by cameron | Nov 25, 2011 | Podcast, US politics
Doug La Follette (born June 6, 1940) is an American academic, environmental activist, and politician from the state of Wisconsin. A Democrat, he is the current Secretary of State of Wisconsin and has served in that role since 1983. He is also a Fulbright Distinguished American Scholar and the author of the 1991 book The Survival Handbook: A Strategy for Saving Planet Earth.
I had the chance to chat with Secretary La Follette this morning for an hour about the attempts to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, President Obama’s track record in his first term and the trend of U.S. politics since Reagan.
by cameron | Nov 25, 2011 | technology
3D printing is an amazing phenomenon. So is Kickstarter.
Brook Drumm from printrbot.com designed a new, easy to build, inexpensive 3D printer for the home. To get it into production, he needed to raise $25,000. So he created a project on Kickstarter.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/printrbot/printrbot-your-first-3d-printer/widget/video.html
Instead of raising $25,000, he’s already raised $171,000! I can’t wait to have one of these machines!
Imagine – the next time a plastic doohickey on one of your kitchen devices breaks, instead of throwing the entire unit out because you can’t get a replacement doohickey, you just download or create a blueprint for the piece and make it yourself at home!
by cameron | Nov 23, 2011 | Brisbane, climate change, Iran, media 2.0
According to Neiman Journalism Lab:
“Dan Schultz, a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab (and newly named Knight-Mozilla fellow for 2012), is devoting his thesis to automatic bullshit detection. Schultz is building what he calls truth goggles — not actual magical eyewear, alas, but software that flags suspicious claims in news articles and helps readers determine their truthiness. It’s possible because of a novel arrangement: Schultz struck a deal with fact-checker PolitiFact for access to its private APIs.”
(via Bull beware: Truth goggles sniff out suspicious sentences in news » Nieman Journalism Lab.)
It’s a fascinating idea. Imagine browsers having a plug-in that is able to fact check all sorts of data using sources such as Wikipedia. It could have a huge impact on the future of news media. Imagine reading an article on, say, climate change in The Australian, and this “truth goggles” plug-in pointing out all of the inconsistencies in their reporting.
Or imagine reading Hilary Clinton ramping up the case for invading Iran because they are weaponising uranium, but have “truth goggles” pointing out that there is no evidence to support this claim.
Of course, this process doesn’t *need* to be automated with an algorithm. Chrome extensions like “Glass” allow people to comment on websites. For example, see this screenshot of a comment I left using Glass on a story in the Brisbane Times today about News Ltd corruption allegations from former QLD senator Bill O’Chee.
Could we all use tools like Glass to subvert the ability of the mainstream media and certain blogs to spin bullshit to their readers? Of course there is always the comments section of most sites these days, but perhaps they tend to get moderated and news sites promote comments by their faithful believers. Would Glass-like tools also get corrupted by flame wars? How do we keep them clean and useful? User moderation ala Wikipedia?
by cameron | Nov 17, 2011 | Uncategorized
My wife and I were lucky enough to attend the opening night of QPAC’s performance of Pygmalion last week.
It’s a terrific show – even if I must confess that really didn’t understand the second half of the play much at all.
More on that shortly.
Let me first say that I thought the production was excellent. The sets, stage design and performances were mostly impeccable. My only concern was the performance of the actress playing the wife of the American ambassador. What the hell was that accent? My wife, an American, could barely contain her disgust. Fortunately, said actress isn’t on stage very long. Aside from that, the accents and performances were excellent.
For people like myself who have never read or seen Pygmalion before, think “My Fair Lady” without the songs or the Hollywood ending.
Written by George Bernard Shaw in 1912, it’s the story of a wealthy London aristocrat, who happens to be both an expert in phonetics and a complete dickhead of a human being, and a young, poor, flower girl. He meets the girl on the street, makes fun of her lower-class accent and manners, then jokingly suggests that within three months he could teach her to pass herself off as a princess. Much to his chagrin, she turns up on his doorstep the next morning, determined to take him up on his challenge.
Despite it’s advanced age, the play is timeless in many aspects. In a country like ours that has a Prime Minister whose accent is the topic of much discussion, your accent and how you conduct yourself can still make or break a job interview or even determine the success of a professional career.
Where the play lost me was the second half. Not QPAC’s fault at all, of course, as I’m sure they are being true to the original text. I just couldn’t understand why Eliza seemed to give two cents what Higgins thought of her. He was a complete dickhead from the moment she met him. Even though I can appreciate that she may have grown a little fond of him during their three months working and living together, he seems to have treated her like an indentured servant. Perhaps she was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome? He was twice her age (at least) and didn’t seem have have any fond feelings for her, except for a regret to be losing his best student and servant. As most of the second half of the play is devoted to the end of their working relationship, it seemed to drag on a little.
Anyway, these minor complaints are probably due to my lack of understanding of the play. All in all I’d highly recommend going for yourself. Congrats to QPAC for putting on another fine show!
by cameron | Nov 16, 2011 | nanotechnology
Researchers at the University of Texas Dallas recently demonstrated that transparent carbon nanotube sheets, which can have the density of air and the specific strength of steel, can be used to make objects invisible.
WOAH!!
This news is a couple of weeks old but somehow I must have missed it.
Their website goes on to say:
“This invisibility for light oblique to the nanotube sheets is caused by the mirage effect, in which a thermally generated refractive index gradient bends light array from a hidden object.”
Okay, so it only works on the oblique, so you’re not going to use this to sneak up on anyone anytime soon, but this still blows my mind.
Of course, the research is being funded by “Office of Naval Research, NASA, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research”. Uh huh. Invisible battleships, anyone? I hated playing BATTLESHIP as a kid.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfnbj9r1-2I&w=420&h=315]
