Urban Studies

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“A Passenger Aircraft Traveling At That Speed Could Fly From Los Angeles To New York In 46 Minutes”

August 13, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

An unmanned flight above the Pacific Ocean may eventually influence the way all humans fly. From W.J. Hennigan in the Los Angeles Times:

“Since test pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947, engineers and scientists have dreamed of ever-faster aircraft. Now, they face one of their toughest challenges yet: sustaining hypersonic flight — going five times the speed of sound or more — for more than a few minutes.

In a nondescript hangar at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, a team of aerospace engineers has been putting the finishing touches on a lightning-quick experimental aircraft designed to fly above the Pacific Ocean at 3,600 mph. A passenger aircraft traveling at that speed could fly from Los Angeles to New York in 46 minutes.

On Tuesday a key test is set for the unmanned experimental aircraft X-51A WaveRider.”

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“We Get Right To The Heart Of The Controversy”

August 13, 2012 in Books, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Helen Gurley Brown just passed away. She sure knew how to work that bony ass. Here she is in the ’60s surviving original shock jock Joe Pyne, touting her eyebrow-raiser Sex and the Single Girl.

“We’re Building A Giant Walking Robot That You Can Ride”

August 13, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From a Kickstarter campaign for “Stompy,” which could be incredibly helpful in cleaning up disaster areas: “First of all, we’re building a giant walking robot that you can ride, and if all goes according to plan, we’ll be showing it off at a festival or fair near you. Depending on your level of support, you may even get to ride it or drive it – how about that?

Beyond that, though, your support for Project Hexapod will drive a personal robotics revolution (if we have anything to say about it). The past twenty years have seen an explosion of productivity in hobbyist robotics made possible by cheap, easy to use microcontrollers and RC servos. The hobbyist community has built a wealth of knowledge and infrastructure around these components, but RC servos severely limit the size of robot you can build.

Project Hexapod wants to make large-scale robots easier to build, and inspire people to build them.

Stompy is 6 giant steps towards that dream. Once we finish this robot, we’re releasing our plans, our CAD, our diagrams, the presentations from all the lectures we gave in class, our lists of materials and parts, everything. The construction and control techniques we’re using will drop the cost of controlled hydraulics by an order of magnitude or two from where they are now, and will make giant robots affordable to small groups of enthusiasts everywhere.

The robot isn’t just being built for fun, though – it has incredibly practical purposes, as well. With 6 force-sensitive legs and a ground clearance of 6 feet, the robot will be able to walk over broken terrain that varies from mountainous areas, to rubble piles, to water up to 7 or 8 feet deep – everywhere existing ground vehicles can’t go. Not only that, but while navigating such terrain, Stompy could carry 1,000 pounds at 2-3 mph, and up to 4,000 pounds at 1 mph. This is important because in disaster areas like Haiti’s Port Au Prince, it’s taken more than three years to clear the rubble out of some areas – meaning that throughout that entire time, people have had to be rescued or resupplied by helicopter, because no ground vehicle could reach them. Stompy (and the technology it represents) could easily reach people who can’t be reached by any other means in a natural disaster.” (Thanks Kurzweil)

Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

August 12, 2012 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

“Do these people tell their children to go play near that asshole’s house cuz he aint gonna do shit?”

Why the f*** do you let your children play on my property? (I don’t get it)

People, why do you insist on letting your children play on my property? I mean, you own two big beautiful houses on the same block, why do your children always have to play on my property. It’s not like my house is the prettiest house on the block. In fact, its the ugliest. Why the fuck would you let your children play on my property? I don’t get it.

Sometimes I think to myself, Do these people tell their children to go play near that asshole’s house cuz he aint gonna do shit? Or are they just too ignorant to realize that their children are being disrespectful?

It’s not like their children do it behind their back. The parents of these little vermin are aware of what they’re doing and observing every move they make. Yet they still let them play on my property.

But if my nieces were to play on their property, they would be knocking on my door quick, fast, and in a hurry wanting to start some shit. I fuckin’ hate these ignorant parents. 20 years old and already shitted out 10 kids they can’t even control.

This is just sad if you ask me…. just sad.

“The parents of these little vermin are aware of what they’re doing.”

“They Created Segments Like That Of The Earthworm”

August 12, 2012 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Autonomous robots as earthworms, inching along, unstoppable. Be afraid.

“I Am Not Advocating A Romantic Regression Behind Technology”

August 12, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Philosopher Herbert Marcuse imagined technology untangled from capitalism, but it’s difficult to see how that’s possible in the foreseeable future. Not if we want cheap tools delivered to masses of people. Though perhaps we’ll all end up doing genetic engineering. From “The End of Utopia“:

“In the form of a social productive force, these new vital needs would make possible a total technical reorganization of the concrete world of human life, and I believe that new human relations, new relations between men, would be possible only in such a reorganized world. When I say technical reorganization I again speak with reference to the capitalist countries that are most highly developed, where such a restructuring would mean the abolition of the terrors of capitalist industrialization and commercialization, the total reconstruction of the cities and the restoration of nature after the horror of capitalist industrialization have been done away with. I hope that when I speak of doing away with the horrors of capitalist industrialization it is clear I am not advocating a romantic regression behind technology. On the contrary, I believe that the potential liberating blessings of technology and industrialization will not even begin to be real and visible until capitalist industrialization and capitalist technology have been done away with.”

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“Were You A Member Of The Sports World?”

August 12, 2012 in Politics, Sports, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Jackie Robinson, a trailblazer and Hall of Famer who was politically complex, brought his legendary self to What’s My LIne? in 1969, three years before his death. At the 14:40 mark.

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“Selling Your Life And Selling A House Have More In Common Than You’d Think”

August 12, 2012 in Excerpts, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Selling your life–or your life insurance policy, at least–to someone who’s betting on your quick demise seems as ghoulish as peddling a kidney. But are very unpleasant and very wrong necessarily the same thing? From James Vlahos’ New York Times Magazine article on the sensitive topic:

“Selling your life and selling a house have more in common than you’d think. The seller puts a listing on the market. Prospective buyers do research and get inspections; there are offers and counteroffers until the seller accepts a bid. The seller doesn’t literally peddle his own life, of course, but his life-insurance policy. The distinction is in many ways moot, however, as the sales value is inextricably linked to a cold-eyed estimation of how much longer the seller has to live. In the case of [Ruben] Robles’s policy, a life-settlement company in Georgia, Habersham Funding, expressed interest. Escobar shipped off six boxes’ worth of Robles’s medical records, thousands of pages in all, to Habersham. The firm, in turn, analyzed the records and also had them scrutinized by an external company specializing in life-expectancy analysis. Fiedler’s recollection is that the reports confirmed the grim prognosis and that Robles had less than two years left to live.”

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Animated life-settlement discussion:

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“I Find The Claim That Scientific Progress Is Exponential To Be Extremely Dubious”

August 12, 2012 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The opening of an argument against the plausibility of the Singularity, via the Cognitive Social Web:

“Given that you are tech-savvy, by that point you have almost certainly come across the idea of the Singularity as defended by futurists like Ray Kurzweil and Vernor Vinge. As a reminder, it is the notion that, when we are at last able to compile a smarter-than-human artificial intelligence, this AI will in turn manage to improve its own design, and so on, resulting in an out-of control loop of ‘intelligence explosion’ with unpredictable technological consequences. (singularists go on to predict that after this happens we will merge with machines, live forever, upload our minds into computers, etc).

What’s more, this seemingly far-future revolution would happen within just a few decades (2040 is often mentioned), due to the ‘exponential’ rate of progress of science. That this deadline would arrive just in time to save the proponents of the Singularity from old age is just a weird coincidence that ought to be ignored.

Objection, your honor. As a scientist, I find the claim that scientific progress is exponential to be extremely dubious.”

A Brief Note From 1902 About Kit Carson’s Son

August 12, 2012 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

Kit Carson.

From the December 4, 1902 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Santa Monica, Cal.–Samuel Carson has been found dead up in his hut in Santa Monica Canyon. He had been bitten by a spider.

Carson was about 81 years old and claimed to be a son of the renowned scout ‘Kit’ Carson. For many years the old man had lived at the head of Rustic Canyon, with only his horses and dogs for company. Carson had a most picturesque career as a gold hunter, Indian fighter and adventurer.”

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“Hyper Facial Perception Stems From An Evolutionary Need To Recognize — Often Quickly — Faces”

August 10, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Pareidolia is our ability see a human face where there is none, like a religious figure in a piece of toast. Computers appear to have the same tendency. From Rebecca J. Rosen in the Atlantic:

“Pareidolia was once thought of as a symptom of psychosis, but is now recognized as a normal, human tendency. Carl Sagan theorized that hyper facial perception stems from an evolutionary need to recognize — often quickly — faces. He wrote in his 1995 book, The Demon-Haunted World, ‘As soon as the infant can see, it recognizes faces, and we now know that this skill is hardwired in our brains. Those infants who a million years ago were unable to recognize a face smiled back less, were less likely to win the hearts of their parents, and less likely to prosper.’

Humans are not alone in their quest to ‘see’ human faces in the sea of visual cues that surrounds them. For decades, scientists have been training computers to do the same. And, like humans, computers display pareidolia.”

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Audi “Faces” commercial:

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“The Crash Has Not Even Retarded, Let Alone Halted, Human Progress”

August 10, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

“The world has never been richer, healthier, freer or more equal than it is today.” (Image by Steven Zwerink.)

There is still a lot of suffering the world, a lot of inequality. It’s no time to spike the football. But I largely agree with Fraser Nelson’s Telegraph article which argues that we’re living in a sort of golden age. An excerpt:

“It feels almost indecent to enjoy the Olympics so much. To spend a day at the Games is to move into a parallel universe, where things are actually going right for Britain and some mild rejoicing is justified. The Olympic motto, ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger,’ strikes a depressing contrast with a British economy showing none of these characteristics. Behind the jubilation lies a horrible feeling that when the Games end, we’ll be back to the grim reality: the Leveson Inquiry, the still-unravelling Budget and the slow-motion implosion of global capitalism.

There ought to be a name for this feeling: political myopia. It can afflict anyone who confuses what politicians do with what’s happening in the country, or what they say with what is going on in the world. Governments may be having a hard time of it, struggling with debt they ought not to have taken on. Noisy pressure groups who seek government funding may also believe that the sky is falling in. But a clear-headed analysis of the facts reveals something rather extraordinary. The crash has not even retarded, let alone halted, human progress. The world has never been richer, healthier, freer or more equal than it is today.” (Thanks Browser.)

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

August 10, 2012 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

“Everybody is dabbling in discipline now.”

Fifty Shades of Grey… (all ny)

…annoys me a little. It seems that everybody is dabbling in discipline now. Suddenly, everyone thinks they’re a professional. I’ve been giving men the best spankings for about five years now!

“Yes, He Was A Mean One In His Time”

August 10, 2012 in Sports, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Ty Cobb, one of the absolute greatest baseball players ever and one of the damndest sons of bitches to strap on the spikes, appears in 1955 on I’ve Got a Secret. Seems like a sweet grandfather here, but he strangled to death at least eight or ten peanut vendors during his career. Cobb shows up at roughly the 12:15 mark, just as Johnny Vander Meer walks off with his complimentary carton of Winston cigarettes. The reason why Youtube was invented.

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“He Is A Cyberneticist (Computer Scientist) And Concert Pianist Who Can Look Back On Friendship With The Late Dr. Albert Einstein”

August 9, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I mentioned Manfred Clynes in a post earlier today. He co-authored a 1960 paper in which the term “cyborg” was coined. Here’s an excerpt from “Young Scientist Leads Two Lives,” a New York Times article about Clynes from that same year which looks at his parallel interest in music:

“Late one recent evening a bespectacled young man, struck the resounding final chords of a Chopin ballade, rose hesitantly from the piano and with a shy smile bowed to the applause of a small group at a home near here.

The guests knew they had heard a breathtaking performance by the boyish-looking chief research scientist of the Rockland State Hospital.

But many did not know that scientists had been excited recently by his findings on the relation between breathing and the rate of the heart beat. They were equally ignorant of the high praise he had won from European and Australian music critics several years ago.

Manfred Clynes, born in Vienna and educated in Budapest and Australia, is still in his early thirties. He is a cyberneticist (computer scientist) and concert pianist who can look back on friendship with the late Dr. Albert Einstein and on notable accomplishments with such diverse instruments as the analog computer and the concert grand.

Since 1957 his small laboratory, resembling the back room of a radio-television repair shop, has seen pioneering experiments in applying computers and missile-control theory to medicine.”

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“Only By Augmenting Our Physiology With Drugs And Machines Could We Thrive In Extraterrestrial Environs”

August 9, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From Ben Popper’s new Verge consideration of the queasy topic of bio-hacking and the advent of the real-life cyborg:

“In one sense, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, part man, part machine, animated by electricity and with superhuman abilities, might be the first dark, early vision of what humans bodies would become when modern science was brought to bear. A more utopian version was put forward in 1960, a year before man first travelled into space, by the scientist and inventor Manfred Clynes. Clynes was considering the problem of how mankind would survive in our new lives as outer space dwellers, and concluded that only by augmenting our physiology with drugs and machines could we thrive in extraterrestrial environs. It was Clynes and his co-author Nathan Kline, writing on this subject, who coined the term cyborg.

At its simplest, a cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts: metal, electrical, mechanical, or robotic. The construct is familiar to almost everyone through popular culture, perhaps most spectacularly in the recent Iron Man films. Tony Stark is surely our greatest contemporary cyborg: a billionaire businessman who designed his own mechanical heart, a dapper bachelor who can transform into a one man fighter jet, then shed his armour as easily as a suit of clothes.

Britain is the birthplace of 21st century biohacking, and the movement’s two foundational figures present a similar Jekyll and Hyde duality. One is Lepht Anonym, a DIY punk who was one of the earliest, and certainly the most dramatic, to throw caution to the wind and implant metal and machines into her flesh. The other is Kevin Warwick, an academic at the University of Reading department of cybernetics. Warwick relies on a trained staff of medical technicians when doing his implants. Lepht has been known to say that all she requires is a potato peeler and a bottle of vodka.”

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A Brief Note From 1877 About A Dance

August 9, 2012 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the May 19, 1877 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“The inmates of the Lunatic Asylum were favored with a hop last evening. Two musicians furnished the music. About three hundred patients, male and female, were present, and enjoyed themselves for nearly two hours. Order and decorum were observed during the evening.”

“As Long As All Athletes Have Access To Performance-Enhancing Drugs, Winning Would Still Require That Awe-Inspiring Skill”

August 9, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

Drugs that are safe should be legal for everyone, and athletes should be able to use any legal drugs. In the near future, more and more safe performance-enhancing drugs and treatments will become available. The lives of the average person will be much improved by them, and athletic performance will hit new peaks. The idea that progress is somehow a perversion of the “purity” of competition is silly. From Yascha Mounk’s “Ban What Is Dangerous, Legalize What Is Not” in the New York Times:

“The distinction we currently draw between which substances should be allowed, and which should be prohibited, ultimately says a lot about our own arbitrary assumptions – and precious little about anything else. Fans admire athletes for their amazing skill and boundless determination. As long as all athletes have access to performance-enhancing drugs, winning would still require that awe-inspiring skill and determination. So, while there are good reasons to ban those drugs that pose significant health risks even when taken under medical supervision (dinitrophenol comes to mind), all other substances – like erythropoietin (EPO) and propranolol, for example – should be allowed.”

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“They Now Prefer The Asynchronistic Internet World”

August 8, 2012 in Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Philip Zimbardo is a fascinating, perplexing person, still most famous for the controversial 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. He recently presented a lecture for TED in which he argued that the American male is headed downhill fast. It’s true that women in the U.S. have surpassed men in higher education and will assume greater business and political leadership positions in the coming decades, but the idea that guys are dangerously addicted to Internet porn and video games and will fall by the wayside seems like an alarmist generalization. Men like women are, on average, more informed today than ever before even if it can’t be measured by traditional methods.

See also:

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

August 8, 2012 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

“Any animals welcome.”

DEAD ANIMALS birds, critters, etc BIG or small FOR TAXIDERMY (BROOKLYN)

I teach a taxidermy class once a month and use feeder mice, but I would like to show how to taxidermy other animals…

SEEKING OWLS especially or any spotted furred animals…ANY ANIMALS WELCOME, reptiles, birds, rodents, etc

call SUE.

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“The Building Is Precisely The Kind Of Shelter That Would Keep Martian Kids Of The Future Warm”

August 8, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Which populated areas of Earth might be suitable analogs for future communities on Mars? A few cities are suggested at io9, with the burgs of Nunavut in Canada among the most promising. From Annalee Newitz’s post:

“The far-northern territory of Nunavut in Canada is an excellent analog for Mars. Cold and dry, the region is home to cities and peoples who are used to surviving the cold without the vast resources of a wealthy land like Dubai. Here, you can see the John Arnalukjuak School in the hamlet of Arviat, Nunavut, which was built to withstand subzero temperatures while also using modest power. Low to the ground and insulated, the building is precisely the kind of shelter that would keep Martian kids of the future warm while they learn all about those weird old people from Earth.”

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“The Country Has Both A Dread Of English And An Understandable Attachment To Its Own Ornate Business Customs”

August 8, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Japan is in an odd spot in the globalized world: It’s no longer turning out the technology the world wants, possesses a declining and graying population and has a particularly homogenous culture. One businessperson decided to take drastic measures, ordering 6,000 employees to learn English within two years, hoping to be more in touch with the larger market. From Chico Harlan in the Washington Post:

“Japanese billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani decided two years ago that the employees at his company, Rakuten Inc., should work almost entirely in English.

The idea, he said, was a daring and drastic attempt to counter Japan’s shrinking place in the world. ‘Japanese people think it’s so difficult to speak English,’ Mikitani said. ‘But we need to break the shell.’

With the move, which took effect at the beginning of last month, Mikitani turned his ­e-commerce company — an Amazon competitor — into a test case for corporate Japan’s survival strategy.

As Japan’s population declines, all but guaranteeing ever-decreasing domestic business, companies here are grappling with how they should interact with the world and whether they can do it successfully.

The country has both a dread of English and an understandable attachment to its own ornate business customs. Those idiosyncrasies made Japan a bewildering but envied powerhouse during its economic boom. They now make Japan a poor match, experts say, for global business.

Mikitani took a step few other companies here have dared because, he said, he thought it would help his company expand and thrive. He also wanted to prove a point — that the Japanese, counter to the stereotype, could embrace the risks and embarrassment that come with learning a foreign language.” (Thanks Browser.)

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“He Is The Dominant Figure In The Current Uproar Over The Use Of LSD”

August 8, 2012 in Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Timothy Leary, who often gave drug addicts a bad name, at the beginning of his long run as a controversial public figure, visiting with Merv Griffin in 1966.

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“A Solar Panel Charges Them During The Day So They Can Be Used At Night”

August 8, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Our lack of will to fully exploit the sun’s power for our energy uses has always stunned me. I understand that wind patterns vary, but that sun is always hot (and will only get hotter). It seems like in addition to harnessing the potential on Earth, we could situate structures in space that could relay power to us.

In India, those who weren’t affected by the recent mass power outage because they’re not even hooked to the grid, are harnessing solar for their basic needs. From Vikas Bajaj at the India Ink blog at the New York Times:

“The Energy and Resources Institute, or T.E.R.I., along with others, has been working on a model to increase the use of solar lanterns in rural India. Though these devices are incredibly simple to understand – a solar panel charges them during the day so they can be used at night – they are still too expensive for many. (Basic lanterns cost as little $5, but hardy and more useful models can cost as much as $80.)

T.E.R.I., which is based in New Delhi, is trying to make these lanterns more affordable by making them available for rent for durations as short as one night. The institute’s ‘Lighting a Billion Lives‘ campaign does this on a franchise model.

‘You train one woman in the village,’ said Rajendra K. Pachauri, the institute’s director general. ‘She charges all the lanterns during the day, and she rents them out at night.’

So far, the campaign has reached 1,488 villages in 22 Indian states, according to its Web site. But Mr. Pachauri, who is also the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told me this week that this and other similar ideas have significant potential to bring electricity to many millions of people.”

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Old Print Article: “Won By Blood,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1877)

August 8, 2012 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

“The ball had entered the young man’s left side, struck a rib, glanced and came out near where it had entered, cutting off one of his fingers.”

When people became engaged to marry in the 1870s, there was usually gunplay involved and at least one party wound up less a finger or toe, as evidenced by this article in the March 2, 1877 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Alanson Penny, of Good Ground, had paid his addresses to Miss Nellie Jackson, of the same place, for upward of two years. Miss Jackson was rarely seen in the company of any other young man, and the community regarded them as two very constant lovers. The society in which they moved looked anxiously forward to their union. Some busybody started the story that the wedding was fixed, and it grew as it traveled. The truth was, however, that they had not been betrothed, and the stories seemed to worry Alanson, while Miss Nellie only curled her rosy lip at their reiteration.

Alanson, a week ago proposed to Miss Nellie, who held it under advisement until the next evening. He called for the answer with throbbing heart, not doubting that it would be in the affirmative. He was doomed to disappointment. Miss Nellie refused to wed, and as an earnest of her refusal, returned his love tokens and billet dous in a neat little package. He returned to his father’s house, and a few minutes after retiring to his room, the report of a pistol was heard.

He had shot himself, but not fatally. Dr. Benjamin was summoned from Riverhead. He found that the ball had entered the young man’s left side, struck a rib, glanced and came out near where it had entered, cutting off one of his fingers. Miss Jackson was at the house soon after learning of the shooting, and insisted that she should be permitted to nurse him. After her tears were dried, she said she only said no to try his love. She is still nursing him, and when he recovers they will be married.”

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