Urban Studies

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“The Content Plan Is To Cover Three Buckets That Are About Equal In Size”

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

It’s  little worrisome that Nate Silver is joining the ESPN family, since that company just severed ties to Frontline over its excellent program (here and here) about NFL-related concussions. But he tells Hollywood Reporter scribe Erik Hayden that he doesn’t fear editorial interference. He also out lines what the new FiveThirtyEight blog will be. An excerpt:

“Silver’s blog, formerly hosted by The New York Times, was acquired in July by ESPN with the goal of developing it into a standalone site similar to Bill Simmons’ Grantland. He outlined the three primary coverage areas for the new FiveThirtyEight — politics, sports and economics — which will debut ;very early’ next year.

‘It’ll be no subscription fee, we hope you guys click on the banner ads or the sponsorships,’ the statistician explained. ‘The content plan is to cover three buckets that are about equal in size — one being kind of politics and political news, of course emphasizing elections still very heavily, one third being sports and one third being everything else put together. So with a special emphasis on economics, for example, maybe topics like education.'”

 

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“[It] Reads Like L Ron Hubbard Had Drunken Sex One Night With Ayn Rand And Produced This Bastard Thought-Child”

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

Outsider scientist and philosopher David Birnbaum–a jeweler to the super rich by day–believes he’s figured out the origins of the universe. Of course, he could be wrong. I mean, he’s probably wrong. Right? From Oliver Burkeman in the Guardian:

“The academics could be forgiven for never having heard of Summa Metaphysica’s author. But, in fact, he was far from unknown: David Birnbaum is a prominent figure in the New York jewel trade, a private seller of high-carat diamonds and other rare gems, with a clientele that has included celebrities – Goldie Hawn, James Gandolfini – but consists mainly of the anonymous super-rich. For some time now, aided by his wealth, Birnbaum has been on an altogether different mission: to convince the world he has made an astonishing breakthrough in philosophy. It is a quest that has seen him accused of ‘academic identity theft,’ epic levels of arrogance, and the unauthorised use of Harvard University’s trademarks. But it also raises fascinating questions. These days, only a tiny number of people understand enough theoretical physics, or advanced philosophy, to grasp what these disciplines tell us about reality at the deepest level. Is it still conceivable – as it was a century ago – that a gentleman amateur, with some financial resources, could make a real, revolutionary contribution to our understanding of the mysteries of the universe?

There is no shortage of people who would say no, at least in Birnbaum’s case. His work, said a commenter on the Chronicle’s website, ‘reads like L Ron Hubbard had drunken sex one night with Ayn Rand and produced this bastard thought-child.’ One scholar who became professionally involved with Birnbaum described the experience as ‘unsettling, unfortunate and, to my knowledge, unprecedented in academic circles.’ Another just called him ‘toxic.’

But then again – as Birnbaum pointed out to me, more than once, during the weeks I spent trying to figure out exactly what he was up to – just suppose that a scrappy, philosophically unqualified Jewish guy from Queens really had cracked the cosmic code, embarrassing the ivory-tower elites: well, isn’t this exactly the kind of defensive response you’d expect?”

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A Brief Note From 1903 About Schoolmates

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

From the March 23, 1903 New York Times:

“Findlay, Ohio–On his way from school eight-year-old Clarence Hummell, son of Mr. and Mrs. George Hummell of East Front Street, was captured by five schoolmates, forced to accompany them down the Blanchard River, outside the city limits, and there, in a secluded spot, was tied to a stake.

Preparations for his cremation were being made when the little fellow’s cries attracted the attention of men who were employed in the vicinity, and he was rescued by them. Young Hummell’s captors had witnessed the production of ‘Tracey,’ a play in which the hero was the outlaw, and in talking it over made plans for the capture of a victim and his burning at the stake.”

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“But Space Invaders Didn’t Always Generate Favorable Press”

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

From “The Space Invader,” Simon Parkin’s interesting New Yorker blog post about Tomohiro Nishikado, who created the quarter-sucking sensation in 1978:

“Space Invaders sold an unprecedented hundred thousand machines in Japan; Bally Midway, the game’s U.S. distributor, sold around sixty thousand units in 1979 alone. Today, with its jagged shapes and sine-wave squeals, the game is an icon of the industry’s formative days and the medium’s ongoing appeal: a simplistic rendering of fears that can be overcome with determination and a steady focus.

But Space Invaders didn’t always generate favorable press. In Japan, soon after the game’s release, a twelve-year-old boy held up a bank with a shotgun. He didn’t want notes, he told the clerk, just coins. Under interrogation, he admitted that he wanted the money to play Space Invaders. In England, in November, 1981, a fourteen-year-old schoolboy prostituted himself in a parking lot for two pounds. This was enough, he later quantified, for ten games of Space Invaders. Police in the South of England dubiously claimed that the Space Invaders obsession had ‘doubled housebreaking figures,’ while the Labour M.P. George Foulkes, fearing for the ‘glazed eyes’ of youngsters, lobbied to subject the game to local authority regulation in Parliament. The novelist Martin Amis wrote, in his 1982 ode Invasion of the Space Invaders, of a young actress he knew with injuries sustained in the arcade so severe that her index finger ‘looked like a piece of liver.'”

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“Think Of It As An Instrument People Can Use To Create Their Ideal Coffee Experience”

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

 

I have never met a Starbucks barista who wasn’t delightfully off in some way, but they’re all amazingly patient and hardworking people who wish to tell me about their childhoods in rural Oregon. Alas, they are people, so their days are numbered. In the long run, when the pain has diminished, it will be for the best. The opening of Christopher Mims’ Quartz article about automated caffeine:

Starbucks’ 95,000 baristas have a competitor. It doesn’t need sleep. It’s precise in a way that a human could never be. It requires no training. It can’t quit. It has memorized every one of its customers’ orders. There’s never a line for its perfectly turned-out drinks.

It doesn’t require health insurance.

Don’t think of it as the enemy of baristas, insists Kevin Nater, CEO of the company that has produced this technological marvel. Think of it as an instrument people can use to create their ideal coffee experience. Think of it as a cure for ‘out-of-home coffee drinkers’—Nater’s phrase—sick of an ‘inconsistent experience.’

Think of it as the future. Think of it as empowerment. Your coffee, your way, flawlessly, every time, no judgments. Four pumps of sugar-free vanilla syrup in a 16 oz. half-caff soy latte? Here it is, delivered to you precisely when your smartphone app said it would arrive, hot and fresh and indistinguishable from the last one you ordered.•

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“The Most Talked-About New Devices Are Wearable”

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

Even people who want a Google Glass sort of eyewear will not use such a product until it stops being the creepiest thing you can put on in the morning. Perhaps that’s another reason why Apple just hired Angela Ahrendts from Burberry. From the Economist:

“A bigger job will be to ready Apple for the coming fusion of fashion and technology. The most talked-about new devices are wearable. Google’s Glass smuggles a smartphone into a pair of spectacles. Samsung’s Galaxy Gear squeezes some smartphone functions into a wristwatch. Apple is also keen to surf the wearable wave. An iWatch, which Apple may launch next year, would pull it towards Ms Ahrendts’s home turf, since it would compete with fashionable timepieces like Burberry’s.”

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Old Print Article: “Two Lizards Kill Girl,” New York Times (1910)

October 18, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The entire Ohio medical establishment was apparently drunk a century ago, which can be the only explanation for the following primordial nightmare of a story from the December 11, 1910 New York Times:

“Cleveland–A live lizard, six inches in length, and the head of another lizard were discovered in the stomach of Miss Lovie Herman, 19 years old, who died early Friday morning at her home.

Cleveland physicians and surgeons are interested in the case, and a number of them will attend the post-mortem examination to be held at Akron to-day. Miss Herman had been ill a year from a disease which puzzled many specialists. 

Last Monday the attending physician succeeded in bringing from the girl’s stomach the live lizard and the head of the second one, but too late to save her life.

The family formerly lived in Millersburg, Ohio, and drank water from a spring. It is supposed that the girl swallowed the lizard’s eggs while drinking, and that they hatched and killer her.”

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“I Suspect Comics Will Have Less Widespread Cultural Impact”

October 17, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Jake Rossen of Mental Floss managed to snare a rare interview with Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson. In this excerpt, he discusses where the comic-strip form is now and where he thinks it will go:

“Question:

Where do you think the comic strip fits in today’s culture?

Bill Watterson:

Personally, I like paper and ink better than glowing pixels, but to each his own. Obviously the role of comics is changing very fast. On the one hand, I don’t think comics have ever been more widely accepted or taken as seriously as they are now. On the other hand, the mass media is disintegrating, and audiences are atomizing. I suspect comics will have less widespread cultural impact and make a lot less money. I’m old enough to find all this unsettling, but the world moves on. All the new media will inevitably change the look, function, and maybe even the purpose of comics, but comics are vibrant and versatile, so I think they’ll continue to find relevance one way or another. But they definitely won’t be the same as what I grew up with.”

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“Biology Is A Software Process”

October 17, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The opening of Kate Lunau’s new Maclean’s interview with Ray Kurzweil, partner of Peter Diamandis at Singularity University:

“Question: 

You say we’re in the midst of a ‘grand transformation’ in the field of medicine. What do you see happening today?

Ray Kurzweil: 

Biology is a software process. Our bodies are made up of trillions of cells, each governed by this process. You and I are walking around with outdated software running in our bodies, which evolved in a very different era. We each have a fat insulin receptor gene that says, ‘Hold on to every calorie.’ That was a very good idea 10,000 years ago, when you worked all day to get a few calories; there were no refrigerators, so you stored them in your fat cells. I would like to tell my fat insulin receptor gene, ‘You don’t need to do that anymore,’ and indeed that was done at the Joslin Diabetes Center. They turned off this gene, and the [lab mice] ate ravenously and remained slim. They didn’t get diabetes; they didn’t get heart disease. They lived 20 per cent longer. They’re working with a drug company to bring that to market.

Life expectancy was 20 a thousand years ago; 37, 200 years ago. We’re now able to reprogram health and medicine as software, and that [pace is] going to continue to accelerate. We’re treating biology, and by extension health and medicine, as an information technology. Our intuition about how progress will unfold is linear, but information technology progresses exponentially, not linearly. My Android phone is literally several billion times more powerful, per dollar, than the computer I used when I was a student. And it’s also 100,000 times smaller. We’ll do both of those things again in 25 years. It’ll be a billion times more powerful, and will be the size of a blood cell.”

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“The Center Would Be Able To ‘Paint A Pretty Detailed Picture Of Someone’s Personal Life, Someone Who May Be Innocent”

October 17, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Oakland authorities are repurposing federal anti-terrorism money to create crime-fighting initiatives based on Big Data. The changes will be so subtle, you’ll hardly notice a thing. From Somini Sengupta at the New York Times:

“Libby Schaaf, an Oakland City Council member, said that because of the city’s high crime rate, ‘it’s our responsibility to take advantage of new tools that become available.’ She added, though, that the center would be able to ‘paint a pretty detailed picture of someone’s personal life, someone who may be innocent.’

For example, if two men were caught on camera at the port stealing goods and driving off in a black Honda sedan, Oakland authorities could look up where in the city the car had been in the last several weeks. That could include stoplights it drove past each morning and whether it regularly went to see Oakland A’s baseball games.

For law enforcement, data mining is a big step toward more complete intelligence gathering. The police have traditionally made arrests based on small bits of data — witness testimony, logs of license plate readers, footage from a surveillance camera perched above a bank machine. The new capacity to collect and sift through all that information gives the authorities a much broader view of the people they are investigating.

For the companies that make big data tools, projects like Oakland’s are a big business opportunity. Microsoft built the technology for the New York City program. I.B.M. has sold data-mining tools for Las Vegas and Memphis.”

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A Brief Note From 1885 About A Nosebleed

October 17, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the August 1, 1885 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Laredo, Tex.–The 7 year old son of a well to do Mexican is dying a horrible death from a very unusual cause. A few days ago that little fellow had a slight attack of bleeding at the nose and lay down to sleep without removing the blood. While asleep a large green fly deposited its eggs in the bloody nostril. Physicians have extracted over fifty worms, about half an inch long, and have detected evidences of many others eating toward the brain. They say the child will die.”

Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

October 17, 2013 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

Odd Needs for artwork (Midtown West)

I am in the need of the following:

  • A ram’s head, taxidermy style – mounted or not.
  • A Queen Elizabeth-esque gown. Tent-like, perhaps.
  • Faux flowers. Lots of ’em.

Any freebies appreciated, can negotiate price.

And if you want to help put it together, oh why not?

 

“It Is Only Impossible To Castrate A Woman Because It Is Assumed She Has No Sex”

October 17, 2013 in Politics, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Some old-school clips of Germaine Greer, a ferociously brilliant person who has said some truly dumb things. Included in the first video of 1971 media appearances is some of her eviscerating righteousness from the Hegedus-Pennebaker film Town Bloody Hall. The second video contains a cut of her hanging out in 1972 with that group of feminists, Led Zeppelin.

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“If I Have A Nanobot, I Don’t Need Any Money”

October 17, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Peter Diamandis, founder of Singularity University and author of Abundance, is a true believer in technology, one who sees a near-term future filled with nanobots, asteroid mining, transparency and immortality. He thinks tomorrow will be largely wonderful. Diamandis just did an Ask Me Anything at Reddit. A few exchanges follow.

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Question:

(1) If abundance and amazing technology is our future, what will be the motivation for anyone to disconnect from Matrix-like, fully immersive, virtual worlds (where anything imaginable might be possible)? Also, considering that advanced alien civilizations probably reach the technological ability to create virtual reality like this before interstellar space travel, would this be a valid explanation for the Fermi Paradox?

(2) Being in medical school I am extremely interested in what being a physician will actually entail two decades from now. You have a unique perspective since you actually went to Harvard Medical School (and somehow started you own space company and university while attending) but decided not do your residency afterwards. If you were graduating today, what residency would you choose (i.e., has the greatest potential)?

Peter Diamandis:

(1) The human body is a collection of 10 trillion cells working together… i think we are heading towards the transformation of humanity being a collection of 9 billion human brains working together… towards a “Meta-INtelligence” where you can know the thoughts, feelings and knowledge of anyone. that’s where tech is driving us… As such, i don’t know that i would want to live outside of this, just like any one of your human cells has a disadvantage living outside of your body.

(2) Wow, Medicine is going to change ALOT. I can imagine a time in the near future where the patient is saying “NO WAY… I don’t want that human doctor doing the surgery, he/she makes mistakes… i only want the robot… its done 300,000 perfect surgeries in a row.”

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Question:

What exactly do you feel will be the greatest contribution in the next 4-5 decades in regards to both Earth-domestic technological advancements and in space exploration/colonization?

Peter Diamandis:

Over the next 30 – 40 years (not 40 – 50) humanity will establish itself in space, independent of Earth. We finally have the technology at hand to do this… and the wealth… and the will. That is HUGE. Millions of years from now, as people look back at these next few decades, it will be the moment in time that we broke away irreversibly and became a multiplanetary species. Not since lung fish crawled out of the oceans onto land has this happened!

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Question:

Do you feel that our potential to reach a future of abundance faces significant threats from these sorts of negative factors? (environmental damage and resource depletion, and the unrest that has potential to ferment in such conditions) Are there any areas that you feel need critical attention to avoid derailing a successful future?

Peter Diamandis:

I actually am an optimist about human nature and people usually do “bad things” in the shadows. As tech continues to drive towards MASSIVE Transparency, where you can’t hide, it will actually cause us to be safer in society and allow us to take action more quickly when things are heading in a negaive direction. Knowledge is the Bright light we need.

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Question:

A year ago someone brought up the question of abundance and its implication on labor. As technology takes over more complex tasks (via automation) less labor is needed. However, if we reach a critical point where labor needs decrease dramatically there is no economic population to purchase the output (as they would have no jobs). While total “abundance” is perhaps unreachable there has to be a tipping point where labor markets and automation balance each other out. Would you mind commenting on this concept, its implications and perhaps limitations? Thank You. 

Peter Diamandis:

GREAT question…. There is a race to the bottom. What you say above is true. It is also true that were we spend our money… Health, education, energy etc is “Demonetizing” i.e. tech is making it effectively FREE, so we will need less money. ALSO, and ultimately we will partner with technology. I’m an engineer and i look at boundary conditions… the final result is nanotech.. and if i have a nanobot, i don’t need any money.•

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“The Service Uses The GPS Coordinates Of A User’s Smartphone To Make Textbook Deliveries”

October 17, 2013 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Even though it wasn’t particularly cost-efficient, early airplanes (or “aeroplanes”) were sometimes utilized to deliver newspapers. While physical textbooks are a questionable commodity in an age when the Encyclopedia Britannica can be put on the head of a pin, an Australian company is using drones to deliver them. From Emily Keeler in the Los Angeles Times:

“Imagine the book you need to ace the exam showing up at your door, care of your friendly neighborhood drone.

A textbook rental company is trying to mimic the instantaneous speed of e-book delivery for printed books by utilizing civil drones in Sydney, Australia. Zookal, a service that rents textbooks to university students, has partnered with Flirtey, an outfit specializing in unmanned aerial vehicles, to aerially deliver print books to customers within minutes after an order is placed.

The Age reports that the service uses the GPS coordinates of a user’s smartphone to make textbook deliveries, a win for cramming students who have left studying to the very last minute and and need to save all the time they can. After one of six Sydney drones has been dispatched, students will be able to track the realtime journey of their unmanned textbooks on a Google-powered map.”

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141 Questions Thomas Edison Asked Job Applicants

October 16, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Not to pick on Google today because as an outsider I’m fascinated by what the company is trying to accomplish, but they used to ask prospective employees ridiculous questions to make themselves feel special. But that company wasn’t the first to be criticized for such a practice: In 1921, Thomas Edison was taken to task for a similar thing. Here are 141 of the questions he asked applicants, per the New York Times:

  1. What countries bound France?
  2. Where is the Rover Volga?
  3. What country and city produce the finest China?
  4. Where does the finest cotton grow?
  5. What country consumed the most tea before the war?
  6. What city in the United States is noted for its laundry machine making?
  7. What city is the fur centre in the United States?
  8. Can you play any musical instrument?
  9. What country is the greatest textile producer?
  10. Is Australia larger than Greenland in area?
  11. Where is Copenhagen?
  12. Where is Spitzbergen?
  13. In what country other than Australia are kangaroos found?
  14. What telescope is the largest in the world?
  15. Who was Bessemer and what did he do?
  16. Where do we get prunes from?
  17. How many States in the Union?
  18. Who was Paul Revere?
  19. Who was Hancock?
  20. Who was Plutarch?
  21. Who was Hannibal?
  22. Who was Danton?
  23. Who was Solon?
  24. Who was Frances Marion?
  25. Who was Leonidas?
  26. Where did we get Louisiana from?
  27. Who was Pizarro?
  28. Who was Bolivar?
  29. What war material did Chile export to the Allies during the war?
  30. Where does the most coffee come from?
  31. Where is Korea?
  32. Where is Manchuria?
  33. Where was Napoleon born?
  34. What is the highest rise of tide on the North Atlantic coast?
  35. Who invented logarithms?
  36. Who was Emperor of Mexico when Cortes landed?
  37. Where is the Imperial Valley and what is it noted for?
  38. In what cities are hats and shoes made?
  39. Where is the Sargasso Sea?
  40. What is the greatest depth ever reached in the ocean?
  41. What is the name of the large inland body of water that has no outlet?
  42. What is the capital of Pennsylvania?
  43. What state is the largest? The next?
  44. Rhode Island is the smallest state. What is the next and the next?
  45. How far is it from New York to Buffalo by way of the New York Central Railroad?
  46. How far is it from New York to San Francisco?
  47. Of what State is Helena the Capital?
  48. What State has the largest copper mines?
  49. What State has the largest amethyst mines?
  50. What is the name of the famous violin maker?
  51. Who invented the modern paper-making machine?
  52. Who invented the typesetting machine?
  53. Who invented the printing press?
  54. On what principle is the telephone based?
  55. Of what is brass made?
  56. Where do we get tin from?
  57. What ingredients are in the best white paint?
  58. How is leather tanned?
  59. How is artificial silk made?
  60. What is a caisson?
  61. What is coke?
  62. How is celluloid made?
  63. Where do we get shellac from?
  64. What causes the tides?
  65. To what is the change of the seasons due?
  66. What is the population of the following countries: Germany, Japan, England, Australia, Russia?
  67. From what part of the North Atlantic do we get codfish?
  68. Who discovered the south pole?
  69. What is a monsoon?
  70. Where is Magdalena Bay?
  71. From where do we import figs?
  72. From where do we import dates?
  73. From where do we get prunes?
  74. From where do we get domestic sardines?
  75. What railroad is the longest in the world?
  76. Where is Tallahassee?
  77. Where is Kenosha?
  78. How fast does sound travel per foot per second?
  79. How fast does light travel per foot per second?
  80. What planet is it that has been recently measured and found to be of enormous size?
  81. What large river in the United States is it that flows from south to north?
  82. Where are the straits of Messina?
  83. In what country are earthquakes frequent?
  84. What mountain is the highest in the world?
  85. Where do we import cork from?
  86. Name six big business men in the United States.
  87. Who is called the father of railways?
  88. Where was Lincoln born?
  89. Who stated the following: ‘Fourscore and seven years ago,” &c?
  90. What business do you like best?
  91. Are you experienced in any of the following: Salesmanship, clerk, stenography, bookkeeping?
  92. Name a few kinds of wood used in making furniture, and the highest priced?
  93. What kind of wood is the lightest?
  94. What kind of wood is the heaviest?
  95. Of what kind of wood are axe handles made?
  96. Of what kind of wood are kerosene barrels made?
  97. What part of Germany do we get toys from?
  98. What states bound West Virginia?
  99. Where do we get peanuts from?
  100. What is the capital of Alabama?
  101. Who wrote “Home, Sweet Home”?
  102. Who wrote the “Star-Spangled Banner”?
  103. Who composed “Il Trovatore”?
  104. Who was Cleopatra?
  105. Where are Condors found?
  106. What voltage is used on street cars?
  107. Who discovered the law of Gravitation?
  108. What cereal is used all over the world?
  109. Where is the Assuan Dam?
  110. What country produces the most nickel?
  111. What is the distance between the earth and the sun?
  112. Who invented photography?
  113. Where do we get wood from?
  114. What is felt?
  115. What states produce phosphates?
  116. Why is cast iron called pig iron?
  117. Name three principal acids?
  118. Name three principal alkalis?
  119. Name three powerful poisons?
  120. Who discovered radium?
  121. Who discovered the X-ray?
  122. What is the weight of air in a room 20x30x10?
  123. Where is platinum found?
  124. With what metal is platinum associated when found?
  125. How is sulphuric acid made?
  126. Who discovered how to vulcanize rubber?
  127. Where do we get sulphur from?
  128. Where do we import rubber from?
  129. Who invented the cotten gin?
  130. What is the price of 12 grs. of gold?
  131. What is vulcanite and how is it made?
  132. What is glucose and how is it made?
  133. What is the difference between anthracite and bituminous coal?
  134. Where do we get benzol from?
  135. Of what is glass made?
  136. How is window glass made?
  137. What is porcelain?
  138. What kind of machine is used in cutting the facets of diamonds?
  139. What country makes the best optical lenses and what city?
  140. Where do we get borax from?
  141. What is a foot pound?

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“Companies Like Google Actually Embody A Particular Notion Of Progress Rather Than Populism”

October 16, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

In “What Is ‘Evil’ to Google?” Ian Bogost of the Atlantic tries to decipher the slippery moral code of the search giant that aspires to be so much more:

“All moral codes are grounded in something: a religious tradition, a philosophical doctrine, a cultural practice. Google’s take on virtue doesn’t reject such grounds so much as create a new one: the process of googlization itself. If anything, Google’s motto seems to have largely succeeded at reframing ‘evil’ to exclude all actions performed by Google.

There is a persistent idea that Internet technology companies embody an innocent populism. That the rational engineer is an earnest problem-solver, his fists striking tables instead of noses. But there’s something treacherous in believing that virtue and vice can be negotiated in the engineering of an email client or the creation of a spreadsheet—that evil is just another problem to overcome, like usability or scalability.

Companies like Google actually embody a particular notion of progress rather than populism, one that involves advancing their technology solutions as universal ones. Evil is vicious because it inhibits this progress. If Google has made a contribution to moral philosophy, it amounts to a devout faith in its own ability to preside over virtue and vice through engineering. The unwitting result: We’ve not only outsourced our email hosting and office suite provisioning to Google, but also our information ethics. Practically speaking, isn’t it just easier to let Google manage right and wrong?”

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“I’m Concerned About The Chicago Disturbances”

October 16, 2013 in Politics, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Future Vice President Spiro Agnew, who smiled once and chipped a tooth, being interviewed by John Chancellor in 1968 about the Chicago riots and his running mate’s refusal to address the protests. Considering our current political climate, these were the good old days.

Fun thing: Natasha Lyonne, the very talented actress, guested this week on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast. She said her Jewish ancestors left Europe to escape Nazism, arrived without much money or prospects in America, and eventually bettered themselves through selling Spiro Agnew watches, which were apparently a popular novelty a little more than four decades ago.

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“I Think Google Glass Has Some Profound Social Problems To Overcome”

October 16, 2013 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

David Pogue, New York Times tech writer and Nova: Making Stuff host, just did an AMA on Reddit. A few exchanges follow.

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Question:

What was the first tech product that made you think “wow!”?

David Pogue:

If you really mean FIRST…

It was the Whistle Switch. Maybe 1974. I was nine. You could make this high hissy sound, either with your mouth or with a provided squeezy toy, to turn an appliance on or off. (Kind of like the Clapper.)

To me, it was magic. I eventually McGuyvered my entire bedroom, using the Whistle Switch to start a Rube Goldberg sequence involving a record player, Erector set motor, lights coming on, clothes folding by themselves…it was called “The Automatic Room,” and it was my masterpiece.

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Question:

In your opinion, which of these “big player” social networks will be the first to fail and why?

  1. Facebook
  2. Twitter
  3. Instagram
  4. Google +

David Pogue:

Well, Google+ seems to have a rarefied audience of tech folks; I’m not sure it has a real chance at becoming, you know, Facebook.

And Instagram is awesome, but also an easily duplicated, easily incorporated feature; such photo sharing might eventually be built into other gadgets and networks. So basically, I’d say #4, #3, #2, and #1, in that order!

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Question:

What is an industry where tech hasn’t yet made an impact but you think will be impacted by it soon?

David Pogue:

There are examples all around us! Just look at Nest, whose Internet-connected, intelligent thermostat shook up the thermostat business (which hadn’t changed in 50 years)! Now they’re introducing a smoke alarm that will have the same effect!

We have much farther to go with cars/traffic/transportation. With groceries. With customized clothing shopping online. We’re at the Commodore 64 era with those!

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Question:

What technology company scares you the most and why?

David Pogue:

I guess the expected answer would have something to do with privacy. You know: “Facebook” or “Google” or “Apple,” because they’re tracking us all and selling our data for Evil Purposes.

Truth is, I’m probably more relaxed than most about privacy. We get a lot of really cool, great tech for free in exchange for our data. There are cases where data should be private (your past, your medical history, etc.), but I’m really not bothered if Stop ‘n’ Shop wants to see what I bought.

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Question:

If you had a choice, would you prefer a smartwatch or smartglasses (ala Google Glass)?

David Pogue:

The watch, for sure.

I think Google Glass has some profound social problems to overcome. When you’re talking to someone wearing them, you’re acutely uncomfortable. You know they could be filming you. It puts them in this artificially elevated social position, and it’s profoundly obnoxious.

Plus, they’ll be banned everywhere: movie theaters, courtrooms, stores, restaurants, sports events–anywhere that it’s uncool to hold a camera in front of your face now.•

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Old Print Article: “Albany Blood Drinkers,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1881)

October 16, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

“It is simply delicious.”

If we are to believe what journalism tells us, people in Albany during the 19th century visited slaughterhouses to drink the blood of freshly killed animals for its salubrious effects. From the September 18, 1881 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“A reporter of the Albany Evening Journal who has visited the abattoirs in that city, writes as follows of the persons who gather there to drink blood:

Several people, as soon as the throat was cut with sleeves uprolled and grasping a glass, hurried over to the hanging carcass and holding the goblets in turn under the ruby stream, filled their glasses and then drank of the steaming liquid. One, a middle aged man, seemed old in the business, for he threw the contents of the glass off at one draught. Another threw some salt in his glass before drinking, while another could hardly make up his mind whether or not to drink it. At last he shut his eyes and then after three or four efforts succeeded in downing about half a glassful. The reporter approached one of the butchers after he had finished dressing the carcass on which he was at work, and asked, ‘Do the same persons come every day?’ ‘No, they come two or three times a week on the average,’ was the reply. ‘Do any women ever come?’ ‘Yes, there used to be one young girl, but the last I saw of her she seemed to be getting fleshy and has stopped coming altogether.’

"It is richer than the richest of cream."

“It is richer than the richest of cream.”

One of the invalids was then approached and asked, ‘How do you like blood drinking?’ ‘Well, I’ll tell you. At first when the doctor told me I would have to drink warm bullock’s blood or die, I told him that I preferred the latter, but I reconsidered my thought and came up to the slaughterhouse. I thought at first I could not touch it, and the sight of killing sickened me. But I soon overcame that feeling, and when I raised the first glass to my lips I spilt the contents over me. Next time I shut my eyes and drank it down. It tasted like rich milk, and if I kept my eyes shut, I would have not the known the difference.’ Another one of the drinkers was asked how it tasted. ‘How does it taste?’ said he. ‘It is richer than the richest of cream. It is simply delicious and a drink not to be compared with any potion extant. It is simply the elixir of life. You can feel its strength as it spreads through your veins. If it hadn’t been for its strengthening qualities I would have been dead three years ago.’”

“The Idea…Involves Embedding Powerful Microprocessor Chips In Everyday Objects”

October 15, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Smartphones are embedded with improved technologies which will be useful in autonomous cars which will create other technologies useful in other souped-up tools, as the algorithms popularized on the Internet escape through the screen. The objects grow smarter whether or not we do. From “The Rapid Advance of Artificial Intelligence,” by John Markoff in the New York Times:

“The enormous amount of data being generated by inexpensive sensors has been a significant factor in altering the center of gravity of the computing world, he said, making it possible to use centralized computers in data centers — referred to as the cloud — to take artificial intelligence technologies like machine-learning and spread computer intelligence far beyond desktop computers.

Apple was the most successful early innovator in popularizing what is today described as ubiquitous computing. The idea, first proposed by Mark Weiser, a computer scientist with Xerox, involves embedding powerful microprocessor chips in everyday objects.

Steve Jobs, during his second tenure at Apple, was quick to understand the implications of the falling cost of computer intelligence. Taking advantage of it, he first created a digital music player, the iPod, and then transformed mobile communication with the iPhone. Now such innovation is rapidly accelerating into all consumer products.

‘The most important new computer maker in Silicon Valley isn’t a computer maker at all, it’s Tesla,’ the electric car manufacturer, said Paul Saffo, a managing director at Discern Analytics, a research firm based in San Francisco. ‘The car has become a node in the network and a computer in its own right. It’s a primitive robot that wraps around you.’ “

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

October 15, 2013 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

"Realistic penis."

“Realistic penis.”

Tired of failing urine tests? Don’t want to go to jail?

Ur answer is here! Realistic penis used to pass urine test. Email for details and pics.

“My Interest In Science Is Related To How Mysterious It Is”

October 15, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Ross Andersen, excellent writer and Aeon Senior Editor, spent a night at Star Axis, artist Charles Ross’ secretive and still-to-be-completed desert installation and observatory in New Mexico. From “Embracing the Void“:

“I followed Ross and [Jill] O’Bryan in my car, down to the desert floor and then to the top of an adjacent mesa. We parked in front of their makeshift ranch house and headed inside, being careful to step around a six-foot rattlesnake that was sunbathing a few feet from the front door. O’Bryan showed me the bathroom, and explained how to work the manual pump toilet — hold the flush lever down for 20 seconds, then do it again — while Ross went to look for a book he wanted to show me, a collection of essays about quantum mechanics. He returned with the book, and the two of us flipped through it while he gave me a tour of his studio. Ross keeps a close eye on new research in physics, and sometimes enlists astronomers to help him at Star Axis. In the 1990s, Leroy Doggett of the US Naval Observatory measured the staircase’s first and last steps. And the week before I arrived, Ross had an astronomer out from the University of Washington to do the others. I asked him if these encounters with scientists enriched his work.

‘My interest in science is related to how mysterious it is,’ he told me. ‘I have found that if you get astronomers and physicists drunk enough, you can get them to admit that what’s going on in the quantum field is not a hair’s breadth from metaphysics. That tells me the world is not getting easier to decipher. The deeper they go with this stuff, the more mysterious it gets.’ “

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“Some Of The Most Consistent Innovators Of The Modern Era Have Also Been Among Its Biggest Monsters”

October 15, 2013 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

There’s now a large industry of writers and speakers telling you bullshit narratives about how you can think counter-intuitively, how you can see hidden patterns if you look through their eyes, how you too can become a creative thinker. Maddeningly, many of them do it supposedly supported by science and math. Taking aim with a cash register (just a Square is necessary, really) at the creative mind during the the dying days of the Industrial Revolution might be a good business model, but that doesn’t make it useful. From “TED Talks Are Lying to You,” Thomas Frank’s Salon essay about the sad state of the creative class and the lacking literature aimed at it:

“Those who urge us to ‘think different,’ in other words, almost never do so themselves. Year after year, new installments in this unchanging genre are produced and consumed. Creativity, they all tell us, is too important to be left to the creative. Our prosperity depends on it. And by dint of careful study and the hardest science — by, say, sliding a jazz pianist’s head into an MRI machine — we can crack the code of creativity and unleash its moneymaking power.

That was the ultimate lesson. That’s where the music, the theology, the physics and the ethereal water lilies were meant to direct us. Our correspondent could think of no books that tried to work the equation the other way around — holding up the invention of air conditioning or Velcro as a model for a jazz trumpeter trying to work out his solo.

And why was this worth noticing? Well, for one thing, because we’re talking about the literature of creativity, for Pete’s sake. If there is a non-fiction genre from which you have a right to expect clever prose and uncanny insight, it should be this one. So why is it so utterly consumed by formula and repetition?

What our correspondent realized, in that flash of bathtub-generated insight, was that this literature isn’t about creativity in the first place. While it reiterates a handful of well-known tales — the favorite pop stars, the favorite artists, the favorite branding successes — it routinely ignores other creative milestones that loom large in the history of human civilization. After all, some of the most consistent innovators of the modern era have also been among its biggest monsters. He thought back, in particular, to the diabolical creativity of Nazi Germany, which was the first country to use ballistic missiles, jet fighter planes, assault rifles and countless other weapons. And yet nobody wanted to add Peenemünde, where the Germans developed the V-2 rocket during the 1940s, to the glorious list of creative hothouses that includes Periclean Athens, Renaissance Florence, Belle Époque Paris and latter-day Austin, Texas. How much easier to tell us, one more time, how jazz bands work, how someone came up with the idea for the Slinky, or what shade of paint, when applied to the walls of your office, is most conducive to originality.”

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“In A Dusty Yard Under A Blistering August Sun, Rover Was Hard At Work”

October 15, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

In the long run, robots will be good for us, once the pain of displacement subsides and we have figured out a way to navigate the new normal. For instance: a solar plant that doesn’t produce many jobs but offers the promise of cheap, clean energy. From Diane Cardwell in the New York Times:

“RICHMOND, Calif. — In a dusty yard under a blistering August sun, Rover was hard at work, lifting 45-pound solar panels off a stack and installing them, one by one, into a concrete track. A few yards away, Rover’s companion, Spot, moved along a row of panels, washing away months of grit, then squeegeeing them dry.

But despite the heat and monotony — an alternative-energy version of lather-rinse-repeat — neither Rover nor Spot broke a sweat or uttered a complaint. They could have kept at it all day.

That is because they are robots, surprisingly low-tech machines that a start-up company called Alion Energy is betting can automate the installation and maintenance of large-scale solar farms.

Working in near secrecy until recently, the company, based in Richmond, Calif., is ready to use its machines in three projects in the next few months in California, Saudi Arabia and China. If all goes well, executives expect that they can help bring the price of solar electricity into line with that of natural gas by cutting the cost of building and maintaining large solar installations.”

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