1915, withdrawing its gangplank for good soon after Arbuckle’s death. Just three dozen women were residents at that point.

From an article in the July 17, 1901 Brooklyn Daily Eagle about the maiden voyage: 

“John Arbuckle will open his floating hotels, now organized under the name of the Deep Sea Hotel Company, for business to-morrow evening. This evening he will take as guests a number of his friends and a party of newspaper men on the inaugural trip of the Jacob A. Stamler. The tugboat John Herlin will leave the foot of Atlantic Avenue at 6 o’clock with the guests and take them over to the ship, which is anchored off the Statue of Liberty. The Stamler was towed over there this morning, in order to be in readiness to sail this evening.

The yachts Giana and Hermit are anchored off Thirty-ninth Street, South Brooklyn, and will be placed in commission when their services are called for.

The final preparations on the vessels are only just completed. Handsome carpets have been laid down in the saloons, smoking room and on the berth deck. Every stateroom is handsomely carpeted and fitted up. The lower deck of the Stamler is mainly occupied by bath and toilet rooms of the latest design. The awning deck has been fitted up with seats, which can be converted into comfortable beds. The main and women’s saloons are fitted with Pullman berths, and the seats can also be used as berths. These saloons are fitted with handsomely upholstered chairs, hard wood tables and lounging chairs. The smoking room is equally well equipped. The ship is remarkably cool below decks, the air being kept in constant circulation by a large fan driven by steam. The entire ship s brilliantly lighted up with electric lights furnished by a dynamo in the engine room. The engine is utilized for hoisting in the anchor, getting coal and supplies on board and it does much of handling of the sails as well.

The kitchen is splendidly equipped. There is an immense range of the latest design, a large broiler and several soup and vegetable kettles. A ten ton ice refrigerator occupies one section and a dumb waiter connects the culinary department with the pantry on the saloon deck. What is said of the Stamler applies equally, but in a smaller degree to the schooner yachts Hermit and Gitana.

Every precaution will be taken to prevent the semblance of rowdyism, as Mr. Arbuckle said to an Eagle reporter today: ‘I will have a couple of special policemen, big and strong enough to shake the toe nails of any one who attempts to cause annoyance on board, and pitch him in the blackhole of the John Herlin afterward. I sincerely hope there will be no need to call on their service, but nothing wrong will be tolerated for an instant.’

The floating hotels will open for business to-morrow evening.”

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Richard Brautigan On The Computer Age, 1968

March 27, 2014 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

 

“All Watched Over
by Machines of Loving Grace”

I’d like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

“For Thieves, The Ubiquity Of A Product And The Presence Of A Large Illicit Market For It Is More Important Than Its Actual Retail Value”

March 27, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

In “Why Thieves Steal Soap,” Alex Mayyasi of Priceonomics explains the strategy of stores that keep cheaper items under lock and key while not protecting more expensive goods with the same ardor. An excerpt:

“Products like cigarettes and soap perform some of the major functions of money very well. Since there is a consistent demand and market for them, even when they’re not on store shelves, they retain their value. (Unlike an iPod, they never become obsolete.) Since they have standard sizes, they can also be used as a unit of account. You can pay for something with one, five, or ten packs of cigarettes depending on its value. In areas where fences or other buyers are always willing to purchase stolen products like soap, it’s just as good as money.

For thieves, the ubiquity of a product and the presence of a large illicit market for it is more important than its actual retail value. Small time burglars can’t keep stolen goods in warehouses, waiting for a buyer and marketing products to people willing to pay a premium for a unique item. It may seem surprising that Walgreen keeps some of its cheapest items locked up, until you realize that thieves care more about an item’s ubiquity in illicit markets more than its retail price.”

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“The Skull Was Made Specifically For The Patient Using An Unspecified Durable Plastic”

March 27, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

When you read a lot today about science and technology, you need to keep an eye on the calendar. It often feels like April Fool’s Day, so much of the latest news seems outlandish. But it’s true that a woman from the Netherlands just had her skull replaced with a plastic one created by a 3-D printer. From Nicholas Tufnell at Wired UK:

“The skull was made specifically for the patient using an unspecified durable plastic. Since the operation, the patient has gained her sight back entirely, is symptom-free and back to work. It is not known whether the plastic will require replacing at a later date or if it will last a lifetime.

The lead surgeon had previous experience with 3D reconstructions of skulls, but such a large implant had never been accomplished before. ‘It is almost impossible to see that she’s ever had surgery,’ said Dr Verweij in the university’s official statement.

It is hoped this technique can also be used for patients with other bone disorders or to repair severely damaged skulls after an accident or tumour.”

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“I Applied Some Theories Of My Own And The Findings Of A Computer To The Game of Blackjack Or 21”

March 27, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports, Videos | Permalink

Edward O. Thorp, a mathematics professor who lives to bring down the house-the house being a casino–has focused a sizable portion of his career on mathematical probability in betting games. He also created, in tandem with Bell Labs unicyclist Claude Shannon, what is arguably the first wearable computer. The device, which was contained in a shoe or a cigarette pack, could markedly improve a gambler’s chance at the roulette wheel, though the bugs were never completely worked out. From a 1998 conference:

“The first wearable computer was conceived in 1955 by the author to predict roulette, culminating in a joint effort at M.I.T. with Claude Shannon in 1960-61. The final operating version was rested in Shannon’s basement home lab in June of 1961. The cigarette pack sized analog device yielded an expected gain of +44% when betting on the most favored ‘octant’. The Shannons and Thorps tested the computer in Las Vegas in the summer of 1961. The predictions there were consistent with the laboratory expected gain of 44% but a minor hardware problem deferred sustained serious betting. They kept the method and the existence of the computer secret until 1966.”

Thorp appeared on To Tell the Truth in 1964. He didn’t discuss wearables but his book about other methods to break the bank. Amusing that NYC radio host John Gambling played one of the impostors.

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“Looking At California’s Desert-Like Farm Areas, It’s Hard To Picture The Land As It Was Before Being Plowed”

March 26, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Hearing about California’s drought issues might be temptation to give thanks that at least we’re not them, but of course, in America, we are them. When the state that supplies us with so much of our food goes dry, there’s the threat that we all go hungry. So many smart West Coast techies are too busy trying to develop the next billion-dollar app to innovate in this area, but even traditional common-sense approaches could alleviate some of the problems. Of course, there are economic drivers keeping such practices from being implemented. From California rancher Nicolette Hahn Niman’s Guardian piece:

“Looking at California’s desert-like farm areas, it’s hard to picture the land as it was before being plowed. Early Europeans reported endless carpets of wildflowers and ‘tall grasses up to the bellies of the horses’. In the mid-1800s, the wild flora was stripped away and huge fields of wheat were planted. When crop yields declined, fields were abandoned or converted to rangelands.

It’s a vicious cycle that has been the curse of destructive agriculture for thousands of years: remove native vegetation, continuously grow crops, don’t rest the land or return nutrients. Erode and exhaust soils. Move on. Repeat.

And it’s not just California: a society’s inability to feed its people from local resources has contributed to the collapse of civilizations throughout history. ‘We remain on track to repeat their stories,’ warns the professor David Montgomery in his fascinating book Dirt. ‘Only this time, we are doing it on a global scale.’

But Montgomery also urges that we can choose another fate: understand the land, take care of the soil. We need to farm as nature does – with diverse crops, and plants and animals together – rather than the so-called ‘monocultural’ school of farming that grows huge fields of annual crops.”

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“Robot Cars May Prevent Thousands Of Accidents, But Eventually, Inevitably, There Will Be A Crash”

March 26, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I think an interesting concentration right now for law students would be the legality and ethics of automated machines. One question yet to be answered which falls within that purview is the liability of automakers and drivers when a robocar malfunctions. While these new machines will save a huge number lives, they won’t be flawless. From Alex Brown at National Journal:

‘What happens when something goes wrong? Robot cars may prevent thousands of accidents, but eventually, inevitably, there will be a crash.

‘Who’s responsible if the car crashes?’ Audi’s Brad Stertz said earlier this year. ‘That’s going to be an issue.’

It’s tough to argue the passenger (who may well be the victim) should be held responsible if a car controlled by a computer runs itself off the road. But should automakers face long, expensive lawsuits when life-saving technology suffers a rare glitch? ‘

Automaker liability is likely to increase. Crashes are much more likely to be viewed as the fault of the car and the manufacturer,’ Anderson said. ‘If you’re an automaker and you know you’re going to be sued [more frequently], you’re going to have reservations.… The legal liability test doesn’t take into account the long-run benefits.’

In other words, even though a technology is an overall boon to the greater good, its rare instances of failure—and subsequent lawsuits—won’t take that into account. That could slow the movement of driverless cars to the mass market if automakers are wary of legal battles.”

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“Can One Of These Suits Withstand A Micrometeorite Hit?”

March 26, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

3

Apollo spacesuits weren’t just high quality but also high fashion, even inspiring runway apparel. A movie is in development now to adapt Nicholas de Manchauz’s recent book on the topic. NASA engineers involved in the design of next-gen spacesuits just did an Ask Me Anything at Reddit. A few exchanges follow.

_______________________

Question:

What are your backgrounds? Engineers? Physicists? How did you get into this?

NASA:

We’re all engineers (aerospace, mechanical, bio-astronautics, human factors, and electrical). We’ve all been interested in space since we were kids and dreamed of working at NASA. The majority of us started our NASA careers as cooperative education students too, which allowed us to try several different aspects of engineering at NASA before finding our calling in space suit design and testing.

_______________________

Question:

Do you think we will ever (in the foreseeable future) “escape” from the giant bulky bubble spacesuits that have been the norm since the Apollo missions? A slimmer, more form-fitting one, like the ones the Mercury and Gemini astronauts wore, would certainly be easier to operate in, but is not technologically feasible for working in exposed space. Are there any designs that are aimed towards a thinner aesthetic?

NASA:

Great question! This is a question we get a lot, and there are a couple answers.

First, the Mercury suits were not designed to be pressurized except in a contingency – they were “get me down” suits similar to the orange ACES suits we used for Shuttle. The Gemini suits were used for EVA, but were sorely lacking in mobility. In comparison, the Apollo suit built just a few years later, which still has somewhat limited EVA mobility, appears much “bulkier”. As a general rule, the more mobile a pressurized suit, the bulkier it appears due to the use of more hard mobility elements such as bearings. The more hard components, the less change in volume of the suit through the range of motion, and the higher the mobility.

Also, an “alternative” to full pressure suits is mechanical counter pressure suits which have been theorized and worked on since the 1960s. Some of us think that this type of suit architecture has a place in the distant future once material technology enables it. For now, we do actively fund material development in this area. In the meantime, we are designing suits for the next 10-20 years, and those will likely be full pressure suits like you see with the EMU, Mark III, Z-1 and the upcoming Z-2!

_______________________

Question:

Do you plan on distributing any suits to SpaceX or other privatized companies?

NASA:

NASA’s commercial crew partners are solely contracted to develop a vehicle as a way to transport crew to the International Space Station. As such, the suits they use will be “launch and entry” suits of the simplest kind. Each company is responsible for their own suit, whether they build it in house, or subcontract it out. Launch and entry suits are designed for unpressurized comfort and mobility – they are only pressurized in an emergency and therefore, pressurized mobility is not a significant design driver. The Z-series of suits and other suits in our Advanced Suit Laboratory are specifically EVA suits – that is, optimized for pressurized mobility. Therefore, while there are always lessons learned in any suit design and some technical overlap, we view these suits of limited applicability to the Z-series. That being said, there are others within our branch (Spacesuit and Crew Survival Systems Branch) as well as within NASA that are working closely on commercial crew partners and spacesuits are an important component of this. And lastly, we just want to add that we are all super excited about the prospect of commercial access to space!

_______________________

Question:

How accurate are spacesuits in modern science fiction movies? Are there any depictions that unknowingly got some tech you’re developing right?

NASA:

Space suits from most futuristic space movies are form fitting and allow you got get in your suit, open the hatch, and go EVA. Not realistic for the forseeable future. Form fitting suits (MPC) are decades away and there is a certain amount of pre-breathe time required before going EVA to allow your body to be purged of N2 because the suits operate at lower than earth atmospheric pressures.

_______________________

Question:

Can one of these suits withstand a micrometeorite hit, say, in a moon or Mars atmo scenario? Or is that pretty much instant death for the wearer?

NASA:

The risk of impact is higher on the Moon because there’s no atmosphere to slow bits down or destroy them, and once they hit on the Moon, smaller secondary chunks can be ejected too. However, at the end of the day, the damage done depends on the size of the particle. The suits are designed to maintain pressure for at least 30min after getting a 0.25in diameter hole. We try to mitigate the risk by designing multiple layers in the suit that reduce the size and energy of particles that hit to prevent them from actually penetrating the bladder layer. We also use statistical models in EVA planning to pick times and locations for space walks that are lower risk for micrometeoroid impacts.

All that said, if a big rock moving at 17,500mph hits you, that’s going to be a bad day.•

“Countless Religious Innovators Over The Years Have Played The Game Of Establishing An Identity For Themselves By Accentuating Their Otherness”

March 26, 2014 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

As you probably realize if you read this blog with any regularity, I’m fascinated by religious and secular cults, groups of people who give themselves over to an idea, a hoped-for utopia, outside the mainstream, often threatening the mainstream. These offshoots can bring about death or disappointment, and sometimes they’re driven by genuine madness, though occasionally the mistrust is misplaced. I suppose what makes me so interested in them is that I’m a really individualistic person who can’t even fathom trusting so wholly in a culture, let alone a subculture. I’d like to know how that process works. What’s the trigger?

In his just-published New Yorker piece about The Journey to Waco, a sect member’s memoir that revisits the FBI’s disastrous 1993 siege of the compound, Malcolm Gladwell points out that negotiating with the devoted is different than making deals with those devoted solely to profit. A passage that compares Branch Davidians with early Mormons:

“The Mormons were vilified in those years in large part because Joseph Smith believed in polygamy. But the Cornell historian R. Laurence Moore, in his classic book Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans, points out that the moral hysteria over the Mormons was misplaced. The Mormons were quintessential Americans. ‘Like the Puritans before them, the Mormons linked disciplined labor with religious duty,’ Moore writes. ‘Mormon culture promoted all the virtues usually associated with the formation of middle-class consciousness—thrift, the denial of immediate gratification, and strict control over one’s passions.’ Polygamy, the practice that so excited popular passions, was of little importance to the Church: ‘First, the vast majority of nineteenth century Mormons did not practice polygamy, and many of them found it distasteful, at least as a way of conducting their own lives. Second, those who did practice plural marriage scarcely exhibited the lascivious behavior made familiar in anti-Mormon literature. Plural wives were commonly the widowed or unmarried sisters of the original wife.’

So why were nineteenth-century Americans so upset with the Mormons? Moore’s answer is that Americans thought the Mormons were different from them because the Mormons themselves ‘said they were different and because their claims, frequently advanced in the most obnoxious way possible, prompted others to agree and to treat them as such.’ In order to give his followers a sense of identity and resilience, Joseph Smith ‘required them to maintain certain fictions of cultural apartness.’ Moore describes this as a very American pattern. Countless religious innovators over the years have played the game of establishing an identity for themselves by accentuating their otherness. Koresh faced the same problem, and he, too, made his claims, at least in the eyes of the outside world, ‘in the most obnoxious way possible.’

The risks of such a strategy are obvious. Mainstream American society finds it easiest to be tolerant when the outsider chooses to minimize the differences that separate him from the majority. The country club opens its doors to Jews. The university welcomes African-Americans. Heterosexuals extend the privilege of marriage to the gay community. Whenever these liberal feats are accomplished, we congratulate ourselves. But it is not exactly a major moral accomplishment for Waspy golfers to accept Jews who have decided that they, too, wish to play golf. It is a much harder form of tolerance to accept an outsider group that chooses to maximize its differences from the broader culture.”

______________________________

“Was there no plan?”

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“It Might Not Always Be Obvious How Technologically-Induced Changes In A Punishment Affect Its Severity”

March 25, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

At Practical Ethics, Rebecca Roache, one of the interview subjects in Ross Andersen’s excellent Aeon piece about criminal punishment during a time of radical life extension, answers some of the more overheated criticism her philosophical musings received. An excerpt:

“Even if technology is harnessed to devise new punishment methods, it might not be clear how the new methods compare to old methods. Radical lifespan enhancement might enable us to send people to prison for hundreds of years, but would this be a more severe punishment than current life sentences, or a less severe one? On the one hand, longer prison sentences are more severe punishments than shorter prison sentences, so a 300-year sentence would be a more severe punishment than a 30-year one. On the other hand, consider that many prisoners sentenced to death in the US appeal to have their death sentences converted to life sentences. This suggests that a longer sentence is viewed by prisoners who are sentenced to death as less severe than a shorter sentence (followed by execution). I made this point in the Aeon interview, and some people took me to be rejecting the idea of technologically-extended life sentences on the ground that this would be too lenient, and therefore bad. In fact, my point was that it might not always be obvious how technologically-induced changes in a punishment affect its severity.”

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“Companies Will Increasingly Know All There Is To Know About You”

March 25, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Speaking of surveillance: While I’m certainly not in favor of government snooping, I don’t think legislation will seriously alter the practice. There are too many tools to spy with, and they’ll only get better. And corporations, even more than the government, want to know everything about us. It’s like a focus group we’ll hardly even notice, conducted in real time. We won’t only live in public, but our lives will be measured, quantified. There will be no going off the grid because everything will be the grid. It will be utopia and dystopia all at once. The opening of “Invasion of the Data Snatchers,” a new article at Real Clear Technology by Catherine Crump and Matthew Harwood:

“Estimates vary, but by 2020 there could be over 30 billion devices connected to the Internet. Once dumb, they will have smartened up thanks to sensors and other technologies embedded in them and, thanks to your machines, your life will quite literally have gone online.

The implications are revolutionary. Your smart refrigerator will keep an inventory of food items, noting when they go bad. Your smart thermostat will learn your habits and adjust the temperature to your liking. Smart lights will illuminate dangerous parking garages, even as they keep an ‘eye’ out for suspicious activity.

Techno-evangelists have a nice catchphrase for this future utopia of machines and the never-ending stream of information, known as Big Data, it produces: the Internet of Things. So abstract. So inoffensive. Ultimately, so meaningless.

A future Internet of Things does have the potential to offer real benefits, but the dark side of that seemingly shiny coin is this: companies will increasingly know all there is to know about you.”

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“Your Predecessor As Head Of The NSA Compared The Internet With The Invention Of The Atomic Bomb”

March 25, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

In a Spiegel interview by Marc Hujer and Holger Stark, former NSA director Michael Hayden addresses what he feels is the chilling effect the Snowden leaks have had on the Internet globally. I think, like it or not, the world is ultimately stuck with the Internet and a new normal in regards to privacy. An excerpt:

“Spiegel:

On the one hand, the United States promotes the Internet as a tool of freedom. On the other hand, it now appears to many people to be a tool of surveillance.

Michael Hayden:

I am quite willing to have a discussion about what my country has or has not done, but it has to be based on facts. Let me first point out that the NSA doesn’t monitor what every American is doing on the Internet. The NSA doesn’t check who goes to what websites. But you’ve got these beliefs out there now.

Spiegel:

Your predecessor as head of the NSA, General Kenneth Minihan, compared the Internet with the invention of the atomic bomb. He said a new national effort should be dedicated to one single goal, ‘information superiority for America’ in cyberspace. It looks like you’ve gotten pretty close.

Michael Hayden:

We Americans think of military doctrine and ‘domains’ — land, sea, air, space. As part of our military thought, we now think of cyber as a domain. Let me define air dominance for you: Air dominance is the ability of the United States to use the air domain at times and places of its own choosing while denying its use to its adversaries at times and places when it is in our legitimate national interest to do so. It’s just a natural thing for him to transfer that to the cyber domain. I do not think it is a threat to world peace and commerce any more than the American Air Force is a threat to world peace and commerce.

Spiegel:

But do you understand if people in other countries are concerned about one country trying to gain “superiority” over something transnational like the Internet?

Michael Hayden:

I certainly do, and I thoroughly understand that. Now, other countries are creating cyber commands, but we were first, public, and very forceful in our language. We are now accused of militarizing cyberspace. Around the time US Cyber Command was created, McAfee did a survey of cyber security experts around the world. One of the questions they asked of them was, ‘Who do you fear most in cyberspace?’ The answer for the Americans was the Chinese. With the plurality of people around the world, it was the Americans.”

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“Young People Are Just Smarter”

March 24, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

The Bay Area, home of Moneyball, seems to have created a market inefficiency waiting to be exploited: tech workers who’ve reached their thirtieth birthdays. A strong bias in favor of not just young employees but very young ones, a culture with values akin to Logan’s Run, has left talented people fearing their first wrinkle or gray hair. Where will these “olds” go? The opening of Noam Scheiber’s New Republic article “The Brutal Ageism of Tech“:

“I have more botox in me than any ten people,’ Dr. Seth Matarasso told me in an exam room this February.

He is a reality-show producer’s idea of a cosmetic surgeon—his demeanor brash, his bone structure preposterous. Over the course of our hour-long conversation, he would periodically fire questions at me, apropos of nothing, in the manner of my young daughter. ‘What gym do you go to?’ ‘What’s your back look like?’ ‘Who did your nose?’ In lieu of bidding me goodbye, he called out, ‘Love me, mean it,’ as he walked away.

Twenty years ago, when Matarasso first opened shop in San Francisco, he found that he was mostly helping patients in late middle age: former homecoming queens, spouses who’d been cheated on, spouses looking to cheat. Today, his practice is far larger and more lucrative than he could have ever imagined. He sees clients across a range of ages. He says he’s the world’s second-biggest dispenser of Botox. But this growth has nothing to do with his endearingly nebbishy mien. It is, rather, the result of a cultural revolution that has taken place all around him in the Bay Area.

Silicon Valley has become one of the most ageist places in America. Tech luminaries who otherwise pride themselves on their dedication to meritocracy don’t think twice about deriding the not-actually-old. ‘Young people are just smarter,’ Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told an audience at Stanford back in 2007. As I write, the website of ServiceNow, a large Santa Clara–based I.T. services company, features the following advisory in large letters atop its ‘careers’ page: ‘We Want People Who Have Their Best Work Ahead of Them, Not Behind Them.’

And that’s just what gets said in public.”

_________________________

“There’s just one catch…”:

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“The Whole History Of Man Is Just An Effort By People, Writers, To Just Write Your Name On The Great Wall”

March 24, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Matthew Hahn interviewed Hunter S. Thompson for The Atlantic in 1997, discussing the impact of the Internet on journalism and culture, among other matters. Thompson was particularly prescient about the ego-feeding nature of new, decentralized media. An excerpt:

“Matthew Hahn:

The Internet has been touted as a new mode of journalism — some even go so far as to say it might democratize journalism. Do you see a future for the Internet as a journalistic medium?

Hunter S. Thompson:

Well, I don’t know. There is a line somewhere between democratizing journalism and every man a journalist. You can’t really believe what you read in the papers anyway, but there is at least some spectrum of reliability. Maybe it’s becoming like the TV talk shows or the tabloids where anything’s acceptable as long as it’s interesting.

I believe that the major operating ethic in American society right now, the most universal want and need is to be on TV. I’ve been on TV. I could be on TV all the time if I wanted to. But most people will never get on TV. It has to be a real breakthrough for them. And trouble is, people will do almost anything to get on it. You know, confess to crimes they haven’t committed. You don’t exist unless you’re on TV. Yeah, it’s a validation process. Faulkner said that American troops wrote ‘Kilroy was here’ on the walls of Europe in World War II in order to prove that somebody had been there — ‘I was here’ — and that the whole history of man is just an effort by people, writers, to just write your name on the great wall.

You can get on [the Internet] and all of a sudden you can write a story about me, or you can put it on top of my name. You can have your picture on there too. I don’t know the percentage of the Internet that’s valid, do you? Jesus, it’s scary. I don’t surf the Internet. I did for a while. I thought I’d have a little fun and learn something. I have an e-mail address. No one knows it. But I wouldn’t check it anyway, because it’s just too fucking much. You know, it’s the volume. The Internet is probably the first wave of people who have figured out a different way to catch up with TV — if you can’t be on TV, well at least you can reach 45 million people [on the Internet].”

“One Day We Could Have Conductive Materials That Grow, Evolve, And Self-Repair”

March 24, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Rust never sleeps, and it would make sense that chemical reactions and biological materials, programmed to keep advancing, would eventually be engineered for use in our tools, in everything from smartphones to solar panels, allowing such goods to auto-repair and biodegrade. From Rachel Feltman at Quartz, an investigation into the latter:

“One day we could have conductive materials that grow, evolve, and self-repair. Researchers at MIT have taken the first steps to creating them. A new study describes ‘living materials’ that combine bacterial cells with nonliving materials that can conduct electricity and emit different colors of light. The study is just a proof-of-concept, but researchers say that future applications could include cheaper, more efficient solar panels and biosensors.

‘When you look around the natural world,’ lead author Timothy Lu told Quartz, ‘you can see that biology has done a great job of designing unique materials. But in our day-to-day lives, we use materials that aren’t alive in any way.’ These plastics, he says, require lots of energy to make and use. ‘The goal,’ he says, ‘is to find a way to engineer living cells so you can make them into materials you might not find naturally.’

His team used E. coli, which naturally produces biofilms—communities of bacteria like the plaque on your teeth—that grow to cover a surface. Bacteria in biofilms have unique ways of organizing and communicating with each other to survive, which is a quality the researchers found attractive for producing new materials.”

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“Wearable Devices Already Exist To Monitor And Transmit Patients’ Data”

March 24, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

In “The Data Companies Wish They Had,” Max Taves’ new WSJ article, there are back-to-back passages which stress the quantified direction we’re heading in with all our smart gadgets, a world in which algorithms are measuring, at a distance, the performance and expiration date of humans and machines alike. The passage:

“An Eye on Appliances

Whirlpool Corp., the Benton Harbor, Mich., appliance maker, has a vast reach in American households—but wants to know more about its customers and how they actually use its products. Real-time use data could not only help shape the future designs of Whirlpool products, says CIO Mike Heim, but also help the company predict when they’re likely to fail. The technological costs, which have made this kind of real-time monitoring prohibitive, are continuing to decline, says Mr. Heim.

Taking Patients’ Pulse

Spun off from the Cleveland Clinic, Explorys creates software for health-care companies to store, access and make sense of their data. It holds a huge trove of clinical, financial and operational information—but would like access to data about patients at home, such as their current blood-sugar and oxygen levels, weight, heart rates and respiratory health. Having access to that information could help providers predict things like hospitalizations, missed appointments and readmissions and proactively reach out to patients, says Sarah Mihalik, a vice president of provider solutions.

Wearable devices already exist to monitor and transmit patients’ data. But cost, privacy and a lack of standardization are big barriers, says Explorys co-founder and Chief Medical Officer Anil Jain.”

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“The Main Result of All These Developments Will Be To Eliminate 99 Percent Of Human Activity…If We Look At Humanity As It Is Constituted Today”

March 23, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Kevin Kelly is probably the most articulate contemporary voice on matters relating to how the rise of the machines will remake the meaning of humanity, but, of course, these hopes and fears have been around for awhile. In Michael Belfiore’s new Guardian article, which I think is way too chipper about what will likely be a very painful transition to an autonomous society, he quotes Arthur C. Clarke from five decades ago on the topic. 

By the way, if memory serves, the Clarke essay that’s referenced predicted that by 2001 houses would be able to fly, and communities could migrate south when it was cold. I can’t be mistaking that detail, can I? The excerpt:

“As early as the 1960s, Arthur C. Clarke, professional visionary and inventor of the communications satellite, predicted the end of menial labor (mental as well as manual), due to mechanization (and, more disturbingly, bio-engineered apes). In his essay The World of 2001, originally published in Vogue and reprinted in his book The View from Serendip, Clarke wrote: ‘the main result of all these developments will be to eliminate 99 percent of human activity … if we look at humanity as it is constituted today.’

Our salvation, in Clarke’s view, will lie in our looking toward loftier pursuits than all those kinds of jobs that machines will take over:

In the day-after-tomorrow society there will be no place for anyone as ignorant as the average mid-twentieth-century college graduate. If it seems an impossible goal to bring the whole population of the planet up to superuniversity levels, remember that a few centuries ago it would have seemed equally unthinkable that everybody would be able to read. Today we have to set our sights much higher, and it is not unrealistic to do so.”

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Old Print Article: “Lost To Himself For Fourteen Years,” New York Times (1911)

March 23, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

"Rogers, his head swathed in bandages, with part of his skull missing where physicians had removed a portion of the bone, asked for pen and paper."

“Rogers, his head swathed in bandages, with part of his skull missing where physicians had removed a portion of the bone, asked for pen and paper.”

For well over a decade, S. Chandler Rogers was not feeling like himself. According to an article in the October 22, 1911 New York Times, the messenger and sometimes prizefighter was waylaid by three men on a Manhattan sidewalk, suffered brain trauma, and couldn’t recall his identity for the next decade and a half. One day in Seattle, a second mysterious incident brought the attack back to him in great detail. Unfortunately, the beleaguered man said the latter episode completely erased memories of his life during the intervening 14 years.The story:

“Seattle, Wash.–In a fight with three toughs at Sixteenth Street and Eighth Avenue, New York, on May 1, 1897, S. Chandler Rogers had his skull fractured, and later he was thrown into the Hudson River. For fourteen and a half years he lived under the name of George Kelly. He became demented at his home in Port Blakeley on Oct. 10, and to-day regained his senses and announced his right name at Providence Hospital.

Rogers, his head swathed in bandages, with part of his skull missing where physicians had removed a portion of the bone, asked for pen and paper and wrote a clear, concise, intelligent letter to his half sister, Miss Florence Douels, 418 West Thirty-second Street, New York. He wrote:

‘I am in a hospital and all O.K.’

Then he added a paragraph asking that Father Dougherty of the Paulist Society, New York, come to see him.

When Rogers had finished his letter, after telling his physicians and his nurse that his right name was Rogers and not Kelly, he asked for a newspaper. It was handed to him and he read at the top of the first page:

‘Seattle, Saturday, Oct. 21, 1911.’

Rogers turned one look of appeal and wonderment toward the physician, Dr. Milton G. Sturgis, and to his nurse.

‘Am I really in Seattle?’ he asked. And then he broke down and wept.

Although the man is still in a serious condition, he was strong enough to suppress his grief after a few moments and then told a straight and apparently reliable story of his marvelous experience.

‘I do not know where I have been or what I have been doing for fourteen years,’ he said. ‘I know that I was born in New York City in 1880, that I lived with my grandmother, Mrs. Elizabeth Douels, 418 West Thirty-second Street, and that my name is S. Chandler Rogers. I was first a newsboy in New York and then a messenger with a big trust company. I used to box in a theatre to earn a little side money. On May 11, 1897, I took a vacation.

‘With a friend I went to a theatre accompanied by two girls. I took my girl home, then started to walk to my own abode. At the corner of Sixteenth Street and Eighth Avenue, I met three men who asked me for a match. I told them, ‘I am no match factory.’ Then one made a pass at me. I struck at him with brass knuckles on my right hand–I always wore them at night. It was then near midnight. Another man of the three struck me with a blackjack and I fell to my knees. The next I knew I was swimming in the river, almost stark naked. I remember catching hold of a pile and calling for help. I can remember being dragged from the river, and that is the last I know, except that I woke up here in this hospital in Seattle, Tuesday morning.’

Dr. Bruce Elmore, who became interested in the case, talked to Rogers about people he knew in New York. As an intern in Roosevelt Hospital fourteen years ago, Dr. Elmore knew many of the men and places of which Rogers told. He also knew Father Daugherty, for whom Rogers asked as soon as he was able to talk coherently.

Married two months ago, Rogers, as George Kelly, left his home on Tuesday evening, Oct. 10, for a trip to the mill town. He had not been feeling well for some time. He went to a store on Port Blakeley and ordered some groceries for his wife. Then he disappeared. Three days later he was found by bloodhounds in the dense forest near Port Blakeley. He was stark naked and was crawling around on his hands and knees and snapped and barked at the dogs. 

On Friday, Oct. 13, he was brought here, and Dr. Sturgis was asked to examine him. He was unable to speak, could not see, and apparently was paralyzed. Sunday last an operation was performed and a portion of his skull removed, where it pressed on his brain for fourteen years and more.

Rogers does not now remember his recent marriage.”

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“Good Morning, John. You’re Looking Well This Morning.”

March 23, 2014 in Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

The AT&T Picturephone demo from 1970. The service, which did not catch on, cost $160 per month.

“By 2035, There Will Be Almost No Poor Countries Left In The World”

March 23, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

In this year’s Gates Annual Letter, which was mentioned during his appearance at the American Enterprise Institute, Bill Gates sees a world without impoverished nations in about 20 years. We certainly have the tools to make that a reality, though I would assume some nations will be held back by awful political realities. An excerpt:

“The bottom line: Poor countries are not doomed to stay poor. Some of the so-called developing nations have already developed. Many more are on their way. The nations that are still finding their way are not trying to do something unprecedented. They have good examples to learn from.

I am optimistic enough about this that I am willing to make a prediction. By 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world. (I mean by our current definition of poor.)2 Almost all countries will be what we now call lower-middle income or richer. Countries will learn from their most productive neighbors and benefit from innovations like new vaccines, better seeds, and the digital revolution. Their labor forces, buoyed by expanded education, will attract new investments.”

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“These Kids Are Connected To Their Herd – They Always Know Where It’s Moving”

March 23, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From “How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet,” Douglas Adams’ perceptive 1999 piece about Web 1.0 and where it was all headed:

“But the biggest problem is that we are still the first generation of users, and for all that we may have invented the net, we still don’t really get it. In The Language Instinct, Stephen Pinker explains the generational difference between pidgin and creole languages. A pidgin language is what you get when you put together a bunch of people – typically slaves – who have already grown up with their own language but don’t know each others’. They manage to cobble together a rough and ready lingo made up of bits of each. It lets them get on with things, but has almost no grammatical structure at all.

However, the first generation of children born to the community takes these fractured lumps of language and transforms them into something new, with a rich and organic grammar and vocabulary, which is what we call a Creole. Grammar is just a natural function of children’s brains, and they apply it to whatever they find.

The same thing is happening in communication technology. Most of us are stumbling along in a kind of pidgin version of it, squinting myopically at things the size of fridges on our desks, not quite understanding where email goes, and cursing at the beeps of mobile phones. Our children, however, are doing something completely different. Risto Linturi, research fellow of the Helsinki Telephone Corporation, quoted in Wired magazine, describes the extraordinary behaviour kids in the streets of Helsinki, all carrying cellphones with messaging capabilities. They are not exchanging important business information, they’re just chattering, staying in touch. ‘We are herd animals,’ he says. ‘These kids are connected to their herd – they always know where it’s moving.’ Pervasive wireless communication, he believes will ‘bring us back to behaviour patterns that were natural to us and destroy behaviour patterns that were brought about by the limitations of technology.’

We are natural villagers. For most of mankind’s history we have lived in very small communities in which we knew everybody and everybody knew us. But gradually there grew to be far too many of us, and our communities became too large and disparate for us to be able to feel a part of them, and our technologies were unequal to the task of drawing us together. But that is changing.

Interactivity. Many-to-many communications. Pervasive networking. These are cumbersome new terms for elements in our lives so fundamental that, before we lost them, we didn’t even know to have names for them.”

“The Appeal Of A Behavioural Approach Is Not That It Is More Effective But That It Is Less Unpopular”

March 23, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

In a new Financial Times article, Tim Harford looks at all angles of behavioral economics, which has reached its ascendancy in the years since Daniel Kahneman’s Nobel Prize win in 2002. In Kahneman’s hands, the discipline seems to have a lot of merit, but all too often with others its feels like shaky narratives supplanting other shaky narratives. There are so many variables in the world that easy answers can obscure complex situations. Did the Broken Windows Theory really lead to a reduction in crime in NYC when other cities that didn’t implement it experienced similar decreases? Is the answer more complicated? Is it not completely knowable? Does just replacing shattered glass make it easier to not address why we’re producing criminals? From Harford:

“In 2010, behavioural economists George Loewenstein and Peter Ubel wrote in The New York Times that ‘behavioural economics is being used as a political expedient, allowing policy makers to avoid painful but more effective solutions rooted in traditional economics.’

For example, in May 2010, just before David Cameron came to power, he sang the praises of behavioural economics in a TED talk. ‘The best way to get someone to cut their electricity bill,’ he said, ‘is to show them their own spending, to show them what their neighbours are spending, and then show what an energy-conscious neighbour is spending.’

But Cameron was mistaken. The single best way to promote energy efficiency is, almost certainly, to raise the price of energy. A carbon tax would be even better, because it not only encourages people to save energy but to switch to lower-carbon sources of energy. The appeal of a behavioural approach is not that it is more effective but that it is less unpopular.

Thaler points to the experience of Cass Sunstein, his Nudge co-author, who spent four years as regulatory tsar in the Obama White House. ‘Cass wanted a tax on petrol but he couldn’t get one, so he pushed for higher fuel economy standards. We all know that’s not as efficient as raising the tax on petrol – but that would be lucky to get a single positive vote in Congress.’

Should we be trying for something more ambitious than behavioural economics?”

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“In The ‘Golden Era’ Of The 1960s And 70s, They Made Twice As Much Money As NFL Stars”

March 21, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

I know it seems odd to not completely recall for sure, but I’m only fairly certain that in the aughts I interviewed the Professional Bowlers Association’s then-chairman Steve Miller, an erstwhile Nike executive who was charged with trying to rescue the formerly popular TV sport from the scrapheap. He encouraged his stars to scream for attention, to talk trash like pro wrestlers, to get into the gutter if need be. The games wouldn’t be fixed, but the sport would. But any gains have been marginal.

Anyone now a senior citizen can likely recall a time when top bowlers were envied for their earning prowess by NFL running backs, when Earl Anthony was as revered as Earl Campbell. Stunning, but true. The opening of “The Rise and Fall of Professional Bowling,” Zachary Crockett’s Priceonomics post:

“There was a time when professional bowlers reigned supreme.

In the ‘golden era’ of the 1960s and 70s, they made twice as much money as NFL stars, signed million dollar contracts, and were heralded as international celebrities. After each match, they’d be flanked by beautiful women who’d seen them bowl on television, or had read about them in Sports Illustrated.

Today, the glitz and glamour has faded. Pro bowlers supplement their careers with second jobs, like delivering sod, or working at a call center. They share Motel 6 rooms on tour to save on travel expenses, and thrive on the less-than-exciting dime of beef jerky sponsorships.

Once sexy, bowling is now synonymous with cheap beer and smelly feet. In an entertainment-saturated culture, has the once formidable sport been gutter-balled? What exactly is it like to be a professional bowler today?”

______________________________

In the 1970s, AMF, the sporting-goods manufacturer, sold a computer system and printer that would tabulate rankings of bowling leagues with the push of a button–the DataMagic Bowling Data Computer.

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A Note From 1892 About A Mound Of Skulls

March 20, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the December 29, 1892 New York Times:

“San Antonio, Texas–A dispatch from Carrizo Springs, Dimmit County, says that twenty-five miles south of that place, near the Encinal Road has been discovered an oval-topped mound covered with petrified human skulls. The mound is about 100 feet in height, circular in form, and joined on one side to a short range of hills of about the same height.

On the summit, and for some distance down the sloping side, it is covered with what appear to be smooth, spherical bones, which upon close inspection prove to be petrified human skulls distorted into grotesque shapes.

By removing the sand and loose dirt from the orifices of the face, the unmistakable human countenance is revealed. Bones of other classes are found there, and from all appearances the whole mound is formed of human skulls. The subject of opening the mound has been agitated, but as of yet it has not been done.”

“I’m Outraged By The FBI, The CIA And Computers That Seem To Have Cataloged Our Lives”

March 20, 2014 in Books, Politics, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

Bill Boggs interviewing legendary thriller writer Robert Ludlum, who hasn’t let his 2001 death slow “his” writing output. No year specified, but it was likely 1982. More than 30 years after these comments, the author would no doubt have been even more angered about what privacy has become during the Internet Age. Video quality less than stellar.

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