Urban Studies

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“The Transformation Came Too Late To Rescue Its Reputation For Technical Competence”

February 18, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The private sector is often as incompetent as the government was in its botched Healthcare.gov launch, despite what techies and extreme free-marketers might have you believe. Mistakes in privately held technology companies are common, launches and relaunches are disasters, sites (like Twitter) have trouble with stability for years. I think Clay Shirky gives this truth no mention in his new Foreign Affairs piece about the Affordable Care Act tech meltdown, but it contains a lot of important points about project management. The opening:

“Late last October, the management expert Jeffrey Zients was given a mandate to fix HealthCare.gov, the website at the forefront of U.S. President Barack Obama’s health-care reform, after its disastrous launch. Refusing to engage in happy talk about how well things were going or how soon everything would be fixed, Zients established performance metrics for the site’s responsiveness, insisted on improvements to the underlying hardware, postponed work on nonessential features, demanded rapid reporting of significant problems, and took management oversight away from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS, a federal agency within the Department of Health and Human Services) and gave it instead to a single contractor reporting to him. The result was a newly productive work environment that helped the website progress from grave dysfunction in early October to passable effectiveness two months later.

Zients’ efforts demonstrated the government’s ability to tackle complex technological challenges and handle them both quickly and effectively. Unfortunately for the Obama administration, the transformation came too late to rescue its reputation for technical competence. Given that the people who hired Zients clearly understood what kind of management was required to create a working online insurance marketplace, why did they wait to put in place that sort of management until the project had become an object of public ridicule? And more important, is there any way to prevent other such debacles in the future? The answers to both questions lie in the generally tortured way that the government plans and oversees technology.”

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Old Print Article: “Using Electricity To Reinstill Life,” New York Times (1908)

February 18, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

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“Already she has put a patient to sleep by electricity without performing an operation.”

In the early years of automobiles, electric models were favored, and even steam-driven cars were predominant over models powered by fossil fuels. Things change. Ultimately, the internal-combustion engine proved more stable and became the king of the road.

Interestingly, electricity had a chance to make inroads in another area in which gases had proven to be unstable: anesthesia. In the nascent years of the practice, miscalculations with ether and chloroform led to deaths. No one wanted to go back to the brutality of surgery during consciousness, but there had to be a better way. Enter Dr. Louise G. Rabinovitch, who experimented successfully (and chillingly and unethically, often) with bringing a blissful unconsciousness to animal and human test subjects with electric shock. A better understanding of anesthesia made this jolting scheme unnecessary, but the doctor’s jaw-dropping reports of her experiments likely would have prevented her methods from becoming popular in any case. From an article about “electric sleep” in the September 27, 1908 New York Times:

“PARIS–Dr. Louise G. Rabinovitch, the well-known New York psychoclacist, and Dr. V. Magnan are preparing another stop in their series of discoveries in electric sleep experiments, which have been safely conducted on rabbits and dogs, will be made soon on human beings, patients in the insane hospital in Paris.

Dr. Rabinovitch has been conducting her experiments with hopes of finding the means of doing away entirely with the usual anaesthetics–ether and chloroform–and so far has been very successful.

The City of Paris early in the Summer fitted up a laboratory for the hospital of Sainte-Anne, and there she has been working steadily. Already she has put a patient to sleep by electricity without performing an operation. She has also in several cases used electricity as a local anaesthetic on a part of the arm or leg and has performed a slight operation. Her intention now is, in which she is encouraged by the veteran Dr. Magnan, to perform a serious operation made under the influence of electric sleep. This will be the first time that this has been done anywhere in the world.

Dr. Rabinovitch has made some remarkable discoveries while she has been working in her laboratory, and finds no difficulty in instilling life into animals which have died on the operating table. The immense value of this discovery to physicians when patients die because of an anaesthetic can be seen at once.

"After I had killed the dog and resuscitated it."

“While under the influence of electric sleep I killed her instantly with chloroform.”

One dog playing about the laboratory, the doctor told me, had been dead three times. ‘While under the influence of electric sleep I killed her instantly with chloroform. The heart stopped beating and respiration ceased. If the animal had been left alone then it would have remained dead, but I immediately instituted artificial respiration by means of electricity, and presently the animal started to breathe of its own accord. Again, after I had killed the dog and resuscitated it, hemorrhage set in, caused by an operation, and the dog bled to death. I brought it back to life again. The animal is at present perfectly healthy.’

While I was in the laboratory the doctor put a rabbit under the influence of electric sleep. In a comparatively short time, when the rabbit came out from under the influence, it hopped away contentedly. …

The doctor is confident that all her experiments can be put into practice on human beings. When the animal is under the influence of the current it reacts to no stimulus, and when the current is turned off the awakening is instantaneous. There is no after sickness or stupor.”

 

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“He Was Incredibly Lucky To Start Where He Did And End Up Where He Is Now”

February 17, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Am I misreading the tea leaves? It seems like a lot of well-to-do New Yorkers are ready to pounce on the new mayor, Bill de Blasio, for any mistakes he makes while becoming acclimated to the job. Could it be that these are faux liberals who are secretly resentful about perhaps paying higher taxes? Maybe not. Time will tell. 

From “What Lottery Winners and Tom Perkins Have in Common,” Charles Kenny’s new Businessweek piece about the thought process of a man who is awful even by the non-rigorous standards of the venture-capital world:

“Perkins had the chance to be a successful executive in the first place because he was born privileged enough to enter the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an undergraduate in 1953, when a little more than 5 percent of Americans aged 25 to 29 had a bachelor’s degree. If he had been born in Liberia, perhaps to a single mother, all bets of billionaire status would be completely off. He surely worked hard, and took risks informed by smarts and insight, but he was incredibly lucky to start where he did and end up where he is now, with enough money for a classic car collection and a massive yacht.

Yet Perkins is far from alone in thinking he’s rich because he earned it and the poor are poor because they didn’t. Indeed, the view seems to be an almost unavoidable side effect of becoming wealthy. A study by British economists Nattavudh Powdthavee and Andrew Oswald released last week looked at lottery winners involved in a general survey of attitudes in the U.K. Comparing views before and after lottery wins, the economists looked at winners’ political allegiances and views toward income distribution. Those surveyed were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement ‘ordinary people get a fair share of the nation’s wealth,’ and if they supported the (more right-wing) Conservative Party or the (left-leaning) Labour Party.

A win of just £500 (about $840) made survey respondents 5 percent more likely to change their vote to Conservative from Labour and significantly more likely to think that the current distribution of income was fair. The larger the lottery win, the bigger the impact on the respondents’ beliefs—even though their income rankings rose purely by chance. Considering that Perkins’s earnings from betting on tech startups are more than 1 million times the £500 that Powdthavee and Oswald found sufficient to shift attitudes, and since he did far more to earn his wealth than the lottery winners did, his views on redistribution aren’t surprising.”

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“[They] Underscore The Company’s Deep Desire To Move Away From iPhones And iPads And Take Big Risks”

February 17, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

In a post-Jobs world, Apple has offered new iterations of the old but delivered no new great product. Perhaps entry into the auto and medical sectors will change that? Given the company’s history, the latter feels far afield. From Thomas Lee and David R. Baker at the San Francisco Chronicle:

“A source tells The Chronicle that Perica met with Tesla CEO Elon Musk in Cupertino last spring around the same time analysts suggested Apple acquire the electric car giant.

A spokeswoman for Tesla declined to comment. Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

The newspaper has also learned that Apple is heavily exploring medical devices, specifically sensor technology that can help predict heart attacks. Led by Tomlinson Holman, a renowned audio engineer who invented THX and 10.2 surround sound, Apple is exploring ways to predict heart attacks by studying the sound blood makes at it flows through arteries.

Taken together, Apple’s potential forays into automobiles and medical devices, two industries worlds away from consumer electronics, underscore the company’s deep desire to move away from iPhones and iPads and take big risks.”

 

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“Now Human Designers Are Getting Interested In Emergence”

February 17, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

War is an exchange of information with terrible human consequences. Perhaps eventually any loss of life will be unacceptable, and it will just be our robots versus your robots. But until then greater information may lead to greater casualties.

Some scientists are now looking to emulate termite “architecture” in robots, which may ultimately lead to automated navies. It’s not termite art but termite war. An excerpt from the Economist:

“Individual termites are, of course, far too dim to understand such things as convection and solar flux. Instead, a few simple rules encoded in their nervous systems by evolution and regulated by signalling chemicals called pheromones steer them to produce their mounds in all their architectural glory. This kind of behaviour, in which simple actions combine to produce sophisticated results, is called emergence.

Now human designers are getting interested in emergence, too. In a paper just published in Science, a group at Harvard, led by Justin Werfel, describes termite-inspired robots that can build things by combining magnetic bricks of a standard size. All their human controller has to do is program them with a few appropriate rules and leave them to get on with it.

Robot construction teams are not, in themselves, new. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have already demonstrated a system which uses remotely controlled flying robots to build things. What makes Dr Werfel’s approach different is that instead of having a controlling force, in the form of a computer program, sitting at the centre telling everything else what to do (as was the case in Pennsylvania), control is distributed throughout the system’s components, which cannot communicate with each other. The robots, which are little wheeled contraptions, do not need to see the bigger picture.

In the case of termites, the bigger picture is provided by natural selection, which has, over the millennia, refined the rules that individual termites obey. In the case of Dr Werfel’s robots, a human designer specifies the desired outcome and, with the help of a program developed by the team, generates the rules that will lead to its construction, with which each robot is then programmed. All that remains is to place a foundation brick to show the robots where to start building.”

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“The Company Now Looks To Consumer Happiness As A Starting Point Of Product Development”

February 17, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

If she’s not exactly hunting for cool, Intel’s Dr. Genevieve Bell is certainly pursuing happiness. The anthropologist leads a team of thinkers and futurists who scour the Earth to figure out what you want from personal technology, even before you can name it. They want to know what’s on your mind. They want to make you happy. From a profile of Dr. Bell by Natasha Singer in the New York Times:

“‘My mandate at Intel has always been to bring the stories of everyone outside the building inside the building — and make them count,’ says Dr. Bell, who considers herself among the outsiders. ‘You have to understand people to build the next generation of technology.’

By ‘outside,’ she isn’t referring only to consumers outside of the United States. Dr. Bell and her team are responsible for sussing out the attributes that people everywhere love, or wish they could have, in their PCs, televisions and so on. Over the last few years, they have been concentrating on consumers’ appetites for hyper-personal technology, like voice-recognition systems and fitness trackers. In essence, they are pushing Intel toward a more people-centric era of personal computing.

Lately, that work has become all the more important to the company. That is because Intel, which has long dominated the laptop processor field, was surprisingly slow to acknowledge the burgeoning market for smartphone chips. In fact, Dr. Bell and her team, among others, had forecast the mobile trend early on, says Diane M. Bryant, the general manager of Intel’s data center group, but Intel didn’t prioritize it at the time. Although the company recently introduced new chips for mobile devices, PC makers are still Intel’s largest customer base, accounting for $33 billion of its $52.7 billion in revenue last year.

Now, attributable in part to the efforts of Dr. Bell and her team, Intel is trying to catch up, forging into realms like wearable gadgets that could showcase its new, lower-powered ultrasmall chips. Futurists on Dr. Bell’s team are also developing a customizable personal robot, about the size of a big teddy bear, based on the new mini-chips. Where even a decade ago Intel still focused largely on turning out increasingly efficient technology for its industrial customers, its executives say, the company now looks to consumer happiness as a starting point of product development.”

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A Brief Note From 1876 About Meat Production

February 16, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the March 17, 1876 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“The horrible alternative of cannibalism or death was forced upon the surviving portion of the crew of the British ship Greta, on its recent trip from San Francisco. The captain’s two sons died of starvation, eleven of the crew were drowned and four died from exposure. In the little boat in which was the captain and thirteen men, the men who died were eaten to allay the horrible hunger of those who survived. Their sufferings made them little else than beasts, though the dim spark of the divine in their natures saved them from the worse and most extreme act of adding murder to the lesser crime. In the last stage of emaciation and absolute wretchedness they held to the manhood of men, and waited for death to come to the others that life might be retained to them.”

“It Is In Fact Technically Feasible To Produce 2,500 Nutritious Calories A Day For Everyone In The City”

February 16, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Can New York survive–thrive, even–as a self-sufficient and green city-state, with all its food coming from farming towers and miniature greenhouses? It’s not something that’s ever going to completely happen, but knowing what is possible could lead us to healthier, more-sustainable choices. From an Aeon essay by Michael Sorkin of NYC (Steady) State, an organization that hopes to answer that question:

“New York is a city of foodies with a staggering profusion of cuisines, and it has bred an advanced discourse about nutrition, organisation, justice, technology, and culture. It abounds with community gardens, with increasingly large commercial farming, and other sites of production, from backyards to rooftops to the tofu-producing cellars of Chinatown, but also with a rich distributive infrastructure of food co‑ops, farmers’ markets, meals‑on‑wheels, soup kitchens, school cafeterias and restaurants. The question for us was: how can all of this be elaborated into more supple and comprehensive networks that take account of our transformed habits and desires? And, to what degree could this be scaled up to feed 8.5 million people?

We discovered that it is in fact technically feasible to produce 2,500 nutritious calories a day for everyone in the city. At one level, the required infrastructure is not entirely outlandish. It would depend on the widespread use of vertical farming, building over existing infrastructure – railways, highways, factories, etc – and the densification of some parts of the city currently built at suburban scale. The cost, however, would be prodigious and many of the implications highly vexed. For example, the energy required to light, heat, and build all of this is, we’ve calculated, approximately equivalent to the output of 25 nuclear power plants, an eventuality that is, to put it mildly, somewhat at odds with our larger intentions. Likewise, the necessarily industrialised character of such production would beg the question of resisting the tender mercies of agri-business and the huge variety of its downside effects.

But, by finding a series of ‘sweet spots’, or more nominally ‘practical’ scales for sustainable food production, we’ve sought to balance cost and benefit socially, environmentally, economically, and culturally. We’ve looked at window boxes; at using the subways for freight; at a scheme encompassing the territory with a 100-mile radius around the city; and at reusing the 19th-century Erie Canal for a statewide system. We’ve recaptured street space, designed skyscraper farms for plants and animals, and plotted how to integrate all this into the fabric of the existing city. And, we’ve sought to deepen the idea of the urban neighbourhood as the core unit of sustainable urban organisation.”

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“Since Emanuel Took Office, However, Things Have Polarized”

February 16, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Chicago, the major American metropolis with the most stubborn racial divides, has seen its tale of two cities be told with even greater emphasis since Rahm Emanuel became Mayor. From Edward Luce’s insightful Financial Times article about the former Obama chief of staff:

“Crudely measured, Chicago is roughly a third white, a third black and a third Hispanic. Most Chicagoans seem to accept it that way. ‘We are the most segregated city in America,’ goes the joke. ‘Ain’t it great?’ Since Emanuel took office, however, things have polarised. Most white Chicagoans support him – as do a majority of Hispanics, according to the polls. Most African-Americans no longer do. The corporate world within Chicago’s elevated rail ‘loop’ has rarely had it so good. The same goes for pockets inside its largely Hispanic West Side. But Chicago’s South Side, where a young Obama cut his teeth as a community organiser, continues to fester. A rash of school closures last year did little to help. ‘Black families who can leave Chicago are still leaving,’ says Cobb. They call it ‘degentrification.’

Emanuel’s often testy relations with Chicago’s black neighbourhoods could be pivotal to his re-election next year. The gulf between the two Chicagos is at least as big as that between the ‘two New Yorks’, which Bill de Blasio, the new mayor of the Big Apple, has promised to bridge. De Blasio comes from the Democratic party’s liberal (‘Sandinista’) wing and promised to make New York’s Upper East Side pay more to make life better for its underclasses. Emanuel is closer to Michael Bloomberg, de Blasio’s predecessor, who drew on his philanthropic networks to revitalise New York’s economic heart. Both are enthusiasts for non-union charter schools. De Blasio, on the other hand, is a champion of the unions.

Emanuel’s Chicago versus de Blasio’s New York may be the closest America has to an experiment in how to make its cities both liveable and competitive in the 21st century. ‘Look, we face international forces that are far bigger than us,’ Emanuel told me in an interview in Mexico City, which he was visiting to inaugurate a city-to-city partnership (almost a quarter of Chicagoans were born in Mexico). I had asked him whether he and de Blasio were rivals. ‘We both have a great amount of concentrated wealth and great poverty,’ he replied. ‘My challenge is to make it a still-great city for the middle-class families that are the bedrock of Chicago.’

Emanuel’s impact so far depends on whom you ask.”
__________________

“It’s supposed to be fun”:

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

February 16, 2014 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

mmmm

Psychiatric services for Massage

I am a psychiatrist, and would like to barter psychiatric services for massage. I don’t want any sex/kinky stuff, just good massages, but from a female only. If you’re interested contact me and we can talk further. Thanks!

Old Print Article: “C.M. Dally Dies A Martyr To Science,” New York Times (1904)

February 16, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

We appreciate the pioneering spirit but sometimes in retrospect discount the costs. The experiences of Clarence M. Dally, a former military man and glassblower who worked as Thomas Edison’s point person on the development of X-rays, serve as a cautionary tale. From an article in the October 4, 1904 New York Times:

“EAST ORANGE–Clarence M. Dally, electrical engineer, died yesterday at his home 108 Clinton Street North, East Orange, a martyr to science, the beginning of his illness having been due to his experimental work in connection with the Roentgen rays. For seven years he patiently bore terrible suffering and underwent seven operations, which finally culminated in the amputation of both his arms.

During the experimental work on the X-rays Mr. Dally was Thomas A. Edison’s chief assistant. Mr. Edison himself was slightly burned with the chemicals, but Mr. Dally, who had almost all of the experimenting to do, was quite badly burned on his hands. He suffered no pain from these burns, but his hands looked as though they had been scalded.

Six months after the first indications appeared the hands began to swell, and Mr. Dally was unable to keep at work continuously, but went to many of the hospitals where the X-ray was being installed and set up the machines and did some work in the laboratory besides. He suffered in this way for two years, when he and his family went West.

Cancer finally developed on the left wrist, and he came East for treatment. An operation was performed, but not successfully.

The disease then steadily spread and Dally was taken to the New York Post-Graduate Hospital, where the affected arm was amputated four inches below the shoulder. For a time an improvement was apparent, but the little finger on the right arm became affected, and on Nov. 1902, this member was taken off at his home.

Three other fingers were removed on June 16, 1903. The development of a spot on the wrist made it necessary to perform another operation on Sept. 7 of the same year. On Nov. 18 the physicians performed another operation where the stump of the little finger remained. Later the right arm was amputated.

A pair of artificial arms was provided for him, but he used them only a week when he was obliged to succumb, the disease having affected his entire system. During the seven years he had been unable to care for himself, and all the time he was West he was obliged to rest his hands in water during the night to allay the terrible burning sensation.”

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“They Will Help Fuel An International Market In Reproductive Technology”

February 16, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Generations into the future, no one will understand why we grew so livid when athletes used PEDs because everyone will be using them–as well as next-level methods of enhancement. The Financial Times has an article full of predictions from a trio of economists about life in 2114. An astute passage from Stanford’s Alvin Roth on the subject of human progress:

“The biggest trend of future history is that the world economy will keep growing and becoming more connected. Material prosperity will increase and healthy longevity will rise. While greater prosperity will not eliminate competition, it will give people more choices about whether and how hard to compete. Many will opt for a slower track, spending more time accumulating youthful experiences. Retirement will be a longer part of life and new forms of retirement will emerge.

For those who wish to compete, there will be technological developments to help them. Some of these, such as performance-enhancing drugs, are becoming available today but are widely regarded as repugnant. That repugnance seems likely to fade.

While we may continue to cancel sporting victories won with the help of drugs, we are unlikely to resist cancer cures or software or theorems produced with the assistance of drugs that aid concentration, memory or intelligence. Safe performance-en­hancing drugs may come to be seen as akin to good nutrition. Drugs may not be optional in future competitive careers. When assistant professors of economics in 2114 fall behind their expected production of an article per week, their department chair may suggest they increase their dosage of creativity-enhancing or attention-focusing drugs to increase their chance of tenure. And some drugs – memory enhancers, say – may be seen not as performance enhancers but as cures for things we did not previously think of as diseases.

Similar to the way drugs will allow us to improve our own performance, increased understanding of foetal development will allow parents to select or manipulate some of the genetic endowment of their children. Some of these options will remain repugnant even as they become more widely available, while others may come to be seen as part of careful child rearing. To the extent that these technologies are subject to legal limitations in some places but not others, they will help fuel an international market in reproductive technology. We already see the beginnings of such a market, as access to fertility treatments, and markets for eggs, sperm and surrogate wombs are more available in the US and India than in many places, drawing ‘fertility tourists.'”

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“These Games Would Be The First ‘Free-Enterprise, Private-Sector Olympics'”

February 14, 2014 in Excerpts, Sports, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

The Olympics weren’t always a corporate event treated like a telenovela on TV–that began in 1984. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and IOC organizer Peter Ueberroth took a Games no one wanted and put it in the black by drowning it in corporate green. It was a financial success, though it changed the event for good. Ueberroth’s Olympic glory led him to be named Time’s “Man of the Year” and become MLB Commissioner, his five-year run marred by the collusion scandal, which not only broke the rules but was also a colossal misunderstanding of baseball economics. The opening of “The Branding of the Olympics,” Hua Hsu’s Grantland article about 1984’s changing of the guard:

“Tom Bradley liked to tell the story of how he watched the 1932 Olympics through the fence of Los Angeles’s Memorial Coliseum. He was 14 at the time, and the pageantry and spectacle of it all offered a welcome reprieve from the uncertain world around him. There was no Great Depression, no future, no worries — just these races he could still recall in startling detail nearly 50 years later. He could never have imagined that an African American might one day be mayor of this growing city and that it would be him. It could never have occurred to him that this moment of pure astonishment would become part of a story he would tell over and over — a story that would change the Games forever.

Nobody wanted the 1984 Summer Olympics.1 But the success of those Games revitalized the possibilities of such global spectacles. We take it for granted nowadays that hosting big, expensive, and complicated events like the Olympics or World Cup is a desirable thing for cities and nations. They have become ways of announcing a regime’s makeover or burnishing a national brand; at the very least, politicians and developers invoke hosting duties as an official mandate to raze like hell. In the late 1970s, though, the Olympics weren’t seen as profitable or peaceful. Violence had marred the 1968 and 1972 Summer Olympics. The 1976 Montreal Games overran their budget so drastically that the debts weren’t paid off until 2006. When it came time in 1978 to find a host for the 1984 Games, the only cities that expressed interest were Tehran — which withdrew before making a formal bid — and Los Angeles.

Taxpayers and city officials balked at Bradley’s proposal to bring the Games to L.A., especially as tales of Montreal’s financial woes began to circulate. But Bradley used that unwillingness to his advantage, agreeing that taxpayers should not have to bear the burden of the Games and floating the possibility instead that they be staged without any direct public funding. The city’s existing facilities were sufficient, and corporate sponsors could pay for whatever else needed to be built. The rest of the operating budget would come from ticket sales, television, merchandising, and licensing.

Besides the initial Games in 1896, no Olympics had been underwritten entirely by private money. And other than the 1932 Games in Los Angeles and 1948 Games in London, no Olympics had ever reported a profit.2 In 1980, Peter Ueberroth, who had been appointed to head the L.A. Olympic committee, explained to the New York Times that these Games would be the first ‘free-enterprise, private-sector Olympics, with no taxpayer money.'”

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The 1932 L.A. Games that Bradley watched as a child:

The 1984 Games, featuring a UFO:

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“Until Quite Recently Rapid Communication, Information Acquisition, And Knowledge Sharing…Were Essentially Limited To The Planet’s Elite”

February 14, 2014 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I agree with Douglas Hofstadter that today’s AI isn’t true AI because it can’t really think, but the machines we have (and are soon to have) possess an amazing utility. Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, authors of The Second Machine Age, believe as most do, that the near-term Computer Age will be rocky, but they’re more sanguine about long-term prospects. They see the Google Glass as half full. An excerpt from their new Atlantic piece:

“Today, people with connected smartphones or tablets anywhere in the world have access to many (if not most) of the same communication resources and information that we do while sitting in our offices at MIT. They can search the Web and browse Wikipedia. They can follow online courses, some of them taught by the best in the academic world. They can share their insights on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and many other services, most of which are free. They can even conduct sophisticated data analyses using cloud resources such as Amazon Web Services and R, an open source application for statistics.13 In short, they can be full contributors in the work of innovation and knowledge creation, taking advantage of what Autodesk CEO Carl Bass calls ‘infinite computing.’

Until quite recently rapid communication, information acquisition, and knowledge sharing, especially over long distances, were essentially limited to the planet’s elite. Now they’re much more democratic and egalitarian, and getting more so all the time. The journalist A. J. Liebling famously remarked that, ‘Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.’ It is no exaggeration to say that billions of people will soon have a printing press, reference library, school, and computer all at their fingertips.

We believe that this development will boost human progress. We can’t predict exactly what new insights, products, and solutions will arrive in the coming years, but we are fully confident that they’ll be impressive. The second machine age will be characterized by countless instances of machine intelligence and billions of interconnected brains working together to better understand and improve our world. It will make mockery out of all that came before.”

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“Amazon Has Successfully Fostered The Idea That A Book Is A Thing Of Minimal Value”

February 14, 2014 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I think the culture is much fuller, not narrower, in this wired and connected time. The “barbarians” have finally stormed the gates, and the whole system has been decentralized. That’s a good thing. But I suppose it depends on how you define “culture.” In “Cheap Words,” George Packer’s latest New Yorker piece, he looks at the battle between Amazon and publishers over the value of books and the nature of their distribution. Toward the end, the writer makes this more macro point:

“This conversation, though important, takes place in the shallows and misses the deeper currents that, in the digital age, are pushing American culture under the control of ever fewer and more powerful corporations.”

I don’t agree with that because I’m defining “culture” differently than Packer, but the writer makes a lot of excellent points on the micro level about the great book battle, because being able to get books cheaply now is wonderful but could have future implications. An excerpt:

“Lately, digital titles have levelled off at about thirty per cent of book sales. Whatever the temporary fluctuations in publishers’ profits, the long-term outlook is discouraging. This is partly because Americans don’t read as many books as they used to—they are too busy doing other things with their devices—but also because of the relentless downward pressure on prices that Amazon enforces. The digital market is awash with millions of barely edited titles, most of it dreck, while readers are being conditioned to think that books are worth as little as a sandwich. ‘Amazon has successfully fostered the idea that a book is a thing of minimal value,’ [Dennis] Johnson said. ‘It’s a widget.’

There are two ways to think about this. Amazon believes that its approach encourages ever more people to tell their stories to ever more people, and turns writers into entrepreneurs; the price per unit might be cheap, but the higher number of units sold, and the accompanying royalties, will make authors wealthier. Jane Friedman, of Open Road, is unfazed by the prospect that Amazon might destroy the old model of publishing. ‘They are practicing the American Dream—competition is good!’ she told me. Publishers, meanwhile, ‘have been banks for authors. Advances have been very high.’ In Friedman’s view, selling digital books at low prices will democratize reading: ‘What do you want as an author—to sell books to as few people as possible for as much as possible, or for as little as possible to as many readers as possible?’

The answer seems self-evident, but there is a more skeptical view. Several editors, agents, and authors told me that the money for serious fiction and nonfiction has eroded dramatically in recent years; advances on mid-list titles—books that are expected to sell modestly but whose quality gives them a strong chance of enduring—have declined by a quarter. These are the kinds of book that particularly benefit from the attention of editors and marketers, and that attract gifted people to publishing, despite the pitiful salaries. Without sufficient advances, many writers will not be able to undertake long, difficult, risky projects. Those who do so anyway will have to expend a lot of effort mastering the art of blowing their own horn. ‘Writing is being outsourced, because the only people who can afford to write books make money elsewhere—academics, rich people, celebrities,’ Colin Robinson, a veteran publisher, said. ‘The real talent, the people who are writers because they happen to be really good at writing—they aren’t going to be able to afford to do it.'”

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“The Result Is What One Executive Calls ‘The Most Computerized Company In The World'”

February 13, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

From a 1981 Inc. article by Steve Ditlea that covered Apple Computers’ decision to disappear the typewriter from its desks and make space for the “office of the future”:

“Apple Computer Inc. practices what it preaches. Without fanfare, the firm has inaugurated the workplace of the future by putting its personal computers on most of its employees’ desks. The company almost eliminated typewriters, abolished the job title of secretary, and instituted a more efficient and pleasant work environment.

In a memo circulated last year, then-president Mike Scott ushered in a new age in office procedures. ‘EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY!! NO MORE TYPEWRITERS ARE TO BE PURCHASED, LEASED, etc., etc. Apple is an innovative company. We must believe and lead in all areas. If word processing is so neat, then let’s all use it! Goal: by 1-1-81, NO typewriters at Apple… We believe the typewriter is obsolete. Let’s prove it inside before we try and convince our customers.’

Combined with conventional data processing run on a Digital Equipment Corp. minicomputer system, the result is what one executive calls ‘the most computerized company in the world,’ a revolutionary development even by the high-tech standards of California’s Santa Clara County (a.k.a. Silicon Valley).

There are now no more than 20 typewriters left in the 2,200 employee firm. Instead of typewriters, the several hundred employees involved in composing or disseminating letters, memos, documents, or reports use a typewritersized Apple II with built-in keyboard, a pair of add-on disk drives, a video monitor, and Apple Writer, the company’s own disk-stored word processing software. Word processing has gained a foothold in many businesses, but never before has a firm so completely done away with typewriters by executive fiat. …

The Apple way is best exemplified by chairman of the board and co-founder Steve Jobs, a dark-haired 26-year-old, who in grey workshirt and slacks this particular morning could easily be mistaken for a maintenance worker. Instead he’s the holder of the largest single block of Apple stock, some 7.5 million shares worth about $163 million at recent market prices.

When Steve Jobs speaks, it is with the ‘gee-whiz’ enthusiasm of someone who sees the future and is making sure it works. He explains the decision to put an Apple computer on every desk as part of an overall desire to institute a more humane workplace. ‘Not only do our area associates have the freedom to do more rewarding, enriching tasks, they have the chance to get involved in solving problems that can ultimately affect the success of the entire company.’

As for worker fears that office automation may lead to greater unemployment, he insists the opposite is true, with personal computers opening up jobs for Apple employees.”

______________________________________________

In 1967, Walter Cronkite imagined the remote office of the future:

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

February 13, 2014 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

"23 pages."

“23 pages.”

“Office Excitement” (short screenplay, check out excerpts)

Logline/Synopsis:

A somewhat frustrated realtor, disappointed cause of the lack of business as he deals with prospects over the phone. He drinks and gets a little crazy alone in his office. His secretary is challenged by an aggressive insurance agent. The agent gets impatient after waiting to see the realtor. He steals office supplies. He then tries selling insurance to her and after his crazy failing attempts, he literally gets kicked out of the office by both of them. And Larry, the realtor, ends the story in a strange way with a gun, scaring Judy, his secretary.

Excerpt:

 

LARRY 

(politely)

Hi.

(smiles)

Is daddy home?…How ʼbout mommy..? OK. Go call her…I need to talk to her. . ..

JUDY

(looking through the file cabinet. He scares her at “Go” and she freezes, listening to him)

LARRY

(explodes)

Go! Get! Her!!

_________________________________

LARRY

(swings a fly swatter one good time like a baseball bat with two hands, trying to swat a fly in midair, getting him a little pissed off for missing it)

(quietly to himself)

You little bastard!

_________________________________

BATES

OK. I just simply wanted to present him a very good deal. Why donʼt you shut the fuck up and go in there and get him.

JUDY

(pissed off)

Who the hell you think youʼre talking to?!!

BATES

You talk too much. If youʼre not going to get him, sit down!!

(pushes her down in the chair)

JUDY 

(canʼt believe it, as she gets up fast, loudly)

YOU BASTARD! WHAT THE FUCK YOU THINK YOUʼRE DOING?!!

BATES 

(points at office door)

GET his ass the fuck OUT here or Iʼll mop you all over this fuckinʼ place!

JUDY 

(backs away from him)

You sick bastard!

_________________________________

 

Comedy / Satire, 23 pages, PDF copy via email attachment.

[copy in screenplay format]

PayPal – $3.

“Iʼll mop you all over this fuckinʼ place!”

A Brief Note From 1920 About Hangmen’s Salary

February 13, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the January 9, 1920 New York Times:

“LONDON–England’s public executioners, the hangmen, want their pay increased, and their claim has been presented to the House of Commons by a member of that body. Augustine Hailwood inquired whether the Government knew that it was paying the executioners no more than in pre-war days. A Government representative replied that the matter would receive consideration. 

The hangmen recently were deprived of the privilege of taking away the rope with which the criminal was hanged. This reduced one of the sources of their revenue, as the rope could be sold to curiosity collectors.”

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“You Can Really Predict Things, You Can Really Engineer Things”

February 13, 2014 in Books, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Economist editors discuss how Big Data is changing human modeling, how it can be used to predict–even direct–group behavior, with MIT’s Alex Pentland, author of the new book, Social Physics. Watch six-minute video here.

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“That Respectable Old Bachelor Bishop Was Beaten With Clubs And Beheaded In The Third Century”

February 13, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

A repost of the item that I run on or around Valentine’s Day each year that recalls the brutal and unlikely origins of the sweet holiday.

________________________

“St. Valentine’s Day is chiefly remarkable for having no personal connection with St. Valentine.”

An excerpt of an article from February 14, 1884 Brooklyn Daily Eagle which explains how the charming but heathen holiday of Valentine’s Day became associated with a Christian saint, and recalls the (thankfully) lost art of the insulting “comic valentine”:

“Like many other Ecclesiastical festivals which have assumed strange social transformations, St. Valentine’s Day is chiefly remarkable for having no personal connection with St. Valentine. That respectable old bachelor bishop was beaten with clubs and beheaded in the third century, and if he is conscious of his subsequent fame he must enjoy the reflection that no author as well as no saint ever achieved such a posthumous reputation for what he had nothing to do with. The feasts of Pan and Juno, held in February, upon which among other hilarious ceremonies the names of pretty Roman girls of the period were put in a box, and the Roman dudes and greenhorns and old bachelors drew them out, suggested to the ever appropriate instincts of the Christian clergy the holding of them on a saint’s day. Poor old Bishop Valentine was in partibus at the time and had been canonized as well as clubbed and decapitated also at the middle of February, and his commemoration would do very well for the heathen pastime, which would thus acquire a Christian aroma. That is the process by which, in modern times, he has become the patron saint of postmen.

“For the antiquated maid or corpulent bachelor, the valentine is scarcely a thing of beauty or joy.”

St. Valentine’s Day has become chiefly a joy to children, who await eagerly the postman’s coming with the welcome letters which are pictures as well. For the antiquated maid or corpulent bachelor, the valentine is scarcely a thing of beauty or joy. The meanness that would gratify its petty spite by anonymous insults through the mail on this literary deluge day would not deserve mention if this morning’s newspapers had not contained a curious and perhaps fatal caution against indulging one’s venom through the valentine. Two women in Philadelphia, who were next door neighbors, mutually accused each other of sending an insulting valentine. Each denied the charge, but neither accepted the denial. They fell upon each other tooth and nail, and, not content with bites and scratches, while one ran for a hatchet the other shot her with a pistol.”

Old Print Article: “A Famous Composer Dead,” New York Times (1893)

February 12, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"

“Tchaikovsky contracted cholera by drinking unboiled water in a restaurant.”

To put it crudely, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, one of humankind’s most refined composers, died because he drank water that had shit in it. We’re all a glass of shitwater, or something equally horrible, from death, even the best of us. Such is life: Luck plays a bigger role than we’d like to admit.

The announcement of Tchaikovsky’s death by cholera in the November 7, 1893 New York Times, which spells his name in a variety of ways, includes a passage about the Russian master’s visit to America. The opening:

“ST. PETERSBURG–Pierre Tschaikowsky, the Russian composer, died in this city last night. He died of cholera, hours after he fell ill.

Tchaikovsky contracted cholera by drinking unboiled water in a restaurant. 

________________

A cable dispatch from St. Petersburg brings the unexpected news that Peter Ilitsch Tschaikowsky is dead. This famous Russian musician was without much question the most strikingly original and forceful composer of the day, and his death at a time when his intellectual powers were, or ought to have been, at their maturity must be accounted a serious loss to music. The present is by no means richly productive in great orchestral works, and Tschaikowsky’s masterpieces have the hallmarks of real genius. If he had lived he would surely have given the world new works which it would have received with great gladness.

Tschaikowsky was the son of an engineer who held a post under the Government in the imperial mines of the Ural Mountain district. The musician was born at Wotkinsk, in the Province of Wlatka, on April 25, 1840. Like not a few other composers, the boy was not intended by his parents to follow in the footsteps of Glinka. He received his early education in the schools of his native place. In 1840, however, his father who was evidently a man of solid attainments, was appointed Director of the Technological Institute at St. Petersburg. In that city the son was entered as a student in the School of Jurisprudence, which is open only to the sons of Government officials of the higher orders. It was the father’s desire that the boy should enter the public service, and in 1859, when he had completed his course of study, he was appointed to a post in the Department of Justice.

In the meantime his love for music had declared itself, and while a law student he had made essays in composition. These attempts met with not a little opposition from his father, and for a time young Tschaikowsky’s musical studies were abandoned. But music eventually prevailed over law, and the consent of the father to his devotion to the study of composition was at length obtained. It was fortunate for Tschaikowsky that the great movement for the advancement of music in Russia had now begun. In 1862 Anton Rubinstein, the famous pianist and composer established his now celebrated Conservatory of Music at St. Petersburg. Tschaikowsky was one of the first of the institution’s many gifted pupils.

He devoted himself diligently to study until 1865. His principal masters were Zaremba, who taught him harmony and counterpoint, and Rubinstein, who taught him composition. In 1865 he was graduated with high honors, receiving a prize medal for his setting of Schiller’s ode, ‘An die Freude,’ of which he made a cantata. The composition.is not found among his published works.

In 1866 Nicolas Rubinstein, then the head of the conservatory, offered his the post of Professor of Harmony, Composition, and the History of Music. As his heart was in the Russian musical movement, he accepted the chair, and for twelve years did admirable work as an instructor. In 1878 he resigned his position in order to devote himself more assiduously to composition, in which he had already gained enviable distinction. He lived at various times in St. Petersburg, Italy, Switzerland, and Kiev. In recent years he had made his home at the last-named place, which is near Moscow.

Two years ago last May Tschaikowsky, at the invitation of Walter Damrosch, an enthusiastic follower and performer of his works, visited America, and appeared in the series of festival concerts with which the Music Hall, at Fifty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue, was opened. The composer conducted his splendid third suite, his second piano concerto, in G, Opus 44, and two a capella choruses. The magnificent performance if the suite by the Symphony Orchestra under his electric leadership will long be remembered by music lovers, as will also also by Miss Aus Der Ohe’s playing of the piano concerto. The composer subsequently visited other cities, and was everywhere received with enthusiasm. …

Tschaikowsky was a prolific composer for a modern master, yet given to somewhat close self-criticism. Only three or four years ago he threw into the fire the score of his early ballet, ‘Wojowode,’ produced in 1860.”

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“Its Short-Term Effects Could Be Devastating For American Workers”

February 12, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

After a steep decline in manufacturing, the U.S, has an opportunity to drive the future of the sector. But there’s a catch: You and I may not be necessary. The rapid growth of robotics in America may largely close factories to human hands. We’ll be richer in the aggregate, but those riches will not be distributed very much to workers. Good in the long run but not so much now. From Amar Toor at Verge:

“Some see automated manufacturing as a potential boon for the US economy, a way to lure companies back to American soil with the promise of higher productivity and lower labor costs. But others fear that the push could displace the last vestiges of middle-class American manufacturing workers at a time of high unemployment and soaring inequality.

‘The pace and scale of this encroachment into human skills is relatively recent and has profound economic implications,’ MIT economists Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee wrote in their 2011 book Race Against the Machine. In the book, the authors argue that technology has destroyed more American jobs at a faster pace than it’s created new ones, leading to higher unemployment and stagnant median incomes despite higher productivity levels. Although they conclude on an optimistic note, arguing that technological change will yield benefits in the long run, Brynjolfsson and McAfee say its short-term effects could be devastating for American workers.”

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“The Olympics Will Take Us To The Moon, To Mars!”

February 12, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

Thinking about the impact of the Olympics on host cities reminds me of Frank Deford’s great 1970 Sports Illustrated profile of then-Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau whose unwavering will brought a subway system, a World’s Fair, Major League Baseball and, yes, the Olympics to his city. It should be noted, however, that the construction of the Olympic buildings was bungled horribly and cost overruns left the citizens indebted for three decades. The opening:

“One bright day in the summer of 1970, shortly after Montreal had obtained the 1976 Olympics but in the months just before the city annexed Vermont and then acquired the Vatican to place up on Mont-Royal (the Orange Bowl, after all, seemed so lonely up there with only the Bolshoi Ballet and the Ganges River for company), the mayor of Montreal sat in City Hall and faced down another skeptic. This he does with aplomb, for it is a whole world of skeptics that the mayor endures, and thus he has much practice in the endeavor. The mayor’s working philosophy is: ‘Problems are solved en route,’ and, of course, since Vietnam this is not the most popular mode of operation everywhere. The mayor is not deterred.

Having warmed up at some length, he waves for effect and declares: ‘The Olympics will do even more for Montreal than Expo ’67. Seventy-six is only a target, and we won’t stop. Seventy-six is the means, not the end. Sixty-seven was just taking us into orbit, but the Olympics will take us to the moon [he waves], to Mars! I feel it! I feel it! And I’m not wrong when I feel as strongly as this. There is no challenge too big for Montreal, because, like the Olympics, we are acting with the spirit of Baron de Coubertin, we are acting in a humanistic way. The city possesses an environment, an ambience that can be felt. ‘Montreal is en route to becoming The City of the world. Twenty years from now, no matter what happens, it will have achieved this position, and it will be referred to in all parts of the world as The City.’

Now make no mistake, the mayor of The (incipient) City is a politician. His office is testament to that. There is the portrait of Queen Elizabeth juxtaposed with a crucifix. There are the flowers that adorn the room in bunches, while nestled among them is the mayor’s 125-pound bull mastiff, Due, whose elegiac face does not betray the fact that he could eat for lunch, if he were so disposed, all the flowers, the artifacts and the entire Quebec separatist movement. But if the symbols around the man add up to a balanced display, there is no compromise in the mayor. Charles Bronfman, vice-president of Seagrams, Ltd. and chairman of the baseball Expos, observes: ‘However much he sounds it, the mayor is never a huckster. He is altogether sincere. He has drives that are unusual and dreams that others of us cannot understand.’

This means that when the mayor says Montreal is going to sprint ahead and leave crossroads like Paris and New York back with Terre Haute, he is not putting you on. He means it. Also, all those enigmatic celestial references to the Olympics are not being emitted just for florid effect. It is worth recalling that at about this same point in the planning stage for Expo ’67, the mayor had already decided to make a permanent exposition of it—though he neglected to let anyone else in on this revelation for some time. Expo ’67 is now Man and His World and is still drawing people to Montreal.

After a certain amount of watching His Honor, one instinctively recalls what Cassius Clay used to say after various correct predictions: ‘If I tell you a fly can pull a plow, hitch him up.’ The mayor brought a world’s fair to Montreal in record time after Moscow reneged on the project. He lured major league baseball into expanding outside the U.S., and happily watched the team prosper and even play well amid predictions of financial and artistic calamity. He took the Olympics away from the U.S. and Russia and left another world power, personified by Charles de Gaulle, put down in a stunning speech after De Gaulle had suggested French Canada might want to, more or less, separate itself from Canada. He built a cultural palace and a subway system in a world where nobody constructs anything that lasts. With a sprinkle of flowers and trees on almost every street, he encouraged a greenhouse of a town to bloom in a place that had been another kind of house for the whole Western world.

The mayor’s name is Jean Drapeau.”

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“The Igman Ski Jumps Sat In Ruins, But The Base Was Full Of Campers Playing Football”

February 12, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

When happens to the tent when the circus leaves town, especially if it’s the greatest show on Earth? The Olympics are a mixed blessing locally because they promise massive infrastructure improvements in only a few years, but they also can indebt a host city, displace citizens and cause environmental damage. And the march of history (e.g., war) can quickly undo any of the good, make something grotesque from it. Jon Pack and Gary Hustwit of the Olympic City Project photograph hosts years after the Games are over to see what the event has wrought. A couple of exchanges from an Ask Me Anything they just did at Reddit.

______________________

“Question:

In your opinion, are the Olympics have a positive or negative long-term effects on the cities hosting it?

Jon Pack and Gary Hustwit:

That a complex question, because it really depends on your point of view. Barcelona’s 1992 Olympics is held up as having a positive effect on the city, since they were able to redevelop the waterfront area and turn the beach into a huge tourist draw. They were also able to do 30 years of planned infrastructure improvements in 5 years, using the Games as the impetus. But there are many citizens who were displaced by the new development there, or complain that the improvements are really just for the sake of tourism, their rents are higher now, etc.

Every city/country has their own reasons for hosting the Olympics, some just want to prove they can do it, that they’re a global city. For some it’s a public relations move (how many of us had heard of Sochi before this year? In the project, we’ve tried not to express an opinion one way or the other, if it’s positive or negative, but try to give a feel for what these cities are like now, a few years or decades after the Games.

______________________

Question:

I’ve been to the Sarajevo site, which is pretty disturbing; tons of the open spaces were used for graves during the war in the 90s, and everything else is practically falling apart.

Which city, in your opinion, has done the best job of reusing and refurbishing former olympic sites?

Jon Pack:

Yes, Sarajevo is an especially sad case. It’s impossible to separate the Games’ legacy from the war. Most of the Olympic structures were destroyed or damaged significantly. But I found the people to be amazingly resilient; almost everyone would tell me a harrowing story of that time and then follow it up with a dark joke. When I was there in the summer, I found most of the sites being used in some way. The bobsleigh track had some picnickers, skaterboarders and tourists around, for instance. The Igman ski jumps sat in ruins, but the base was full of campers playing football. It seems like they may not have the money to rebuild the sites, but they’re making the best of it.

Gary Hustwit:

There are plenty of interesting re-uses of Olympic sites in different cities, I don’t think I could say any one city has done it all well. But we’ve seen some bizarre ones. Lake Placid couldn’t get federal funding to build athlete housing for the ’80 Winter Games, but the government would fund a new prison. So they built a prison, housed the athletes and officials in it, and after the Games were over the prisoners moved in. It’s still a working prison today.”

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“Over Half Of All Hitmen Got Less Than $9K For Their Services”

February 11, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I know lots of folks in the New York media world, so there’s at least a half-dozen people I’d like to punch right in the face. But for those of you looking to up the ante, there’s a bargain to be had. From “How Much Does a Hitman Cost?” at Priceonomics:

“In 2003 researchers at the Australian Institute of Criminology dug through a decade’s-worth of old newspaper records, undercover police operations, and homicide databases to study the price and motivations of hiring a hitman.

According to this study, the average payment to a hired killer was about $15K (converted to US dollars) and over half of all hitmen got less than $9K for their services.”

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