"Chemists use expensive tools called spectrometers (there are several kinds) to analyze unknown solid or liquid samples. We are working on a cheap version which we hope to use to identify oil contamination in water and soil, as well as a range of other possible toxins. Spectrometers can also be used to identify species of plants or crop diseases, assess plumes from smokestacks, and have many other applications."
"What we perceive as a single color consists of multiple blended colors -- just as green paint can be made from mixing yellow and blue paint. A spectrometer is a device that splits light into the various colors it is composed of, which we otherwise cannot distinguish with the naked eye. By viewing a substance through a spectrometer, one can distinguish the exact mixture of colors, which correspond to specific wavelengths of light, that make up the perceived color of the sample."
"CMLP is thrilled to report that in the case of Glik v. Cunniffe [...] the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has issued a resounding and unanimous opinion in support of the First Amendment right to record the actions of police in public. [...] Glik was arrested on October 1, 2007, after openly using his cell phone to record three police officers arresting a suspect on Boston Common. In return for his efforts to record what he suspected might be police brutality -- in a pattern that is now all too familiar -- Glik was charged with criminal violation of the Massachusetts wiretap act, aiding the escape of a prisoner and disturbing the peace. As tends to happen in cases like these, the charges didn't hold up [but he wanted to clearly fight for and win back his Constitutionally guaranteed Rights, so] in February 2010, Glik filed suit in federal court against the officers and the City of Boston under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act. Glik alleged that the police officers violated his First Amendment right to record police activity in public and that the officers violated his Fourth Amendment rights by arresting him without probable cause to believe a crime had occurred."
Bottom line? He won. And the opinion is full of pointed findings...
"In the First Circuit... this First Amendment right publicly to record the activities of police officers on public business is established."
"Glik was exercising clearly-established First Amendment rights in filming the officers in a public space, and that his clearly-established Fourth Amendment rights were violated by his arrest without probable cause."
"[I]s there a constitutionally protected right to videotape police carrying out their duties in public? Basic First Amendment principles, along with case law from this and other circuits, answer that question unambiguously in the affirmative."
"Glik filmed the defendant police officers in the Boston Common, the oldest city park in the United States and the apotheosis of a public forum. In such traditional public spaces, the rights of the state to limit the exercise of First Amendment activity are 'sharply circumscribed.'"
"[A] citizen's right to film government officials, including law enforcement officers, in the discharge of their duties in a public space is a basic, vital, and well-established liberty safeguarded by the First Amendment."
"Gathering information about government officials in a form that can readily be disseminated to others serves a cardinal First Amendment interest in protecting and promoting 'the free discussion of governmental affairs.'"
This is epic. Bad cops everywhere -- you're on notice -- Citizen Crowd has a million eyes on you. You can no longer get away with either brutal misbehavior and corruption or arresting innocent citizen photographers and videographers who catch you in the act.
CATO correctly calls the latest American budget "deal" a disappointment. But that's an epic understatement. It's not a cut, but rather a slight slowdown in the rate of growth, yet more Orwellian Newspeak and ponzi politics from Republicrats and Demoblicans alike. For the sake of future generations, we truly need to decimate the state, massively cutting fat and bloat, stopping unwise international "defense" expenditures and stupid wars, selling off excess assets, privatizing as much as possible, adding fees-for-service, and eliminating the vast majority of entitlements, including agribusiness subsidies and welfare payments alike. And the unavoidable reality is that in addition to wholesale slashing of spending, it's likely that taxes need to go up temporarily by at least 10% across the board, with every citizen finally sharing the pain -- and thus motivated towards civic participation and voting ASAP to eliminate this burdensome ball-and-chain -- and to vote out the corrupt+idiot politicians who enabled this gross debt stupidity. Otherwise it's bread and circuses for now, but Roman Empire 2.0 in the end. Why? Because in America alone there is US$115 Trillion of true debt, including the super-skyscraper of money representing unfunded liabilities, meaning Medicare, Medicare Prescription Drug Program, Medicaid, Social Security, Military and civil servant pensions, and myriad others...
"...top dishonors go to the sour bureaucrat who put the squeeze on a group of kids for running a lemonade stand. Sure they were raising money for a worthy cause (pediatric cancer research), but they were doing it without a permit, and that's why they got slapped with a $500 fine. Presenting Reason.tv's Nanny of the Month for June 2011: Jennifer Hughes of Montgomery County, Maryland's Department of Permitting Services! The episode sparked so much outrage that the county eventually backed off, but this is no isolated incident. Across America, the permit police are cracking down on pint-sized peddlers of liquid freedom."
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
The new MIT Media Lab head will be 44 year old Joi Ito, a Japanese intellectual and financial venture capitalist and citizen of the planet. News broken by John Markoff of the NYTimes, who points out...
"...he is neither a conventional Japanese technologist, nor your average college dropout. Raised in both Tokyo and Silicon Valley, Mr. Ito was part of the first generation to grow up with the Internet. His career includes serving as a board member of Icann, the Internet’s governance organization; becoming a “guild master” in the World of Warcraft online fantasy game; and more than a dozen investments in start-ups like Flickr, Last.fm and Twitter. In 1994 he helped establish the first commercial Internet service provider in Japan. He was also an early participant in the open-source software movement and is a board member of the Mozilla Foundation, which oversees the development of the Firefox Web browser, as well as being the co-founder and chairman of Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that has sought to create a middle ground to promote the sharing of digital information."
Here's official MIT anno. And here's Joi sharing the news (and interesting backstory with MIT alumna, entrepreneur, and trustee Megan Smith!-) And here's Joi's first videochat w/ MLab...
The latest Economist special report on Taming Leviathan spotlights the future of the bloated, ineffective state...
"The state almost everywhere is big, inefficient and broke. It needn’t be. [...] The disruptive reforms that have so changed the private sector should now be let loose on the public sector. The relationship between government and civil society has been that between master and servant; instead, it should be a partnership, with the state creating the right environment for companies and charities to do more of its work. The conclusion: “We are in a transition from a big state to a small state, and from a small society to a big society.” [...] the financial crisis has merely brought forward a fiscal reckoning. In most of the rich world ageing populations have been driving up the cost of public health care and state pensions. Emerging countries that are becoming richer, such as China and India, are now wondering what sort of state they need to meet their citizens’ demands for better schools, health care and infrastructure. Indeed, the fiery argument about capitalism prompted by the credit crunch has obscured a nascent, and much broader, debate about the nature of government. The future of the state is likely to dominate politics for the next decade at least. How can government be made more efficient? What should it do and not do? To whom should it answer? [...] This special report’s central argument is that Leviathan can be made far more efficient. The state has woefully lagged behind the private sector. Catching up is not just a case of nuts-and-bolts productivity improvements but of liberal principle: too often an institution that, at least in a democracy, was supposed to be the people’s servant has become their master. But nobody should expect that to be easy."
Word. Look at this evidence, it's just awful. From a reasonable 10% taxation a century ago to swallowing half or more of human value creation today. It's immoral and unconscionable...
In The Battle Ahead the Economist writes about the struggle with public-sector unions, cutting their outrageous benefits, boosting their productivity dramatically, and ensuring some degree of parity with the actually productive members of society...
"Politicians have repeatedly given in, usually sneakily -- by swelling pensions, adding yet more holidays or dropping reforms, rather than by increasing pay. This time they have to fight because they are so short of money. But it is crucial that the war with the public-sector unions is won in the right way. For amid all the pain ahead sits a huge opportunity -- to redesign government. That means focusing on productivity and improving services, not just cutting costs. [...] he immediate battle will be over benefits, not pay. Here the issue is parity. Holidays are often absurdly generous, but the real issue is pensions. Too many state workers can retire in their mid-50s on close to full pay. America’s states have as much as $5 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities. Historic liabilities have to be honoured (and properly accounted for, rather than hidden off the government’s balance-sheet). But there is no excuse for continuing them. Sixty-five should be a minimum age for retirement for people who spend their lives in classrooms and offices; and new civil servants should be switched to defined-contribution pensions. Another battleground will be the unions’ legal privileges. [...] Fixing the public sector must not be allowed to degenerate into demonising it. Its health is vital to the health of society as a whole, not least because of its impact on economic growth. Bad teachers mean a lousy talent-pool for employers. Allowing a subway driver to retire at 50 on an artificially inflated pension means less to spend on infrastructure: just look at America’s highways and railways. Even if many public services are monopolies, private capital is mobile: it goes to places where government works. With ageing populations needing ever more state help, the left should have as much interest as the right in an efficient state sector (perhaps more so, as it thinks government is the way to right society’s ills). Private-sector productivity has soared in the West over the past quarter-century, even in old industries such as steel and carmaking. Companies have achieved this because they have the freedom to manage -- to experiment, to expand successful innovations, to close down bad ones, to promote talented people. Across the public sector, unions have fought all this, most cruelly in education. It can be harder to restructure government than business, but even small productivity gains can bring big savings."
Horrible. Massive privatization and breaking absurd contracts are what are needed.
Correcting an absolutely central US Constitutional flaw -- and an ongoing and appalling human rights atrocity -- the post-Civil War13th Amendment -- declared, finally, 145 years ago today -- officially abolished and prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude. May this never be needed again.
Thanks to Bret Stephens giving the Global View in the WSJournal when he champions Free Palestine! Writing about the predicament of blogger Waleed al-Husseini, Stephens asks a very legitimate question -- Why persecute a human for their exercise of freedom of speech? This is currently rather relevant because al-Husseini wrote a post titled "Why I Left Islam" from which Stephens shares the following excerpts...
"The pseudonymous Husseini makes no bones about his opposition to religions generally, which he says "compete with each other in terms of stupidity." But nothing seems to exercise his indignation more than the religion he used to call his own. Islam, he writes, is "an authoritarian religion that does not respect the individual's freedom of choice, which is easily noticeable from its barbaric verdicts such as stoning the adulterous, pushing homosexuals off a cliff and killing the apostates for daring to express a different viewpoint." And that's just Husseini getting started. The essay proceeds by way of a series of questions, such as "Is Islam a religion of tolerance?" Answer: "The sacred texts of Islam also encourage blatant war and conquest of new territories." What about equality? "Islam has legitimized slavery, reinforced the gap between social classes and allowed stealing from the infidels." Women's rights? "I have a mother, a sister and a lover and I cannot stand for them to be humiliated and stigmatized in this bone-chilling way." The prophet? "A sex maniac" who "was no different than barbaric thugs who slaughtered, robbed and raped women." And so on."
All this would be a perfectly reasonable exercise of free speech in any modern, civilized country. People have said far worse about the equally horrific Christian and Jewish and other cultist "traditions." Except the alleged author of this blog post is now in detention in the West Bank, Palestine, stripped of civil rights, prevented from receiving either visitors or any legal representation, and threatened by locals with being "burned alive." Judge for yourself how irrational, stupid, and backwards such responses are. Horrible.
Thanks to Engineering for Change (plus Slashdot, etc) for spotting Parminder Bahra's piece Brazil’s Smartphone Census...
"...the Brazilian government has embarked on the world’s first fully digital national census. It has achieved this ahead of countries like the US whose digital trials failed and resulted in it reverting to an old-fashioned paper based census. The Brazilian census is another example of how developing and emerging countries are using technology to address the challenges they face and leapfrogging developed countries. [...] The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), who conducted the survey, opted for off the shelf technology. It ordered 150,000 LG 750 GM smartphones which are widely available and retail at around £180 (US$280). Census interviewers collected responses onto the smartphones which in turn were used to send the data via GPS to one of 7,000 data collection units. The Brazilians say that the digital census has several advantages over paper and pen methods. They say that the data is more accurate since GPS data will pinpoint the exact location of a household. The GPS data is cross-referenced with satellite images to ensure that responses are correctly geo-tagged. The digital approach allows changes to areas, streets and buildings to be incorporated. This is particularly pertinent in the slums as these areas tend to change quickly and their density mean that printed maps are quickly out of date. The use of digital technology means that mapping is considerably more accurate and that adjustments and changes can be made all the time to ensure that the coverage is as comprehensive as possible."
Great! This enables ever more sophisticated socioinformatics and is an excellent example of building higher-level functionality on top of mobile phones and networks.
"What can $1,475 buy you in modern China? Not a Tiffany diamond or a mini-sedan, say Robert Zhou and Daisy Chao. But for that price, they guarantee you something more lasting, with unquestioned future benefits: a U.S. passport and citizenship for your new baby. [The couple] run one of China's oldest and most successful consultancies helping well-heeled expectant Chinese mothers travel to the United States [...] for a three-month stay in a center -- two months before the birth and a month after. A room with cable TV and a wireless Internet connection, plus three meals, starts at $35 a day. The doctors and staff all speak Chinese. There are shopping and sightseeing trips. The mothers must pay their own airfare and are responsible for getting a U.S. visa, although Zhou and Chao will help them fill out the application form."
While I certainly understand the attractiveness of this generous loophole in the US Citizenship laws, I still don't understand what possible social good favors the spawn of some rich tourist over the thousands of adult, intelligent foreign students studying science, engineering, business and other innovation-oriented fields. While the automatic baby-citizens are useless burdens, the smart, hardworking non-citizen graduates are summarily kicked out of the country. Surely this is stupidity.
"...an information revolution [is] sweeping India. It may be the world’s largest democracy, but a vast and powerful bureaucracy governs. It is an imperial edifice built on feudal foundations, and for much of independent India’s history the bureaucracy has been largely unaccountable. Citizens had few means to demand to know what their government was doing for them. But it has now become clear that India’s 1.2 billion citizens have been newly empowered by the far-reaching law granting them the right to demand almost any information from the government. The law is backed by stiff fines for bureaucrats who withhold information, a penalty that appears to be ensuring speedy compliance [...] and has clearly begun to tilt the balance of power, long skewed toward bureaucrats and politicians. [...] "This law has given the people the feeling that the government is accountable to them."
Coupling such legislation with growing use of mobiles and proactive civic media and citizen empowerment tools promises to reduce corruption, boost transparency, and increase civic competence.
Great to have Leo Burd join me tonight on MaximizingProgress.tv! Currently back at MIT at the Center for Future Civic Media as a Research Scientist running the Department of Play, Leo's especially interested in educational technologies and environments for social engagement and youth empowerment. I first got to know Leo during his PhD research in the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab where he was studying how community centers and relevant technologies can enable meaningful and rich collaborations among kids and adults alike. Before his MIT studies, Leo Burd brought technologies to public schools and low-income communities in his home city, São Paulo, Brazil, and most recently he was part of Microsoft's Global Learning research team.
Why not learn many languages as kids -- especially even as infants, tykes, kindergarteners? Check out these Dutch infant linguists... FYI, I learned both Dutch and English by age 5 and both are still with me -- to some extent;-) But trying to learn Spanish and Japanese as a late teenager was pure torture for me. Still irritates me that I didn't learn a dozen languages as a child -- i.e. English, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Swahili for certain. Dutch for family-sake (and maybe so I can harass my Afrikaner friends;-) And then probably Japanese, Korean and German because they're so important as technosavvy countries. And perhaps Italian, because it's so vibrant, and the Scandinavian lingos, if only because the women are so beautiful, and then maybe Latin and Greek, because of their etymological legacy. Probably wouldn't hurt to know a bit of Turkish, Farsi, Hebrew, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Malay, and Tagalog. Not sure I can wrap my tongue around Finnish or Khoisan, but I'd try just because the people are so cool! My point is that ALL of those languages are a helluva lot easier to learn when we're kids than as adults. So why does standard educational orthodoxy insist on waiting till kids are 10 years or older to start language classes?
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