Rolandt

I was recently reading an old bit-player entry on computing number factoids when I ran across a paragraph that expresses an all-too-common phenomenon of the modern world:

If I had persisted in my wrestling match, would I have ultimately prevailed? I'll never know, because in this era of Google and MathOverflow and StackExchange, a spoiler lurks around every cybercorner. Before I could make any further progress, I stumbled upon pointers to the work of Ira Gessel of Brandeis, who neatly settled the matter ... more than 40 years ago, when he was an undergraduate at Harvard.

The matter in this case was recognizing whether an arbitrary n is a Fibonacci number or not, but it could be have been just about anything. If you need an answer to almost any question these days, it's already out there, right a your fingertips.

Google and StackExchange and MathOverflow are a boon for knowing, but not so much for doing. Unfortunately, doing often leads to a better kind of knowing. Jumping directly to the solution can rob us of some important learning. As Hayes reminds us in his articles, it also can also deprive us of a lot of fun.

You can still learn by doing and have a lot of fun doing it today -- if you can resist the temptation to search. After you struggle for a while and need some help, then having answers at our fingertips becomes a truly magnificent resource and can help us get over humps we could never have gotten over so quickly in even the not-the-so-distant past.

The new world puts a premium on curiosity, the desire to find answers for ourselves. It also values self-denial, the ability to delay gratification while working hard to find answer that we might be able to look up. I fear that this creates a new gap for us to worry about in our education systems. Students who are curious and capable of self-denial are a new kind of "haves". They have always had a leg up in schools, but ubiquitous information magnifies the gap.

Being curious, asking questions, and wanting to create (not just look up) answers have never been more important to learning.

We need nonpartisan institutions, dedicated to objective analysis. That’s what the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Policy Center does — they score and analyze tax proposals so we can figure out what they’ll mean for taxpayers. But it’s increasingly difficult for nonpartisan organizations to get heard. Unbiased analysis is a passion of mine. It’s also a passion of the respected … Continued

The post The courage of nonpartisan analysis — an interview with Len Burman appeared first on without bullshit.

Inforgraphic by Taylor Moyle 

Are bike thieves getting a free ride with GO?

By Taylor Moyle

This isn’t a typical dandyhorse story.

This one’s for you bike thieves.

Your nearest GO station provides ample opportunity for bike theft. Why? Well, in large part because they don’t seem to be doing anything about the problem. This is good for bike thieves because there are hundreds of bikes locked up at GO station bike racks on any given summer day, and often decent ones as people have biked a fair distance to get there in some cases. Many of the bike parking stands have roofs over them, but not all have cameras monitoring them.

Of course, we’re reporting on this because we hope GO transit will actually do something about this issue. As more and more people combine bikes and transit with our train systems, we will need more secure bike parking as part of that growing system.

According to Metrolinx, in 2016, 171 bikes were reported stolen from GO stations. This is higher than 147 stolen bikes in 2015. And according to the Halton Police, 281 bikes were stolen in 2016 within the Halton Region. GO stations primarily run across Halton, as well as Hamilton and Mississauga, meaning the majority of bikes stolen in Halton occur at GO stations.

One of those 171 bikes stolen belonged to Sarah Goran. Her bike was stolen at the Oakville GO station this past summer.

“I went to the ticket booth and told them that I thought it was stolen. They gave me a number to call for GO transit concerns and also told me to call the police,” said Goran.

“If a bicycle is stolen from a GO station or anywhere the owner is encouraged to report the theft to police for follow up in the investigation,” said Halton Police Sergeant Barry Malciw.

Goran called the police, who admitted they didn’t have much hope in finding her bike. She also called GO transit and they said they couldn’t do much about the stolen bike. The best they could do was what Goran had already done by reporting it to police which is one of the only solutions GO Transit offers when your bike stolen at one of their stations. The police never did find her bike.

In 2016, Halton Police reported that 95 bikes were stolen in Oakville and 25 of those bikes were from the Oakville GO station. Out of those bicycles, 65 of them were either seized or found. This doesn’t mean all were found by Halton Police either. Malciw made it clear that some of those bikes could have been turned in by civilians.

According to Scott Money, a media relations specialist for Metrolinx, transit officers patrol multiple GO stations at a time and are working 24/7. There may not be one at every single GO station but instead one who is covering multiple GO stations, for example. Money also mentioned that the transit officers work with local law enforcement in order to make the areas safer.

There are over 70 GO stations in Southern Ontario and more than 2,800 surveillance cameras installed across all stations. GO did not specifically answer whether or not all 3,000 bike locking spaces have cameras watching them but they did say this:

In order to keep GO Stations safe, we have Transit Safety Officers on shift 24/7.  They conduct routine patrols at all hours. Metrolinx has CCTV cameras at all GO stations which do provide CCTV coverage of bike storage areas. Every GO station is equipped with CCTV cameras. There are more than 2,800 cameras across the system including GO Transit and UP Express.

Donald Wiedman, creator of Bikesandtransit.com said that since some of the GO stations have been renovated or reorganized the cameras may not be surveying all the bike locking stations on GO property.

When we looked at Union Station for cameras at the bike corrals it wasn’t totally clear if the cameras were pointing towards the bike locking areas. You can see for yourself from these photos below:

Bike rack at Union Station

Camera near the top left corner at the Union Station Bus Terminal 

According to Malciw the police can contact GO security in order to get camera footage, but specified that this is only if a large pattern is noticed, not for every individual stolen bike. He mentioned that if they notice a pattern they will get camera footage but did not talk about doing so for every stolen bike.

Despite GO Transit and police officers not doing much when your bike is stolen, GO is trying to prevent it from happening in some locations. Right now there are two secure bike locking facilities at both Hamilton and Burlington GO stations. These are indoor facilities that can only be accessed with a key card. Cyclists can pay $50 a year in order to lock up and have access to the facility.

According Wiedman the secure lock-up station is almost useless to bikers at the Burlington GO station. This is due to the poor location the station is in. It’s on the opposite side of the tracks where the GO station is and is far enough for bikers to not justify using it. In addition Wiedman also notes that during rush hour, the lock up station can be dangerous to get to as cyclists need to traverse the parking lot and the bike paths eventually end.

According to the GO station access plan for 2016 more of these facilities across the system are going to be added, including one at the Oakville GO station. The document also notes that other improvements will be added such as more regular bike locking stations as well as working with towns in order to get better routes for cyclists.

There is no exact timeline on when any of this will happen but GO transit labels most of them as “medium term” priority and all these changes are supposed to be completed by 2031.

The plan also accounts for increased cycling by 2031. “Currently only one per cent of our customer’s cycle to the GO station,” said Becky Upfold, manager at Smart Commute. In 2031, the company is looking at three to four per cent of GO transit users cycling to GO stations.

“We recognize we need to increase the cycling facilities in order to meet that target,” said Upfold.

Smart Commute also communicates with other cycling groups in order to provide improved cycling to GO stations.

As far as keeping your bike safe in the meantime, before the secure parking is available GO transit recommends to always lock your bike. (Well, duh!) They also recommend customising your bike with stickers or paint, that way it’s harder to sell, as well as taking off easily removable parts like lights.

Here are some more tips from dandyhorse:

Never lock your bike in the same spot, it will become a target.

Make your bike look junky. Put a bag on the seat. Make sure it doesn’t look too new, let it get a bit dirty.

Bring two locks. One U-Lock to go through one wheel and the frame and then a chain or wire lock for wrapping around the bike, through the other wheel.

When you leave your bike take a quick picture of you with it. That way if it does get stolen you can prove quickly the bike is yours.

Goran admits she should’ve splurged for a better lock for her bike. “I had locked it up with a regular chain lock, in hindsight I should have paid the extra $50 for a U-lock,” she said.

GO transit did not talk about how they want to keep what they currently have safer and less susceptible to bike thefts, instead they are choosing to add more things, like the secure bike shelters previously mentioned. In order to improve what they already have we might suggest a sign telling people near the bike locking areas that they are on camera. This could help curb the growing problem. The police could also employ some of the “bait bikes” they piloted at U of T.

Because, after a long day of working at the office, when you walk through the crowded streets to a stuffy and overpriced train you deserve a silver lining: Ride home so you won’t need to take the half hour bus ride instead of a 15-minute bike ride. You’ll get to feel the breeze on your knees as you enjoy that final 5-km-ish ride home -- that is, if your bike is still parked where you left it.

More stories from dandyhorsemagazine:

Green Line in Toronto

Coldest Day Bike Ride 2017

Bike Count on Bloor

Photo by Ann Ruppenstein

Heels on Wheels: Nadia Litz, actress, director in residence at the Canadian Film Centre

Has your iconic role in Monkey Warfare changed your attitude towards biking in any way?

Toronto Life did a story on bike culture and used that same photo from my film Monkey Warfare of me flipping the bird without mentioning that it was a still from a film. I just became more cognizant of the fact that people take riding very seriously in this city… and that people know that image more than they know the film!

How do you interact with cyclists when you drive?

I’m hyper aware of cyclists when I drive. I don’t think that cyclists understand per se that drivers aren’t trying to hurt them when they give us the finger. I blame the lack of proper room for motorists and cyclists to co-exist. But, it doesn’t help when bikers break traffic rules. (Sorry! It’s a pet peeve of mine.)

Do you ever wear heels when you ride?

Yesterday I rode around in heels with a sprained ankle. I’m gangster like that.

Where did you get your bike?

Michel Kandinsky, another director at the Canadian Film Center, had it built from scratch for me as a gift. All black, to match my car.

What are you working on?

My directorial debut is a short called How to rid your lover of negative emotions caused by you that was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this fall, along with the feature You Are Here that I have a role in.

Have you ever ridden your bicycle to a gala event? Did you need to use any special accessories or tricks to accommodate your wardrobe?

Yes. I rode to the Much Music video awards because they block off the roads and cabs are impossible that night. As long as your dress is short you won’t have a problem riding to any function.

From issue 6 of dandyhorse magazine. 

This was an archive story. You can find more archives here. 

More from dandyhorse magazine:

Bikes on Reels: Monkey Warfare

Bikes and Belonging

Winter Time Biking

Take a stance on this one political issue. It matters to you and it matters to most of the community.

But what about the next issue? Or future issues that offend your values? How often can you take a stance on issues before your community becomes only about political issues?

What happens when members highlight political issues that offend their values? Do you ignore them or incorporate them too??

What happens when values conflict? Do you want to be assigning priority to specific values?

There is a rule of exponential exceptions about group situations. You can easily suck a community into a highly-charged political environment that drowns out all other discussions.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take a stance on issues, just be clear this is the only exception.

And if you do take a stand, involve everyone. Don’t use words, take action. Collaborate on a joint community statement and send to relevant news sites, raise money collectively, start a petition, coordinate calling influencers who can make an impact.

Done right, taking collective action is an incredible community building tool that brings everyone together. Done badly it can tear everyone apart.

We are pleased with today’s decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the District Court of Washington’s suspension of the U.S. Executive Order on immigration.

We believe today’s decision is a step in the right direction, but we expect legal proceedings will continue. There is more work to do on this issue, and what we said when we filed this legal brief remains true: The ability for individuals, and the ideas and expertise they carry with them, to travel across borders is central to the creation of the technologies and standards that power the open internet. We will continue to fight for more trust and transparency across organizations and borders to help protect the health of the internet and to nurture the innovation needed to advance the internet.

Photo:  Tim Evanson/Flickr

The post U.S. Court of Appeals Upholds Suspension of Immigration Executive Order appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

A review of Future Sex (2016) by Emily Witt.

Emily Witt’s (2016) book Future Sex chronicles her search for sexual self-realization as a New Yorker in her early 30s migrating to tech-centered San Francisco. The book is based both in interviews and personal experiences, stringing vignettes together into chapters with topics including polyamory, Orgasmic Meditation, Internet porn, and Burning Man. In this review, I highlight her chapter on sex camming.

But first, I will start with a broad overview. A major theme in the book is the kind of existential angst that comes from having too many choices. Witt feels daunted by her sexual freedom as a millennial—the limitless range of sexual partners and practices—first made possible by the sexual revolution, and then by the Internet. She (p. 12) explains:

What if love failed us? Sexual freedom had now extended to people who never wanted to shake off the old institutions, except to the extent of showing solidarity with friends who did. I had not sought so much choice for myself, and when I found myself with total sexual freedom, I was unhappy.

Witt spent her early adult life wanting to find enduring love—and possibly even marriage—viewing this as an escape from the cycle of causal sexual arrangements, occasionally punctuated by periods of monogamy, that has up until now defined her romantic life. But Witt’s desires conflict with the world she inhabits, as Millennial sexual norms privilege freedom over security in relationships. She (pp.11-2) describes why security remains desirable, even as the Internet opens ever more possibilities:

The expansion of sexuality outside of marriage had brought new reasons to trust the traditional controls, reasons such as HIV, the time limits of fertility, the delicacy of feelings. Even as I settled for freedom as an interim state, I planned for my monogamous destiny. My sense of rightness, after the failed experiments of earlier generations, was like the reconstructions of a baroque national monument that was destroyed by a bomb [but] another kind of freedom had arrived: a blinking cursor in empty space.

In questioning these new romantic configurations where freedom prevails, Witt echos what social theorists Anthony Giddens and the late Zygmunt Bauman respectively describe as “pure relationships” and “liquid love.” Both authors suggest that the ideal of unconditional commitment has been supplanted by constant negotiation and the criterion of mutual benefit. And, even in coupling, individuality remains central.

Lacking a secure, committed relationship in the old mold, Witt sets out to explore the possibility of fulfillment (or, at least, self-knowledge) in less conventional situations. As turns out, it is in the chapter on “Live Webcams” that Witt does the most theoretical work to explain why seeking diverse experiences—the project of the book—might aid in her quest for sexual self-realization. In particular, she points to an essay in the book Time Square Red, Times Square Blue by the gay African-American author Samuel D. Delany about the time he spent having anonymous sex in porno theaters. Witt (p. 126) summarizes the essay:

[Delany] describe[d] the benefits of his vast experience in casual sex. The movie theaters had served as laboratories in which he had learned to discern the nuances and spectrum of his sexual desire… His observations about sexual attraction consistently disproved conventional notions of beauty and ugliness. (He discovered, among other proclivities, that he had a thing for Burly Irish-American men, including two who had hairlips.)

She quotes Delany who suggests we must “learn to find our own way of having sex sexy” and concludes:

I don’t see how this can be accomplished without a statistically significant variety of partners… However supportive, the response of a single partner just cannot do that. This is a quintessentially social process…

Unlike Delany, Witt (p. 204) mostly lands back where she started, finding monogamy rewarding but now embracing an ideal of commitment as temporary:

I hope that married partnership would cease to be seen as a totalizing end point and instead become something more modest, perhaps am institutional basis for shared endeavors such as raising children or making art.

But this return to a somewhat conventional notion of romance proves to be the most interesting aspect of the book. Witt’s thinking about the freedom and diversity of experience available to the present generation seems to evolve. Rather than seeing the nearly infinite range of sexual possibilities as daunting, Witt ends up seeing it as an opportunity to experiment until one finds confidence and feels affirmed in their own desires. She (p. 204) says:

I found that… mostly I wanted to live in a world with a wider range of sexual identities. I hoped the primacy and legitimacy of a single sexual model would continue to erode as it has, with increasing acceleration, in the past fifty years.

Though she does not state it so explicitly, I would argue that Witt has uncovered an interesting dialectic between freedom and security. Though freedom to explore may aid us in discovering what we find sexually desirable, exploration may, paradoxically, lead to security in one’s established sexual desires, when new experience continually prove less satisfying and thus reaffirm the appropriateness of those desires.

And, while final chapter wonders off a bit, I think the desirability of embracing this tension between freedom and security is the clear (if unstated) conclusion of the book.

***

Following this theme of sexual exploration as a mechanism of self-realization, I now want to turn to the question of what camming teaches Witt about her own sexuality (and what we can learn about camming in the process). Witt (p. 114) describes her experiences with the popular camsite Chaturbate:

I first saw Chaturbate and the many other live-sex-cam sites available online as porn… as the technological evolution of peep show booths and phone sex lines. Like those, they had a performer and they had a voyeur… Then I spent more time on the site.

As she dives deeper into the site, Witt determines that the resemblances she observed between cam sites and other forms of sex work/performance were only superficial. The diversity and interactivity of cam sites set them apart.

Chaturbate was full of serendipity… the feeling of clicking through the 18+ disclaimer into the opening matrix was the one of turning on MTV in the mid-1990s, when music videos played most of the day and kept viewers captive in the anticipation of a favorite performer or a new discovery. Or maybe, to reach farther back in time, it recalled the earlier days of the Internet—the Internet of strangers rather than “friends.”

Witt’s decision to approach her subject matter through the lens of her own desire—as described in the first section of this review—proves both interesting and problematic in this chapter.

What makes Witt’s approach interesting is that, in bypassing the popular rooms that she largely finds uninteresting, she takes us to the margins of the sites, searching for the unexpected. This includes an Icelandic woman who strips wearing a rubber horse mask and fedora. In a passage representative of her snarky but appreciative style, Witt describes (pp. 112-3):

maybe it was the house that she was in or her high definition camera or a general characteristic of the Icelandic people but even faceless she gleamed with the well-being that emanates wherever per-capita consumption of fish oils is high and citizens benefit from socialized health care.

Witt also describes a college-age women who talked about literature and made $1,500 doing a 24 hour marathon that featured much talking, some nudity, and no sex. A third woman suspended herself from a hook made of ice. And another woman held nude sex ed discussions.

Taking a cue from one of her interviewees, Witt describes the intended use of site—one or two performers broadcasting to many viewers in each room—as “mass intimacy.” But, the most interesting part of the chapter was Witt’s exploration into a culture that has emerged around using Chaturbate to facilitate unpaid, anonymous, 1-on-1 sex.

Assisted by two performers that she interviewed, she “multiperved” or “audio-Skyped with one another while sifting through videos online” (p. 124). Together, logged on to browse the countless pages of men streaming but being watched by no one. She describes (pp. 124-5):

not even the most popular men, instead clicking through to the second and third pages for the real amateurs, the forest of men in desk chairs… It turned out that they waited there for a reason… so that they will find someone who will cam-to-cam with them…

Witt (and her guides) come across a man she finds somewhat attractive, and she chats with him. The man quickly invites her to turn her cam on. She obliges and sets up a password-protected room so only he can see her. While Witt does not seem to find the encounter particularly rewarding, she (p. 125) does offer some insight into the value others find in the experience:

here, where hopes resided in the chance of an electronic encounter between two people, tokens mattered much less. If, on its landing page, Chaturbate was thousands of men watching a few women, a couple pages in, the numbers changed to one or two people using Chaturbate to interact privately with another person.

Witt’s experience highlights a really interesting case of technology being used against the grain. It is a rougish activity for users to seek non-transactional intimate or sexual encounters on sites whose profits come from viewers purchasing tokens. While these sites afford such activity and do not prohibit it, they do not intend or explicitly condone it either. It is, perhaps, due to this lack control that sites likes Chaturbate remind Witt of the earlier Web.

While Witt’s examination of the margins of camming sites is revealing, she also, arguably, fails to represent most of what is going on these sites and is even somewhat dismissive of the more popular performers. Because she focuses on her desires as a thirty-something NYC writer, Witt sometimes displays a hipster bias, where, if something isn’t weird or edgy, it’s not seen as deserving attention.

Witt is also not a joiner. Her desire to experiment as part her own quest for sexual self-realization, drives her visit many places; but, for the most part, Witt does identify or feel a sense of belonging with the people she meets. She seems to participate only at a distance, viewing others as subjects as much as relationships. Witt (p. 172) describes her own relationship to a sex party she attends, saying “I was still thinking of myself as just a visitor, or rather neither here nor there, someone undertaking an abstract inquiry but not yet with true intention.” This distancing is valuable insofar as it brings with it a degree of objectivity (most other things written about Orgasmic Mediation, for example, sound like marketing copy); however, it also means she’s unable to offer an insider perspective through her personal narratives.

What’s missing in the chapter on camming—due to some combination of her hipster bias and lack of personal experience—is an examination of the many dimensions of creative labor that goes into producing evening the most normative-appearing shows. Had Witt tried modeling herself, this would be readily apparent. The seeming ease with which models embody normative desires is part of the work—part of the performance of authenticity.

A most troubling moment is when she uncritically relays one of her interviewee’s characterization of the top performers as “zombie hot girls” (p. 124). This privileging of the weird in porn feeds a kind of whorearchy, where certain forms of sex work/practice are denigrated as a way of validating others.

Witt certainly is not consciously anti-sex work. In the previous chapter, in fact, she offers a great deal of praise for the artistry women porn directors and producers, and she spends a significant time questioning her own beliefs shaped by mainstream feminism and considering more inclusive feminisms that embrace sex workers and porn as a medium. And, quite insightfully, she argues that much fetish porn is a reaction or response to new taboos set up by anti-porn feminists.

Nevertheless, Witt does not seem to extend the interest and regard she has for women-directed studio porn to the women-directed performances of popular cam models. I’m certain they have unique insights and fascinating stories to tell.

***

Regardless of these few criticisms, Witt gets one key thing right: The future of sex cannot be reduced to a story of technological development but must be understood in terms of changing patterns of human relationships. She (p. 210) concludes “America had a lot of respect for the future of objects, and less interest in the future of human arrangements.” For that reason alone, Future Sex probably deserves more attention.

PJ Patella-Rey (@pjrey) is a sociologist writing a dissertation on sex camming.

Milo Yiannopoulos tried to speak at the UC–Berkeley campus a few weeks ago and the residents and students stopped him. The Berkeley News reported that, “no major injuries and about a half dozen minor injuries” occurred, a few fires were set, and fireworks were aimed at police. That’s less property damage and violence than a particularly popular World Series game. Still though, many people are not convinced that what happened was productive. In fact, many are questioning whether this is another kind of headfake that will ultimately come back to haunt us. Protest that does anything more than gather people together to chant and hold signs, could add fuel to the growing nazi fire.

The effective-protest-is-not-actually-good-but-in-fact-is-bad line of reasoning is best articulated in Thursday’s Observer article by Ryan Holiday where he writes:

Most brands and personalities try to appeal to a wide swath of the population. Niche players and polarizing personalities are only ever going to be interesting to a small subgroup. While this might seem like a disadvantage, it’s actually a huge opportunity: Because it allows them to leverage the dismissals, anger, mockery, and contempt of the population at large as proof of their credibility. Someone like Milo or Mike Cernovich doesn’t care that you hate them—they like it. It’s proof to their followers that they are doing something subversive and meaningful. It gives their followers something to talk about. It imbues the whole movement with a sense of urgency and action—it creates purpose and meaning.

Holiday knows what he is talking about. His book Trust Me I’m Lying lays out the tactics that got rape culture media artifacts like Tucker Max’s book and movie into the national spotlight. By taking out highly offensive ads (e.g. rape jokes about blind women) and then participating in the coverage of the ensuing controversy, a “niche player” like Max can not only get loyal fans, they can find every single one of them thanks to all of the media attention. Holiday contends giving away his tricks by publishing Trust Me I’m Lying was necessary because “others might soon use them to sell something more nefarious.”

It is difficult to get past the fact that liberals are earnestly and completely believing (and sharing!) an essay prescribing protest techniques in the Observer, a magazine owned by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Still though, let’s take this professional media manipulator at his word (for some reason, everyone else is doing it) and look at where it takes us.

Holiday argues that, “The last thing you ever want to do is give an opponent the moral high ground—and attempts to suppress, intimidate and revoke constitutional rights do exactly that.” He goes on:

If you actually want to fight back against these trolls, here’s a strategy to consider: Organize all you want, get as many people as you can to show up at their events, but don’t try to shut them down. In fact, the only thing you should try to shut down are the instigators who try to incite violence. Regain the moral high ground by saying that you absolutely respect their right to free speech.

This is nonsense for three reasons. First, this is precisely what the mainstream left has been doing for 30 years with little-to-no-success. The single largest day of peaceful protest in world history wasn’t enough to prevent the War in Iraq. The “when they go low you go high” tactic of the 2016 campaign doesn’t seem to have convinced anyone of anything either. The so-called moral high ground was no use then, and it is far from useful now. If the secret to political success was polite protest then Democrats would not be the minority in governors’ mansions, Congress, and (soon) the Supreme Court.

Second, Holiday’s formulation misses the content of Milo’s talk and its direct consequences. Milo sought to name undocumented students and call for their expulsion through legal and extralegal means. Such an action seems far more violent than burning trash cans and fireworks aimed at well-armored police. Holiday is trying to compare an (admittedly disgusting) movie and book to Milo’s campaign to incite targeted violence on specific groups of people. He is equating hate speech with advertising a movie.

Which brings me to reason number three: The moral high ground is not simply claimed, it is created. The idea that protestors stopping hate speech through direct action is somehow something to be ashamed of is the exact reason why Democrats are often caricatured as cowards and fair-weather friends. By sharing articles that cast direct action as unseemly, liberals are building a moral high ground for Milo to stand on. The idea that using a booking agent to rent an auditorium to spew hate imbues you with legitimacy while protestors who are protecting vulnerable members of their community are cast as rouge vigilantes, is not an immutable truth. Holiday’s prescription becomes more true the more you share his article. The very sharing of articles like Holiday’s is what creates the kind of moral high ground that Milo can stand on and undocumented UC-Berkeley students cannot.

What dissolves the moral high ground as it is presently conceived is changing the discourse around structural violence, property damage, and free speech. Structural violence must be understood as something that can happen in private, in secret, and just because a black bloc appears more violent on its surface it pales in comparison to the regular deportations in this country that rip families apart. Reactions to property damage must be couched in a history of humans-as-property, that is, property owned by white people should not be afforded the same care and concern as living black and brown bodies.

Finally, there is the matter of free speech. Rather than accept the conservative frame that all speech is equal, we need to adopt a more justice-oriented understanding of speech that acknowledges the fact that the free expression of white supremacist views hampers the free speech of many others and, if left unchecked, leads to the silencing of everyone else.

Then there is the matter of Holiday’s assessment of past activism and what constitutes “effective counterinsurgency.” He suggests we focus on “bargaining, partnering and the reestablishment of norms—not hardlines.” Essentially, you have to offer Milo and his ilk the opportunity to actually have a say in something—“put up or shut up” as he puts it—and watch the whole thing fall apart because the Alt-Right are all bark and no bite.

None of this is even remotely connected to reality. This suggestion might be close to the truth if Milo’s former boss Steve Bannon didn’t have an office in the White House where he is writing executive orders with the same speed and ideological purity of a Breitbart article. The Alt-Right has an immense amount of power and they have bitten hard.

What is particularly frustrating here is that people who are sharing this Observer article are likely to have shared Lindy West’s landmark 2013 Jezebel article, “Don’t Ignore the Trolls. Feed Them Until They Explode.” In this essay she argues that, rather than ignore every troll that threatens you on Twitter or some other kind of semi-anonymous internet forum, you should talk back: “I talk back because the expectation is that when you tell a woman to shut up, she should shut up. I reject that. I talk back because it’s fun, sometimes, to rip an abusive dummy to shreds with my friends. I talk back because my mental health is my priority—not some troll’s personal satisfaction.”

West further argues that this is much more than talk and can have very real, material consequences that can keep people safe. If such an argument holds for white liberal feminists it should hold for undocumented immigrants. If this argument holds for high-profile writers on Twitter, it should hold for radicals and undocumented immigrants that are being threatened by a well-financed author with direct personal ties to the President’s senior staff.

Creating a 21st century attention economy helmed by people with more expertise in statistics than theories of attention was a bad idea, and this has made our media deeply susceptible to manipulation. Holiday is certainly right that we have to be careful about how we use the media in the next few years, but this fight cannot be reduced to optics. Holiday is making a clear “don’t feed the trolls” argument which is no different than West’s detractors telling her to just ignore her harassers. To fuss and hand-wring about confronting fascists because you might be giving them the attention they crave is to ignore the deeply violent things they will do to others when you are not paying attention.

David is on Twitter.

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Have you ever fancied being part of a real-life version of Being John Malkovich, without the danger of becoming trapped in a portal into the mind of an actor? This project helps you experience just that.

European telecoms operator Tele2 recently relaunched their phone and internet service with a particularly hefty data plan offering 100GB that customers can use across nine different devices, and they asked creative agency Your Majesty to market the new offering. The agency had a novel take on the brief:

In Sweden, a lot of discussion around connectivity tends to be negative, especially when it comes to controlling our exposure to media that can alter our outlook on our surroundings and the world. What if we made a campaign to show limitless connectivity in a way that changes our perspective?

Striving to alter that negative viewpoint, they didn’t focus on anything as simple as nine devices all working at once, but rather went in a very different direction.

Tele2: Settle For More – Case Film

Tele2 is a Swedish telecom company that provides phone and Internet services. They are re-launching in a big way to become the best data provider in the country and asked us to create a campaign to showcase a killer offer.

The final outcome was an immersive online experience, allowing viewers the chance to ‘step inside the minds’ of nine Swedish celebrities, including actor Joel Kinnaman and our favourite Queen of – ahem! – shoddy robots, Simone Giertz.

A custom backpack housed a 3D-printed rig to support a Raspberry Pi 3 for collection of sensor data, and a colour-grading box for footage recorded by a GoPro-equipped helmet.

“Wait: did she just say ‘collection of sensor data’?” Yes. Yes, I did. Along with the video and audio streams from the on-board GoPro and microphone, the system collected data on heart rate, emotional state, and even sweat. Delicious.

The brain sensor data collected from the EEG then controls the colour of the footage as it’s relayed back to the audience: green for calm, yellow for happy, red for angry, and blue for sad. We can confirm that Simone’s screen turned a deep shade of purple on more than one occasion, and her heart rate actually shot up when she thought she had burned out some servos.

Videos from the various participants can be viewed at the Tele2 YouTube channel, including Joel, Simone, entrepreneur Cristina Stenbeck, and altitude instructor Anna Lundh.

Working with marketing agency Edelman Deportivo and digital studio Wolfmother Co., Your Majesty documented the impact of the campaign on Bēhance, so check it out.

The post Using Pi to experience another’s reality appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Pendaran Roberts, Keith Allen, Kelly Schmidtke, Ergo, Feb 12, 2017

If I see a clock, my perception of the clock is caused by the clock. Right? This is the so-called 'folk intuition' about perception, but not only is it not clear that it is true, it is not even clear that ordinary people (aka 'folk') think it is true. This paper reports on a test of folk intuitions about perception and finds that, instead of the strong 'causal' theory of perception, folk are content with a much weaker 'non-blocker' theory of perception. We don't feel obligated to say that there actually is a clock when we report having seen a clock. This has all kinds of implications for our understandings of testing, experience, and learning. Image: Bö hm and Pfister.

Center for Educational Innovations, Feb 13, 2017

This article describes a learning program in Sudan where tablet computers with learning resources are made available in learning centres in communities, where the learning centres are themselves solar powered. On the surface it looks like a good program, and though it has yet to be evaluated is similar to other programs with the same objectives. The story itself led me to follow links to the Center for Educational Innovations, which ran the story, and its parent, Results for Development. Like many US-based initiatives, the organization tend to look for  private-sector based responses to social challenges.

Julia Gillard, Caroline Riseboro, Ottawa Citizen, Feb 13, 2017

This article fits a standard pattern worth exploring. The lead author is a well-known politician (in this case former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard). The article has four major sections:

• a story describing the problem (a 12-year old girl sold into marriage);
• a policy or mandate (Goal 4 of the recently agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs));
• outline of the responding organization ((GPE) is the only global partnership focused exclusively on education);
• and the ask (Global Affairs Canada will soon release its response to Canada’ s International Assistance Review... We hope to see Canada’ s continued and deepening support).

Textbook. And it's published in a major newspaper in Ottawa.

Todd R. Kelley, J. Geoff Knowles, International Journal of STEM Education, Feb 13, 2017

The conceptual framework in this paper employs the metaphor of a pulley system whereby scientific, engineering and mathematical thinking lead to integrated educational approaches. The idea is to promote STEM and a metadiscipline offering "an integrated effort that removes the traditional barriers between these subjects, and instead focuses on innovation and the applied process of designing solution to complex contextual problems using current tools and technologies." The really interesting part of this paper, though, is the comparison between scientific and engineering methodologies. The paper also looks at the engineering perspective of technology as compared to that found in the humanities. These create tensions, and the model essentially uses a community of practice as the 'rope' to mediate between them and integrate the educational program.

Monica Bulger, Patrick McCormick, Mikaela Pitcan, Data & Society, Feb 13, 2017

As the story (34 page PDF) says, "InBloom was a $100 million educational technology initiative primarily funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that aimed to improve American schools by providing a centralized platform for data sharing, learning apps, and curricula." It collapsed three years ago amid accusations of privacy violations. This article depicts it as in part "a clash between Silicon Valley-style agile software development methods and the slower moving, more risk-averse approaches of states and school districts" and in part a problem of communication. "InBloom’ s communication materials and messaging were developed by consultants rather than in-house experts and explained the technology solution without conveying any useful purpose, thus failing to communicate a compelling value proposition to teachers, parents, and students." But in racing for federal dollars, the project also scaled up too quickly, attempting to achieve overnight a vision that did not take into account the public's interests and concerns. Via EdWeek.

A high-profile and complex project, the Arbutus Greenway is a rightfully-recurring topic on this blog and other forums. Sometimes too recurring, though. It frankly elicited some fatigue last year with endless sustained and robust debate over its temporary surface treatments.

The City must have learned something useful from its first consultation round for the temporary greenway design, because the outreach process to inform the permanent greenway’s conceptual design is only half as long and almost over. As noted in Ken Ohrn’s previous post from January, the City is hosting three meetings and extending an online survey to the 15th to petition the public for its thoughts, opinions, concerns, and desires for the permanent future of this 9-km stretch of former rail corridor.

The corridor, with temporary treatments

The second meeting is tonight at the Marpole Community Centre. The last is this Saturday, February 11th from 2:30-5:30 at the Roundhouse Community Centre in Yaletown.

It is still early days for this project and the City is rightfully asking the big questions: What do you want? What should be preserved? What are the ‘must have’s? However, being impatient, other colleagues and I have preferred to consider the ‘next step’ logistical/engineering questions about how this space will actually work:

• What exactly is going in the 20m right of way?
• Is space being preserved for eventual 2-way light rail?
  
• How will the design minimize conflicts between modes?
• What surface treatments are you considering? How will you maintain them?
• How are you going to manage the transitions across Broadway, W 16th, W 33rd, et. al?
• What are you doing with buildings currently encroaching on the right of way? 

still just a rendering for now

It was these and similar questions that, thanks to the Arbutus Communications Team, prompted an interview with Dale Bracewell, Vancouver’s Manager of Transportation Planning. We were originally going to meet on the greenway for a ride, but the weather had other ideas.

Over a half-hour chat, Dale walked me through the big picture and as much of the smaller picture as he could commit to at this stage. The City is still in the visioning stage but from previous consultation on the temporary greenway, known best practice, and feedback his team has received; there are already a number of lessons, known challenges, and likely themes the Arbutus Greenway will incorporate. Here are a few:

• The Stanley Park Seawall is considered the local benchmark of greenway success. Elements that have traditionally ‘worked’ here will make their way onto Arbutus: accommodation of different mobility levels, integration with landscape and points of interest, separation of modes, etc.

Benchmark for a successful greenway –  Seawall

• Separation of modes will be a priority to reduce both actual and perceived risk of conflicts. This has been consistently communicated through all levels of project feedback. Depending on the area and availability of width, pedestrians and cyclists will be separated in some fashion.

• Transitions across level streets will be a major factor in the design. Unlike other urban rails-to-trails greenways, Arbutus is neither sunken nor elevated, but level to the surrounding road network. Crossing minor roads will not be as problematic, but crossing major ones (Broadway, King Edward, W 41st) will likely require either some significant traffic network changes, expensive signalling, or level separation (bridges). This will drive some of the design’s biggest decisions and costs.

Green bridge over Broadway?

• Integration with public transit will be another critical item. This thing might be part of the public transit network some day, so this is sensible. Easy access to and extra capacity at Arbutus extension skytrain station, W 41st St B-Line, and other crossing bus services will make their way into the Conceptual designs.

• Protecting space for 2-way light rail is still on the table. This would be 8m-9m of the total 20m right of way. I’m not yet convinced there’s a business case for a streetcar or light rail here, but this space can be flexibly programmed in the short term while the transit corridor is being assessed/developed.

• Other cities’ models will be reviewed. Ideas for some of the finer engineering and design elements that don’t come from the visioning exercise may be borrowed from other cities (i.e., surface treatments, design elements, lighting, etc.). This essentially includes programming opportunities and partnerships. Some facilities that the City is looking at are below:

Inspiration from Chicago – 606/Bloomingdale Line

And Sydney – The Goods Line

And Minneapolis – Midtown Greenway

And Auckland – Lightpath

Ultimately the greenway will offer improved direct connectivity to points north and south and transfer connections east and west. Whether it forever remains an active mode corridor or eventually includes a streetcar connecting Granville Island and…The Arthur Laing Bridge? Steveston?…it will be a popular and iconic public amenity. We’ll have trouble imagining what Vancouver was ever like without it.

For those not interested in ever getting those 36 minutes back, the full interview can be heard here:

With Phase 1 of the 10-year TransLink plan funded and work well underway, people are wondering where the money will come from for Phase 2, where some really big bucks get spent. Broadway Subway, Surrey light rail, Pattullo Bridge.

Minister Fassbender is proposing transit be (at least partly) financed by cashing in on the increase in land value and ensuing profits for developments built around transit stations. He assured BC municipalities that he is not planning to rob their piggy-banks.

Hello Broadway Extension; goodbye CAC’s. And welcome to a “transit-supporting levy” collected and administered by your Provincial Gov’t.

Note that the Mayors previously proposed a “region-wide development fee” to help fund transit. This fee would apply region-wide, with possibly higher rate for higher-density transit oriented developments. See page 35 of the  Mayor’s 10-Year Vision Investment Plan.

Thanks to Frances Bula in the Globe and Mail.

Other cities, notably Metro Toronto, have considered this kind of “land-value capture” system for financing transit, as well. Some look to the City of Vancouver’s existing method of community-amenity contributions as a model. Vancouver negotiates with developers to give back community benefits equivalent to 75 per cent of the land-value increase they see when their land is rezoned.

Vancouver is especially likely to be concerned how its approach would be disrupted by a new transit levy.

The city collected $105-million in 2015 in community amenity contributions from developers who got rezonings. Half of that went to an affordable-housing fund, while the remainder was spent on heritage, parks, community centres and child-care facilities

The first “The Strait and Narrows” podcast on local agriculture features Nova Guest, a farmer (not a gardener) in downtown Vancouver.  Seriously.  This is her personal journey of discovery and recovery.

Pricetags was pleased to provide some of the funding to make this series possible.  It’s part of our Crossroad City initiative to help focus attention on the region and its issues.

In the “give your head a shake” department The CBC reports that  that the Massey Bridge is a done deal. Imagine-the Provincial government has granted an environmental assessment certificate for this multi billion dollar ten lane beast that will eat up the most arable soils in Canada, pile drive in the sensitive Fraser River, and generally create a 20th century heap of motordom and tolled vehicular infrastructure that is in the wrong place at the wrong time.  It’s overbuilt, and not worth the irreparable environmental damage.

This is one of the decisions that in fifty years will be seen as a major mistake-a multi billion dollar one. But this government is bent on creating access for Delta port trucking, and  fast drives for consumers to the Tsawwassen Mills shopping mall-the latter which is as empty as a spent beer can on a Friday night. The demise of this mall will just provide more places for the port to park their cargo trucks, and we can weep at the loss of this major migratory bird flyway, and the short sightedness of paving  agricultural lands.

But here’s the Province’s messaging:

“The approval comes with 33 conditions that are legally binding requirements that the Transportation Ministry must meet. The government says the key findings that helped the approval included that no significant adverse effects were likely to occur on fish and fish habitat and that the project would eliminate congestion delays and idling on the route between Richmond and Delta.

The construction will also mean replacing the interchanges of Westminster Highway, Steveston Highway and Highway 17A. The project will require various federal, provincial and local government permits to go ahead and the Environmental Assessment Office will work with other government agencies to ensure conditions are met. Construction of the new bridge is expected to start this year with completion by 2022.”

You’ve seen the end of the region as we know it.

Found on construction hoarding at the former London Drugs parking lot on Davie St.

Kudos and free publicity to anyone who can name all the Bills.

And that is DEFINITELY not my handwriting on the second photo.

Name those Bills – click for larger version

NOT my handwriting

Here’s an unattributed mural on Seymour near Smithe. Note the Dominos Pizza delivery bike.

Click for a larger version

After the stunning success of hongbao (红包 or “lucky money” in English) and the more recent gold gifting, WeChat has partnered with Starbucks to offer coffee gifting.

Found in the WeChat Wallet, you can purchase Starbucks-branded gift cards either for a single drink or with money pre-loaded on the card. After purchasing, you will be taken to a sharing screen where you can choose who to send to. Once accepted, the gift card will appear in “Cards & Offers” menu where it can then be presented at the coffee shop.

As with much of WeChat, this has come with little fanfare. They have even gone out of their way to show clearly that this is a limited campaign with the buttons labeled “For a limited time only” (限时推广 in Chinese). However, there is no mention of when the campaign will finish. This is presumably done as a way to induce people to use the feature soon; indeed this was launched just ahead of Valentine’s Day and even features Valentine’s Day themed gift cards. This could also be a way to address any concerns from Chinese netizens who may question why WeChat is partnering with Starbucks and not with a local partner.

This is the first time that a foreign brand has appeared in the Chine WeChat Wallet, according to Matthew Brennan of ChinaChannel. There are two obvious lessons here: the power of gifting as well as what it takes to succeed in China.

The power of gifting

Gifting of cash on WeChat has become immensely popular. So popular, in fact, that even without the incentives of previous year, they still beat out Alipay for the most hongbao sent on Chinese New Year’s Eve. Soon after, WeChat introduced gold hongbao as a way to encourage users to sign up for Tencent’s Micro-Gold (our translation), a new gold trading service.

Straight up giving cash to friends and family may seem odd to Westerners of a Judeo-Christian background where the outright giving of money seems a bit gauche (gift cards, however, are quickly changing this, especially in the US). For China, on the other hand, it makes a lot of sense. First, China has a long history as a gift-giving culture, with personal and business relationships solidified and maintained through reciprocal gifting. Second, the hongbao is an integral part of Chinese tradition since at least the Qin dynasty (221 to 206 BC) when money threaded on a red string was given to children to first ward off evil spirits. This later evolved into giving hongbao (in English, this can be translated as “lucky money”, “red envelopes”, and “red packets”).

However, digital hongbao take this to next level, making a game out of the sending and opening of them. Usually sent in a group chat, there is a limited number of people who can open one hongbao, anywhere from 1 to 100. Whereas physical hongbao are consciously given to others, digital ones become a question of who can open them the fastest. A simple game, but one that has so many cultural hooks (especially how it solidifies group ties) that it is no wonder they have become so popular.

What it takes to succeed in China

China is a notoriously difficult market to crack. Many companies, both online and off, have tried to enter the Middle Kingdom to no avail. Indeed, even global food giant McDonald’s decided to sell 80% of their China business after struggling for decades. Starbucks, however, is one the very few foreign successes in China. Opening their first store in 1999, Starbucks now has 2,204 stores and plans to have 5,000 by 2021. In those almost 18 years, Starbucks worked quietly and patiently to teach Chinese consumers about coffee as well as making sure they create and maintain the right relationships.

We’ve talked before about what it takes to succeed in China and these lessons still hold true: don’t expect the same success as other markets, find local partners who understand your market, and be prepared to take the time to educate your customer.

With the China business expected to exceed the US, the new Starbucks gifting feature proves that Starbucks is officially part of China.

This is the second post in our series: Discover China’s Next BAT, where we will go over the potential tech giants that are leading China’s IT industry. Previously, we looked at what TMD is. This time, we take a closer look at the founders. 

Toutiao, Meituan-Dianping, and Didi Chuxing (TMD for short) are indeed the last winners who survived in their each sector of the market. As the leading platforms, their market value is notably high.

For Toutiao, a high-flying news-aggregation app that has quickly become one of the hottest start-ups in China, Investors are considering hanging a valuation of more than $US10 billion ($13bn)

The app’s parent company, Beijing Bytedance Technology, seeks to raise about $1 billion in its latest round. The fresh valuation marks rapid progress for the company, which was worth only $500 million in 2014.

Didi Chuxing, after a merger with Uber, is now worth around US$ 35 billion – combining Didi’s most recent US$ 28 billion valuation and Uber China’s estimated net worth.

In January, last year, Meituan-Dianping confirmed that it has closed a colossal $3.3 billion round at a valuation of $18 billion. In fact, this was the largest single funding round ever raised by a venture-backed Internet startup in China at the time.

Lanxi, the founder of Zhulu (逐鹿网) said in his blog post that he expects that among these three companies, at least two will complete its IPO this year.

Founders of TMD

Interestingly, these three companies all were established around a similar generation. Toutiao was founded by Zhang Yiming, a 33-year-old entrepreneur in 2012. Meituan was founded by Wang Xing, a 31-year-old entrepreneur in 2010. Didi Chuxing’s CEO, Cheng Wei was also 30 years old when he founded Didi in 2012.

As we often group together Robin Li, Jack Ma, and Ma Huateng, the founders of Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent respectively, Zhang Yiming, Wang Xing, and Cheng Wei are collectively seen as the next generation of leaders of China’s IT industry

It is true that at the time Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent were growing their business, BAT were often criticized for being the copycats of existing giants in the US; Baidu copying Google, Alibaba copying Amazon and Ebay. However, Toutiao, Meituan, and Didi are applauded to have captured a specific demand and needs of Chinese consumers and somewhat more original in terms of a business model with their own ways of innovation.

China is experiencing an unusual combination of growth factors that leads to abundant opportunities in the healthcare market: burgeoning middle-class, advanced technology, and government support.

Over the last decade, China embarked on the biggest health system reform aiming to extend health services beyond the country’s prosperous urban centers. In August 2016, President Xi Jinping held its most important national meeting on health—the National Health Conference—in twenty years, demonstrating the government’s tremendous political support in health investment. Xi further made it clear that health is to be an explicit national priority by approving the Healthy China 2030. China’s health science and technology innovation already rank amongst the world best. With the application of technological advances and improvements to the health insurance system, China aims to ensure health equity by 2030.

The burgeoning middle class implies the demand for high-quality medical services and the strains on public health care system. According to an EY report on China’s health care, the market for private health insurance grew from 1.5 trillion RMB in 2014 to 2.4 trillion RMB in 2015. The number is expected to grow up to at least 5 trillion RMB by 2020. Furthermore, the government encourages private sector involvement by relaxing regulatory restrictions and providing tax incentives.

On top of this, new disruptive technologies such as mobile apps and internet-based services are widening the health care options for Chinese customers. Currently, roughly 700 million people have internet access in China, of which 86% connect through their phones, easing the collection of health data for Chinese tech juggernauts. Such active mobile population allows room for mHealth to transform the healthcare experience for the Chinese people.  Established players are already enhancing their offerings by launching health-related mobile apps and internet-based services to enhance customers’ personalized experience.

“About four years ago [mHealth conferences] were just a few people in jeans meeting occasionally,” says Peter Benjamin, Managing Director of CellLife, a South African NGO developing mHealth technology. “Three years ago proper doctors started to show up; about two years ago we had reports of the first randomized controlled trials, and last year the suits got involved so that many mHealth conferences are now dominated by [corporate] executives [discussing return on investment].”

However, change entails conflict. Despite the connectivity and mass data collection healthcare technology can bring, the discrepancy between expectation and reality is still quite wide. The expectation that mHealth could be tailored to the needs of growing middle class and cut down costly healthcare expenses often ignores the vast size and population of China–the country with 1.3 billion population across the vast socio-economic spectrum and geographical locations. There are significant differences in cost and care between cities and provinces, which may take years to realize returns as the market matures and expands.

“The low satisfaction with public health care is draining the growing Chinese middle class outside the country to access better health treatment. For those who can afford a better health care system, are yet prone to seek for high-quality resources outside the mainland as opposed to going through the struggles of nascent mHealth,” according to Douglas Corley, an expert in Chinese Healthcare policy and the founder of Beijing Healthcare Forum.

While the idea of technology integration may sound romantic, the country still struggles from its slow and costly healthcare system. Less than half of doctors are openly integrating the technology to their traditional complex healthcare system. Some skeptical patients have little trust in the new online platform system, preferring the face-to-face diagnosis as seen in the news.

Bloomberg should buy Twitter? http://pic.twitter.com/mOeHCkxRLQ

— Stowe Boyd (@stoweboyd) December 17, 2016