Aug 25
Posted: under Uncategorized.
I’ve got some daredevil in me – I’ve done a lot of things over my career that I look back at and wonder why I’m still upright & sucking oxygen. But this video frickin’ terrifies me:
Technorati Tags: luge, daredevil, video, camerawork
Aug 25
Posted: under Uncategorized.
I’ve got some daredevil in me – I’ve done a lot of things over my career that I look back at and wonder why I’m still upright & sucking oxygen. But this video frickin’ terrifies me:
Aug 15
Posted: under Uncategorized.
This one comes courtesy of Dave Mitchell, at the tail end of another wide-ranging conversation. The article is “long as hell,” but fascinating in that it describes how scientists are starting to focus in on how our inborn moral sense works.
I had mentioned to Dave the experiment that was making the rounds a few years ago, where Capuchin Monkeys were tossing aside perfectly good slices of cucumber because they had seen another monkey rewarded with grapes. Which, I mentioned, makes me think of pretty much every collective bargaining session I’ve ever been involved with.
Anyway. The NY Times devotes considerable space to this topic. A sampling:
our heads can be turned by an aura of sanctity, distracting us from a
more objective reckoning of the actions that make people suffer or
flourish. It seems we may all be vulnerable to moral illusions the
ethical equivalent of the bending lines that trick the eye on cereal
boxes and in psychology
textbooks. Illusions are a favorite tool of perception scientists for
exposing the workings of the five senses, and of philosophers for
shaking people out of the naïve belief that our minds give us a
transparent window onto the world (since if our eyes can be fooled by
an illusion, why should we trust them at other times?). Today, a new
field is using illusions to unmask a sixth sense, the moral sense.
Moral intuitions are being drawn out of people in the lab, on Web sites
and in brain scanners, and are being explained with tools from game
theory, neuroscience and evolutionary biology.
Aug 14
Posted: under Uncategorized.
This one comes courtesy of Dave Mitchell, at the tail end of another wide-ranging conversation. The article is “long as hell,” but fascinating in that it describes how scientists are starting to focus in on how our inborn moral sense works.
I had mentioned to Dave the experiment that was making the rounds a few years ago, where Capuchin Monkeys were tossing aside perfectly good slices of cucumber because they had seen another monkey rewarded with grapes. Which, I mentioned, makes me think of pretty much every collective bargaining session I’ve ever been involved with.
Anyway. The NY Times devotes considerable space to this topic. A sampling:
our heads can be turned by an aura of sanctity, distracting us from a
more objective reckoning of the actions that make people suffer or
flourish. It seems we may all be vulnerable to moral illusions the
ethical equivalent of the bending lines that trick the eye on cereal
boxes and in psychology
textbooks. Illusions are a favorite tool of perception scientists for
exposing the workings of the five senses, and of philosophers for
shaking people out of the naïve belief that our minds give us a
transparent window onto the world (since if our eyes can be fooled by
an illusion, why should we trust them at other times?). Today, a new
field is using illusions to unmask a sixth sense, the moral sense.
Moral intuitions are being drawn out of people in the lab, on Web sites
and in brain scanners, and are being explained with tools from game
theory, neuroscience and evolutionary biology.
Aug 10
Posted: under Uncategorized.
As the L.A. Times seemingly stumbles towards an unmarked grave in journalistic Potter’s Field, every once in a while it spits out something that reminds me why I will kinda miss the Left Coast Gray Lady when she’s gone. Today’s issue of the Times features a well-researched story that busts open a disturbing secret – that for all our screeching about illegals & drugs coming north across La Frontera, something far more sinister is passing them on its way south: guns.
Viz:
High-powered automatic weapons and ammunition are flowing virtually unchecked from border states into Mexico, fueling a war among drug traffickers, the army and police that has left thousands dead, according to U.S. and Mexican officials.
The munitions are hidden under trucks and stashed in the trunks of cars, or concealed under the clothing of people who brazenly walk across the international bridges. They are showing up in seizures and in the aftermath of shootouts between the cartels and police in Mexico.
More than 90% of guns seized at the border or after raids and shootings in Mexico have been traced to the United States, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Last year, 2,455 weapons traces requested by Mexico showed that guns had been purchased in the United States, according to the ATF. Texas, Arizona and California accounted for 1,805 of those traced weapons.
The article goes on to show that the border area has exploded with a lot of gun shops shipping out badass weapons under what can best be described as a “don’t ask-don’t tell” policy to whoever can fog and mirror and foist over a wad of cash.
Yay for good ol’ American profiteering! Who gives a shit what happens when those weapons make it to the other side of the border? Time and again, for easy money, American buyers grab stacks of assault rifles and turn them over to the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas. What could the result of that be?
The body count, meanwhile, is rising. Since a military-led crackdown on narcotics traffickers began 18 months ago, more than 4,000 people in Mexico have died in drug-related violence, including 450 police officers, soldiers and prosecutors, as well as innocent bystanders, cartel members and corrupt officials, according to Mexican authorities.
Tom Mangan, a senior ATF special agent in Arizona, compared the flow to reverse osmosis. “Just like the drugs that head north,” firearms move south, he said. “The cartels are outfitting an army.”
Next time you hear some talk-radio infused dittohead or Ton Tancredo-alike railing on about border security, be sure to bring this one up, eh? My guess is that the NRA is already springing into action on this one – and that the LA Times site is about to be descended on by the nitwit tribes, all pissing and moaning about the damn “lib’rul media.”
Of course, when this war starts spilling over the border (how long do you think that it’s going to stay confined to Tijuana and Juarez? Another six months? A year? How ’bout six months ago?), we’re going to be flailing around for answers to the bloodbaths taking place on the streets of San Diego, Phoenix, Dallas, LA, etc. etc. And no doubt we’ll also hear all the same old worn-out songs about “guns don’t kill people,” and “just enforce the laws on the books.”
We won’t see any meaningful change in the gun laws in the U.S. until the violence reaches the streets of midwestern small-town America, and touches the lives of the insular, apathetic inhabitants of Redneckistan. That day may be closer than they think… Technorati Tags: 2ndamendment, zetas, assault rifles, border, frontera, gun trafficking
Aug 10
Posted: under Uncategorized.
As the L.A. Times seemingly stumbles towards an unmarked grave in journalistic Potter’s Field, every once in a while it spits out something that reminds me why I will kinda miss the Left Coast Gray Lady when she’s gone. Today’s issue of the Times features a well-researched story that busts open a disturbing secret – that for all our screeching about illegals & drugs coming north across La Frontera, something far more sinister is passing them on its way south: guns.
Viz:
High-powered automatic weapons and ammunition are flowing virtually unchecked from border states into Mexico, fueling a war among drug traffickers, the army and police that has left thousands dead, according to U.S. and Mexican officials.
The munitions are hidden under trucks and stashed in the trunks of cars, or concealed under the clothing of people who brazenly walk across the international bridges. They are showing up in seizures and in the aftermath of shootouts between the cartels and police in Mexico.
More than 90% of guns seized at the border or after raids and shootings in Mexico have been traced to the United States, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Last year, 2,455 weapons traces requested by Mexico showed that guns had been purchased in the United States, according to the ATF. Texas, Arizona and California accounted for 1,805 of those traced weapons.
The article goes on to show that the border area has exploded with a lot of gun shops shipping out badass weapons under what can best be described as a “don’t ask-don’t tell” policy to whoever can fog and mirror and foist over a wad of cash.
Yay for good ol’ American profiteering! Who gives a shit what happens when those weapons make it to the other side of the border? Time and again, for easy money, American buyers grab stacks of assault rifles and turn them over to the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas. What could the result of that be?
The body count, meanwhile, is rising. Since a military-led crackdown on narcotics traffickers began 18 months ago, more than 4,000 people in Mexico have died in drug-related violence, including 450 police officers, soldiers and prosecutors, as well as innocent bystanders, cartel members and corrupt officials, according to Mexican authorities.
Tom Mangan, a senior ATF special agent in Arizona, compared the flow to reverse osmosis. “Just like the drugs that head north,” firearms move south, he said. “The cartels are outfitting an army.”
Next time you hear some talk-radio infused dittohead or Ton Tancredo-alike railing on about border security, be sure to bring this one up, eh? My guess is that the NRA is already springing into action on this one – and that the LA Times site is about to be descended on by the nitwit tribes, all pissing and moaning about the damn “lib’rul media.”
Of course, when this war starts spilling over the border (how long do you think that it’s going to stay confined to Tijuana and Juarez? Another six months? A year? How ’bout six months ago?), we’re going to be flailing around for answers to the bloodbaths taking place on the streets of San Diego, Phoenix, Dallas, LA, etc. etc. And no doubt we’ll also hear all the same old worn-out songs about “guns don’t kill people,” and “just enforce the laws on the books.”
We won’t see any meaningful change in the gun laws in the U.S. until the violence reaches the streets of midwestern small-town America, and touches the lives of the insular, apathetic inhabitants of Redneckistan. That day may be closer than they think… Technorati Tags: 2ndamendment, zetas, assault rifles, border, frontera, gun trafficking
Aug 05
Posted: under Uncategorized.
I originally sent this out as an e-mail message, but I think that spam filters are snatching up anything with “Paris Hilton” in the message header, so I’m not sure if it got through. So here it is again, in this space … which, come to think of it, may not show up high in Google results because of Paris’ name.
Damn, that girl is powerful.
This response to McCain’s video is “totally hot.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/05/paris-hilton-responds-to_n_117137.html
I’ve also embedded the original video from Will Ferrell’s “Funny or Die” site.
There is something wrong with me. I laughed too hard at the images of the Crypt Keeper and Yoda next to John McCain’s, and I think I strained my sacroiliac. And I know Paris was reciting what someone else said for her about America’s Energy Policy. Which is exactly the point.
Because it’s exactly what the other two guys are doing too.
Not sure about her choice for V.P., however. I think she needs someone with a bit more gravitas for the role, to counterbalance her the way Cheney did to Bush. Hmmm … elder stateshottie … Raquel Welch? Farrah Fawcett? Nah. A bit too old. Heather Locklear? Cyndy Crawford? Madonna? That’s more like it. I could totally see any of those three getting bitchy and pushing the nuclear button… which might keep the rest of the planet in line long enough for Paris to seduce some Saudi prince and get the production quotas lifted…
At least someone is throwing punches back at the McCain slime machine. Sad that it has to be Ms. Hilton.
Aug 05
Posted: under Uncategorized.
I originally sent this out as an e-mail message, but I think that spam filters are snatching up anything with “Paris Hilton” in the message header, so I’m not sure if it got through. So here it is again, in this space … which, come to think of it, may not show up high in Google results because of Paris’ name.
Damn, that girl is powerful.
This response to McCain’s video is “totally hot.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/05/paris-hilton-responds-to_n_117137.html
I’ve also embedded the original video from Will Ferrell’s “Funny or Die” site.
There is something wrong with me. I laughed too hard at the images of the Crypt Keeper and Yoda next to John McCain’s, and I think I strained my sacroiliac. And I know Paris was reciting what someone else said for her about America’s Energy Policy. Which is exactly the point.
Because it’s exactly what the other two guys are doing too.
Not sure about her choice for V.P., however. I think she needs someone with a bit more gravitas for the role, to counterbalance her the way Cheney did to Bush. Hmmm … elder stateshottie … Raquel Welch? Farrah Fawcett? Nah. A bit too old. Heather Locklear? Cyndy Crawford? Madonna? That’s more like it. I could totally see any of those three getting bitchy and pushing the nuclear button… which might keep the rest of the planet in line long enough for Paris to seduce some Saudi prince and get the production quotas lifted…
At least someone is throwing punches back at the McCain slime machine. Sad that it has to be Ms. Hilton.
Aug 01
Posted: under New Media Strategery, newspaper crisis, Online (Multi)Media, Web/Tech, Weblogs.
In all the trainings I’ve done over the last couple of years, the one hot-button issue guaranteed to touch off a passionate debate, even amongst the most detached, sit-on-their-hands group is the reader comments section.
See, journalists just hate them damn comments.
Yeah, yeah, notable exceptions abound, and some people “get it” that we’re supposed to include our readers/users in our little game of “Hey lookee here! I done found out sumthin’ kewl!” But by and large, newspaper reporters & editors have grown accustomed to their comfy positions as The Voice Of God That Brooks No Disagreement.
So when I start talking about some of the measure that newspapers around the world have taken to try to moderate & impose order on the chaotic forums, comment sections, trackbacks, etc., the journalists fairly leap out of their chairs, eyes alight, as they tick off all the awful insults and calumnies they have been forced to endure by the damn intertubes propellorheads. They talk about how their readers are crazy people who write horrible insults and lies about the reporters, and who get crafty to avoid all the various moderation/banning mechanisms. 
In Chile, in Argentina, Russia, Mexico, Colombia, Ukraine … the trolls know no boundaries. In each place, the reporters and editors go on and on at great length about how they can’t stand looking at the comments under their stories, because they know that some persistent readers that have an axe to grind against them are going to show up there and start yammering and flinging virtual monkey poo.
I’ve actually found this subject to be a godsend – when my voice is wearing out and I need a few minutes to chug water and compose myself, I toss this little conversational grenade in the room, and let the journalists vent for a while before moving on to possible solutions.
It’s stunning to me that there appears to be international norms and predictable patterns to troll behavior. Vulgar sex-based insults, thread hijacking, escalating to physical threats. There’s a great gallery of Flame Warriors here – I highly recommend that you check it out. If you’ve spent any time whatsoever in the comments sections, having conversations online, you will laugh, cry and grit your teeth in rage as you recognize the archetypes. Is there some special international brotherhood of the troll that you have to join? Do the entrance exams call for you to drive a netizen into such a frenzy of rage that he smashes his computer monitor with his fist? Hey … that’d made a cool YouTube movie…
Anyway.
There’s an interesting case coming out of the Yale Law School that might put an end to all this. How?
By making people responsible for what they say online.
So yeah. The reason socially retarded dimwits, 15-year-olds off their Ritalin and drunk dormrats stink up forums and comment boards is because they aren’t going to have to pay the price for their actions.
The Yale lawsuit seeks to change that.
AK-47 was one of a handful of students heaping misogynist scorn on
women attending the nations’ top law schools in 2007, in posts so vile
they spurred a national debate on the limits of online anonymity, and
an unprecedented federal lawsuit aimed at unmasking and punishing the
posters.…lawyers for two female Yale Law School students have ascertained
AK-47′s real identity, along with the identities of other AutoAdmit
posters, who all now face the likely publication of their names in
court records — potentially marking a death sentence for the comment
trolls’ budding legal careers even before the case has gone to trial.
The unmasking of the posters marks a milestone in a rare legal
challenge to the norms of online commenting, where arguments live on
for years in search-engine results and where reputations can be sullied
nearly irreparably by anyone with a grudge, a laptop and a WiFi
connection.
We keep dancing around this problem on the internet, mainly because nobody has really found a workable solution yet. On the one hand, unfettered speech leads to such chaos that the signal-to-noise ratio becomes unworkable – my best example of this is the Yahoo News message boards. They’ve been down for more than a year and a half. If you ever went there, you know why.
The boards were taken over by a hard-core group of trolls with apparently limitless time, energy and hatred. No subject was too off-topic for them to use to spew their anger, obscenities and insults at … well, it wasn’t really at each other. It was basically the digital equivalent of a grubby guy in tattered clothes in a bus station screaming “AAAAAHHHHGGG! AHHHGGG!” at his socks. Even the most innocuous subjects – a story on flower arrangement or dogs, f’rinstance, would attract the trolls within about 10 posts.
The other extreme, of course, are the limp & lifeless forums & comment spaces, where moderation is imposed to such an extent that the audience just migrates elsewhere to talk to each other.
Now then.
One of the key things that helps keep internet users sociable is imposing some kind of accountability for their actions. Which is what registration is all about – trying to attach a real human identity to the screenname. The fight for newspapers has been trying to raise the hurdles for commenters to a level where it’s tough enough to establish an identity so that you don’t do it casually (no shelling out to create a free Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo account on the spot to establish a handy sock puppet), but not so hard that users start feeling like they’re applying for a home equity line of credit a Business Visa from the Russian Consulate.
Now that there appears to be a clear legal precedent for peeling back the layers of anonymity to hold trolls accountable for their poo-flinging, I find myself of two minds about this. I have been roughed up by a fairly good cross-section of trolls over the years, and it’d be nice to be able to expose them as the pathetic, mommy’s basement-dwelling loser subcreatures my wounded ego insists they must be. On the other hand … some of my responses to said trolls (hey! I was provoked! Honest, they started it!) may have been a bit … intemperate. So I have to wonder if there are perhaps some other sad, wounded egos out there. And, where would it stop? If you can bring an action for something someone said in a chat room, or Second Life, or the forums at AngryJournalist, well, we better just pave over the downtown areas of every major city in the U.S. and turn it all into one giant courthouse, because we’re gonna need the space.
Aug 01
Posted: under Uncategorized.
In all the trainings I’ve done over the last couple of years, the one hot-button issue guaranteed to touch off a passionate debate, even amongst the most detached, sit-on-their-hands group is the reader comments section.
See, journalists just hate them damn comments.
Yeah, yeah, notable exceptions abound, and some people “get it” that we’re supposed to include our readers/users in our little game of “Hey lookee here! I done found out sumthin’ kewl!” But by and large, newspaper reporters & editors have grown accustomed to their comfy positions as The Voice Of God That Brooks No Disagreement.
So when I start talking about some of the measure that newspapers around the world have taken to try to moderate & impose order on the chaotic forums, comment sections, trackbacks, etc., the journalists fairly leap out of their chairs, eyes alight, as they tick off all the awful insults and calumnies they have been forced to endure by the damn intertubes propellorheads. They talk about how their readers are crazy people who write horrible insults and lies about the reporters, and who get crafty to avoid all the various moderation/banning mechanisms.
In Chile, in Argentina, Russia, Mexico, Colombia, Ukraine … the trolls know no boundaries. In each place, the reporters and editors go on and on at great length about how they can’t stand looking at the comments under their stories, because they know that some persistent readers that have an axe to grind against them are going to show up there and start yammering and flinging virtual monkey poo.
I’ve actually found this subject to be a godsend – when my voice is wearing out and I need a few minutes to chug water and compose myself, I toss this little conversational grenade in the room, and let the journalists vent for a while before moving on to possible solutions.
It’s stunning to me that there appears to be international norms and predictable patterns to troll behavior. Vulgar sex-based insults, thread hijacking, escalating to physical threats. There’s a great gallery of Flame Warriors here – I highly recommend that you check it out. If you’ve spent any time whatsoever in the comments sections, having conversations online, you will laugh, cry and grit your teeth in rage as you recognize the archetypes. Is there some special international brotherhood of the troll that you have to join? Do the entrance exams call for you to drive a netizen into such a frenzy of rage that he smashes his computer monitor with his fist? Hey … that’d made a cool YouTube movie…
Anyway.
There’s an interesting case coming out of the Yale Law School that might put an end to all this. How?
By making people responsible for what they say online.
So yeah. The reason socially retarded dimwits, 15-year-olds off their Ritalin and drunk dormrats stink up forums and comment boards is because they aren’t going to have to pay the price for their actions.
The Yale lawsuit seeks to change that.
AK-47 was one of a handful of students heaping misogynist scorn on
women attending the nations’ top law schools in 2007, in posts so vile
they spurred a national debate on the limits of online anonymity, and
an unprecedented federal lawsuit aimed at unmasking and punishing the
posters.…lawyers for two female Yale Law School students have ascertained
AK-47′s real identity, along with the identities of other AutoAdmit
posters, who all now face the likely publication of their names in
court records — potentially marking a death sentence for the comment
trolls’ budding legal careers even before the case has gone to trial.The unmasking of the posters marks a milestone in a rare legal
challenge to the norms of online commenting, where arguments live on
for years in search-engine results and where reputations can be sullied
nearly irreparably by anyone with a grudge, a laptop and a WiFi
connection.
We keep dancing around this problem on the internet, mainly because nobody has really found a workable solution yet. On the one hand, unfettered speech leads to such chaos that the signal-to-noise ratio becomes unworkable – my best example of this is the Yahoo News message boards. They’ve been down for more than a year and a half. If you ever went there, you know why.
The boards were taken over by a hard-core group of trolls with apparently limitless time, energy and hatred. No subject was too off-topic for them to use to spew their anger, obscenities and insults at … well, it wasn’t really at each other. It was basically the digital equivalent of a grubby guy in tattered clothes in a bus station screaming “AAAAAHHHHGGG! AHHHGGG!” at his socks. Even the most innocuous subjects – a story on flower arrangement or dogs, f’rinstance, would attract the trolls within about 10 posts.
The other extreme, of course, are the limp & lifeless forums & comment spaces, where moderation is imposed to such an extent that the audience just migrates elsewhere to talk to each other.
Now then.
One of the key things that helps keep internet users sociable is imposing some kind of accountability for their actions. Which is what registration is all about – trying to attach a real human identity to the screenname. The fight for newspapers has been trying to raise the hurdles for commenters to a level where it’s tough enough to establish an identity so that you don’t do it casually (no shelling out to create a free Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo account on the spot to establish a handy sock puppet), but not so hard that users start feeling like they’re applying for a home equity line of credit a Business Visa from the Russian Consulate.
Now that there appears to be a clear legal precedent for peeling back the layers of anonymity to hold trolls accountable for their poo-flinging, I find myself of two minds about this. I have been roughed up by a fairly good cross-section of trolls over the years, and it’d be nice to be able to expose them as the pathetic, mommy’s basement-dwelling loser subcreatures my wounded ego insists they must be. On the other hand … some of my responses to said trolls (hey! I was provoked! Honest, they started it!) may have been a bit … intemperate. So I have to wonder if there are perhaps some other sad, wounded egos out there. And, where would it stop? If you can bring an action for something someone said in a chat room, or Second Life, or the forums at AngryJournalist, well, we better just pave over the downtown areas of every major city in the U.S. and turn it all into one giant courthouse, because we’re gonna need the space.
