Urban Studies

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

“The Google Car Is More Of A Driverless Car Than An Autonomous Car”

January 13, 2015 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

In what was otherwise an underwhelming Ask Me Anything at Reddit, Carlos Ghosn, the President and CEO of Renault and Nissan, a company that has promised to offer cars with autonomous drive by 2020, analyzed Google’s place in the driverless sector. The exchange:

Question:

Often when you hear “autonomous vehicles,” it is in the same sentence with Google. How do you see the search giant’s role in the future of autonomous vehicles? 

Carlos Ghosn:

From time to time on a specific technology, companies can benefit from marketing/information halo. If you asked people today, what’s the best-selling electric car, many will say the Tesla. But really, it’s the Nissan LEAF — by far. Because of Tesla’s marketing strategy, it’s more visible to the public. They appear to be the leaders.

The Google car is more of a driverless car than an autonomous car. It would serve more of an economic purpose. Consider, for example, if Uber was able to drive their cars without drivers. There would be an economic purpose.

We are much more involved in autonomous drive. The driver is still in the car, but we want to make sure to make the driving experience is less stressful. We’re giving more power to the driver, to make the driving experience more pleasant.•

Tags:

Old Print Article: “Mrs. Snyder Says She Was Badgered To Confess Slaying,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1927)

January 13, 2015 in Old Print Articles, Photography, Urban Studies | Permalink

Ruth Snyder was a persistent if imprecise killer.

A Queens housewife who fell hard for married corset salesman Henry Judd Gray, Snyder failed the first seven times she attempted to murder her husband, Albert, finally garrotting her betrothed in 1927 with the aid of her lover, who, of course, had experience tightening fabric around flesh. The slaying was messy and the story she concocted for police about a home invasion even more so, so instead of collecting insurance money, Snyder was soon collecting dust in a prison cell. But not for long: A year later, she and her paramour were no more, silenced at Sing Sing by the hum of an electric chair.

Snyder was the first woman to die in the chair, and despite her vicious crime, her gender made her punishment shocking to many, even the executioner, and the picture of her being put to death, taken stealthily with a hidden ankle camera by New York Daily News photographer Tom Howard, is one of the most famous images in the history of journalism.

A postscript: Even after her death, Snyder had no luck with heat.

The following is the March 22, 1927 Brooklyn Daily Eagle account of her recanting her confession and entering a not-guilty plea.

 

Tags: , ,

Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

January 13, 2015 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

”Nobody knows what it will do next.”

Haunted Painting – $333

This painting belonged to a 35 year old man who practiced black magic before he hung himself in England. It was brought to the US in 1998 by his friend, who also died because of an accident. It has been through many owners since then and every owner had very unpleasant experiences with it. Its now with me since few weeks and its already caused much upheaval in my life. Destroyed peace of mind and happiness, lost job, lost my girl friend, strange and horrifying nightmares every night. It caused fights in my family, weird home life problems have cropped up. And caused health conditions to my brother. Nobody knows what it will do next.

Now I want to sell it. It has to GO to a new home and new owner.

“The Biggest Trends Of The Year Were Actually Technological Concepts That Have Been Around For Decades, If Not Centuries”

January 12, 2015 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The future arrives in a hurry very seldom–it’s almost always a culmination. Molly Wood of the New York Times observed that the excitement of this year’s just-completed CES emanated not from new ideas but from the realizing of old ones. An excerpt:

This year’s CES had the feel of a World’s Fair. There were futuristic BMWs zipping around the streets surrounding the Las Vegas Convention Center, drones buzzing through the air inside and outside the convention center, and just about everywhere you looked a vision of roboticized homes that take perfect, synchronized care of their inhabitants. There was even 3-D-printed food.

It made for an exciting show, to be sure. There was an energy in the air in Las Vegas that had been lacking in previous years, helped by an influx of interesting start-ups, good conversations about a variety of technology and yes, even some really impressive TVs. It wasn’t, thank goodness, the same old thing.

And yet, in some ways, it was. The biggest trends of the year were actually technological concepts that have been around for decades, if not centuries.

Autonomous cars had their conceptual debut at an actual World’s Fair in 1939, where General Motors imagined a world of cars that were propelled along an automated highway system.

Similarly, attendees of the 1934 World’s Fair in Chicago saw a prototype of a home automation system that would later show up in science fiction stories like Ray Bradbury’s The Veldt and of course in The Jetsons.

As for virtual reality, cinematographers and scientists were actually building virtual reality devices at least as early as the 1960s. In 1962, Morton Heilig, the so-called father of virtual reality, patented the Sensorama — an immersive viewing system with a moving chair, a head-mounted display, stereo speakers and odor emitters. So 2015.•

Tags:

“Demands For Solidarity Can Quickly Turn Into Demands For Groupthink”

January 12, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The wonderful Roxane Gay is made uneasy by #JesuisCharlie, but while I don’t concur with her, the disagreement won’t move me to violence.

The profanity of Voltaire and Buñuel and Bruce is just as important as their supposedly sacred targets, and the sacrosanct which isn’t open to ridicule is closed off and ready for a fall from grace. I wish during the 1950s people had been liberated enough to speak about the sexual abuse of children that was rampant in the Catholic Church. Plenty must have known. But just imagine the rebuke that would have rained down on those who dared such impiety. Who are they to ridicule the church?

From Gay’s new Guardian piece about the Hebdo aftermath:

I believe in the freedom of expression, unequivocally – though, as I have written before, I wish more people would understand that freedom of expression is not freedom from consequence. I find some of the work of Charlie Hebdo distasteful, because there is a preponderance of bigotry of all kinds in many of their cartoons’ sentiments. Still, my distaste should not dictate the work the magazine produces or anything else. The cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo – and writers and artists everywhere – should be able to express themselves and challenge authority without being murdered. Murder is not an acceptable consequence for anything.

Yet it is also an exercise of freedom of expression to express offense at the way satire like Charlie Hebdo’s characterizes something you hold dear – like your faith, your personhood, your gender, your sexuality, your race or ethnicity.

Demands for solidarity can quickly turn into demands for groupthink, making it difficult to express nuance. It puts the terms of our understanding of the situation in black and white – you are either with us or against us – instead of allowing people to mourn and be angry while also being sympathetic to complexities that are being overlooked.•

Tags:

A Brief Note From 1905 About A Freak Pig

January 12, 2015 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the April 4, 1905 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Mattituck, L.I. — L.C. Dayton, of this place, a well-known young farmer, has a freak pig with an elephant head and an elephant’s trunk. The little fellow was born two or three days ago, and lived but about two or three hours. It is now carefully preserved in alcohol, and is creating great interest among farmers, many of them driving several miles to see the curiosity.”

 

Tags:

“The Distinction Between Knowledge And Information Is A Thing Of The Past”

January 11, 2015 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Not that they give a damn, but I can never fully forgive the so-called good liberals in the media who supported the invasion of Iraq. It doesn’t mean I disqualify them on all fronts–that would be juvenile–but I still froth over the utter wrong-mindedness. Leon Wieseltier, the longtime witty editor and wonderful writer at the New Republic until that publication’s recent implosion, is one of the many Lefty thinkers who suddenly found a gun in his pants in the run-up to the Bush-Cheney bullshit war. Oy gevalt, Leon!

But he makes many good points in his just-published New York Times piece “Among the Disrupted,” which looks at the sacrifice of thought at the altar of data; humans moving, perhaps, into our post- period; and the modern attempt to measure quality only via quantification. Thinking, free of numbers, gave us, yes, the Iraq War, but also democracy, suffrage, the civil right’s movement, etc. We live in a far richer world than ever before because of interconnected computers which can reside snugly inside shirt pockets, but the new machinery of distribution knows casualties and philosophy and other things of non-numerical value shouldn’t be among them. “The character of our society cannot be determined by engineers,” as Wieseltier writes. His opening:

Amid the bacchanal of disruption, let us pause to honor the disrupted. The streets of American cities are haunted by the ghosts of bookstores and record stores, which have been destroyed by the greatest thugs in the history of the culture industry. Writers hover between a decent poverty and an indecent one; they are expected to render the fruits of their labors for little and even for nothing, and all the miracles of electronic dissemination somehow do not suffice for compensation, either of the fiscal or the spiritual kind. Everybody talks frantically about media, a second-order subject if ever there was one, as content disappears into “content.” What does the understanding of media contribute to the understanding of life? Journalistic institutions slowly transform themselves into silent sweatshops in which words cannot wait for thoughts, and first responses are promoted into best responses, and patience is a professional liability. As the frequency of expression grows, the force of expression diminishes: Digital expectations of alacrity and terseness confer the highest prestige upon the twittering cacophony of one-liners and promotional announcements. It was always the case that all things must pass, but this is ridiculous.

Meanwhile the discussion of culture is being steadily absorbed into the discussion of business. There are “metrics” for phenomena that cannot be metrically measured. Numerical values are assigned to things that cannot be captured by numbers. Economic concepts go rampaging through noneconomic realms: Economists are our experts on happiness! Where wisdom once was, quantification will now be. Quantification is the most overwhelming influence upon the contemporary American understanding of, well, everything. It is enabled by the idolatry of data, which has itself been enabled by the almost unimaginable data-generating capabilities of the new technology. The distinction between knowledge and information is a thing of the past, and there is no greater disgrace than to be a thing of the past. Beyond its impact upon culture, the new technology penetrates even deeper levels of identity and experience, to cognition and to consciousness.•

Tags:

“Lines, In All Their Forms, Are Being Subverted By Markets”

January 11, 2015 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

In Henry Grabar’s Salon article “The Uberization of Everything,” the author looks at how the egalitarianism of the queue is being undone for good by the Internet and dynamic pricing. An excerpt:

The line’s advantage is more basic. Beyond early risers and people with good shoes, the line has a natural constituency: those whose time isn’t worth much. If you’re a well-paid lawyer, working long days for a high hourly fee, two hours in line has a huge opportunity cost. For two hours of work, you could pay market price and have cash left over for dinner. If you’re unemployed, on the other hand, sitting in Central Park all day to see Twelfth Night for free might well be worth your while.

In that sense, the line is a very egalitarian concept, demanding the only thing we’re all given in equal measure: time.

It may also be growing obsolete. Paying to skip has become common, from Six Flags’ Flash Pass to the TSA’s PreCheck system. Real-time markets, where price can be instantaneously aligned with demand, have been implemented to dispel throngs of diners and highway traffic. Where lines endure, they’re infiltrated by professional “waiters,” standing in for clients whose time is worth more.

Lines, in all their forms, are being subverted by markets.

The most well-known example of a real-time market system is Uber’s surge-pricing algorithm. When cab demand is high (like on New Year’s Eve, or during a terrorist attack), the price of a ride goes up. This brings more cars into the streets and shortens the wait time for those who can afford them. It’s a pretty neat demonstration of supply and demand at work, an economist’s fantasy realized by the mobile Internet.

It’s easy to see who wins from surge pricing: drivers, Uber and customers willing to pay to get someplace quickly. Riders willing to share might also stand to benefit.

It’s harder to see who loses, because the old way of getting a cab (sans smartphone) was so irritating. In the biggest cities, where cabs are hailed on the street, demand pricing displaces a complex hierarchy of street knowledge, aggressive behavior and luck. But in most places — airports, train stations, cities with phone-order cab distribution — fixed pricing and a supply shortage rewarded travelers who had waited the longest.

Lines still dominate the urban experience. Roller coasters, movie theaters, airports, restaurants, clubs, government offices, sample sales, traffic: all these places operate on some kind of first-come, first-served basis.

But that system is changing.

Tags:

“Your Florida Doctor Prescribed You This?”

January 11, 2015 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I always wonder how so many Americans got hooked on Oxycodone, the polite way to be a heroin addict. In his latest Financial Times column, our Canadian friend Douglas Coupland explains part of the problem: He developed bronchitis while touring the Southern United States and walked right into a medico on the make, readying a hook for him. An excerpt:

By Day Nine the bronchitis was morphing into pneumonia, and pretty much 50 per cent of my cognitive output was based around analysing my bodily sensations and trying to figure out if they were real or psychosomatic but, either way, the only way to unclasp The Hand at the back of my skull was to take another pill, except by then it wasn’t fun any more. Every moment of the day felt like I was about to step into a too-hot bathtub and, concomitantly, much of my cognitive function was by then being deployed to monitor my outward behaviour so as to not look like I was hiding The Hand on the back of my skull.

So I stopped. And I returned to Canada, where my doctor looked at my prescriptions, puzzled. First, my antibiotic: “Your Florida doctor prescribed you this? [Name drug; get lawsuit.] We used to give this to two-year-olds and, even then, for your body weight, this ought to have been at least three times a day at quadruple strength.”

“OK, but what about oxycodone? You have to admit, it did stop me from coughing.”

“Yes, but you also almost became addicted to a $900-a-pop drug.”

“True.”

“And just to be clear, you were deliberately underprescribed antibiotics to keep you from getting well so as to ensure that you’d keep going back for more visits and repeat oxy prescriptions. And your doctor was obviously in on some kind of racket with the pharmacist — all that coupon nonsense.”

“All true.”

Tags:

“Does It Seem Strange? Unbelievable?”

January 11, 2015 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Driverless cars have been a goal of some for at least 85 years, but as recently as 2007 they seemed a pipe dream to most. John Tierney of the New York Times, though, noted in that year the astounding progress the sector had made in short shrift, and assumed that autonomous cars wouldn’t remain futuristic frustrations like the flying kind. From Tierney’s prescient 2007 Times article:

As the baby boomers cruise into their golden years, I have good news for them — and for everyone else in danger of being run over by these aging drivers. The boomers will not be driving like Mr. Magoo. An electronic chauffeur will conduct them on expressways, drop them at the mall entrance and then go park their cars.

If you doubt this prediction, I don’t blame you. The self-driving car ranks right up there with the personal hovercraft as the futurist vision that never comes true. In 1969, Disney unveiled Herbie the Love Bug; in 1940, Popular Mechanics promised a car that would chauffeur you across America in a single day to visit Aunt Lillian.

At the 1939 World’s Fair, the crowds at the General Motors Futurama exhibit saw traffic speeding 100 miles per hour thanks to electronic help. ‘Safe distance between cars is maintained by automatic radio control,’ a voice explained as visitors looked down on the vast diorama of the World of Tomorrow, complete with hangars for dirigibles and landing decks for autogyros.

‘Does it seem strange? Unbelievable?’ the announcer intoned. ‘Remember, this is the world of 1960!’

O.K., so they were a little off on the date. But today, finally, those electronically spaced cars are on the highway. You can buy cars with ‘adaptive cruise-control’ that automatically slow down if the radar or laser detects you tailgating. Your car can warn you when you stray across lane markings, and these kinds of sensors are already being used experimentally in cars that drive themselves.

These smart cars still have their bugs, but engineers have made amazing progress the past several years. In 2004, when the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency held its first Grand Challenge for driverless cars, none made it more than seven miles. At Darpa’s next Grand Challenge, in 2005, five cars made it 132 miles to the finish. And then, last month, six cars completed a 60-mile course that was the grandest challenge yet because they had to deal with traffic along the way.

These empty cars drove themselves around an Air Force base in Southern California, finding parking spots, obeying stop signs, idling in traffic, yielding to other cars at intersections and merging into traffic at 30 m.p.h. There was one accident and a few near misses, but the cars’ engineers are so buoyed by the results that they’re hoping the next competition will be a high-speed race on a Grand Prix course.

‘Within five years, it’s totally feasible to build an autonomous car that will work reliably in several limited domains,’ says Sebastian Thrun, a computer scientist at Stanford and head of its racing team, which won the 2005 Darpa competition and finished second in last month’s. In five years he expects a car that could take over simple chores like breezing along an expressway, inching along in stop-and-go traffic, or parking in the lot at a mall or airport after dropping off the driver. In 20 years, Dr. Thrun figures half of new cars sold will offer drivers the option of turning over these chores to a computer, but he acknowledges that’s just an educated guess. While he doesn’t doubt cars will be able to drive themselves, he’s not sure how many humans will let them.•

Tags: ,

A Note From 1881 About An Alcoholic Alligator

January 9, 2015 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the August 21, 1881 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“St. Louis Republican –One of the two alligators at Benton Park was sunstruck yesterday–the first case of the kind on record, but as it was officially reported by the park commissioner it will will not be denied. The alligator turned over in his back, and popped out his eyes, and showed other unmistakable symptoms of sunstroke. The park keeper says it was a clear case. He had read of the way sunstruck patients are treated at the city dispensary, but he had neither ice nor ice water with him, and as it was a bad case, one that required immediate treatment, he pulled out his brandy bottle and gave Mr. Alligator a big dram. The effect was wonderful. The patient flopped over on his belly again, and swam off seemingly as happy as a big hungry catfish among a lot of little minnows. This is one of the pet alligators recently donated to the city by Democratic Gus, the saloon keeper on Seventh and Chouteau avenues, and it is said he was raised on the bottle.”

Tags:

“The Fine Interiors (Including Curtains Once Owned By The Queen Of France) Were Soon Covered In ‘Unseemly Stains'”

January 9, 2015 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

From “The Strange Life of ‘Lord’ Timothy Dexter,” a very amusing Priceonomics post by Zachary Crockett about America’s first eccentric on note, an illiterate and foolhardy man who fell ass backwards into vast wealth, which, along with a bogus title, could gain him no respectability:

A Princely Estate

Newburyport, in the late 1700s, was a supposedly idyllic town — a place where “rich and poor mingled”, and where the “population was not so large as to hide any individual, however odd or humble.” Though possessing only one of these traits, Timothy Dexter wasted no time in taking advantage of his arrival.

With his new fortune, Dexter purchased a healthy fleet of shipping vessels, a stable of brilliant cream colored horses, and a lavish coach adorned with his initials. Then, in grand fashion, he erected a “princely chateau” overlooking the sea — a chateau, it should be noted, that included the most lavish furnishings on the market, right down to its “tasteful and commodious outhouses.”

As recounted by a 19th century historian, Dexter then hired the “most intelligent and tasteful” artists of European architecture to carve and mount a series of more than 40 giant, wooden statues on his property, each depicting a great character in American lore: 

“…The tasteless owner, in his rage for notoriety, created rows of columns, fifteen high feet at least, on which to place colossal [statues] carved in wood. Directly in front of the door of the house, on a Roman arch of great beauty and taste, stood general Washington in his military garb. On his left was Jefferson; on his right, Adams. On the columns in the garden there were figures of indian chiefs, military generals, philosophers politicians, statesmen…and the goddesses of Fame and Liberty.”
Not to be outshined, Dexter then erected a final statue — one of himself. Beneath it, he boastfully painted an inscription — “I am the first in the East, the first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western world” — this, coming from a man who’d neither contributed anything to the field of Philosophy nor ever read a single book on the subject.

At $2,000 a piece, the 40 statues cost Dexter twice as much as he’d paid for his entire estate — but with them, the outcast achieved his ultimate aim: to garner the public’s attention. “It made the bumpkins stare,” writes Samuel L. Knapp, “and gave the owner the greatest pleasure.” 

In time, Dexter began to garner to wrong kind of attention. His estate became so much of an aesthetic embarrassment that his wife soon abandoned ship to live elsewhere in the neighborhood; in her absence, Dexter’s son — a morose lad who, like his father, took no joy in learning — moved in. In short order, the home was turned into a “bagnio” (brothel) of sorts: long nights of drunken buffoonery ensued, in which women came and went, and the fine interiors (including curtains once owned by the Queen of France) were soon covered in “unseemly stains, offensive to sight and smell.”•

Tags: ,

“The Biggest Problem Has Been In America—By Far McDonald’s Largest Market”

January 9, 2015 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Ray Kroc, the larger-than-life figure who turned the McDonald’s “hamburger stands” into a megapower after joining the company in the mid-’50s, just couldn’t help but make money. Here’s Kroc discussing his finances with Sports Illustrated in 1974, in an article tied to his purchase of the San Diego Padres: 

“Money is an automatic thing with me,” he said, adjusting his chair. “It’s like turning on a light switch. I take it for granted. What do I need it for? I’ve never desired a harem—anyway, I’m too old for one now. I’ve never wanted to own a racehorse or even a polo pony. What are you gonna do with money? I eat one steak at a time and I buy my clothes off the rack—can’t stand custom-made clothes. All money represents to me is pride of accomplishment.”

McDonald’s isn’t so fortunate these days, though, as the chain, which is terrible for animals, people and the environment, has faced strong market resistance the past two years. A brief downturn, perhaps, though poor management, strong competition and shifting tastes may mean a longer decline. From “When the Chips Are Down,” a new Economist article about the tarnish on the Golden Arches:

The biggest problem has been in America—by far McDonald’s largest market, where it has 14,200 of its 35,000 mostly franchised restaurants. In November its American like-for-like sales were down 4.6% on a year earlier. It had weathered the 2008-09 recession and its aftermath by attracting cash-strapped consumers looking for a cheap bite. But more recently it has been squeezed by competition from Burger King, revitalised under the management of a private-equity firm, from other fast-food joints such as Subway and Starbucks, and from the growing popularity of slightly more upmarket ‘fast casual’ outlets.

In response, McDonald’s has expanded its menu with all manner of wraps, salads and so on. Its American menu now has almost 200 items. This strains kitchen staff and annoys franchisees, who often have to buy new equipment. It may also deter customers. ‘McDonald’s stands for value, consistency and convenience,’ says Darren Tristano at Technomic, a restaurant-industry consultant, and it needs to stay true to this. Most diners want a Big Mac or a Quarter Pounder at a good price, served quickly. And, as company executives now acknowledge, its strategy of reeling in diners with a ‘Dollar Menu’ then trying to tempt them with pricier dishes is not working.

McDonald’s says it has got the message and is experimenting in some parts of America with a simpler menu: one type of Quarter Pounder with cheese rather than four; one Snack Wrap rather than three; and so on. However, this seems to run contrary to the build-your-burger strategy it is trying elsewhere, which expands the number of choices. That in turn is McDonald’s response to the popularity of ‘better burger’ chains, such as Shake Shack, which has just filed for a stockmarket flotation.

Some analysts think that McDonald’s should stop trying to replicate all its rivals’ offerings and go back to basics, offering a limited range of dishes at low prices, served freshly and quickly.•

Tags: ,

“We Don’t Have Anything Like A C-3PO From Star Wars In Our Homes Yet. That Could Start To Change.”

January 9, 2015 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Two clips from articles about robotics, one from the Guardian about human augmentation in the form of exoskeletons and the other from the WSJ about social robotics.

_______________________________

From Samuel Gibbs at the Guardian:

The exoskeleton has been designed to help paraplegics gain mobility but also to help stroke victims learn how to walk again. It is controlled by buttons on a set of walking sticks, but also with the weight of the wearer.

Leaning forward in a natural walking stances while rocking side to side triggers the steps in a very human-like non-robotic way. The exoskeleton detects how much power a person is putting in and fills the shortfall to maintain stability, but also to help people build their strength where they have it.

‘Our technology started in the military, carrying heavy loads and with our partners Lockheed Martin we’re still doing that. But we melded technologies from people for athletics and people with paralysis to aid people with stroke to walk again,’ said Harding.

‘Now we’re looking at industrial applications – for construction crews holding heavy tools or working on overhead surfaces. That’s our next stage to attack. In five years you’ll see exoskeletons on the building site and on the medical side, someone with paralysis will be using one to get around a party.•

_______________________________

From Geoffrey A. Fowler at the WSJ:

Robots with social skills have captured imaginations going back decades. But we don’t have anything like a C-3PO from Star Wars or Rosie from The Jetsons in our homes yet.

That could start to change. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, two pioneers in the field of social robotics said they are ready to begin selling personal robots. Their hope is that getting robots with basic capabilities like motion, video and voice recognition into homes will encourage developers to create the software that will make them feel like part of the family.

Aldebaran, founded by renowned roboticist Bruno Maisonnier, plans to begin selling its walking, talking 23-inch robot Nao to consumers in the next one to two years. Jibo, an 11-inch table-top robot with a swiveling body created by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Cynthia Breazeal, will begin shipping to developers late this year and to homes in 2016.

‘It is now possible to build a social robot at a mass consumer price point,’ says Breazeal, whose company — also called Jibo — is selling the robot for $600.•

Tags: , ,

“Satirists Are Heard With Bemused Semirespect”

January 9, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

David Brooks of the New York Times, who has misunderstood the nature of meritocracy his whole life, proves it once again today with a ridiculous argument in his latest op-ed. Here’s the passage:

In most societies, there’s the adults’ table and there’s the kids’ table. The people who read Le Monde or the establishment organs are at the adults’ table. The jesters, the holy fools and people like Ann Coulter and Bill Maher are at the kids’ table. They’re not granted complete respectability, but they are heard because in their unguided missile manner, they sometimes say necessary things that no one else is saying.

Healthy societies, in other words, don’t suppress speech, but they do grant different standing to different sorts of people. Wise and considerate scholars are heard with high respect. Satirists are heard with bemused semirespect. Racists and anti-Semites are heard through a filter of opprobrium and disrespect. People who want to be heard attentively have to earn it through their conduct.

In Brooks’ worldview, Voltaire, Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain and Lenny Bruce are–and should be!–awarded only a modicum of respect, the children that they are for profanely speaking truth to abuses of power, whereas those who go through the motions of civility while (often) contributing less, should be rewarded more. In all fairness to Dr. IQ, it has worked for him his whole career, though I’ll bet the writing of those “holy fools” George Carlin and Terry Southern will be remembered much longer than Brooks’ scratchings.•

Tags:

Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

January 8, 2015 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

What is appealing about Family Circus?

Do you like Family Circus? Please let me know why.

I am offering you the fulfilling feeling of maybe changing someone’s outlook on Family Circus. If you actually convince me to enjoy it, I will bake you a pie. But if you’re the type of person who enjoys Family Circus, the feeling of changing an outlook will probably be enough.

Old Print Article: “Private Zoos A London Fad,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1901)

January 8, 2015 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

“For £25 down and the balance on delivery he can have a full-fledged rhinoceros capable of demolishing a fairly sized jerry-built villa.”

Private zoos of more than a century ago existed in both the U.S. and in Europe, though the ones on the other side of the Atlantic seem to have been wilder. A report about these unregulated menageries from the London Daily Mail, which was republished in the November 17, 1901 Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

“Those Are Two Of The Most Discussed Proposals For Using Technology To Chill The Planet And Combat Climate Change”

January 8, 2015 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Terraforming any planet, especially the one we’re standing on, seems fraught with consequences, many unintended, but some scientists maintain sci-fi dreams of geoengineering us out of climate change. From Brian Merchant at Vice:

“The scientists had whipped themselves into a frenzy. Gathered in a stuffy conference room in the bowels of a hotel in Berlin, scores of respected climate researchers, mostly middle-aged, mostly white, and mostly men, were arguing about a one-page document that had tentatively been christened the ‘Berlin Declaration.’ It proposed ground rules for conducting experiments to explore how we might artificially cool the Earth—planet hacking, basically.

It’s most commonly called ​geoengineering. Think Bond-villain-caliber schemes but with better intentions. It’s a highly controversial field that studies ideas like ​launching high-flying jets to dust the skies with sulfur in order to block out a small fraction of the solar rays entering the atmosphere, or sending a fleet of drones across the ocean to spray seawater into clouds to ​make them brighter and thus reflect more sunlight.

Those are two of the most discussed proposals for using technology to chill the planet and combat climate change, and each would ostensibly cost a few billion dollars a year—peanuts in the scheme of the global economy. We’re about to see the dawn of the first real-world experiments designed to test ideas like these, but first, the scientists wanted to agree on a code of ethics—how to move forward without alarming the public or breaking any laws.”

Tags:

“Each Seat Is To Be Cooled”

January 8, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

Qatar is the richest state in the world based on per capita wealth, which is the main reason the tiny nation was chosen to host the 2022 World Cup, despite desert climate and dicey politics. When awarding the Cup or the Olympics, organizers can’t be too choosy, as few countries can or will expend the ton of money it takes to stage such a global event. Maik Grossekathöfer and Juan Moreno of Speigel interviewed Albert Speer, the German architect overseeing the building (and, yes, son of), as well as Friedbert Greif, managing partner and urban planner, and other principals. Two exchanges follow.

____________________________

Spiegel:

Your office has developed the master plan for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The concept calls for 12 stadiums to be built in the desert, some of them within sight of each other. Each seat is to be cooled and the temperature at the center of the field is to be 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit), even if outside temperatures rise to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). And all this is to be built in a country that has as many residents as Augsburg, Germany (population: 276,542) Weren’t we just talking about sustainability?

Albert Speer:

But of course we were. Here, too, sustainability has been a priority from the very beginning.

Spiegel:

The insistence on an ecologically viable World Cup on the Arabian Peninsula doesn’t sound particularly credible. Just look at Abu Dhabi, which has announced its intention to build a new carbon neutral city — right next to a Formula One race track.

Albert Speer:

We intend to do things better and don’t want to be connected to projects like those in Sochi, for example. Qatar is planned so that most of it can be disassembled afterwards and that, in the end, is of a dimension that suits the country. The upper levels are modular and can be removed to make a total of 22 smaller football stadiums, which will then be given to developing countries after the World Cup. Individual modules can also be used for track and field stadiums with room for 5,000 people. And for the cooling, we have developed a concept that is based on solar power.

____________________________

Spiegel:

Still, one can wonder if it makes any sense at all for a World Cup to be held in a tiny desert country like Qatar.

Friedbert Greif:

What kind of a question is that? Of course it is legitimate for a country like Qatar, and thus, the Arab world, to get the World Cup. It is arrogant to believe that football belongs to us Europeans. Furthermore, I don’t believe that what the Russians are doing (eds. note: The 2018 World Cup is to be held in Russia) is any more efficient. Venues there are up to 2,400 kilometers (1,491 miles) from each other. The amount of resources and energy that are being wasted to bring spectators from A to B is crazy. Russia, in this regard, is the opposite extreme.

Spiegel:

Qatar isn’t a democracy, there is no labor union for immigrant workers and there have been numerous reports of people dying at the construction sites. In the past, the country was also a safe harbor for leaders of Islamist organizations.

Albert Speer:

I think it is fantastic that, with the help of media reports — and well in advance of the World Cup — people are taking a closer look. And that things are changing. Ahead of each of our projects, we ask: Is it acceptable? For many years we have had good business relations with Saudi Arabia. There is trust there, and people there listen to us as well. We really do have the feeling that we are doing something positive for the country and the people there. That is our benchmark. For Qatar as well.•

Tags: , , ,

“We Think Of A New Job We Want, We Do It For A While, Then We Teach Robots How To Do It. Then We Do Something Else.”

January 8, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

Wired co-founder and techno-optimist Kevin Kelly can speak of the future in bold terms but still sound reasonable, which makes him a rarity in the field of futurists. Perhaps that’s why his AMAs are always so interesting. A few exchanges from his latest one at Reddit.

____________________________________

Question:

What are your thoughts on increased automation eventually putting people out of jobs? It seems like a pretty negative subject so I’d love to hear a positive spin on it!

Kevin Kelly:

Robots and AI will help us create more jobs for humans — if we want them. And one of those jobs for us will be to keep inventing new jobs for the AIs and robots to take from us. We think of a new job we want, we do it for a while, then we teach robots how to do it. Then we make up something else.

Question:

That’s interesting. Is this a pattern you observed in the past?

Kevin Kelly:

Sure. We invented machines to take x-rays, then we invented x-ray diagnostic technicians which farmers 200 years ago would have not believed could be a job, and now we are giving those jobs to robot AIs.

____________________________________

Question:

If automation rendered most of the “bread and butter” work that you currently do obsolete, to the point you only need an hour or so a day to do all the things, what would you do with your sudden excess of spare time?

Kevin Kelly:

I would read more books. I would make more photographs. I would write more stuff that only I cared about. Mostly I would try and do more things that I felt only I could do. That takes a lot of messing around and wasting of time to discover.

____________________________________

Question:

What’s the future of the city? Are we going to continue upgrading our current megalopolises or will we construct new ones based on Arcological designs? If so, how will they look like and when do you think we’ll start seeing them?

Kevin Kelly: 

I doubt it. My prediction is that the rough shape and texture of a city in 100 years from now, or even 200, will roughly be similar to now. What will be different are the communications and relationships in that city.

____________________________________

Question:

What near term (5-10 year horizon) technology are you most excited about and foresee having a big impact on people’s lives?

Kevin Kelly: 

I think commercial, cheap, ubiquitous, boring AI delivered as a utility service (like web hosting) will be the defining disruptive technology in the near future. The more I hear about recent improvements, the more I feel we are near a 20 year run of constant and meaningful results. Most of the consequences are not going to be Her, but invisible benefits.

____________________________________

Question:

What do you think of Dr. Nick Bostrom’s work in Existential Risk Reduction at the Future of Humanity Institute? Should it be global priority as his paper states?

Kevin Kelly:

I think it is worth some attention, but I think other existential risks such as an asteroid impact or drastic climate change are worth more energy.

____________________________________

Question:

What do you think will happen first, intelligent live elsewhere will contact us or we will contact intelligent life elsewhere?

Kevin Kelly:

Neither. First we will make artificial aliens by making AIs on Earth. These other minds that will think differently than us, and may be conscious differently than us, and they will offer some (but by no means all) of the same benefits of contacting an ET.

____________________________________

Question:

Do you believe the Singularity is coming? What do you say to those who maintain it’s simply a techie version of the Rapture, i.e. an apocalypse beyond which we no longer have to think about?

Kevin Kelly:

I don’t believe in the Strong/Hard version of the Singularity: AIs that self-create into a god-like power that can give us immortality. I do believe in the Weak/Soft version that humanity and machines merge into something that we can’t see or understand right now.

____________________________________

Question:

What’s the best drug experience you have had?

Kevin Kelly:

I really only have had one “drug” experience. I was a non drug taking hippie. On my 50th birthday I took LSD for the first and only time. I saw God. Have not done any since.•

Tags:

A Brief Note From 1936 About A Superman

January 7, 2015 in Old Print Articles, Photography, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the September 23, 1936 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Vienna — Dr. Serge Voronoff of monkey gland and rejuvenation fame, announced today he was confident he could create a superman if he were permitted to transplant chimpanzee glands to a 10-year-old boy.

‘If any mother would entrust her child to me, she might be the means of establishing a new type of human far superior to the normal man.'”

Tags:

“One Is Good. Two Is Enough.”

January 7, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Ayatollah Khomeini’s prayers for a massive army of young men to combat Iraq were answered all too well. His urging for fertile females to reproduce with no pregnant pauses spurred Iran’s population to swell to 50 million by 1986. Once the war ended, what was the country to do with all those working-age people who needed jobs, food and clean water? An excerpt follows from Alan Weisman’s Countdown, republished at Matter, which looks at family-planning efforts inside a theocracy.

__________________________________

Secret meetings commenced with the Supreme Leader to discuss the population blessing that was now a population crisis. Years later, demographer and population historian Abbasi-Shavazi would interview the 1987 planning and budget director, and learn that he had met with the president’s cabinet and explained what excessive human numbers portended for the nation’s future. To feed, educate, house, and employ everyone would far outstrip their capacity, as Iran was exhausted and nearly bankrupt. There were so many children that primary schools had to move from double to triple shifts. The planning and budget director and the minister of health presented an initiative to reverse demographic course and institute a nationwide family-planning campaign. It was approved by a single vote.

A month after the August 1988 ceasefire finally ended the war, Iran’s religious leaders, demographers, budget experts, and health minister gathered for a summit conference on population in the eastern city of Mashhad, one of holiest cities for the world’s Shi’ite Muslims, whose name means “place of martyrdom.” The weighty symbolism was clear.

“The report of the demographers and budget officers was given to Khomeini,” Dr. Shamshiri recalls. The economic prognosis for their overpopulated nation must have been very dire, given the Ayatollah’s contempt for economists, whom he often referred to as donkeys.

“After he heard it, he said, ‘Do what is necessary.’ ”

It meant convincing 50 million Iranians of the opposite of what they’d heard for the past eight years: that their patriotic duty was to be forcibly fruitful. Now, a new slogan was strung from banners, repeated on billboards, plastered on walls, broadcast on television, and preached at Friday prayers by the same mullahs who once enjoined them to produce a great Islamic generation by making more babies:

One is good. Two is enough.

The next year, 1989, Imam Khomeini died. The same prime minister who had hailed fertility rates approaching nine children per woman as God-sent now launched a new national family-planning program. Unlike China, the decision of how many was left to the parents. No law forbade them from having ten if they chose. But no one did. Instead, what happened next was the most stunning reversal of population growth in human history. Twelve years later, the Iranian minister of health would accept the United Nations Population Award for the most enlightened and successful approach to family planning the world had ever seen.

If it all was voluntary, how did Iran do it?•

Tags: ,

“All That Tech Recedes Into The Background”

January 7, 2015 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The future occasionally crash-lands into our lives, but usually it goes far easier on the brakes. The latter, more-prosaic scenario is what Alex Davies of Wired encountered when he took the wheel gave up the wheel of Audi’s highway-ready driverless vehicle. An excerpt:

“If this A7, nicknamed Jack, wasn’t advertising ‘Audi piloted driving’ on its side, you’d never know it wasn’t just another German sedan cruising down the 5. All the gadgetry that keeps it squarely centered in its lane at precisely the speed you select is discretely incorporated into the car. It’s top-end stuff, too: six radars, three cameras, and two light detection and ranging (LIDAR) units. The computers that allow the car to analyze the road, choose the optimal path and stick to it fit neatly in the trunk. It’s remarkably smooth, maintaining a safe following distance, making smooth lane changes, and politely moving to the left to pass slower vehicles controlled by carbon-based life forms. It’s so sophisticated that I never felt anything unusual, and in fact the car is designed to reassure you that you need only grab the wheel or tap the brake to immediately resume control.

And that’s the most remarkable thing about Audi’s robo-car: All that tech recedes into the background. Driving this car is mundane, almost boring.”

Tags:

“A 1950s Era Black-Market Pack Of Prophylactics”

January 7, 2015 in Excerpts, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

There’s currently an online auction for a lot of three unopened boxes of sports-themed Champ prophylactics from 1950. The baseball figure is clearly supposed to be Ted Williams and the boxer Joe Louis, though neither was apparently a spokesperson for the condom company nor gave their permission for the cover design bearing their likenesses. Oddly, it was after his death when Williams’ head needed protection the most. Now I’m going to hell. A description of the Teddy Ballgame art from Baseball Reliquary:

This curiosity demonstrates the weird and wacky confluence of popular culture, business entrepreneurship, and baseball hero worship — a 1950s era unopened black-market pack of prophylactics whose colorful image bears an extraordinary likeness to that of the Splendid Splinter himself, Ted Williams.•

 

Tags: ,

Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

January 7, 2015 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

"GET A CAB, YOU ASSHOLE!!!"

“GET A CAB, YOU ASSHOLE!!!”

GROWN Stupid MEN over 40 who SCOOTER to work (JUST assholes)

STUPID ASSHOLES OVER 40 who ride scooters to work. YOU’RE a 40-70 yr old trying to conserve energy? YOU’RE A DWEEB PURE AND SIMPLE. Your TIE FLAPPING IN THE WIND, LOOKING LIKE A STUPID ASSHOLE. GET A CAB, YOU ASSHOLE!!! And YOU’RE A THIRD TIME ASSHOLE IF YOUR’E WEARING A BASEBALL CAP!!! Hhhhhhaaaaahhhha!!!!

« Older entries § Newer entries »