everwas

a blog by Ian Kennedy

Category: Current Events

  • PechaKucha – new & improved!

    Congratulations to Astrid, Mark, Sean and the rest of the PK crew on their refresh of pechakucha.com!

    PechaKucha (pe-cha-koo-cha) has been around for years (first wrote about them back in 2012) and I’ve know Astrid and Mark even longer when they contributed to my first website, TokyoQ. PechaKucha has grown exponentially over the years as an organic movement that builds community around the sharing of ideas through a very simple format, 20 slides x 20 seconds a slide.

    If you haven’t attended a PK Night, get out there and do so. There are over 1200 communities out there so if you’re in a city, there is bound to be an organizer nearby. Don’t see one in your town? They give you all the tools and make it easy to host one. One way to appreciate the vibrancy and creativity of the hosts is to peruse their event poster archive.

    Meta-alert! There are a few PK presentations on the latest features on the site:

    How to make a Presentation

    What makes a great Presentation

    How to Create a Community on PechaKucha

    While the physical gatherings are what is special about PechaKucha, Mark has always struggled with how to capture the performative aspects of the live presentations and bringing it online. This latest launch represents the bringing together all the tools necessary to not only host a PK Night but also how to capture and upload the presentation so others that were not at the performance can join.

    The archive is there so you can browse around by presenter, city, or topic. I went back and refreshed past performances I wrote about including:

    Make it So, one person’s adventures with a Captain Picard action figure

    Sprinkling Pixie Dust at Disney, reflections of a cast member at Disneyland

    Marking the City, the quintessential PK presentation on those strange markings you see around a modern city

    Today I found a new PK to share by poking around to see what stories the community had to share about my new home, NYC. After some poking around, I found this presentation from Scott Cornwall, a bike messenger from the 90’s, sharing his experiences:

    Zen and the Art of the Bicycle Messenger

    Enjoy!

  • Primary Election Day, NYC

    Today it’s primary election day to choose your party’s nominee for the Governor of New York. I’ll be voting for the Democratic nominee which comes down to a choice between three, incumbent Kathy Hochul, Tom Suozzi, and Jumaane Williams.

    I watched their last debate. While all three candidates have similar positions, it’s worth watching the debate to see how they air their differences. Towards the end, each candidate was asked a “Lightning Round” question to sum things up and try and get a sense of who each person was based on a personality-defining issue.

    Question, “What would your bagel be?

    Kathy Hochul – Cinnamon Raisin with “whatever sweet cream cheese they’ll put on it,  usually maple syrup”

    Tom Suozzi – Poppyseed with Tuna Fish

    Jumaane Williams – Lox, Cream Cheese, Onions and Capers

    Some other resources, if you’re still undecided:

  • China Tracking

    China Tracking

    We know that the the Chinese government has been zealously building a massive database of faces to help keep track of its citizens. These images are then used to enforce their laws. The extent of this automated enforcement leads to cases of mistaken identity such as this 2018 story about a business executive that had her face flashed on screens across the city shaming her for jaywalking. Turns out her face was scanned off an advertisement on the side of a passing bus.

    This video from the New York Times outlines not only the scale but evolution of this state-sponsored data collection.

    Facial images in one province is three times larger than the DHS database

    Mass surveillance by the state has now evolved beyond just facial recognition but now is tied into mobile phone tracking (i.e. which phones in the area have a Uyghur <> Chinese dictionary app installed) as well as activity on email, phone calls, and social media.

    Connecting digital life and physical location

    Where this video surprised me is the scale of biometric data that is now being collected. Iris scans, DNA samples, all of these markers are unique and cannot be altered like a phone number or social media handle. Even more sinister, there is a specific focus on male DNA which is passed on to offspring so the “genetric tracking” continues across generations.

    Iris and DNA samples

    The video is part of a package of material NYT released in what looks to be an on-going investigation and coverage that can be found at:

    www.nytimes.com/spotlight/china-surveillance

  • Focusing on the Facts

    Focusing on the Facts

    There are really no words to process the horrific events this week at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The pang of sadness that overcomes us all when you think what happened to those innocent children is only amplified when you think of your own kids and those around you.

    What has helped me is to dive into some facts. My hope is that will at least prepare you to take action and convince your representatives to change the laws.

    In 2004, a ten-year federal ban on assault weapons expired, and since then. mass shootings have tripled. Zusha Elinson, who is writing a history of the bestselling AR-15 military style weapon used in many mass shootings, notes that there were about 400,000 AR-15 style rifles in America before the assault weapons ban went into effect in 1994. Today, there are 20 million.

    Heather Cox Richardson

    The 20 million figure is jaw-dropping so I had to double-check it. Amazingly, it’s hard to pin down the absolute number of guns out there because the US government doesn’t keep track (unlike Japan). In fact, there are more guns than people in the United States with almost double the number of guns/people than any other nation.

    With all those guns, it is no surprise that there is an epidemic of gun violence in the US. Notice in the chart below that all but two of the mass shootings below are from after 2004.

    Steve Kerr, whose father was shot and killed by jihadists while serving as president of the American University of Beirut, went viral the other day following his impassioned plea for Senators to break through the gridlock and do something.

    As Coach Kerr said, House Resolution 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021 is stalled in the Senate. You can find out more about the bill and read the details and encourage your Senator to pass this important bill.

    Statistic: Number of mass shootings in the United States between 1982 and May 2022 | Statista
    Find more statistics at Statista

    The United States is an outlier when it comes to banning assault weapons. When will it change? Amazingly, public opinion on gun laws is still mixed according to Gallup which says the public’s desire for more gun control has actually dropped recently. One hopes this will change and force a change to the laws.

    Will Uvalde become this nation’s Port Arthur moment? I certainly hope so.

  • Steve Martin on side effects

    Steve Martin on side effects

    I have another site where I keep short quotes and other online ephemera but for longer pieces that I fear may disappear some day, I save them here. Enjoy.

    Side Effects

    by Steve Martin

    DOSAGE: take two tablets every six hours for joint pain.

    SIDE EFFECTS: This drug may cause joint pain, nausea, head-ache, or shortness of breath. You may also experience muscle aches, rapid heartbeat, and ringing in the ears. If you feel faint, call your doctor. Do not consume alcohol while taking this pill; likewise, avoid red meat, shellfish, and vegetables. O.K. foods: flounder. Under no circumstances eat yak. Men can expect painful urination while sitting, especially if the penis is caught between the toilet seat and the bowl. Projectile vomiting is common in thirty per cent of users-sorry, fifty per cent. If you undergo disorienting nausea accompanied by migraine and raspy breathing, double the dosage. Leg cramps are to be expected; one knee-buckler per day is normal. Bowel movements may become frequent-in fact, every ten minutes. If bowel movements become greater than twelve per hour, consult your doctor, or any doctor, or just anyone who will speak to you. You may find yourself becoming lost or vague; this would be a good time to write a screenplay. Do not pilot a plane, unless you are among the ten per cent of users who experience “spontaneous test-pilot knowledge.” If your hair begins to smell like burning tires, move away from any buildings or populated areas, and apply tincture of iodine to the head until you no longer hear what could be taken for a “countdown.” May cause stigmata in Mexicans. If a fungus starts to grow between your eyebrows, call the Guinness Book of World Records. May induce a tendency to compulsively repeat the phrase “no can do.” This drug may cause visions of the Virgin Mary to appear in treetops. If this happens, open a souvenir shop. There may be an overwhelming impulse to shout out during a Catholic Mass, “I’m gonna w*p you wid da ugly stick!” You may feel a powerful sense of impending doom; this is because you are about to die. Men may experience impotence, but only during intercourse. Otherwise, a powerful erection will accompany your daily “walking-around time.” Do not take this product if you are uneasy with lockjaw. Do not be near a ringing telephone that works at 900 MHz or you will be very dead, very fast. We are assuming you have had chicken pox. You also may experience a growing dissatisfaction with life along with a deep sense of melancholy-join the club! Do not be concerned if you arouse a few ticks from a Geiger counter. You might want to get a one-month trial subscription to Extreme Fighting. The hook shape of the pill will often cause it to become caught in the larynx. To remove, jam a finger down your throat while a friend holds your nose to prevent the pill from lodging in a nasal passage. Then throw yourself stomach first on the back portion of a chair. The expulsion of air should eject the pill out of the mouth, unless it goes into a sinus cavity, or the brain. WARNING: This drug may shorten your intestines by twenty-one feet. Has been known to cause birth defects in the user retroactively. Passing in front of TV may cause the screen to moiré. Women often feel a loss of libido, including a whole octave lowering of the voice, an increase in ankle hair, and perhaps the lowering of a testicle. If this happens, women should write a detailed description of their last three sexual encounters and mail it to me, Bob, Trailer Six, Fancyland Trailer Park, Encino, CA. Or E-mail me at hot-guy.com. Discontinue use immediately if you feel that your teeth are receiving radio broadcasts. You may experience “lumpy back” syndrome, but we are actively seeking a cure. Bloated fingertips on the heart-side hand are common. When finished with the dosage, be sure to allow plenty of “quiet time” in order to retrain the eye to move off stationary objects. Flotation devices at sea will become pointless, as the user of this drug will develop a stone-like body density; therefore, if thrown overboard, contact your doctor. (This product may contain one or more of the following: bungee cord, plankton, rubber, crack cocaine, pork bladders, aromatic oils, gunpowder, corn husk, glue, bee pollen, dung, English muffin, poached eggs, ham, Hollandaise sauce, crushed saxophone reeds.) Sensations of levitation are illusory, as is the sensation of having a “phantom” third arm. Users may experience certain inversions of language. Acceptable: “Hi, are how you?” Unacceptable: “The rain in Sprain slays blainly on the phsssst.” Twenty minutes after taking the pills, you will feel an insatiable craving to take another dose. AVOID THIS WITH ALL YOUR POWER. It is advisable to have a friend handcuff you to a large kitchen appliance, ESPECIALLY ONE THAT WILL NOT FIT THROUGH THE DOORWAY TO WHERE THE PILLS ARE. You should also be out of reach of any weapon-like utensil with which you could threaten friends or family, who should also be briefed to not give you the pills, no matter how much you sweet-talk them.

    * From The New Yorker, April 13, 1998.

  • Technology fades into the background

    At this year’s Google I/O developer conference, CEO Sundar Pichai spoke of how augmented reality (AR) glasses embedded with Google’s real-time translation services could break down the language barrier in face-to-face communication. While not explicitly announcing any hardware, he did show a video with a pair of glasses with a heads-up display that would show the results of Google’s real-time translation technology as “subtitles for the world.”

    Google Translate + AR Glasses = Subtitles for the World

    Taking another run at the ill-fated Google Glass vision is a game-changer and speaks to the maturity and deep pockets of Google as a corporation. Taking lessons learned from Google Glass 1.0 the company has improved the technology to a point where it’s less interruptive (and doesn’t make you look like a cyborg) and ready for more widespread adoption.

    We are tiptoeing into the post-computer world where “technology fades into the background” and allows us to push away the unnatural hardware interfaces and interruptive notifications from the human-to-human interaction and realize the true vision of AR – to augment the world around you.

    Combine this “subtitles for the world” mentality to another Google Lens enhancement, Scene Exploration and now you have useful metadata from Google’s Knowledge Graph overlayed on the world around you. Check out the video below which jumps to the demo of how Google envisions you can use Scene Exploration to learn about the contents of items on the shelf at the grocery store.

    Google Scene Exporation demo at 7:00

    Exciting times! Caveat is, as with all real-world technology, things will be rough in the beginning. I work in a Japanese company and sometime we turn on the real-time translation AI in Google Hangouts to see if we can get a decent translation of the meeting. Let me just say the results are not quite there yet. As Pichai said, there’s a lot of work to do.

    The competition has not stood still either. We also have Facebook’s Smart Glasses focused, as you would expect, on the capture and sharing features with a light that goes on to warn you if someone is filming. Snapchat’s Spectacles (pictured below) overlay 3D filters over what you look at thru their glasses bring the Snapchat Lens experience to the world around you, leave the psychedelics at home. The future is here, we just need to improve the software.

    Snapchat Spectacles 3

  • BirdCast

    BirdCast

    New York is a big enough city that you can be pretty sure to get a critical mass of enthusiasts in any field, as long as you gather them together around an event. When a rare Snowy Owl came to visit Central Park last winter, hoards of birders and amateur photographers swarmed the park to capture the moment. When another celebrity owl was accidentally run over by a Central Park Maintenance vehicle, it was a news event.

    BirdCast – a real-time bird migration dashboard

    BirdCast is a site that aims to “inspire birders and scientists as well as support decisions about conservation actions on the ground to mitigate numerous hazards birds face and to prevent deaths of millions of birds annually.” One example of how BirdCast helps conservationists is to draw attention to the deadly interaction of migrating birds and the mirrored skyscrapers in cities.

    There are design solutions that hopefully can be enacted. There is also a movement to dim the lights in buildings during periods of high migration so as not to confuse the birds as they fly through the city. Next time you look up and marvel at the skyscrapers of New York City, think of the birds.

  • Super Bowl LVI – the ads

    Super Bowl LVI – the ads

    Super Bowl 56 featured ads from many car companies introducing their Electronic Vehicles (EV) as well as a few crypto companies.

    The failed attempt at the most innovative ad was goes to Coinbase which featured 60-seconds of a floating QR code (for those that were in the know, that graphic was an homage to an episode of The Office) Unfortunately their site crashed so the $14 million the company spent to hopefully acquire new users went to waste and Coinbase will forever be associated with the QR code that crashed their website.

    A personal favorite of mine was from the FTX which featured Larry David (who has never featured in an ad spot until now) as the ever-present skeptic who misses out on all the great inventions of history. The ad’s theme plays right into the older generation’s FOMO and played in the premium spot right before the Super Bowl’s halftime show.

    The tear jerker of the night was from Toyota which ran before the game even got under way. The spot told the story of the McKeever brothers from Canada who worked together to achieve greatness in Nordic Paralympic skiing. Brothers is a moving 60-seconds worth watching if you haven’t seen it. Here’s the backstory.

    Of all the EV commercials trotted out over the course of the game, Polestar’s anti-ad was most effective for me. Taking aim at the market leaders VW (“no dieselgate”) and Tesla (“no conquering Mars”) Polestar’s spot doesn’t even show you much of their car which immediately piques your interest in who they might be?

    What was your favorite?

  • Jonathan Pie

    Jonathan Pie

    Put your coffee down before you watch the video.

    Jonathan Pie is a fictional broadcast reporter created and performed by British comedian Tom Walker. The New York Times invited Jonathan for an in-character interview to explain why the British are fed up with Boris Johnson. But when Mr. Pie turned his sights on the “entitled arseholes” that make up the British government, what spilled out was a wonderful string of expletives that matched some of Captain Haddock’s best.

    Cannibals. Self-serving parasites. Tapeworms in tiaras, swimming through the intestines of the state sucking all the goodness out of it for their own repugnant gratification.

    Quite an image, eh?

    The video was embedded the Op-Ed section of the New York Times (h/t @robertodevido) into which the paper felt it necessary to add the following disclaimer,

    The video contains strong language and adult humor you wouldn’t normally see in The Times, but after being taken for fools, the British public is through being polite.

    ‘The First Thing You Need to Know About Boris Johnson Is He’s a Liar’

    There’s loads more from Jonathan Pie over on his YouTube page.