Highlights From Yet Another Week Of Afflictor

May 10, 2014 in Misc. | Permalink

This week, the GOP made the motivation for the Benghazi hearings a little obvious when they called in an expert to testify.

This week, Republicans made their motivation for the Benghazi hearings a little too obvious when swearing in their expert witness.

  • Paul Krugman thinks GOP attacks on Obamacare are working. 
  • Slavoj Žižek believes the new world order has left us without boundaries.
  • Piketty thinks both progressive taxation and education are necessary.
  • Sun Ra is celebrating his centennial on Saturn.
  • Dr. Dre may be a trillionaire within 25 years.
  • Car culture might decline with the perfection of robocars.
  • Extreme gasoline efficiency and 3D printed makeup make progress.
  • Japan is unsteadily trying to find its place in the modern world.

“All Our Senses Are Being Controlled”

May 9, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports | Permalink

In a New York Times Magazine interview with Jessica Gross, high-wire artist Philippe Petit, the Marcel Marceau of mid-air, explains his dual feelings toward technology:

“Question:

You seem to have an ambivalent relationship with your computer. In the book, you call it your ‘necessary evil tool.’

Philippe Petit:

I hate all electronic things that are supposed to help the human being. You don’t smell, you don’t hear, you don’t touch anymore. All our senses are being controlled. At the same time, I am a total imbecile because to have a little iPhone that can take pictures, that can find the nearest hospital, that can tell you the weather in Jakarta — it’s probably fabulous. I’m supposed to be a man of balance, but my state of mind in those things is very unbalanced. I love or I hate.”

____________________________

“We observed a type of dancer because you couldn’t call him a walker”:

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“The Prevalence Of Texting And Tweeting Does Not Mean That People Magically Lose The Ability To Communicate In Every Other Conceivable Way”

May 9, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

In a Harvard Gazette interview conducted by Colleen Walsh, Steven Pinker mounts a defense of Twitter and other modern forms of expression that allow for limited characters. He sees it as a generational battle, though I don’t get the sense that most of those tweeting are particularly young. An excerpt:

“Question:

As an expert in language, what do you think of Twitter?

Steven Pinker: 

I was pressured into becoming a Twitterer when I wrote an op-ed for The New York Times saying that Google is not making us stupid, that electronic media are not ruining the language. And my literary agent said, “OK, you’ve gone on record saying that these are not bad things. You better start tweeting yourself.” And so I set up a Twitter feed, which turns out to suit me because it doesn’t require taking out hours of the day to write a blog. The majority of my tweets are links to interesting articles, which takes advantage of the breadth of articles that come my way — everything from controversies over correct grammar to trends in genocide. Having once been a young person myself, I remember the vilification that was hurled at us baby boomers by the older generation. This reminds me that it is a failing of human nature to detest anything that young people do just because older people are not used to it or have trouble learning it. So I am wary of the ‘young people suck’ school of social criticism. I have no patience for the idea that because texting and tweeting force one to be brief, we’re going to lose the ability to express ourselves in full sentences and paragraphs. This simply misunderstands the way that human language works. All of us command a variety of registers and speech styles, which we narrowcast to different forums. We speak differently to our loved ones than we do when we are lecturing, and still differently when we are approaching a stranger. And so, too, we have a style that is appropriate for texting and instant messaging that does not necessarily infect the way we communicate in other forums. In the heyday of telegraphy, when people paid by the word, they left out the prepositions and articles. It didn’t mean that the English language lost its prepositions and articles; it just meant that people used them in some media and not in others. And likewise, the prevalence of texting and tweeting does not mean that people magically lose the ability to communicate in every other conceivable way.” (Thanks Browser.)

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“Could We Find A Way To Improve Our Collective Intelligence?”

May 9, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

Alex Pentland got his start in Big Data, wearables and the quantified life while working with Canadian beavers four decades ago. From Maria Konnikova at the Verge:

“It all started with beavers. When Alex Pentland was three years into his undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan, in 1973, he worked part-time as a computer programmer for NASA’s Environmental Research Institute. One of his first tasks — part of a larger environmental-monitoring project — was to develop a method for counting Canadian beavers from outer space. There was just one problem: existing satellites were crude, and beavers are small. ‘What beavers do is they create ponds,’ he recalls of his eventual solution, ‘and you can count the number of beavers by the number of ponds. You’re watching the lifestyle, and you get an indirect measure.’

The beavers were soon accounted for, but Pentland’s fascination with the underlying methodology had taken root. Would it be possible, the 21-year-old wondered, to use the same approach to understand people and societies, or use sensors to unravel complex social behavior? And in so doing, could we find a way to improve our collective intelligence — to create, in a sense, a world that was more suited to human needs, where cities and businesses alike were developed using objective data to maximize our happiness and productivity?

Pentland would spend the next four decades exploring those very questions, finding ways to observe people and their patterns from a computer rather than outer space.”

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“None Of The Untreated Colonies Saw Their Bees Disappear”

May 9, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

There are likely numerous reasons for Colony Collapse Disorder, but new research seems to confirm that the most popular pesticides on the planet are likely a dramatic cause of bees being under siege. From Damian Carrington at the Guardian:

“The mysterious vanishing of honeybees from hives can be directly linked to insectcide use, according to new research from Harvard University. The scientists showed that exposure to two neonicotinoids, the world’s most widely used class of insecticide, lead to half the colonies studied dying, while none of the untreated colonies saw their bees disappear.

‘We demonstrated that neonicotinoids are highly likely to be responsible for triggering ‘colony collapse disorder’ in honeybee hives that were healthy prior to the arrival of winter,’ said Chensheng Lu, an expert on environmental exposure biology at Harvard School of Public Health and who led the work.

The loss of honeybees in many countries in the last decade has caused widespread concern because about three-quarters of the world’s food crops require pollination.”

_________________________

“If you’re after getting the honey  / Then you don’t go killing all the bees”:

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Old Print Article: “Moonshine Vaults Found Under Sidewalks,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1909)

May 8, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

“Nearly everybody had a kettle of ‘mash’ heating”

Moonshine in America began its long pour decades before Prohibition, stretching back to the postbellum age. Heavy levies on alcohol essentially funded the Civil War, and these taxes made cut-rate hooch an appealing option during Reconstruction. Though the South is probably most commonly associated with moonshine, NYC was home to a large concentration of the clandestine stills. An article in the October 26, 1908 Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported on a building project which accidentally unearthed a great piece of hidden history. An excerpt:

“In excavating for the foundations of the new factory building for the Thompson Meter Company, at Bridge, York and Talman Streets, several most curious walled-up vaults have just been uncovered under the sidewalks of Bridge and York Streets–cave-like places that instantly brought to the minds of a number of the old residents of what used to be the Fifth Ward of Brooklyn, the days of ‘moonshine’ whisky, shortly after the Civil War. Those were great days in the old Fifth Ward, when nearly everybody had a kettle of ‘mash’ heating, and these old vaults, with evidences of secrecy, now that they have seen daylight let into them, have the romantic appearance of being hiding places for unlawfully made liquor.

The Hennebique Construction Company, of 1170 Broadway, Manhattan, is to erect on the plot a big five story structure of reinforced concrete. In order to get the proper room, ten old shacks–one and two story frame buildings of wood–and the ground they stood on, were bought and torn down, under the direction of Israel Pomeranz, a well known excavator. There isn’t a resident of the neighborhood, and there are some whose memory of the ward gone back sixty years, still living there, who can remember the shacks as other than old when they first remember them. When they were built no cellars were put under the buildings and, according to one old resident, the vaults under the sidewalks, with a passageway from an areaway, were built originally to keep provisions in. In post-bellum days they probably made fine hiding places for ‘moonshine.’

A photograph taken by an Eagle photographer the day the vaults were uncovered shows that these caves were of no flimsy construction. Built of both broken boulders and brick and laid in cement of the best quality, the excavators had pretty difficult work to break through the walls. There were six vaults on Bridge Street and two on York, but the two houses torn down on Talman Street had no vaults under the sidewalks. In front on the houses with vaults there were small sunken areas to which two steps generally led. Years ago there were openings from these areas into the the vaults, but of late years the presence of the hollow places were not suspected, it is said, by the occupants of the houses. In one of the vaults photographed there was an old time cask, covered with dust and with one head broken in, of the style of cooperage of years ago, and curious spectators who peered into the recess were at once reminded of the days that led up to the calling out of the militia in the early ’70s, when ‘moonshine’ making reached its most notorious days.

Talk to any of the old residents of the ward–such men as ‘Tom’ Donnelly, the undertaker, of 74 Hudson Avenue, or James Dougherty of 289 Front Street, and they will talk interestingly of those early days, when that part of the present borough was about all there was to Brooklyn. An Eagle reporter saw both recently and they talked of the time when lower Fulton Street bordered fields and when lower Gold Street was about the only really big thoroughfare thereabouts; of old Prospect House, which was on the site now occupied by part of the Y.M.C.A., with its ‘robber band’ that was talked about by every boy in the neighborhood.

This was long before the war, however, and the making of illicit whisky didn’t start, at least as a general activity thereabouts, until after the duty had been put at $2 a gallon on the imported stuff. When certain men did begin making it, though, others soon took it up and the Federal Government had hard wok in preventing it. Some men, mighty well known in later years in politics and for respectability, since dead, got the nucleus of their fortunes, out of ‘moonshine.’ A fair sized still could ‘run’ a barrel an hour of whisky made out of molasses, and twenty-four barrels a day were frequently made and disposed of to certain men over in West Street, Manhattan. The ‘moonshine’ makers could make a good profit if they got a good deal less than a dollar a gallon.”

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“Already A Computer Can Be Programmed To Grade And Cut Patterns”

May 8, 2014 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Putting up the post about 3D cosmetics reminded me of this trippy 1960s fashion video that predicted a computerized future for attire. Designer Rudi Gernreich, creator of the topless monokini, believed that “clothes of the future will involve unisex. They will be interchangeable. Men are going to wear skirts and woman are gonna wear pants.” Not quite right in every detail but correct in a larger sense. 

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“You Need Education But You Also Need Progressive Taxation”

May 8, 2014 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From Josh Eidelson’s new Salon interview with economist Thomas Piketty, an exchange about leveling wealth inequality with taxes and/or education:

“Question:

David Leonhardt, in his New York Times Magazine essay on your book, writes that rather than a wealth tax, there’s ‘another, more politically plausible force that can disrupt [Piketty’s] first law of inequality: education. When a society becomes more educated, many of its less-wealthy citizens quickly acquire an ephemeral but nonetheless crucial form of capital — knowledge — that can bring enormous returns.’ Do you share that view?

Thomas Piketty:

I do share partly that view. As I say in the book, education and the diffusion of knowledge are the primary forces towards reduction in inequality…

The question is, is that going to be sufficient?

…You need education but you also need progressive taxation.

It’s not an all-or-nothing solution. I think a lot can be done at the national level. We do already have progressive taxation of income, progressive taxation of inherited wealth, at the national level. We also have annual taxation of wealth at the national level. For instance, in the U.S. you have a pretty big property tax… Technically, it is perfectly possible to transform it into a progressive tax on net wealth…

The main difficulty is not so much to make it a global tax. The main difficulty is not international tax competition. The main difficulty is more internal political [obstacles]… Right now the property tax is a local tax, and so the federal government cannot do anything. You know, it was the same with the income tax one century ago.

So I don’t share the pessimistic view that a progressive wealth tax will never happen.”

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“The Plight Of Future Citizens Who Might Suffer Or Gain From Our Present Political Decisions Cannot Be Properly Weighed”

May 8, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

In an Aeon essay, Thomas Wells wonders how we can consider yet-born generations in political decisions that will impact them, suggesting “futuristic voting blocs” may be the answer. An excerpt:

While we might feel a sense of solidarity with past and future generations alike, time’s arrow means that we must relate to each other as members of a relay race team. This means that citizens downstream from us in time are doubly disadvantaged compared with the upstream generations. Our predecessors have imposed – unilaterally – the consequences of their political negotiations upon us: their economic regime, immigration policies, the national borders that they drew up. But they were also able to explain themselves to us, giving us not only the bare outcome of the US Constitution, for example, but also the records of the debates about the principles behind it, such as the Federalist Papers (1787-88). Such commentaries are a substantial source of our respect for our ancestors’ achievements, beyond their status as a fait accompli.

By contrast, future generations must accept whatever we choose to bequeath them, and they have no way of informing us of their values. In this, they are even more helpless than foreigners, on whom our political decisions about pollution, trade, war and so on are similarly imposed without consent. Disenfranchised as they are, such foreigners can at least petition their own governments to tell ours off, or engage with us directly by writing articles in our newspapers about the justice of their cause. The citizens of the future lack even this recourse.

The asymmetry between past and future is more than unfair. Our ancestors are beyond harm; they cannot know if we disappoint them. Yet the political decisions we make today will do more than just determine the burdens of citizenship for our grandchildren. They also concern existential dangers such as the likelihood of pandemics and environmental collapse. Without a presence in our political system, the plight of future citizens who might suffer or gain from our present political decisions cannot be properly weighed. We need to give them a voice.

How could we do that?•

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“Households Viewed On Average Somewhere Between 17 And 18 Channels”

May 8, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

So many Americans consume content seemingly non-stop, and that can’t be healthy. But even though there are seemingly endless channels in this decentralized, long-tail world, most of them–at least the TV ones–go largely unwatched. From Brian R. Fitzgerald at WSJ:

“The data, provided by Nielsen and charted by Statista, show that people have more channels at their disposal today than ever. In 2013, there were an average 189 channels available to U.S. households, up from 179 the year before.

Still, the households viewed on average somewhere between 17 and 18 channels — and that was down slightly from the year before. In fact, the number of channels viewed plateaued at about 17 in 2008.

The Nielsen data is grist for opponents of cable-channel ‘bundling,’ who argue people end up paying for channels they don’t want. And it spotlights the challenges that advertisers face in an increasingly fragmented media world.”

Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

May 8, 2014 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

""I am looking to get into worm breeding.""

“I am looking to get into worm breeding.”

Rabbit Manure (anywhere USA)

Looking for Organic Rabbit Manure, clean (urine, hay, straw…etc.) preferred. Will consider some debris if manure is aged and dried. Accepting donations or willing to negotiate for purchase. I’m willing to pick up if local or, not too far from Bronx, N.Y. area otherwise, seller should be willing to make arrangements to ship at my expense. Must be willing to accept U.S. Postal Service Money Order, if not, COD or Cash. Only looking for reasonable/reputable offers. I am looking to get into worm breeding and hear this stuff is beneficial to their life cycle. I also have 2 raised vegetable garden beds which will benefit from the manure as well. Any reasonable offers within the U.S. will be considered. Thanks.


“I Was The First Man To Put A Miniskirt On A Cartoon Character”

May 8, 2014 in Politics, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

One wonders what conservative satirist Al Capp, enemy of hippies and scourge of campuses in the Vietnam Era, would have made of Rush Limbaugh, his far-less-witty creative descendant. I guess he would have generally approved. But what about the Tea Party? Would his allergy to collective extremism have driven him batty? Li’l Abner, after all, was a send-up of small-town white provincials with questionable intelligence. No, he probably would have rationalized it all in the name of party affiliation.

Capp was a genuinely talented writer who was very effective at mocking the micro excesses of the radical Left without seeming too bothered by the macro issues that was driving it from the center: a needless war, racism, sexism, etc. One day in 1970, when he wasn’t busy being rude at a bed-in or mocking a self-styled messiah, he made his way to the UCLA campus to raise a ruckus, which he loved doing. Audio only embedded below.

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“A Fair Was Held In Moscow”

May 8, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

D.A. Pennebaker, Shirley Clarke and Albert Maysles captured the Khrushchev-era exhibition of American consumer goods that was held in Moscow in 1959, the Iron Curtain briefly lifted. On display was the handiwork of Charles Eames, Buckminster Fuller and many others. The Kitchen Debates between Nixon and his Soviet counterpart took place during this event.

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“Once The Robots Take The Wheel Everywhere, Many Of Us Will Lose Interest In Driving Altogether”

May 7, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Would the perfection of autonomous vehicles mean the end of car culture? Some think so, but Deep Blue hasn’t yet brought about the demise of human chess tournaments, so perhaps kings of the road won’t lose interest when they realize they’ve become pawns. A meditation on this topic from “Five Perplexing Questions About Computers in 2039” from Aviva Retkin at the BBC:

“Andreas Riener at the Institute for Pervasive Computing in Linz, Austria, has written an abstract that starts with a bold view of the future: ‘The first self-driving car cruised on our roads in 2019. Now, 20 years after, it is time to review how this innovation has changed our mobility behaviour.’

This vision is rooted in a real trend. Self-driving cars have been making headlines for several years now. They are legal to drive in the state of Nevada, and Google’s driverless car has already racked up hundreds of thousands of practice miles.

Reiner’s contribution is to explore how this will change us. He predicts that once the robots take the wheel everywhere, many of us will lose interest in driving altogether. Fewer of us will own our own cars. Those who do won’t waste as much time pimping them out or driving around just for fun. People who still love cars might have to seek their thrills in special ‘recreation parks,’ where they can drive manually in an artificial environment. ‘If the vehicles of the future are only a means to get from A to B, this car culture would get lost,’ he says.”

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A Brief Note From 1934 About A Hungry Dog

May 7, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the May 2, 1834 Brooklyn Daily Eagle: Oklahoma City–While the dog brought back from death at Berkeley, Cal., ate a meal of milk-soaked dog biscuits, Dr. Charles Mayo, noted Rochester, Minn., surgeon, said he believed revivification of humans never would be possible.

‘We know lot about reviving life in the lower brain cells, those that govern organs in animals,’ Dr. Mayo said in an interview. ‘We know that they can be dead and revived under certain conditions, but the cerebrum, or that part which gives humans a mental side, has something in its composition that defies revival after a few minutes.

‘It is my belief that science will never find a way to revive a dead mind.’

At Berkeley, Dr. Robert E. Cornish, research biologist, said that the revived dog appeared able to see the food it ate, indicating the animal’s sight was growing stronger.”

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“The Taut Harris Applauded Until Her Body Shook”

May 7, 2014 in Excerpts, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

In 1981, William F. Buckley and Diana Trilling investigated the ramifications of the murder of Dr. Henry Tarnower by his longtime companion, Jean Harris, a slaying which awakened all sorts of emotions about the dynamics between men and women. It also said a la great deal about our justice system.

From “Jean Harris: Murder with Intent to Love,” the 1981 Time article by Walter Isaacson and James Wilde: “Prosecutor George Bolen, 34, was cold and indignant in his summation, insisting that jealousy over Tarnower‘s affair with his lab assistant, Lynne Tryforos, 38, was the motivating factor for murder. Argued Bolen: ‘There was dual intent, to take her own life, but also an intent to do something else . . . to punish Herman Tarnower . . . to kill him and keep him from LynneTryforos.’ Bolen ridiculed the notion that Harris fired her .32-cal. revolver by accident. He urged the jury to examine the gun while deliberating. Said he: ‘Try pulling the trigger. It has 14 pounds of pull. Just see how difficult it would be to pull, double action, four times by accident.’ Bolen, who was thought by his superiors to be too gentle when he cross-examined Harris earlier in the trial, showed little mercy as he painted a vivid picture of what he claims happened that night. He dramatically raised his hand in the defensive stance he says Tarnowerused when Harris pointed the gun at him. When the judge sustained an objection by Aurnou that Bolen‘s version went beyond the evidence presented, the taut Harris applauded until her body shook.”

 

“There Is A Lingering Sense Of Confusion About Why This Book In Particular Has Grabbed The Public’s Attention”

May 7, 2014 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

More on insta-famous economist Thomas Piketty, this time from Maxine Montaigne at the Conversation, who attempts to not argue the points of Capital in the Twenty-First Century but to explain the sensation. An excerpt:

“While almost everyone seems to agree that Piketty’s work is a valuable and timely contribution to the debate on inequality, there is a lingering sense of confusion about why this book in particular has grabbed the public’s attention. In order to understand this phenomenon, it might be helpful to look back a few hundred years, at the most famous dismal scientist of them all, T. R. Malthus.

Malthus was, and is still, famous for his slightly depressing comments on humanity’s inability to provide for a growing population. What is particularly interesting though is that despite these ideas not being hugely original or even very surprising, Malthus became something of a household name in the 19th century, at least more so than any other economist at that time.

One reason for Malthus’ unusual fame was simply good timing. At the beginning of the 19th century the British public were increasingly concerned with the overcrowding of Britain’s cities, and combined with decades of low agricultural wages and a damaging war with France it’s no surprise that Malthus’ pessimism struck a chord.

It’s easy to see the parallel with Thomas Piketty today, who many see as finally providing proof of capitalism’s inherent flaws as argued vocally by the Occupy movement. And once again the timing is everything; Piketty and his colleagues have been working on the World Top Incomes Database since well before the financial crisis and subsequent recessions, but his book now seems perfectly timed in response to growing public disenchantment with the theory of ‘trickle down’ economics.”

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“The Leg-up Helped”

May 7, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Turning something modest into something more is admirable, but what if you lack even those small advantages at the outset? That can mean a world of difference. In many cases–most?– poor people are poor because they simply don’t have money, not because of some fault within themselves. From an Economist piece about a Stony Brook professor who made micro investments of different kinds:

“Dr van de Rijt designed a series of experiments intended to look at whether giving people an arbitrary advantage over their fellows at the beginning of an endeavour led to a significantly better outcome for those people. His first experiment tested the value of a donation to a project on Kickstarter, a crowdfunding website. His second boosted the reputations of reviewers on epinions.com, a product-recommendation site. His third enhanced the status of a test group of Wikipedia editors. And his fourth added signatures to petitions posted on change.org, a site at which political campaigners can lay out their wares.

In the case of Kickstarter, Dr van de Rijt picked 200 new and unfunded projects and gave half of them, chosen at random, either 1% or 10% of their stated target. Epinion editors are paid for their work according to how their contributions are rated by users, so Dr van de Rijt picked 305 new, unrated reviews and gave 155 of them, again chosen at random, a ‘very helpful’ rating—the highest of four possible categories. The most productive Wikipedia editors sometimes win status awards from the groups of users they serve. Dr van de Rijt conferred such awards on 208 out of 521 of the top 1% of these editors. And he added a dozen signatures to 100 out of 200 ‘virgin’ petitions on change.org.

In all four tests, the leg-up helped. In the case of Kickstarter, it helped a lot.“

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“Other Countries Have Shown Growing Interest In Making Unmanned Robot Technology As Deadly As Possible”

May 7, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

Drones don’t only depart by arrive also, something America hasn’t yet had to reckon with. But it’s only a matter of time until we have to wonder whether what’s being delivered is a book or a burrito or a bomb. From Patrick Tucker at Defense One:

“Virtually every country on Earth will be able to build or acquire drones capable of firing missiles within the next ten years. Armed aerial drones will be used for targeted killings, terrorism and the government suppression of civil unrest. What’s worse, say experts, it’s too late for the United States to do anything about it.

After the past decade’s explosive growth, it may seem that the U.S. is the only country with missile-carrying drones. In fact, the U.S. is losing interest in further developing armed drone technology. The military plans to spend $2.4 billion on unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, in 2015. That’s down considerably from the $5.7 billion that the military requested in the 2013 budget. Other countries, conversely, have shown growing interest in making unmanned robot technology as deadly as possible.”

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“The World’s First Trillionaire Could Emerge Within Just 25 Years”

May 7, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Perhaps relatively soon emerging markets and inflation will deliver to us the world’s first trillionaire, and I bet it won’t be someone who binge watches television. From Miranda Prynne at the Telegraph:

“The world’s first trillionaire could emerge within just 25 years, financial forecasters have claimed.

Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder and richest person on Earth, is expected by many to be the first to reach trillionaire status.

If the world’s greatest fortunes continue to grow at their current rate, boosted by the rapid wealth creation in emerging markets such as India and China then Gates or one of the planet’s super-rich elite could have a trillion dollars to their name by 2039, according to some predictions.”

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Old Print Article: “To Be Greeted By Robot,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1930)

May 6, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

If you think of 1930, you might assume talking robots and motion sensors were more in the realm of science fiction at that point. At an electronics show at Madison Square Garden, however, primitive versions of both were an attraction, as reported in the September 21, 1930 Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

roboto1

robot2

Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

May 6, 2014 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

Can anyone recommend me a shady dentist?

I need a root canal but I’m poor. I’m on Medicaid and they won’t cover molars. This is killing me.

“Sun Ra Learned It Was Possible For The Chaos Of Human Knowledge To Be Ordered”

May 6, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

The wonderful 3 Quarks Daily pointed me to a Smart Set essay by Stefany Anne Golberg about the inimitable Sun Ra, who’s celebrating his centennial on Saturn. An excerpt:

“Sun Ra believed that the whole of humanity was in need of waking up. He wanted to slough off old ideas and habits, brush off sleepy clothing and shake off drowsy food. Because present time mattered little to Sun Ra, they say he rarely slept. Even as a child, he would spend all his time playing the piano or composing. ‘I loved music beyond the state of liking it,’ he once said. Sun Ra was just as obsessed with books — you couldn’t see the walls of his room for the books. Books contained words and the words held a secret code that, if unraveled, revealed truths about human existence. He read the ancient texts of Egyptians, Africans, Greeks, the works of Madame Helena P. Blavatsky (with whom he once shared the initials H.P.B), Rudolph Steiner, P.D. Ouspensky, James Joyce, C.F. Volney, Booker T. Washington. He read about the lost history of the American Negro and studied the origins of language. Sun Ra knew Biblical scripture better than any preacher, read Kabbalah concepts and Rosicrucian manifestos. Through these texts Sun Ra learned it was possible for the chaos of human knowledge to be ordered. Theosophy, relativity, mathematics, physics, history, music, magic, science fiction, Egyptology, technology — all were keys to a unified existence. Ideas and music carried a reclusive black boy from Birmingham and transported him into outer space. But the most important idea Sun Ra learned from all his reading, from all the knowledge he acquired, is how puny knowledge is in the face of the unknown. We need the unknown, Sun Ra said, in order to survive.”

________________________

In 1971, the Arkestra leader visited Egypt and Sardinia.

In 1974, space was the place:

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“Our Times Are Potentially More Dangerous Than They May Appear”

May 6, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

In a Guardian article, that holy fool Slavoj Žižek argues that it’s the unwritten rules that make for a safe planet, and the new world order of the 21st century has torn that fabric, leaving a global village that’s disconnected on a social level. Hence, Russia invades Ukraine as the world tries to formulate a reaction to a former superpower trying to clumsily relive its past glory. An excerpt:

“The ‘American century’ is over, and we have entered a period in which multiple centres of global capitalism have been forming. In the US, Europe, China and maybe Latin America, too, capitalist systems have developed with specific twists: the US stands for neoliberal capitalism, Europe for what remains of the welfare state, China for authoritarian capitalism, Latin America for populist capitalism. After the attempt by the US to impose itself as the sole superpower – the universal policeman – failed, there is now the need to establish the rules of interaction between these local centres as regards their conflicting interests.

This is why our times are potentially more dangerous than they may appear. During the cold war, the rules of international behaviour were clear, guaranteed by the Mad-ness – mutually assured destruction – of the superpowers. When the Soviet Union violated these unwritten rules by invading Afghanistan, it paid dearly for this infringement. The war in Afghanistan was the beginning of its end. Today, the old and new superpowers are testing each other, trying to impose their own version of global rules, experimenting with them through proxies – which are, of course, other, small nations and states.”

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“Our Hostesses Wear Reversible Coats Of Almond Green And Apricot, Space Helmets To Keep Out The Rain, Red Spacesuits”

May 6, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

In 1965, Braniff Airlines unveiled Emilio Pucci-designed NASA-ish unis for flight attendants.

An excerpt from Pucci’s 1992 New York Times obituary: “Mr. Pucci, who was the Marchese di Barsento, was born in Naples, into an aristocratic Italian family. He lived and worked in the Pucci Palace in Florence.

An enthusiastic sportsman who was on the Italian Olympic ski team in 1932, he also raced cars and excelled in swimming, tennis and fencing. His emergence as a fashion designer happened somewhat accidentally.

He was an Italian bomber pilot in World War II and he continued in the air force after the war, holding the rank of captain. On leave in Switzerland in 1947, he was spotted on the ski slopes by Toni Frissel, a photographer, who was impressed by the snugness of his ski garb, which was custom made of stretch fabrics.

When photographs of Mr. Pucci in his skisuit appeared in Harper’s Bazaar, he was besieged by American manufacturers who wanted to produce it. He decided instead to market the ski clothes himself. They were among the first styles made of stretch fabrics, and Lord & Taylor was among the first to promote them.

By 1950, Mr. Pucci was at the forefront of the fledgling Italian fashion industry. His forte in the beginning was sports clothes, but he soon moved into other fashions, including brilliantly patterned silk scarves. Encouraged by Stanley Marcus, one of the owners of Neiman-Marcus, he began making blouses and then dresses of the patterned material.”

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