Bergblogging
An intriguing post from the National Weather Service regarding icebergs in Lake Michigan (some great graphics too.) (Via Instapundit).
A Practical Crisis
Ham Radio. Computing. Woodcraft. Homemade Electronics. Photography. Model Trains. Model Ship Building. This is a list of the many hobbies in which my grandfather immersed himself. Not only did he have many hobbies, but he was accomplished at quite of few. He knew how to work with his hands and how to build things. When my dad was young, he built his own speakers. My uncle is serious model plane maker.
I've always admired my grandfather's enthusiasm for these hobbies. However, I never picked up on his ability to work with his hands. I am a poor craftsman and have less of a knowledge of the tech I use than I'd like. I am also concerned that my children may find themselves even farther removed from the hands-on. This is a serious problem.
In Wired, Clive Thompson crystallizes this issue in this article about the loss of hands-on skills. According to Thompson, this skill gap is resulting in a paucity of innovation. Instead of creating a technical work-around to improve gas mileage, we use a theoretical approach. He also relates this problem to the lack of concern about our crumbling infrastructure. If we had a better understanding of how the world works - how bridges and roads can decay - we might be more worried about it (Related post here).
However, he also writes about a nascent movement to return to our technical roots. He points to Make magazine as an example. I would also point to the popularity of the Lego Mindstorms as another example. The Mindstorms is an awesome toy, helping to teach both mechanical and programming skills (which we also lack link).
As I posted before, I've started to try to do my part to address this. However, I am somewhat hampered in my ability to teach my sons how to get hands-on because my skills are so underdeveloped. We are learning together.
I've always admired my grandfather's enthusiasm for these hobbies. However, I never picked up on his ability to work with his hands. I am a poor craftsman and have less of a knowledge of the tech I use than I'd like. I am also concerned that my children may find themselves even farther removed from the hands-on. This is a serious problem.
In Wired, Clive Thompson crystallizes this issue in this article about the loss of hands-on skills. According to Thompson, this skill gap is resulting in a paucity of innovation. Instead of creating a technical work-around to improve gas mileage, we use a theoretical approach. He also relates this problem to the lack of concern about our crumbling infrastructure. If we had a better understanding of how the world works - how bridges and roads can decay - we might be more worried about it (Related post here).
However, he also writes about a nascent movement to return to our technical roots. He points to Make magazine as an example. I would also point to the popularity of the Lego Mindstorms as another example. The Mindstorms is an awesome toy, helping to teach both mechanical and programming skills (which we also lack link).
As I posted before, I've started to try to do my part to address this. However, I am somewhat hampered in my ability to teach my sons how to get hands-on because my skills are so underdeveloped. We are learning together.
Transparency Two: Street View
To add to the discussion of the Transparent Society I started on this blog earlier, I wanted to comment on Google Street View, the technology which allows you to simulate walking or driving down a city street and seeing what exactly is around you through a series of interwoven photos.
Microsoft also has this technology and is working acquiring street views of cities all around the country. I work in GIS at the county level and utilize remote sensing technology (digital photos and LiDAR) on a daily basis. As I mentioned previously, GIS technologies are accelerating rapidly and I believe in a few years most people will be shocked by our ability to model the real world.
Google and Microsoft have completely changed the equation in the field of GIS and the ability of the public to access remote sensing technology (including digital photos, oblique photos, and street view photos). However, once people realized what Google had created with Street View, a few people were not happy. The interesting thing about this reaction is that people were concerned only once these photos became available to the public.
Rather than harming privacy though, Google is performing a great public service. These photos are also being resold to the government and being used by corporations. The same with the bird's eye view on Virtual Earth (this is oblique imagery). Yet, people do not seem as concerned with the government having it as with Google publishing it.
In the future, governments and corporations will possess and exploit this technology. Why should they be the only ones with access to it? The first best use of this technology is to model, understand, and explore our world. However, the technology will also be utilized in perverse ways. Public privacy is better served if everyone can see what is available and not just the government and corporations.
(Of course, Google has a history of reneging on the idea of free access to this information when confronted by the government. Here is a recent example. In the military's defense, it doesn't help anyone if there is street view of American bases but not any other country's).
Microsoft also has this technology and is working acquiring street views of cities all around the country. I work in GIS at the county level and utilize remote sensing technology (digital photos and LiDAR) on a daily basis. As I mentioned previously, GIS technologies are accelerating rapidly and I believe in a few years most people will be shocked by our ability to model the real world.
Google and Microsoft have completely changed the equation in the field of GIS and the ability of the public to access remote sensing technology (including digital photos, oblique photos, and street view photos). However, once people realized what Google had created with Street View, a few people were not happy. The interesting thing about this reaction is that people were concerned only once these photos became available to the public.
Rather than harming privacy though, Google is performing a great public service. These photos are also being resold to the government and being used by corporations. The same with the bird's eye view on Virtual Earth (this is oblique imagery). Yet, people do not seem as concerned with the government having it as with Google publishing it.
In the future, governments and corporations will possess and exploit this technology. Why should they be the only ones with access to it? The first best use of this technology is to model, understand, and explore our world. However, the technology will also be utilized in perverse ways. Public privacy is better served if everyone can see what is available and not just the government and corporations.
(Of course, Google has a history of reneging on the idea of free access to this information when confronted by the government. Here is a recent example. In the military's defense, it doesn't help anyone if there is street view of American bases but not any other country's).
Transparency
David Brin writes in Wired today a response to critique of his book The Transparent Society, in which Brin posits that "its argument that freedom is best served when all citizens have enough knowledge to hold each other reciprocally accountable."
I agree with Brin on this point. In the critique, Bruce Scheier highlights a potential problem with a Transparent Society, that not all transparency is equal. Those with power can wield your information much more efficiently against you than you can wield it over them. As examples, he mentions a traffic stop and a visit to the doctor's office where the police officer had much more information about you than you do about the police officer.
I think though that this is changing significantly and both doctors and police are not necessarily happy about it. For example, it is much easier to access solid medical information and research and be able to ask informed questions of your doctor. There is no longer a blind trust. In addition, there are now doctor-rating sites in the vein of the teacher and professor sites. (a police themed site was recently disabled by GoDaddy). Also, the police are very uncomfortable with the idea of being videotaping, as the Instapundit has highlighted.
These developments are on the whole a positive. But Scheier is also concerned about the fate of citizen to citizen privacy. Brin writes:
Again, I agree with Brin. In some ways, the open society is already here and it is happening amongst the current up-and-coming generation of Internet users. The values of conventional privacy are being tossed aside willingly. People are letting Big Brother right through the front door, but we are not in dystopia.
At a TED talk, Larry Lessig mentions that today's children are growing up with no conception of intellectual property. The same is true of privacy. In both cases, there are definite drawbacks, including the idea that not everyone in your life may appreciate your openness.
However, as more people willingly expose their lives to the Internet, we are realizing that the bulk of most of people's life is rather boring, but that other things are surprisely interesting. Who wants to wade through the dreck to get to the good bits? If we imagine everyone doing this, you would realize that almost no one would care. On the other hand, we have found that there is a much larger spectrum of thought and views than media had previously presented us with.
Along this extreme, you realize that if all your secrets are out, then it becomes difficult for any one to use them against you (You could call this the Clinton Theory). Of course, this would assume a free, liberal society where you would not be prosecuted for what you think and say. Also, this type of thinking has worked on the Internet to a point, because when people do say things beyond the pale they risk being ostracized, not by the government, but by their peers. Freedom of thought and speech does not mean freedom from consequences.
As Brin states, this could help protect privacy, in the sense that while much of your life is public, your can still live your life privately from the government, from corporations, etc. Also, from other citizens, in a kind of MAD strategy. You have bombs, I have bombs. If we launch, we are all destroyed. Maybe, we should not launch them.
In addition, we should not only be cautious about restrictions on freedom, but also about false transparency or half-transparency. In a society where we are accustomed to sharing more and more information, there is an incredible urge by large organizations to filter or edit the information and say "we are being transparent." In the long run, this could be a greater threat than all-out fascism.
I agree with Brin on this point. In the critique, Bruce Scheier highlights a potential problem with a Transparent Society, that not all transparency is equal. Those with power can wield your information much more efficiently against you than you can wield it over them. As examples, he mentions a traffic stop and a visit to the doctor's office where the police officer had much more information about you than you do about the police officer.
I think though that this is changing significantly and both doctors and police are not necessarily happy about it. For example, it is much easier to access solid medical information and research and be able to ask informed questions of your doctor. There is no longer a blind trust. In addition, there are now doctor-rating sites in the vein of the teacher and professor sites. (a police themed site was recently disabled by GoDaddy). Also, the police are very uncomfortable with the idea of being videotaping, as the Instapundit has highlighted.
These developments are on the whole a positive. But Scheier is also concerned about the fate of citizen to citizen privacy. Brin writes:
Attacking a caricature of my position, Scheier suggests that transparency would end
privacy, making everyone walk around naked. It does take some mental flexibility
to realize how a generally open society will be privacy friendly. But it was a
generally open society that invented modern privacy.
Again, I agree with Brin. In some ways, the open society is already here and it is happening amongst the current up-and-coming generation of Internet users. The values of conventional privacy are being tossed aside willingly. People are letting Big Brother right through the front door, but we are not in dystopia.
At a TED talk, Larry Lessig mentions that today's children are growing up with no conception of intellectual property. The same is true of privacy. In both cases, there are definite drawbacks, including the idea that not everyone in your life may appreciate your openness.
However, as more people willingly expose their lives to the Internet, we are realizing that the bulk of most of people's life is rather boring, but that other things are surprisely interesting. Who wants to wade through the dreck to get to the good bits? If we imagine everyone doing this, you would realize that almost no one would care. On the other hand, we have found that there is a much larger spectrum of thought and views than media had previously presented us with.
Along this extreme, you realize that if all your secrets are out, then it becomes difficult for any one to use them against you (You could call this the Clinton Theory). Of course, this would assume a free, liberal society where you would not be prosecuted for what you think and say. Also, this type of thinking has worked on the Internet to a point, because when people do say things beyond the pale they risk being ostracized, not by the government, but by their peers. Freedom of thought and speech does not mean freedom from consequences.
As Brin states, this could help protect privacy, in the sense that while much of your life is public, your can still live your life privately from the government, from corporations, etc. Also, from other citizens, in a kind of MAD strategy. You have bombs, I have bombs. If we launch, we are all destroyed. Maybe, we should not launch them.
In addition, we should not only be cautious about restrictions on freedom, but also about false transparency or half-transparency. In a society where we are accustomed to sharing more and more information, there is an incredible urge by large organizations to filter or edit the information and say "we are being transparent." In the long run, this could be a greater threat than all-out fascism.
On-Line Telescope Arms Race
When I was in college, I purchased the Red Shift program, which featured a nifty model of the sky with information about many of the shiny dots in space. I even utilized the model to determine the make-up of the night sky for a location I was using in a book I was writing (I finished writing the book (working title: Sparkwood and 21) about eight years ago. I now plan to publish it unedited on the Web. There is a lot of fun stuff in it, but a lot of unfortunate stuff too. I am working on something much more intense and focused now. I hope to finish it this year with a first draft, but I don't have much time to work on it, so its slow-going but fun).
Technology has changed significantly since Red Shift, but I don't think the improvements of these sky models are quite there yet. Google Sky, Stellarium, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey on NASA World Wind are fun, but incomplete. They are not as intuitive and transformative as their Earth-bound counterparts.
However, we may on the cusp of a breakthrough. At TED, Microsoft previewed the Worldwide Telescope. The presentation did not floor me, but I read here that it will utilize the Photosynth technology (related links here and here). This adds the promise of 3D views of some of these space objects, which could revolutionize desktop astronomy viewing. I'll be looking forward to its release.
Technology has changed significantly since Red Shift, but I don't think the improvements of these sky models are quite there yet. Google Sky, Stellarium, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey on NASA World Wind are fun, but incomplete. They are not as intuitive and transformative as their Earth-bound counterparts.
However, we may on the cusp of a breakthrough. At TED, Microsoft previewed the Worldwide Telescope. The presentation did not floor me, but I read here that it will utilize the Photosynth technology (related links here and here). This adds the promise of 3D views of some of these space objects, which could revolutionize desktop astronomy viewing. I'll be looking forward to its release.
The Curious Case of Human Morality
In the post below, I referenced a Fresh Air interview with Richard Dawkins. While I found him very interesting and compelling, I was disappointed when he fumbled the question of whether evolution is poorly compatible with a sense of morality. I've had debates with friends in which they have claimed that we have been imbued by God with morality and without a basic gut feeling of right and wrong, a divine moral compass, we would devolve into a murderous animistic chaos.
Dawkins response to this was convoluted. He stated that it was an accident of evolution. It was an advantage to treat those in our tribe justly and to fear the others. However, as time progressed, the tribe became larger and larger and the other has become smaller and smaller. Thus, we treated nearly everyone like members of the tribe. I find this utterly unconvincing.
I think a more sensible evolutionary explanation is the development of logic and reasoning by humans, which has allowed us to achieve many great things as well as provide an amazing survival advantage. Once reasoning is achieved, morality follows. If you want to have a civilized and operating society which benefits everyone and maximizes survival, there are certain logical rules that we all generally agree upon. Murdering someone feels wrong not because God inserted this feeling in our gut, it feels wrong because permitting murder does not make sense. Things that do not make sense generally make me queasy. This includes murder, some quantum physics, and belief in the supernatural.
Morality is not accident, it is also not dependent of God (in a raucous takedown, Christopher Hitchens shows here that the Ten Commandments are incomplete and have no monopoly of moral thought). It is an evolved trait, one that will help perpetuate the species.
Bonus link: As this TED presentation, Steve Pinker provides a compelling history demonstrating that humanity is becoming less violent with time, despite the doom and gloom about the current time.
Dawkins response to this was convoluted. He stated that it was an accident of evolution. It was an advantage to treat those in our tribe justly and to fear the others. However, as time progressed, the tribe became larger and larger and the other has become smaller and smaller. Thus, we treated nearly everyone like members of the tribe. I find this utterly unconvincing.
I think a more sensible evolutionary explanation is the development of logic and reasoning by humans, which has allowed us to achieve many great things as well as provide an amazing survival advantage. Once reasoning is achieved, morality follows. If you want to have a civilized and operating society which benefits everyone and maximizes survival, there are certain logical rules that we all generally agree upon. Murdering someone feels wrong not because God inserted this feeling in our gut, it feels wrong because permitting murder does not make sense. Things that do not make sense generally make me queasy. This includes murder, some quantum physics, and belief in the supernatural.
Morality is not accident, it is also not dependent of God (in a raucous takedown, Christopher Hitchens shows here that the Ten Commandments are incomplete and have no monopoly of moral thought). It is an evolved trait, one that will help perpetuate the species.
Bonus link: As this TED presentation, Steve Pinker provides a compelling history demonstrating that humanity is becoming less violent with time, despite the doom and gloom about the current time.
Tempest in Hudsonville
It has been an interesting year and a half for Atheism and secularism. The publications of books by Richard Dawkins (here) and Christopher Hitchens (here and here) received considerable media attention. The Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life made a splash with its survey showing that many Americans are drifting away from traditional organized religion (a trend which our church has benefited from).
Even in our little corner of the world here in West Michigan, the Freedom from Religion Foundation has caused a stir by attacking the City of Hudsonville for including a reference to God in its mission statement, leading to a thorough review by the Grand Rapids Press of the prevalence of religion in local government in the area.
As a former reporter, I have attended many local government meetings and witnessed many invocations and references to God before board meetings, planning commissions, and even some of the most mundane and sparsely attended committee meetings. I was slightly surprised at first because this is government. However, I was also not too shocked because this is West Michigan and religion is deeply rooted here.
Today, I listened to this interview with Richard Dawkins from March 2007 that re-aired on Fresh Air last week. He spoke very eloquently about the ways in science provides a superior and far more fascinating explanation of the universe than you would find in the Bible or other religious texts (Although my minister, Ian Lawton, writes a nice article explaining that religion
and science serve complementary purposes). Dawkins also explains that Einstein described himself as a "deeply, religious non-believer." That is how I would characterize myself, as an Atheist who finds something very spiritual about the vastness and intricacies of the universe.
I would also say that I am not as militant as Christopher Hitchens, who would rather see no religion. I respect that others have religion, I just have no capacity for faith in the supernatural. That being said, I have never run into much trouble for holding these views and found that people here in West Michigan are respectful and very willing engage you on this topic and hear you out.
This brings me to the meat of this post: my problem with the Freedom from Religion Foundation's (FFRF) attack on the City of Hudsonville. Although I would prefer it if local government did not have such blatant expressions of faith here in West Michigan, I think its a deeply-held and generally harmless tradition. There is not a slow ineffable creep toward theocracy here. Generally, the prayers ask for guidance in decision-making. There are not pleas that non-believers repent or convert. Also, no laws or special privileges. are being given. This is also not the same as prayer in school, where minors are compelled into a moment of silence and the chances for ostracism are much higher if you forgo participation (All this is not to say that communities in West Michigan have a totally spotless record of tolerance and standing for free thought. In 2000, Zeeland Public Schools became infamous for attacking Harry Potter).
Hudsonville mission statement is an easy target and the consequences are minor. However, I would be much more impressed if the FFRF was going after Harvard for instituting a gender segregation policy to accomdate muslim students (link here also Instapundit links here, here, and here). As far as I can tell, the FFRF has not taken a stand on this.
Even in our little corner of the world here in West Michigan, the Freedom from Religion Foundation has caused a stir by attacking the City of Hudsonville for including a reference to God in its mission statement, leading to a thorough review by the Grand Rapids Press of the prevalence of religion in local government in the area.
As a former reporter, I have attended many local government meetings and witnessed many invocations and references to God before board meetings, planning commissions, and even some of the most mundane and sparsely attended committee meetings. I was slightly surprised at first because this is government. However, I was also not too shocked because this is West Michigan and religion is deeply rooted here.
Today, I listened to this interview with Richard Dawkins from March 2007 that re-aired on Fresh Air last week. He spoke very eloquently about the ways in science provides a superior and far more fascinating explanation of the universe than you would find in the Bible or other religious texts (Although my minister, Ian Lawton, writes a nice article explaining that religion
and science serve complementary purposes). Dawkins also explains that Einstein described himself as a "deeply, religious non-believer." That is how I would characterize myself, as an Atheist who finds something very spiritual about the vastness and intricacies of the universe.
I would also say that I am not as militant as Christopher Hitchens, who would rather see no religion. I respect that others have religion, I just have no capacity for faith in the supernatural. That being said, I have never run into much trouble for holding these views and found that people here in West Michigan are respectful and very willing engage you on this topic and hear you out.
This brings me to the meat of this post: my problem with the Freedom from Religion Foundation's (FFRF) attack on the City of Hudsonville. Although I would prefer it if local government did not have such blatant expressions of faith here in West Michigan, I think its a deeply-held and generally harmless tradition. There is not a slow ineffable creep toward theocracy here. Generally, the prayers ask for guidance in decision-making. There are not pleas that non-believers repent or convert. Also, no laws or special privileges. are being given. This is also not the same as prayer in school, where minors are compelled into a moment of silence and the chances for ostracism are much higher if you forgo participation (All this is not to say that communities in West Michigan have a totally spotless record of tolerance and standing for free thought. In 2000, Zeeland Public Schools became infamous for attacking Harry Potter).
Hudsonville mission statement is an easy target and the consequences are minor. However, I would be much more impressed if the FFRF was going after Harvard for instituting a gender segregation policy to accomdate muslim students (link here also Instapundit links here, here, and here). As far as I can tell, the FFRF has not taken a stand on this.
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