Urban Studies

You are currently browsing the archive for the Urban Studies category.

“I Don’t Think Lee Harvey Oswald Was The Trigger Man For Any Group”

November 24, 2013 in Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I don’t think there was a conspiracy to kill President John F. Kennedy, and I can’t take anyone seriously who refers to Oliver Stone’s ridiculous JFK movie to argue the contrary. It’s not that a lot of people didn’t want him dead, but I don’t think Lee Harvey Oswald was the trigger man for any group. Oswald probably acted alone. He almost definitely wasn’t in cahoots with Cuba or Russia or any other foreign power. It’s somewhat possible he may have been acting in concert with American mob figures, but it’s doubtful, and there’s no good proof of any such cabal. Jack Ruby likewise probably acted alone in murdering Oswald, envisioning himself as a national hero for his deed. 

There is one interesting theory that can’t be completely dismissed: Perhaps the final bullet that struck and killed the President was an accidental discharge from a Secret Service agent. This idea has survived for three reasons: 1) The last bullet impacted differently than the first, causing an explosion of flesh 2) Some doubt Oswald’s ability for such pinpoint accuracy at such a distance with such a cheap weapon 3) Quite a few witnesses on the ground reported smelling gunpowder.

I don’t believe this theory, either. Ammo can react differently in different situations and a direct hit to the back from one angle will not necessarily create the same result as one to the head from another. Oswald was a highly trained marksman, and I think it’s very possible he could reach a target in a slow-moving vehicle. Bullets hitting more than one person and causing someone’s brain to explode might cause a smell that’s similar to gunpowder. There were also likely tires straining quickly in every direction which can cause a burning smell. And let’s remember that the witness closest to Oswald in the book depository distinctly heard three registers.

During the first 35 minutes of a recent Grantland podcast, Bill Simmons and Chris Connelly interview Bill James, who subscribes to the Secret Service theory. In addition to being one of baseball’s sabermetrics pioneers, James has written about the assassination in his book on true crime. I was disappointed by James’ stance in the wake of the Penn State pedophilia scandal, but he’s very sober-minded in this discussion. The only comment James makes in the podcast that I take issue with is his assertion that Oswald striking Kennedy more than once in a matter of seconds is tantamount to James himself being able to hit a home run off Roger Clemens. It’s a poor analogy. Oswald had a professional level of marksmanship and James does not have that level of athletic ability, especially in middle age. And James didn’t seem to be employing hyperbole. But it’s an interesting conversation overall.• Listen here.

Tags: , , , , ,

“Pop Warner Lost 23,612 Players”

November 24, 2013 in Excerpts, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

Another bit coming from the Frontline program “League of Denial,” which looked at the impact of brain injuries stemming from American football:

“The nation’s largest youth football program, Pop Warner, saw its participation rate drop 9.5 percent from 2010-2012, according to an Outside the Lines report by League of Denial authors Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada. ‘Pop Warner lost 23,612 players, thought to be the largest two-year decline since the organization began keeping statistics decades ago,’ the report found. ‘Pop Warner officials said they believe several factors played a role in the decline, including the trend of youngsters focusing on one sport. But the organization’s chief medical officer, Dr. Julian Bailes, cited concerns about head injuries as ‘the No. 1 cause.’”

Tags: ,

“Bacteria Can Produce Another Generation In As Little As Twenty Minutes”

November 22, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I watch Frontline the way most Americans watch slasher films and zombie TV dramas: to frighten the fuck out of myself. The recent episode, “Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria,” pointed out a yawning hole in the free market: Big Pharma companies have very few antibiotics in R&D because they’re expensive to develop and they’re supposed to be used as little as possible. It’s much more feasible to produce a diabetes or heart drug–something for long-term care. 

Of course, we actually haven’t been careful about restricting antibiotics, overprescribing them to humans in the past and currently practically pouring them into livestock. And the more we use these drugs, the less efficacy they possess. So the ones we have are losing effectiveness, and there are no answers in the pipeline. From Maryn McKenna’s Medium essay, “Imagining the Post-Antibiotics Future“:

“Predictions that we might sacrifice the antibiotic miracle have been around almost as long as the drugs themselves. Penicillin was first discovered in 1928 and battlefield casualties got the first non-experimental doses in 1943, quickly saving soldiers who had been close to death. But just two years later, the drug’s discoverer Sir Alexander Fleming warned that its benefit might not last. Accepting the 1945 Nobel Prize in Medicine, he said:

‘It is not difficult to make microbes resistant to penicillin in the laboratory by exposing them to concentrations not sufficient to kill them… There is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant.’

As a biologist, Fleming knew that evolution was inevitable: sooner or later, bacteria would develop defenses against the compounds the nascent pharmaceutical industry was aiming at them. But what worried him was the possibility that misuse would speed the process up. Every inappropriate prescription and insufficient dose given in medicine would kill weak bacteria but let the strong survive. (As would the micro-dose ‘growth promoters’ given in agriculture, which were invented a few years after Fleming spoke.) Bacteria can produce another generation in as little as twenty minutes; with tens of thousands of generations a year working out survival strategies, the organisms would soon overwhelm the potent new drugs.”

Tags: ,

“I Think Airport Security Should Be Rolled Back To Pre-9/11 Levels”

November 22, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Bruce Schneier, a security expert (online and offline), just did an Ask Me Anything at Reddit. The following is an exchange about post-9/11 airport security:

“Question:

I am of the opinion that our airport security is poorly designed and for the hassle passengers go through, we get minimal benefit. I feel like we react to specific circumstances to create an illusion of security and that perception is more important to the TSA than creating a constructive plan to deal with threats. I know you are a proponent of the fail well philosophy which accepts failure and tries to compartmentalize and minimize the damage. Based on this theory what should be the security steps that airports should be taking?

Bruce Schneier:

I think airport security should be rolled back to pre-9/11 levels, and all the money saved should be spent on things that work: intelligence, investigation, and emergency response.

Only two things have improved airplane security since 9/11: reinforcing the cockpit doors, and teaching passengers that they have to fight back. Everything else has been security theater.”

 

Tags:

A Note From 1886 About A Pitchfork Accident

November 21, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the July 18, 1886 New York Times:

“Detroit, Mich.–Near Jamestown, in the western part of this State, a singular and terrible accident occurred Thursday. Gerritt Bouma, whose parents reside in the village, was at work on a load of wheat and fell off in such a manner that two tines of a fork which fell off the load at the same time entered the back of his head and passed completely through it, coming out near his nose. He pulled the fork out himself, and ran to the house, some distance away, climbing a fence on his way. He asked for water, but soon after went into convulsions and died in about two hours. He was 24 years of age.”

Tags:

“Can You Explain The Difference Between The Types Of Executions You Had To Perform?”

November 21, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

Jerry Givens, who served as Virginia’s executioner for nearly two decades, lives with regret. He now campaigns against capital punishment. Just one exchange from an Ask Me Anything he did at the Guardian:

Question:

Can you explain the difference between the types of executions you had to perform?

Answer:

When I first started, it was only death by electrocution. Electrocution consists of 2,400 to 3,000 volts. The condemned receives 45 seconds of a high volt shock and 45 seconds of the low cycle. It takes about 2.5 minutes. Then there is a five minute grace period to let the body cool down. Then a physician goes in the room with a stethoscope to see if there is a heartbeat. Back in the mid-1990s, Virginia decided to go with lethal injection instead. That consists of seven tubes that are injected into the left arm. Three tubes of chemicals and four that are flush. So you administer the first chemical (sodium pentothal), then a flush, then the second chemical (pancuronium), then a flush, then the third chemical (potassium chloride) and then a final flush at the end. You have to keep people who remove the body from being exposed to chemicals.

If I had a choice, I would choose death by electrocution. That’s more like cutting your lights off and on. It’s a button you push once and then the machine runs by itself. It relieves you from being attached to it in some ways. You can’t see the current go through the body. But with chemicals, it takes a while because you’re dealing with three separate chemicals. You are on the other end with a needle in your hand. You can see the reaction of the body. You can see it going down the clear tube. So you can actually see the chemical going down the line and into the arm and see the effects of it. You are more attached to it. I know because I have done it. Death by electrocution in some ways seems more humane.”

Tags:

“Vollmann Became Famous For Fiction That Treated The Sex Worker As Muse”

November 21, 2013 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

One thing you can say assuredly about writer William T. Vollmann is that he’s enjoying a singular career. There’s no one else practicing his brand of gonzo ardor for the sad casualties of modern life, the geographically remote, the politically fraught and the historically arcane–no one else even trying, really. The opening of Alexander Nazaryan’s Newseek article about the writer, who’s just published The Book of Dolores, perhaps his most personal and idiosyncratic work to date:

“If William T. Vollmann ever wins the Nobel Prize in Literature – as many speculate he will – he knows exactly what he will do with the $1.1 million pot the Swedes attach to the award. ‘It will be fun to give some to prostitutes,’ he says, sitting on his futon, chuckling, a half-empty bottle of pretty good bourbon between us.

He is neither flippant nor drunk, though more booze awaits us out there in the temperate Sacramento twilight. Vollmann became famous for fiction that treated the sex worker as muse – especially the street stalker of those days in the Tenderloin of San Francisco when AIDS was just coming to haunt the national psyche and the yuppie invasion was a nightmare not yet hatched. His so-called prostitution trilogy – Whores for Gloria, Butterfly Stories, and The Royal Family – is overflowing with life and empathy, nothing like the backcountry machismo of Raymond Carver or fruitless experimentation of Donald Barthelme, both oh-so-popular with young writers when Vollmann first came on the scene after graduating from Cornell in 1981. He approached the prostitute like an anthropologist, yet did so without condescension, writing in Whores for Gloria, ‘The unpleasantnesses of her profession are largely caused by the criminal ambiance in which the prostitute must conduct it.’

He was a gonzo humanitarian, too: Vollmann once rescued a young Thai girl, Sukanja, from a rural brothel, installing her in a school in Bangkok; he later paid her father for ownership of the girl, essentially making himself the owner of another human being. (‘She loves the school,’ he told The Paris Review in 2000.) So if sex workers reap some of that Nobel money, it will be only be because they have long served as Vollmann’s subjects and companions, objects of his curiosity, his compassion, and, sometimes, his carnal impulses. He insists the last of these is not an occasion for shame. Of paying for sex, he once said, ‘We’re a culture of prostitutes.'”

Tags: ,

“They Are The Tool With Which You Customize Your Burger Order”

November 21, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

You already know that I’m flummoxed that children can’t go into bars or buy cigarettes while they’re allowed to eat at fast-food restaurants. All three will equally set them up for unhealthy lives. Consenting adults should do what they want, but I don’t think McDonald’s and Wendy’s should be open to children.

On a completely different topic about fast-food places: There’s a wiseass article in Vice by Alison Stevenson about a test McDonald’s in California that’s supposed to be “futuristic,” allowing customers to order on iPads. The author has fun with the redundancy of the iPad and the employee currently doing the same tasks, but before long. the human element will likely be reduced. It’s another step in the automation of informal restaurants and cafes. An excerpt:

“This McDonald’s is the McDonald’s of the future. I’m not saying that just because it’s really clean and people are happy. I’m saying that because this McDonald’s has iPads! What do these iPads do? They are the tool with which you customize your burger order. With this magic iPad, you’re able to order such exotic menu items as an ‘artisan roll,’ and ‘guacamole.’ Yeah you heard me, a McDonald’s that serves guacamole. Welcome to the 21st century, fuckers. Obviously, little things like ‘clean dining areas,’ ‘friendly service,’ and ‘freedom of choice’ are not features that can be rolled out to every McDonald’s all at once. No, those things have to be ‘tested,’ and Laguna Niguel is the only place where you can enjoy the aforementioned amenities.”

Tags:

“This Web Can Fray Easily, Resulting In A Wave Of Political Instability”

November 21, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I mentioned Cliodynamics in a post yesterday, and the field’s founder, Peter Turchin, has a dark forecast about America’s future at Bloomberg. He sees economic inequality and other factors possibly renting us apart, even violently. As Jim McKay said when the horror of the 1972 Munich Olympics was complete, “Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized.” But seldom doesn’t mean never. The opening:

“Complex human societies, including our own, are fragile. They are held together by an invisible web of mutual trust and social cooperation. This web can fray easily, resulting in a wave of political instability, internal conflict and, sometimes, outright social collapse.

Analysis of past societies shows that these destabilizing historical trends develop slowly, last many decades, and are slow to subside. The Roman Empire, Imperial China and medieval and early-modern England and France suffered such cycles, to cite a few examples. In the U.S., the last long period of instability began in the 1850s and lasted through the Gilded Age and the ‘violent 1910s.’

We now see the same forces in the contemporary U.S. Of about 30 detailed indicators I developed for tracing these historical cycles (reflecting popular well-being, inequality, social cooperation and its inverse, polarization and conflict), almost all have been moving in the wrong direction in the last three decades.

The roots of the current American predicament go back to the 1970s, when wages of workers stopped keeping pace with their productivity. The two curves diverged: Productivity continued to rise, as wages stagnated. The ‘great divergence‘ between the fortunes of the top 1 percent and the other 99 percent is much discussed, yet its implications for long-term political disorder are underappreciated. Battles such as the recent government shutdown are only one manifestation of what is likely to be a decade-long period.”

Tags:

Old Print Article: “Parachute Leap Off Statue Of Liberty,” New York Times (1912)

November 20, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

In 1912, a daredevil who delighted in heights ascended to the peak of the Statue of Liberty and parachuted from the raised hand of the American icon. The full story as told in the February 3 edition of the New York Times of that year:

Frederick R. Law, listed in the telephone directory as an aerial contractor, with offices at 50 Church Street, growing tired of monotonously swaying to and fro on lofty flagpoles and of being conventionally referred to in the newspapers as a daring steeplejack, decided yesterday to startle the world with an entirely original feat.

Law is about 35 years old. He was the first man to paint the flagpoles of the Pulitzer and Singer buildings, and it has been said of him that he had to be at least 300 feet in the air with a cigar in his mouth to feel absolutely comfortable. Business has been dull in the steeple rigging line, and Law saw the necessity of doing something which no one else had ever done before.

According to one of his foremen, the boss steeplejack sat in his office all yesterday morning looking over the city’s high towers. Suddenly, it was said, he announced his intention of jumping from the Singer Building with a parachute. That seemed unpractical, however, after an investigation, and the Metropolitan Tower, a few stories higher, offered the same objections. The steeplejack did not fear the jump, but impeding traffic and the risk of causing a runaway or two deterred him.

The happy alternative of the Statue of Liberty suggested itself, and at noon the aerial contractor set out for Bedlow’s Island. At 2 o’clock he was armed with a special permit, issued by Capt. Leonard D. Wildman in charge of the post on the island, and half an hour later half a dozen moving picture machines and operators and several thousand spectators were on hand to see the jump from the top of the statue.

Law dragged his 100-pound parachute into the elevator, and in company with one of his foreman went aloft to the head of the Goddess. There he dressed his ropes and started up the remaining 50 feet through the mighty biceps and forearm until he reached the hand with supports the torch. There is an observation platform at this point which, since the issue of a recent order, cannot be visited without a special permit. This platform is 151 feet from the base of the statue and about 225 feet above sea level. It is large enough to hold twelve persons, and Law and his assistant had no trouble in arranging the parachute so that on the jump it would slide easily over the edges of the railing.

Awaiting a lull in the wind Law chose the eastern side of the statue for his descent, and at exactly 2:45 P.M., with all the moving picture machines trained in his direction, he jumped from the top of the railing, clearing the edges by ten feet. 

Whistles shrieked in the harbor, and every one within seeking distance held his breath while the bulky parachute followed the man over the railing. There was fear of a tragedy for a moment, for the steeplejack fell fully seventy-five feet like a dead weight, the parachute showing no inclination whatever to open at first.

When it opened the wind blew it clear of the statue. Then Law began waving his hands frantically. It was not a sign of alarm, merely a steering method which the young aeronaut had adopted to keep his craft out of the bay. It proved practical, too, for the parachute descended gracefully.

When it neared the surface it seemed to fall fast for a moment, and Law, forgetting to jump, fell heavily on the stone coping, thirty feet from the water’s edge. He limped away from the pile of canvas and ropes, but declared that he was not injured. Later he packed up his parachute and personally carried it to his office in the Hudson Terminal Building. He did not want to be interviewed, he said.•

Tags: ,

Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

November 20, 2013 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

Ever wanna smash a car with a bat??? (Staten Island)

Hey…u ever wanna take our ur frustration on a car?….or maybe wanted to smash in a tail light in the movies….or my personal favorite….taking a bat to the windshield. Well here is your chance. For one night only, I will be personally donating a car to be smashed, for a small fee of course. Depending where you want to hit it, and how many times, I will be asking for a donation. Email me for more details if this sounds like something that you would fancy. I did this to my last car and it was a smash….literally.

“Geeks Have Turned Out To Be Some Of The Most Ruthless Capitalists Around”

November 20, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

In a new Economist essay, Adrian Wooldridge predicts that the tech sector will experience a backlash similar to what has been experienced by Wall Street and Big Oil, but I’m not convinced. A certain degree of blowback has already occurred, and it’s a deserved and healthy thing. Excesses of all kinds should be challenged, in Silicon Valley or anywhere else. Pre-philanthropy Bill Gates was a cutthroat jerk and Sean Parker is a narcissistic dunderhead. But the difference between bankers and techies is that the latter usually actually create something of value. And unlike fossil-fuel corporations, which damage the environment, the bigger tech companies (and many small start-ups) are aimed at making us greener. Those two factors will probably neutralize criticisms somewhat. From Wooldridge:

“Geeks have turned out to be some of the most ruthless capitalists around. A few years ago the new economy was a wide-open frontier. Today it is dominated by a handful of tightly held oligopolies. Google and Apple provide over 90% of the operating systems for smartphones. Facebook counts more than half of North Americans and Europeans as its customers. The lords of cyberspace have done everything possible to reduce their earthly costs. They employ remarkably few people: with a market cap of $290 billion Google is about six times bigger than GM but employs only around a fifth as many workers. At the same time the tech tycoons have displayed a banker-like enthusiasm for hoovering up public subsidies and then avoiding taxes. The American government laid the foundations of the tech revolution by investing heavily in the creation of everything from the internet to digital personal assistants. But tech giants have structured their businesses so that they give as little back as possible.”

Tags:

“A Girl Today Born In The United States Has a 50-50 Chance Of Reaching 100”

November 20, 2013 in Books, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The above quote, not a fact obviously but an educated guess, was made by Princeton economist Angus Deaton during this week’s excellent EconTalk podcast. Host Russ Roberts and his guest talk about the topics covered in Deaton’s recent book, The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality: longevity, income disparity and the argument over whether investment in developing nations has made a real difference.

Great little facts about the hidden reasons for why we live longer. Example: In the early part of the 20th century, hotels didn’t change sheets between guests, which helped bacteria to thrive. There’s also discussion about how lifespans continue to grow with a Moore’s Law steadiness despite predictions to the contrary.

What’s left unsaid is that damage to environment or some calamity of disease or meteorite could halt progress in the quantity and quality of life. What are the odds of that? Are we prepared to prevent such doom?•

Tags: ,

“It Will Be Increasingly Difficult For Us To Achieve Privacy”

November 20, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Vint Cerf, co-creator of the Internet, is saying what seems inarguable at this point–that technology has outpaced our capacity to control it, that privacy as we knew it isn’t coming back regardless of legislation, that we’re at the outset, for better or worse, of the new normal. From a BGR post by Brad Reed:

“While having a right to privacy sounds nice, the Internet’s co-creator thinks that it’s also unrealistic to expect your behavior to stay private if you engage in social networking and post through social media. Adweek’s Katy Bachman reports that during a panel at a Federal Trade Commission workshop on privacy in the age of wearable computers, tech industry legend Vint Cerf said that new technology means that ‘it will be increasingly difficult for us to achieve privacy’ and that ‘privacy may be an anomaly.'”

Tags: , ,

“You Like To Buy Us Pink Toys / And Everything Else Is For Boys”

November 19, 2013 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

I haven’t owned a TV for awhile so I’m not up on the latest commercials, but this ad for Goldie Blox toys, which encourage girls to develop engineering skills, is amazing. It exhorts girls into tech the way the 1990s Nike “If You Let Me Play” campaign invited them to get in the game. And it joins Rube Goldberg to the Beastie Boys!

A Brief Note From 1894 About A Masked Man

November 19, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the March 12, 1894 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Attleboro, Mass.–A well dressed young man who refused to give his name and wore a black cloth mask arrived here Saturday night and created something of a sensation. He engaged a vacant store and filled the windows with pictures of himself and announcements that he was Paul Pry, just starting on a trip around the world. He stated that he had agreed to make the trip in one year and was to wear the mask for that length of time. The store became filled with a noisy crowd and he was forced by the police to discard the mask. He has left town.”

“Disaster Prediction…Is A Growth Industry”

November 19, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Nathaniel Rich has a post on the New Yorker blog about the field of disaster forecasting, which can be approached from many disciplines. (Even Cliodynamics, which focuses on mapping dynamics that are historical, can help us divine the future.). Of course, knowing doom is approaching isn’t the same thing as preventing it. From the post:

“The Philippines could have been better prepared, but the best preparation is no match for two-hundred-mile-per-hour winds.

Nevertheless, our knowledge of how disasters occur, and how they will occur in the future, has never been more sophisticated. We are now able to prophesy impending cataclysms with a specificity that would have been inconceivable just several years ago. Several factors have contributed to this progress: a growing public anxiety about disasters; advances in disciplines as disparate as computer science, fluid mechanics, and neuroscience; and an infusion of funding from governments, universities, and especially corporations, which have figured out that disaster planning saves money in the long run. But the field remains in its infancy. Disaster prediction—like disaster science, disaster economics, disaster-response technology, disaster art, disaster cinema, disaster lit—is a growth industry. All indications suggest a growth curve that will continue to steepen well into the next century. Disaster is big business, and its prophets will profit.

Milestones in the past year include the March publication, by a team of U.C.L.A. scientists, of a new computer model that predicts where the next global pandemic will originate.”

Tags:

“Staff Officer Levi C. Brackett…Is Displaying A Copy Of The Atlantic In Both Cock-Fighting Photos”

November 19, 2013 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

Here’s an odd thing: The Library of Congress holds a pair of 1864 photographs of Civil War soldiers participating in a cockfight, while an officer reads a copy of the Atlantic Monthly. Talk about your high and your low. From Garry Adelman at, of course, the Atlantic:

“As the siege was getting under way, [Timothy] O’Sullivan and [David] Knox took two photos of a cock fight about to begin. Here, Union General Orlando B. Willcox (seated, center) and his staff gather around to watch as camp servants prepare to release the fowl for a fight to the death. Two of the soldiers hold small whips. Alcohol and cigars round out the brutal but genteel scene. A young soldier smiles broadly—a rare occurrence in Civil War photographs.

By zooming into the original glass plate negatives, another refinement emerges: Staff officer Levi C. Brackett, serving on General Willcox’s staff, is displaying a copy of The Atlantic in both cock-fighting photos. It is the latest issue: July 1864.“

Tags: , , , ,

“This Idea Of Anticipatory Computing Is Going To Be The Next Big Change”

November 19, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

It’s not quite quantum computing, but computing that intuits your needs without your intentional prompts and adjusts accordingly is serious business or will likely become serious business. From “The Coming Age of Magical Computing,” by Om Malik at Fast Company:

“This idea of anticipatory computing is going to be the next big change in our relationship with computers. And it’s coming more quickly than you realize.

Look around the App Store and there are powerful illustrations emerging. The iPad app MindMeld, made by the startup Expect Labs, listens in on your conference call and starts to display relevant information based on what you’re talking about. When I’m speaking, you might see basic facts about me from my Wikipedia page. When the conversation turns to the latest Audi S4, MindMeld displays car photos and even a map showing the location of the closest dealer. By following along and adding context where it can, MindMeld can make a call more fruitful.

Cover–a brand-new app cofounded by Todd Jackson, who worked on such early experiments in anticipatory computing as Gmail’s Priority Inbox and Facebook’s News Feed–is a simple-looking replacement for your Android smartphone lock screen. Its secret is that it adapts based on your location. If you are in the office (which it learns from your Wi-Fi network’s address and location), it shows work-related apps such as Salesforce. If you are at home, ESPN and Netflix populate the launcher. ‘I am a firm believer that we will no longer have to worry about things we currently spend time trying to make work for us,’ Jackson says.

‘We will no longer have to worry about things we currently spend time trying to make work for us,’ says Jackson, CEO of Cover.

With a trend this big, Google and Apple are also spending millions racing to this future.”

Tags:

“The Media Coverage Of Model S Fires Vs. Gasoline Car Fires Is Disproportionate”

November 19, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

People are wary of the new as they should be, but sometimes we can be so circumspect about what’s arriving that we forget about the shortcoming of what’s already here, already familiar. Elon Musk, who has more of a vested interest in electric cars than practically anyone, argues against the idea that the new technology, even with several recent Tesla fires, is inordinately dangerous when compared to fossil-fuel counterparts. Am excerpt:

“In order to get to that end goal, big leaps in technology are required, which naturally invites a high level of scrutiny. That is fair, as new technology should be held to a higher standard than what has come before. However, there should also be some reasonable limit to how high such a standard should be, and we believe that this has been vastly exceeded in recent media coverage.

Since the Model S went into production last year, there have been more than a quarter million gasoline car fires in the United States alone, resulting in over 400 deaths and approximately 1,200 serious injuries (extrapolating 2012 NFPA data). However, the three Model S fires, which only occurred after very high-speed collisions and caused no serious injuries or deaths, received more national headlines than all 250,000+ gasoline fires combined. The media coverage of Model S fires vs. gasoline car fires is disproportionate by several orders of magnitude, despite the latter actually being far more deadly.”

Tags:

Old Print Article: “He Needed A Fat Man,” New York Times (1920)

November 19, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"

“I am looking for a fat man.”

When they weren’t enjoying clambakes, men of a certain weight were finding it easy to secure gainful employment, as evidenced by an article in the July 17, 1920 New York Times. An excerpt:

“A discerning hospital superintendent has discovered that he needs fat men at the information desk and switchboard to help make things run smoothly in the institution over which he holds sway, according to The Modern Hospital.

‘I am looking for a fat man,’ said he, ‘and I am having trouble to find him. I want him for the information desk and I want him quickly.’

The superintendent then went on to explain that some time ago he determined to find the cause for the rather constant criticism of his institution, criticism that seemed wholly unwarranted. He was certain, he said, that the medical work was of high grade, that his nurses were well trained, and that the food and service were satisfactory. In spite of this, there seemed to be a tendency among the public for uncomplimentary observation. This tendency, or as the superintendent put it, the habit of finding fault was difficult to analyze. It was all the more difficult because the criticisms were vague; they evaded analysis.

A painstaking process of elimination, and a follow-up, or rather a follow-down, of the comments revealed the source of the trouble. It was at the very entrance of the hospital, at the information desk.

‘The quick, nervous types,’ said the superintendent, ‘that I had at the switchboard and the entrance I had thought very efficient. I supposed I thought so because they were quick, but I was wrong. They didn’t stand the strain well, they did not lend themselves to the other man’s point of view. To them a visitor was an intruder. And now I’m going to have a big good-natured man, two if necessary, men who will wear well, who can smile, and who will make people good-natured in spite of themselves  It takes a fat man to do that.’

‘If the superintendent is right,’ adds the writer, ‘we need fat men. The information desk of any hospital is the first and last place and the last place for good nature.'”

“He Experienced Tooth Pain Following Some Anxious Dreams He Had Of A Tooth Infection”

November 19, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Mars One plans on sending astronauts to our neighboring planet in 2023, sans return ticket. Even if the mission doesn’t crash, the astronauts might–psychologically. From “Voyage of No Return,” by Peter Guest at the Ascender:

“After all that technical effort, the flaws in the project could not be in the technology or the financing. The biggest risk to Martian colonization could well be the astronauts themselves. If successful, they would face unprecedented levels of isolation and disconnection from the world, which in turn could lead to depression and severe psychological stress. While it might feel to would-be astronauts like [Timothy] Gatenby that seeing the Earth from above might keep them going for the long journey ahead—in fact the scientific literature, such that there is, suggests that gaining a perspective of Earth is one of the principal positive psychological benefits experienced by astronauts—the downsides are dangerous.

Researchers Michel Nicolas, Gro Mjeldheim Sandal, Karine Weiss and Anna Yusupova, from universities in France, Norway and Russia, studied the Mars500, a 105-day Mars simulation, and noted that over the course of the ‘journey’, participants demonstrated ‘significant’ deterioration in their emotional wellbeing.

A 2010 paper by Nick Kanas, professor of psychiatry of the University of California, noted that astronauts in long orbital missions show some signs of psychological distress, including depression, which could stem from a sense of dislocation and isolation. Candidates are intensely screened for psychiatric conditions and for their emotional resilience, as Mars One candidates would be, but even so, problems are manifest. In his study, Kanas notes, for example, the emergence of psychosomatic reactions—physical symptoms that are thought to have psychological roots.

‘For example, an on-orbit cosmonaut wrote in his diary that he experienced tooth pain following some anxious dreams he had of a tooth infection and his concern that nothing could be done about such an infection should it occur in space,’ Kanas writes.'”

Tags:

“He Imagines That Nano-Fabricators Will Lead To A Self-Sufficiency That Will Make Governments Unnecessary”

November 18, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

At Practical Ethics, Luke J. Davies presents some ideas about science historian James Burke’s recent predictions for the year 2100 (which I posted here). An excerpt:

“The future Burke describes is a far cry from where we are now. It is at once highly technologized—his predictions are informed by a belief in, and enthusiasm for, the promise of nano-technology—and strangely bucolic. He imagines that nano-fabricators (machines that, with very little input, will be able to make anything we want) will lead to a self-sufficiency that will make governments unnecessary. Rather than crowding into big cities, people will spread out more evenly and in small communities. Burke’s future is one in which there is no poverty, or illness, or want. It is a place where people take up gardening because it would be ‘essential for the comfort of their soul. [He imagines the] planet as a giant untouched wilderness dotted with gardens.’

It is interesting that Burke seems to envision a world in which a technological solution has been given to a seemingly human problem—that of greed. His future is one in which we haven’t changed. Technology has changed so that our desire for material goods can be sated in a way that is both sustainable and egalitarian. (We might ask, in Hobbesian fashion, whether this abundance of material objects would just make us emphasize necessarily positional goods even more than we do now). Of course, Burke might be wrong about the promise of nano-technology. But, it would surprise me if he were wrong about the role of technology itself.”

Tags: ,

“Apple Spent Millions Of Dollars Building Two Massive Solar Panel Farms”

November 18, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

As Google invests heavily in solar and other clean energies, Apple has quietly been the driving force in North Carolina’s solar growth. It makes sense: Why not control your energy and control your costs if you’re a company on that level? States can force better environmental standards and so can tech behemoths. From Katie Fehrenbacher at Gigaom:

“But absent from a lot of the public dialogue has been the one company that arguably has had a greater effect on bringing clean power to the state of North Carolina than any other: Apple. While the state’s utility has just now become more willing to supply clean energy to corporate customers, several years ago Apple took the stance that if clean power wasn’t going to be available from the local utility for its huge data center in Maiden, North Carolina, it would, quite simply, build its own.

In an unprecedented move — and one that hasn’t yet been repeated by other companies — Apple spent millions of dollars building two massive solar panel farms and a large fuel cell farm near its data center. These projects and are now fully operational and similar facilities (owned by utilities) have cost in a range of $150 million to $200 million to build. Apple’s are the largest privately-owned clean energy facilities in the U.S. and more importantly, they represent an entirely new way for an internet company to source and think about power.”

Tags:

“It Contained Her Husband’s Severed Head”

November 18, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

You like to believe that India sending rockets into space or South Africa building soccer stadiums for international competitions will bring something meaningful to poor people in those countries: infrastructure, information, medicine, money. That’s questionable, but even if that occurs, it’s painful to crane your neck past the horrors to get a good view of the action. But most of the Western reporting about such events focuses on the safety and comfort of the tourists, not the at-risk locals.

The opening of “A Yellow Card,” a Grantland essay by Brian Phillips, an uncommonly graceful writer, about the grandeur of the World Cup being visited upon the poverty of Brazil:

“Three points make a trend, but in a World Cup year, two points are good enough. So here’s one: Early on the morning of October 29, 31-year-old Geisa Silva, a social worker with the Brazilian military police, found her husband’s backpack on their front porch in Rio de Janeiro. Joao Rodrigo Silva Santos was a retired professional soccer player, a journeyman who’d spent most of his career knocking around the Brazilian lower leagues; post-retirement, he ran a food shop in the city’s Realengo neighborhood. He hadn’t come home the night before, and Silva had been worried, jumping up at the sound of every car. Before dawn, she got ready to leave for her job with a police unit responsible for conducting an anti-gang crackdown. When she opened the front door, she saw the backpack. It contained her husband’s severed head.

And here’s point two: Four months earlier, on the afternoon of June 30, during a pickup soccer game in the northeastern Brazilian municipality of Pio XII, a 19-year-old amateur referee named Otavio Jordao da Silva Cantanhede showed a yellow card to his friend, a player named Josemir Santos Abreu. Abreu protested. A fight broke out. Cantanhede pulled a knife and stabbed Abreu twice. Abreu died on the way to the hospital. In retaliation, a group of Abreu’s friends attacked Cantanhede. Cantanhede was — I’m quoting the New York Times — ‘tied up, smashed in the face with a bottle of cheap sugarcane liquor, pummeled with a wooden stake, run over by a motorcycle and stabbed in the throat.’ Then his legs were sawed off. Then his head was cut off and mounted on a wooden post near the field.

And here’s a quick question, just an aside. How do you feel, hearing these stories? I don’t mean how do you think you’re supposed to feel; I mean how do you feel, in fact? Are you intrigued? Disturbed? Sad? Curious? Titillated, in the way that horrifying real-life stories can sometimes leave you titillated? You don’t have to answer. Just think about it.”

Tags:

« Older entries § Newer entries »