Robot Monkeys

First in the series of indeterminate length, Recolonizing Detroit

Before I start, I encourage you to check out Forbes Magazine’s interactive map of American internal migration. It is fun on a bun.

Matthew Yglesias idly suggested that instead of shrinking Detroit, issue visas for immigrants willing to relocate there. This would work like an EB-5 visa, but would target people without money. Ironically, Detroit, and indeed all of Michigan, is notably absent from the list of approved Regional Centers for EB-5 investment.

He’s not the first to suggest such an idea. The reason why you want to attract immigrants is because Americans clearly aren’t interested in Detroit. Ideally you’d want to bring in people to invest, but since there are a limited number of these, you most likely will need to attract those from countries where Detroit is a step up. Yglesias specifically mentions Haiti, Gaza, Myanmar, Chad, and Nicaragua as potential sources for immigrants. Detroit already home to one of the largest Arab-American communities, and the largest mosque in the United States, so it is possible that immigrants from the sub-Sarharan Africa would find an existing community into integrate.

Predictably there were those claiming he wants to create some sort of immigration concentration camp, but that wasn’t the proposal at all, and mostly betrays an opinion of Detroit. I’ve been to Detroit, and while it’s the only place I’ve been where the nightlife was in the suburbs instead of the city, and peeking over the sound dampening walls reveals a city that has clearly seen much better days, it is not Detroit Maximum Security Prison.

The biggest problem with Yglesias’s idea is that simply replacing the residents with people from some of the poorest, and slowest economically growing parts of the world, doesn’t bring the investments needed to make Detroit stabilize, let alone thrive again. If poor people was all that what was needed, then subSaharan Africa would be rich. Is Detroit too corrupt to succeed? I doubt it, Prisoner 702408 notwithstanding.

The real impediment seems to be failing to diversifying the economy beyond automobiles. Detroit is, and should remain, a manufacturing city. Its location on the Great Lakes, between steel and energy production sites is perfect. Ann Arbor, home of the top engineering schools is close by, so an educated workforce could still be attracted. What is needed is leadership and money, not just people. How simply attracting the tired, poor, huddled masses, wretched refuse, and homeless changes this situation isn’t clear. Of course, the history this country has been one of dregs of all different societies coming for a better life; and it appears to have worked out for us.

On the flip slide the meme of the self-made rugged individualist is a myth. Rugged individual has always relied on the government to establish the conditions, and relied on the established elite (which includes the government) for aid in achieving the “self-made” endeavor. How this hypothetical poor immigrant ingratiates him/herself with the gatekeepers of capital, remains a mystery.

The San Francisco Bay Area, has two airports in the top five for laser-aircraft incidents according to the FAA. While the FAA didn’t release the total number of incidents, the relative ranking of the airports are are:

1. Chicago’s O’Hare Airport
2. Los Angeles
3. Phoenix Sky Harbor
4. Mineta San Jose
5. Oakland

Money quote from the article:

The U.S. Marshals Service Office theorizes it may be due to the number of people involved or interested in high tech. While some portion of the laser shooters are thought to be middle-aged methamphetamine users looking for thrills, other shooters are young, well-educated and interested in science, science fiction and are tech-savvy, officials believe.

SFO? Where are you?

China Daily reports:

Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents are training monkeys to use weapons to attack American troops, according to a recent report by a British-based media agency.

Reporters from the media agency spotted and took photos of a few “monkey soldiers” holding AK-47 rifles and Bren light machine guns in the Waziristan tribal region near the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The report and photos have been widely spread by media agencies and Web sites across the world.

Well there there is precedence for monkey armies, along with tales of their legendary ferociousness. AND DON’T YOU DARE SAY THAT MONKEY ARMIES ARE A MYTH!

Previously.

People will often want more information than they can actually process. Having more information makes people feel that they have more choices. Having more choices makes people feel in control. Feeling in control makes people feel they will survive better.

— The Psychologist’s View of UX Design by Susan Weinschenk

versus

Autonomy and Freedom of choice are critical to our well being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don’t seem to be benefiting from it psychologically.

— Barry Schwartz, “The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less”, 2004, Chapter 5

via Unknown 8 Bit

Just a reminder, Maker Faire is this weekend at the San Mateo Fairgrounds. 10 am to 8 pm, Saturday. 10 am to 6 pm Sunday. $20 adult, $10 student (with valid id), $5 kids.

Schedule is packed. I’d recommend Trisian Shone, and the Raygun Gothic Spaceship, which just looks amazing.

I doubt I’m going to make it this year. Instead, I’ll be attending the SF Fine Art Fair.

Tristan Shone is a one man doom metal band performing under the name “Author and Punisher.” His twist? He makes his own instruments. Things like throttles that control bass frequencies and sliders that control drums. He calls them “drone and dub machines.”

After the jump is an interview with Tristan, complete with performances, from Ground Control Magazine. Make talked about him last year as well.

Musically, it’s odd. There’s no getting around that. That’s not to say that it’s bad. I listen to some odd stuff. Personally, I find it kind of calming. It’s music to listen to in the dark late at night, and just wash over you. It’s not for everyone though.

If you’d like to see a performance, he’s performing at Makerfaire this year.

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You’ve seen the show, now own the tattoo.

I loved Lego growing up. I still love Lego. It’s terrific fun. When Star Wars Lego came out, I said if it had come out 15 years earlier, my mind would have exploded. Still, I long for the great blue and grey color scheme of the Classic Space sets. I’d love for them to reintroduce them, or at least make the parts available again, or at the very least, have astronauts wear oxygen tanks again. Apparently, I’m not alone, with these feelings.

But that was yesterday, and this is today. Lego has announced that for the retirement of the Space Shuttle, they are releasing set 10213 Space Shuttle Adventure. The set features, detachable SRBs and ET, working cargo bay doors, a Canadarm, a satellite, and even deployable landing gears with realistic shuttle slope. (See demo after the jump.) Unfortunately, no oxygen tanks, and the space logo isn’t the same. But, at least the astronaut lives on in some form.

So why do I mention this? Around last Christmas, my mom was wondering if I wanted an exorbitantly desktop model of the Space Shuttle since I was a huge space geek growing up. I passed. This however, I want.

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The Great Firewall of China (officially known as “Golden Shield“) is lovely creation that tries to maintain a “harmonious” Internet experience. When I was in Beijing, I I noticed that it used a combination of DNS filtering (tibet.net, the official website of the Tibetan Government In Exile, does not resolve), and packet filtering on keywords. (“The connection has been reset.”). Tor got around it easily, but that may or may not be the case today. Like every other attempt to stamp out “undesirable” content, the ways to avoid detection were well known. How often they’re actually employed, is another question.

So what use is the Great Firewall beyond being an somewhat effective tool of oppression? Marco Donnarumma has the answer. He uses it to make music. The IP addresses of the twelve “most screened” websites, are fed into a MIDI synthesizer. A single note is transformed by four voices based on the four bytes of the IP address. The notes are ordered by the number of pages blocked on each site.

Via Unknown 8bit.

Before:

After:

In a exercise specious reasoning unseen since Lisa sold Homer a tiger repelling rock, Russia is dropped two timezones. Why? “[T]o breathe new life into business activity,” President Medvedev said. Why would this be? Well China and the United States both have fewer timezones, and they’re doing better than Russia, so obviously it’s the timezones and not the rampant corruption.

While I like timezones in general, I’ve always found the actual implementation of of the timezone system frustratingly stupid. The whole reasons why there are timezones is because the planet rotates 15 degrees per hour. The planet rotates East to West, and yet you can gain/lose an hour by moving North or South! Why is India, and the Australian Outback half an hour off? That doesn’t even make sense!

If there are 24 hours in a day, there should be 24 timezones, not 35 (formerly 37).

Medvedev ironically holds China up as an example of a country that knows how to use timezones, but Beijing has decreed that the entire country is one timezone, not three.

It’s not that hard to set up timezones. Every 15 degrees draw a line from pole to pole. Frob the line so that towns don’t fall on the boundary, and you’re done. Granted, you approach the poles, the 15 degree rule breaks down, so you’d have to just pick a timezone (say UTC+0) for convenience.

What really bugs me about the system, is that it will never be fixed, if for no other reason than misguided nationalism.