Sue Lange's Blog, page 18

Buy A Friend a Book Week is Coming Up

Never heard of it? It started in 2005 by Debra Hamel. Check out the website for information.

Here's a quote from the site to give you an idea of what it's all about: "Celebrating BAFAB is easy. Just get yourself to a real-life or virtual book store during Buy a Friend a Book Week (the first weeks of January, April, July, and October) and, well, buy a friend a book! But here's the fun part: you can't buy your friend a book because it's their birthday or they just graduated or got engaged or had a baby or anything else. You have to give them a book for no good reason."

Sounds like fun. I plan to participate and bug my friends to do so as well. Guess I'll have to visit my favorite bookstore, Wise Owl Bookstore. Geez, what a chore.

Sarcastically yours,

Sue Lange

P.S. If you prefer ebooks, visit the Book View Cafe site to find some cheap reads.

Bombing with Books in Philadelphia

[image error]Have you seen this BookBombing thing yet? It's a guerilla literary/art movement. Thingy.

Here's a description at their website.

"The project creates a narrative space that reveals the materiality of existence – the invisible city within a city that includes the homeless, the trees that grow on city streets, the metropolitan skyline, and everything in between, all part of the urban ecosystem. The artists make their own paper for their prints out of materials that embody the content of their imagery, such as old clothing and invasive plants harvested from abandoned spaces in Philadelphia and from the San Francisco Bay Area."

Basically they make zines and place them in public places like park benches and empty lots. Their project draws on "the history of guerrilla art, graffiti traditions, and the artist multiple" (whatever that is).

Fine. Whatever they're doing it sounds fun and I think I need to make a trip to a Philly park bench.

If you can't make it to the back alleys and abandoned buildings of Philly or San Francisco, download their latest zine and print it out. Instructions for assembly are included in the download.

Can't wait to check out this wheat paste thing.

Sue Lange

P.S. Make books, not bombs.

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Education Now and in The Future

The artwork on the left is from Susan Simensky Bietila. The picture is a depiction of her son eating his lunch at school. He's got 10 minutes, and as you can see, the lunchroom monitor is keeping a close eye on the time. This work, amongst others she has done in her On Time series,  is Ms. Bietila's response to modern educational methods. She reacts specifically to the way teachers are trained to maintain control  in the classroom by a method known as "Assertive Discipline."

Assertive Discipline manipulates students by using a system of rewards and punishments. Bietila believes it goes hand in hand with a "stultifying, watered down curriculum." I discovered her thoughts on this (as well as her artwork) in the April issue of Cascadia Subduction Zone.

I know nothing of modern educational methods, so I did a quick survey on Assertive Discipline and read about the pros as well as the cons.

Obviously one cannot form an intelligent opinion by simply reading a few documents on the Internet, but I immediately form half-baked opinions, anyway. First off, I'm not sure Assertive Discipline would lead automatically to stultifying curriculum. A good teacher will ensure the classroom stays lively. But not all teachers are good teachers. Not all of the non-good teachers are bad teachers. I imagine most teachers are probably average. On a good day they let their natural creativity take the class to new heights of productivity, on regular days it's just plain ol' slogging through fractions and phonics.

And don't teachers today need a tool (besides corporal punishment) to maintain discipline in their classrooms? Isn't it a good thing to put the responsibility for behavior back on the child?

On the other hand I'm  picturing  the average teacher applying this technique or  any canned program, and I'm seeing stultifying results. It reminds me of the goals/rewards program in the corporate world. Stick to the program, don't wander. Stultifying.

Now that I've discovered this strange new world of educational process, I will pay attention to what the teachers say about it. They're the ones that get blamed, or take credit, for everything that happens in the classroom. Somehow I suspect that there is no easy answer, no easy one size fits all tool, process, or style.

In the end, don't you think a lot of these discipline problems would go away if the class size was reduced to, say, five? Let's go back to the methods of the middle class in the 1800s when each privileged family had a teacher for their brood.

Of course that wouldn't work. To make it fair and available to all levels of society, we'd have to funnel some of the funds from the military to pay for it. Sorry, what a dunce I am. I'll go stand in the corner now.

Sue Lange

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More Thoughts on Robots & AI

Sheron McCartha has been thinking about robots and AI over at her blog. She's concerned that maybe we're all getting a little too controllable. It's true we are. Maybe we should be.

I don't know if we have to worry about robots taking over, though. It might be good to have entities that have no political agenda running things. It's human emotions that wind us up in wars and recessions. Greed, overly competitive natures, envy, desire, cold-blooded aspiration. We could use a little less of these in our leaders.

Sue Lange

Violent Crime Rate Drops: Sign of the Singularity Times?

There's been a lot of press lately given to the national drop in violent crime. Apparently it's been on a downward spiral since the all-time high in 1991, with only slight bumps up in 2005 and 6.

Of course everyone from the "tough on crime" proponents to community organizers to those with the latest scientific method for rehabilitation  are claiming credit.

Time Magazine sums it up this way:

"There's a catch, though. No one can convincingly explain exactly how the crime problem was solved. Police chiefs around the country credit improved police work. Demographers cite changing demographics of an aging population. Some theorists point to the evolution of the drug trade at both the wholesale and retail levels, while for veterans of the Clinton Administration, the preferred explanation is their initiative to hire more cops. Renegade economist Steven Levitt has speculated that legalized abortion caused the drop in crime. (Fewer unwanted babies in the 1970s and '80s grew up to be thugs in the 1990s and beyond.)

The truth probably lies in a mix of these factors, plus one more: the steep rise in the number of Americans in prison. As local, state and federal governments face an era of diminished resources, they will need a better understanding of how and why crime rates tumbled. A sour economy need not mean a return to lawless streets, but continued success in fighting crime will require more brains, especially in those neighborhoods where violence is still rampant and public safety is a tattered dream.

The Lockup Factor

In his book Why Crime Rates Fell, Tufts University sociologist John Conklin concluded that up to half of the improvement was due to a single factor: more people in prison. The U.S. prison population grew by more than half a million during the 1990s and continued to grow, although more slowly, in the next decade. Go back half a century: as sentencing became more lenient in the 1960s and '70s, the crime rate started to rise. When lawmakers responded to the crime wave by building prisons and mandating tough sentences, the number of prisoners increased and the number of crimes fell."

Steven Levitt, cited in the Time article above, wrote in his "Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s" published in 2004 in the Journal of Economic Perspectives that there are six things that do NOT contribute: 1) the strong economy of the 90s; 2) changing demographics (i.e. aging population); 3) better policing strategies; 4) gun control laws; 5) laws allowing the carrying of concealed weapons; 6) increased use of capital punishment.

According to Levitt, although better policing strategies does not contribute to the decline ("Strategies" includes Rudy Giuliani's clearing out of panhandlers in New York City and the return of beat cops to neighborhoods elsewhere) the number of cops does contribute. Interesting.

His idea that legalized abortion has contributed to the decrease is certainly provocative and I'm sure we'll be hearing more about that in the future as the debate continues.

Here's an interesting fact: while the national rate has dropped considerably, the rate in mid-sized cities has gone up. For instance it's risen in Buffalo , which is probably typical for cities of that size.

Something else: the rate at which homicide is dropping is about the same as it was rising back in the 60s and 70s. (Check the image above from Levitt's book.) It's just going in the other direction. Eventually it'll be back where it was. Maybe we should be looking at what was going on at that time to see why it rose. Conklin says it was the lenient sentencing back then, but that was also the time when the demographics would be changing: the baby boomers were young and at the age where people tend to commit crimes if they are so inclined. Now they're old and no longer at that stage.

I'm wondering if we're casting our net far enough to find an answer. For instance, could it be Singularity's effect? Are we becoming more and more connected? Knowledge comes in thick and fast and we're more aware of each other as human beings than we were before. Maybe we finally feel each other's pain.

The Singularity or our rampant ramp up of technology and instant communication may be  homogenizing the human race. Maybe this in turn eradicates hate crime. And in essence every crime is a crime of hate.

Regardless of how you feel about brain uploads and nanobots circulating in your blood, the Singularity effect may be a good thing.

Sue Lange

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The Future of Money is Virtual

You seen this yet? Bitcoins. It's virtual money, circulated digitally, issued by no government, and open-source.

People have been saying since the beginning of time that money has value only in the abstract and here is proof of that. A Bitcoins' value lies in the trust that the receiver puts in it. There's no gold standard, silver certificate, or Fort Knox. If the current regime you are living under fails, you can't melt it down and redeem it on the gold market. But then, there is no current regime when it comes to Bitcoins.

It'll be interesting to see if this takes off as fast as Paypal did. It might could even put Paypal out of business.

Right now there's not a whole lot on the list of places to use your bitcoins, but I imagine that will change.

I'd love to hear anybody's experience with this.

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Wanted: An App for Commuting

[image error]I'm on a lot of emailing lists that I don't remember signing up for. This problem has plagued us all since the mid-90s when emailing from work was first invented. Like everybody else, I quickly learned how to not get sucked into the email marketing scam. I said no to everything, changed my subscriptions regularly, and declined all invitations. I ran a pretty clean ship for a while, but lately I've become lax. Sure, sign me up, I say. Yeah, what the heck, I like you, I'll take your newsletter. How hard is it to delete email?

As a result I've been seeing some pretty weird stuff in my in-box. The most annoying comes from the company I work for. There's one notification some entity in this outfit regularly sends out. Whoever it is won't let you opt out of it, either. Required reading or something. Comes to me once a week with the subject "If you're wondering where your paycheck is…"

I ignore it. At my own peril, sure, but some things are better left unknown. My paycheck is hooked directly to my bank account which is hooked directly to the bank accounts of my creditors. I have no idea how much money I make or how much I spend. Someday I will declare bankruptcy, but I won't know about that either. My accountant and my lawyer are in regular contact with each other and I trust both of them with the handling of my estate. They're good guys and both play a mean round of golf. Or so I'm told. I play racquetball and never meet up with them on the playing field. Good. Ignorance is bliss. I trust somebody at some point will tell me when I need to stop making all those shopping trips to Philly.

Getting back to the email newsletters. I think everyone should follow my example. Keep the weird stuff coming. Don't get off those mailing lists somebody else probably signed you up for. It's fun and great entertainment. You'll see junk you'll never find in your micro-managed Twitterfeed. You can't imagine the corners of the world I'm now privy to just because I don't opt out of email newsletters. Places I don't really belong, but now are a big part of.

For instance, a couple of weeks ago, I got a press release from some entity called Latitude. This group "provides creative research and unexpected knowledge for leaders in content, technology and learning." I don't know what unexpected knowledge is. Further, I would never, under normal circumstances, be invited to the places leaders of content, technology, and learning hang out. But here I am receiving Latitude's spam as if I was on the porch with the big dogs. The democracy of the Internet in action.

The press release Latitude sent me was about their recent study entitled "Tech for Transit: Designing a Future System." Basically they wanted to see how mobile phone apps can help solve the global warming/energy crisis. I might be paraphrasing. In essence, they asked 10 volunteers to not drive their cars for one week. After that week the volunteers filled out questionnaires with questions like: "How can information access encourage people to make more sustainable transit choices?" and "Can tech help transit make us feel more connected to each other—and what lessons can businesses in other industries apply?"

Apparently they only needed 10 random people to answer these questions and thus solve our little greenhouse faux pas. Efficient.

Yes, I jest. What I think they were actually tracking was how cellular communication contributes to finding a ride to work. And shopping, of course.

I'm not overly familiar with social research. I look at the covers of Psychology Today, that's about it. I don't know what makes for a good study, but somehow this one seemed a little devoid of substance. I downloaded their PR material to get some details to make sure I was getting it right. Somewhere in the middle of the details, I found this interesting quote from volunteer, Keren S, from Boston: "I'd want to see a Web site or app that allows you to compare options for getting to different places, and maybe adds information like carbon emissions, calories burned, and so on, for each option. If you have a lot of places to go, it could also offer to 'plot your route,' which would offer the most time-efficient way to do it."

I like this Keren S. Yes, this would be an app I might consider downloading. At some point I'm going to get out and kick some 'droid butt (i.e. turn my cell phone on). I'm going to need an app or two if I intend to stay in the mainstream of our current cultural revolution. Keren S.' idea would be a good one for me to start with.

The Latitude study got me thinking. We should seriously start coming up with a plan to stop driving so much. We need something beyond a mere app, though. We need a radical new idea. I have one. It's totally off the wall and I'm sure when people hear about it they'll question my higher brain function, but I'm going to lay it on you anyway: mass transit. I know, sounds about as helpful as 10 people arranging a commute via texting, but hang on. Contrary to what a small group of wealthy people that used to headquarter in Detroit would have you believe, train travel is not bad for you. I used to do it every day and look at me I'm still here despite my lack of higher brain function.

This past weekend, I was inspired by a mashup of Latitude's PR materials and the details of my radical new idea. I decided to take the train. Now, in spite of the fact that I live in Reading, PA which has its own rail system in Monopoly, there is no working train in my town. It's not far from Reading to Baltimore, Philly, DC, New York, Pittsburgh, or Cleveland. Yet there is no rail system from Reading to anywhere. You can't get to Park Place, Boardwalk, or Marvin Gardens on the Reading Railroad.

Since it was time for a shopping trip to New York City, the center of rail transportation in the U.S., that's where I headed. I had to drive an hour to the Somerville station on the Raritan line of NJ Transit just to get to the train, but once I got there, I relaxed into the eye-glazing comfort only the passing swamps of New Jersey can provide. I joke, only because I know people don't like swamps. I happen to like them. Even the ones in Jersey that aren't part of any nature preserve as far as I can tell. Most of the wildlife you see in Jersey is in the form of old telegraph poles listing tragically while their electrical lines to dip into the water. It looks in places like Godzilla had recently been through. But I love it. Someday I'm going to rent a canoe and paddle through the area. Kick up a few dead tires or something.

The point is, train ride is fabulous. You don't have to drive and more importantly, you don't have to park. In Manhattan that is no small matter.

The train dropped me at 34th Street. From there it was a 20 minute walk down to 14th Street where I finally hit my stride. Fabulous lunch, trees in bloom, great matinee performance (Laurie Metcalf of Rosie fame doing an outstanding, practically one woman show, at the Lucille Lortel Theater). Ah, New York in the springtime.

If you want to go somewhere more exotic than Chelsea or the Village, say East New York, Bed Stuy, Far Rockaway, or The Bronx, there's more mass transit to take you. It's just so easy. And you never have to find a parking spot.

How I miss that mass transit experience. The morning commute was annoying, sure. The closer you live to Manhattan the less chance you'll have of getting a seat, but then your ride is shorter so you don't really mind that much. And more important, you don't have to park when you get there.

These are the things I'm sure the Latitude people are working day and night to effect. They're connecting up the commuters who have silly ideas and outrageous opinions to the decision-makers, those with power and money that can do something about those silly ideas. If there's one thing the Latitude people can pass on for me to the big dogs at their cocktail parties and soirees it's this: The U.S. has had hot and cold running water, indoor plumbing, and central heating for how long? A few years anyway. When are we going to get our high-speed rail?

Sue Lange

Get more of Sue Lange's silly ideas and outrageous opinions in UNCATEGORIZED her collection of short stories at Amazon.

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The Saga Continues: Following up on the Higgs

[image error]I'm going to do what I wish every reporter working in sensationalism (Are there any that aren't?) would do. I'm going to follow up on a previous story.

As you know from a previous post, the story of the Higgs boson is a soap opera. The saga continues with a delightful twist, a turn of the plot any self-respecting TV writer would be envious of.

Previously on Desperately Seeking the Higgs, the LHC appeared to be a shoe-in as winner in the search for the God particle. Fermilab had failed in its last ditch attempt to find the boson. But the old smasher still has a trick up its sleeve. According to the latest issue of New Scientist, it's making a play to overthrow the current standard model of particle physics.

You'll remember the standard model describes three forces acting on subatomic particles: electromagnetic, weak, and strong. According to the wikipedia entry, the electromagnetic force is responsible for just about everything since it "is the force that causes the interaction between electrically charged particles." That's a lot to be responsible for. Then there's the strong force. It acts on the nucleus to make sure it doesn't fly apart. Finally the weak force is involved in radioactive decay processes. We're comfortable with these forces, we understand them, we like them.

But Fermilab might just turn all that on its head. If they can't find the Higgs, they say, they'll just mootify it. How are they going to do that? Well, apparently they've got an unexplained bump in their data (see graphic above). And that bump might be due to an entirely new and heretofore unknown force that will give mass to all particles known to mankind, quarks included. Recall that that was supposed to be the job of the mighty Higgs. This new force precludes the need for a Higgs. It won't exist. Game over.

Is this a conspiracy? Perhaps. Consider this: if we stick with the standard model, the deadline for Fermilab to pull a rabbit out of the hat is September of this year. That's when the lab is scheduled for decommissioning. It has to discover the Higgs by then or concede victory to LHC. Of course the LHC would still have to discover the Higgs for it to win. That's not a foregone conclusion. If the LHC doesn't find a Higgs either, the competition will end in a draw. That will be the best Batavia can hope for if September rolls around and no bunny.

But if it can turn this standard model on its head, why, then it will be the winner. It will go down in a glorious finish. So this new force, this bump in the data, is Fermilab's last best chance for the particle physics equivalent of Olympic gold.

This seat edge action doesn't get better than this. As you well know, often with science reporting today's sensational news that has the potential to turn the entire world on its head, or maybe just tilt the axis the other way, is yesterday's misinterpretation of the data. So, ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN.

This is definitely more exciting than the fodder you get on the real soaps. There the best you can hope for is Chloe showing up to discuss Daniel's motives or Kevin wanting to do something with the baby.

Stay tuned!

Sue Lange

Find more of Sue Lange's breathless prose at her BVC bookshelf.

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New Science: Are Plants Racist?

In 2006, New Scientist told us that altruism is linked to genes. An individual will act altruistically on behalf of those related to him or her. The more closely related you are to someone, the more likely you are to sacrifice for them. You will share your food with parents, children, and siblings but not so much with cousins. Those even further away will not only not get anything from you, but you also will easily regard them as an enemy when the going gets tough. Racism is an ancient imperative hard-coded in our genetic makeup.

It appears that not only is blood thicker than water, but according to the March 26th New Scientist, so is plant sap. What I mean is, not only do humans and other animals act altruistically on behalf of relatives, so do plants.

According to the article, the mycorrhizal mat that exists in the soil around plants and consists of fungus, bacteria, dirt, roots and more, facilitates communication between plants. By communication I mean chemical communication. The forest floor and meadow bed are alive with floral talk-talk. Plants use this communication vehicle to determine whom to share resources with. An individual will give up nutrients to neighbors it is related to, but not to plants of a different species. They also help relatives with defense. If one of a group is attacked by a browser, its siblings will all emit defense chemicals. If a plant of unrelated species is attacked, the individuals nearby don't bother.

Are these plants sentient? Certainly not, but they do seem as racist as humans.

Wouldn't this racism in plants result in vast swatches of a single species out in the wild? I'm imagining a valley full of Hatfield ferns while over in the next hollar are the McCoy smartweeds. Current thinking says ecosystems with the greatest variety are the healthiest: nature not only abhors a vacuum, it also abhors a monoculture, so what of these racist communities? Of course if you asked a specific species what a healthy meadow has, it would say lots of its own kind. What an ecologist wants and what a species wants are not the same thing.

Maybe life is a struggle not between good and evil, but between like and unlike. Maybe that's the definition of good and evil: like me and not like me.

It's almost a superfluous definition in these overpopulated times. In today's modern world, borders are becoming less and less important. We are redefining our differences. Changing how we decide who is "like" us and who is "not like" us. In this over connected world, our genes are no longer helpful in determining like and not like. Divisions between people are based more on the abstract. Belief systems for instance. Or education, and not only the formal kind; what we learn outside of school is considered education also. Wealth, of course divides people, as it always has.

As we become increasingly more in touch with people not only far away and perhaps different genetically, will we no longer need close family ties? Is everyone now potentially related to us? Related meaning exposed to the same ideas at the same time and in the same way, and therefore more like us.

I don't know if this knowledge of the social network of plants is helpful. If plants exhibit racism, does that mean fear of Others is so basic that we can't overcome it? Dare we hope that in these overpopulated, over connected times our new-found love of the intellectually like-minded will finally win over the primitive imperative?

We can come up all kinds of sustainable energy plans to insure maintenance of current lifestyle, but at some point, we're going to have to address our overpopulation, our primal need to pass on our genes at any cost, the most selfish racism of all. And not helping each other is a bad idea, regardless what the plants think.

Sue Lange

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