“[Chris] Urmson, with the soft-spoken, intense mien of a roboticist who has debugged a Martian rover in the deserts of Chile, occupies the nominal ‘driver’s seat’—just one of the entities open to ontological inquiry this morning.
The last time I was in a self-driving car—Stanford University’s ‘Junior,’at the 2008 World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems—the VW Passat went 25 miles per hour down two closed-off blocks. Its signal achievement seemed to be stopping for a stop sign at an otherwise unoccupied intersection. Now, just a few years later, we are driving close to 70 mph with no human involvement on a busy public highway—a stunning demonstration of just how quickly, and dramatically, the horizon of possibility is expanding. ‘This car can do 75 mph,’ Urmson says. ‘It can track pedestrians and cyclists. It understands traffic lights. It can merge at highway speeds.’ In short, after almost a hundred years in which driving has remained essentially unchanged, it has been completely transformed in just the past half decade.”
Joan Crawford on What’s My Line?, in 1957. She uses the appearance to promote the International Adoption Agency, though, to put it mildly, she wasn’t exactly mother of the year. Peter Ustinov is on the panel.
It’s difficult to fathom that just about 20 years ago, the spellcheck function wasn’t ubiquitous–even intrusive–and there was actually a market for a product like this one.
President Richard Nixon in New York City, 1972, at the beginning of the war on drugs, encouraging the absurd Rockefeller Drug Laws, pledging public funds to be wasted on a futile cause. But while Nixon was there at the beginning, the prohibition of drugs has been a bipartisan folly ever since, one that allows campaigning politicians to tell citizens a lie they want to hear. The truth is professional poison. And that comes from someone who has no interest in drugs and doesn’t think anyone should use them.
Jan Hammer, Miami Vice house composer, explaining how he could create such gritty urban music while living in a rustic environment. Intro provided by a pimped-out Philip Michael Thomas. It’s like the 1980s vomited blood.
“Ever the engineering scientist, he offered his view that within as few as 40 years computing technology will be so advanced that computers will nearly be sentient beings capable of personality.
‘The war against the machines was a long, long time ago,’ he said.
Mankind didn’t set out deliberately to create a brain, Wozniak said. But by first building computers, and then linking them through Arpanet, the forerunner of the Internet, and then creating search engines to handle the mass of information now available, the world ended up with a brain.
‘I think by accident we’re going to stumble on conscious computers that have feelings and look at you and understand how you’re doing,’ he said. ‘My iPhone has almost all the senses I have except taste and smell. It has an eye and an ear and it can feel when I am touching it and it can feel when it is being moved. It even knows where in the world it is from GPS. Even I don’t know that.”
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Johnny Cash on John Henry: “You full of vinegar now but you ’bout through.”
"Very soon I began seeing her byline in the rock papers, the major intellectual conduits of youth at that time." (Image by Klaus Hiltscher.)
The opening of “The Mother Courage of Rock,” Luc Sante’s appraisal of Patti Smith in the New York Review of Books:
“I first heard of Patti Smith in 1971, when I was seventeen. The occasion was an unsigned half-column item in the New York Flyer, a short-lived local supplement toRolling Stone, marking the single performance of Cowboy Mouth, a play she cowrote and costarred in with Sam Shepard, and it was possibly her first appearance in the press. What caught my eye and made me save the clipping—besides the accompanying photo of her in a striped jersey, looking vulnerable—was her boast, ‘I’m one of the best poets in rock and roll.’ At the time, I didn’t just think I was the best poet in rock and roll; I thought I was the only one, for all that my practice consisted solely of playing ‘Sister Ray’ by the Velvet Underground very loud on the stereo and filling notebook pages with drivel that naturally fell into the song’s meter. (I later discovered that I was just one of hundreds, maybe thousands, of teenagers around the world doing essentially the same thing.)
Very soon I began seeing her byline in the rock papers, the major intellectual conduits of youth at that time. Her contributions were not ordinary. She reviewed a Lotte Lenya anthology for Rolling Stone (‘[She] lays the queen’s cards on the table and plays them with kisses and spit and a ribbon round her throat’). She wrote a half-page letter to the editors of Crawdaddy contrasting that magazine’s praise for assorted mediocrities with the true neglected stars out in the world:
Best of everything there was
and everything there is to come
is often undocumented.
Lost in the cosmos of time.
On the subway I saw the most beautiful girl.
In an unknown pool hall I saw the greatest shot in history.
A nameless blonde boy in a mohair sweater.
A drawing in a Paris alleyway. Second only to Dubuffet.
Creem devoted four pages to a portfolio of her poems (‘Christ died for somebodies sins/but not mine/melting in a pot of thieves/wild card up the sleeve/thick heart of stone/my sins my own…’—if this sounds familiar, you expect the next line to be ‘they belong to me,’ but it’s not there yet).”
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Patti Smith singing “You Light Up My Life” on Kids Are People Too, 1980s:
The full 1970 documentary, “Soft Self-Portrait of Salvador Dali.” Just during the opening scene: insane piano solo, screeching cats, Orson Welles on narration. Tremendous stuff.
What if war were painless, at least for one side? And what if the American President could fight overseas without getting approval from Congress because what’s being waged isn’t precisely war as we know it, but something beyond the traditional definition? In the brave new world of drones and robots, that’s exactly where the United States is. From Peter W. Singer’s excellent New York Times Opinion piece, “Do Drones Undermine Democracy?“
“Just 10 years ago, the idea of using armed robots in war was the stuff of Hollywood fantasy. Today, the United States military has more than 7,000 unmanned aerial systems, popularly called drones. There are 12,000 more on the ground. Last year, they carried out hundreds of strikes — both covert and overt — in six countries, transforming the way our democracy deliberates and engages in what we used to think of as war.
We don’t have a draft anymore; less than 0.5 percent of Americans over 18 serve in the active-duty military. We do not declare war anymore; the last time Congress actually did so was in 1942 — against Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. We don’t buy war bonds or pay war taxes anymore. During World War II, 85 million Americans purchased war bonds that brought the government $185 billion; in the last decade, we bought none and instead gave the richest 5 percent of Americans a tax break.
And now we possess a technology that removes the last political barriers to war. The strongest appeal of unmanned systems is that we don’t have to send someone’s son or daughter into harm’s way. But when politicians can avoid the political consequences of the condolence letter — and the impact that military casualties have on voters and on the news media — they no longer treat the previously weighty matters of war and peace the same way.”
A clip from Walter Cronkite’s sit-down with Anwar Sadat in the shadows of the pyramids, in 1977, four years before the Egyptian president was murdered. Sadat denies slave labor was used to build the incredible tombs.
Despite an incredibly austere budget for 2012, the struggling state of Kentucky will move forward with allocating public funds toward the building of a creationist theme park, which featuresNoah and his Ark. Cripes. Some details about the project fromLaurie Goodstein in the New York Times:
“Since Gov. Steven L. Beshear announced the plan on Wednesday, some constitutional experts have raised alarms over whether government backing for an enterprise that promotes religion violates the First Amendment’s requirement of separation of church and state. But Mr. Beshear, a Democrat, said the arrangement posed no constitutional problem, and brushed off questions about his stand on creationism.
‘The people of Kentucky didn’t elect me governor to debate religion,’ he said at a news conference. ‘They elected me governor to create jobs.’
The theme park was conceived by the same Christian ministry that built the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., where dioramas designed to debunk evolution show humans and dinosaurs coexisting peacefully on an earth created by God in six days. The ministry, Answers in Genesis, believes that the earth is only 6,000 years old — a controversial assertion even among many Bible-believing Christians.
Although the Creation Museum has been a target of ridicule by some, it has drawn 1.2 million visitors in its first three years — proving that there is a sizable paying audience for entertainment rooted in a literal interpretation of the Bible.”
In a new blog post, cultural critic Adam Curtis likens the contemporary West to the 1980s Soviet Union, an idea nearing the closing credits of entropy. An excerpt:
“There are of course vast differences between our present society and the Soviet Union of thirty years ago – for one thing they had practically no consumer goods whereas we are surrounded by them, and for another western capitalism was waiting in the wings to fill the vacuum. But there are also echoes of our present mood – a grand economic system that had once promised heaven on earth had become absurd and corrupted.
Everyone in Russia in the early 1980s knew that the managers and technocrats in charge of the economy were using that absurdity to loot the system and enrich themselves. The politicians were unable to do anything because they were in the thrall of the economic theory, and thus of the corrupt technocrats. And above all no-one in the political class could imagine any alternative future.
In the face of this most Soviet people turned away from politics and any form of engagement with society and lived day by day in a world that they knew was absurd, trapped by the lack of a vision of any other way.” (ThanksBrowser.)
Genius film comedian Buster Keaton had a sad life, from his vaudevillian parents tossing him around on stage like a rag doll when he was a tyke to the financial problems in his later years. His appearance on What’s My Line?, 1957.
Real house, no trick photography, no stunt man, no special effects:
“Playboy:In a speech given in 1947, on the eve of Indian independence, you said, ‘Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now comes the time when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.’ How substantial has the redemption of this pledge been? What is the spiritual and material condition of India today, after 16 years of independence?
Nehru: India today presents a very mixed picture of hope and anguish, of remarkable advances and at the same time of inertia, of a new spirit and also of the dead hand of privilege, of an over-all and growing unity and of many disruptive tendencies. There is a great vitality and a ferment in people’s minds and activities. Perhaps we who live in the middle of this ever-changing scene do not always realize the full significance of all that is happening. Often outsiders can make a better appraisal of the situation. It is remarkable that a country and a people rooted in the remote past, who have shown so much resistance to change, should now be marching forward rapidly. We are making history in India even though we might not be conscious of it.
Jawaharlal Nehru, lying in state, 1964.
Playboy:In that same 1947 speech you specifically called for ‘the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity’ in India. Are you still optimistic about the eventual elimination of these conditions?
Nehru: What tomorrow’s India will be like, I cannot say. I can only express my hopes and wishes. Naturally, I want India to advance on the material plane, to fulfill her plans, to raise the standard of living of her vast population. I want the narrow conflicts of today in the name of religion or caste, language or province, to cease, and a classless and casteless society to be built up where every individual has full opportunity to grow according to his worth and ability. In particular, I hope that the curse of caste will be ended, for with it there cannot be either democracy or socialism. Tomorrow’s India will be what we make it by today’s labors. I have no doubt but that India will progress industrially and otherwise; that she will advance in science and technology; that our people’s standards will rise; that education will spread; that health conditions will be better; and that art and culture will enrich people’s lives. We have started on this pilgrimage with strong purpose and good heart, and we shall reach the end of the journey, however long that might be. But what I am concerned with is not merely our material progress, but the quality and depth of our people. Gaining power through industrial processes, will they lose themselves in the quest of individual wealth and soft living? That would be a tragedy for it would be a negation of what India has stood for in the past and, I think, in the present time also as exemplified by Gandhi. Power is necessary, but wisdom is essential. It is only power with wisdom that is good.”
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A thumbnail of Nehru’s life, including his 1949 NYC ticker-tape parade:
From “The Secrets Apple Keeps,” Adam Lashinsky’s new Fortune article about the cultish internal nature of the tech giant:
“Apple employees know something big is afoot when the carpenters appear in their office building. New walls are quickly erected. Doors are added and new security protocols put into place. Windows that once were transparent are now frosted. Other rooms have no windows at all. They are called lockdown rooms: No information goes in or out without a reason.
The hubbub is disconcerting for employees. Quite likely you have no idea what is going on, and it’s not like you’re going to ask. If it hasn’t been disclosed to you, then it’s literally none of your business. What’s more, your badge, which got you into particular areas before the new construction, no longer works in those places. All you can surmise is that a new, highly secretive project is under way, and you are not in the know. End of story.
Secrecy takes two basic forms at Apple — external and internal. There is the obvious kind, the secrecy that Apple uses as a way of keeping its products and practices hidden from competitors and the rest of the outside world. This cloaking device is the easier of the two types for the rank and file to understand because many companies try to keep their innovations under wraps. Internal secrecy, as evidenced by those mysterious walls and off-limits areas, is tougher to stomach. Yet the link between secrecy and productivity is one way that Apple (AAPL) challenges long-held management truths and the notion of transparency as a corporate virtue.
All companies have secrets, of course. The difference is that at Apple everything is a secret.” (Thanks Browser.)
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A Rolling Thunder performance of “One Too Many Mornings,” Steve Jobs’ favorite Bob Dylan song. Not even close to Dylan’s best, but to each his own.
“One Too Many Mornings”
Down the street the dogs are barkin’ And the day is a-gettin’ dark As the night comes in a-fallin’ The dogs’ll lose their bark An’ the silent night will shatter From the sounds inside my mind For I’m one too many mornings And a thousand miles behind
From the crossroads of my doorstep My eyes they start to fade As I turn my head back to the room Where my love and I have laid An’ I gaze back to the street The sidewalk and the sign And I’m one too many mornings An’ a thousand miles behind
It’s a restless hungry feeling That don’t mean no one no good When ev’rything I’m a-sayin’ You can say it just as good. You’re right from your side I’m right from mine We’re both just one too many mornings An’ a thousand miles behind
"Sony...introduced its Betamax video tape recorder to the U.S. consumer market in early 1976." (Image by Franny Wentzel.)
For more than three decades, Hollywood has been fighting a losing battle with technology, trying to pause time in an era when there was less competition, when making boatloads of cash required little ingenuity. From the movie establishment’slandmark case in futility, in which it fought to make home video recorders illegal:
“Universal City Studios, Inc. et al. v. Sony Corporation of America Inc. et al., commonly known as the Betamax case, was the first concerted legal response of the American film industry to the home video revolution. After nearly a decade of announcements and false starts by one American company or another, Sony, the Japanese electronics manufacturing giant, introduced its Betamax video tape recorder to the U.S. consumer market in early 1976 at an affordable price. In its marketing strategy Sony promoted the machine’s ability to ‘time shift’ programming–that is, to record a television program off the air even while watching another show on a different channel.
The plaintiffs, Universal and Walt Disney Productions on behalf of the Hollywood majors, charged that the ability of the Betamax to copy programming off air was an infringement of copyright and sought to halt the sale of the machines. The studios were ostensibly trying to protect film and television producers from the economic consequences of unauthorized mass duplication and distribution. However, Universal might have also wanted to prevent Betamax from capturing a significant segment of the fledgling home video market before its parent company, MCA, could introduce its DiscoVision laserdisc system, which was to scheduled for test marketing in the fall of 1977.”
