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View 526 July 7 - 13, 2008

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Monday, July 7, 2008

I am very late on getting the July column done, so that will take first priority. There were several essays and lively discussions over the weekend;  see last week's View. One matter settled was the notion of an open Forum here. It won't happen. I don't believe that it would add to the quality of reader experience (ye gods, am I learning the Microsoft patois?) and in any event would eat a lot of my time for what I believe would not be a lot of good.

One problem with day books -- I have a pretty good claim to have begun the practice of an open log book way back in BIX days -- is that if one isn't careful, the discussions tend to be what a vocal bloc of readers want, and not what the principal of the site wants to talk about. If I have anything worth subscribing for, it is enough experience to recognize topics that don't get a great deal of play elsewhere but which I think important for understanding either the screwy world we live in, or technology, or both. Recall that Richard Feynman wanted me to teach a Cal Tech senior seminar on "Technology and Civilization." I always regretted that the Cal Tech president rejected the notion largely because I was identified with "Star Wars", because I really looked forward to conducting those discussion. In any event, if there is a common theme to what goes on here, that's probably the subject. Technology brings us potentials for both good and evil, and Moore's Law makes it certain that technology will flow to us at an ever expanding rate: can we build social and political institutions that can deal with the new technologies?

Back about 1982 I made a prediction: that by the end of the Century, everyone in Western Civilization would be able to get the answer to any question that has an answer. Facts, dates, who said what, how to build gadgets, how to do things -- all that available to anyone. Note that I said "Western Civilization" thus excluding the Iron Curtain countries (some of you may remember when there were 26,000 nuclear warheads aimed at the United States, and young officers of both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. sat in silos with the keys to Armageddon).

About 1986 I realized that the USSR as a totalitarian society was doomed: the only way a large nation could maintain military power and control over its citizens was to allow small computers to become ubiquitous -- but that meant free exchange of ideas within that society as well as with outsiders, and that would end the state monopoly on information. Arthur Koestler had observed that a sufficient condition for the end of totalitarian regimes was the free exchange of ideas; small computers made that free exchange inevitable.

These were the ideas I wanted to discuss in my seminars, but alas it was not to be.

And enough rambling. I have to get the column in shape before dawn tomorrow.

===================

And a warning:

Trojan trawls recruitment sites in ID harvesting scam

Jerry

A serious issue:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/07/
jobsite_data_hackharvesting_hack/

"Hackers have turned the harvesting of personal information from Monster.com and other large US jobsites into a lucrative black market business

A Russian gang called Phreak has created an online tool that extracts personal details from CVs posted onto sites including Monster.com, AOL Jobs, Ajcjobs.com, Careerbuilder.com, Careermag.com, Computerjobs.com, Hotjobs.com, Jobcontrolcenter.com, Jobvertise.com and Militaryhire.com. As a result the personal information (names, email addresses, home addresses and current employers) on hundreds of thousands of jobseakers has been placed at risk, . . . data that might be applied to targeted phishing attacks."

Oops.

Ed

(and see mail)

================

Bob Miller, have you changed you email address recently?

James Utt, have you changed your address recently?

============

I sent a mailing to subscribers today. If you did NOT get it, please send me a note that says that you are a subscriber, you did not get the message, and give your subscription address so I can correct it. I have about 30 returns as undeliverable. In some cases the subscription hadn't been renewed in years, and I have deleted those, but some are quite recent.

==========================

The radio is telling me that in the LA School District, Algebra is responsible for most dropouts from high school. It is taken in 9th grade and those who don't pass it generally don't ever graduate from high school.  I need to look into this, but it's pretty clear that this is generally a part of what's wrong with American education.

Algebra is at least in theory required for college admission: but is it a requirement for being a citizen? (Assuming it is, does making it compulsory for graduation make sense if you can't require a high school diploma to register as a voter?) 

Considering that the high school graduation rate is about 50% now, and algebra apparently accounts for nearly 70% of the dropouts, is there a message here?

 

 

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Tuesday,  July 8, 2008   

I am still far behind, both here and with the column, and with fiction. I feel better, I don't want to sleep all the time, the fatigue is fading. Now to convert this energy into work.

I find that in the past few months I have fallen way behind: this morning's paper had a long article about Linked In, Facebook, etc., and I am aware of such things as Twitter; but I don't have much experience with any of them, and I am not even sure I want to. Still, if one pretends to know everything, one has an obligation to at least be acquainted with all the latest trends.

But for the moment I am way behind on deadlines, and I need to get to work. I will have to put up some mail.

 

 

 

 

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Wednesday,  July 9, 2008

I am way overdue with the column, and Roberta pulled a muscle on our walk so we'll probably have to go out to Kaiser today to get that looked at.

There is a good deal of mail regarding algebra as a required subject for high school graduation. It certainly was not when I was young (although it was required if you were college prep track). Of course in those days there was shop math and business math which were the alternatives to algebra; I think they were both the same course, but my memory could be off, because neither was offered at Christian Brothers. At CBC there were in essence no electives: you took the university prep course or you didn't go to that school.

I am no expert in what can be learned by the left side of the Bell Curve. My experience with people from that population is quite limited; even when I was at Pepperdine, back when it was an inner city college designed for students who would work their way through it, my courses were pre-law and political philosophy, and I taught no introductory courses; so again my students were almost entirely from the right side of the Bell Curve. Even then I was, I am told, unrealistic in my expectations (it was argued in faculty meetings that The Federalist Papers were too difficult to be assigned; I get past that, since the course was a required pre-law course and I argued that anyone for whom the Federalist was too difficult would not do well in law school). All of which amplifies what I said, I am not the proper person to design courses for the left side of the Bell Curve.

Still, I offer it as my opinion that in Los Angeles, given the mixture of good teachers and hacks and time servers we have on the LAUSD faculty, requiring one to pass algebra as a condition for graduation from high school is not a good idea. The Army wants you to have a high school diploma. So do most apprenticeship programs. So do most community colleges, which have become the major source of non-professional health care workers and technicians. If any of those careers needs algebra it can be taught in community college, or so think I; and the Army (actually Navy and Air Force even more so) has an excellent record of teaching algebra and trigonometry to those whose assignments need that. I think LAUSD ought to offer algebra, but I don't think it ought to be required for graduation.  More on this after I catch up with other work; meanwhile if you have thought out opinions -- and particularly data -- on this subject I'd be interested.

============

Sue asks an important question:

A Question for Readers, 

Jerry,

I am about to embark on an adventure at the local community college. While teaching ENG 101 is not new, I am probably looking at a class made up of adults, recent high school graduates, GED holders and a smattering of homeschooling students.

The last time I taught this class, we read Citizen of the Galaxy. I'd like to try something new, in part, for my own edification.

With a presidential election on the horizon, I want to remain flexible enough to take advantage of teachable moments. And, the campaigns have already provided a wealth of topics for reading and writing.

So, I guess I am looking for a book about America. Maybe a book which talks about the consequences of not protecting democratic values. The book has to be readable for a broad range of students. Since I will have younger students too, I'd like to avoid books which deal with hot topics like sex, suicide, molestation, etc. (I just jettisoned the proposed text for the class which contained all of that junk). A book which will make us think. I need a book with characters and events which lend themselves to essays. For example, when using Citizen of the Galaxy, I gave students a choice of writing an obituary or an introductory speech for a ceremony for Baslim.

Something hopeful. Something not too depressing (we can use the NY Times for that!)

Suggestions? Too big an order?

Thanks!

Sue

I would recommend Paul Johnson's A History of the American People.

(See Reports page for additional suggestions.)

 

 

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Thursday, July 10, 2008

I have finally got the July column done. It took a lot longer than I thought it would, but it's pretty good. It ought to be up by tomorrow.

And now I am really tired. I note, by the way, that they are now talking about requiring Algebra 1 in 8th grade. And you have to keep taking it until you pass or you will not get a high school diploma.

I am sure that will work well in Lake Wobegon, but I am not quite so sure it will work in Los Angeles. Algebra is very much symbol manipulation and abstract reasoning -- precisely what IQ tests measure -- which means that there will inevitably be more Ashkenazi, Asian, and white students who will pass the algebra tests, and more black and Hispanic who will flunk it. That's a simple prediction, not a racial statement. But when it happens, you may be sure there will be race cards played by every politician.

And the beat goes on.

 

 

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Friday,  July 11, 2008

The column was done last night and should be up shortly at Chaos Manor Reviews. Niven will be over shortly to work on our publicity for Escape From Hell. We're designing questions for interviewers (more are done that way than spontaneously) with our interesting answers; you tailor the questions to the show you're going to be on. It saves everyone a lot of time -- most show hosts don't have time to read all the books whose authors they interview -- and makes the show more entertaining, which is the point. The better work we do on this the more shows we'll get on and the more books we will sell, so...

I need to give some thought to T Boone Pickens and his plan. I agree that we need energy independence and that we can't simply drill our way out of the problem. Whether wind and ground based solar will do that is another story. He has the staff to do a real analysis of costs and benefits; I don't; but my analysis is that wind isn't as efficient as many think because of the energy costs of making the equipment, gathering the energy from many dispersed sources, transmitting the power, and so forth. Ground solar has similar problems.

 

But Niven is here so I must go.

 

 

 

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Saturday,  July 12, 2008

Yesterday was awful. At lunch with Niven I just faded out and had to come home to go to bed. I spent most of the day in bed or in a funk.

Today is better, and over in Mail there is a short disquisition on the parameters of the energy process. And last night I posted a bunch of mail on education that's worth your attention.

And of course the column is up at Chaos Manor Reviews, and it ain't bad, either. Now I will work on catching up on the mail bag. I actually feel pretty good today after sleeping in until 1000.

The weather doesn't help. It's not as hot as the experts predicted, but the humidity is pretty high.

============

I see the Administration has shelved the Man-Made Global Warming nonsense for the next administration. The measures proposed would probably finish the US economy anyway. Put that off as long as possible.

I wonder: if the economy completely collapses, will the US rediscover freedom? Will we build a black market off the books economy? Of course whatever we do the tax eaters -- those who exist to collect and consume taxes -- will want their slice, and they have powerful tool in modern computers and the Internet. I need to think about this. Most novels of the Atlas Shrugged variety assume total incompetence on the part of the tax eaters. That is a most unwise assumption. Believe me. Pirates don't have to be stupid, and these have the law and the Legions on their side. At least at the moment they do.

Don't forget the consequences of ignoring them. If you doubt this Google Ruby Ridge, Waco, and such for spectacular cases; and then listen to the radio advertisements for services that will try to negotiate your tax payments for you. Those companies don't exist on mere rumor.

=================

Leo Laporte reports a rumor of sales of 50,000 Kindle a month. If that's true, that's the eBook revolution right there. Think about how many books sold make up a best seller. And Kindle lets you buy books on impulse. I need to look into this.

==========

For Peter Glaskowsky's sad story about the iPhone 2 see
 http://news.cnet.com/speedsandfeeds/?hhTest=1

As for me, I am first going to update my iPhone and see what it does, then watch for a while. I believe in the iPhone as a pocket computer, and I like mine, but I am in no great hurry...

 

 

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Sunday,  July 13, 2008

Friday the 13th falls on Sunday this month.

My iPhone is updated to 2.0 now, and I understand I can buy third party software that will let me do voice recordings on it. There seem to be other goodies available.  This looks like fun. I suppose that at some point I'll have to trade up for the new G3 iPhone, but again I am in no hurry.

If you do get an iPhone I really recommend the Griffin ClearBoost iPhone case. It has an antenna booster that works -- typically good for half to a full bar improvement in reception. The antenna booster works, and the case works as a case. It's easy to get the phone in and out of your pocket, it's easier to get hold of the phone, and I would presume it can protect the phone from damage although I can't say for sure because I never dropped it.

I gather that the iPhone and iPhone 2 work very well.

The iPhone still doesn't have cut and paste; I expect some third party to solve that problem and offer it pretty soon.

With the 2.0 software my iPhone does web surfing (using my local Wi-Fi  net) much better and faster. So does the map function: it finds my current location very quickly. It doesn't seem to know where Cafe Bizou is, alas. I wish it did. I haven't done a lot with the map function, but that is because it used to be slow; it's MUCH faster with 2.0 and I look forward to playing with my pocket computer to learn more. The iPhone is neat.

============

It's not my best day, but it's not my worst either. With luck I'll get a mailbag out today.

I have made a Reports page for the responses to Sue's request for reading list. The reports page is here.

 

Jerry,

Found this link:

http://live.ifixit.com/Guide/First-Look/iPhone3G

Phil Tharp

============

There are some interesting apps (including voice note-taking and e- book reading) online tonight - you need to upgrade iTunes and then access the store to see them. It certainly looks like a major step toward your pocket computer from Mote. Whrrl looks like it might start a whole new social networking craze!

JB

I look forward to the expansion of iPhone capabilities!

=================

 

 

 

 

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This is a day book. It's not all that well edited. I try to keep this up daily, but sometimes I can't. I'll keep trying. See also the weekly COMPUTING AT CHAOS MANOR column, 8,000 - 12,000 words, depending.  (Older columns here.) For more on what this page is about, please go to the VIEW PAGE. If you have never read the explanatory material on that page, please do so. If  you got here through a link that didn't take you to the front page of this site, click here for a better explanation of what we're trying to do here. This site is run on the "public radio" model; see below.

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