Rolandt

KPMG has published an interesting take on what policy changes need to be in place for the rise of autonomous or driverless vehicles. Given that so many enterprises are working on this technology, KPMG feels that this will be the car of choice within twenty years.

Realizing that such a dramatic and drastic change in driverless technology will mean a reboot in policy at all levels of government, KPMG has identified five areas where there are major policy ramifications. These are:

1.Transport Infrastructure Investment-Since decisions on public investment are based upon cost benefit analysis, driverless cars are a certainty in the future. Because of that, financial analysis of transportation projects today should be factoring in the use of driverless cars. It is suggested that with no need for crash barriers, lanes could also be closer together, with significant less cost for roads, and use of land.

2. If in a driverless world there is no need for driver’s licenses, there are implications for countries that have dual licenses, for example, British Columbia where the license is also the Medical Services Plan card.  Other countries use the driver’s license as a citizenship card. Time will be needed to separate the systems apart. Traffic regulations will need to change to reflect driverless technology standards. Vehicle registration may form a basis of raising revenue for the use of a driverless car.

3.Revenue-Driverless cars still need roads and there will be investment in digital technology for the vehicle’s bandwidth and for communication to other vehicles.Government may want to create the control centres for these vehicles and not leave it to the private sector, providing a usage tax to replace gasoline tax revenue.

4.Spatial Planning-Having access to a vehicle without owning it means more accessibility and universality in usage, with more vehicle miles being travelled and higher usage of vehicles.Street widths can be narrower and KPMG suggests that there is no need to use sidewalks and curbs to separate pedestrians from the technology.With no need for garages or parking lots or on street parking, this could mean a revamping of land use on a scale not seen since the introduction of the car.

5. Security-There will need to be a protocol to ensure that the systems cannot fail, nor can they be undermined by malicious intent.With falling accident rates and little fatalities, the insurance companies will need to refocus their businesses. Personal data associated with the use of these vehicles will also need to be secured in a way that can access the payment systems in the cars, but still be confidential.

KPMG sees this time as an opportunity for policy makers to commence the thinking of how best to maximize efficiency and revenues with a technology that will have great social and economic ramifications. It will be curious to see in a few decades whether their perceived policy direction forecasts were accurate.

Dropbox got hacked a while back. So the company emailed affected users — and hid the news. Burying the lede* is counterproductive; it just makes people work harder to find out the truth. Good writers get to the bad news quickly and frankly, then move on. Here’s what happened: In 2012, somebody stole 68 million Dropbox usernames and … Continued

The post Dropbox buries the lede appeared first on without bullshit.

 

 

There are several posts in Price Tags that have followed the inception and building of the Tsawwassen Mills mega mall located on Tsawwassen First Nations Land in Delta,nestled between the Agricultural Land Reserve and the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal and the Port lands, under the control of the Federal Government.  An article  written in 2013 by Daniel Wood in the Georgia Straight  outlines a conversation with City of Richmond City Councillor Harold Steves, who is also a founder of the Agricultural Land Reserve incepted in 1973. Full disclosure, Harold is a member of a very old farming family that not only tilled these lands, but started up the first seed companies in the province. And that place, Steveston? It’s named after his family.

In that Georgia Straight article, Harold noted that over 400 hectares (which is 988 acres) of Class 1 agricultural land in Delta would be lost to port expansion, and another 100 hectares lost to the residential units being built to the west of the megamall. This does not include the 80 hectares of Class 1 agricultural land sitting below the megamall site.

“That’s the best soil in Canada,” says Steves, incensed by the shortsightedness of corporate capitalism. “You’re looking at the Richmondization of Delta.”

We don’t often think of this, but the Fraser River delta which supports and nourishes Metro Vancouver is similar to the great deltas in the world that provide agriculture to surrounding populations. It is also because of its agricultural status and relatively low land values that it is the most vulnerable to use as industrial or commercial lands.  Somehow we don’t value food production and the protection of  farmland  with a high monetary price.

This area of Delta is also on the great Pacific Flyway used by millions of migratory birds on a route that extends from Alaska to Patagonia. Annually this route is used by birds travelling to food sources, breeding grounds or warmer climates. Boundary Bay and this part of Delta are used by birds for a rest stop on the journey, and has been federally recognized.

But  back to Tsawwassen Mills, now a 1.2 million square foot mall built by Ivanhoe Cambridge. With 6,000 parking spaces this will be on of the biggest malls in Canada, with a second 600,000 square foot “more local” shopping centre to the east of it. It is a “drive to” destination. And that is what the developer thinks we will do.

To the west of this development a total of 1,700 housing units are being built, again on Class 1 agricultural land. Half of the new housing will be single family homes; 35 per cent are townhomes, and 15 per cent are apartments. A new road is being constructed connecting this residential development directly with the mall for easy shopping access by car.

Tsawwassen Mills has been having a challenge getting employees to staff the mega mall’s stores. At a recent job fair, 3,000 jobs were available but only 500 potential applicants showed up. The minimum wage jobs and poor transit connections will hinder hiring. The lack of a good separated sidewalk and protected bike lane from Tsawwassen to the mall will also thwart local residents who are active transportation users.

Tsawwassen Mills mall is now lit up at night. While there is shielded light in the parking lot ostensibly to minimize migratory bird disruption, no such regard has been made for the large illuminating signage visible for kilometers on the south side of the mall, as noted in this letter to the Vancouver Sun. Subsequent to that letter being published, another  illuminated sign has appeared.

For a mall that is slated to open on October 5 with 150 retail outlets, 90 businesses are concerned they will not have adequate staffing. There is the supposition that shoppers from across the region will drive here to spend a day shopping  instead of going to the United States or shopping online. While some light is shielded to minimize disruption of migratory birds, new commercial signage seems to be exempt from any concern.

We as a region have lost hundreds of acres of Class 1 agricultural land that will never be retrieved. A mega shopping mall perches on the sensitive delta which is also on the floodplain. There is no active transportation or good transit to the mall. It looks like any other mall you have ever seen. Just bigger. With 6,000 parking spaces.

In many ways, we are witnessing a motordom experiment of the ilk that the 1950’s and 1960’s would have dreamed about. It’s too late for the agricultural land, and I have not seen an environmental impact study on the migratory birds. What remains to be seen is how this 20th century rendition of shopping can be a commercial success with the high cost to the future of our agricultural food security and disruption of natural wildlife patterns. Would you spend a day driving your car here and shopping? Is this really a viable use of this richly arable  land in this century?

This time I think we went too far. I will end with a photo taken yesterday of the bus stop just outside the mall on Highway 17. That  bus stop too is so last century. And it tells me that for Tsawwassen Mills, motordom and the twentieth century way of doing things is all that matters.

The Economist looks at autonomous vehicles.  The article glows with the familiar wild optimism of Silicon Valley hubris, and none of it will come to pass quickly, in my opinion.  When and if it does, it will involve wrenching changes in the insurance industry among others, and it may be relegated (regulated?) to specific niches.

The vision of a driverless vehicle safely travelling our complex and changeable streets seems to me a utopia set in a future far, far away.  But, in the quest for unimaginable riches, practicality has a way of taking a back seat (get it?) to the visionary.

But Uber’s ambitions, and the expectations underpinning its valuation, extend much further: using self-driving vehicles, it wants to make ride-hailing so cheap and convenient that people forgo car ownership altogether. Not satisfied with shaking up the $100-billion-a-year taxi business, it has its eye on the far bigger market for personal transport, worth as much as $10 trillion a year globally.

Uber is not alone in this ambition. Companies big and small have recognised the transformative potential of electric, self-driving cars, summoned on demand. Technology firms including Apple, Google and Tesla are investing heavily in autonomous vehicles; from Ford to Volvo, incumbent carmakers are racing to catch up. An epic struggle looms. It will transform daily life as profoundly as cars did in the 20th century: reinventing transport and reshaping cities, while also dramatically reducing road deaths and pollution . . .

. . .   Self-driving cars will reinforce trends unleashed by ride-hailing, making it cheaper and more accessible. The disabled, the old and the young will find it easier to go where they want. Many more people will opt out of car ownership altogether. An OECD study that modelled the use of self-driving cars in Lisbon found that shared autonomous vehicles could reduce the number of cars needed by 80-90%. As car ownership declines, the enormous amount of space devoted to parking—as much as a quarter of the area of some American cities—will be available for parks and housing instead.

 

Here's a Banksy painted on the side of a building previously owned by 3D from massive attack  #thewellhunglover #bristol #banksy #massiveattack #imdead

A photo posted by RVBY MY DEAR (@rvbymydear) on

Jul 25, 2016 at 11:55am PDT

Every few months, it seems, reports come out "unmasking" or otherwise making claims about Banksy's identity. The latest comes with claims that Massive Attack founder Robert '3D' Del Naja is, in fact, the notorious street artist behind Balloon Girl, Bomb Hugger, and countless other world-renowned artworks and exploits.

The above Instagram depicts a Banksy on the wall of a building reportedly previously owned by Del Naja, who was a young Bristol graffito right around the same time Bansky was first getting up. The pseudononymous street art icon even lauded 3D's street art in a 2006 interview in Swindle Magazine. 

Admittedly, the evidence claiming they are one and the same is shaky at best. Whether it's the Daily Mail's 3,500-word investigation in 2008, naming the artist as "former public schoolboy" Robin Gunningham, or CityLab's vague 2015 argument that Banksy is a woman, most of the headline-making thinkpieces theorizing about his (or her) identity are unsatisfying.
 

 

A photo posted by Banksy (@banksy) on

Oct 1, 2013 at 9:38am PDT

 

2014's more or less scientific approach, via "geographic profiling," led scientists at Queen Mary University of London to report, “Our analysis highlights areas associated with one prominent candidate (e.g., his home), supporting his identification as Banksy." One co-author of the report, biologist Steve Le Comber, told the BBC: “I’d be surprised if it’s not [Gunningham], even without our analysis, but it’s interesting that the analysis offers additional support for it."

The new report from Transmission Glasgow's Craig Williams, however, uses a similar technique to point out that many of Banksy's shows and murals have coincided with Massive Attack concerts. But Williams has other ideas: "Perhaps the assertion then that Banksy is just one person is wide of the mark, instead being a group who have, over the years, followed Massive Attack around and painted walls at their leisure," Williams suggests. "And perhaps, at the head of such a group, we have Del Naja. A multi-disciplined artist in front of one the seminal groups in recent British music history, doubling up as the planet's most revered street artist. Now that would be cool." Maybe it would, but where does this claim fit in the realm of journalistic conclusions?
 

 

Coney Island

A photo posted by Banksy (@banksy) on

Oct 28, 2013 at 7:19am PDT

 

Williams is far from the first person to suggest Banksy is a collective, rather than a single artist. CityLab's argument that Banksy is a woman is rooted in a 2010 blog post by artist Christopher Healy that, "Banksy is not a him, but is a woman who leads of team of seven people." Healy's source is, of course, secret. "You’ll have to take me to the Supreme Court of Canada to find that out, but let’s just say it is legit and reliable information, and had the tell-tale ring of truth to it," he writes. The idea that Banksy is a collective has also been present for years on Reddit threads and blog posts, and even the Daily Mail's 2008 investigation admits the possibility. 

If Banksy is indeed a collective, geographic profiling is futile because he can be in multiple places at once. Maybe Del Naja is Banksy—or maybe one of his roadies put up a few stencils for the collective, which may or may not be led by a woman. Whether Banksy is a single artist helped by the equivalent of studio assistants or a collective of many equal, independently moving parts, we're simply going to need better evidence. At the moment, we'd just be happy if the media didn't lose its marbles everytime someone sees a pattern in the spray.
 

 

South Bronx

A photo posted by Banksy (@banksy) on

Oct 21, 2013 at 7:25am PDT

 

Via The Daily Mail, Transmission Glasgow

Related:  

New Banksy Mural Features Steve Jobs as a Syrian Refugee

Banksy Bombed the Bristol Elementary School Building Named After Him

Banksy DOXED?: Last Week in Art

Had a chance to cycle the Arbutus Greenway from 41st Avenue to Cypress.  As reported, the paving project to provide a temporary hard surface on the old rail right-of-way is on hold – but, one presumes, not permanently.

As the weather changes, the need to hard-surface the route will become abundantly apparent.

The downhill stretch from 36th to 33rd Avenue is somewhat a challenge for experienced cyclists: loose, rutted and not something you’d want to fall on.  But for most of the unpaved, there was not another person to be seen, whether on wheel or foot.

On the other hand …

… the paved stretch in the 20s was a pleasure – and there were people there enjoying it.

There hasn’t been an update from the City – and no indication as to whether the rest of the route will be resurfaced by winter.  At a minimum the multiple street crossings in the teens need to be addressed: ambiguous, awkward and unacceptable.

So, anyone know what’s happening?

Just a quick note about Trajectory Book 1: You can now read it for free on Amazon (US, Can) with a Kindle Unlimited subscription. If you’ve been curious, now might be the time to check it out.

In order to make this happen, Amazon demands exclusivity. That means pulling my book off of Wattpad where it’s been hosted in full for the past 10 months or so. During that time, it’s been up and down in the Science Fiction category, topping out at #2 on August 4th, 2016. As of this morning, Book 1 had 48.7k Reads and 4.8k Votes.

This is a somewhat painful decision, but I think it’s the right thing to do. If anybody from Wattpad would like to talk to me about my experiences there, I’m happy to share my impressions. Thanks to everyone for all the reads!

A 1954 book “How to Lie with Statistics” by Darrel Huff should be made a compulsory reading for anyone who wants to do data based journalism. The book is very small and talks about the ways data is used to lie aka statisticulation. In 2016, 62 years later, we still see the same mistakes or manipulations by the journalists and organizations today.

Misinforming people by the use of statistical material might be called statistical manipulation; in a word (though not a very good one), statisticulation. – Darrel Huff

It’s really difficult to run sample surveys because they are after all small chosen sample. Sample surveys in general have built-in bias and skewed distribution. As someone who has a deep interest in data, i really like to see a lot of details in the stories when they are based on sample surveys. In this post I really want to focus on two stories which are published by two decently popular news agencies. Both the stories are based on sample surveys.

Case study 1: Indian Express

This story on The Indian Express boldly states 70 per cent Indians want Modi back as PM in 2019: Poll (archive). The story has a subtitle “In the survey, conducted between July 25 and August 7, 80 per cent of the respondents were aged below 35.” . Now with that title and subtitle one would think the younger generation would want Modi to be back as PM in 2019. Only later in the story you will realize. Poll had 63,141 participants and poll was conducted on an app. Now can you see the bias of this sample survey? The story doesn’t share any raw data or process to explore but goes on to make many more over simplified, skewed, exaggerated statements.

Case study 2: Zee News

This story is by Zee news India. The headline of the story is 70% want Narendra Modi to be PM till 2024, 62% happy with his performance: Survey (archive). For a regular reader it seems like the 70% of India wants Modi to continue as PM till 2024. But only if you read the complete story you will realize the sample survey had 4,000 respondents across rural and urban areas and participants were from 15 states. Also the article doesn’t publish the details about the states/cities/villages; where this survey was conducted or how they were chosen. Nor does it publish any raw data or process. Can you see how much skewed the survey is? Standard case of statisticulation.

Have you read stories were data was used to lie like Darrel Huff uses the term lie. Please comment here. I would like to have a look at them.

[Update 6/Sep/2016]: I received some comments yesterday. I am adding more information here to address those comments

1. Comment: The sample size is good enough
   Response: If you consider just the size, yes I agree with the comment that the sample size is good enough. But a sample is not good or bad just because of size. I emphasized sample size as they are the only data point available in the articles and it is important. I have removed the emphasis now. But my argument was not just about the size of sample but how biased and skewed the sample was. I have deleted the “billion people” and word “only”; as it doesn’t add anything in that context and can lead readers to concentrate on not so important stuff. But rest of my comments remain the same. I have added couple of words to express my views clearly.
2. Comment: what are the biases?
   Response: I am going to name a few biases which I think these surveys suffer
   IE: Survey conducted on an app suffers with Self selection bias, opportunity sampling etc
   Zee: Article doesn’t say about how cities and rural areas were chosen. 15 states out of 29 states and 7 union territories in my opinion seems skewed unless they give us how and which states were chosen. I think its not a representative sample.
3. Comment: Tell me whats the best sample then?
   Response: It needs time and money
4. Comment: Your post is biased or ignorant or stupid
   Response: Write your own blog post with explanation. I will read it.
5. Comment: I have more to add
   Response: Comment below
6. Note: I ask the following five questions for any data based story. That’s how I try and validate a data story.
   Who says so? How does he know? What’s missing? Did somebody change the subject? Does it make sense?

Of course no comments mentioned my biggest complaint, lack of raw data and process so reader can verify and reproduce the results.

The tracks have been removed at the crossing of 37th Avenue, with an extension of the gravel path to the corner of West Boulevard. The level crossing signal equipment remains in place.

Postscript: September 3

The crossing is being removed at King Edward Avenue this morning.

The City of Vancouver is holding Public Feedback workshops. You have to register – click that link!

Filed under: Arbutus Greenway

Matthew Bischoff @mb
Can’t believe @Pinboard isn’t tweeting about @readability yet.

James Milner @JamesLMilner
Wrote a bit about geo, startups and the GIS industry; Is geo breaking out of it’s niche? loxodrome.io/post/the-geosp…

Casey Kolderup @ckolderup
I've tried giving it some time but I still hate new album day being Friday. Friday is already good. Having it on Tuesday made Tuesday better

Peter Rukavina @ruk
The degree of social overlap between people-with-summer-cottages and people-without?

Guerric Haché @GarrickWinter
The super talented @KeezyBees illustrated the cover of my science-fantasy book, Zeroth Law! amazon.com/dp/B01GT90JB0 pic.twitter.com/wTAOQwiCPK

On the first day of my compiler class this fall, I had my students fill out a short survey to help me set the stage for the course. After I asked them to list the the three or four programming languages they know best, I asked them:

• Based on your experience using these languages, list them in order from easiest to use to hardest to use.
• Given what you know about them, list these languages in order from easiest to compile to hardest to compile.

We then used their answers to unpack what "easy" and "hard" mean in these contexts, and what it would mean even to be answer these questions.

While they were completing the survey, one student raised his hand and asked, "When you easy or hard to compile, do you mean for the programmer or the compiler?" I laughed almost immediately.

Fortunately, I've had all these students in class before, and they know that I'm not a mean-spirited person. Even so, I just as quickly apologized for laughing and let him know that I wasn't laughing at the question so much as laughing at my own surprise: It had never occurred to me that someone might interpret the question in that way!

I realized, though, that from a student's perspective, getting a Python program to the point of runnability is a very different thing from getting, say, a Java or Ada program to the point of runnability. For a beginner, to get his or her first few Ada programs to compile is indeed a chore. I remember feeling the same way when I learned Haskell as a relatively experienced professor and programmer, many years after I had last been a student in a classroom.

This story came to mind as I read Required Reading for Math Teachers this morning. It's actually pretty good reading for teachers of any subject. Toward the end of the post, the author reminds us that it helps for teachers to be legitimately open to students' thought processes, whether or not they think what we think they should be thinking. In fact, those are precisely the moments when we want to be most open to what they are thinking. These are the moments that help us to diagnose errors in their thinking -- and in ours.

This passage resonated with my experience:

I have throughout my career been repeatedly surprised by the discovery that nearly every time a student offers an idea authentically (i.e. not as just a random guess), it makes some sort of sense. Maybe not complete sense, and maybe it's not at all where I was headed. But if I can curb my initial reaction of "this kid is totally confused" long enough to actually take in the train of thought, there is almost uniformly some worthwhile reasoning inside it. Then even if I need to say "we're going to stick to the topic", I can do so after acknowledging the reasoning.

Acknowledging students' ideas and thinking is a matter of basic respect, but it also plays a big role in the environment we create in our classes. I hope that I have been respectful and open enough with these students in the past that my question-asker could trust that I wan't mocking him and that I was genuinely surprised. We all learned something that day.

As that blog post goes on to say, we have to make sure that the questions we ask students are legitimate questions. We communicate this intention by acknowledging people when they treat our questions as legitimate. We teachers need to treat our student's questions the same way.

This is a fresh new device. Tablet on one side, Wacom digitizer on the other side, Yoga hinge holds it together. The digitizer is not a display, but it can light up as a keyboard, basically a backlit template.

Typing on this surface gives you physical feedback through a left/right movement. Not a vibrator, but more like Apple's Tap Engine. Since it is not a display, you cannot change key assignments. Different models for different markets. But the software adjust to you. If you hit the space bar low, it will learn and recognize it outside of the strict target.

Target audience is 15 to 30 year olds. They are used to typing on glass, which is way inferior to this solution. Typing speed is comparable to mechanical keyboard. I will need to use it myself to verify, but so far it looks good. Why not a second screen under the Wacom digitizer? Cost! What you don't really see: this is very light for a 2-in-1, and there is no place to store the pen.

The other thing you can't really see is that you can write through paper and the pen holds a real pen so that you get both the drawing and the digital version.

Lenovo is already shipping for 499 € Android or 599 € Windows 10. I haven't decided which one I want. Windows 10 is stock, Android needed to be customized. Which one would you prefer?

Mozilla today is joining a coalition of technology companies, including Apple, Lithium, and Twilio, in filing an amicus brief in support of Microsoft’s case against indiscriminate use of gag orders. Such orders prevent companies from notifying users about government requests for their data.

Transparency is the core pillar for everything we do at Mozilla. It is foundational to how we build our products, with an open code base that anybody can inspect, and is critical to our vision of an open, trusted, secure web that places users in control of their experience online. Our reform efforts in the areas of vulnerability disclosure and government surveillance are also centered on the transparency ideal.

And transparency  – or more appropriately the lack thereof – is why we care about this case.  When requesting user data, these gag orders are sometimes issued without the government demonstrating why the gag order is necessary. Worse yet, the government often issues indefinite orders that prevent companies from notifying users even years later, long after everyone would agree the gag order is no longer needed. These actions needlessly sacrifice transparency without justification. That’s foolish and unacceptable.

We have yet to receive a gag order that would prevent us from notifying a user about a request for data. Nonetheless, we believe it is wrong for the government to indefinitely delay a company from providing user notice. We said this when we released our transparency report in May, and we said then that we would take steps to enforce this belief. That is just what we’ve done today.

This is a guest blog post from Jane Finette, Executive Program Manager, who works closely with me in Office of the Chair.

In a recent blog post Mitchell described why she has been eager to see the hiring process at Mozilla have a larger focus on cross-functional participation, particularly for senior leaders whom we expect to represent a broad swath of Mozilla.  Enabling wider participation in how we hire for leadership has been our starting point.  She notes we began organizing panel discussions for a broader set of people to talk to the candidate some time ago.

The need to hire for a new senior role, Vice President of Marketing Communications, presented an opportunity to further explore this new type of approach. Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, our CMO and the hiring manager for this role, and I sat down to plan and document some further experiments with the hiring process for this role. Our goal from the start was to explore two outcomes: an increased participation within the organization and the simultaneous creation of a meaningful process for candidates to evaluate us.

Enabling participation in the hiring process for the VP of MarComm position was particularly crucial because this person has a role that represents and communicates publicly about a broad swath of Mozilla. The VP of MarComms oversees the global communications, social media, user support and content marketing teams and works across the organization to develop impactful outbound communications for Mozilla and Firefox products.

What was the process?

Jascha and I designed the interview process right at the start with participation as one of the key objectives. Together we identified interviewers as peers, direct reports, expertise leaders and others who were not from the group where the candidate would work; in this case Marketing.  We identified cross functional areas the hire would interact with on a regular and a geographic basis, these were people who might not otherwise have been part of the interview process.

Here is an overview of the process we devised:

1st round: Peers (no direct reports).
Purpose: Interviewing for values match, strong competency in area of expertise.

2nd round: Directs report + leaders in area of expertise, including cross-functional areas.
Purpose: Interviewing for leadership attributes, values match, competency in area of expertise.

3rd round: Panel – including moderator and panel members who were not part of the group where the candidate would work. Panel was a maximum of 7 people.
Purpose: Validate values match. Give insights into broader organizational dynamics.

4th round: Case study including peers + directs reports and a small selection of members of  the panel. Maximum of 12 people.
Purpose: Place for the person to demonstrate their expertise and shine, and experience a typical environment.

5th round: CEO and Chairwoman
Purpose: Validate values match, leadership and skills where appropriate.

We conducted well over 50 screenings and entered 8 very well qualified candidates into our process. The process took approximately four months to complete, approximately the same amount of time required for an executive level hire.

What have we learned so far?

The hiring process for the VP of MarComm is now complete. Alex Salkever, joined Mozilla as our Vice President of Marketing Communications on May 18, 2016.

We have a hypothesis that increasing the level of diversity and participation will lead to stronger hires at Mozilla. We are continuing the pilot to explore this further.

(1) In our opinion interviews are both for the organization and the candidate

• By increasing the level of diverse participation, we have been able to get more input from across the organization, finding blind-spots and bias. In our pilot case, the role was intended to be hired outside of the US due to the global nature of the position. The hiring manager explained he was heavily influenced by his peers in the organization regarding the location of this hire, which could have led to a suboptimal situation if he had pushed with his original preference. Additionally, we chose a candidate who has strong technical chops for a Marcom lead and yet, the recommendation was shaped heavily by the feedback provided from the non-marketing/policy participants.
• We are exploring turning this into a repeatable interview process.
• We have created an environment where candidates can also evaluate us from multiple perspectives.
  (i) By adding differing perspectives to our current hiring process, we are exposing a new hire to our unique culture and operating principles right from the start.
  (ii) The new hire already knows and has the potential to have credibility with a significant number of people at Mozilla from the first day. The process is essentially a way of reputation building on a distributed basis.

(2) Participatory hiring process in senior levels is our starting point

• Our starting point for a more participatory hiring process is our senior roles.  As Mitchell noted, “the more senior the role, the broader a part of Mozilla we expect someone to be able to lead, and the broader a sense of representing the entire organization we expect that person to have.” These roles require an ability to interact, motivate and work across teams, they also have the high potential to affect culture.

(3) Defining what success looks like helps identify who should participate in the hiring process

• A key practice to apply in all hiring processes: define (i) what success for the role will be and (ii) all the stakeholders in the organization whom can support success, this creates the pool of participants. In this case, we worked with both the hiring manager and the recruiter at the start of the process to design and determine the process.

(4) Add more people early on

• A previous learning indicated a broader group of diverse interviewees should be in the 3rd stage of the interview, not the last stage as their feedback proved to be critical in the decision process. This was upheld in this example. In order to invite a broad group to meet with a candidate, this could take the form of a panel to create an effective use of time.

Gotchas:

• We note that time taken by increasing participation in hiring could inhibit the process. In subsequent examples we intend to create and test a lightweight version of the process.
• When involving more people in the process, we must be careful to collect candidate feedback individually, as in larger group settings ‘group think’ can happen.

Often a standard type of interview process is designed for the company, rather than the individual being interviewed. The standard process is intended to maximize assessment in a core area of expertise, whereby candidates are evaluated by their manager, peers and direct reports in their domain only. This creates an unhealthy power balance and exposes a set of addressable biases in the process such as ones based on cultural fit, and skills gap perspectives from other areas of the company.

What’s next?
We will continue to explore, record results and share further findings. We have now begun another participatory hiring experiment at the ‘director’ level role.   It’s an interesting question what piece of evidence would conclusively prove cross-functional and cross-level participation in hiring leadership brings benefits to an organization.  We’ll continue to experiment.

The concept of software has evolved from the early days of programming when each minute step of had to be described in detail. Yet the challenges remain because, ultimately, software is about sharing our understandings with devices that will act as our agents. I learn a lot writing these columns. This one made me think about what software is and why automatic programming succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations yet has seems to have succeeded at all.

Images via, via

This article was originally published on November 25, 2014 but we think it still rocks!

The Tweet Your Food app might sound like a shame-based dieting strategy, but this Stupid Hackathon project is anything but. Generated by Denny George and Matthew Kaney, Tweet Your Food actually lets the food you're eating do the tweeting—a sensor, plugged directly into your food, sends information to a computer every time the user takes a bite. The result is one enthusiastic tweet (per bite) that gives a whole new meaning to the term "live feed."

The project is one of many homespun hacks from the Stupid Hackathon, which also included the creation of a a telepresence robot (actually a human with an iPad strapped to their face), a calendar of retouched photos of male intellectuals, and a laser-cut excuse generator. 

Click here to visit the Stupid Hackathon's website to learn more about Tweet Your Food and other projects. 

Related:

Hacked Etch A Sketch Becomes Generative Map Maker

New Cinema Hackathon: Dance With Your Face

These Old School Hackers Used Dead Tech To Make Arcade Game Art

Laser-Etched Produce Brings Food Access Issues To The Table

This article was originally published on November 20, 2014 but we think it still rocks!

German new media artist Kim Asendorf's No Content But Rich is an abstract series of dynamic, browser-based compositions that use only the cascading style sheet (CSS) language to create dynamic gradients and rainbow-colored geometries. Asendorf's series recontextualizes the motto, "Less is More" for the digital era, giving full meaning to the term "creative coding" and providing a one-of-a-kind demonstration of the capabilities of CSS.

The Berlin-based Asendorf tells The Creators Project, "It was a conceptual decision to avoid JavaScript and to limit the aesthetics to CSS properties." He explains the genesis of the idea came from an algorithm written in JavaScript and executed in .JSX with the application ExtendScript Toolkit. The script loops 128 consecutive times, resulting in stunning visual "drawings" free of human interaction. 

The slow-motion generative works are associated with an HTML sheet, comprised of an empty

You cry out in your sleep,
All my failings exposed.
And there’s a taste in my mouth,
As desperation takes hold.
Just that something so good just can’t function no more.

“Love Will Tear Us Apart Again” – Joy Division

If there are more devastating lyrics than these in a love song, I don’t think I have heard them yet. The second server we are rolling out this Fall at Reclaim Hosting is named after the Manchester legends of post-punk: Joy Division. As a kid coming of age to music in the 1980s, few bands had a more powerful aura even before hearing their music. Much of this was because of Ian Curtis’s suicide before their planned U.S. tour.* All of which was further reinforced by the band’s dark, ambient sense of an emotional world lost—which adds further fuel to the narrative that associates them with a whole new gothic sound. The 1980s pastiche Stranger Things didn’t miss the psychic hold this band had on a generation, and I was taken by the fact they chose the song “Atmosphere.”

I spent time listening to this song a bit recently, and I was struck how this song seems to provide a roadmap for The Cure’s 1989 masterpiece Disintegration. Take a listen at minute 1:25 of the video above, and then listen to minute 1:20 of The Cure’s third song off that album, “Closedown,” below.

Not identical necessarily, but one is so heavily influenced by the other that it seems The Cure took that one song and turned it into an entire album—speaking volumes to the depths of Joy Division’s sound. And as I was listening and reading around the topic online most folks point to producer Martin Hannett for the distinctive sound you find in songs like “Atmosphere,” “Transmission,” “She’s Lost Control Again,” “Love Will Tear Us Apart Again,” etc. There is a cool video of Hannett talking about post-production and his creation of an “Imaginary Room” of sound with Tony Wilson on YouTube that is worth watching if your interested:

Martin Hannett’s production of Joy Division’s sound is also referenced in the brilliant film 24 Hour Party People (the story of Tony Wilson and Factory Records) and the scene at the end of the following video suggests even Joy Division accepted Hannett produced their signature sound that would go on to fuel a generation of Goth!

Interestingly enough that actor who plays Hannett (Andy Serkis), also plays Gollum in LOTR—so he has a long tradition of playing medieval emo Goths

____________________________

*The apocryphal legend often repeated at the local Long Island record shop was that Ian Curtis had hanged himself slowly by standing on a block of ice and waiting for it to melt.This was just a few years after the fact, and it already had taken on mythic status an ocean away.

Tim pointed me to Matt Mullenweg’s post back in May that WordPress now owns the top level domain .blog. Seems like it cost them $20 million, which seems a ton—but it points to the big business that is the TLD industry these days. For shits and giggles I looked into what it would cost to register bava.blog, and and seems to secure it would start at $250, with more if I had to bid for it at auction. I guess they need to make up their costs, but that ain’t cheap.

Too rich for my blood, especially given it is simply an affectionate term I use for this here site that runs quite well on a $12 .com. We’ve had to avoid the custom domain craze at Reclaim given the varying costs and the fact we provide a free domain with our packages which limits our choices, but at the same time I’m not sure we are missing anything. Seems the market has become glutted and what you pay for in terms of a namespace doesn’t necessarily match the value.

One of the main requirements of many IoT scenarios is extremely low power consumption of a device in exchange for only sending and receiving very little data and very long intervals in which no data is exchanged at all. If a device does not need to react instantly to incoming requests it doesn’t make sense to keep the radio module powered up all the time. If, for example it is enough to check once every half hour for incoming IP packets, the radio module can be completely switched off for most of this time which saves a lot energy. The downside is, of course, that in the worst case it takes 30 minutes for a device to respond to an incoming IP packet. To cater for such scenarios the 3GPP specifications were extended by a number of features for “High Latency Communication”. Let’s have a quick look at them.

Extended Idle Mode Discontinuous Reception (DRX)

When a mobile device is in idle state it has to listen on the LTE paging channel for incoming paging messages. These are sent when no active radio link is established and IP packets arrive from the Internet for the device. The device then answers to the paging, a radio channel is established and the IP packets are delivered. A typical paging interval in LTE networks today is 1.28 seconds, i.e. the radio chip of an IoT device has to wake up once every 1.28 seconds and check the paging channel. While for smartphones the amount of power required to check for incoming paging messages once a second is negligible compared to the overall power consumption of the device it can be a significant part of the power requirement of an IoT device.

If it is acceptable for an IoT device to extend the paging interval it can signal this to the network during the LTE attach and tracking area update procedures. During these procedures it can request the network to extend the paging interval to values between 5.12 seconds and 2621.44 seconds (43.69 minutes). The network can accept, deny or modify the value. Once the attach or tracking area update procedure is finished and the network has released the radio bearer, the device can power-off the radio for the extended DRX time without releasing its bearer context, i.e. the device keeps its IP addresses.

Extended Buffering of MT (mobile terminated) Data

If the mobile device is in idle state when IP packets from the Internet arrive, the S-GW requests the MME to page the device and to establish a radio channel. When the MME recognizes that the device is in extended Idle Mode DRX it will ask the S-GW to buffer the IP packets until the device can be paged again. The MME then waits for the remainder of the DRX cycle and then pages the device, which can take up to 43 minutes. At this point in time or if the mobile device wants to send mobile originating IP packets before the DRX interval expires, a radio channel is established and the waiting packets are delivered.

Power Save Mode

Another option for turning off the radio for prolonged amounts of time is the Power Save Mode (PSM) feature. To activate this mode the mobile device requests an active time during which it will still listen to the paging channel once it has entered the idle state on the radio network. Once this time expires the devices is no longer reachable by the network as it powers down the radio until it has to perform a periodic tracking area update or it has outgoing data to send. In addition the device can request to extend the periodic tracking area update timer which is per default set to a value between one and several hours. If granted by the network the device can receive a periodic tracking area update timer (T3412) in the order of several days. This makes especially sense for devices that only push data to a receiver in the network but do not expect to be contacted from the outside.

Canadian carries have reacted swiftly to the recall of the explosion-prone Samsung Galaxy Note 7 with Bell, Rogers, Telus, Eastlink, Videotron, Koodo, MTS and SaskTel all confirming today that they’re suspending sales of the smartphone.

“After a thorough investigation conducted by Samsung, Telus has been advised by the manufacturer that it has found a battery cell issue in Samsung Galaxy Note7 devices,” said the carrier’s representative.

“Consistent with Telus’ policy of putting customers first, and because our customers’ safety is an absolute priority, we have suspended sales of the device across all Telus corporate, dealer and retail locations, as well as online. We are working closely with Samsung to ensure the replacement experience is as convenient and efficient as possible for our customers.”

A Bell representative issued a to-the-point comment echoing the sentiment: “Bell has suspended sales of the Galaxy Note 7 and we are contacting all customers affected by the issue. We’re working with Samsung to ensure these customers receive replacement phones as quickly as possible.”

MTS, which is in the midst of an acquisition by Bell Canada, stated it was offering a full refund: “Our customers’ safety is extremely important to us. MTS has suspended all sales of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 effective immediately, and we are proactively reaching out to our customers who purchased the device to offer either a timely exchange for an MTS loaner device or a full refund.”

While Rogers shared, “After being notified by Samsung that they have stopped selling the Galaxy Note 7 due to reported safety issues, we immediately suspended shipments and sales of the device in all our stores and through our website. Samsung is working on a replacement program and we’ll continue to work with them to ensure the process is seamless for our customers. In the meantime, customers can visit their nearest Rogers store to exchange their Note 7 or get a loaner device.”

The reports of the Note 7’s 3,500 mAh battery heating up and exploding began earlier this week, causing Samsung to at first delay shipments of the handset and then issue a full recall of the phablet device on September 2nd.

“To date (as of September 1st) there have been 35 cases that have been reported globally and we are currently conducting a thorough inspection with our suppliers to identify possible affected batteries in the market. However, because our customers’ safety is an absolute priority at Samsung, we have stopped sales of the Galaxy Note7,” said Samsung in a statement.

Canada is one of ten countries affected by the recall. The company states that customers will be able to replace current Note 7 with brand new ones in coming weeks by calling 1-800-SAMSUNG. This is a large hit for the company, considering it has already sold 2.5 million devices worldwide.

Update – September 3rd: Telus has detailed two replacement options for Note 7 owners:

1. Customers who would like a new Note7 and are willing to wait for a replacement device, can bring their current Note7 into their nearest TELUS location and receive a similar Samsung loaner phone while they wait for their new Note7. Customers can expect to receive their new Note7 in the next couple of weeks.

2. Customers who would like to exchange their Note7 for a new smartphone can do so as well, by bringing their current Note7 device into their nearest TELUS location and purchasing a new device of equal or lesser value, for example, the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.

Related: Samsung recalls Note 7 smartphones in Canada over explosive batteries

The fall is here and that means two things, colder weather is on the way and Apple is preparing to release new products.

This year, speculation indicates Apple’s new iPhone, rumoured to be called the iPhone 7, is poised to be a safe, incremental upgrade for the company. We also could be in for a new Apple Watch and possibly a long-overdue MacBook Pro and MacBook Air revamp, though recent rumours indicate the Cupertino-based tech giant likely plans to hold a separate Mac-focused event at a later date.

Here’s everything you need to know about Apple’s upcoming “See You” September 7th Keynote set to take place at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco at 10 a.m. PT/ 1 p.m. ET.

Say goodbye to the headphone jack

The most significant shift with the new iPhone is reportedly the removal of the standard 3.5mm headphone jack, in both the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, in order to make the phone thinner, similar to Motorola’s move with the Moto Z. In the headphone port’s place, it’s unclear if the phone will feature Lightning headphones or some sort of lightning-to-3.5mm headphone adapter. It’s also possible the phone could include wireless Bluetooth headphones.

Overall, speculation indicates the phones will look very similar to the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, adopting a nearly identical form factor with cleaner antenna lines and possibly new colours, with dark black and blue variant rumours currently swirling across the internet.

On the camera side of things, the iPhone 7 is expected to get a larger shooter that features dual cameras, resulting in improved low-light performance, similar to the Huawei P9 (which actually didn’t get released in Canada). Furthermore, it looks like the home button is going contextual with new Force Touch-like haptic feedback and that the smartphone will come equipped with a new A10 processor.

The iPhone’s base line of storage is reportedly starting at 32GB, up from the standard 16GB, a move iPhone owners have been requesting for years. It’s also possible we could see higher-resolution displays in the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, though I’m skeptical of that particular rumour.

The iPhone 7’s release date is expected to be on September 23rd.

Get ready for an Apple Watch refresh

With watchOS 3 looming on the horizon, it’s possible we’ll finally see the smartwatches first full revamp. With cellular data functionality probably no longer coming, it’s likely the Apple Watch 2, as it’s expected to be called, will finesse some of the issues users experienced with the original wearable.

Battery life will reportedly be improved, independent GPS functionality is on the way and even a barometer for altitude tracking could hit the new smartwatch. Other upgrades include a faster processor and stronger water resistance.

It looks like the new Apple Watch will arrive in September and that eager Apple fans won’t have to experience the six-week gap between the March 2015 Apple Watch’s reveal and its actual launch day.

Macs, iPads and iOS 10

iOS 10 is on the way and it’s likely that we’ll get the operating system’s final public release date during Apple’s keynote. It’s also possible watchOS 3 and macOS Sierra will get launch dates as well.

It’s well-known Apple’s superb but rapidly aging MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are long overdue for an update and while it looked like we’d catch our first glimpse of the new laptops at Apple’s September 7th keynote, that probably isn’t the case now.

According to a recent Bloomberg report from the almost always correct Mark Gurman, Apple’s new laptops will likely be shown off at a later event. The new devices will, however, reportedly feature an OLED control strip and USB-C functionality.

We also could see a revamped 12.9-inch iPad Pro at the keynote, though details regarding what will be upgraded in the device are scarce right now.

Mark Zuckerberg isn’t happy with Elon Musk right now.

On Thursday, an explosion destroyed a Space Exploration Technologies Corp. rocket and satellite. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Falcon 9 rocket was intended to put Israel’s Space-Communications Ltd.’s Amos-6 satellite into orbit this weekend. SpaceX is a space transportation company owned by Tesla co-founder Elon Musk.

This would have been part of a combined effort by Facebook and French satellite operator Eutelsat Communications SA to provide internet access to large parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

Despite this circumstance, the Falcon 9 has undergone more than two dozen successful liftoffs.

In a statement released on Twitter since the incident, SpaceX revealed the cause of the explosion and confirmed that no one was hurt.

“SpaceX can confirm that in preparation for today’s standard pre-launch fire test, there was an anomaly on the pad, resulting in the loss of the vehicle and its payload. Per standard structure, the pad was clear and there were no injuries.”

On Thursday, Zuckerberg released a statement on Facebook expressing his disappointment at the destruction of a satellite that would have provided internet connection to so many across the continent but suggested that all was not lost.

“Fortunately, we have developed other technologies like Aquila that will connect people as well. We remain committed to our mission of connecting everyone, and we will keep working until everyone has the opportunities this satellite would have provided,” he continued.

Image Credit. 

Related: How to stop WhatsApp from sharing your data with Facebook.

One of the most significant issues with high-end VR is the awkward wires that tether both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift to the high-end PCs that power them.

According to little known VR development studio Quark VR, that could soon change. The company claims it’s been working on a wireless solution for high-end VR for some time now.

“The way the headset will become wireless is through a small gadget, connected to the headset, but not wired with cables to the PC itself,” says the company in a blog post.

“Instead, the small transmitter, that may be placed in the pocket of the user, sends and receives the signal between the PC and the HTC Vive through Wi-Fi.”

The company claims it has found a way to circumvent the connection delay that occurs when streaming video over Wi-Fi, though hasn’t shown a practical demonstration of its technology yet.

HTC and Valve have stated since the Vive’s launch that the amount of data processed between the headset and PC is too great for an adequate wireless connection.

In honour of Labour Day, Best Buy has launched a new week long sale. Starting today, Canadian consumers can get discounts on a variety of products, including a number of Apple products.

For instance, the 38mm Apple Watch Sport has been discounted by $50. More compellingly, the 13-inch Macbook Air is priced at $999, down $200. Consumers can also get a $100 gift card when they buy the iPhone 6S on select two-year plans. If OS X isn’t your thing, Best Buy has, following the lead of Microsoft, slashed the price of the 4GB Surface Pro 4 to just under $1000 before tax.

Other wearables like the Fitbit Alta and Blaze are discounted by $20. The launch version of the Xbox One is part of a choose your own game bundle that lets consumers get one of Forza 6, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Rare Replay or Gears Anniversary for free and get $100 off the price of the console.

Check out Best Buy’s dedicated Labour Day sale section to see the full list of available deals. The sale ends on September 16.

Related: Microsoft discounts Surface Pro 4 to $1000 for Labour Day sale

I’m promoting a comment, left anonymously this morning by “robotboy44” on the post “Arbutus Greenway:  What’s Up?”.  The writer questions the definition of “Greenway”, and argues that Vancouver has a choice on the Arbutus Corridor between a “bike freeway” and a “nature based stroll”, sort of like Pacific Spirit Park, but nevertheless reminiscent of “. . . the way it was.”

Personally, I feel that we need to ensure that a broad cross-section of the public has the opportunity to visit, ride, stroll or wheel along the corridor before we set a specific concept in …  er… ah…  cement (as it were).

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robotboy44 writes:

This is very clearly a partisan space in support of the “bike freeway” position on all things path related, so pardon me for sharing another view, but I will.

It’s a cheap and baseless dig to characterize opposition to the paving as the “creme de la creme”. That kind of comment speaks more to your prejudice than it does a desire for thoughtful discussion and appreciation for a point of view which is not your own, so how about we try here to avoid these kind of assertions and instead discuss the issues.

People were upset about the paving because it seemed wholly inconsistent with the promise to discuss and listen to the people about how to treat the “greenway”. It was called a greenway and references were made to the NY Highline, which is not paved and not a fast bike route, but a leisurely stroll with amazing views. The Arbutus Greenway will never be the Highline because it’s not in NY, it runs along Arbutus. Very different experience, although I should think that does not need to be said. The term “greenway” even implies a more rustic, nature based experience. At least to me.

The previous use of the AB was more rustic and characterful. The feeling from many was that some of that character would be retained in creating the new user experience. Perhaps a kind of Pacific Spirit Park approach with green and a natural feel. On the other hand, biking proponents feel that the logical approach is to make it as clean and efficient a bike path as possible, so that means asphalt. No time for dirt getting on tires or gears.

Other bikers, like myself, really enjoy the more leisurely pace of a path much like the one at Kits Point or Jericho Beach or Pacific Spirit Park. If your goal is to make an active transportation corridor to get from A to B, then clearly asphalt is the way to go, but it’s clear that there are many who did not see the “greenway” in those terms.

So why the upset about the asphalt, which was called “temporary”? Because it felt like a very surprising move given the plan to consult and listen. Also, given the cities spotty reputation with listening, it felt like a decision had been made. In my opinion, people were rightly offended by this move.

I have my views about how the greenway should look and feel, but honestly, If there is true, broad consultation and it is felt that it should be primarily a bike commuter path rather than a more nature based stroll more reminiscent of the way it was, then so be it, but it seems reasonable to hear from the public before paving it. And in the mean time, I hope we can avoid characterizing people with baseless insults about their interests, financial well being or proximity to Arbutus.