“This Would Provide Them With A Unique Selling Proposition In A Crowded Market”

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

After becoming an insta-celebrity for revealing a great rack in Robin Thicke’s unavoidable “Blurred Lines” video, model Emily Ratajkowski was asked what she’d like to do with her newfound fame. She didn’t hope to parlay it into a career as a pop star or leading lady. She declared, “I want to be a brand.” That’s a thing that not only companies, but people, aspire to now, hoping to sell themselves as much as a product. It’s not just the car you purchase, but also the driver in the commercial, in a sense. An excerpt from a new Economist piece about a recently deceased leader in the birthing of this unnatural phenomenon:

“Wally Olins started his career as an officer in one of these companies: as a history graduate of Oxford University he could, in those days, hardly be a private. He spent five years running Ogilvy & Mather’s office in Mumbai (and kept close ties with India for the rest of his life). But when he returned to England in the early 1960s he was disillusioned with his profession’s prevailing ideas. He decided to form a new company with a young designer called Michael Wolff. And he turned Wolff Olins into the command centre of a brand revolution.

He told his clients they needed to think more seriously about the collective identity of their organisation: if nurtured, this would provide them with a unique selling proposition in a crowded market, and an emotional connection to their customers. This changed both the focus of advertising and the relationship between the admen and their clients. Brand-building, Mr Olins saw, is not just an add-on which the company can buy when it wants to launch a new product. It is an integral part of its long-term strategy that guides the sort of products it rolls out.

Mr Olins spent the rest of his life broadening and deepening this insight.”

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“Bitcoin Is A Mad, Technoutopian Fever Dream That Will End In Tears, If It Hasn’t Already”

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

Do those working on Wall Street really have to break the law to do things they shouldn’t, things that can hurt us all? It seems like money influencing elected (and non-elected) officials can make malfeasance beyond prosecution–legal, even. And because rules governing such behaviors are so complicated, if you’re not working in that industry or reporting on it, you really don’t have the time to understand the fine print. That allows enough wiggle room to bring down an economy. Jesse Eisinger, Pulitzer Prize-winning financial reporter, tried to break down big finance during an Ask Me Anything at Reddit. A few exchanges follow.

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Question:

Is the criminal behavior limited to theft/fraud, or are there specific types of financial transactions corporations engage in that are/should be outlawed?

Jesse Eisinger:

Fraud writ large yes. There were many misrepresentations to the public that I think were worth deeper, more aggressive investigation. I write about the Lehman Brothers executives’ representations of their liquidity in the weeks and months leading up to their collapse, which was clearly factually and materially inaccurate. Did they know it at the time? I don’t believe the DoJ adequately investigated that question. And Lehman isn’t alone.

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Question:

What do you foresee as the next bubble/crisis? What can be done now to stop it?

Jesse Eisinger:

Always dangerous to predict the next bubble. But we have febrile debt markets now, with junk bonds yielding too little for the risks. We are starting to see M&A overheat. Tech and biotech stocks sported absurd valuations, esp earlier this year. Greek sovereign debt seems to have recovered way too much. We have bubbly pockets almost everywhere in the capital markets. I would worry about China and the European banks as the nexus of the next crisis.

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Question:

What would you consider the biggest mistake of your career?

Jesse Eisinger:

I have made so many mistakes, I’ve given speeches about them. Fortunately, I’ve never made the kind of huge factual error that meant the story required retraction. Thank God.

One of my best stories was also one of my biggest mistakes. In Oct 2007, I wrote for Conde Nast Portfolio that the Wall Street investment banks were going to fail. I wrote that it would be Bear Stearns first, then Lehman Bros, and maybe even Merrill, Morgan Stanley and even Goldman. Pretty good, right? But I didn’t follow up on it, probe deeper, write more. So I kind of blew the opportunity of a lifetime to really own the story of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. Oh well.

___________________________

Question:

What are your thoughts on Bitcoin and its potential to eliminate the socialization of risk by the taxpayer that corporations have taken advantage of?

Jesse Eisinger:

Bitcoin is a mad, technoutopian fever dream that will end in tears, if it hasn’t already.•

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

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

"I also need to know how to do computer forensics to find out who is messing with my computer."

“I also need to know how to do computer forensics to find out who is messing with my computer.”

Personal Investigator/Detective (New York)

I am in great need of Personal Investigator/Detective services. I am willing to barter. I can type 75 wpm and have an administrative background. Have a BA degree. Can do secretarial type stuff for you, errands, walk/feed dogs, cats, watch children, anything you want but I need to get to the bottom of a big problem I have. I also need to know how to do computer forensics to find out who is messing with my computer. You can even tell me what I need to do instead of you taking your time if you want.

Im hoping you will please help me. Email back asap so we can meet up and discuss barter.

“People Either Got That Joke Or They Didn’t”

May 1, 2014 in Excerpts | Permalink

Speaking of the original Saturday Night Live, I’ve always been fascinated by the dark powers of the late, great Michael O’Donoghue, television’s Torquemada, who was the show’s first head writer. On the Playboy site, Paul Slansky recalls his 1983 article about Mr. Mike, published when the comic decided to deliver himself into the warm embrace of Hollywood, when the man consumed by mass murderers wished go mainstream, something which could never, ever have worked. An excerpt:

“O’Donoghue, as any serious comedy fan knows, was present at the creation of the two dominant comic institutions of the Seventies: the National Lampoon and Saturday Night Live. As a performer on the latter, he clawed his way into the national psyche with his ‘impressions’ of how Mike Douglas, Tony Orlando, Elvis Presley and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir might react if 18-inch-long steel needles were suddenly plunged into their eyes. As it happened, they all reacted pretty much the same way—by flailing violently about the stage, clutching at their eyes and emitting bloodcurdling shrieks of pain.

O’Donoghue quickly became known as the sicko of Seventies comedy, the only man who set out to disturb his audience on such a primal level—needles in eyes, for God’s sake!—and then dared them to laugh anyway. ‘People either got that joke or they didn’t,’ he has said. ‘There wasn’t anybody who said, ‘Well, I sort of liked it.”

Then came the creepy Mr. Mike and his ‘Least Loved Bedtime Stories.’ Describing the grisly demise of a soft, furry animal, lingering fondly over a particularly gruesome detail, Mr. Mike was obviously no stranger to madness. Again, the challenge to the audience: Is this too scary for you? How about a photo album called The Vietnamese Baby Book? Wanna hear a song called Cancer for Christmas?

‘People often attack me for my black humor,’ O’Donoghue told an interviewer a few years ago. ‘Now, if I were immortal, then it would be unethical for me to make fun of these pathetic human beings who have coronaries and pitch forward and piss blood on the rug. But, as it happens, I’m one of them, and it’s gonna happen to me also, so I feel I have a perfect right to rant about whatever I want.’

Now, after years of trying to get his emotional life into some semblance of order, O’Donoghue is ready to play the game. He wants to hear his rants echoing throughout the pop culture, to become widely known as the genius his friends and fans have long believed him to be. He also wants to make a lot of money. With his remaining hair cut severely short, his eyes inaccessible behind ice-blue reflecting glasses and his skeletal six-foot frame somehow conveying both extreme fragility and enormous strength, O’Donoghue will cut a striking figure in the Hollywood community.

He is already making his presence felt. Single Women, his mordant country song about the pickup-bar scene, was a big hit for Dolly Parton and is soon to be a made-for-TV movie. He is creating a Twilight Zone clone called Factory of Fear for cable television. And he is co-writing and directing a sequel to a movie most people thought was unsequelable, Easy Rider, in which he intends to bring Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda back from the dead for one last bike ride through an America in ruins.”

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“This Man’s Been Run Over By A Steamroller”

May 1, 2014 in Excerpts, Videos | Permalink

Sad to hear the passing of Al Feldstein, who edited Mad magazine for William M. Gaines during its glory years. He launched a million gags at parents, teachers, advertisers, politicians, capitalists and militarists. Below is a 1974 unaired pilot of a Mad TV spin-off that was deemed too crude to broadcast though it was far from vulgar.

Shows you how groundbreaking SNL was the following year. No more suggesting irreverence on TV. Nor more winking or nodding like Laugh-In. No more innuendos or “betting your sweet bippy.” The real deal in your living room at last.

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“Taking Utter Delight In Others’ Physical Misfortune Was Finally Frowned Upon”

April 30, 2014 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

The freak show, that alluringly lurid exhibition and moral abomination, with its bearded ladies, conjoined twins and hunger artists, seemed to die a slow and necessary death in the 20th century. But did it, really? While disabilities rights closed the sideshow tent (except for a few remnants like Howard Stern’s radio show), reality TV has allowed for the commodification of the emotionally troubled and hopelessly addicted, their afflictions on the inside but just as real, their drama sold to titillate, distract and make observers feel superior. It’s the dime museum in the age of the bitcoin. From Zachary Crockett’s Priceonomics piece “The Rise and Fall of Circus Freakshows“:

“By the 1890s, freakshows began to wane in popularity; by 1950, they had nearly vanished.

For one, curiosity and mystery were quelled by advances in medicine: so-called ‘freaks’ were now diagnosed with real, scientifically-explained diagnoses. The shows lost their luster as physical and medical conditions were no longer touted as miraculous and the fanciful stories told by showmen were increasingly discredited by hard science. As spectators became more aware of the grave nature of the performers’ conditions, wonder was replaced by pity.

Movies and television, both of which rose to prominence in the early 20th century, offered other forms of entertainment and quenched society’s demand for oddities. People could see wild and astonishing things from the comfort of a theatre or home (by the 1920s), and were less inclined to spend money on live shows. Media also made realities more accessible, further discrediting the stories showmen told: for instance, in a film, audience members could see that the people of Borneo weren’t actually as savage as advertised by P.T. Barnum.

But the true death chime of the freakshow was the rise of disability rights. Simply put, taking utter delight in others’ physical misfortune was finally frowned upon.”

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“This Was A Prophet–A False Prophet”

April 30, 2014 in Books, Film, Videos | Permalink

How much did Orson Welles need a paycheck in 1979? Very much, apparently. That’s when he provided on-screen narration for the film version of evangelist Hal Lindsey’s cockamamie bestseller, The Late, Great Planet Earth, which prophesied the genius director’s continued ability to afford cognac, cigars and costly tickets to bullfights. Fucking unionized matadors! Well, it’s still fun in its own hokey way.

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A Brief Note From 1910 About A Stubborn Mule

April 30, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the November 5, 1910 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Dresden, Tenn.–Despondent because he had been forced to surrender his 18 year old bride, Thomas Gaskins, 75 years of age, a wealthy planter, stabbed himself with a pocket knife at his home, near here, yesterday, inflicting wounds which probably will terminate fatally.

Following the death of his wife, three weeks ago, Gaskins, despite parental objection, procured the consent of Lizzie McDaniels to marry him. Thursday he rode to the McDaniels home astride a mule, held the family at bay with a revolver, and rode away with the young woman seated behind him.

They rode four miles to Paris, where they were married yesterday morning. In the meantime the sheriff, at the request o the girl’s father, went in pursuit of the elopers. When he overtook them Gaskins submitted to arrest, his wife climbed into the buggy with the sheriff, and the three continued to Dresden, Gaskins riding ahead on his mule. On the way Gaskins escaped, and when found at his home several hours later, was in a dying condition as the result of self-inflicted knife wounds.”

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“A Repeat Of the Keynesian Era Is Unlikely”

April 30, 2014 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

Have not yet read Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, so I have to reserve judgement, though I’m always skeptical about anyone who believes they’ve cracked the code of economics, which, like nature, seems almost beyond understanding–just too many variables and black swans. But I’m still looking forward to it. Here’s an excerpt from Paul Mason at the Guardian explaining why the economist believes the relative equality of the postwar period is unlikely to recur:

“For Piketty, the long, mid-20th century period of rising equality was a blip, produced by the exigencies of war, the power of organised labour, the need for high taxation, and by demographics and technical innovation.

Put crudely, if growth is high and the returns on capital can be suppressed, you can have a more equal capitalism. But, says Piketty, a repeat of the Keynesian era is unlikely: labour is too weak, technological innovation too slow, the global power of capital too great. In addition, the legitimacy of this unequal system is high: because it has found ways to spread the wealth down to the managerial class in a way the early 19th century did not.

If he is right, the implications for capitalism are utterly negative: we face a low-growth capitalism, combined with high levels of inequality and low levels of social mobility. If you are not born into wealth to start with, life, for even for the best educated, will be like Jane Eyre without Mr Rochester.”

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“Do You Want To Know Something Completely Archaic And Silly?”

April 30, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports | Permalink

Baseball’s All-Star Game voting uses the latest technology: Paper ballots are carried by Pony Express to the General Store where they’re calculated on an abacus. Commissioner Selig then reads the results which are recorded onto a wax cylinder and played from a talking machine over the wireless. It’s a big improvement from when Charles Lindbergh used to barnstorm American cities in his aeroplane and drop leaflets with the tabulations over ballyards. From Phil Mackey at ESPN:

“But do you want to know something completely archaic and silly?

Chris Colabello — one of baseball’s best run producers through the first 30 days this season — isn’t even on Major League Baseball’s All-Star ballot.

Go ahead and take a look for yourself.

Josh Willingham, despite having played only a handful of games due to injury, is on it. So is Pedro Florimon, whose slugging percentage (.173) is lower than his weight (180).

The Colabello omission is more of a knock on MLB’s often archaic thinking than it is on the Twins.

Here’s how the process works: During the early part of spring training, each MLB front office submits projected starters at each position. Twins assistant GM Rob Antony, who was in charge of this process for the Twins, listed Joe Mauer as the first baseman, Oswaldo Arcia, Aaron Hicks and Willingham as the outfielders, and Jason Kubel as the DH. This is what they projected at the time, and if not for injuries to Arcia and Willingham, it’s possible Colabello wouldn’t have nearly as many at-bats.

OK, that’s fine. But why can’t MLB adjust the ballot on the fly? Presumably because they already printed out millions of hanging-chad paper ballots to be distributed throughout ballparks in an era where two out of every three adults owns a smartphone in this country.

MLB can’t simply add Colabello to the online ballot?

‘Well no, that’s not the way we’ve always done it…’

We have apps on our smartphones that allow us to record high-definition videos, we have apps that allow us to cash checks, we have apps that allow us to make dinner and movie reservations, and we have apps that essentially replace TVs, radios and books.

Yet, if we want to send Colabello to the All-Star Game at Target Field, we need to write his name in the old-fashioned way…”

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“He Predicts That Google Is Seeking To Develop Computers That Can Serve As Butlers In The Home”

April 30, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

From the Asahi Shimbun, more perspective on Google’s recent interest in Japanese robotics:

“While the future plans of Google are not totally clear, the company apparently wants to incorporate all future-generation robotic technology. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has written about a future in which each U.S. household owns several multifunction robots.

Norio Murakami, who once served as the head of the Japanese arm of Google, predicts that Google is seeking to develop computers that can serve as butlers in the home.

Those robots would find answers over the Internet to questions raised by its master as well as perform such tasks as cleaning and cooking.

In 2011, Google proposed technology that it called cloud robotics. Under that concept, robots in households and factories would be connected to a gigantic brain in cyberspace. That would mean nothing short of Google controlling the brains used in all robots.

The idea clashes somewhat with mainstream thinking in Japan, where robots have primarily been considered as a manufacturing tool.

Changing demographics also place greater expectations on robots.

Rodney Brooks, a co-founder of U.S.-based iRobot Corp., noted that many advanced nations face a growing population of senior citizens and a declining number of young people. He said robots hold the key for resolving manpower problems such as how to inspect and repair social infrastructure, especially in Japan.”

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“Any Amateur Could Take A Shot At Glory By Taking A Punch From The Best Fighter In The World”

April 30, 2014 in Excerpts, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

John L. Sullivan wanted to fight John Q. Public and vice versa. The boxing icon couldn’t get his mustache trimmed without some galoot taking a swing at him, so in the early 1880s the pugilist toured the country on an ass-kicking expedition. From Christopher Klein at the Public Domain Review:

“After imbibing the adulation inside his saloon on the evening of September 26, 1883, the hard-hitting, hard-drinking Sullivan waded through the throng of fawning fans outside and stepped into a waiting carriage that sprinted him away to a waiting train. The man who had captured the heavyweight championship nineteen months prior had departed on many journeys before, but no man had ever set out on such an ambitious adventure as the one he was about to undertake.

For the next eight months, Sullivan would circle the United States with a troupe of the world’s top professional fighters. In nearly 150 locales, John L. would spar with his fellow pugilists but also present a sensational novelty act worthy of his contemporary, the showman P.T. Barnum. The reigning heavyweight champion would offer as much as $1,000 ($24,000 in today’s dollars when chained to the Consumer Price Index) to any man who could enter the ring with him and simply remain standing after four three-minute rounds.

The ‘Great John L.’ was challenging America to a fight.

Sullivan’s transcontinental ‘knocking out’ tour was gloriously American in its audacity and concept. Its democratic appeal was undeniable: Any amateur could take a shot at glory by taking a punch from the best fighter in the world. Furthermore, the challenge, given its implicit braggadocio that defeating John L. in four rounds was a universal improbability, was an extraordinary statement of supreme self-confidence from a twenty-four-year-old who supposedly bellowed his own declaration of independence: ‘My name is John L. Sullivan, and I can lick any son-of-a-bitch alive!'”

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“This, After All, Has Become The Richest Nation In The World”

April 30, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

No one should confuse the challenges of abundance with those of poverty, but Qatar, which has no true winter but a good deal of discontent, is a great case study in human psychology. When the earth unexpectedly offers up everything we could ever want, does it become clear that what we need is something else? From Matthew Teller in BBC Magazine:

“From desperate poverty less than a century ago, this, after all, has become the richest nation in the world, with an average per-capita income topping $100,000 (£60,000).

What’s less well understood is the impact of such rapid change on Qatari society itself.

You can feel the pressure in Doha. The city is a building site, with whole districts either under construction or being demolished for redevelopment. Constantly snarled traffic adds hours to the working week, fuelling stress and impatience.

Local media report that 40% of Qatari marriages now end in divorce. More than two-thirds of Qataris, adults and children, are obese.

Qataris benefit from free education, free healthcare, job guarantees, grants for housing, even free water and electricity, but abundance has created its own problems.

‘It’s bewildering for students to graduate and be faced with 20 job offers,’ one academic at an American university campus in Qatar tells me. ‘People feel an overwhelming pressure to make the right decision.’

In a society where Qataris are outnumbered roughly seven-to-one by expatriates, long-term residents speak of a growing frustration among graduates that they are being fobbed off with sinecures while the most satisfying jobs go to foreigners.

The sense is deepening that, in the rush for development, something important has been lost.”

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

April 29, 2014 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

Chicken Rentals (Fairfield County)

Rent-A-Chicken is looking for associates in the Fairfield County/New Haven areas to help in our chicken rental business.

Old Print Article: “Barred Crowds Clamor to View Valentino’s Body,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1926)

April 29, 2014 in Film, Old Print Articles, Photography, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Rudolph Valentino wooed the world without a word. A gigantic star of the Silent Age–a pagan god, almost, especially to the ladies–Valentino’s early death at 31 led to one of the more raucous scenes imaginable at the public viewing in NYC of his body, a real day of the locusts that stretched into the night. The madness was captured in an article in the August 26, 1926 Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

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“Impressive scenes of funeral of famous film star”:

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“Willie, You Look Marvelous”

April 29, 2014 in Sports, Videos | Permalink

Merv Griffin and Tallulah Bankhead interviewing Willie Mays in 1966. These three were inseparable.

Mays is for me the greatest baseball player ever, even better than Barry Bonds. When Joe DiMaggio was alive, he would always be announced at the Yankee Stadium Old Timers’ Day as the “greatest living player.” Must have been a little maddening for Mays.

“I Am As Embarrassed By The New Atheists As Many Christians Are Embarrassed By The Evangelical Fundamentalists”

April 29, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

The Philosopher’s Beard has its facial hair in a knot over the prominence of New Atheism. The opening of an essay assailing the evangelical strain of the seeming non-evangelical:

“The New Atheist movement that has developed from the mid 2000s around the ‘four horsemen of the apocalypse’ – Hitchens, Dennett, Harris, Dawkins, and various other pundits, has had a tremendous public impact. Godlessness has never had a higher public profile. How wonderful for unbelievers like me? Hardly. I am as embarrassed by the New Atheists as many Christians are embarrassed by the evangelical fundamentalists who appoint themselves the representatives of Christianity.

It has often been noted that the New Atheist movement has contributed no original arguments or ideas to the debate about religion. But the situation is worse than this. The main achievement of New Atheism – what defines it as a more or less coherent movement – is its promulgation of a particular version of atheism that is quasi-religious, scientistic, and sectarian. New Atheism been so successful in redefining what atheism means that I find I must reject it as an identity. My unbelief is apathetic and simply follows from my materialism – I don’t see why I should care about the non-existence of gods. What the New Atheists call ‘rationality’ is an impoverished way of understanding the world that excludes meanings and values. At the political level, the struggle for secularism requires more liberalism, not more atheism.”

“Christ, Lincoln, Hitler”

April 29, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Sports | Permalink

Larry King, who continues, just did an Ask Me Anything at Reddit. Three exchanges follow; the JFK anecdote might be true or it might be a tall tale like a lot of King’s yarns.

_____________________________

Question:

If you could interview just one person from world history, who would it be and why?

Larry King:

Currently living it would be Fidel Castro. From World History, Christ, Lincoln, Hitler.

______________________________

Question:

What do you think about the Donald Sterling decision the commissioner just made?

Larry King:

I completely agree with what Adam Silver did today. He was outstanding. I am a Clipper fan, I wasn’t going to let my children go to the game tonight, but now they will go. I know Donald Sterling, I’m embarrassed for him, I like his wife very much and she deserves better. This was a great decision. Great for the league, great for society. This is a historic day. Go Clippers!

______________________________

Question:

Larry, I read that you once crashed your car into John F. Kennedy before he was President. What’s the story behind this?

Larry King:

It was a Sunday morning, and I was a young disc jockey in Miami Beach. Me and 3 friends of mine were going to drive up to Palm Beach, in 1958, we rolled up to Palm Beach in a convertible, I was driving, and it was a beautiful Sunday morning. And I was looking up, looking at all the beautiful homes, and suddenly I bumped into a car stopped at a red light. I was only going about 10 miles an hour. The guy in the car jumped out, walked over to me, and said “how could you hit me!? there’s nobody on the road, it’s a beautiful day, how could you hit me?!” and I said “I’m sorry, we were looking up, I apologize, do you want my license.” And he said “no, I’m Senator Kennedy, I’m going to run for President in 2 years, and I want the 4 of you to raise your hands and swear you’ll vote for me.” Which we did. So that’s the story.

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“What Brings Them Together Is A Common Belief That Government Is The Opposite Of Freedom”

April 29, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

Nothing chills my heart more than listening to two hardcore Libertarians discuss how things should be. They seem blissfully unaware that their ideology would devastate so many people, and they get very whiny when you point this out. And they love discussing unintended consequences, as if it were the greatest evil. It’s just an excuse to never try to improve things and pretend ownership of the moral high ground. 

From “A Libertarian Utopia,” Livian Gershon’s Aeon article about those aspiring to create a laissez-faire Shangri-La in New Hampshire, if they can ever come to a consensus among themselves:

“If you really want to talk about what it means to oppose the government, the place to start isn’t with Republicans. It’s with the one group in the US political landscape that absolutely promises to take our rhetoric about freedom seriously: libertarians. Libertarians really do believe that government is the problem, as Ronald Reagan said back in 1981, and they’ve decided to get rid of it, or at least shrink it dramatically.

Enter Liberty Forum – an annual conference organised by the Free State Project, a group of activists who are trying to get 20,000 libertarians to move to the state of New Hampshire, where I live. These are people who gladly pit themselves not just against the welfare state or the regulation of business, but against military spending, state-funded schools, federal highways and government-issued money.

The Free State Project began life in 2001 with a call-to-arms by Jason Sorens, then a political science PhD student at Yale. Sorens suggested that a few thousand activists could radically change the political balance in the small state. ‘Once we’ve taken over the state government, we can slash state and local budgets, which make up a sizeable proportion of the tax and regulatory burden we face every day,’ he wrote. ‘Furthermore, we can eliminate substantial federal interference by refusing to take highway funds and the strings attached to them.’

Sorens’ views — which focus on problems with taxes and regulations and don’t dispute the government’s role in protecting commerce and conducting foreign policy – suggest a more-Republican-than-the-Republicans sort of outlook. But some people who’ve responded to his call subscribe to an entirely different ideology: an anarchism that sees government as a tool of wealthy capitalists. The rest fall somewhere in between. Free Staters say that what brings them together is a common belief that government is the opposite of freedom.”

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“There’s Not A Single Aspect Of Human Life That Doesn’t Have The Potential To Be Totally Transformed By These Technologies”

April 29, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

An excerpt from Richard C. Lewontin’s just-published New York of Review of Books piece “The New Synthetic Biology: Who Gains?” which looks at recent writing on the field, which will not ultimately be contained by regulation and will be messy:

“In modern times Craig Venter, the head of the J. Craig Venter Institute, announced the creation of a living, functioning, self-reproducing artificial bacterial cell containing a laboratory-produced DNA sequence that, according to Laurie Garrett’s Foreign Affairs essay ‘Biology’s Brave New World,‘ ‘moved, ate, breathed, and replicated itself.’

An element that was not yet present in the early-nineteenth-century interest in the artificial creation of life was the possibility of great financial profit. Biotechnology was still a century and a half in the future. Garrett characterizes Venter not only as the most powerful man in biotechnology but as the richest. The J. Craig Venter Institute has already worked with fuel companies and the pharmaceutical industry to create microorganisms that could produce new fuels and vaccines.

What did concern those in the nineteenth century who imagined the possibility of the artificial creation of life, a concern that is at the core of Shelley’s Frankenstein, is the nemesis that is the inevitable consequence of the creators’ hubris. We now face the same problem on a huge scale. In an interview in 2009, quoted by Garrett, Venter declared, ‘There’s not a single aspect of human life that doesn’t have the potential to be totally transformed by these technologies in the future.’ Not a single aspect! Does that mean he is promising me that I might literally live forever?

Nothing in history suggests that those who control and profit from material production can really be depended upon to devote the needed foresight, creativity, and energy to protect us from the possible negative effects of synthetic biology. In cases where there is a conflict between the immediate and the long-range consequences or between public and private good, how can that conflict be resolved? Can the state be counted on to intervene when a private motivation conflicts with public benefit, and who will intervene when the state itself threatens the safety and general welfare of its citizens? Garrett provides a frightening real-life example.

In 2011 two scientists, one from Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam and one from the University of Wisconsin, independently reported that they had turned a bird flu virus, H5N1, which could very occasionally be transmitted from birds to humans, causing their death in about 60 percent of cases, into a strain that could be directly passed easily between laboratory mammals. Were this virus then capable of infecting humans, a catastrophe would occur, judging from the infamous flu epidemic of 1918, which killed more than 50 million people, about 2.5 percent of the world’s population.”

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Frost-Venter, 2012:

 

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A Brief Note From 1911 About An Exhibition

April 28, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the August 7, 1911 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Duluth, Minn.–The village of Chisolm is greatly stirred up over the birth of a two-headed baby and its grewsome sequel. It was born July 31, to Mr. and Mrs. Arosta Najdukovich, of Chisholm, a perfectly formed male child with the exception that it had two heads. It died a few hours after birth and was buried.

Yesterday it was learned that the body of the infant had been disinterred and was on exhibition at the establishment of an undertaker. The father of the child swore out a warrant against the man.”

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“The Computer Will Be Unbeatable In Five Or 10 Years”

April 28, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports | Permalink

Excerpts from two Sports Illustrated articles about Garry Kasparov tangling with Deep Blue: Th first is a jokey piece supposedly written by the IBM chess computer itself after losing a five-game series to the Russian in 1996, and the second is a matter-of-fact declaration of the rise of the machines in 1997, when the laughter stopped for good.

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From “I Was a Just a Pawn!” February 26, 1996:

“When I was just a chip, my motherboard used to tell me, ‘D.B., if you can’t process something nice, don’t process it at all.’ But Mom never went through what I went through last week, when world chess champion Garry Kasparov humiliated me, an IBM supercomputer, four games to two.

All week I kept hearing these grandmasters and chess nerds saying, ‘Deep Blue’s advantage is that he doesn’t feel pressure, emotion or anxiety.’ Yeah, right. I’d like them to spend a week in my outlet. You want pressure? It took six years to build me, man! They had a five-person team doing nothing but programming me for this one match. I can consider 200 million moves in one second! Kasparov can do, what, one, maybe two? IBM does not put five guys on a project for six years and expect to lose. That’s how you end up at the employee Montessori, with kids sticking jelly doughnuts in your serial ports.

I can hear all the snickering around the office now. I hear the other mainframes calling me Deep Blue It and whispering about how, any day now, the guys in the white coats are going to come and give me the big drag-and-drop. I’ll tell you what: If I had coasters, I’d get over there and teach them all about megahurts.

Sure, I lost, but how come nobody ever mentions that no computer had ever won one single regulation game from a world chess champion before I did? I won the first game from Kasparov. Stick that in your hi-memory! And how about the fact that I wasn’t even in the room with Kasparov the whole match. I wasn’t! They made me stay in this crummy room in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., while some little guy in Philadelphia typed Kasparov’s moves into a desktop and fed them to me through a phone line. Let me ask you this: How good would Troy Aikman be if he had to read defenses from some Marriott 800 miles away? You talk about mo-dumbs.”

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From “Tangled Up in Blue,” May 19, 1997:

“In his 12-year reign as world chess champion, Garry Kasparov has earned a reputation for both brilliance and aggressiveness. He is widely considered the greatest player in history. But on Sunday afternoon, after resigning the sixth and deciding game of his match with the IBM supercomputer known as Deep Blue, Kasparov sat slumped and glassy-eyed as he awaited questions in a midtown Manhattan ballroom. ‘He looks like a DMV photo,’ cracked international master Mike Valvo.

Kasparov’s capitulation shocked everyone, coming just one hour into a game that he needed to draw in order to tie the match. Things had gone much differently 15 months ago, when Kasparov defeated an earlier version of Deep Blue 4-2 in Philadelphia. But since then IBM’s computer scientists had enlisted the help of four grandmasters, and this latest teaming of technology and human intelligence threw Kasparov some curves. In Game 5, for example, no one anticipated that with one of Kasparov’s pawns poised to reach the last file and become a queen, Deep Blue would simply ignore it and launch an attack with its own king. That stunning shift of focus set up a perpetual check and forced Kasparov to offer a draw.

‘The computer will be unbeatable in five or 10 years,’ says Frederick Friedel, an expert on artificial intelligence and computer chess who served as one of Kasparov’s seconds. ‘Garry will understand much more about chess, but he will still lose because he will make mistakes.'”

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“What Looks Chaotic And Random On A City Street To The Human Eye Is Actually Fairly Predictable To A Computer”

April 28, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Elon Musk recently stated that in the near term, only 90% of driving can be completely autonomous. Judging by a new post on the Google blog, that company is consumed by the other 10%. An excerpt:

“Jaywalking pedestrians. Cars lurching out of hidden driveways. Double-parked delivery trucks blocking your lane and your view. At a busy time of day, a typical city street can leave even experienced drivers sweaty-palmed and irritable. We all dream of a world in which city centers are freed of congestion from cars circling for parking (PDF) and have fewer intersections made dangerous by distracted drivers. That’s why over the last year we’ve shifted the focus of the Google self-driving car project onto mastering city street driving.

Since our last update, we’ve logged thousands of miles on the streets of our hometown of Mountain View, Calif. A mile of city driving is much more complex than a mile of freeway driving, with hundreds of different objects moving according to different rules of the road in a small area. We’ve improved our software so it can detect hundreds of distinct objects simultaneously—pedestrians, buses, a stop sign held up by a crossing guard, or a cyclist making gestures that indicate a possible turn. A self-driving vehicle can pay attention to all of these things in a way that a human physically can’t—and it never gets tired or distracted.

As it turns out, what looks chaotic and random on a city street to the human eye is actually fairly predictable to a computer. As we’ve encountered thousands of different situations, we’ve built software models of what to expect, from the likely (a car stopping at a red light) to the unlikely (blowing through it). We still have lots of problems to solve, including teaching the car to drive more streets in Mountain View before we tackle another town, but thousands of situations on city streets that would have stumped us two years ago can now be navigated autonomously.”

“He Also Hopes His Printers Can Be Used To Build Skyscrapers In The Future”

April 28, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

BBC is reporting that the Chinese firm WinSun has built giant 3D printers which can create 10 concrete houses in a day. They’re admittedly not glorious living or anything, but it’s still impressive. An excerpt:

“The cheap materials used during the printing process and the lack of manual labour means that each house can be printed for under $5,000, the 3dprinterplans website says.

‘We can print buildings to any digital design our customers bring us. It’s fast and cheap,’ says WinSun chief executive Ma Yihe. He also hopes his printers can be used to build skyscrapers in the future. At the moment, however, Chinese construction regulations do not allow multi-storey 3D-printed houses, Xinhua says.”

“Now Battling The Worst Evil Of All–Crime”

April 28, 2014 in Sports, Videos | Permalink

How many bowls of cocaine were inhaled during the 1970s pitch meeting for this Evel Knievel crime drama pilot? The template for the A-Team, minus Dirk Benedict’s considerable gravitas.

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