Unfettered and alive

“Mothers and fathers throughout the land / Don't criticize what you can’t understand / Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command / The old road is rapidly aging / Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend a hand / For the times they are a-changing.” 

The way I see it, I have every reason to feel optimistic. Young people are revitalizing the land. Men and women in equal measure. And they’re not doing it the same way as before. I see something different. More like a fusion of local culture with global ideas. Using modern technology. Bringing together communities of like-minded people faster and less fettered than before. Whether or not this is sustainable is too soon to tell. At present I’d say it’s inexplicable. More like life according to Lao Tzu: “The way that can be spoken is not the way / Nameless is the origin of heaven and earth.” Even in Tijuana, young entrepreneurs and artists are reclaiming the streets ..giving wide berth to the adverse conditions bestowed by prior generations. They have more in common with their counterparts in Mexico City, Los Angeles and other metropolises. In L.A, tech firms founded by women are replenishing the city. Unimpeded by the Bay Area’s male-dominated programmer culture, they’re using their expertise in retail, entertainment, advertising and media to build digital companies whose products and services are aimed at other women. I suppose if you’re stuck in prior ways of doing things you won’t have as much reason to feel optimistic.

A Middle East tale

There was once a country where the majority of people were Shiite. But they were ruled by a Sunni tyrant. One day a faraway Christian country came and freed them from tyranny and established democracy where majority rules. The Shiite majority elected a Shiite government. The Shiite government chose its closest Shiite neighbor as an ally ..a sworn enemy of the Christian country. Was that so hard to foresee ..?

Adaptability

I’m sitting on the deck sipping coffee and scanning the paper for items of interest. I see where they’re accusing Gov. Jan Brewer of ‘flip flopping’ and zero-in. I cringe at this term. Apparently she changed her position on an issue. Ordinarily politics doesn’t interest me much but when politicians start making claims about the psyche .. I take notice. To me, the ability to focus and shift perspective with equal ease is an admirable quality [ link ]. Others call it a sign of inconsistency and weakness. Flip-flopping is not a flattering term. However, sticking to a single position must mean tuning-out a lot of information that doesn’t conform. I think Greek Philosophers call this a Procrustean solution ..the practice of tailoring data to fit a preconceived idea [ link ]. During periods of rapid change ..it doesn’t sound like much of an asset. Probably the reason Senator Russell Pearce was recalled in 2011.

New frontier

I’m here at a bar where computing people meet. Angela says she’s a Cloud Computing Specialist ..Daniel is a User Experience Analyst. I tell them I used to be a Software Engineer and they’re like “..how quaint.” That won’t fly in this crowd.  I sit back for a moment and think. “OK ..I’m a Fulfillment Specialist.” Now we’re drinking like old buddies. What used to be known as ‘software’ has been blown to smithereens. Apps did that.  These days in order to service requests from mobile customers  ..you need apps that mimic exchanges in cyber-space. I’m talking apps that simulate buyers ..apps that simulate sellers and apps that simulate order-takers ..as well as apps that allow other apps to communicate (usually referred to as API’s). You also need apps to determine the best cyber-channel to take for fulfillment. Each transaction requires a host of delegates to ensure what goes in one end ..persists and comes out the other. A single piece of software just can’t do that.  Now I’m feeling better equipped to hold my own in this crowd.

The curious case of Nathan Fletcher

 

Today I read the curious case of Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher (R-San Diego). He co-sponsored a bill with Governor Jerry Brown that even Republican lawmakers thought was a good idea. He wasn’t prepared for what happened next. Read on ~> [ link ]

Closed feedback loop

“What shows up on the Internet and cable television today is shaped by what we choose to click on and watch in the past” [link] 

I’m an information analyst. I study both computer and human information. Two systems that frequently dovetail on the Internet. That’s why I feel like my Internet experience is becoming increasingly shallow. Far from opening up possibilities, or sending me down information superhighways ..I’m being lead down increasingly narrow avenues that present me with only the most superficial hype. All I can figure is that I’ve entered a ‘closed feedback loop’. Simply put, a closed feedback loop narrows-down a range of activity based on feedback it receives about prior activity. On the Internet, activity means information. In other words, what rises to the foreground is determined by the things I paid attention to in the past while everything else recedes into the background. Robert Lewis Stevenson said it best “Attention to one thing is sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.” The Internet narrows it down beautifully. 

Sites like Google and Facebook are tuned to deliver information based on popular choice .. not credibility or merit. On the other hand, humans are hard-wired to receive and share information ..but not necessarily weigh its validity or merit. What we come away with is a feeling of familiarity based on prior experience. The Internet assures me I’ll get few surprises. That’s why the music I’m most likely to hear right now is from Rihanna or Jay Z ..when I know there’s so much more talent out there, it just doesn’t rise to the surface of ‘what’s trending’.

Yesterday's theories

“By all appearances, Ocampo had deep affinity for the homeless. He sacrificed for them and even put their needs ahead of his own. Those close to him say the killings do not match the character of the person they knew. ”

It’s a well-known phenomenon that people often interpret other people’s actions differently than the way others interpret their own actions. Typically observers attribute them to character while the observed attributes them to the demands of a situation. Friends of Ocampo, who recently returned from Iraq, say that he often gave what little money he had to help homeless people while members of his family went without. The people he was living with just before the killings say he was having paranoid hallucinations and seeing threats around every corner. This leads to my theory about Ocampo. I know that Marine training instills a show of stoicism in the face of threat. What others saw as a devoted brother picking up his kid sister from the library every day ..he saw as a military action through hostile territory. It’s not hard to imagine homeless people on the streets of Orange County resembling insurgents on the roadsides of Iraq to a returning veteran. His solution may have been to eliminate them to keep his sister safe ..as well as avenge the recent death of a close friend in Iraq. 

Revision: Today’s newspaper reports that Ocampo never saw action in Iraq. His job was to inspect the bodies of casualties when they were flown in from combat. Orange County officials have another theory. They say he was on a ‘serial thrill-kill’ spree ..enjoying the sensationalism of press coverage and increasing the stakes with each attack. Perhaps civilian life just wasn’t as surreal. Well, so much for yesterday’s theories. Shows how insubstantial they can be.

Deceptive advertsing

Response to an article in the LA Times titled~>

[FBI says Iran planned to attack Washington]

“Iran’s military elite hired members of a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate a Saudi ambassador in Washington DC” all I have to do is read this statement out loud and it comes across sounding pretty ludicrous. 

I can’t believe an elite military force in Iran would be foolish enough to hire a Mexican drug cartel to pull-off an assassination of this magnitude. First, it’s not in the interest of the cartel whose biggest concern is safeguarding the cash-flow they earn from smuggling drugs – covertly – into the US. They’re hardly known for political assassinations outside of Mexico where it’s ordinarily done to protect smuggling operations. Second, why would a drug cartel, with profits estimated in the billions, be interested in earning a few extra bucks by detonating a bomb inside Washington DC ..? They risk blowing their cover and incurring the wrath of the US, which is where their business interests lie. I don’t believe they care a whole heck of a lot about relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. What I do suspect, however, is the intention of the US government. It gives them a good cover story for bombing Iranian nuclear power plants, something which Saudi Arabia has been expressing a great deal of interest in lately.

Iran-Contra Affair

Conspiracy theorist that I am ..why do I feel like I’m the last to know this. Looking back, it seems painfully obvious to me that the Iran-Contra affair had nothing to do with selling arms for hostages. That was a cover. It had everything to do with selling drugs for guns and money to support the Contras. A hostage exchange just sounds a lot more patriotic in the advent the operation was uncovered, which it was. The Contras were trying to overthrow the communist regime in Nicaragua. Turns out the U.S. National Security Council was allowing drug traffickers to sell their wares (in this case cocaine) to distributors in the U.S. in exchange for guns and money to support the Contras. As long as the proceeds were being funneled to the Contras, the U.S. State Department and DEA were willing to let the shipments flow. Police departments in both San Diego and Los Angeles can attest to this. Their efforts to investigate and arrest smugglers were repeatedly obstructed by the DEA [link].

distorted perception

In 1984, scientists looking for ways to treat glaucoma, produced synthetic cannabinoids in order to avoid violating anti-marijuana laws. This lead to the production of over 460 different kinds of cannabinoid compounds. These compounds were used to study receptors in the brain involved with pain and inflammation. Their formulas were published in scientific journals, which is necessary for peer-review. Now, enterprising home-chemists can produce these compounds and sell them on the street. Drugs like ‘spike’ or ‘K-2’ go for around $25 to $30 a gram. They are 10 times more potent than marijuana but, unlike marijuana ..dangerous. They can produce hallucinations, paranoia and convulsions followed by emergency room doctors. I guess what I’m trying to say is that, out of one misguided law ..there are now 460 compounds that the DEA has to investigate and outlaw. It’s an enormous task. In the last 20 years, they’ve only been able to list 5 as schedule-1 drugs, which means illegal to sell or possess. Now they want to pin the blame on the retired chemist from Clemson who produced a lot of these synthetic cannabinoids. I guess it’s human nature to forget our own contributions to present-day fiasco. Good luck boys.

Sovereignty for sale

They say the worst thing you can do in an economic crises is panic. However, it’s kinda’ hard not to when I’m sitting here with a sliding sensation in my gut, like the wheels of my car have lost traction on an icy road. Only I’m not in a car, I’m sitting at my desk. They say that the world’s largest communist country, China, has now become the world’s biggest creditor. This, in turn, gives them the right to demand the U.S. surrender it’s military and social programs that are putting the value of their biggest asset at risk .. U.S. Treasury bonds and other dollar-backed securities. I think it’s time for me to make an appointment to see Dr. Gene.

Cameron Diaz

“The role Cameron Diaz plays as a pot-smoking slacker in the movie Bad Teacher ..is not a sign of progress for women but a mark of devolution of the broader culture.” LATimes [link]

For me, it’s comments like this that confirm just how subjective entertainment really is. Although I can go on for hours talking about entertainers I like and those I don’t particularly care much for ..I really can’t analyze it. What makes a movie character funny is the way they resonate with audience members in the moment, and certainly not what university professors think based on standards set by the feminist movement of the 1960’s. What lent this review any degree of fairness, and saved it from becoming a heavy-handed and biased treatment of the merits of Cameron Diaz’s choice of roles ..were the comments made by Lisa Lampanelli “Within 20 years it’ll be ..that’s just a comic, not a guy or a girl, or a gay guy or a black guy, just a funny person.” I, too, look forward to the day when I can laugh at a comic without concern for someone else’s gender-defined, role-appropriate sensibilities.

Sun Tzu

“If the Taliban was trying to play on unease among Afghans and Western governments about the ability of the police and army to safeguard the country, they chose the right target and time.”

If the Taliban want to prolong a ground war with allied forces, they’re doing exactly the right thing! What better way to jeopardize troop reductions than by conducting assaults on high-profile targets and boasting about their strength over the Internet. If they really want to win control of the region, I think they’d be better off laying-low and keeping us misinformed. I mean, why not have us believe their supreme leader is dead. It would bolster the illusion that Afghan forces are ready to safeguard the country and keep troop withdrawals on-schedule. In due time they’d be left with a weaker adversary who they stand a better chance of defeating. Maybe then they can put down their guns and pick up some kind of responsible position in government. However, the way they’re acting now leads me to believe they really don’t want this war to end.

Decline of western civilization

There is a relationship between higher education ~> the location of high-tech industry ~> income levels ~> economic progress ~> tax revenue ~> state debt ~> S&P rating ~> consumer interest ~> upward mobility and standard of living . However, if Sacramento is trying to fight immigration by compromising it’s colleges and universities, which reduces the standard of living and creates greater competition for low-wage jobs .. they’re succeeding!

Mel Gibson

Los Angeles DA Steve Cooley doesn’t consider extortion a crime when other attorneys do it. Its “hardball legal negotiations.” Only people outside the profession mistake it for a crime. “Lawyering is a tough business,” he says. So, if I secretly record my neighbor skinny-dipping with his girlfriend then threaten to show the video to his wife unless he pays me $ 20 million (because I know the damages his wife could bring are far greater) ..I’m simply practicing tough ‘neighborly negotiations’..? As long as I don’t make the threat ‘explicit’, according to Cooley. In other words I cannot be charged for an ‘implied threat’. Better make sure I say something like “Hey George, love the rack on your skinny-dipping partner. Oh and by the way ..can you help me finance the purchase of that mountaintop retreat I’ve had my eye on.” I should avoid saying “Hey George, if you pay me $ 20 million I won’t show this video to your wife.” Funny, in my profession ..context and prior information can quickly add up to turn an implied statement into an explicit one [link]. Like if you were to find out I secured financing from a previous neighbor the same way. However, that’s inadmissible according to legal guidelines. So here’s my point. Mel Gibson’s estranged girlfriend secretly recorded him making vulgar and racist remarks during a party they hosted at his home. Similar comments had definitely hurt his career once before. The recordings came up during a recent custody battle where her attorneys suggested they would like to resolve the couple’s differences ‘quickly and quietly’ if he would agree to “..care for his ex and their daughter in a more generous way.” Instead of $12 million they wanted $20 million. According to Cooley that’s not an attempt at extortion by attorneys. Doesn’t matter if the ex-girlfriend had secured a stream of income from a prior relationship with actor Timothy Dalton in a similar manner. Now I’m no big Mel Gibson fan ..but I do know that threatening someone with character assassination for financial gain is illegal. I’ve seen it on TV and looked it up on the Internet. There may be a fine line between extortion and ‘aggressive negotiations’ in the legal profession, but they’d definitely haul my ass to jail for dealing with my neighbors that way.

Superstitious behavior

Apparently the American public believes in superstitions that are no less primitive than those of natives living in the rainforest or suicide bombers of radical Islamic sects. Members of a Midwest Baptist church claim that U.S. service men are dying overseas “..in divine retribution for American decadence and tolerance of homosexuality.” Now, I don’t have a problem with the Supreme Court defending their right to free speech. What bothers me is when Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. goes on to imply that their beliefs represent those of American society. According to Roberts: “The content of Westboro’s signs plainly relates to broad issues of interest to society at large regarding the moral conduct of the United States and its citizens, and the fate of our nation.” In addition, he says their beliefs “reflect matters of public import” [link]. Now if I’m to believe what I’m hearing from the highest-ranking justice in the land, then Americans are indeed a superstitious group of people. “Thank God for IEDs ..Thank God for dead soldiers” .. (!?) Forget federal funding for schools. No amount of education in the world is going to counter that type of savage thinking.

Smells like teen spirit

“High school is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of.” – Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

When I hear someone in position of authority say “I’m going to rigorously enforce [this particular law] because, without laws ..we’d be a country of anarchy” – then I watch them go out and prosecute offenders in a manner that’s way out-of-proportion to the offense – I don’t believe they’re really acting out of fondness for the law. They’re acting out of aggression that is typical of teenagers climbing the social network in high school or adults climbing the hierarchy of power in politics.

Last year, LA Dist Atty Steve Cooley waged sudden war on marijuana dispensaries because they were accepting cash instead of trading in goods and services. Apparently the law didn’t spell out an exact currency and the term ‘co-op’ could be interpreted to mean a system of barter. Turns out he was planning to run for Attorney General of California.

Arizona Sen Russell Pearce and Kris Kobach co-sponsored Arizona SB 1070 giving police the authority of INS agents to detain Hispanics where the sole probable cause is “..looking illegal.” This certainly is a subjective cause, prone to the bias of a police officer with no training as a federal immigration officer. To me, it’s the same as detaining someone on suspicion of dealing drugs because their hair’s too long. Turns out both sponsors have political ambitions. Kris Kobach is running for Secretary of State in Kansas and Pearce plans to run for president of the Senate and someday hopes to get elected Sheriff of Maricopa County.

Last week Orange County Dist Atty Tony Rackauckas decided to file criminal conspiracy charges against a group of UCI students who protested a speech on campus last year. They face both six months in jail and, as felons, diminished prospects for the future over a nonviolent protest, which may have been rude, but certainly not criminal. I suspect that Rackauckas is also seeking higher office.

Google

The Internet is like an anarchist state. No one is in charge and everyone can contribute. That’s how it should be. It puts everyone in charge of what comes and goes by a democratic process of selection. What is of interest to the most rises in visibility and what is of interest to the fewest decreases in visibility. It’s still available but mostly to the interested ‘niche’. What has no niche, or is offensive, fades into obscurity and may vanish altogether. That’s how it should be. Since there’s an open-door policy for entry, the ‘gateway’ needs to reside at the point-of-retrieval. This has been the protocol for nearly every database system I’ve installed ..the successful ones anyway. The gatekeeper to the Internet has been the role of portals such as AOL and Yahoo, or search-engines like Google. The most successful being the one that allows the most clear and manageable handle on chaos. That would be Google I believe. They have an equitable and consistent method for delivering Internet content. They call it ‘PageRank’ and it allows viewers to determine what comes to the foreground and what recedes to the background of our collective Internet experience. Rankings are based on factors such as the amount of attention a site receives or the aggregate number of links or ‘signposts’ directing traffic there. It is a most democratic point-of-retrieval system, provided they stay away from paid-ranking practices. Now they’re turning their attention to making Internet services available over the greatest number of devices and locations with their Android operating system. This has made the selection process even more democratic. In addition, it has put the Internet in our back pocket. Browser-based touch-screen phones have created a virtual ‘wallet’ ..containing a marketplace with virtual ‘catalogs’, ‘order-takers’, ‘currency’, ‘transaction-handlers’ and ‘record-keepers’. The number of services they can deliver to the palm of your hand is virtually endless. I don’t see the role of Google diminishing anytime soon [link].

Conspiracy theory

It was the intention of the Bush administration to raise unemployment and drive more middle-class citizens to lower economic classes. They felt it was necessary to get middle-class Americans to accept lower wages. Lower wages mean lower prices and greater demand for American-made products, which helps balance the trade deficit. Reduced purchasing power also means less tolerance for high-priced foreign oil, which helps domestic oil companies expand their operations into coastal waters as well as wildlife sanctuaries. Furthermore, they figured it would discourage fanatics from developing renewable energy sources. A larger class of low paid workers creates greater competition for low-paying jobs. Greater competition for low-paying jobs is how you get the job market to deal with immigration. Fear of foreign workers helps Republicans enact tougher immigration laws ..like denying immigrants any chance of citizenship, which also goes for their American-born, college-educated children ..as well as those serving in the military. Another advantage of the politics of fear is that it helps Republicans win elections. That’s probably what helped Republicans gain control of Congress. Records show that the more support there is for republican issues in congress ..the more cutbacks you can expect to see in public education (especially in the form of federal grants and student aid). Cutbacks such as these deny middle-class access to higher education. What was their intention ..? To create a larger pool of low-cost labor. These advantages are short-term however, and the cycle will turn. When the disparity becomes so great that higher education becomes a luxury only the wealthy can afford, they might as well shut down the state universities ..there aren’t enough wealthy students to go around. When the GOP cuts all ties with the Latino community, and their efforts at stemming immigration fail (because it’s like trying to stop water) ..they’ll have succeeded in creating a larger population of democratic voters. And when support from the rural Midwest farmer collapses because they haven’t kept their promise to repeal the estate tax ..the cycle will come full circle.

Media and consciousness

A reply from Dr Jenkins re.Age of Inception (posted below)

Bill – Keep in mind that the quotes for the interview are necessarily a simplification of my arguments about the film, though I have been pleased by the discussion they have generated. I would agree totally with you that the film's perspective on reality and perception also has a generational slant. It's interesting though that the films and television shows which take on some of this philosophical/spiritual argument are often associated with games and other digital media -- so I would see The Matrix, the final episode of Lost, and Inception, as all part of the same conversation about our relationship with the real world. We may as a culture be more open to such ideas because of our experience of the digital, just as people in the industrial age were more apt to think of a clockmaker god, or people in the early 20th century started to understand repetition compulsion in terms of a phonograph record in their heads. As Sherry Turkle suggests, we use technologies as tools to think with and a key question we use them to consider is our consciousness. – Henry Jenkins