Show-Off Robot Solves Rubik’s Cube

May 10, 2011 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

And then it celebrates. (Thanks Singularity Hub.)

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Hungarian architect Ernő Rubik discusses his famous puzzle in 1981:

“Of course you can’t give the exact time of an idea’s birth, it seems impossible to me, to me particularly, for who time, from this point of view, has very little interest. It can have been in spring, 1974 that the idea came to me, as a noteworthy possibility. I have a nature attached to experiences, so, since the beginning, I studied variations of a 2x2x2 cube. I was immediately struck by the wealth that could be sensed only from this start. The final technical solution, which is the simplest form 3x3x3, the most easily workable in models, after a few tries, came to me toward the end of autumn, 1974. Several models ready to work were made for me and my friends, it has been exciting to play with them for the first time. We were all surprised to discover gradually that we had made something original, new.The question of the patent of the invention was immediately raised, so I began the necessary process the 30 January, 1975. Almost at the same, sensing something of the importance of the invented game, of its possibilities and of its real value, I began searching for a partner for the manufacturing and by an extraordinary chance, I indeed found one. The following is rather simple : after its launch on the market (1977) the game became, rapidly and as if by magic, very popular in Hungary, then, from 1980 in the whole world. I feel like the story only begins, and that we can’t predict the end, as well as nobody, I think, could have guessed its future.”

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“You Have To Be Concerned About The Future Of All Women”

May 10, 2011 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Hanna Rosin’s 2010 Atlantic article, “The End Of Men,” concerns American males falling further and further behind women in education, employment, etc. The opening focuses on biologist Ronald Ericsson, who caused a media-stoked panic in the 1970s when he created a method that purportedly allows parents to choose the sex of their offspring. This development led some feminists to  fear that women would be doomed in America. An excerpt:

“IN THE 1970s the biologist Ronald Ericsson came up with a way to separate sperm carrying the male-producing Y chromosome from those carrying the X. He sent the two kinds of sperm swimming down a glass tube through ever-thicker albumin barriers. The sperm with the X chromosome had a larger head and a longer tail, and so, he figured, they would get bogged down in the viscous liquid. The sperm with the Y chromosome were leaner and faster and could swim down to the bottom of the tube more efficiently. Ericsson had grown up on a ranch in South Dakota, where he’d developed an Old West, cowboy swagger. The process, he said, was like ‘cutting out cattle at the gate.’ The cattle left flailing behind the gate were of course the X’s, which seemed to please him. He would sometimes demonstrate the process using cartilage from a bull’s penis as a pointer.

Dr. Ericsson's property was used for this 1980 Marlboro Country print ad.

In the late 1970s, Ericsson leased the method to clinics around the U.S., calling it the first scientifically proven method for choosing the sex of a child. Instead of a lab coat, he wore cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, and doled out his version of cowboy poetry. (People magazine once suggested a TV miniseries based on his life called Cowboy in the Lab.) The right prescription for life, he would say, was “breakfast at five-thirty, on the saddle by six, no room for Mr. Limp Wrist.’ In 1979, he loaned out his ranch as the backdrop for the iconic ‘Marlboro Country’ ads because he believed in the campaign’s central image—’a guy riding on his horse along the river, no bureaucrats, no lawyers,’ he recalled when I spoke to him this spring. ‘He’s the boss.’ (The photographers took some 6,500 pictures, a pictorial record of the frontier that Ericsson still takes great pride in.)

Feminists of the era did not take kindly to Ericsson and his Marlboro Man veneer. To them, the lab cowboy and his sperminator portended a dystopia of mass-produced boys. ‘You have to be concerned about the future of all women,’ Roberta Steinbacher, a nun-turned-social-psychologist, said in a 1984 People profile of Ericsson. ‘There’s no question that there exists a universal preference for sons.’ Steinbacher went on to complain about women becoming locked in as ‘second-class citizens’ while men continued to dominate positions of control and influence. ‘I think women have to ask themselves, ‘Where does this stop?’ she said. ‘A lot of us wouldn’t be here right now if these practices had been in effect years ago.’

Ericsson, now 74, laughed when I read him these quotes from his old antagonist. Seldom has it been so easy to prove a dire prediction wrong.” (Thanks to The Electric Typewriter.)

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“The Only Thing Missing Here Are The Smells Of The Paints”

May 10, 2011 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Fun short 1976 documentary about Lillian Schwartz, an artist who was an early adapter of digital technology and pioneered a merging of computer graphics and fine art.

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A Note From 1895 About NYC Stench

May 10, 2011 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From an 1895 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Members of the Fifteenth ward citizens’ association for the abolishment of Newtown Creek nuisances are complaining that stenches from the creek at night have increased steadily since April 17, and that the air was so filled with foul smelling vapor at 4 o’clock yesterday morning that sleep was out of the question for people living in the Fifteenth and Eighteenth wards. The members of the citizens’ association insist that fat rendering and bone boiling establishments and fertilizer manufactories on the shores of the creek empty foul smelling material stored during the day into the creek at night, and they believe that if the proprietors of stench emitting factories who are indicted are not speedily brought to trial the nuisances will soon become as intolerable as ever.”

“[She] Arrived With Her 12-String Guitar, A Banjo And At Least One Of Her Two Children”

May 9, 2011 in Excerpts, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

A beautiful passage of the late folkie, Karen Dalton, who was something of a Billie Holiday for the coffee-house set and was sadly plagued by many of the same demons as Lady Day. (Thanks to The Documentarian.)

From the 2007 Guardian article, “The Best Singer You’ve Never Heard Of“: “Dalton turned up in Greenwich Village in the early 60s. She had left behind her husband in Enid, Oklahoma, and arrived with her 12-string guitar, a banjo and at least one of her two children. She began to sing at the pass-the-hat folk venues that were flourishing at the time and played with Bob Dylan, Fred Neil and Richard Tucker. Dylan recalls her as ‘funky, lanky and sultry.’ ‘My favorite singer in the place was Karen Dalton,’ he remembers in Chronicles. ‘Karen had a voice like Billie Holiday’s and played the guitar like Jimmy Reed.'”

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

May 9, 2011 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

"If you find any neat dead animals in good condition (raccoons, owls, etc) please put them in a bag and into a freezer immediately and I can taxidermy them!" (Image by Usha Eugene.)

taxidermist needs BIRD CAGES any size or condition (WILLIAMSBURG)

I need bird cages to use as a way to air out carcasses and get the bones from dead animals…I ONLY USE DEAD ANIMALS AND EMPHASIZE THE ETHICS OF TAXIDERMY…NO KILL POLICY….

thanks for any help!

also, if you find any neat dead animals in good condition (raccoons, owls, etc) please put them in a bag and into a freezer immediately and I can taxidermy them!

 

Women Join The Force, Fight Sedition (1918)

May 9, 2011 in Excerpts, Photography, Urban Studies | Permalink

This classic photo from the Bain Collection profiles members of the women’s police reserve of New York City in 1918, the year that females began participating in the volunteer auxiliary. From a New York Times article about the formation of this new crime-fighting force:.

“New York City’s morals are to be toned up in the near future by the activities of a police reserve of volunteer women. It was announced at Police Headquarters last night that the Police Reserves which Commissioner Enright reorganized out of the Home Defense League, recruited so successfully by his predecessor, Commissioner Woods, was to have the prestige of this auxiliary.

The Special Deputy would not have the women police cope with rough and violent lawbreakers; on the the other hand, their forte under the plan would be to keep a finger on the city’s pulse in an effort to detect signs of unlawful developments before they grew to serious proportions, to watch out for cases of sedition, to uplift the general moral atmosphere of the city in the neighborhood of their posts. If need arose for the use of a nightstick or other instrument for curbing crime, the work would be referred to the men members of the force.”

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“India Has Become The State That We Tried To Create In Pakistan”

May 9, 2011 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

The perfect opening of “The Double Game,” a just-published New Yorker article about the best-laid post-war American plans for Pakistan and India, written by the resolutely excellent Lawrence Wright:

“It’s the end of the Second World War, and the United States is deciding what to do about two immense, poor, densely populated countries in Asia. America chooses one of the countries, becoming its benefactor. Over the decades, it pours billions of dollars into that country’s economy, training and equipping its military and its intelligence services. The stated goal is to create a reliable ally with strong institutions and a modern, vigorous democracy. The other country, meanwhile, is spurned because it forges alliances with America’s enemies.

The country not chosen was India, which ’tilted’” toward the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Pakistan became America’s protégé, firmly supporting its fight to contain Communism. The benefits that Pakistan accrued from this relationship were quickly apparent: in the nineteen-sixties, its economy was an exemplar. India, by contrast, was a byword for basket case. Fifty years then went by. What was the result of this social experiment?

India has become the state that we tried to create in Pakistan. It is a rising economic star, militarily powerful and democratic, and it shares American interests. Pakistan, however, is one of the most anti-American countries in the world, and a covert sponsor of terrorism. Politically and economically, it verges on being a failed state.”

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The Largest Wooden Structure In The World

May 9, 2011 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

From “World’s Largest Wooden Structure,” a photo essay on Yatzer.com about Seville’s recently completed Metropol Parasol, which was designed by J. Mayer H. Architects:

“The Metropol Parasol scheme with its imposing timber structure offers a range of attractions and amenities to be used by the public.  Such functions include an archaeological museum, a farmers market, an elevated plaza, and multiple bars and restaurants underneath and inside the parasols, as well as a panorama terrace on the upper level of the parasols. Realized as one of the largest and most innovative bonded timber-constructions with a polyurethane coating, the parasols grow out of the archaeological excavation site into a contemporary landmark, thus defining a distinctive relationship between the historical medieval city and the contemporary city beat!  Metropol Parasols mix-used multicultural program sets off a dynamic development for culture and commerce in the heart of Seville and beyond.”

“A Rat Done Bit My Sister Nell (With Whitey On The Moon)”

May 9, 2011 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

The great Gil Scott-Heron, being critical of Space Race myopia back in the day.

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“This Man Is One Of The Most Controversial Thinkers Of Our Time”

May 9, 2011 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Immanuel Velikovsky’s theories about our planet’s history, which came into vogue during the 1970s, are catastrophist nonsense but a whole lot of fun if you recognize they’re fictional. Philip Kaufman realized this and used them to forward the plot of his excellent version of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, which was released in 1978, the year before the scientist died at age 84. Below is an amusing 1972 BBC doc about the Velikovsky phenomenon.

A 1950 Popular Science note about Velikovsky: “Astronomers at Harvard consider the sensational theory of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky that the earth stood still a couple of times in Biblical days sheer nonsense.”

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

May 8, 2011 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

"Without you, Mom, that would not have been possible." (Image by Alvesgaspar.)

iso Birthmother

I was born April 7th 1955 at Meadowbrook Hospital in East Meadow.You named me Noreen Mary .You were single,22y/o,Irish,your mother deceased,Father left when you were 2, & lived in Levittown when I was born.You were unemployed at this time and my birthfather not in the picture.You wanted to keep me and came to visit me, you were trying to find a job and a place to live.You realized too much time had lapsed and you didn’t want me to grow up without a father as you did, I was relinquished in July of 1955.I was adopted by good parents who lived in Levittown at the same time you did,about a mile apart,I had a good life and I am a mother of a wonderful 29 y/o son.Without you Mom,that would not have been possible. I just can not imagine your pain and what you suffered back then. I just wanted to thank you, tell you HAPPY MOTHERS DAY and that I love you so very much. And so does your grandson Matt.I think of you everyday,I pray that you are well and happy and have had a good life. And I know if we never meet on earth,we will meet in Heaven someday. I love you Mom! Forever your daughter–Noreen

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Old Print Article: “Henry Clay Dean Is Dead,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1887)

May 8, 2011 in Old Print Articles, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

"His clothes differed in no respect from a 'wharf-rat's,' except that they were raggeder."

The nineteenth-century Pennsylvania-born preacher and orator Henry Clay Dean (not to be confused with the statesman Henry Clay) lived in roughly the same time frame as Horatio Alger, which made sense, since Dean was Algeresque, a poor and ragged lad who made his way in the world, though he never lost the raggedness.

Mark Twain, another contemporary, had this to say about Dean: “He began life poor and without education. But he educated himself – on the curbstones of Keokuk. He would sit down on a curbstone with his book, careless or unconscious of the clatter of commerce and the tramp of the passing crowds, and bury himself in his studies by the hour, never changing his position except to draw in his knees now and then to let a dray pass unobstructed; and when his book was finished, its contents, however abstruse, had been burned into his memory, and were his permanent possession. In this way he acquired a vast hoard of all sorts of learning, and had it pigeonholed in his head where he could put his intellectual hand on it whenever it was wanted. His clothes differed in no respect from a ‘wharf-rat’s,’ except that they were raggeder, more ill-assorted and inharmonious (and therefore more extravagantly picturesque), and several layers dirtier.”

"He was a man who put on a clean shirt every New Year's Day and didn't take it off until the 31st of December."

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle took notice of Dean’s death with an article in its February 10, 1887 edition. An excerpt:

“Who was Henry Clay Dean? According to a legend familiar in every newspaper office at the mighty West he was a man who put on a clean shirt every New Year’s Day and didn’t take it off until the 31st of December. But that does not fully describe him. Mr. Dean had a useful and honorable career. In the first place he was a preacher of the Gospel and expounded the simple and beautiful truths of the Sermon on the Mount with an unction never surpassed. It was said of him by a Chicago admirer that his fervid eloquence ‘was enough to make the pin feathers of an heretical rooster quiver.’ In the second place he was a political orator whose addresses from the stump often recalled the extemporary speeches of Tom Benton. In the third place he was chaplain of the United States Senate at a time when Senators feared God more than they do to-day, and when their hearts and minds afforded a richer soil for the seeds of divine knowledge. Lastly, Mr. Dean was a Democrat, pure and undefiled–one of the ‘old timers,’ who believed  that although Noah was justified in taking a Republican and Democrat into the ark, he ought to have thrown the former overboard before the waters subsided. He was a good man and true. Peace to his ashes.”

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Statler And Waldorf As Born-Again Christians

May 8, 2011 in Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Start smiling this instant or else. (Thanks Reddit.)

“I Must Convince Them That I’m Human”

May 8, 2011 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

The opening of “Mind vs. Machine,” Brian Christian’s recent Atlantic article about the author’s particpation in the Turing Test, an annual event in which computers compete to exhibit intelligent behavior that can pass for human:

“BRIGHTON, ENGLAND, SEPTEMBER 2009. I wake up in a hotel room 5,000 miles from my home in Seattle. After breakfast, I step out into the salty air and walk the coastline of the country that invented my language, though I find I can’t understand a good portion of the signs I pass on my way—LET AGREED, one says, prominently, in large print, and it means nothing to me.

I pause, and stare dumbly at the sea for a moment, parsing and reparsing the sign. Normally these kinds of linguistic curiosities and cultural gaps intrigue me; today, though, they are mostly a cause for concern. In two hours, I will sit down at a computer and have a series of five-minute instant-message chats with several strangers. At the other end of these chats will be a psychologist, a linguist, a computer scientist, and the host of a popular British technology show. Together they form a judging panel, evaluating my ability to do one of the strangest things I’ve ever been asked to do.

I must convince them that I’m human.

Fortunately, I am human; unfortunately, it’s not clear how much that will help.” (Thanks to The Electric Typewriter.)

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Welcome To The Land Of Giant Children

May 8, 2011 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Retro-Futurist expert Matt Novak uses his amazing PaleoFuture site to catalog wild predictions from the past that never panned out. For instance: The article below from a 1937 San Antonio Light opined that advances in chemistry would make gigantic babies a reality in the near term. Sadly, that hasn’t happened. Not yet, anyhow. It seems like anything we dream, no matter how unlikely, can come true given enough time. (Thanks Marginal Revolution.)

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“Giant Baby” by Ron Mueck:

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Phones Made From Flexible Electronic Paper

May 8, 2011 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

The likley future of phones and tablets. (Thanks CNET.)

Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

May 8, 2011 in Misc. | Permalink

"I went from working at a television station with a car and a place of my own to working at a pizza joint with no vehicle living w/my aunt " (Image by Axelv.)

T Shirts-all proceeds to fund college – $15 (NYC)

I created a Cafepress site in the hopes of raising enough money to go to college. Long story short-over two years ago I broke up w/my girlfriend and have regretted it ever since. I went from working at a television station with a car and a place of my own to working at a pizza joint with no vehicle living w/my aunt and then my sister. My ex, a brilliant musician who has been hurt her whole life, is still someone I care very deeply for. When we were together I always told her I wanted her to get out of the small pond she is in and let her talent shine. She has so much to offer and so much to experience. Years ago, she told me (in a fit of anger I will admit) that if I ever got the money to pay for her college tuition/living expenses, she’d go with me and get a degree in Music Business. I really feel it would help her take off with her career-find value to her life. I created the cafepress site because, well, because people don’t want to just give a stranger money because he claims he’ll use it for college–with this site, you buy T shirts, and I get 10% of the sale. I’m going to use it all to fund the degree. The idea is to come to her front door, holding a boquet of flowers and a money order for the amount of tuition that I raised and just say something beyond romantic, something about coming with the idiot who held on for these many years and let’s start a new life far away and look what I’ve done because what I believe you can do. At the very least, if she says no, I’ll use it to attend college myself. Obviously the break up still haunts me and going to college myself would at least give me a new start-after the depression and the lost jobs I just don’t want to feel like a loser anymore. Please buy some shirts and please tell ALL your friends to do the same–myspace, facebook, linked in, the guy on the street with hotdogs, any way possible to get everyone possible to buy a shirt! Thank You.

“Steve Cauthen Will Burst From The Starting Gate…The Leading Money Rider Of Any Year, A Fearless Athlete, A Resolute Little Doll-Person”

May 8, 2011 in Excerpts, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

On this Kentucky Derby weekend, we look back more than three decades ago when Bluegrass State native Steve Cauthen collected record earnings in 1977 as a 17-year-old jockey and followed it up by winning the Triple Crown the next year astride Affirmed. Cauthen became an international sensation, featured in People as well as Sports Illustrated. But he couldn’t maintain jockey weight as he continued growing and moved to England to compete for a few years, as that country’s jockeys ride at a heavier weight.

Cauthen and Affirmed triumph in 1978 at Churchill Downs:

From a 1977 SI issue in which Cauthen was crowned Sportsman of the Year: “It is not enough to marvel that at the age of 17 he has accomplished more in a year than any jockey in history. It is not enough that already there exists the mad school of thought that this little boy is the finest rider of all time. These are incredible things to ponder about someone so young, but somehow, as young as he is—and younger-looking still—the immensity of his achievement in 1977 cannot be properly understood until you stand in his high school and see the open country faces of the other children of Walton and realize that Steve Cauthen should be there among them still. He should be a senior in high school this day, hearing the bells and whiffing the smell.

And he would be…but for the coincidence of his size and his family background, but for the depth of his desire and some amazing gift of God that no one can comprehend.

Instead, almost at this very moment, several hundred miles away, when a bell rings, Steve Cauthen will burst from the starting gate at Aqueduct, bound to his horse in consummate harmony, seamless, one with the creature—a prodigy like none we have ever seen before, the leading money rider of any year, a fearless athlete, a resolute little doll-person, Sportsman of the Year, so very tiny, so very young, so very extraordinary and ageless in his grace at this one thing he does that he always calls ‘race riding.'”

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This Week’s Afflictor Keyphrase Searches

May 8, 2011 in Misc. | Permalink

 

Some search engine keyphrases bringing traffic to Afflictor this week:

“Highlights” From Another Week Of Afflictor Crap

May 7, 2011 in Misc. | Permalink

Afflictor: Storing the pepper spray in the watermelon patch since 2009.

 

  • Bin Laden strikes, dies when we least expect it.
  • Osborne 1 is the first commercially viable computer in 1981.
  • Ian Frazier walked around NYC, removing plastic bags from tree branches.

 

Happy 80th Birthday, Willie Mays!

May 7, 2011 in Sports, Videos | Permalink

Willie Mays, one of the five best players in baseball history, probably made many catches and throws as good as the one he made in the 1954 World Series on a fly ball by Vic Wertz. But on the grand stage of the Fall Classic, it became legend. Say hey.

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“The Guy On The Right Has The Osborne 1, A Fully Functional Computer System In A Portable Package The Size Of A Briefcase”

May 6, 2011 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Retronaut dug up this fun print ad for the first commercially successful laptop microcomputer, the 1981 Osborne 1.

From the ad copy: “The guy on the left has two file folders, a news magazine, and a sandwich. The guy on the right has the Osborne 1, a fully functional computer system in a portable package the size of a briefcase. Also in the case are the equiva;lent of 1600 typed pages. stored on floppy diskettes. The owner of the Osborne 1 is going to get more work done–and better work done with less time and with less effort.”

Controlling Cat Ears With Brainwaves

May 6, 2011 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Very cute neurowear in action. (Thanks Reddit.)

“It Is Not A Throwback To The Dark Ages, But An Evolution Toward Something New”

May 6, 2011 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

You hear the drumbeat from Tea Party activists and pandering politicians about how government is getting too much control of our lives, gaining too much power. Of course, the opposite is true. As technology continues personalizing and proliferating, government is going to have an increasingly harder time regulating business, communications and individuals. That implies both good and bad things. Personal liberties are paramount, but the ability to marshal the force of government is often crucial during crises.

In “City of Fear,” an  excellent 2007 Vanity Fair article by the routinely great William Langewiesche, the writer looks at how a Brazilian prison gang used cell phones to coordinate the shutdown of a city, and what this implies for the future of central control in general. Subsequent uprisings in Middle Eastern countries have made this piece seem prophetic. The article’s opening:

“For seven days last May the city of São Paulo, Brazil, teetered on the edge of a feral zone where governments barely reach and countries lose their meaning. That zone is a wilderness inhabited already by large populations worldwide, but officially denied and rarely described. It is not a throwback to the Dark Ages, but an evolution toward something new—a companion to globalization, and an element in a fundamental reordering that may gradually render national boundaries obsolete. It is most obvious in the narco-lands of Colombia and Mexico, in the fractured swaths of Africa, in parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, in much of Iraq. But it also exists beneath the surface in places where governments are believed to govern and countries still seem to be strong.”

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William Langewiesche and Stephen Colbert discuss the spread of nukes:


 

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