littlelazer's tumblog

wnyc | For City’s Teens, Stop And Frisk Is Black And White

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:11:18 -0500

wnyc | For City’s Teens, Stop And Frisk Is Black And White:

Last year, there were more than 120,000 stops of black and Latino kids between 14 and 18. The total number of black and Latino boys that age in the entire city isn’t much more than that – about 177,000 – which strongly suggests a teen male with dark skin in New York City will probably get stopped and frisked by the time he’s graduated from high school.

From the mouths of babes..

Incomplete: On Community‘s Troy And Abed, Geekdom, And Race

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 09:54:28 -0500

Incomplete: On Community‘s Troy And Abed, Geekdom, And Race:

I admit, my first reaction to reading this was “Really? You have a problem with them too? They’re practically the only people of color characters on tv that aren’t completely defined by their race!?” But, I have to admit that the author is right. They can be geeks/socially awkward and still interact with their respective community (no pun intended). And that would make for more well-rounded characters. Just because you’re a geek doesn’t mean you don’t interact with other black/Arab people, and that would make for some pretty interesting storylines.

On the surface, Troy and Abed have represented a more diverse vision of geekdom than their more popular counterparts on The Big Bang Theory: Abed is a Muslim from a biracial family and a budding filmmaker; Troy is a black Jehovah’s Witness who has transitioned from being a jock toward a career path in air-conditioner repair. The duo lives together and, when not getting into hijinks with their study group. is content to sit around watching good/bad sci-fi or cosplay the characters from Inspector Spacetime, a Doctor Who spoof that’s gotten popular enough to attract notice from the people behind the real show.

But even as Abed and Troy have been shown running with the rest of the Greendale Seven and hosting their own faux-talk show and being cool-cool-cool, the great irony of their characterization is, we’ve hardly ever seen them interact with members of their own communities. Even if their race hasn’t been used to Other them, their geekiness has.

It's Official: Google Is Now a Hardware Company - Businessweek

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 09:26:58 -0500

It's Official: Google Is Now a Hardware Company - Businessweek:

I just really don’t understand how two huge divisions in the same company have such different goals. I will be amazed if they figure out how to resolve that tension, and it’ll be fascinating to watch unfold. Motorola has to use Android (it’ll be interesting to see if they can customize it, since software has to be a differentiating factor), but Android can’t let any one vendor (including Motorola) get too dominant. If Motorola comes out with a few lackluster products to start off, then we’ll really see how solid that firewall is.

Also, tapping a sales guy to run a hardware company/division? Sounds like he’s done a lot f good work for Google over the past 9 years, but I hope he has some great design talent working for him that he can rely on.

Woodside vows that there will be a “firewall” inside Google and that he will not ask for or receive special treatment from Andy Rubin, the senior vice president who runs Google’s Android division. “Andy’s job is to maximize the number of devices running Android,” he says. “My job is to make Motorola as successful as possible and deliver innovative hardware as a licensee of Android.”

Colin Powell endorsed same-sex marriage once it was safe, more evidence he's hardly a great leader. - Slate Magazine

Sun, 27 May 2012 09:27:43 -0500

Colin Powell endorsed same-sex marriage once it was safe, more evidence he's hardly a great leader. - Slate Magazine:

Nathanial Frank writing about Colin Powell:

Citing no evidence whatsoever, Powell insisted that letting gay people serve (not just openly gay people but any gay people—notwithstanding his simultaneous acknowledgement that they already did serve) would be “prejudicial” to “privacy, good order, and discipline.” That rationale, notice, is not time-bound—if sharing quarters with people who might find you attractive violates privacy, it doesn’t only do so if gays are unpopular, but does so always. It’s not an argument that’s subject to change as our culture changes, but an argument that’s subject to change only when you admit you were wrong about it, which Powell has never done.

Instead, he’s been repudiating his role in creating “don’t ask, don’t tell” since, well, gay rights started to become popular—and safe, and this from someone who is not even in, or currently running for, office. It was widely reported that Powell “changed his mind” about the gay ban early in 2010, when such a reversal could have been helpful to the repeal effort. But the reporting was wrong. What he actually said was, “If the chiefs and commanders are comfortable with moving to change the policy, then I support it.”

The Associated Press: 50 years on, fire still burns underneath Pa. town

Sat, 26 May 2012 09:24:01 -0500

The Associated Press: 50 years on, fire still burns underneath Pa. town:

Crazy. Guess this is here they got the plot for Silent Hill. What I don’t understand though, is why some people are so adamant about staying. Even if it was a great place to grow up, almost everybody is gone now.

Centralia was already a coal-mining town in decline when the fire department set the town’s landfill ablaze on May 27, 1962, in an ill-fated attempt to tidy up for Memorial Day. The fire wound up igniting the coal outcropping and, over the years, spread to the vast network of mines beneath homes and businesses, threatening residents with poisonous gases and dangerous sinkholes.

kalthrace: Official Nick Korra model. Glad they chose her and...

Fri, 18 May 2012 23:38:43 -0500

kalthrace:

Official Nick Korra model. Glad they chose her and not some random tan white chick.*

*I still love you random tan white chicks but I’m always glad when I can see a minority face attached to something that’s done well.

Keynote: Simplicity Matters - Rich Hickey - RailsConf 2012

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:00:16 -0500

Keynote: Simplicity Matters - Rich Hickey - RailsConf 2012:

Well worth watching for any programmers.

Programmers know the benefits of everything and the tradeoffs of nothing

barackobama: All the cool kids are doing it.

Fri, 18 May 2012 12:10:39 -0500

barackobama:

All the cool kids are doing it.

Is Dimon’s ‘Stupid’ Defense a Smart Move? | Daniel Gross - Yahoo! Finance

Fri, 18 May 2012 12:08:00 -0500

Is Dimon’s ‘Stupid’ Defense a Smart Move? | Daniel Gross - Yahoo! Finance:

$2 billion gone just like that. And people are supposed to accept that everything is ok because it was just traders being traders?

This excuse is one we haven’t heard in awhile. But in 2008 and 2009, as the financial system melted down, it was a refrain sung in Manhattan with great gusto. When somebody gets a $150,000 loan by forging some papers, that’s fraud. But when an investment bank with $600 billion in debt blows up, well that’s just stupid bankers doing stupid stuff — no reason for anybody to go to jail.

…

But as excuses go, stupidity is a pretty poor one — especially for banks. In fact, I’d argue that the relative lack of criminality in the credit bust was one of the factors that made it so devastating to confidence. Criminals are outliers. By definition, they’re rogue actors who operate outside of norms and take pains to avoid detection. Their activity comes to a halt once they are caught and charged and prosecuted. Companies, investors and society have certain defenses against criminals. Criminals serve jail time, or pay fines and other penalties. They repay their debts to society.

Stupidity, however, is much more harmful. There is no redress or compensation for someone who has an “oops” moment. Just as happens in sports, people in finance who set billions of dollars on fire believe it’s sufficient to hold up their hand and say, “My bad,” resign with their bonuses intact and pursue other interests. But banks aren’t like baseball games. The stupid defense leads us to conclude that there’s something wrong and suspect with the legitimate activities a company is engaged in. It reinforces the notion that the people running these giant vessels at very fast speeds just aren’t paying that much attention, and don’t really know how their business works. If Dimon didn’t have a handle on a unit that could run up such large losses so quickly, what other problems could be lurking out there?

"I believe that we form our own lives, that we create our own reality, and that everything works out..."

Thu, 17 May 2012 22:06:41 -0500

“I believe that we form our own lives, that we create our own reality, and that everything works out for the best. I know I drive some people crazy with what seems to be ridiculous optimism, but it has always worked out for me.”

- Jim Henson (via nevertoooldtolovemuppets)

"If I discover a scientific idea, surely someone else would’ve discovered the same idea had I not..."

Thu, 17 May 2012 22:06:27 -0500

“If I discover a scientific idea, surely someone else would’ve discovered the same idea had I not done so. Whereas, look at Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” — if he didn’t paint “Starry Night,” nobody’s gonna paint “Starry Night.” So, in that regard, the arts are more individual to the creative person than a scientific idea is to the one who comes up with it — but, nonetheless, they are both human activities.”

- Neil deGrasse Tyson (via explore-blog)

barackobama: Mitt Romney being Mitt Romney.

Thu, 17 May 2012 22:05:45 -0500

barackobama:

Mitt Romney being Mitt Romney.

"It is astounding how significantly one idea can shape a society and its policies. Consider this..."

Thu, 17 May 2012 22:05:07 -0500

“

It is astounding how significantly one idea can shape a society and its policies. Consider this one.

If taxes on the rich go up, job creation will go down.

This idea is an article of faith for Republicans and seldom challenged by Democrats and has shaped much of today’s economic landscape.

But sometimes the ideas that we know to be true are dead wrong. For thousands of years people were sure that earth was at the center of the universe. It’s not, and an astronomer who still believed that it was, would do some lousy astronomy.

In the same way, a policy maker who believed that the rich and businesses are “job creators” and therefore should not be taxed, would make equally bad policy.

I have started or helped start, dozens of businesses and initially hired lots of people. But if no one could have afforded to buy what we had to sell, my businesses would all have failed and all those jobs would have evaporated.

That’s why I can say with confidence that rich people don’t create jobs, nor do businesses, large or small. What does lead to more employment is a “circle of life” like feedback loop between customers and businesses. And only consumers can set in motion this virtuous cycle of increasing demand and hiring. In this sense, an ordinary middle-class consumer is far more of a job creator than a capitalist like me.

”

- Nick Hanauer, a venture capitalist whose TED talk about inequality was deemed “too political controversial” to publish. (via theatlantic)

"Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work."

Thu, 17 May 2012 22:04:21 -0500

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”

- Stephen King (via writingquotes)

Can Anything Take Down the Facebook Juggernaut?

Thu, 17 May 2012 14:35:35 -0500

Can Anything Take Down the Facebook Juggernaut?:

I wonder if Facebook will be forced to change the way it’s walled off from the rest of the web at some point, and how that will affect the privacy of the information we’ve all put on there.

The platforms of the web and the Internet are pure peer-to-peer, owned by all of us. Facebook is a single corporation, owned by shareholders, and the social graph that Zuckerberg celebrates is a proprietary technology. We can help Facebook build out its Open Graph by sharing each Spotify track or Guardian article we consume. If we want to opt out, we can delete that data. But we can’t take it with us.

And when we think about ownership, there’s something else to consider: Not only does Facebook own our data, but ownership of Facebook itself is remarkably concentrated. The most startling revelation in the S-1 is not Facebook’s sweepingly ambitious social mission but rather the fact that Zuckerberg personally controls 57 percent of Facebook’s voting stock, giving him a command over the company’s destiny that far outstrips anything Bill Gates ever had. The cognitive dissonance here is remarkable: Facebook says it wants peer-to-peer networks for the world, but within its own walls the company prefers top-down control, centralized in a single leader.

"Whether they honestly believed they’d lucked into the 17th century equivalent of Candyland or were..."

Thu, 17 May 2012 01:00:58 -0500

“Whether they honestly believed they’d lucked into the 17th century equivalent of Candyland or were being willfully ignorant about how the land got so tamed, the truth about the presettled wilderness didn’t make it into the official account. It’s the same reason every extraordinarily lucky CEO of the past 100 years has written a book about leadership. It’s always a better idea to credit hard work and intelligence than to acknowledge that you just got luckier than any group of people has ever gotten in the history of the world.”

- 6 Ridiculous Lies You Believe About the Founding of America | Cracked.com (via kalthrace)

I feel pretty damn foolish for Having no idea about some of this stuff

Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is – Whatever

Wed, 16 May 2012 11:50:30 -0500

Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is – Whatever:

via @KalThrace

Dudes. Imagine life here in the US — or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world — is a massive role playing game, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve the acquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not always at the same time. Let’s call it The Real World. You have installed The Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, but first you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle with your defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Got it? Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.

Why We Can't See What's Right in Front of Us - Tony McCaffrey - Harvard Business Review

Wed, 16 May 2012 11:34:57 -0500

Why We Can't See What's Right in Front of Us - Tony McCaffrey - Harvard Business Review:

Sometime you have to force yourself to create new pathways in your brain.

After studying creativity for many years, I’ve come up with a way to help break through functional fixedness, with what I call the generic parts technique. Break each object into its parts and ask two questions: Can it broken down further? Does your description imply a use? If so, describe it more generically. Calling something an iceberg generally implies hitting and sinking ships. Describing it more generically as a floating surface 200-400 feet long does not. This technique systematically strips away the layers of preconceived uses from the object and all its parts. My data show that along the way, alternative uses more easily emerge.

Please Learn to Write

Wed, 16 May 2012 11:23:33 -0500

Please Learn to Write:

I really like writing, and it saddens me that I don’t do it very often at all anymore. I tend to live in my own head quite a bit, and it feels good sometimes to get those thoughts out of my mind and into a form that other people can digest and respond to. Even if for no other reason than to have them tell me that I’m completely misunderstanding or misinterpreting something.

Writing is the connective tissue that creates understanding. We, as social creatures, often better perform rituals to form understanding one on one, but good writing enables us to understand each other at scale.

How to closetalk.: commencement

Wed, 16 May 2012 11:18:16 -0500

How to closetalk.: commencement:

Jasika Nicole speaks the the graduating class at her alma mater about her journey over the past 10 years:

sugarbooty:

My hope for you, class of 2012, is that you embrace the responsibility of drafting your own stories with gratitude and grace, that you allow yourselves to get swept up in the beautiful, unexpected moments of your life without losing sight of what makes you feel both happy and whole. I urge you to write your stories with vigor and commitment. To allow yourself to make mistakes. To relish in the journey of your story, and to remember to always write in pencil.