I found this architectural/sociological (sociospatial? psychospatial?) analysis of modern urban warfare, Die Hard, and cinematic portrayals of urban movement to be entirely fascinating. Tactics, psychology, Jason Bourne, parkour, and late-capitalist nonplaces—how can you go wrong with that?
Upon typing that title, I realized that it sounds quite like a modern fairy tale or children’s story. Of course, if it were a fairy tale, then the faithful sponsors would stick with Tiger as he attempted to slay the foul beasts of public opprobrium and frenzied media—but instead at least one major sponsor, Accenture, is walking away.
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I’ve come across what feels like another wave of articles related to bullying recently. I previously wrote about my thoughts on institutional responses, but this time my focus is on some of the causes, as well as how technical rules are unlikely to eliminate the problem.
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According to this article, rats’ brains produce neurons when they exercise that are functionally different from those produced by non-exercising rats, and the identified functional difference is that the neurons have less of a response to stress.
It’s not a huge leap to think that this applies to other animals as well, including ourselves. So at an even more fundamental level than previously thought, exercise can help prevent stress.
A recent University of Philadelphia study apparently shows that people in possession of guns were significantly more likely (4.46 times as likely) to be shot in an assault than people without guns. I’m particularly curious about some things that the study can’t really address—namely whether it’s causation or correlation. Is it the presence of the gun that increases the danger of confrontation? Is it that the presence of the gun makes the gun possessor more belligerent? Or is it that the kinds of people more likely to be belligerent are the kinds of people more likely to be carrying guns?
Another question is one of morality—if (as is strongly suggested by the study) resisting robbery or borderline situations leads to a higher likelihood of injury or death (on either side), does this imply that offering no resistance is the more moral act?
The following is a short clip of news footage from the Pittburgh G20 protests:
Apparently in response to increased public interest in eating better, the American food manufacturing industry has put together a campaign called Smart Choices. This is essentially a marketing effort masquerading as a health information campaign, as demonstrated quite well by the fact that Froot Loops qualify as a “smart choice”.
To defend this, the president of the Smart Choices board, Eileen T. Kennedy, gave the New York Times one of the most egregious pieces of dodgy rhetoric I’ve seen in quite some time:
“You’re rushing around, you’re trying to think about healthy eating for your kids and you have a choice between a doughnut and a cereal,” Dr. Kennedy said, evoking a hypothetical parent in the supermarket. “So Froot Loops is a better choice.”
—William Neuman. “For Your Health, Froot Loops”. The New York Times, 04 September 2009.
Emily Yoffe has a Slate article about our compulsion to acquire new information—and how it means we’re extremely susceptible to addictive behaviors around Internet use. Critical points: we have drives for both pleasure and for “seeking”, and it is this latter drive that the modern always-online environment feeds. Or overfeeds.
I don’t know how accurate this journalistic take on neuroscientific discoveries is, but I do think that this would be a good article to have printed out, and highlighted, next to my computer.
Apparently the story about the crow using stones to raise the water level in a pitcher was no fable. I already knew about crow tool usage being pretty impressive, and this just reinforces that notion.
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This was on BoingBoing, but I can’t resist posting about it: NPR have a story about crows recognizing human faces, holding grudges, and passing related information to other crows.
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I can be a terrible correspondent. I go through patches, some of them years long, where, unless I respond to an email immediately (which is essentially a function of chance), I might not respond ever. This becomes cumulatively worse very quickly, because I become more and more overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff in my inbox, and this makes me less willing to engage with older emails.
Recently, I’ve figured out some methods for dealing with it better.
(To those of you who are owed email from me who are still reading this: you might receive long-overdue replies in the near future, even if they’re to messages that could be classified as “ancient”.)
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I know this has been on BoingBoing already, but it seems so ridiculous that I can’t resist posting it here too:
[The City of Bozeman]‘s background check policy … states that to be considered for a job applicants must provide log-in information and passwords for social network sites in which they participate
(emphasis mine)
—“Bozeman City job requirement raises privacy concerns”, Dan Boyce, montanasnewsstation.com, 18 Jun 2009
In a recent MetaFilter thread about some more expanded Taser us after a judge ruled it was okay to Taser an uncooperative suspect in order to get a DNA sample from them (with passing mention of some grandmother tasering thrown in), I came across a comment that I thought was fantastic:
Remember when you could tell that Spock’s political system was eeeevil because of his willingness to use the agonizer?
—mwhybark, comment on ‘Niagara County Judge: tasing a suspect into compliance with DNA test = okay’, metafilter.com, 05 Jun 2009
Via Bruce Schneier comes news that four American states have banned smiling while having your driver’s license photograph taken. Yes, really. Because facial recognition software that they’re apparently using to try to cut down on fraud doesn’t like it:
Dull expressions “make the comparison process more accurate,” says Karen Chappell, deputy commissioner of the Virginia DMV, whose no-smile policy took effect in March.
—“Four states adopt ‘no-smiles’ policy for driver’s licenses”, Thomas Frank, USA Today, 25 May 2009
Sure, the explanation that they need to do this to prevent fraud sounds rational, but really, preventing people from smiling? I think it’s hard to find a better metaphor for “soulless bureaucracy”.
I recently started playing the daily Set puzzle again, and was thinking about other ways to play the game without other players.
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The title of this post is hardly original, but it’s been a favorite of mine for many years. Underneath the smartass exterior, however, the aphorism packs a fairly significant punch that’s not necessarily merely a variant on solipsism.
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I’ve been using Twitter for about three months now. I was fairly skeptical about it, but decided to try it out, and while I don’t think it’s now a completely essential tool, I do find it useful.
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Pensecola Christian College, an unaccredited (except for nursing) university, has about 4500 undergrads, and they apparently have to abide by rather stringent regulations. Some excerpts:
Married personnel should refrain from physical display of affection realizing that our college students are not allowed to have physical contact.
—Bruce Gerencser, “Pensacola Christian College Rules and Regulations”, Bruce Droppings, 17 April 2009
After my brother passed on Blood or Whiskey’s “Your Majesty” (because I mentioned Flogging Molly’s If I Ever Leave This World Alive due to its being used on Weeds), I was reminded of the unpleasant fact that both Bob Geldof and Bono accepted induction into the Order of the British Empire.
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From one form of labor exploitation to another, different but with some similarities: grad school in the humanities.
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It’s not surprising that some athletes make terrible financial decisions, and one often hears about the Michael Vicks and Mike Tysons of the world ending up with nothing. But I didn’t realize that it was quite so common, and that these examples aren’t exceptions but rather the rule. According to a recent Sports Illustrated article, “[b]y the time they’ve been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce”.
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This is probably all over the net by now—I saw it via Sarah Milstein—but it’s too cool not to post about: Tweenbots.
Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.
—Kacie Kinzer, tweenbots.com, 2009
I think it’s a fascinating project, and love the fact that the tweenbots were largely helped to their destinations successfully by strangers. I immediately wanted to see experiments where different features on them, as well as different routes and different times, and possibly the presence of money on the tweenbots, would alter the results. I’d also love to see how the results would be altered by their becoming more common as a result of running tons of experiments with them…
The Guardian reports that residents of a village in Buckinghamshire phsyically prevented attempts to add street view images of their town to Google. Perhaps because I’m a sneering, post-ironic, San-Francisco-values, technocrat elitist, I find this extremely amusing. This line just makes it better:
Jacobs said there had been three burglaries in the last six weeks: “If our houses are plastered all over Google, it’s an invitation for more criminals to strike.”
—Maev Kennedy, “Coy village tells Google Street View ‘spy’ to beat a retreat”, guardian.co.uk 3 April 2009