Urban Studies

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“Instability Will Lead To Global Conflict, And That In Turn May Lead To What He Referred To As ‘Secular Apocalypse'”

September 4, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Just because you’ve made a lot of money, that doesn’t mean you have all the answers. In fact, when buffeted by wealth, you’re unlikely to even identify the right questions. Case in point: libertarian technologist Peter Thiel, who thinks a lack of innovation will doom humankind. We’re certainly at risk from climate change and those melting icebergs, but I don’t think we’ll perish from want of ambition. Such big-idea projects may currently be too out of balance in favor of the private sector, but moonshots abound. From Roger Parloff at Fortune:

“When people look into the future, Thiel explains to me, the consensus is that globalization will take its course, with the developing world coming to look like the developed world. But people don’t focus on the dark, Malthusian reality of what that will mean, absent major technological breakthroughs not currently in any pipeline.

‘If everyone in China has a gas-guzzling car, we’ll have oil at $10 per gallon and enormous pollution,’ he observes.

But that’s just the start, because without growth there will also be increasing political instability. Instability will lead to global conflict, and that in turn may lead to what in a 2007 essay he referred to as ‘secular apocalypse’—total extinction of the human race through either thermonuclear war, biological contagion, unchecked climate change, or an array of competing Armageddon scenarios.

‘That’s why,’ he says, with characteristic understatement and aplomb, ‘I think the stakes in this are not just, ‘Are we going to have some new gadgets?’”

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“Some Of The Most Innovative Digital Research To Date Has Studied The Simple Process Of Reddit Users Asking For A Gift Of Pizza”

September 4, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

While Facebook’s recent research on unwitting customers wasn’t as upsetting as, say, the Stanford Prison Experiment, it rightly brought about an avalanche of criticism. But what does this mean for social scientists who wish to conduct experiments from the Internet’s wealth of data rather than lab-based trials, studies which won’t produce profits but knowledge, which could bring to light hidden prejudices? From the Economist:

“When it emerged in June that Facebook had secretly manipulated the emotional tenor of what a small fraction of users saw, outrage ensued. Even though this kind of experimentation is within the bounds laid out by tick-box user agreements, many column inches were devoted to the ethical considerations of subjecting users to such fiddling.

Online, many people simply typed ‘derp.’ The word is used as a postscript to a stupid action or statement; it is probably a bastardisation, of the kind that the internet tends to produce, of ‘duh.’ A new academic initiative aims to reclaim the word, at the same time putting social-media research on a more ethical footing: DERP, the Digital Ecologies Research Partnership.

The effort brings together 18 academic fellows and five social-media partners: Imgur, an image and video repository; Reddit and Fark, two community-driven news and discussion sites; StackExchange, a collection of question-and-answer sites; and video-sharing service Twitch (recently acquired by Amazon for $970m).

Collaborations of this sort are not new; Facebook’s folly was just particularly publicised. Some of the most innovative digital research to date has studied the simple process of Reddit users asking for a gift of pizza. Research by Tim Althoff of Stanford University, in California, and colleagues analysed the sentiments involved in 22,000 posts on Reddit’s ‘Random Acts of Pizza’ (its tagline: ‘Restoring faith in humanity, one slice at a time’).

Their paper ‘How to ask for a Favor,’ shows that pizza-pie philanthropy was correlated to how early in the month the request was made, and how needy an asker appeared to be (rather than merely how desirous). As mundane as these results might seem, they represent the vanguard of social-network science. This analysis of thousands of real people interacting in a real situation—as opposed to a few dozen underpaid undergraduates in a trumped-up psychology-lab scenario—showed that, contrary to psychologists’ expectations, Reddit users rewarded neither requests that sounded upbeat nor those from people who seemed similar to themselves.”

“If I Was Normal, Would I Be Doing Comedy?”

September 4, 2014 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

I know Joan Rivers, who sadly passed away today, had plenty of detractors over the last, long leg of her career, when she often interrupted her comedy to sell plastic, buy plastic and seemingly turn herself into a piece of plastic, but she was a pantheon-level stand-up and performed at that altitude until the end. Here’s a repost of something I put up about her previously.

On November 15, 1972, Rivers did a Q&A with UCLA students, being brazenly honest on varied topics (feminism, Bill Cosby, talk shows, etc.) and asking rhetorically, “If I was normal, would I be doing comedy?” Audio only, but very funny stuff.

A Brief Note From 1911 About A Bad Meal

September 4, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the September 19, 1911 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“San Francisco–Destitute and hungry, William Murphy entered a local grocery store last night, hoping to purloin something to eat. The proprietor was called to wait on a customer and Murphy seized the opportunity to gobble two sandwiches he found on the counter. He was seized with convulsions a few minutes later and was taken to the emergency hospital, where it was found he was suffering from arsenic poisoning. The sandwiches he had eaten had been prepared to bait a rat trap. Murphy probably will recover.”

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

September 4, 2014 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

Odd Request (queens)

I know this may seem odd, however i am giving it a try. My coke dealer has gone MIA and I need a new one to purchase my supply.

Is there anyone out there?

P.S. I understand the need for discretion so please let me know if you can recommend anyone.

Thanks.

“In Response To The Protests, Uber Defended The Rate Cuts”

September 4, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The sharing economy is a fascinating social development and great for consumers, but it’s not likely going to be very good for workers. I’m not even talking about those displaced by industries disrupted by Uber and Airbnb and the like, but by those trying to earn a buck offering their services and goods to those companies. They’re prone to rate slashes as competition drives down prices. It’s a marginalized existence and more and more of us are going to wind up on the margins. Just because something’s inevitable doesn’t mean it’s painless. From Sarah Gray at Salon:

“Uber drivers pay for their own gas and insurance, and the company takes 20 percent commission from each driver. At the beginning — when rates were $2.50 per mile — many drivers purchased cars, and made money, Uber driver John Dabbah explained.

‘Now they are dropping the price day after day without even asking the driver,’ Dabbah told CBS2.

Beyond rallying against rate drops, Uber drivers were protesting the lack of communication between Uber and its drivers.

‘I hope we’re heard,’ [driver Aya] Valilar said. ‘That is all we’re asking for is to be heard. No one wants to listen to us.’

In response to the protests, Uber defended the rate cuts. Part of a statement to CBS2 stated: ‘Drivers are making more money now due to higher demand than they did before the price cut. We will continue to work with them individually to ensure their small businesses thrive.'”

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Old Print Article: “Fame Takes A Flogging As Alex Does Act In Dime Museum,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1939)

September 3, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Photography, Sports, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

World War I, which started exactly a century ago, claimed 16 million lives, but there were many more casualties among the living. One of them was the brilliant baseball pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander. He emerged from battle having inhaled mustard gas and experiencing hearing loss, something akin to epilepsy and what we today would call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. A drinker before the war, he became a two-fisted one after the fighting ceased, sometimes taking the mound inebriated. So great was he, it took nearly a decade for alcohol to ground his career, but once his playing days were over, he found himself unemployable in the league he loved, no one wanting to trust a temperamental alcoholic as manager or coach.

A year after being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1938, Alexander found himself an attraction in a raffish New York City dime museum, among the anomalies and curiosities, giving the same speech about his glory days a dozen times daily. The shell of his former self was all he had left to sell, and the press and public brought their cameras to capture a piece of what once was. From an article in the January 20, 1939 Brooklyn Daily Eagle about “Old Pete” in steep decline:

Cameramen swarmed about the great pitcher as he stood there against the green background, both hands holding a baseball above his head as if starting a windup.

“Hold it! Hold it!” they chirped as they focused their cameras.

But the pitching immortal couldn’t “hold it.” His arms came down and he almost dropped the ball. He tired that quickly. The great Grover Cleveland Alexander wasn’t weary from pitching a baseball game. He was starting a series of three weeks’ appearances at Hubert’s Dime Museum, on 42nd St., yesterday.

It’s a Different League

This series is in a world far different from the fresh air, sunshine and roaring crowds that the mighty right-hander knew in the old days. And the man is far different too. The posters outside the museum notify passers-by that the “Great Grover Cleveland Alexander” is on exhibition within. But that’s not true. They’re exhibiting only what’s left of the man that was.

The tall man with the dusty brown hair, bulgy waistline, splotched complexion and somewhat bleary eyes is older and more tired now than you would expect of his 51 years. He is weary and bitter. He believes that the game of baseball didn’t do right by him. He feels that the pastime somehow should have warded off the necessity that is sending the great Alexander of Cooperstown’s Baseball Hall of Fame into Hubert’s hall of freaks and flea circuses and dancing girls. 

A year ago this month the Baseball Writers of America elected Alexander to the Cooperstown shrine where his name joined those of 13 other immortals. But on this January day the tall man in the wrinkled brown suit stands on a tawdry little stage downstairs in the smoky light and tells how he won the seventh game of the 1926 World Series. How he fanned Tony Lazzeri with the bases loaded and two out.

He gives this little talk twelve times a day, starting at noon and ending at midnight, to earn bread and shelter in this bleak twilight of his life. Between lectures he sits in a little wooden cubicle, below the stage–away from staring eyes. Into this little cubicle come reporters and former players to chat with ‘Ol’ Pete’ and to wonder.

It’s the same platform, cubicle and rigmarole that knew Jack Johnson, the Negro who was former heavyweight champion of the world. That was a year or so ago, when ‘Li’l Arthur’ was hard pressed.

First Time Here Since 1930

“When the museum telegraphed me the offer of a job, I thought somebody was kidding me,” Alexander said. “I hadn’t been in New York since 1930 and I thought a museum was a place where they keep skeletons and things. But, anyway, I took a chance, wired back and got the job.”

A reporter asked why it was that a man with his reputation never was offered a job in major league baseball after his pitching days were over.

“Booze! I used to take a drink now and then when I played. Almost every player drank a bit then, and I guess they still do. But I made the mistake of taking my drinks openly. The word got around that I was a drunkard, which I never was. I believe that’s the reason I never even got a coaching job.”

When Alexander asked managers or owners for work, they told him he hadn’t kept pace with the game and they couldn’t use him because he didn’t know the ‘inside stuff.’

Old Pete laughs bitterly at this when he recalls his 19 years of education in the big time.

“I was in the National League almost 20 years,” he explains, “from 1911 through part of 1930–with the Phillies, Cubs, Cardinals and finally the Phillies again. I know the game inside and out.”

After his retirement in ’30 he managed the House of David team for three seasons. Last year he was out with a semi-pro club in Nebraska, but the going was tough because the farmers had been through a drought.

Despite his bitterness, Alexander seemed to get a thrill out of reliving the old days as he talked to the dime-a-toss listeners.

“I guess my biggest thrill was in the 1926 World Series,” he said. “I was with the Cardinals. We had won three games and the Yanks had won three. Jess Haines started the last game for us and along about the seventh inning he hurt his hand and they told me to go in. There were three on base and Lazzeri was up. I had pitched and won the sixth game the day before, but my arm felt fine. I only threw three times but I struck Tony out. He fouled my second pitch into the left-field stands. Then I threw him a hook and he missed it by about six inches. That proved to be the game and the series.

“Yes, I could strike ’em out in those days. But I kinda struck out myself after I stopped pitchin’.”•

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“At A Certain Point, A Mob Mentality Kicks In”

September 3, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The cumshot heard ’round the world, the celebrity nudes leak that rocked the Internet this past weekend is, sadly, just the beginning. It’s going to get much worse, and not just for the famous and shapely. Eventually, and not too long from now, the crudeness of an actual phone hack will seem laughable. Currently there are drones the size of large insects that the military can control remotely to take photos. As Moore’s Law continues to kick in, there’ll be cheap and readily available drones stateside the size of mosquitoes. Consider it a dubious war dividend. Buy them by the dozen, and get to know the neighbors. And it will be really difficult to legislate what can barely be seen. It’s the new abnormal.

Easily the best thing I’ve read about the hack-and-fap flap and its psychological underpinnings is Molly Lambert’s article at Grantland. An excerpt:

“The Lawrence nudes went viral because of the same impulse that spread with the ISIS beheading video: A morally reprehensible piece of media circulates, and curiosity overwhelms common sense. I looked, because I am an asshole, and I justified it to myself as research for writing this piece (but deep down I knew I was being an asshole). My takeaways were that everyone looked great, that Kate Upton and Justin Verlander are kind of the new Pamela and Tommy Lee for having their cute intimacy (and naked bodies) exposed to the world, and that the world is kind of a terrible place to be female. Women have always had to double-identify to view media, pornographic and otherwise, that is framed for a straight male POV. This was especially clear during this scandal, when it was possible to identify simultaneously with the women in the photos and the anonymous bros thirsting to look at them. At a certain point, a mob mentality kicks in: Everyone else looked at them, why shouldn’t I? They can’t arrest everyone, right? Nothing about the images themselves is degrading to their subjects, just that they were stolen and illegally distributed. And if the ripping-away of consent is a major part of the thrill, well, that I just can’t identify with, because it makes me feel sick.

Even though the web has progressed beyond its image as a haven for social outcasts and adult virgins, there is a very real way in which it remains a conduit for our ids. Human consciousness is compartmentalized by necessity, but the Internet does allow for the relegation of deviant impulses to a specific nonphysical zone, protected by anonymity. But there is no anonymity; it’s as imaginary as the false security you feel while driving in your car, a sense of detached invulnerability that can inspire road rage. Even as a nonbody floating through the web, we are indeed very much traceable to the physical location where the floating gets under way. But it’s the physical bodies that can turn Internet usage into the Milgram experiment. There is no researcher standing behind you intoning, ‘You have no other choice, you must go on,’ but the hive consciousness of the web takes their place. The ease with which morally questionable impulses can be instantly gratified overrides that inner voice that says maybe it’s wrong to do so. There is a feeling that nobody is watching, that all these bad impulses and feelings are plummeting into a garbage disposal or black hole from which they will never return, but that’s a lie we tell ourselves. The Internet is a record, and once information has appeared there, it never really goes away, whether you’re the hacker or the hacked.”

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“The Demand For Self-Reliance At Burning Man Toughens Everyone Up”

September 3, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

Libertarian overlord Grover Norquist, whose policies, if ever enacted fully, would lead to worse lifestyles and shorter lifespans for the majority of Americans, made his way to the government-less wonderland known as Burning Man, free finally from restrictions–and perhaps his pants. Norquist’s belief that the short-term settlement in the Nevada desert is representative of what the world could be every day is no less silly than considering Spring Break a template for successful marriage. He writes about his experiences in the Guardian. Maileresque, it is not. An excerpt:

“You hear that Burning Man is full of less-than-fully-clad folks and off-label pharmaceuticals. But that’s like saying Bohemian Grove is about peeing on trees or that Chicago is Al Capone territory. Burning Man is cleaner and greener than a rally for solar power. It has more camaraderie and sense of community than a church social. And for a week in the desert, I witnessed more individual expression, alternative lifestyles and imaginative fashion than …. anywhere.

The demand for self-reliance at Burning Man toughens everyone up. There are few fools, and no malingerers. People give of themselves – small gifts like lip balm or tiny flashlights. I brought Cuban cigars. Edgy, but not as exciting as some ‘gifts’ that would have interested the federal authorities.

I’m hoping to bring the kids next year.

On my last day of my first Burning Man, at the Reno airport, a shoeless man (he had lost his shoes in the desert) was accosted by another dust-covered Burner carrying sneakers: ‘Take these,’ he said. ‘They are my Burning Man shoes.’ The shoeless man accepted the gift with dignity.”•

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“We’re Still Holding Onto The Industrial Concept Of A ‘Job'”

September 3, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I think Krystal D’Costa of Scientific American has way too sanguine a view of what technology’s creative destruction will mean for Labor, especially in the next few decades, but she’s right that the definition of work is in flux and will only transition more as we move further from the 20th century. An excerpt:

“The jobs we hold now will not be the jobs we hold tomorrow. And with that will come a shift—as it has come before—of what ‘work’ is. This is already starting to happen. For example, one of the predictions holds that we’ll experience more leisure time. This is already possible thanks to technologies that allow us to conduct business remotely, however for it to be successful, we’re the ones who have to be ready to let go. Employers who never thought telecommuting would have a place in their workforce are now embracing it because it may save them in overhead in the long term. But the truth is that they can no longer hold to that old standard of what a worker is and does. Today’s workforce often negotiates some degree of flexibility, and all but the lowest-paying jobs tend to reap those benefits.

We’re still holding onto the industrial concept of a ‘job’: We go somewhere and perform a task in exchange for funds. We’re engaged in the commoditization of time and labor. Make no mistake, we’re likely still going to need to buy essentials, but we may be getting those funds from different places. Work may not mean a 40-hour week. Work may not mean assembly line production. And work may not mean up at the crack of dawn to attend to the livestock. The work tied to these types of trades is already changing, but we don’t have to be run over by the promise of technology. Could the spread of AI and robotics invite the return of artisanal crafts and barter-based trade? Nowhere is this clearer than in the DIY movement, which thrives on collaboration and leverages open-source technology to power small production endeavors.”

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“People In Russia Were Dying Suddenly And Violently”

September 3, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

Attendant to the fall of the Soviet Union was the collapse of the country’s social safety nets. Gorbachev’s transitional government and Yeltsin’s reformist one couldn’t stem a great die-off and a low birth rate, as Russia depopulated by 5% between 1992 and 2009. The fall of Communism clearly was the cause, right? But the demographic disaster has deeper roots in earlier decades and high rates of cardiovascular disease and fatal accidents may have their origins in mental-health issues, argues Masha Gessen’s excellent New York Review of Books essay, “The Dying Russians.” The opening:

“Sometime in 1993, after several trips to Russia, I noticed something bizarre and disturbing: people kept dying. I was used to losing friends to AIDS in the United States, but this was different. People in Russia were dying suddenly and violently, and their own friends and colleagues did not find these deaths shocking. Upon arriving in Moscow I called a friend with whom I had become close over the course of a year. ‘Vadim is no more,’ said his father, who picked up the phone. ‘He drowned.’ I showed up for a meeting with a newspaper reporter to have the receptionist say, ‘But he is dead, don’t you know?’ I didn’t. I’d seen the man a week earlier; he was thirty and apparently healthy. The receptionist seemed to think I was being dense. “A helicopter accident,” she finally said, in a tone that seemed to indicate I had no business being surprised.

The deaths kept piling up. People—men and women—were falling, or perhaps jumping, off trains and out of windows; asphyxiating in country houses with faulty wood stoves or in apartments with jammed front-door locks; getting hit by cars that sped through quiet courtyards or plowed down groups of people on a sidewalk; drowning as a result of diving drunk into a lake or ignoring sea-storm warnings or for no apparent reason; poisoning themselves with too much alcohol, counterfeit alcohol, alcohol substitutes, or drugs; and, finally, dropping dead at absurdly early ages from heart attacks and strokes.

Back in the United States after a trip to Russia, I cried on a friend’s shoulder. I was finding all this death not simply painful but impossible to process. ‘It’s not like there is a war on,’ I said.

‘But there is,’ said my friend, a somewhat older and much wiser reporter than I. ‘This is what civil war actually looks like. ‘It’s not when everybody starts running around with guns. It’s when everybody starts dying.’

My friend’s framing stood me in good stead for years. I realized the magazine stories I was writing then were the stories of destruction, casualties, survival, restoration, and the longing for peace. But useful as that way of thinking might be for a journalist, it cannot be employed by social scientists, who are still struggling to answer the question, Why are Russians dying in numbers, and at ages, and of causes never seen in any other country that is not, by any standard definition, at war?”

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A Brief Note From 1910 About An Older Sister

September 2, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the November 30, 1910 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Upper Sandusky, O. — Mrs. Job Smith, holding her 6-month-old daughter on her lap, was watching a daughter start for school, yesterday, when her 2-year-old daughter with a pair of scissors cut off one of the baby’s fingers.”

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“Yes, Of Course, That Was My Father”

September 2, 2014 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Photographs help us retain memories and hang on to life in a sense, but they’re neither memories nor life. They’re only small pieces of the bigger puzzle–just shards, not fractals. From them we piece together a menagerie. The animals are crude, but they’re better than nothing, though not by nearly as much as we often believe. From Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle, Book Three:

It is the era we take photos of, not the people in it, they can’t be captured. Not even the people in my immediate circle can. Who was the woman posing in front of the stove in the flat in Thereses gate, wearing a light-blue dress, one knee resting against the other, calves apart, in this typical 1960s posture? The one with the bob? The blue eyes and the gentle smile that was so gentle that it barely even registered as a smile? The one holding the handle of the shiny coffee pot with the red lid? Yes, that was my mother, my very own mom, but who was she? What was she thinking? How did she see her life, the one she had lived so far and the one awaiting her? Only she knows, and the photo tells you nothing. An unknown woman in an unknown room, that is all. And the man who, ten years later, is sitting on a mountainside drinking coffee from the same red thermos top, as he forgot to pack any cups before leaving, who was he? The one with the well-groomed black beard and the thick black hair? The one with the sensitive lips and amused eyes? Yes, of course, that was my father, my very own dad. But who he was to himself at this moment, or at any other, nobody knows. And so it is with all these photos, even the ones of me. They are voids, the only meaning that can be derived from them is that which time has added.•

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“Its Most Popular Service Was Banned Throughout Germany”

September 2, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Uber has just hit a speed bump in Germany, facing its first nation-wide ban (which it’s defying). Instead of getting giddy in interviews over the potential destruction of jobs, company CEO Travis Kalanick would do himself a big favor if he would instead focus on the ways the old system was flawed. Take my city of New York for instance: It’s always been difficult to get a taxi to the outer boroughs from Manhattan, African-Americans have had a hell of a time getting a ride anywhere and unwitting tourists have often been ripped off by predatory drivers. Uber can be viewed as an equalizer of sorts (provided it doesn’t fail in the same manner). From Jeevan Vasagar at the Financial Times:

“Uber is facing its biggest legal challenge so far after its most popular service was banned throughout Germany, marking the first time the disruptive taxi app has been hit with a country-wide restriction.

The temporary injunction imposed by Frankfurt’s Regional Court prohibits the fast-growing company, valued in a recent funding round at $17bn, from operating its Uber Pop ‘ride-sharing’ service, known as Uber X in other markets.

Uber said it would continue to operate in defiance of the injunction, but it faces fines of up to €250,000 ($328,000) per trip if it is caught violating the ban, which does not affect its higher-priced ‘Black’ limousine service.

The San Francisco-based start-up is one of a number of Silicon Valley firms, including Google and Facebook, to face a regulatory backlash in Europe, where authorities have led the way in questioning the practices of California’s leading technology companies.”

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“Marx Claimed That Automation Would Bring About The End Of Capitalism”

September 2, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

A highly automated society will have to create good jobs in yet-to-exist fields or….what? I don’t think everyone can survive by renting out their couch on airbnb (though I think airbnb is a great idea). From Jordan Pearson at Vice Motherboard:

“Once robots take over society’s productive forces, people will have more free time than ever before, which will ‘redound to the benefit of emancipated labour, and is the condition of its emancipation,’ Marx wrote. Humans, once freed from the bonds of soul-crushing capitalist labour, will develop new means of social thought and cooperation outside of the wage relation that frames most of our interactions under capitalism. In short, Marx claimed that automation would bring about the end of capitalism.

It’s a familiar sentiment that  thanks to robots being in vogue, but we only have to look to the recent past to know that things didn’t exactly work out that way. Capitalism is very much alive and well, despite automation’s steady march towards ascendancy over the centuries. The reason is this: automation doesn’t disrupt capitalism. It’s an integral part of the system.”

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Old Print Article: “Grave Robbers Rouse ‘Dead’ Woman To Life,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1932)

September 1, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

Back when the Brooklyn Daily Eagle was still spelling Romania as “Rumania,” the paper published a positively preposterous piece about a wealthy woman who was supposedly saved from being buried alive by unlikely liberators. From the December 18, 1932 article:

“Vienna — From the village of Nagy Perente, in Transylvania, comes a story of an occurrence so remarkable as to be almost unbelievable. Its accuracy has, however, been established, according to an accredited investigator.

A rich Rumanian woman living in Nagy Perente died a short time ago–or was supposed to have died–and was buried in a little mountain cemetery not far from her home. According to the local custom all her jewelry was buried with her–gold earrings, necklaces and bangles with a number of gems, were placed in the coffin.

Bandits Open Grave

That night three bandits, lured by the prospect of some rich plunder, easily obtainable, opened the grave, pried off the coffin lid and reached in to grasp the gold and jewels. As they did so a sleepy voice murmured. ‘What do you want?’ and the eyes of the supposedly dead woman opened. She grasped the sides of the coffin and attempted to rise to her feet.

One of the bandits fainted, but his companions fled the scene.

Revived by the cold night air, the woman, still in her shroud, rose to her feet and fell out of the coffin.

Staggered to Her Home

Then, clutching at tombstones and steadying herself along the church wall, she staggered the few hundred yards to her home.

Her husband was so overjoyed at her return that he intervened with the police to secure the removal to a hospital of the bandit, who was still lying in a dead faint in the churchyard.

The woman had been suffering from sleeping sickness, and the local doctor had made out a death certificate when her lethargic condition gave her the appearance of death.”

 

“He’ll Do Your Bidding If You Press The Right Button In The Remote Control”

September 1, 2014 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

On this Labor Day, here’s a 1956 video of Bernard Smith’s creation Robert the Robot, shown here working around the house, which was part of the wave of robo-utopia present in Australia in the middle of last century.

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“They Do Not Get Tired, Drunk Or Angry”

September 1, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

A few more thoughts on autonomous vehicles, these from economist Tim Harford at the Financial Times. One thing in his article I didn’t know about is that Germany has been road-testing robocars for two decades. The opening:

“Last Wednesday Vince Cable, the UK business secretary, invited British cities to express their interest in being used as testing grounds for driverless cars. The hope is that the UK will gain an edge in this promising new industry. (German autonomous cars were being tested on German, French and Danish public roads 20 years ago, so the time is surely ripe for the UK to leap into a position of technological leadership.)

On Tuesday, a very different motoring story was in the news. Mark Slater, a lorry driver, was convicted of murdering Trevor Allen. He had lost his temper and deliberately driven a 17 tonne lorry over Mr Allen’s head. It is a striking juxtaposition.

The idea of cars that drive themselves is unsettling, but with drivers like Slater at large, the age of the driverless car cannot come quickly enough.

But the question of how safe robotic cars are, or might become, is rather different from the question of the risks of a computer-guided car are perceived, and how they might be repackaged by regulators, insurers and the courts.

On the first question, it is highly likely that a computer will one day do a better, safer, more courteous job of driving than you can. It is too early to be certain of that, because serious accidents are rare. An early benchmark for Google’s famous driverless car programme was to complete 100,000 miles driving on public roads – but American drivers in general only kill someone every 100m miles.

Still, the safety record so far seems good, and computers have some obvious advantages. They do not get tired, drunk or angry. They are absurdly patient in the face of wobbly cyclists, learner drivers and road hogs.

But there are bound to be hiccups.”

 

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Recently Posted On NYC’S Craigslist

September 1, 2014 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

“Serious inquiries only.”

I want to sell my soul!! I AM SERIOUS! – $9999999 (anywhere)

I AM SERIOUS! I want to sell my soul.

I am SHOCKED that in all of NYC there isn’t one person who can contact Satan and have him get in touch with me. He can reply to this email.

I have a “soul” and it’s up for sale to the highest bidder. Man or devil, I don’t care which!

I want CASH! I will accept a life time of living in rich luxury with a beautiful (by MY standards) WOMAN in lieu of a cash payment.

Serious inquiries only. If you are serious, I will reply shortly.

“The Public Seems To Think That All Of The Technology Issues Are Solved”

September 1, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Autonomous vehicles are probably not as close as we’d like nor as far in the distance as we might believe, but they’re not road-ready yet and hurdling those last few obstacles may be more difficult than all the ones that came before them. From Lee Gomes at Technology Review:

“Would you buy a self-driving car that couldn’t drive itself in 99 percent of the country? Or that knew nearly nothing about parking, couldn’t be taken out in snow or heavy rain, and would drive straight over a gaping pothole?

If your answer is yes, then check out the Google Self-Driving Car, model year 2014.

Of course, Google isn’t yet selling its now-famous robotic vehicle and has said that its technology will be thoroughly tested before it ever does. But the car clearly isn’t ready yet, as evidenced by the list of things it can’t currently do—volunteered by Chris Urmson, director of the Google car team.

Google’s cars have safely driven more than 700,000 miles. As a result, ‘the public seems to think that all of the technology issues are solved,’ says Steven Shladover, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies. ‘But that is simply not the case.’

No one knows that better than Urmson. But he says he is optimistic about tackling outstanding challenges and that it’s ‘going to happen more quickly than many people think.'”

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“A Nearby Human Stranger Will Relay The Message Verbally To Its Intended Recipient”

September 1, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Some people think Miranda July is too quirky, but fuck them. The artist has developed an app which is both impersonal and (oddly) personal. From Katie Collins at Ars Technica:

“No matter how many emoticons you use, messaging apps (for the most part) remain a rather impersonal form of communication that fall somewhere between e-mail and phone calls on the formality scale.

Artist and actress Miranda July is hoping to change this with her new messaging app Somebody, which will send your missives not directly to your friend, but to a nearby human stranger who will relay the message verbally to its intended recipient.

While the app is very much a real piece of technology, it is also a far-reaching public art project that to some extent involves the sender replacing their avatar with a real-life messenger, who is being directed in a mini performance. On the app’s website, July describes Somebody as: ‘The antithesis of the utilitarian efficiency that tech promises, here, finally, is an app that makes us nervous, giddy, and alert to the people around us.’

To send a message, you select a friend from within the app and that friend will respond letting you know whether or not it is a good time for them. You then write out your note and add instructions and actions, to help your messenger get the delivery just right. You’ll be able to select a nearby messenger to be your stand-in by looking at their picture, their likes, their reviews, and their ratings. Your friend and stand-in will be sent each other’s pictures and locations so they can find one another. Once your message has been delivered, you will be notified.”

___________________

“Are you the favorite person of anybody?”

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“I Just Want To Answer The Man Representing Satan”

September 1, 2014 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

In the late ’60s and early ’70s, Hippie culture crossed wires with Christian culture and Jesus went electric, became a superstar. As do a lot of idealistic and naive American dreams, Jesus Freaks got their start in California, urged on in this case by the Hollywood Free Paper. The movement peaked in 1972, splintering thereafter. This 43-minute film from that year of ascendancy, in which even Hal Lindsey pops up, is a fascinating artifact of the time.

“Society Is Going To Realize That Power As Great As Uber’s Needs To Be Checked”

September 1, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Andrew Leonard of Salon might be getting ahead of himself when he sees a triumphant Uber getting its comeuppance from regulators, not only because the ride-share leader hasn’t yet won, but because Amazon, which has won and rolled over many an industry in the process, has been able to avoid legal curtailment simply because it gives people what they want and is willing to absorb short- and mid-term losses to do so. For the foreseeable future–and perhaps permanently–convenience will rule the day. But in the very long run, Leonard’s scenario is possible. An excerpt:

“The real question we should be asking ourselves is this: What happens when a company with the DNA of Uber ends up winning it all? What happens when the local taxi companies are destroyed and Lyft is crushed? When Uber has dominant market position in every major city on the globe? ‘UberEverywhere’ isn’t a joke. It’s a mantra, a call to arms, a holy ideology.

What happens when Uber’s priorities turn to generating cash rather than spending it? What happens to labor — the Uber drivers — when they have no alternative but Uber? What happens when it rains and the surge-pricing spikes and there’s nowhere else to go? A company with the street-fighting ethos of Uber isn’t going to let drivers unionize, and it certainly isn’t going to pay them more than it is required to by the harsh laws of competition. It will also dump them entirely in a nanosecond when self-driving cars prove that they are cheaper and safer. Making the case that drivers are benefitting from the current recruitment wars starts to look like a pretty short-term play. The more powerful Uber gets, the more leverage it will have over labor.

So here’s what’s going to happen. Society is going to realize that power as great as Uber’s needs to be checked. Uber, by virtue of its own success, will demonstrate where the lines need to be drawn for the general good. When Uber is the only game in town, the necessity for comprehensive requirements for commercial insurance and background checks will be obvious. When Uber starts using its logistics clout and unlimited investment capital to go after UPS and Hertz and FedEx, regulators will start wondering about antitrust issues.”

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A Brief Note From 1910 About A Rare Condition

August 31, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the May 18, 1910 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Philadelphia, Pa. — A man with his heart, stomach, liver, spleen and intestines all on the wrong side of his body was exhibited, last night, by Dr. G. Harlan Wells of the Hahneman College, at a meeting of the Philadelphia Academy of Medicine.

The condition is a very rare one and is called by the doctors ‘situe viscerum inversus.’ His organs being misplaced did not seem to bother the man in the least. He is 45 years old, a machinist by trade and enjoys the best of health.”

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“They Are A Growing Corner Of The Broader Sharing Economy”

August 31, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Claire Cain Miller has a New York Times piece about the Rental Economy, which was nurtured, unsurprisingly, during the Great Recession, when owning became onerous if not impossible. It works best so far with expensive items that are needed or desired infrequently. The opening:

“Things that you can now rent instead of buying: a power drill, a song, a tent, an office for an hour, a Prada handbag, a wedding dress, a painting, a dog, your neighbor’s car, a drone.

This new way of consuming — call it the Netflix economy — is being built by web start-ups that either rent items themselves or serve as middlemen, connecting people who want something with people who own it. They are a growing corner of the broader sharing economy, in which people rent out rooms in their homes on Airbnb or drive people in their cars with Uber or Lyft. Soon, tech entrepreneurs and investors say, we’ll be able to rent much of what we always thought we must own.

It is no coincidence that many of these companies — like Rent the Runway for designer dresses and Getaround for private cars — were born during the financial crisis, when people needed new ways to save money, as well as new ways to make it. The ones that have survived and grown during the recovery could herald a cultural shift away from the overconsumption that has driven so much of American culture — not to mention American debt.”

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