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Nighttime thinking
It’s probably meaningful that I come across this article on Urban surveillance networks and this article on profiling on the same day. Both of them are worth reading.
Consider the following statement.
An overwhelming majority of Americans think that racial profiling is wrong. A lesser number think that racial profiling is not worth doing under ordinary circumstances, a smaller number think it’s not worth doing under any circumstance.
The above is an accurate description of public sentiment when 100% of the factor is race. Gender and age are usually thrown in as well. The above still holds true.
But what happens when race is one factor of 50 and the profiling is being done by a computer? Assume a surveillance server can determine, height, weight, approximate age, race, gender, posture, gait, clothes, et al. Does it become acceptable at that point?
This line of thought reminds of the last Supreme Court affirmative action decision where it was said that it was wrong for people to discriminate, but fine for computers to do so.
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Random things
Mapbuilder is way cool (HT: 5150)
Sometime over the past week Drex messed up my rear derailer on my bike so now the gears won’t shift.
I happened upon the Wikipedia entry on ethnic slurs and my current favorite is Chernozhopiy, which is “a person possessing a black ass” in Russian.
Curiously Russians seem to use this to indicate all non-Europeans, not exclusively black people. Very strange. Also strange is the fact that most of the Asian countries have a term that literally means “White Ghost”. Also Criminal -(UK & NZ) an Australian (see also convict)
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Irritating
I finally see something I want on E-Bay, and it is very nicely integrated with both Paypal and G-Mail. So far so good.
But, for no good reason, neither Paypal nor E-Bay are talking to each other, therefore I can’t get the book I want. A pox on thee E-Bay.
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Podcasting
As some of my few readers know, I’m lukewarm on the notion of Podcasting. Then along comes this post from Marginal Revolution on the Economics of Podcasting. Good stuff.
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I visit the Commuter Art Gallery
I visited Clark Ashton’s Commuter Gallery today. I’m somewhat happy with the pictures, realistically most of them should have been shot as landscapes, not portraits (which is why most of them are focused the way they are). On the whole I don’t think I did it anywhere near justice. Some of them are good I suppose.I also got some nice shots of Clark’s neighbors Chevy Newport car, which is a mighty sweet ride.
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Lenses
I got the Olympus lens in the mail today and I have to say it doesn’t seem like it was worth it. I’m considering getting this (assuming it turns out to be compatible.
In the meantime, here’s a close-up photo
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Friday Rapid Fire
Since I’m stuck on a JavaScript bug, I’ll post some thoughts and links
- Good Idea – In your cell phone address book, type ICE (in case of emergency) in front of someone’s name so paramedics can know who to contact. HT: Marginal Revolution
- uncertainty – I’m not sure that this (and it’s natural conclusion) is a good idea, though I do support the sentiment, I think.
- Backstoke of the West – Star Wars translated into Chinese, then back into English, perhaps Engrish would be a better word.
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Saw Sin City again
At the Fox Theater no less, and it remains very good.
On an odd note, I recently (yesterday) ordered a lens adapter, telephoto lens, and a gig of memory from buy.com for the Mighty Olympus C-8080 and for no reason that I can tell it’s coming in 3 shipments. Very strange. I’ve been extremely happy with the C-8080 so far.
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Thought of the moment
A random notion I had while walking Drex (and mind you this just throwing out an idea)
Three True Points:
- The internet has made educational material very, very cheap, realistically the only cost is time.
- The return on human capital (brains) is at an all time high and climbing
- It is easier to learn points of fact via the web than it is to learn matters of mathematical principle and logic
Therefore we should stop teaching the following in the lower grades:
- History
- Literature
- Anything labeled “Social Studies”
- Applied Science
Why not concentrate the classroom time into learning grammar, logic/science and math? The student has due incentive to learn all of the subjects excised from the classroom, and it would not be filtered though our complicated education bureaucracy.
Thoughts anyone? I do realize that this would not be an issue if education were properly privatized.
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Thoughts on the current state of the two party system
As I put in my earlier conversation with Eric:
Each party has no fixed position, but two definite constituencies:
- The people who will vote for the party’s candidates
- The people who will contribute money to the party
For the Republicans the ideology of the median contributor is fairly close to the ideology of the median voter. For the Democrats, the median contributor seems to be farther left than the median voter. This pushes the party ever leftwards (and indirectly pushes the Republican’s leftwards as well).
I suppose the question is: Is this an evolutionary stable strategy? Time will tell I suppose.