Filed under: Connections, DARPA, Expert systems, General Musings, James Burke, Music, Predictions, Science, Society, Survival, tech, Writing stuff, YouTube
I’ve mentioned previously the work of science historian James Burke. This past weekend I finished watching the last couple of episodes of his ground-breaking series Connections. Overall, you would probably enjoy watching the series, and will find a lot of chuckles over what was “high tech” in 1978 versus the reality of what we have today. But the closing bit was just stunning – it was a prediction of the need for and use of the Internet before DARPA had even begun to let the cat out of the bag. Here’s the last ten minutes:
In particular the bit that starts out at about 5:00 is the culmination of his entire thesis about change – that understanding how things change is the key to understanding everything. At about 6:45 is this remarkable passage (transcribed myself, since I couldn’t readily find it online – how’s that for irony?):
Scientific knowledge is hard to take, because it removes the reassuring crutches of opinion and ideology. And the reason why so many people may be thinking about throwing away those crutches is because thanks to science and technology, they have begun to know that they don’t know so much, and if they are to have more say in what happens in their lives, more freedom to develop their abilities to the full, they have to be helped towards that knowledge they know exists and that they don’t possess.
And by ‘helped towards that knowledge’, I don’t mean give everybody a computer and say “help yourself.” Where would you even start? No, I mean, trying to find ways to translate the knowledge, to teach us to ask the right questions. See, we’re on the edge of a revolution in communications technology that is going to make that more possible than ever before. Or, if that’s not done, to cause an explosion of knowledge that will leave those of us who don’t have access to it as powerless as if we were deaf, dumb, and blind.
Digital divide, anyone? Anyway, I find it just fascinating that Burke was so dead-on in his prediction of the Internet, even if he didn’t have the term for it, and yet even he failed to understand how phenomenally all-encompassing it would be. Whereas he thought that it would be impossible to just give people access to the information and say “go to it”, that is exactly what we’ve got – and self-organization of information and resources like Wikis make that information understandable, not just accessible.
When, as often happens, I feel somewhat pessimistic, that our greed or violent tendencies will outstrip our maturing as a culture/species, it is helpful to come across something like this. And I think that is why I read SF, and have written Communion of Dreams: because there, with all the ugliness and human folly, there is nonetheless room for hope. Look at what we’ve done in just the last thirty years – what more can we accomplish in the next forty, if we don’t destroy ourselves?
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Yesterday was dreadful.
I don’t know what happened to trigger it, but it was one of the worst days that my MIL has had in a while. At least since this day. And this time it manifested itself as a constant need for reassurance. As I told a friend in an email:
Ugh. Not with the ongoing problems with MMIL. It can take me 20 minutes to get her to settle down, only to have her get wound back up about something ten minutes later. Needless to say, I’ve accomplished almost nothing today.
I literally spent at least half the day just sitting and talking with her, doing my best to help her remain calm and not obsess over contacting her parents or going “back to school”. Even with all my experience and what I’ve learned about distracting her and redirecting her attention, it was an almost constant battle.
And in the middle of it, I got an email from another friend with a link to this video:
That’s basically the last six years of my life compressed into six minutes. You want to have some idea what it is like to be a care-provider for someone with Alzheimer’s or other age-related dementia? Watch it.
Jim Downey
Filed under: BoingBoing, Constitution, Flu, General Musings, Government, Predictions, Press, Science Fiction, Society, Violence, Writing stuff, YouTube
OK, I realize that I am probably the last person on the planet to hear of this, but nonetheless I want to rant about it. What it? The YouTube vid of the Utah HP Officer using his Taser on a guy pulled over for speeding which has been getting a fair amount of press and blog attention. Before I say any more, here’s the clip:
OK, first thing – my dad was a cop, and I’ve known cops all my life. I generally like cops, and respect the job they do – it’s dangerous, grim, and I don’t want to have anything to do with it.
Next thing – it’s stupid to do anything other than smile nice and comply with what a cop tells you. Yeah, stupid. Because in that situation, out in the real world, the cop (or his buddy cops) is gonna win any argument. You got a problem, save it for your trial or a lawsuit against the cop/department/government.
Last thing – because we give cops this much power over us, we *have* to insure that they exercise their authority properly and appropriately. That’s the trade-off, the contract we make with the government.
And this HP Officer did not properly exercise his authority. I think any fair viewing of the video leaked out to YouTube pretty clearly indicates just exactly what happened: for whatever reason, this cop did not like having his power challenged, and escalated the situation in a completely inappropriate manner, endangering the man he’d pulled over, the man’s family, himself, and just about anyone else who was traveling that stretch of highway at that time. It was in violation of the HP guidelines:
Troopers that carry Tasers must take a four-hour certification course outlining how and when to use the devices, according to UHP’s nine-page policy. They are taught to use them in three circumstances:
* When a person is a threat to themselves, an officer or another person.
* In cases where the physical use of force would endanger the person or someone else.
* When other means of lesser or equal force by the officer has been ineffective and a threat still exists.
Now, will the internal review of the use of the Taser in this instance show that the cop behaved in compliance with the rules? Will the cop be disciplined? Will the victim see justice in court? I don’t know, I suppose we’ll have to see. And we’ll have to see whether the social contract we make with the government in this case is honored, or whether it is yet again broken by a system in which the government and its officials are seen to be our rulers rather than our employees.
What does all of this have to do with Communion of Dreams? Not a lot, directly. But a whole lot, indirectly. Because I see this abuse kind of power by the government today as part of the reason why, when in the ‘history’ of the novel things break down following the first fire-flu, there’s a lot of civil unrest leading to something akin to a second civil war. Because if people do not trust their government or its officers, then when there is a catastrophe they will not trust it to act on their behalf, and will seek to protect and defend themselves even from their own government. It is a throw-away line early in the book, but the post-flu US I see is largely libertarian in nature for this very reason.
Jim Downey
(A slightly different version of this rant has been cross-posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Comics, Darths & Droids, George Lucas, Humor, movies, Music, Science Fiction, Star Wars, YouTube
In response to my last post on Friday before skipping town for a few days, a friend reminded me of this Weird Al Yankovic version of American Pie:
What adds a bit to the weirdness is that one of the people I was visiting with this past weekend was from Clear Lake, Iowa and hence is more than a little sick of American Pie, and the song was the topic of considerable conversation and humor. Having this version pop into my inbox this morning was more than a little serendipitous.
Anyway, while I usually only enjoy Weird Al in somewhat small doses, I do respect his particular variety of genius, and this is a good example of just what he is capable of. Enjoy!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Constitution, Gene Roddenberry, Government, NPR, Politics, Press, Society, tech, Wired, YouTube
If you haven’t really been following the latest on the Telecom Immunity/Domestic Spying efforts by the Bush Administration, or even if you just were busy yesterday, you might want to check out what former AT&T technician and wiretapping whistle-blower Mark Klein has had to say on the matter. In particular, Senator Dodd has posted a 2 minute YouTube summary from Klein that’ll give some idea of the scope of the surveillance. And in a discussion on NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday, Klein goes into some detail about why he claims that AT&T was basically spying on each and every one of us who uses the internet to surf, post, or send email…before 9/11. It was, as he says in the YouTube summation, “Massively Unconstitutional”.
Yes, your government has been spying on you. Not just “looking for patterns in the data” or “monitoring overseas communication.” Spying. On. You.
Personally, this comes as no surprise to me. Not really. I sort of assumed that Bush and his cronies would be up to this sort of thing, given how much they have sought to emulate the Unitary Executive theories promulgated by the Nixon Administration. But it is damned depressing to see the Congress working so hard to cover it all up.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Ballistics, Failure, Fireworks, Guns, Marketing, movies, NASA, Science, Society, Space, tech, YouTube
A buddy of mine sent me a bunch of YouTube links last night to clips of explosions (among other things). Some were compilations of failed rocket launches, some were ‘stupid human tricks’. He knows, budding pyromaniac that I am, that I would enjoy such things. Hey, what do you expect from someone whose birthday is the Fourth of July?
Anyway, it got me thinking about a niche cable channel which would be sure to be a huge hit: The Explosions Channel. Oh, I know that The Discovery Channel does some of this, as does The History Channel. But on those, explosions provide the punctuation for other stories, with the occasional feature on firearms, artillery, fireworks, demolitions, et cetera which has a higher-than-average explosion count. But think of the potential for a channel where you just *know* that you could tune in and catch some big explosions, anytime, day or night! It’d be like MTV for the jaded geek, pure visual heroin for the explosions junkie. Guys like me could turn it on, and sit there, slack-jawed and drooling, eyes wide, as explosion after fireball after thunderous report . . .
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 