The Bridge is WACCCCKKK

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Dustin Boyer

When completed, the new east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge will be not only the most complex engineering feat in California history, but also the most expensive, with a cost never subjected to public scrutiny.

Although today’s price tag stands at $6.3 billion, the figure accounts for only salaries and hard materials—things like concrete and steel and cranes. When all is said and done, the new Bay Bridge will wind up costing tax- and toll-payers more than $12 billion—a figure that leaves even the officials in charge “staggered.”

Much of the difference comes from interest and other financing charges—money that commuters will be paying off until at least 2049. Little attention has been paid to billions of dollars not included in the direct construction cost projections published in glossy public reports.

Why the price has skyrocketed is a tale of politics, bureaucratic bumbling, and unforeseen construction problems—all classic ingredients of California public works projects. It is a tale of obscure but powerful agencies, legislative bickering, and four successive governors grappling with a project so massive and complex that one consultant suggested the human mind might be unable to grasp, or accept, “the magnitude of the undertaking and the time and resources required to complete it.”

:::: Unparalled Bridge, Unprecedented Cost ::::

MUST READ FOR BAY AREA RESIDENTS

TEDTalk: Amanda Palmer on Asking

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Dustin Boyer

Any aspiring artist should watch this. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect these exact same techniques from every artist but you have to understand the technique if you want to make it in the current social media environment.

Doomsday Datapoints

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Dustin Boyer

It’s not even lunchtime and we’ve listened to presentations by Craig Venter on his plans to create biofuels made by microalgae: an acre, he believes, will be able to produce 10,000 litres of oil per year, as opposed to corn, which can produce just 18. He’s just received $300m of investment from Exxon to make it a reality.

I’m amazed by how many of my friends think that the world is rapidly coming to an end. Granted, our progress thus far isn’t workable but as a species we’re getting it figured out.

:: Great Article on Singularity University via Email (Thanks Lana!) ::

It’s worth noting that this article is a tad starstruck and isn’t quite as critical as it should be of Mr. Kurzweil. Also, I think that asteroid mining, while exceptionally cool, is a sexy vanity project for nerdy billionaires. If the goal is resources the answer is the ocean. It’s much easier to visit and we have barely even touched on the resources available there. Except fish, we’ve really fucked that scene up. Sorry dolphins!

++ Update ++

I forwarded this quote to my friend and she replied:
I visited a guy who is working on it at UC San Diego. He said that basically when humans were evolving agriculture we spent 10,000 years breeding wheat from a random grass to the fat stalks we have today, something capable of becoming a staple crop and supporting huge populations, cities, kings, armies, and all that civilization stuff.
Now we have to perform that same genetic engineering feat with generations of algae to get the stuff that will grow petroleum. WE have far more powerful tools to do it like supercomputers. But we only have like 10 years.

here is a crazy picture of a starfish

It Hurts That I 100% Agree With Ryan Singel

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Dustin Boyer

Google announced a new plan this week to help news publishers make money: Readers will be presented with a short marketing survey they have to complete before reading an article. Google consumer surveys is a clever enough way for a publisher to get more revenue without putting up more ads — or a dreaded paywall — and Google says replies will be anonymous.

As the poet Rumi once wrote, “I heard that lie.”

In fact, you should never again believe any privacy promise Google makes, since it’s now decided that its old promises don’t count and its future depends on it building the most comprehensive profile of you that it can.

On Profiling, And Google’s Big Double-Cross

By Ryan Singel

The Flying Pulpit

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Dustin Boyer

The Williams X-Jet, created by Williams International, was a small, light-weight Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) system powered by a modified Williams F107 turbofan aircraft engine. It was designed to be operated by and carry one person and controlled by leaning in the direction of desired travel and adjusting the power. It could move in any direction, accelerate rapidly, hover, and rotate on its axis, staying aloft for up to 45 minutes and traveling at speeds up to 60 miles per hour (100 km/h). It was evaluated by the U.S. Army in the 1980s, and was deemed inferior to the capabilities of helicopters and small unmanned aircraft.

Other VTOL systems developed by Williams International included a jet-powered flying belt developed in 1969, which was powered by a Williams WR19 fanjet, and the WASP (Williams Aerial Systems Platform) developed in the 1970s, which was powered by the more powerful WR19-9. This vehicle was nicknamed “The Flying Pulpit”.

:: The Wikipedia ::

:: Via Email (Thanks Star!) ::

IP Addresses Aren’t People

Posted on May 8, 2011 by Dustin Boyer

Several recent government raids on computer users suspected of sharing child porn online hit the wrong targets. Instead of getting the perpetrators, some of the raids nabbed a neighbor with an open WiFi network instead. One obvious takeaway: letting total strangers use your Internet connection for any purpose comes with some risk. But there’s another lesson: IP addresses simply don’t identify the people behind the computers.

One federal judge in Illinois has already taken the lesson to heart and applied it to the P2P file-sharing case before him. John Steele, the main lawyer in Illinois who has brought such cases, recently came up before judge Harold Baker and tried his standard tactic: requesting expedited discovery so that he could turn his list of allegedly infringing IP addresses into names. (Steele has also attempted to lodge the case as a “reverse class action” in which unknown copyright infringers of a pornographic film are named as a “class” to avoid problems of jurisdiction.)

Judge Baker was having none of it, rejecting Steele’s request on two occasions. Steele then sought leave to take the matter to an appeals court; Baker last week rebuffed him once more (PDF), saying it was totally improper to do expedited discovery against anonymous individuals with no representation of their own before the court.

“Could expedited discovery be used to wrest quick settlement, even from people who have done nothing wrong?” asked Baker. “The embarrassment of public exposure might be too great, the legal system too daunting and expensive, for some to ask whether [plaintiff porn company] VPR has competent evidence to prove its case.”

Baker then went on to cite a recent mistaken child porn raid, where an IP address was turned into a name—but the named person hadn’t committed the crime. “The list of IP addresses attached to VPR’s complaint suggests, in at least some instances, a similar disconnect between IP subscriber and copyright infringer… The infringer might be the subscriber, someone in the subscriber’s household, a visitor with her laptop, a neighbor, or someone parked on the street at any given moment.”

Steele’s request was denied until he can name at least one specific person in the case over whom the court has personal jurisdiction—though it’s not clear he can do this at all without going to the ISPs for help. But the judge doesn’t care about Steele’s problems.

“The imprimatur of this court will not be used to advance a ‘fishing expedition by means of a perversion of the purpose and intent’ of class actions,” Judge Baker concluded.

:: via Ars Technica ::

Monsonto GM Crops Causing Organ Failure in Rats

Posted on January 13, 2010 by Dustin Boyer

In a study released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences, analyzing the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers found that agricultural giant Monsanto’s GM corn is linked to organ damage in rats.

According to the study, which was summarized by Adam Shake at Twilight Earth, “Three varieties of Monsanto’s GM corn – Mon 863, insecticide-producing Mon 810, and Roundup® herbicide-absorbing NK 603 – were approved for consumption by US, European and several other national food safety authorities.”

Monsanto gathered its own crude statistical data after conducting a 90-day study, even though chronic problems can rarely be found after 90 days, and concluded that the corn was safe for consumption. The stamp of approval may have been premature, however.

In the conclusion of the IJBS study, researchers wrote:

“Effects were mostly concentrated in kidney and liver function, the two major diet detoxification organs, but in detail differed with each GM type. In addition, some effects on heart, adrenal, spleen and blood cells were also frequently noted. As there normally exists sex differences in liver and kidney metabolism, the highly statistically significant disturbances in the function of these organs, seen between male and female rats, cannot be dismissed as biologically insignificant as has been proposed by others. We therefore conclude that our data strongly suggests that these GM maize varieties induce a state of hepatorenal toxicity….These substances have never before been an integral part of the human or animal diet and therefore their health consequences for those who consume them, especially over long time periods are currently unknown.”

Monsanto has immediately responded to the study, stating that the research is “based on faulty analytical methods and reasoning and do not call into question the safety findings for these products.”

The IJBS study’s author Gilles-Eric Séralini responded to the Monsanto statement on the blog, Food Freedom, “Our study contradicts Monsanto conclusions because Monsanto systematically neglects significant health effects in mammals that are different in males and females eating GMOs, or not proportional to the dose. This is a very serious mistake, dramatic for public health. This is the major conclusion revealed by our work, the only careful reanalysis of Monsanto crude statistical data.”

:: Huffpost via Email {Thanks Dennis!} ::

As the article states Monsanto gets to gather it’s own data about toxicity in a particularly way.

Honestly, I’m exhausted and I would like to read the actual study but I’m just trying to jam through email right now.

Song Contest: (Winner: Osaka Loop Line)

Posted on November 29, 2009 by Dustin Boyer

black_hair blonde_hair cap child double_buns dress francisca gif hiyorimi_hiro jump_rope kaibutsu_oujo maid panda pantyhose ponytail ryu-ryu sherwood short_hair skipping

Best Song for getting drunk and playing foosball on Thanksgiving:

Osaka Loop Line

Best Song for riding around in the middle of the night in Golden Gate Park:

Osaka Loop Line

Best Song for playing darts:

Osaka Loop Line

Best Song for Checking Email:

Osaka Loop Line

Sounds like: Postal Service but with more LAZERS

Gripping Narrative:

Discovery is the recording project of Rostam Batmanglij and Wes Miles, friends who began recording together in the summer of 2005. One year later they had committed themselves to their respective bands, Vampire Weekend and Ra Ra Riot, but nonetheless continued to record together when they both found themselves in the same city. The project is many things: it’s partly an attempt to realize Wes’s concept of a band where everyone plays synthesizers, and of Rostam’s concept for an album where handclaps keep the backbeat instead of snares drums. It’s an embrace and also a commentary on the pop music of the past decade, of booming 808 bass and jittery sixteenth note high-hats. Elements of european electronic dance music skittering in double-time over steady R&B. If soul music is secularized, sexualized gospel, Discovery is an attempt to see if soul music can survive being plasticized, roboticized, quantized, chopped, and finally, screwed. The album features Rostam and Wes each singing half the songs and guest vocals from Ezra Koenig (Vampire Weekend) and Angel Deradoorian (Dirty Projectors).

The actual song

Promises Promises

Posted on August 23, 2009 by Dustin Boyer

t_shirt_blog_bloggers

I installed a blog comment suite called intense debate that reworks the comments pretty seriously. Voodoo Knickers now supports

- Threaded Comments
- OpenID
- Comment Subscriptions
- Comment Ratings
- Other things which I haven’t played with yet.

I am somewhat concerned that it seems to be loading slowly. It feels like the IntenseDebate plugin is loading the comments on from their servers which is incredibly dumb for several reasons. 1. it slows load time which is the number one thing that determines use. 2. It’s not a sustainable growth model.

Please note that I will still delete stupid and boring comments that don’t really add anything to the discussion. I will also continue to publish highly relevant comments in the post body if I feel so inclined. Test out the system and please let me know what you think!

I Know A Few People Like This

Posted on June 3, 2009 by Dustin Boyer

What Does That Even Mean: The Hypegeist

Posted on May 14, 2009 by Dustin Boyer

Hypegeist is a portmanteau that Mr. Keytone and I mashed up from Hype and Zeitgeist {the spirit of the times}. It’s a subtle jab at a “marketplace of ideas” driven not by the free exchange of the most accurate information but rather by a culture dominated by merciless hucksterism. We don’t hear what is most correct but instead what is most effectively promoted.

Why don’t you put that in your lexicon and parley it?

Interesting Study: I'd like Cream w/ That [Humans as Robots]

Posted on November 10, 2008 by Dustin Boyer

The student volunteers didn’t realize when the experiment started. They showed up at Yale University’s psychology building and met their contact near the elevators. She was holding some textbooks and a cup of coffee. The woman with the coffee was [part of the experiment]. She knew what she was supposed to do, but she didn’t know why. One by one, she took the students up to the fourth floor in an elevator. As they rode up, the woman asked students, “in a pretty innocuous way, if they wouldn’t mind holding her coffee cup while she wrote down some information,” Williams explained.

Half the students got to hold hot coffee; half got iced coffee. They held the cup for only a few seconds. But that short experience must have changed something in their brains. When they arrived at the fourth floor, they filled out questionnaires. They read a short description of a hypothetical person — Person A — and they had to evaluate this stranger’s personality.

Here’s where the coffee’s influence became apparent. “Participants who held the hot coffee cup rated this Person A as more generous, more social, happier, better natured” than participants who held the iced coffee cup, Williams said. Williams thinks it’s no coincidence that we use the same word — warmth — to describe both a physical and an emotional experience. Somewhere in the brain, those two sensations are linked, he says. And you can imagine why: Think of a baby held in its mother’s arms. The child is experiencing love, affection, comfort.

“But you also have, at the same time, an experience with a warm object, in that case a warm human being,” Williams said.

:: Full Article via A Real Live Conversation (Thanks Amy!!) ::

Now get off the internet and go give someone a hug.

Treats!

Posted on July 9, 2008 by Dustin Boyer

Christian Phillips, 18 years old, is suspected of delivering baskets LSD-laced cookies to about a dozen police departments in Texas. “Our officers took a good whiff and thought they smelled like marijuana,” McGuire said, adding that preliminary tests instead detected traces of LSD. In Fort Worth, at least three officers got sick after eating some cookies and candy from a basket delivered to that police station Monday night, authorities said. Investigators found that Phillips had a list of about two dozen police departments in north Texas, with 13 checked off!

: Hilarity Ensues via AP wire :

OMFG – Harvard Using SMS to Communicate With Students

Posted on March 13, 2008 by Dustin Boyer

As part of the Harvard University Emergency Management Plan, the Harvard community can now expect to receive text message alerts in addition to traditional methods of notification. Given its widespread acceptance, the University has decided to employ text messaging as another technological solution for communicating with students, faculty, and staff in the event of an extreme emergency on campus.

:: messageme.harvard.edu ::

wow, that is so… rational.