Internet Freedom Restrictions (Brent's nightmare)

Under the clever guise of the Internet Freedom Act of 2009, John McCain recently introduced a bill into senate that would drastically change how the internet functions (1). In its current form, the internet has an infinite number of sites and given an infinite amount of time an individual could visit each of them, regardless of his/her internet provider (e.g., Comcast). The IFA ’09 has the potential to treat internet sites like DirectTV, Comcast, Qwest, and Time Warner treat cable channels. For instance, if you have DirectTV you may have HBO and the Big Ten network, however, if you have Comcast you may have Showtime and the NFL Network. This could be the future of the internet. Let's keep an eye on this.

Telecommunications donated over 3 million dollars to McCain during his campaign (2). Interesting for someone who is a self-proclaimed internet illiterate.

Sources:
1) http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressOffice.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=7ccc25b5-9d63-321c-0238-805ed7bafc6b

2) http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=2010&cid=N00006424&type=I

Pre-book review

I'm currently reading Cannibals All! Slaves without Masters by George Fitzhugh:

http://reactor-core.org/cannibals-all.html#fitz33

It's an argument for slavery and I think toward socialism at the same time. I'm reading it mainly because a quote by Eric Foreman in an episode of House where he said all the masters thought they were doing slaves a favor (and for hundreds of years slaves apparently did not mind). I really want some insight into the mind of the average slave. I think our society currently may have it about right (where young people working their way up go through a semi-slave phase where they do equal or greater work than adults but receive little to no pay). If I were designing a society, this is probably how I'd do it. Quinn objects to this of course and makes a strong argument against it, but I believe the argument in favor of young-slavery is just as strong + is tradition so it is the prevailing system.

Newspaper Assessment: La jornada

This is a segment on nuclear proliferation from a talk Noam Chomsky gave earlier this month:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3kAld2YwgU

He mentions La Jornada and seems to give his recommendation for it, maybe. He does say that it's independent and maybe the only independent newspaper in the hemisphere (of course none in the United States).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Jornada

Should journalists have a licensing examination?

Communications is arguably one of the easiest majors at university. Currently in the United States, virtually anyone can become a journalist (while most major at a university in journalism, mass communications, or English). There is no licensing as there are with most other professionals (and those without licensing tacitly favor PhD's). Let's try to imagine how journalism would be different if such licensing existed.

Jonas Salk

I was aware of his work with polio (per med school and college and high school) and then was reminded of him in Michael Moore's Capitalism, but did not know anything of his philosophy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk

I would recommend reading this article in its entirety before discussion, at which point I'll try to find a book which covers him.

Rosh was wrong about the gays!?

Utah scientists hard at work:
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/sciencentral/696-reversing-sexual-orientation-video.htm

We know from embryology that we all start out as women (see SRY gene for more details) so the line between heterosexuality and homosexuality is fuzzy from the beginning. Also recall Ron White's standup where he says he prefers porno where the guy has a big throbbing $#%@ instead of a small one. There's a bit of woman in each man and probably a bit of man in each woman.

Rosh's argument was that homosexuality is a choice. It almost certainly isn't a (conscious) choice. What's interesting here is that even if it's largely genetic, it may be changeable through gene manipulation. And then this becomes an ethical question: would we want to change the genetics of babies before they are born (which would actually be the mother/father) to favor heterosexuality? Let's discuss this aspect of the nematode experiment.



Also, what's up with that scientist's hair? I didn't think that sort of hair was allowed in Utah.




Note: Labeled under human science even though experiment was carried out on pseudocoelomates.

Culture of Corruption

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113816661&ft=1&f=3

connect to this book

http://www.lucifereffect.com/

by zimbardo aka the guy who conducted the stanford prison study

Muslims on Capital Hill: scare tactics?

Fox News Special Report: "Four House Republicans on Wednesday accused the nation's largest Muslim advocacy group of trying to "infiltrate" Capitol Hill by placing interns in the offices of lawmakers who handle national security issues.

The four lawmakers, members of the anti-terror caucus, asked for an investigation into the Council on American Islamic Relations after discovering an internal memo noting the group's strategy."

This seem ridiculous to me. First, it sounds like the CAIR is becoming just like anyother organization trying to lobby congress to pass bills fit to their needs. So, if congress wants to stop them, then stop all lobbying. Second, the way this is presented poses CAIR as a terrorist group and fails to mention the Christian groups that have sought to infiltrate congress in the same manner. If correct, Jerry Falwells college and law school specifically trains Christians to become leaders and politicians to push the Christian agenda.

Should this draw the same concerns?

Source:
1) Fox News Article
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/14/gop-lawmakers-accuse-muslim-advocacy-group-planting-spies-capitol-hill/

2) Info on Falwell Law School
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4632072

The Banks, Geithner, and the President

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113803587&ft=1&f=2

Matt Apuzzo breaking some potentially revealing news. The piece is 4:06 long. We'll have to keep an eye on this guy.

Jazz, what's so good about it?

I'm going to the Dakota tonight (it's a jazz club downtown).

I have never understood music.

As far as I could ever tell, people were in love with the idea of being a rockstar as much as they were the music itself. The 80's were more honest about this (kind of) by focusing on the beat and making the tunes very catchy, at least that's how I've seen it and I could be wrong. It does not help that I can never actually understand the lyrics to a song whether it's Hip to Be Square or something more recent like [insert Dave Matthews song title]. When I look up the lyrics online, the themes are almost always sophomoric at best - most songs seem to be about love or other emotions. Jazz is supposed to be different (the image coming to mind is the mercenary in Collateral played by Tom Cruise who despite his criminality I considered a very thoughtful character of meticulous-nature). I found this article in "WikiHow":

http://www.wikihow.com/Appreciate-Jazz-Music

1. "Start where jazz history started, Ragtime. Listen to Scott Joplin, the Entertainer especially, then the Maple Leaf Rag, these are extreme favorites. try moving to these. You might develop a love specifically for ragtime!
2. Now, try listening to the swing. You can dance to these easily. Possible favorites can be "Hit the road jack" by Ray Charles. You will love this one! Otherwise try listening to this upbeat instrumental called In the Mood by the Glenn Miller
3. At night to cool down, listen to Cool Jazz. Artists such as Chet Baker in songs such as "Someday my prince will come" and artists such as Gil Evans and Stan Getz are also quite good. This is also a distinct style. If this doesn't please your tastes, try be-bop.
4. Many people love be-bop. try listening to Dizzy Gillespie. he is quite good, with a lot of energy in his songs. Charlie Parker and him played together once.
5. Try listening to the blues, this will get you used to the soul and heart put into some jazz songs. Try Bobby Rush, Denise LaSalle, Sir Charles Jones, Bettye LaVette, and Peggy Scott-Adams. Try to learn the lyrics so you can sing along. You don't have to buy the CDs listen to them on youtube, or buy it from iTunes, but sample it first!
6. Figure out what you listened to before, and try to find a genre of jazz that you may like off of that. If you enjoyed, say, New Age, try listening to artists like Keith Jarrett, or if you listened to rock, try out Fusion. Later forms of jazz started shaping around mainstream popularity, so there is a genre of jazz for almost all music (even Jazz Rap)! But be sure not to get stuck on the sub-genre; try branching out to more solid forms of jazz."

It starts with the history. I believe music may be a way to connect to the past. Let's assume that music is a way to connect with emotional states. Emotions are highly connected to memory........... And if these guys are doing more than just writing music themed on sex and love but on political problems of the time, society itself, then a thorough understanding of history and music will allow me to better understand both. I will fill in the composers later as they are the vocabulary in this new language (I likely will need to download these from bittorrent as they are too expensive any other way).

Music likely is cultural transmission, it almost certainly is not completely disconnected.


Steve will probably not understand this article, Jarrod will.

Out Foxed?

A 2008 Pew Research Center analysis found that Fox News’ 2008 election coverage was very balanced compared to MSNBC (see graph above). This is going to focus on Fox News from now on. I check their webpage once a day, though I don’t have access to their cable news channel.
Conclusions:
1) PRC rated just Fox News’ news sections and not the commentary programs (i.e., Hannity, Beck, O’Reilly).
2) Polling was wrong
3) I am biased against Fox News and therefore cannot see that they were the most balanced
4) False dichotomy. Though the coverage (negative/positive) of McCain and Obama was balanced, it should not have been because one candidate works less with logic and more with ad hominem. This is like bringing 1 republican and 1 democratic on a show to discuss a topic and claiming this is balanced, even if you are discussing plate tectonics and one of them does not believe it in (hope that makes sense).

Anyone have a thought about this? The above may not be mutually exclusive. I probably am a little bias toward Fox, but I also think they use a lot of false dichotomy and guise their commentary programs as real news.

Einstein Physics

http://www1.umn.edu/news/features/2009/UR_CONTENT_133361.html


"In his theory of general relativity, Einstein described gravity as a curvature of space, like the sag in a mattress beneath a bowling ball. He predicted that cataclysmic events like the merging of two black holes would send ripples called gravitational waves coursing through the fabric of space at the speed of light. But they would be too feeble to detect."

Until now. The LIGO experiment, which includes this installation in Louisiana, is testing this prediction with their "gravity telescope" Two lasers at perpendicular angles which can detect these ripples if they exist.

Is Nature free? What about Science?

Back to Ishmael and Daniel Quinn

Is Dr. Robert Epstein ripping off Daniel Quinn or perhaps arriving at the same conclusions independently?

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/10/13/midmorning1/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Epstein

Epstein believes the education system needs to be completely changed considering that teenagers in many cases are as adept as adults. Indeed many adults are incomepetent compared to teenagers. Do we agree and didn't Quinn already say this?

Free Market System?

I recently read that more than 20 of the Fortune 100 companies in 1993 would not exist as independent companies without government intervention at some point in their company history (i.e., government subsidy). Here is the list of Fortune 100 companies in 1993:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500_archive/full/1993/

My search was cursory at best, only looking for evidence for the companies that jumped off the page (i.e., Oil Companies, military). A simple search on google of “Company Name” + Government subsidy was all that was required to find the results I needed:

Lockheed Martin, ConocoPhillips, GM, ExxonMobil, Ford, Boeing, ConAgra Foods, Chevron, Shell, Marathon Oil, Honeywell, Monsato, Texaco, ADM, and Occidental Petroleum. That’s 15 out of 100; I found in just 15 minutes.

So, next time someone tries to tell me that the “free market” determines which companies succeed or fail I will call their ignorance out, and so should you.

Noam Chomsky points out “that the modern corporation is almost completely totalitarian.”

Do we agree?

Fusion Documentary

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/an-experiment-to-save-the-world/

I'd like to discuss this film. It's on the use of sonoluminescence to create fusion.

Minneapolis Surprises Me

I'm not sure if I've made a post regarding proportional vs pluralistic voting systems, but although I missed the MPR radio program, here we have this article:

"Broadcast: Midday, 10/12/2009, 11:00 a.m.

MIDDAY offers a primer on what's also called Ranked Choice Voting, which will be used in the Minneapolis general election in November. St. Paul voters will decide if they want to employ IRV in future elections.

• Rachel Smith: Director of the Election Administration Project at the University of Minnesota Humphrey Institute's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance. Former elections manager for Anoka County.
• Curtis Gilbert: Minnsota Public Radio reporter and producer." 1

Let me also reference pluralistic and proportional voting, specifically Duverger's Law 2,3,:
"In political science, Duverger's law is a principle which asserts that a plurality rule election system tends to favor a two-party system. This is one of two hypotheses proposed by Duverger, the second stating that “The double ballot majority system and proportional representation tend to multipartism”"

Argument: Minneapolis and Minnesota are politically more evolved than most of the rest of the country.


1) How Will Instant Runoff Voting Work? MPR Midday Program hosted by Gary Eichten
Accessed October 12, 2009.

2) Proportional Representation, Wikipedia. Accessed October 12, 2009

3) Duverger's Law, Wikipedia. Accessed October 12, 2009.

Book Review: Who's Your City

Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life

Author
Richard Florida

Date of Publication
2007

Reason for reading
My roommate had Florida's 2002 book in his favorite books (on Facebook). I read the background of the author and then read the book at the bookstore and have now ordered it on amazon.

Genre and/or Themes
Environment and psychology, society (public vs private collaboration), systems and networks

Author Background
Richard Florida is a professor at the University of Toronto and does research social theory and economies. He has a PhD. from Columbia and worked at the George Mason University School of Public Policy and at Carnegie Mellon's I-school (information school). He seems like a decent person but it's hard to say - his temperament is even (from what I've read of how he responds to his criticism) but again my data here is too limited to draw any meaningful conclusions.

Synopsis
This is the best book I've ever read on networks (and the only one outside of my business classes). The last and greatest utility of man that has not been replaced by computers is innovation and creativity. Our economies are now reflecting this but not in a homogenous fashion. Certain parts of the country (and world) "have more spikes" according to Florida. The creative output is higher in places you may have already guessed: San Francisco, Boston, Pittsburg/Chicago beltway etc. Florida believes (and has large data to support) the thesis that creativity is the valued commodity and certain regions are better than others for those who want to exploit this.

Review
At the level of the idea, this is not entirely new. It synthesizes what we already had intuited and presents the information in a way that is more scientific but I'd argue quasi-scientific (which doesn't normally bother me but some of his assumptions appear to be false). The book is broken into four parts. Why Place Matters is the first section detailing Florida's "mega-regions". I would like to direct you to this article by Florida: http://www.bnet.com/2403-13070_23-193140.html which gives the data on the mega-regions. Are you wondering if Minneapolis is one of the regions? It does not make his top 10. A megaregion must meet three key criteria. First, it must be a contiguous, lighted area with more than one major city center. Second, it must have a population of 5 million or more. Finally, it must produce more than $100 billion in goods and services. By that definition, there are some 40 megaregions in the world.
Historical Context: David Ricardo and Adam Smith analogy - these mega regions of 2009 would equal Ricardo's "nation-state." Ricardo and Smith both seem to borrow this term for more classical thought. If we recall, Socrates describes nation-state in The Republic. I'd postulate every civilization has had its version of a nation-state. See the wikipedia article for more information (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state) Also, these ideas have been in science fiction. Futuristic concepts of what cities actually can become (think Judge Dread sp).

I remember in college looking at this picture:
http://members.wolfram.com/billw/images/earth_lights.jpg

This appears to be the impetus for Florida and his research team. "The use of light footprints to define megaregions produces a precise and complex boundary to each region." He and colleauges then combine this and cross-analyze with other metrics such as traffic density and GDP by region. He goes onto to say that Thomas Friedman was wrong about the world becoming flat (flat here means that technology basically connects us all and gives everyone equal opportunities for financial success). Minneapolis falls into the Chi-Pitts megaregion. This is very interesting because about 2 weeks ago I remember listening to an MPR piece on creating a high-speed railway between Minneapolis and Chicago and then I found this just now: http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/richard_florida/2009/05/mega-regions_and_high-speed_rail.php

The highspeed railway does not look to be built anytime soon (in short, too much opposition from existing mass transit authorities and employees eg bus, plane).

Section 2 deals with how the individual will respond to this (assuming part one is true). There will be greater opportunities to the person who can not just move to the economic megaregions but remains mobile in mindset. Those who are rooted to one area will find more economic hardship basically.

In Section 3 Florida explains the results by linking the dominant forms of employment in the areas with the personality traits: manufacturing regions require people who are agreeable (follow rules) and conscientious (work with dangerous machinery), openness comes from areas with high immigrant populations, and extroversion from areas with management headquarters and sales related jobs. Florida finds that his Gay and Bohemian Index, which connected gay and artistic communities to high growth and wealth generation areas, is actually a proxy for regions with large concentrations of the openness personality trait.

Florida is taking a lot of liberties in this part of the book but making the argument that culture of a city contributes to its economic success is hard to make with pure data alone. Part of it is going to have to be subjective and I'm willing to buy this idea. But, referring to psychological profiling, I'd simply say open-mindedness in culture begets open-mindedness is the economy of ideas (and ultimately financial power).

Section 4 is about how you personally respond to this information. I'll simply cut and paste from wikipedia (as their treatment is as good as mine or better since I don't know how to make tables in the blog-composer):

The final part of the book, Where We Live Now, suggests that the average life has three big moves: when leaving a parent's home, when starting a family, and when retiring (or when children move out). When youth leave their home (or when they leave college), those who can move away, choose to locate in areas that offer attractive job markets, cultural or recreational amenities, and rank high in quality of life factors. When they get married or have children, people are choosing areas that are perceived as safe and family-friendly. Florida suggests using a Trick-or-Treater Index, do parent feel safe allowing their children to go door-to-door on Halloween; or Catherine Austin Fitts's Popsicle Index, how far are parents willing to allow their children to walk to buy a treat. Once retired, or when kids leave home, the parents tend to gravitate towards similar areas as young people, but in quieter neighborhoods. They desire opportunities for hobbies or a second career and proximity to grandchildren. The final chapter lists five factors to consider before choosing a location to reside followed by a 10 step plan to help people choose. The five factors to consider are (1) short and long term career goals (2) importance of being physically close to family and friends (3) desirable lifestyle options (e.g. access to beaches, water bodies, mountains, etc.) (4) locating close to similar personality types, and (5) current life stage. The ten step plan is outlined below:

Florida's ten-step plan to help narrow the field and make a decision on where to live

	Description of step	Notes
1	Get your priorities straight	Write down preferences, including the grand and trivial.
2	Generate a short-list	The previous step should rule out many locations and identify suitable broad regions.1
3	Do your homework	Collect information on each potential location by doing research, such as reading local newspapers or asking questions of local residents.2 considering leadership or direction of officials, social values of people or organizations, and aesthetics of the place.
4	What do they offer?	Assess and rank the potential locations by local economic conditions, especially with respect to jobs, professional development, and networking opportunities.
5	Getting the basics right	Assess and rank the potential locations by educational facilities, safety, health care, housing, transportation and other similar services.
6	Does the place get it?	Assess the potential locations by the initiatives that political and community leaders have been taking
7	Values check	Assess the potential locations by the predominant social values displayed by residents and organization, especially in attitudes towards tolerance, trust, and self-expression.
8	Come on city, light my fire	Assess and rank the potential locations by recreational, cultural and aesthetic interests.
9	Tally it up	From these rankings, weigh the pros and cons of the short-listed places and decide which place fits best.
10	Go there	Before committing, visit the decided upon location first. Choose the location that meets expectations upon a visit.

Problems with the logic:

Richard throws into the Creative Class almost everybody and groups them in two categories: the Super Creative Core and the "creative professionals". These two groups include: scientists, professors, poets, novelists, artists, entertainers, actors, designers, architects, non-fiction writers, editors, cultural figures, researchers, analysts, programmers, engineers, filmmakers, financial services, legal and health care professionals, business management and the list goes on.

I of coure do not think (actually I KNOW) that health care professionals are not in his creative class. Physician-scientists are, but just barely. And the argument for financial services needs to be stronger. Of course, whoever controls the capital controls the people (labor supply), but the average financial service person is doing nothing creative; he's just making money. The Federal Reserve and central banks however, have a lot of control (arguably the most). Politicians you note, are left out. This is very interesting and leads me to my addition to this book.

If you can recall Sim City, then this will make perfect sense, if not then it won't. Politicians actually are not like the nerve-center deciders that they should be. They seem more to play games where they protect themselves first and worry about resources/people second. Keep in mind, no formal training is required to be a mayor but he still gets to handle the resources. I am forced to ask the question of whether this kind of governance will work in the future. If the society is truly democratic, then if it's possible I believe adults will have to live three lives: the life of their specialization and job (the ant function), their family life (especially if they decide to have kids), and their societal job (sim city function). As has been discussed here already, we do not seem to have democracy. The assumption for this model changes to take into account the kind of democracy we do have and we find that while the rest of the society is evolving and adapting to technology, politics is not. I'd like a focus of our discussion to be whether this is dangerous and incompatible with the current society.

Quotes
I'd simply say to look at the images I've provided and the additional reading (figures and tables sections). This is better than any quote I could give you to aid your memory.

Additional Reading:

http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/userfiles/prosperity/File/Rise.of.%20the.Mega-Regions.w.cover.pdf

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/earth_lights_lrg.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.maximizingprogress.org/2008_01_01_archive.html&usg=__DqUg-3lKlzNkjb2fPMmY9ugjgfg=&h=1200&w=2400&sz=535&hl=en&start=22&sig2=TNzrH1rLKUjx1hRzKxYSJg&um=1&tbnid=o6sBlhky9YpPhM:&tbnh=75&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dearth%2Blight%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN%26start%3D20%26um%3D1&ei=tk7TSt3qFqKyNNKPgZUD

Is Sanjay Gupta a fraud?

So this guy was at the marathon this morning promoting his new book Cheating Death. I of course have not read this book, but the premise as supposed by a reading of the title makes it seem like this man is setting up a straw man in matters of inevitability. I'll take a look at it the next time I'm at Border's and give a more thorough review.

In the meantime, I found this:

http://crooksandliars.com/2007/07/11/michael-moore-vs-sanja-gupta/

It seems Sanjay Gupta, Larry King, and Wolf Blitzer were all involved in a bit of a soiree after Sicko came out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpKoN40K7mA

My gut feeling (for what that's worth) tells me that Gupta is a bit of a drone and I'm not sure how he's qualified to be a journalist (neurosurgeons aren't as smart as you think, I speak from experience, it's really more about effort and capability to deal with attrition). But let's examine this idea more closely; if I remember correctly this man was in line at one point to be our next surgeon general (a job that pays ~200k/year less than neurosurgeon and probably .5-1.0 million less than CNN analyst). He declined I believe.