Owner: NotPhil's Notions URL:http://notphilsnotions.blogspot.com/ Join Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:00:10 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Systemic problems in business, society, and technology. Site statistics:Click here
Clones for Dinner 2008-01-14 21:46:00 So, was anyone surprised that the FDA told us cloned livestock is okay to eat because, "it is beyond our imagination to even find a theory that would cause the food to be unsafe," on the very same day they also pointed out that, "currently, it is not possible to draw any conclusions regarding the longevity of livestock clones or [the] possible long-term health consequences" of cloning?
If you have been paying attention to the way the FDA approves of new foods and drugs, you wouldn't be surprised. What the FDA is, essentially, saying is, sure, most clones are stillborn, or deformed and have unnervingly short lifespans, but we couldn't prove that the survivors produce unhealthy meat or milk, so the process must be okay. That may not be sound reasoning, but it is the same sort of reasoning t Read more:Clones
, Dinner
What I Learned From Hookers 2007-05-21 20:20:00 A few years ago, I did something kind of odd. I talked to prostitutes to see if I could learn why they would try to take money from people for sex. I just couldn't understand why anyone would treat someone else like that. It really baffled me. And so, every once in a while, when women would "offer" to take money from me in this way, I would ask them why they were trying to do that.
Of course, the first people I spoke to, when I wanted to know what was going on, weren't hookers. I don't like being treated like that, and so I really didn't want to speak to them except to express some polite variation of "no way." Instead, I'd ask my buddies about it. But they didn't have much to say except to point out that some people are a little messed up, and it probably had something to do with them b Read more:Learned
What Science Is, and Isn't 2007-05-07 13:11:00 I've always had a thing for the natural sciences. You see, when I was a kid, I was something of a bookworm. Okay, I still am, sort of, but back then I had lots of time to read, and play, and do all that other childish stuff that we should all be doing more often, but aren't. Anyhow, in between all of Encyclopedia Brown's reasoned use of information to solve mysteries, and Long John Silver's attempts to mislead and bully his way to a fortune, I read books about dinosaurs. If you were ever a little boy, you probably did too.
But, the thing about dinosaurs is, you can only read about them. You can see people trying to solve problems with information, if you look really hard, and you can see people lying and bullying for money, whether you're looking or not, but dinosaurs are tough to spot. Read more:Science
Connected but Isolated 2007-04-23 13:46:00 Telecommunications companies want you to believe that their wireless gadgets make you better connected and more in-touch.
But do they?
Yes, you can talk, or send text messages, to the people you aren't with whenever you want with these gizmos, but this requires you to choose between paying attention to remote disembodied voices instead of your surroundings and all those people who occupy your surroundings.
And that sounds a little disconnected to me.
These people I see, who wander around, clinging to little metal boxes that they intermittently stop to type on, or who chatter to invisible people through the gadgets strapped to their ears, seem more oblivious than connected.
A while back, I was waiting in line at the grocery store, involuntarily listening to someone blather on and on ab Read more:Connected
Your Data, Their Format 2007-04-09 11:12:00 Just the other day, I finally got sick of the way the computing industry was treating me and decided to "opt-out" of the market.
You didn't think that was possible, did you? Corporations like Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe don't like to talk about it much, but it turns out that you can, and you don't even have to give up computing to do it. All you really have to do is install Linux on the computer you already have, and you can say goodbye to forced hardware-and-software upgrades, top-secret file-formats that prevent you from using a different application on your work, and encrypted songs, videos, and documents that you can only look at on the few devices that they'll "authorize" for you, if you follow instructions very, very carefully, and if the vendor doesn't go out of business, or switch
Databases and Privacy 2006-11-20 13:15:00 If you aren't doing anything wrong, then what do you have to hide from us?
And, if I'm not doing anything wrong, then why am I under surveillance?
Or, what if privacy and surveillance don't have much to do with wrongdoing at all?
What if privacy were about a person's right to choose what he wishes to disclose about himself, and who he wants to share that with? And what if surveillance were about the loss of dignity and the likelihood of harassment that occurs when someone loses the ability to decide who knows what about his life?
We used to live in a world where privacy only worried celebrities. Now, we live in a world filled with questionnaires, application forms, and silicon gadgets — from credit-card readers to personal computers — that leave electronic tracks. Why should we wor Read more:Databases
, Privacy
STD Scare Tactics 2006-11-06 11:38:00 When I was in high school, sex-ed was an elective class which, unfortunately, didn't cover the things students most wanted to know about, like interesting sex positions. It did, however, cover the other basics, like hygiene, what contraceptives and prophylactics were, and how pregnancy occurred. We dutifully sat through the class, wrote down our suggestions for more interesting material on the evaluation forms, and told other students that the class was easy, but dull.
When I joined the military, sex-ed was a grisly slide-show shown to GIs who had been assigned to posts outside the US. The slides mainly consisted of close-up photos of bizarre, stomach-churning lesions and growths on people's genitals. This, of course, prompted some ewws and ughs during the slides and a fair amount of sni Read more:Scare
Modern Numerology 2006-10-23 15:26:00 How can you think without numbers?
This might seem like an odd question to some of you, but in business school it was a rhetorical question. The people who asked it didn't offer, and never expected to hear, an answer. To them, the notion of thinking without mathematics was absurd. It simply wasn't possible. Everything could be expressed as a cost, an equation, or a procedure. Numbers were objective. And math, they told me, was science. Anything else was superstition.
Could this be true?
There's no doubt that math is useful. Every culture on Earth has had some form of mathematics, even if it was just arithmetic, because some of the things in our world can be counted, weighed, and measured. But, not surprisingly, the more elaborate a culture's mathematics become, the more likely it become Read more:Modern
A Very Ad Day 2006-10-09 19:35:00 Perhaps you woke up to an acne-creme commercial shouting at you on your clock radio. If not, it was probably something similar to that. It seems like almost half of radio is advertising.
Maybe, after you woke up, you thought you'd catch some news on the morning show. There's a pretty good chance of it — only a third of TV is advertising — but, instead, you see an interview with a sports celebrity who keeps mentioning a particular brand of athletic shoe, which, judging from the number of times he's brought it up, must have been what made him the athlete he is today. He seems sincere. Maybe if you bought some expensive athletic shoes you'd be healthier too.
Or maybe not. So, on your way to work, you figure you'll pop in a CD to avoid all the ads on the radio. Sneakers are expensive, af
Radio Tracking and You 2006-08-28 19:26:00 Imagine a society where everything you use contains a radio tag. Your clothing, food containers, toiletries, credit cards, and identity cards have tiny transmitters embedded in them that broadcast information to receivers built into floors, walls, desks, computers, cabinets, or lamp posts. Your phone, bike, and car contain more powerful receivers and transmitters that pick up signals from GPS satellites and broadcast your activities and location to antennas that collect this information and distribute it to whoever has the money or technology to use it.
Sound like a science-fiction writer's fevered nightmare?
Yes it does, and it also sounds exactly like what corporations and governments are currently pushing into the marketplace. Radio
-frequency-identification and global-positioning-sy Read more:Tracking
Complex is Simple? 2006-08-14 20:43:00 My video player reboots itself three times a day. And it won't record anything on tape if an optical disk is in its other drive, even though the 79-page owner's manual says it will. I'd replace it, but it is a replacement. The first two I bought were even buggier.
My digital camera has 85 controls. The introduction to its 123-page user's guide tells me how simple it is to use, but I can't find a way to adjust the shutter speed, focus, or aperture size, which were the only controls I had on my mechanical camera. The clerk at my local electronics store told me they sell digital versions of "old-fashioned" cameras like that, but they cost several times as much as the "point-and-shoot" camera I was complaining about.
Before I left the store, someone asked me if I knew how to set the clock Read more:Complex
, Simple
Us, Inc. 2006-07-17 21:48:00 The founders of the U.S. guaranteed citizens certain protections against the most powerful institutions of their time. It was an afterthought, but it was a valuable one. And while they prevented governments and religious institutions from colluding with one another, and forbade governments from violating certain, basic, rights, they neglected to address an institution that, currently, has more influence and control over almost every aspect of our lives than anything else: the corporation.
How could they forget about something that is commonly larger than governments, something that has de-facto control over how we spend our time, what we eat, where we live, the ways we travel, and how we communicate? They didn't forget. Five decades before the constitution was written, the laws that all
Categorically Speaking 2006-07-03 16:06:00 A few months ago, I went to see my school’s career counselor, a former human resources manager, who told me that I needed to prepare an “elevator speech.” This, she said, is a 20-second characterization of who I am and what I do. I expressed some doubts that anyone could really be characterized that simply, but she had experience and insisted that I was mistaken and that this elevator speech would allow potential employers to quickly and accurately categorize me.
Well, business school taught me that the things people with credentials said were never to be questioned. If you think there might be another way of looking at things, then that’s just because you don’t have the proper credentials to think for yourself; if you think the world is different from the way they think it is, Read more:Speaking
Free Markets and Freedom 2008-07-07 12:48:00 Over the last several decades, a new idea about freedom has, slowly, eroded our beliefs about what freedom really means. Politicians, business leaders, economists, and even scholars, have been telling us that the one true freedom — the freedom that can safely replace all those older notions about freedom from injustice, fear, or deprivation, and freedom of expression, mobility, and self-determin Read more:Markets
, Freedom
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