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“The Voice In The Garage Was Distinctly Heard”

January 25, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

"Sandusky Register," March 1920.

From Smithsonian‘s Paleofuture blog, which presents a brief history of the first car phone, or “the portable stovepipe wireless telephone”:

“An article in the March 21, 1920 Sandusky Register in Sandusky, Ohio retold the story of a man in Philadelphia named W. W. Macfarlane who was experimenting with his own ‘wireless telephone.’ With a chauffeur driving him as he sat in the back seat of his moving car he amazed a reporter from The Electrical Experimenter magazine by talking to Mrs. Macfarlane, who sat in their garage 500 yards down the road.

A man with a box slung over his shoulder and holding in one hand three pieces of stove pipe placed side by side on a board climbed into an automobile on East Country Road, Elkins Park, Pa.

As he settled in the machine he picked up a telephone transmitter, set on a short handle, and said:

‘We are going to run down the road. Can you hear me?’

Other passengers in the automobile, all wearing telephone receivers, heard a woman’s voice answering: ‘Yes, perfectly. Where are you?’

By this time the machine was several hundred yards down the road and the voice in the garage was distinctly heard.

This was one of the incidents in the first demonstration of the portable wireless telephone outfit invented by W. W. Macfarlane, of Philadelphia, as described by the Electrical Experimenter.”

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“Get To The Knight Shade Hotel, This Time With A Proper Warrant”

January 24, 2012 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Before the advent of advanced animation, video-game cops read subtitles of long, boring lectures given by their commanding officers. Atari, 1982.

“Pirates Of The Future Will Have The Option To Bypass The Cost, And Become Creators Themselves”

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

"And if it breaks? You print another for minimal cost." (Image by Jens Gathmann@Wikipedia.)

Now that 3D printers are a reality, the two types of piracy we’ve encountered historically–physical and digital–will combine to form a new means of thievery. From Geek.com:

“Just like pirates today decide to download a movie rather than pay the high theater prices to watch it, pirates of the future will have the option to bypass the cost, and become creators themselves.

The same logic can be applied to many products: why buy the iPad X case when you can download the 3D model someone leaked/stole? Why buy a camera part when it can be printed and glued at home? Not only do you save on the retail price, there’s no shipping to worry about other than your base materials, which can be bought in bulk. And if it breaks? You print another for minimal cost. Obviously materials and 3D printer technology limit this to certain types of products, but that list is only going to expand as 3D printers improve, and, crucially, as more commercial products are made with 3D printers.”

Typist, Wearing Surgical Mask, During Flu Pandemic (1918)

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

This classic photograph shows a New York City typist tending to her duties during the 1918 influenza outbreak. The surgical mask became a ubiquitous accessory on street cars and baseball diamonds, as well as at workplaces, but still 50 million lives were claimed worldwide. From a 2007 historical article by John Galvin in Popular Mechanics:

“Initially called ‘the three day fever,’ it started like any flu, with a cough and a headache, followed by intense chills and a fever that could quickly hit 104 degrees F. It could take a month before survivors felt completely well, and after they emerged from an energy-sapped stupor many said it felt as though they’d been aggressively hit with a club. But for those 650,000 Americans who actually died from the Spanish flu in 1918, the suffering was much worse.

Deep brown spots would appear on a victim’s cheeks and a thick, bloody fluid would begin to overwhelm his lungs. Starting at the ears, their faces would gradually turn blue as circulating blood could not get oxygenated. Soon, victims would start to drown in their own fluid — often coughing up a pinkish froth as they fought to inhale. ‘It is only a matter of a few hours then until death comes, and it is simply a struggle for air until they suffocate,’ an army doctor, based outside of Boston at Camp Devens, wrote to a colleague in 1918. ‘It is horrible.’

The influenza pandemic of 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people around the world — 34 million more than died from the First World War in progress alongside it.”

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“Mankind Didn’t Set Out Deliberately To Create A Brain”

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

Steve Wozniak holds forth on the future of computing in a new Vancouver Sun article. An excerpt:

“Ever the engineering scientist, he offered his view that within as few as 40 years computing technology will be so advanced that computers will nearly be sentient beings capable of personality.

‘The war against the machines was a long, long time ago,’ he said.

Mankind didn’t set out deliberately to create a brain, Wozniak said. But by first building computers, and then linking them through Arpanet, the forerunner of the Internet, and then creating search engines to handle the mass of information now available, the world ended up with a brain.

‘I think by accident we’re going to stumble on conscious computers that have feelings and look at you and understand how you’re doing,’ he said. ‘My iPhone has almost all the senses I have except taste and smell. It has an eye and an ear and it can feel when I am touching it and it can feel when it is being moved. It even knows where in the world it is from GPS. Even I don’t know that.”

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Johnny Cash on John Henry: “You full of vinegar now but you ’bout through.”

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“UX Members Have Carried Out Shocking Acts Of Cultural Preservation And Repair”

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

Inverting vandalism, the Urban eXperiment or UX, is a group of artists who preserve fading Parisian landmarks–after surreptitiously breaking into them. The opening of “The New French Hacker-Artist Underground,” Jon Lackman’s Wired article about the group:

“Thirty years ago, in the dead of night, a group of six Parisian teenagers pulled off what would prove to be a fateful theft. They met up at a small cafè near the Eiffel Tower to review their plans—again—before heading out into the dark. Lifting a grate from the street, they descended a ladder to a tunnel, an unlit concrete passageway carrying a cable off into the void. They followed the cable to its source: the basement of the ministry of telecommunications. Horizontal bars blocked their way, but the skinny teens all managed to wedge themselves through and ascend to the building’s ground floor. There they found three key rings in the security office and a logbook indicating that the guards were on their rounds.

But the guards were nowhere to be seen. The six interlopers combed the building for hours, encountering no one, until they found what they were looking for at the bottom of a desk drawer—maps of the ministry’s citywide network of tunnels. They took one copy of each map, then returned the keys to the security office. Heaving the ministry’s grand front door ajar, they peeked outside; no police, no passersby, no problem. They exited onto the empty Avenue de Sègur and walked home as the sun rose. The mission had been so easy that one of the youths, Natacha, seriously asked herself if she had dreamed it. No, she concluded: ‘In a dream, it would have been more complicated.’

This stealthy undertaking was not an act of robbery or espionage but rather a crucial operation in what would become an association called UX, for ‘Urban eXperiment.’ UX is sort of like an artist’s collective, but far from being avant-garde—confronting audiences by pushing the boundaries of the new—its only audience is itself. More surprising still, its work is often radically conservative, intemperate in its devotion to the old. Through meticulous infiltration, UX members have carried out shocking acts of cultural preservation and repair, with an ethos of ‘restoring those invisible parts of our patrimony that the government has abandoned or doesn’t have the means to maintain.’ The group claims to have conducted 15 such covert restorations, often in centuries-old spaces, all over Paris.”

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“We Didn’t Grow Up With A String Quartet”

January 23, 2012 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

A seven-minute clip of Mark Boyd’s 1967 psychedelic light show from London’s influential if short-lived UFO club, which notably hosted Pink Floyd.

Syd Barrett and Roger Waters, also 1967:

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“We Possess A Technology That Removes The Last Political Barriers To War”

January 23, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

What if war were painless, at least for one side? And what if the American President could fight overseas without getting approval from Congress because what’s being waged isn’t precisely war as we know it, but something beyond the traditional definition? In the brave new world of drones and robots, that’s exactly where the United States is. From Peter W. Singer’s excellent New York Times Opinion piece, “Do Drones Undermine Democracy?“

“Just 10 years ago, the idea of using armed robots in war was the stuff of Hollywood fantasy. Today, the United States military has more than 7,000 unmanned aerial systems, popularly called drones. There are 12,000 more on the ground. Last year, they carried out hundreds of strikes — both covert and overt — in six countries, transforming the way our democracy deliberates and engages in what we used to think of as war.

We don’t have a draft anymore; less than 0.5 percent of Americans over 18 serve in the active-duty military. We do not declare war anymore; the last time Congress actually did so was in 1942 — against Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. We don’t buy war bonds or pay war taxes anymore. During World War II, 85 million Americans purchased war bonds that brought the government $185 billion; in the last decade, we bought none and instead gave the richest 5 percent of Americans a tax break.

And now we possess a technology that removes the last political barriers to war. The strongest appeal of unmanned systems is that we don’t have to send someone’s son or daughter into harm’s way. But when politicians can avoid the political consequences of the condolence letter — and the impact that military casualties have on voters and on the news media — they no longer treat the previously weighty matters of war and peace the same way.”

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BigDog, by the good people at Boston Dynamics:

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“I Want Out–Permanently”

January 22, 2012 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Not yet quite as sad a repository of obsolescence as the public library, the U.S. Postal Service nonetheless struggles at its sunset.

1903: Streetcar mail delivery, Washington D.C.

1997: Kramer calls attention to the charade.

“Although The Creation Museum Has Been A Target Of Ridicule By Some, It Has Drawn 1.2 Million Visitors”

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

Despite an incredibly austere budget for 2012, the struggling state of Kentucky will move forward with allocating public funds toward the building of a creationist theme park, which features Noah and his Ark. Cripes. Some details about the project from Laurie Goodstein in the New York Times:

“Since Gov. Steven L. Beshear announced the plan on Wednesday, some constitutional experts have raised alarms over whether government backing for an enterprise that promotes religion violates the First Amendment’s requirement of separation of church and state. But Mr. Beshear, a Democrat, said the arrangement posed no constitutional problem, and brushed off questions about his stand on creationism.

‘The people of Kentucky didn’t elect me governor to debate religion,’ he said at a news conference. ‘They elected me governor to create jobs.’

The theme park was conceived by the same Christian ministry that built the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., where dioramas designed to debunk evolution show humans and dinosaurs coexisting peacefully on an earth created by God in six days. The ministry, Answers in Genesis, believes that the earth is only 6,000 years old — a controversial assertion even among many Bible-believing Christians.

Although the Creation Museum has been a target of ridicule by some, it has drawn 1.2 million visitors in its first three years — proving that there is a sizable paying audience for entertainment rooted in a literal interpretation of the Bible.”

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“Something big is happening”:

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Flip The Switch For Maximum Synchronicity

January 22, 2012 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

How beautiful. The poetry of machines, via 1930’s “Mechanical Principles,” by brilliant pioneering documentarian Ralph Steiner.

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“Each Employee Was Given A Biscuit And A Cup Of Tea…And Within Half An Hour Started A 12-Hour Shift Fitting Glass Screens Into Beveled Frames”

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

The best article I’ve read this very young new year is “How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work,” an excellent New York Times piece by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher. It follows up on the question that President Obama famously asked Steve Jobs early last year during a pow-wow with Silicon Valley industry leaders: What can we do to have Apple products manufactured in America again? With his typical bluntness, Jobs told Obama it wasn’t going to happen. One reason is that contemporary America lacks a critical mass of mid-level engineers. But even if we reversed that situation, a larger problem looms: China, with its Foxconn complex, will sacrifice the health and well-being of its workers, treat them like so many indentured servants, in order to fulfill the every whim of tech titans. At any rate, it gives lie to the election-year assertion that all we have to do is loosen regulations and jobs will flood our shores. An excerpt:

“Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

‘The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,’ the executive said. ‘There’s no American plant that can match that.'”

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“It’s Close To Midnight And Something Evil’s Lurking In The Dark”

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

“Thriller,” as performed by Aldebaran bots.

“Organizers Are Confident Up To Half Of Competitors Will Be Tested”

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

Here are some things that are restricted or illegal (or at one time were illegal) in America, but are never going away: alcohol, drugs, prostitution, abortion and guns. You can forbid them, but all it does is create a far more dangerous black market. It’s tantamount to choosing worse instead of bad. The upcoming 2012 Summer Olympics in London will have the strictest drug testing ever and a 24-hour lab that will be constantly humming. Some of the athletes using drugs will be caught, many will not. From a Daily Mail article about the lab:

“Drug cheats have been warned they will be caught at next summer’s Olympics and Paralympics as London 2012 unveiled ‘the most high-tech’ laboratory in the history of the Games.

Up to 6,250 samples will be tested by 150 scientists working at the 24-hour anti-doping facility in Harlow, Essex.

All Olympic medallists will have to submit a urine sample and there will be around 1,000 blood tests.

With 10,500 athletes expected at the Olympic and Paralympic Games, organisers are confident up to half of competitors will be tested; some more than once.”

“They Are Called Lockdown Rooms: No Information Goes In Or Out Without A Reason”

January 19, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

From “The Secrets Apple Keeps,” Adam Lashinsky’s new Fortune article about the cultish internal nature of the tech giant:

“Apple employees know something big is afoot when the carpenters appear in their office building. New walls are quickly erected. Doors are added and new security protocols put into place. Windows that once were transparent are now frosted. Other rooms have no windows at all. They are called lockdown rooms: No information goes in or out without a reason.

The hubbub is disconcerting for employees. Quite likely you have no idea what is going on, and it’s not like you’re going to ask. If it hasn’t been disclosed to you, then it’s literally none of your business. What’s more, your badge, which got you into particular areas before the new construction, no longer works in those places. All you can surmise is that a new, highly secretive project is under way, and you are not in the know. End of story.

Secrecy takes two basic forms at Apple — external and internal. There is the obvious kind, the secrecy that Apple uses as a way of keeping its products and practices hidden from competitors and the rest of the outside world. This cloaking device is the easier of the two types for the rank and file to understand because many companies try to keep their innovations under wraps. Internal secrecy, as evidenced by those mysterious walls and off-limits areas, is tougher to stomach. Yet the link between secrecy and productivity is one way that Apple (AAPL) challenges long-held management truths and the notion of transparency as a corporate virtue.

All companies have secrets, of course. The difference is that at Apple everything is a secret.” (Thanks Browser.)

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A Rolling Thunder performance of “One Too Many Mornings,” Steve Jobs’ favorite Bob Dylan song. Not even close to Dylan’s best, but to each his own.

“One Too Many Mornings”

Down the street the dogs are barkin’
And the day is a-gettin’ dark
As the night comes in a-fallin’
The dogs’ll lose their bark
An’ the silent night will shatter
From the sounds inside my mind
For I’m one too many mornings
And a thousand miles behind

From the crossroads of my doorstep
My eyes they start to fade
As I turn my head back to the room
Where my love and I have laid
An’ I gaze back to the street
The sidewalk and the sign
And I’m one too many mornings
An’ a thousand miles behind

It’s a restless hungry feeling
That don’t mean no one no good
When ev’rything I’m a-sayin’
You can say it just as good.
You’re right from your side
I’m right from mine
We’re both just one too many mornings
An’ a thousand miles behind

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“Our Most Advanced Robots…Have The Collective Intelligence And Wisdom Of A Cockroach–A Mentally Challenged Cockroach”

January 19, 2012 in Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku bluntly explaining current AI and how quantum computing could change the game.

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“The Creation Of WikiLeaks Was, In Part, A Response To Iraq”

January 19, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

"The Iraq War was the biggest issue for people of my generation in the West." (Image by Espen Moe.)

From Michael Hastings’ new interview in Rolling Stone with Wikileak’s head leaker, Julian Assange, on what inspired him to begin disseminating classified information:

“Then, two years later, the U.S. invaded Iraq.
The creation of WikiLeaks was, in part, a response to Iraq. There were a number of whistle-blowers who came out in relation to Iraq, and it was clear to me that what the world was missing in the days of Iraq propaganda was a way for inside sources who knew what was really going on to communicate that information to the public. Quite a few who did ended up in very dire circumstances, including David Kelly, the British scientist who either committed suicide or was murdered over his revelations about weapons of mass destruction. The Iraq War was the biggest issue for people of my generation in the West. It was also the clearest case, in my living memory, of media manipulation and the creation of a war through ignorance.“

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“Sony Promoted The Machine’s Ability To ‘Time Shift’ Programming”

January 19, 2012 in Excerpts, Film, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

"Sony...introduced its Betamax video tape recorder to the U.S. consumer market in early 1976." (Image by Franny Wentzel.)

For more than three decades, Hollywood has been fighting a losing battle with technology, trying to pause time in an era when there was less competition, when making boatloads of cash required little ingenuity. From the movie establishment’s landmark case in futility, in which it fought to make home video recorders illegal:

“Universal City Studios, Inc. et al. v. Sony Corporation of America Inc. et al., commonly known as the Betamax case, was the first concerted legal response of the American film industry to the home video revolution. After nearly a decade of announcements and false starts by one American company or another, Sony, the Japanese electronics manufacturing giant, introduced its Betamax video tape recorder to the U.S. consumer market in early 1976 at an affordable price. In its marketing strategy Sony promoted the machine’s ability to ‘time shift’ programming–that is, to record a television program off the air even while watching another show on a different channel.

The plaintiffs, Universal and Walt Disney Productions on behalf of the Hollywood majors, charged that the ability of the Betamax to copy programming off air was an infringement of copyright and sought to halt the sale of the machines. The studios were ostensibly trying to protect film and television producers from the economic consequences of unauthorized mass duplication and distribution. However, Universal might have also wanted to prevent Betamax from capturing a significant segment of the fledgling home video market before its parent company, MCA, could introduce its DiscoVision laserdisc system, which was to scheduled for test marketing in the fall of 1977.”

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Time shifting with Sony Betamax, 1977:

“I Was Living Without Electricity For About 15 Weeks”

January 18, 2012 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Beck interviewed by a robot voice as Mutations is released, 1998.

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“According To This New Research, The Online Echo Chamber Doesn’t Exist”

January 18, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I find so many great things online by accident that I’ve never been quite as concerned about Internet filters as some have. In “The End of the Echo Chamber,” Farhad Manjoo of Slate writes about new research–albeit research conducted by the very interested party Facebook–that suggests that the Web is inherently serendipitous (or perhaps we are) no matter how much personalization, targeting or narrowcasting is forced upon us. The opening:

“Today, Facebook is publishing a study that disproves some hoary conventional wisdom about the Web. According to this new research, the online echo chamber doesn’t exist.

This is of particular interest to me. In 2008, I wrote True Enough, a book that argued that digital technology is splitting society into discrete, ideologically like-minded tribes that read, watch, or listen only to news that confirms their own beliefs. I’m not the only one who’s worried about this. Eli Pariser, the former executive director of MoveOn.org, argued in his recent book The Filter Bubble that Web personalization algorithms like Facebook’s News Feed force us to consume a dangerously narrow range of news. The echo chamber was also central to Cass Sunstein’s thesis, in his book Republic.com, that the Web may be incompatible with democracy itself. If we’re all just echoing our friends’ ideas about the world, is society doomed to become ever more polarized and solipsistic?

It turns out we’re not doomed. The new Facebook study is one of the largest and most rigorous investigations into how people receive and react to news. It was led by Eytan Bakshy, who began the work in 2010 when he was finishing his Ph.D. in information studies at the University of Michigan. He is now a researcher on Facebook’s data team, which conducts academic-type studies into how users behave on the teeming network.”

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“Hann Finally Converted His Airport Research Into A Breakthrough Sneaker”

January 17, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

The opening of “The Greatest Running Shoe Never Sold,” Bob Parks’ new Businessweek article about a lone inventor trying to partner with a mega-corporation:

“Late one night in August 1997, 54-year-old inventor Lenn Rockford Hann placed two bottles of Gatorade near Concourse F of Chicago O’Hare International Airport, unlaced his sneakers, removed his socks, then dodged curious maintenance workers for two hours while running 13.1 miles on the walkways. His pace surprised him. He was convinced the springy, resilient surface was almost perfect. ‘My legs felt amazing,’ says Hann, a marathoner. ‘I’ve been chasing a shoe that feels that good ever since.’

For years, Hann had been designing a running shoe that he hoped would give him an edge. After his airport run (in the days of lighter security, naturally), he knew he was on to something, and he became obsessed with O’Hare’s movable sidewalks. Finding a walkway in the midst of repair on a subsequent jog, he jumped into the pit to look at its clockworks. There he found rollers on each side, with nothing holding people up in the middle but the belt’s tension. The next day, Hann called the belt company, Dunlop Conveyer Belting, and learned they were adjusted to 2,500 foot-pounds of force to create the right balance.

Athletic brands spend millions every year trying to build a better sneaker that will propel them to the front of the $6.3 billion running shoe business, one of the biggest and most visible areas of sporting goods, with 11 percent growth in 2011, according to industry analyst SportsOneSource. Nearly all sneakers have a sole that looks like lasagna, composed of layers of rubber, foam, and plastic. The fluffy foam is made from ethylene-vinyl acetate, or EVA, which has its critics: EVA adds weight to shoes, and lab tests show it requires more energy per stride. Running shoe companies have long sought an EVA substitute that absorbs shock but also returns more energy. ‘Consumers like the cushioned feeling associated with a conventional running shoe,’ says Darren Stefanyshyn, a University of Calgary researcher and former chairperson of the Footwear Biomechanics Group. ‘If you could provide that without using foam, you’d have a winner.’

It took him eleven years, but Hann finally converted his airport research into a breakthrough sneaker patented in 2008, a shoe with an entirely different system to cushion and propel the foot. It quickly attracted the attention of fast-growing athletic brand Under Armour (UA), which spent two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop it as the prospective centerpiece of the company’s first line of footwear. Hann’s shoe was scheduled to launch early this year and was poised to rock the footwear industry, but it never quite made it to market.”

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“These Are All Cheap Tricks Compared With What The Real World Has To Offer”

January 17, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

How can you have stunning science fiction when science itself is so stunning? From “Superstuff: When Quantam Goes Big,” a Michael Brooks article at New Scientist:

“FOR centuries, con artists have convinced the masses that it is possible to defy gravity or walk through walls. Victorian audiences gasped at tricks of levitation involving crinolined ladies hovering over tables. Even before then, fraudsters and deluded inventors were proudly displaying perpetual-motion machines that could do impossible things, such as make liquids flow uphill without consuming energy. Today, magicians still make solid rings pass through each other and become interlinked – or so it appears. But these are all cheap tricks compared with what the real world has to offer.

Cool a piece of metal or a bucket of helium to near absolute zero and, in the right conditions, you will see the metal levitating above a magnet, liquid helium flowing up the walls of its container or solids passing through each other. ‘We love to observe these phenomena in the lab,’ says Ed Hinds of Imperial College, London.

This weirdness is not mere entertainment, though. From these strange phenomena we can tease out all of chemistry and biology, find deliverance from our energy crisis and perhaps even unveil the ultimate nature of the universe. Welcome to the world of superstuff.” (Thanks Browser.)

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It’s only a trick, for now–1900:

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“How Would You Behave, If The Devices That Surround Your Life Were Suddenly Turned Against You?”

January 17, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From “The Hacker Is Watching,” David Kushner’s new GQ piece about the unlikely culprit behind a creepy new wave of computer hacking, which exploits the omnipresence of cameras, among other things:

“The more ubiquitous cameras become, the less we’re aware they’re even there. They stare out at us blankly from our phones and laptops, our Xboxes and iPads, a billion eyes and ears just waiting to be turned on. But what if they were switched on—by someone else—when you least expected it? How would you feel, how would you behave, if the devices that surround your life were suddenly turned against you?

It’s a question that James Kelly and his girlfriend, Amy Wright, never thought they’d have to entertain. But one instant message changed everything. Amy, a 20-year-old brunette at the University of California at Irvine, was on her laptop when she got an IM from a random guy nicknamed mistahxxxrightme, asking her for webcam sex. Out of the blue, like that. Amy told the guy off, but he IM’d again, saying he knew all about her, and to prove it he started describing her dorm room, the color of her walls, the pattern on her sheets, the pictures on her walls. ‘You have a pink vibrator,’ he said. It was like Amy’d slipped into a stalker movie. Then he sent her an image file. Amy watched in horror as the picture materialized on the screen: a shot of her in that very room, naked on the bed, having webcam sex with James.

Mistah X wasn’t done. The hacker fired off a note to James’s ex-girlfriend Carla Gagnon: ‘nice video I hope you still remember this if you want to chat and find out before I put it online hit me up.’ Attached was a video still of her in the nude. Then the hacker contacted James directly, boasting that he had control of his computer, and it became clear this wasn’t about sex: He was toying with them. As Mistah X taunted James, his IMs filling the screen, James called Amy: He had the creep online. What should he do? They talked about calling the cops, but no sooner had James said the words than the hacker reprimanded him. ‘I know you’re talking to each other right now!’ he wrote. James’s throat constricted; how did the stalker know what he was saying? Did he bug his room?

They were powerless. Amy decided to call the cops herself. But the instant she phoned the dispatcher, a message chimed on her screen. It was from the hacker. ‘I know you just called the police,’ he wrote. She panicked. How could he possibly know? She ran into her bathroom and slammed the door behind her. As she pleaded for the police to come quickly, she reached into the shower and cranked the water all the way up, hoping the hacker couldn’t hear her.”

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“Suited Up, They Emerged From The Transfer Van In Sunlight And Shadow”

January 17, 2012 in Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

Astronauts Grissom, White and Chaffee perished during the Space Race. From ABC News on January 27, 1967, the day after their accidental deaths.

See also:

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“Molecules Are Really, Really Tiny”

January 15, 2012 in Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

Drew Berry uses computer graphics to illuminate the molecular world, at TED.

Galileo drawing from video, 1610.

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