Re: [FRIAM] Future Generating Machines...

[Chris Feola]

uǝlƃ wrote: I'd argue that any surviving bureaucracy works *most* of the time, 
almost by definition.

One scholar who has taken a serious look at 
Parkinson’s Law is Stefan Thurner, a professor in Science of Complex Systems at 
the Medical University of Vienna. Thurner says he became interested in the 
concept when the faculty of medicine at the University of Vienna split into its 
own independent university in 2004. Within a couple years, he says, the Medical 
University of Vienna went from being run by 15 people to 100, while the number 
of scientists stayed about the same. “I wanted to understand what was going on 
there, and why my bureaucratic burden did not diminish – on the contrary it 
increased,” he says.

He happened to read Parkinson’s book around the same time and was inspired to 
turn it into a mathematical model that could be manipulated and tested, along 
with co-authors Peter Klimek and Rudolf Hanel. “Parkinson argued that if you 
have 6% growth rate of any administrative body, then sooner or later any 
company will die. They will have all their workforce in bureaucracy and none in 
production.



Parkinson pointed to two critical elements that lead to bureaucratisation – 
what he called the law of multiplication of subordinates, the tendency of 
managers to hire two or more subordinates to report to them so that neither is 
in direct competition with the manager themself; and the fact that bureaucrats 
create work for other bureaucrats.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20191107-the-law-that-explains-why-you-cant-get-anything-done

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: uǝlƃ ↙↙↙
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2021 12:09 PM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Future Generating Machines...

That's a bold assertion. I'd argue that any surviving bureaucracy works *most* 
of the time, almost by definition. Of course, *new* bureaucracies probably fail 
most of the time. Then it would be important to be able to talk about 
bureaucratic novelty. E.g. the ACA (ObamaCare) was not a *new* bureacracy. And 
it didn't really fail. There were various stalls and hiccups. Now that that 
bureaucracy is up and running, it's "working" ... maybe not optimally. But 
optimality is persnickety.

In any case, only data would resolve the disagreement. And in order to gather 
data, you'd have to be explicit about measuring "work", as well as novelty and 
bureaucracy.

On 3/29/21 9:41 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>
> Bureaucracies barely work most of the time.

--
↙↙↙ uǝlƃ

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Re: [FRIAM] I am accepting wagers

[Chris Feola]

“Of course they did not have access to real databases, nor did they have to 
solve problems of data reconciliation among those disparate databases. This 
kind of infrastructure, as was pointed out, would have added significant time 
for them to complete a 'full function' app.”

This reminds me of the old Monty Python sketch How To Do It-How To Play The 
Flute: Well, you blow in one end and move your fingers up and down so the right 
notes come out. ANYONE could have built the site in a week or two if they 
didn’t have to connect it to the legacy databases. Features are easy, and 
preexisting ones– how long have companies been selling insurance online? – are 
stupid easy.

Data is hard. Integration is really, really hard.

Here’s just one problem: Take a look at, say, your Amazon account. How many 
shipping and billing addresses are there? How many are duplicates-say, where 
the shipping and billing address are the same?

Now, the user changes a zip code. Do you update any of the other addresses? If 
so, which ones?

That ONE problem is called Master Data Management, and companies spent $11.3 
BILLION trying to solve it in 2020.

Sorry for the rant. Just an old CIO venting.

Cjf

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: Prof David West
Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2021 9:45 AM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] I am accepting wagers

At the peak of the healthcare.gov fiasco, Sixty Minutes, did a segment on a 
small company in San Francisco — five people — built site with all the 
capabilities, including calculating subsidies (supposedly the most difficult 
feature), of the official site. It took them a weekend (supposedly) — but 
definitely some very short time span as they did not begin the effort until the 
bad publicity became prominent and the episode aired less than two weeks after 
the initial debut/failure of the official site.

Of course they did not have access to real databases, nor did they have to 
solve problems of data reconciliation among those disparate databases. This 
kind of infrastructure, as was pointed out, would have added significant time 
for them to complete a 'full function' app. And, of course, because they were 
not the government nor the government approved contractor they would never have 
been allowed access.

davew


On Sat, Mar 13, 2021, at 7:59 PM, jon zingale wrote:
"""
I can see a lot more work needed that will never be seen from the public’s side 
of the system. The 50,000 sites will not be constant. Some new ones will come, 
and some will go. Hospitals, public health departments, independent as well as 
chain pharmacies have to feed information into the system. How do they pass 
that information? How do they prove they are not a hacker and have the 
authority to change hours, capacity, availability of vaccine, location, etc. 
Are there mechanisms for weeding out defunct and out-of-date vaccination sites? 
The problems getting up-to-date and accurate numbers for COVID tests, deaths, 
ICU usage, etc., demonstrate this is not trivial.
"""

Not trivial, but also tinker toys. Industry-level authentication of RESTful 
services is a pattern that many of us on this list ought to be able to 
implement while skimming Instagram or playing online go. A small team of 
Friammers and/or a few interested parties could have something up in a month 
that would be considerably better than healthcare.gov or the New Mexico 
Unemployment app. Some on this list are pretty bright and could write or 
implement formal verification 
software for 
proving the correctness of the code.

It is so easy to point to software that doesn't do as advertised that it is 
easy to miss out on what the present state of the art actually is. The 
anecdotal cases are click-bait. But hey, I have spilled enough ink on this 
subject already. Yes, we can have nice things.

Sent from the Friam mailing list archive at 
Nabble.com.

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Re: [FRIAM] My View: "What's in your COVID-19 vaccination number?"

[Chris Feola]

Truth. And well written as always.

Cjf


Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: Tom Johnson
Sent: Sunday, February 21, 2021 12:36 PM
To: Friam@redfish. com
Subject: [FRIAM] My View: "What's in your COVID-19 vaccination number?"

https://bit.ly/3bxcMRA
MY VIEW TOM JOHNSON
What's in your COVID-19 vaccination number?

  *   By Tom Johnson


  *   13 hrs ago


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Surely you too have heard many anecdotes of New Mexicans over 70 or 75, and 
maybe younger, who have driven to Amarillo or southern Colorado in pursuit of 
COVID-19 vaccinations.

We don’t know how many of those vaccine tourists registered early on at the New 
Mexico Department of Health site, 
cvaccine.nmhealth.org, to get a magic code 
number apparently used to get in the queue for a shot or shots. We also don’t 
know what that seven-digit number means.

You probably have a Social Security number. The three groups in that number 
each have separate definitions. For example, the first three digits reflect the 
state in which the individual first applied for a Social Security card. But who 
can tell us the definition of the COVID-19 registration?

Can anyone please tell us if that is simply a randomly generated number or if 
any single digit or combination of digits represents a specific piece of 
information being used by the health department? For example, do the first two 
digits mean an individual is in category 1A or 1B, etc. Do other digits 
indicate any other metadata relevant to the individual?

Second, we might assume the digits are being used as some sort of index number 
in the statewide data set. Hence, it falls somewhere in a queue for scheduled 
vaccinations. If so, why isn’t it being used to tell individuals (a) how many 
peers are in a particular class (assuming a random distribution of our fellows 
for vaccination) awaiting vaccinations or (b) where do we fall in the list, 
i.e. how many individuals in our class or each class are ahead of us for 
vaccination(s)?

This is an example of a classic failure of government employees to think that 
data like COVID-19 registration numbers belong to their specific departments 
instead of the taxpayers who paid to have the registration system set up. 
Especially in crisis cases like the pandemic, agency planners must start 
thinking, initially, how to make the data — our data — “public facing.”

That is, the planning and implementation must be done on parallel tracks: 
Create a system that maximizes information for the public while also meeting 
the needs of the agency’s goals and personnel. Yes, actual and anticipated 
supply of the little glass vials is an issue. But if 
Kroger.com in Colorado can administer a registration system 
that is specific yet simple to use, shouldn’t our health department have 
similar capabilities?

If you go to the state’s vaccination site, you should be easily and quickly 
told if you need to gas up the car for a road trip east or north.

Tom Johnson is the coordinator of It’s The People’s Data, Santa Fe.



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Re: [FRIAM] [SUSPICIOUS EMAIL] Re: Android Choice

[Chris Feola]

 avoid $90/mo 
bills.  I also prefer their more standard broadband, but not a big deal.

That sounds like Pogue's great I Want An IPhone video, but I really am open 
to change.  The difficulty is the gotchas: plans that are really expensive, 
having duplicate apps for android and iOS (pad/pod/phone), phones that I don't 
trust (yet), mobility (I really find it hard to understand folks leaving europe 
out of their plans, but then...), batteries that die if I forget to turn off 
x,y,z and kill app a,b,c ... and billions of cellular issues that I don't 
really understand as well as I'd like (TMo about to die? Why do plans cost so 
much?, WTF w/ AWS?)

So that's it!  And I really thank you for your clear explanation of some of the 
android world that I didn't get.

   -- Owen

On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 4:12 PM, Chris Feola 
ch...@nextpression.commailto:ch...@nextpression.com wrote:
Hi Owen,

Yes, Android phones are open. There are two paths for this:

1. Download updates yourself. Lots of places to do this, the best of which is 
generally regarded to be CyanogenMod http://www.cyanogenmod.com/
2. Wait for your manufacturer to stream you updates.
Plenty of good reasons to do both.  The best manufacturers -- I like HTC -- are 
consistently tweaking and adding features. CyanogenMod tends to be faster to 
the big updates. Use what you like.
There has been some controversy about locked bootloaders, but everyone has 
pretty much backed off of that now.

As to battery life, I'm sorry if I was unclear. The Sensation is as good or 
better for battery life when you use it the same way. But you won't.  If you 
keep that quarterHD screen lit for four hours non-stop reading Heinlein on your 
Kindle app while streaming Pandora...yeah, you're going to need to recharge. If 
you only flick the screen on when you hear a text come in, not so much.

Please keep firing questions as you think of them!

cjf

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Re: [FRIAM] [SUSPICIOUS EMAIL] Re: Android Choice

[Chris Feola]

In that case, one more word in praise of the Google ecosystem, which people 
don't tend to think of as such. Until iOS 5, iPhones were largely ancillaries 
to your desktop -- you needed to cable up regularly to synch with iTunes to do 
stuff. For better or for worse, Google is pushing deep into the cloud space. Go 
to the Android Market; pick an app. The Market knows which of my devices are 
compatible and cloud installs; the next time I use that device its just there. 
The phone backup is seamless and wireless; when I upgrade my games are not only 
installed, I'm on the same levels! But, as Apple has proved, its the little 
things that often count most. If you use Chrome, you have The. Same. Bookmarks. 
Everywhere. Yes, I realize there are bookmark sync tools/social tools/etc. 
This, however, is seamless. If I'm working on something like the BlackBerry SDK 
-- don't ask -- and find a good reference, I drag it to my toolbar, and that's 
exactly where it is every time. On my desktop. On my laptop. On my tablet. 
(Honeycomb or better.) On my phone. (Ice Cream Sandwich.) When I'm done with 
it, delete it/file it/what ever. Changes how you use things, for sure.

cjf

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [friam-boun...@redfish.com] on behalf of Owen 
Densmore [o...@backspaces.net]
Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2011 11:43 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [SUSPICIOUS EMAIL] Re: Android Choice

Brilliant!  Just what I needed, thanks!  If I'm wedded to anything in the apple 
world, its unix and programming and command line.  iTunes is just a fairly 
reasonable interface to manage phone/pad/pod.  I don't need it for 
music/video/books etc, there are fine alternatives. Quite willing to give it up 
and start really using my google ecology: calendar, mail, contacts etc.

We have Vzn  TMo near to each other so I'm going to eliminate ATT, and focus 
my Android attention on TMo as a carrier, and iPhone via Vzn with their 
world-phone iPhone.  I'd like to wait for a larger screen iPhone but as for my 
2G, Its Dead Jim!  No worries.  Glad to see we agree on TMo.  Damn I wish they 
had not gone the AWS route.

-- Owen

On Tue, Nov 1, 2011 at 10:27 AM, Chris Feola 
ch...@nextpression.commailto:ch...@nextpression.com wrote:
Hi Owen,

Glad to help. Short answer: Buy an iPhone.

Longer answer: When people ask me what phone to buy, I ask one simple question: 
Are you married to iTunes? Do you have a playlist for every mood? Have you 
spent years getting it to work just right?

If so, buy an iPhone. You will be massively unhappy otherwise. To a lesser 
extent, if you are married to the Apple ecosystem -- iCal and such -- this also 
applies. Modern smartphones are becoming the sharp point of your digital life; 
one that doesn't fit will drive you mad.

If you are not married to the Apple ecosystem, then try out a few phones side 
by side and see what you like. Frankly, they are all good enough. I find the 
current real differentiator to be the screens.  Here, Android has the lead, and 
it is widening. (Sorry for the pun!) State of the art here is the new -- and 
for the moment, insane appearing -- Galaxy Nexus Prime, with a full HD 720 
screen -- !! -- that's just over 4.6 inches. What appears to be happening here, 
btb, is that Apple is betting heavily on larger tablets, and Google is trying 
to find out if a phone can have a screen big enough -- while the device remains 
small enough -- that you don't want a tablet.

So, specific advice. It sounds like you are in the Apple eco-system. If so, buy 
an iPhone. If your 2 is dead dead, buy a 4s; its a very nice device.  If your 2 
can be coaxed through another year, wait for the iPhone 5. Rumor has it that 
this will be the last Jobs designed phone, and that it will finally have a 
bigger screen.

If you are not married into the Apple eco-system, I would definitely give the 
dual core Android phones a look. My advice is to focus on either the HTC 
phones, or the Google Nexus line. The Nexus line are Google Experience 
phones; they get every Android release first. HTC is also good about this, and 
makes solid equipment. Take a look at the Sensation if for nothing else than 
the manufacturing: instead of a battery cover, the entire back is a single 
milled piece -- aluminum, IIRC -- that pops off the screen. You could drive 
nails with the thing, and its beautiful. (To be clear, Do Not Drive Nails With 
Your Phone.)

Carriers:
Verizon-Stupid expensive. Good service and coverage.
ATT-Stupid expensive. Bad service and coverage
Sprint-They suck so bad we won't use them
T-Mobile-Great plans! We have multi-line T-Mobile plans that cost less than 
single lines on ATT and Verizon. Good data tiers. Great Android phone 
selection. Pretty easy to get the phones unlocked to swap out SIMs for 
international roaming. Alas, no iPhone.

Hope I haven't overexplained as usual...

cjf

From

Re: [FRIAM] [SUSPICIOUS EMAIL] Re: Android Choice

[Chris Feola]

Greetings,

We're a mobile development company, and consequently we have one or more of 
everything: iPads, iPhones, Xooms, Transformers, Moto Atrix, HTC Sensation, 
MyTouchSlide 4G, Samsung Galaxy's...

Of the phones, the Galaxy has far and away the best screen, but you'll always 
find them laying around here because the staff doesn't grab them. Samsung NEVER 
updates, so bugs and such never seem to get resolved. (The GPS STILL doesn't 
work on the original Galaxy, after more than a year.) People who have all their 
music in iTunes trend toward the iPhone here, but no one is crazy about the 4 
the way they were when the 3G came out.

The phone that disappears if you put it down is the Sensation. The screen isn't 
as good as the Galaxy IIs in terms of color depth, but it is HUGE-4.3-while 
the phone itself seems incredibly small even next to an iPhone or Galaxy. You 
really have to think about it as a small tablet, actually, with that screen. I 
use it as my Kindle, do most of my surfing on it; I gave up both my Xoom and 
iPad because I'd simply stopped using them.

That said, it doesn't have a tablet's battery.  I get less than half the 
battery life I did on the Galaxy or HTC G2; but then, I didn't read books on 
either. So we all carry a battery pack that recharges USB stuff.

It's fast -- dual core processor -- its small, GPS and call quality are great, 
and the screen is huge. Recommended.

cjf

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [friam-boun...@redfish.com] on behalf of Mike 
Orshan [mors...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2011 12:39 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [SUSPICIOUS EMAIL] Re: [FRIAM] Android Choice

I use the HTC sensation and love it.  The battery life is short and I need to 
recharge at least once a day.  My pet peeve is that these need to slip into a 
sports coat jacket or back pocket.  It is really too large for a holster.  
Anyone have any solutions for holding the larger cellphones?

I use TMobile, the price is right and have great reception almost everywhere 
including overseas.

On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 11:32 AM, glen e. p. ropella 
g...@tempusdictum.commailto:g...@tempusdictum.com wrote:
Owen Densmore wrote circa 11-10-29 09:10 PM:
 Do any of us use one of these phones?  Or something close?  Any
 recommendations?  Possibly other androids I should consider?  How to
 tame them?

I haven't had the chance to test out the GSM mode, but my Droid 2 Global
is quite good.  It's got a beefy feel, which makes typing on the slide
out keyboard pretty smooth and fast.  I can manage my cloud sims nicely
from it.

Battery life in CDMA mode is 1-2 days, depending on how you use it.
There's a handy app called Spare Parts that helps identify what's
draining the battery.

The only advice I have is to get one with a 1GHz or higher processor.

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095tel:971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] [SUSPICIOUS EMAIL] Re: Android Choice

[Chris Feola]

Hi Owen,

Yes, Android phones are open. There are two paths for this:

1. Download updates yourself. Lots of places to do this, the best of which is 
generally regarded to be CyanogenMod http://www.cyanogenmod.com/
2. Wait for your manufacturer to stream you updates.
Plenty of good reasons to do both.  The best manufacturers -- I like HTC -- are 
consistently tweaking and adding features. CyanogenMod tends to be faster to 
the big updates. Use what you like.
There has been some controversy about locked bootloaders, but everyone has 
pretty much backed off of that now.

As to battery life, I'm sorry if I was unclear. The Sensation is as good or 
better for battery life when you use it the same way. But you won't.  If you 
keep that quarterHD screen lit for four hours non-stop reading Heinlein on your 
Kindle app while streaming Pandora...yeah, you're going to need to recharge. If 
you only flick the screen on when you hear a text come in, not so much.

Please keep firing questions as you think of them!

cjf



From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [friam-boun...@redfish.com] on behalf of Owen 
Densmore [o...@backspaces.net]
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2011 4:52 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [SUSPICIOUS EMAIL] Re: Android Choice

On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 12:19 PM, Chris Feola 
ch...@nextpression.commailto:ch...@nextpression.com wrote:
snip
Of the phones, the Galaxy has far and away the best screen, but you'll always 
find them laying around here because the staff doesn't grab them. Samsung NEVER 
updates, so bugs and such never seem to get resolved. (The GPS STILL doesn't 
work on the original Galaxy, after more than a year.) People who have all their 
music in iTunes trend toward the iPhone here, but no one is crazy about the 4 
the way they were when the 3G came out.


Great info, Chris and everyone else.  This brought up an issue that first time 
android folks wonder about: update.

I thought Android phones were open so to speak .. so wouldn't you just update 
by downloading the latest from Google?

I realize the mfgrs want to add value but I'd prefer the vanilla Google 
distro, I think, unless there is reason to prefer the mfgr's modifications. Are 
there particular vendors that are best for plain Google android?

The phone that disappears if you put it down is the Sensation. The screen isn't 
as good as the Galaxy IIs in terms of color depth, but it is HUGE-4.3-while 
the phone itself seems incredibly small even next to an iPhone or Galaxy. You 
really have to think about it as a small tablet, actually, with that screen. I 
use it as my Kindle, do most of my surfing on it; I gave up both my Xoom and 
iPad because I'd simply stopped using them.

That said, it doesn't have a tablet's battery.  I get less than half the 
battery life I did on the Galaxy or HTC G2; but then, I didn't read books on 
either. So we all carry a battery pack that recharges USB stuff.

It's fast -- dual core processor -- its small, GPS and call quality are great, 
and the screen is huge. Recommended.

cjf

OK, this is another puzzler: wouldn't battery life for a phone be quite 
important?

It may be that I just don't push my original iPhone 2G hard, but it seems to go 
for a week on just a couple of calls, nearly no SMS, lots of email (yes, even 
on TMo/Edge .. phone's hacked), modest web, maps etc.

Do androids have the same battery life as the iphones?  I do know the latest 
iphone 4s has shorter standby time.  So maybe 3G etc drains the battery a lot.  
I don't want to be on Edge-only if I can avoid it.

Thanks again, really a big help;

   -- Owen

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Re: [FRIAM] dropbox?

[Chris Feola]

Hey Nick,

 

We use Dropbox a ton; here's why. I've never been a big fan of cloud
storage-It's OK, but I've always had access to servers and such, so there
didn't seem to be much of a point for someone in my situation. Dropbox,
however, is a game changer. First, clients for everything. In my office
alone we have it on Mac OSx, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, several
flavors of Linux, iOS 3, iOS4 and Android 2.X. 

 

Second, there's the synching. On regular -- big -- machines such as desktops
and laptops, Dropbox creates a mirror folder on your hard drive and
synchronizes it with the cloud. Super useful for using multiple machines,
backup, etc.  Even better, it means backups on every machine AS WELL AS the
cloud, so even if the cloud went away I'm still in good shape. Plus,
multiple levels of undelete, logging of who did what, share control, etc.

 

While this is a great strategy for hard drives, it's not so hot for the much
tighter solid state storage on mobile devices. Here, Dropbox works in the
opposite fashion-it creates what looks like a folder in your storage, but
does NOT automatically synchronize the files. This has several advanatages:
it allows you to access tons of stuff without using up your storage, for
one. And it allows the Dropbox folder to appear as a usable drive to other
programs, such as Docs to Go, so you can create docs on, say, your iPad and
have them backed up/available for editing on your bigger hardware.

 

There's a catch to this, obviously -- it doesn't work when you're offline.
So how do you make stuff in your Dropbox available for, say, work on an
airplane? Simple-you favorite it.

 

So, bottom line: Great synching. Backup. Clients for pretty much everything.
And if I'm in a meeting and need a doc I don't have I can pull it up on my
Android phone.

 

Recommended.

 

cjf

Christopher J. Feola
President, nextPression
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/cjfeola

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2010 5:56 PM
To: russ.abb...@gmail.com; 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] dropbox?

 

Russ, 

 

I just rummaged around on SkyDrive help pages and could find no sign that it
sync-ed automatically.  Any leads? 

 

Nick 

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2010 3:27 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] dropbox?

 

I just looked up DropBox. Why is it better than other online file storage
systems?  For example, Google sites includes the means to store files, up to
10GB for free. (Dropbox includes only 2GB for free.)  Windows Live SkyDrive
includes 25GB free.  (I think it syncs automatically if you have Windows 7.)
Google sites seems to keep all versions of files so that one can retrieve
previous versions. I haven't found a way to retrieve previous versions from
SkyDrive and don't know if they keep them. The DropBox website didn't say
anything about keeping previous versions. 



-- Russ 

 

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 12:36 PM, Owen Densmore o...@backspaces.net wrote:

Good info!  gpg is new to me, so a question or two:

- Do you use the pay Dropbox service?  .. or just the free one?

- Is gpg (http://www.gnupg.org/) easy to administer?  Does it replace SSH
key pairs?

- Is gpg available fairly universally .. iPhone/Android, Mac/Win/Linux ..
web hosting services?

- What's gpg like to use?

 

Sounds interesting.

 

-- Owen

 

 

On Nov 28, 2010, at 8:07 AM, Robert Holmes wrote:

 

Owen - I work interchangeably on my office and home computers and I use
Dropbox to keep particular parts of my setup synced between the two
machines. In particular:

1.  my to-do lists, engineer's notebook, big file o' passwords (gpg-ed,
of course)  and simple Python utilities all go into Dropbox  hence are
always up to date and accessible;
2.  my ever-growing collection of .PDFs of academic journals and papers
goes into Dropbox so I can easily get it from any machine (and add to it
from any of my machines).

I do have Dropbox enabled on my Droid, but I don't think the Droid is
terribly effective as an input device and its screen is just too small for
comfortable viewing of PDFs, so I don't use it much for that. Handy in an
emergency though.

 

-- R 

 

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 6:55 PM, Owen Densmore o...@backspaces.net wrote:

Anyone on the list using dropbox a lot?  I'm wondering if the iPad/iPhone
app would be useful.

   -- Owen




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
http://www.friam.org/ 

 


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's 

Re: [FRIAM] Google Voice

[Chris Feola]

It's pretty brilliant stuff. Don't think of it as a phone service, a la
Skype. Think of it as a manager for all your telephoney. For example, you no
longer have to worry about phone number portability; give out your Google
voice number, and route it wherever you wish. Change carriers? Change
numbers? Doesn't matter. Use it to cover your calls; it will, for example,
go into Do Not Disturb mode or announce callers and let you listen as they
leave a message before you decide to pick up. Even better: it runs voice
mails through voice recognition and emails and/or txts the results to you.
This is as bad as most voice recognition, but surprisingly effective: if you
know who's calling and SOME of what they are saying you generally have a
good idea about what's going on.

Maybe the most fun, though, is that it allows you to handle SMS/TXTing from
your web browser.

Recommended.

cjf

Christopher J. Feola
President, nextPression
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/cjfeola

-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2010 3:00 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; SFx Discuss
Subject: [FRIAM] Google Voice

I just got my invite to google voice, and wondered about the second option:
get a new google number that rings all your phones.  

Does anyone have any experience with this?  Recommendations?




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] What you can do.

[Chris Feola]

Fascinating! So your interpretation of Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. is that the
government should actually own and run the press!

 

But why stop there? Please, apply your system to the rest of the 1st
Amendment! So.what's our official religion? We lack a king/queen: who will
you select as the head of our official church? What say you? Archbishop
Roberts? Archbishop Pelosi?

 

cjf

Christopher J. Feola



 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Robert J. Cordingley
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 11:47 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What you can do.

 

Perhaps this helps:
http://movetoamend.org/learn-more
the source of the Justice Stevens quote.  BTW, in the face of declining
investigative journalism in the US there has been some talk of government
sponsored news media in much the same way PBS has some public funding but
with a legal mandate to be independent.  You can look at the BBC News as
another model.  Corporate Personhood may be a bigger problem [threat to our
democracy].
Thanks
Robert

On 5/14/10 7:16 PM, Chris Feola wrote: 

No problem, Robert-help me into the boat.

 

Who is press? Who isn't? Who decides?

 

cjf

Christopher J. Feola
President, nextPression
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/cjfeola

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Robert J. Cordingley
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 5:20 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What you can do.

 

Actually Chris, I think you are also missing the boat by focusing on the
technicalities of a legal argument most of us would have to pay someone to
help us with.

So see this quote:




Justice Stevens, in dissent, was compelled to state the obvious:

. . . . corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no
thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the
activities of human beings, to be sure, and their personhood often serves
as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of We the
People by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.


Thanks
Robert

On 5/14/10 3:35 PM, Chris Feola wrote: 

Actually, Sarbajit is quite on point. If you read the decision you will see
that one reason the law was struck down was it tried to get around its
obvious violation of the 1st Amendment by carving out an exemption for
media since the press is, largely, corporate. Overturning this decision
therefore leaves two largely unpalatable choices:
 
1. The government decides what Fox News can broadcast and The New York Times
can print, since corporations do not have a 1st Amendment rights.
2. The government decides who and what are media and therefore get 1st
Amendment rights.
 
Both seem to be somewhat outside the spirit of Congress shall make no
law...
 
But don't take my word for it.  Here's noted 1st Amendment lawyer Floyd
Abrams, who won the Pentagon Papers case for The New York Times:
 
And my reaction is sort of a John McEnroe: You cannot be serious! We're
talking about the First Amendment here, and we're being told that an
extremely vituperative expression of disdain for a candidate for president
is criminal in America?
 
I think that two things are at work, Mr. Abrams says. One is that there
are an awful lot of journalists that do not recognize that they work for
corporations. . . .
 
A second is an ideological one. I think that there is a way of viewing this
decision which . . . looks not at whether the First Amendment was vindicated
but whether what is simply referred to as, quote, democracy, unquote, was
vindicated. My view is, we live in a world in which the word 'democracy' is
debatable . . . It is not a word which should determine interpretation of a
constitution and a Bill of Rights, which is at its core a legal document as
well as an affirming statement of individual freedom, he says. Justice
Potter Stewart . . . warned against giving up the protections of the First
Amendment in the name of its values. . . . The values matter, the values are
real, but we protect the values by protecting the First Amendment.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704094304575029791336276632.h
tmlcjf,recoveringjournalistChristopherJ.FeolaPresident,nextPressionFollowmeo
nTwitter:http:/twitter.com/cjfeola-OriginalMessage-From:friam-bounce
s...@redfish.com%5bmailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com%5donbehalfofmerlelefkoffsen
t:Friday,May14,20101:39PMTo:TheFridayMorningAppliedComplexityCoffeeGroupSubj
ect:Re:%5bFRIAM%5dWhatyoucando.merlelefkoffwrote:Sarbajitmissestheboatcomple
tely.Thereasonthatthegovernment 
 
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704094304575029791336276632.h
tmlcjf,recoveringjournalistChristopherJ.FeolaPresident,nextPressionFollowmeo
nTwitter:http:/twitter.com/cjfeola

Re: [FRIAM] WARNING: Political Argument in Progress

[Chris Feola]

Hey Nick,

I'm a libertarian; I hope you don't mind me taking a crack at it.

Most small L libertarians I know (I'm distinguishing us from the Libertarian
Party, which is another thing altogether) are deeply cynical people. It's
not that we believe corporations are good; it's that EVERYONE gets that
corporations operate on special principles, but many miss that same strain
in politicians and political parties. In general, people don't root for
corporations the way they root for politicians -- with the exception of the
Apple fan boys, natch.

So here's the thing: it's not so much that libertarians favor corporations
over government; it's that we fear history has shown over and over that
corporations USE government to solidify their positions, crush competition
and prevent innovation.   

Note the activities in my old field: media. Do you think it coincidental
that the major media companies favor laws like that struck down by the
Supreme Court, which outlaw corporate speech but exempt media companies?
Notice there is no choice on the table for NO corporate speech, which I
guess would be your position; the only discussion is which corporations get
to speak. Shockingly, The New York Times et al are in favor of a system
where they get free reign and all those pesky internet startups and
such...do not.

So that's it, in a nutshell. We don't favor corporations over government. We
think that people are rightly suspicious of corporations, and should be more
suspicious of government. We oppose as the worst thing the melding of
corporations and government. And we see little to choose from between Sen.
Mary Landrieu (D-British Petroleum) and Dick Chaney (R-Haliburton).


cjf

Christopher J. Feola

-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2010 9:30 PM
To: Russell Gonnering
Cc: friam@redfish.com
Subject: [FRIAM] WARNING: Political Argument in Progress

Russ, 

It is my deepest belief that if our country is to survived, people who
disagree need to learn to argue with each other.  You and I really disagree
on this one, so on my account, we are obligated to argue. 

 On the other hand, I DON'T believe that others should unwillingly be a
party to such arguments, so I changed the thread.  

We obviously agree that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts
absolutely.  So, we are both made nervous when power starts to accumulate
in small numbers of hands  And I bet we believe, both, that having power
leads to the accumulation of more of it. .And, we both seem to agree that
dangerous, irreversible accumulations of power are occuring in our society,
right now?   

OK, so far?  Where we seem to disagree is where the dangerous power is
accumulating in our society.  I think it is in large corporations; you
think it is in governments.  Still on board? 

Why don't I stop there, and see if you agree with this characterization of
our disagreement.  

Nick 

Still ok?

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]




 [Original Message]
 From: Russell Gonnering rsgonneri...@mac.com
 To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
CoffeeGroup friam@redfish.com
 Date: 5/15/2010 1:39:10 PM
 Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What you can do.

 Nick-

 Why not have both Fox and the BBC? Or more to the point, why not Fox and
PBS?

 Fox is not like a government in the following ways: It can't tax me, it
doesn't redistribute my wealth,  it can't imprison me, it can't execute me
or otherwise control me and I can turn them off.  If they do not satisfy
their viewers and their shareholders, they go out of business.  Unless they
are too big to fail, which is a whole other discussion.

 I have this innate dislike for government censorship, and a very strong
distrust of politicians. 

 I like the fact that government is limited, and so did the framers of the
Constitution.  I can see no historical evidence of a political entity, that
when granted absolute power over the flow of information to society for an
unlimited period of time, used that power to increase or even merely insure
the liberty of its citizens.  Can you?  If ever there is a situation of
giving megaphones to people to yell Fire in the theater, it would be
that. 

 To each his own, I guess.  

 Russ #3



 Russell Gonnering, MD, MMM, FACS, CPHQ
 rsgonneri...@mac.com
 www.emergenthealth.net


 On May 15, 2010, at 1:45 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:

  Russ, 
  
  The thing I have never understood is why libertarians do not see
  corporations for what they are: HUGE governments.  
  
  Is it really the case that you would rather get your news from Fox than
  from the BBC.  It seems to me that the question about whether we are to
be
  subject to government control is water over the dam.  The question 

Re: [FRIAM] WARNING: Political Argument in Progress

[Chris Feola]

Sorry; brain cramp. 2nd sentence should read: it's that EVERYONE gets that
corporations operate on SELFISH principles not special principles.

cjf

Christopher J. Feola
President, nextPression
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/cjfeola


-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Chris Feola
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 10:21 AM
To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net; 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] WARNING: Political Argument in Progress

Hey Nick,

I'm a libertarian; I hope you don't mind me taking a crack at it.

Most small L libertarians I know (I'm distinguishing us from the Libertarian
Party, which is another thing altogether) are deeply cynical people. It's
not that we believe corporations are good; it's that EVERYONE gets that
corporations operate on special principles, but many miss that same strain
in politicians and political parties. In general, people don't root for
corporations the way they root for politicians -- with the exception of the
Apple fan boys, natch.

So here's the thing: it's not so much that libertarians favor corporations
over government; it's that we fear history has shown over and over that
corporations USE government to solidify their positions, crush competition
and prevent innovation.   

Note the activities in my old field: media. Do you think it coincidental
that the major media companies favor laws like that struck down by the
Supreme Court, which outlaw corporate speech but exempt media companies?
Notice there is no choice on the table for NO corporate speech, which I
guess would be your position; the only discussion is which corporations get
to speak. Shockingly, The New York Times et al are in favor of a system
where they get free reign and all those pesky internet startups and
such...do not.

So that's it, in a nutshell. We don't favor corporations over government. We
think that people are rightly suspicious of corporations, and should be more
suspicious of government. We oppose as the worst thing the melding of
corporations and government. And we see little to choose from between Sen.
Mary Landrieu (D-British Petroleum) and Dick Chaney (R-Haliburton).


cjf

Christopher J. Feola

-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2010 9:30 PM
To: Russell Gonnering
Cc: friam@redfish.com
Subject: [FRIAM] WARNING: Political Argument in Progress

Russ, 

It is my deepest belief that if our country is to survived, people who
disagree need to learn to argue with each other.  You and I really disagree
on this one, so on my account, we are obligated to argue. 

 On the other hand, I DON'T believe that others should unwillingly be a
party to such arguments, so I changed the thread.  

We obviously agree that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts
absolutely.  So, we are both made nervous when power starts to accumulate
in small numbers of hands  And I bet we believe, both, that having power
leads to the accumulation of more of it. .And, we both seem to agree that
dangerous, irreversible accumulations of power are occuring in our society,
right now?   

OK, so far?  Where we seem to disagree is where the dangerous power is
accumulating in our society.  I think it is in large corporations; you
think it is in governments.  Still on board? 

Why don't I stop there, and see if you agree with this characterization of
our disagreement.  

Nick 

Still ok?

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]




 [Original Message]
 From: Russell Gonnering rsgonneri...@mac.com
 To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
CoffeeGroup friam@redfish.com
 Date: 5/15/2010 1:39:10 PM
 Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What you can do.

 Nick-

 Why not have both Fox and the BBC? Or more to the point, why not Fox and
PBS?

 Fox is not like a government in the following ways: It can't tax me, it
doesn't redistribute my wealth,  it can't imprison me, it can't execute me
or otherwise control me and I can turn them off.  If they do not satisfy
their viewers and their shareholders, they go out of business.  Unless they
are too big to fail, which is a whole other discussion.

 I have this innate dislike for government censorship, and a very strong
distrust of politicians. 

 I like the fact that government is limited, and so did the framers of the
Constitution.  I can see no historical evidence of a political entity, that
when granted absolute power over the flow of information to society for an
unlimited period of time, used that power to increase or even merely insure
the liberty of its citizens.  Can you?  If ever there is a situation of
giving megaphones to people to yell Fire in the theater, it would

Re: [FRIAM] WARNING: Political Argument in Progress

[Chris Feola]

Hey Nick,

I agree -- it's huge that we are in agreement about this key point.

I think the Founders provide insight as to how to proceed. It's interesting
how many people -- especially the young -- are impatient with the
inefficiency of our system of government. Yet that's how it was designed to
work, and for just this reason -- it's hard for any one group to concentrate
power. Even corporations -- do you remember the Nifty Fifty? How are they
doing now?

This is why libertarians believe in divided government. The donkeys and
elephants both steal and abuse power, but they have somewhat different
constituencies. Keeping the government at least partly divided between them
guarantees the honesty of thieves. That's why I'm hoping our president will
soon be blessed with a worthy opponent, the way Clinton had Gingrich and
Reagan had Tip O'Neil.  And I think Bush -- and all of us -- would have been
much better off if Pelosi had taken the Speaker's gavel in 02. 

cjf

Christopher J. Feola


-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 11:09 AM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] WARNING: Political Argument in Progress

Chris, 

Thanks.  See my last rather garbled note about the fact that treating
coporate vs government power as a zero-sum game might be a serious thinking
error.  We all seem to fear most corporate AND government power.  That is a
huge point to agree on.  I think that if we can keep that agreement in mind
we can move TOGETHER beyond slogans.  But i am not sure how. 

n 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]




 [Original Message]
 From: Chris Feola ch...@nextpression.com
 To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group friam@redfish.com
 Date: 5/17/2010 9:21:00 AM
 Subject: RE: [FRIAM] WARNING: Political Argument in Progress

 Hey Nick,

 I'm a libertarian; I hope you don't mind me taking a crack at it.

 Most small L libertarians I know (I'm distinguishing us from the
Libertarian
 Party, which is another thing altogether) are deeply cynical people. It's
 not that we believe corporations are good; it's that EVERYONE gets that
 corporations operate on special principles, but many miss that same strain
 in politicians and political parties. In general, people don't root for
 corporations the way they root for politicians -- with the exception of
the
 Apple fan boys, natch.

 So here's the thing: it's not so much that libertarians favor corporations
 over government; it's that we fear history has shown over and over that
 corporations USE government to solidify their positions, crush competition
 and prevent innovation.   

 Note the activities in my old field: media. Do you think it coincidental
 that the major media companies favor laws like that struck down by the
 Supreme Court, which outlaw corporate speech but exempt media companies?
 Notice there is no choice on the table for NO corporate speech, which I
 guess would be your position; the only discussion is which corporations
get
 to speak. Shockingly, The New York Times et al are in favor of a system
 where they get free reign and all those pesky internet startups and
 such...do not.

 So that's it, in a nutshell. We don't favor corporations over government.
We
 think that people are rightly suspicious of corporations, and should be
more
 suspicious of government. We oppose as the worst thing the melding of
 corporations and government. And we see little to choose from between Sen.
 Mary Landrieu (D-British Petroleum) and Dick Chaney (R-Haliburton).


 cjf

 Christopher J. Feola

 -Original Message-
 From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On
Behalf
 Of Nicholas Thompson
 Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2010 9:30 PM
 To: Russell Gonnering
 Cc: friam@redfish.com
 Subject: [FRIAM] WARNING: Political Argument in Progress

 Russ, 

 It is my deepest belief that if our country is to survived, people who
 disagree need to learn to argue with each other.  You and I really
disagree
 on this one, so on my account, we are obligated to argue. 

  On the other hand, I DON'T believe that others should unwillingly be a
 party to such arguments, so I changed the thread.  

 We obviously agree that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts
 absolutely.  So, we are both made nervous when power starts to accumulate
 in small numbers of hands  And I bet we believe, both, that having power
 leads to the accumulation of more of it. .And, we both seem to agree that
 dangerous, irreversible accumulations of power are occuring in our
society,
 right now?   

 OK, so far?  Where we seem to disagree is where the dangerous power is
 accumulating in our society.  I think it is in large corporations; you
 think

Re: [FRIAM] WARNING: Political Argument in Progress

[Chris Feola]

Hi Steve,

Good points, all.  But I'm afraid it's a pick your poison situation-each set
up has trade-offs, and one is not necessarily better than the other. For a
real world example, please take a look at Israel.  The Knesset has 120
seats; proportional representation means that there are a zillion little
parties that can only capture a seat or two. In our system that would make
them powerless; in Israel, it makes them king makers. Because one party
rarely captures 61 seats on its own, these little parties can demand -- and
get -- pretty much anything in return for putting a major party into power.

From Wikipedia:  Golda Meir, a former Israeli Prime Minister, joked that in
Israel, there are 3 million prime ministers. Because of the proportional
representation system, there is a large number of political parties, many
with very specialized platforms, often advocating the tenets of particular
interest groups. The prevalent balance between the largest parties means
that the smaller parties can have disproportionately strong influence to
their size. Due to their ability to act as tie breakers, they often use this
status to block legislation or promote their own agenda, even contrary to
the manifesto of the larger party in office.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Israel

cjf

Christopher J. Feola
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/cjfeola


-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Steve Smith
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 4:46 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] WARNING: Political Argument in Progress

Chris -
 This is why libertarians believe in divided government. The donkeys and
 elephants both steal and abuse power, but they have somewhat different
 constituencies. Keeping the government at least partly divided between
them
 guarantees the honesty of thieves.
  That's why I'm hoping our president will
 soon be blessed with a worthy opponent, the way Clinton had Gingrich and
 Reagan had Tip O'Neil.  And I think Bush -- and all of us -- would have
been
 much better off if Pelosi had taken the Speaker's gavel in 02. 
   
And I would like more division, not simple (bi)polarity.   I want 
Libertarian and Green and ??? candidates on the ballot and in the 
offices.  I want the Dems to spin off a Progressive branch and the Pubs 
to spin off a Hard-Core Conservative branch.  And I want our election 
rules to support this, not suppress it.   I want run-off elections so we 
can vote for OUR favorite candidate first, then vote for OUR lesser evil 
candidate second, making it obvious when there is no mandate, when 
there is strong opposition to the lesser of evils when finally 
installed, etc.

I'm not that up on other forms of election rules in the world and how 
well they work, but I have to believe there is a better mode than ours 
which seems to guarantee wild oscillations between polar opposites (or 
worse yet, the illusion of this while the opposites are merely 
brightly-differently colored variants of the same damn thing).

- Steve



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Re: [FRIAM] WARNING: Political Argument in Progress

[Chris Feola]

Hi Nick,

Let me tell you a story that I hope will find cheerful. A few years ago my
beautiful oldest daughter was putting together a project for her high school
AP history class. She decided to cover Brown v. Board of Education as sort
of a performance art piece, segregating the class and giving all the
resources to the white kids.

I picked her up from school on the big day. She was furious. How did it go,
sweetie? I asked her. Daddy, it was HORRIBLE. NOBODY knew what they were.

It seems the entire project had collapsed at the point of segregation
because ... hardly any of the kids could figure out where they belonged.
Our town is listed in the education guides as just a few percentage points
minority, because minority is defined only as African American or Hispanic.
In actuality, we live in a technorati enclave that is largely Asian and
Middle Eastern. We're Filipino. The folks next door are Chinese, and across
the street Indian. My son's best friends are Vietnamese and Persian. And so
forth.

So how does this answer your question regarding Schelling? In several ways.
First, to assume that own kind refers to race is facile in this day and
age. In our case, own kind refers to the fact that the dads drop their
kids for band and then hang around to gossip about the latest Ruby on Rails
distro. Second, even if the government could and should do something about
this situation, by the time they study it, define it, debate it and issue
some regulationsSomething Else will be happening.



cjf

Christopher J. Feola


-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 7:02 PM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] WARNING: Political Argument in Progress

All, 

I am interested in what you Libertarians have to say about the Schelling
situation.  Please, for the moment, let's stipulate to the model and its
verisimulitude.  Lets  further stipulate that NOBODY wants to live in a
segregated neighborhood, but EVERYBODY wants to have just a few of their
own kind around.  (I am not sure what that means, either, but let's
stipulate, all the same.)  Now, given Schelling, we all end up living in
segragated neighborhoods, if we are Libertarians, right?  

Is that Tough S--t?  Or is their a role for government in this sort of
situation.  

nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, 
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]




 [Original Message]
 From: glen e. p. ropella g...@agent-based-modeling.com
 To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group friam@redfish.com
 Date: 5/17/2010 5:39:20 PM
 Subject: Re: [FRIAM] WARNING: Political Argument in Progress

 Nicholas Thompson wrote circa 10-05-17 11:13 AM:
  This sounds like a problem for complexitists and control system
theorists. 

 Right.  And although Russ A has come closest to an evidence-based
 proposal for CU vs. FEC, with the following two injections:

 Russ Abbott wrote circa 10-05-15 02:02 PM:
  It seems to me a similar problem happens with free speech. When some
  of the speakers get so loud that they effectively drown out the rest,
  free speech does not work as intended.

 Russ Abbott wrote circa 10-05-17 03:09 PM:
  From a complexity perspective libertarianism is aligned with favoring
   a diversity of autonomous agents -- as in a complex system.
  
  It seems to me that a complex system can reasonably be characterized
  as one in which there are many autonomous agents, and there is a
  reasonable diversity among them with respect to how they act.

 I don't think that takes us far enough.  A diversity of autonomous
 agents is a bit too vague, especially given the dialog about fear,
 power, corruption, selfish vs. common (obfuscated selfishness), etc.

 I think there is something to be gained by examining the CU vs. FEC
 decision in the context of a scale-free network of freely speaking
agents.

 I've heard effective rhetoric that claims that most businesses don't
 engage in political speech AT ALL because it's not good for business.
 Like all simplifications, this has a lot of truth to it.  Go into a
 local business and ask the manager whether s/he advocates for gay
 marriage and see what type of response you get.  But there's also plenty
 of anecdotal evidence that many (smaller) businesses regularly engage in
 political speech (like the doctor who put the sign in his window telling
 people who voted for Obama to find another doctor).

 Ultimately, I think we might design a study that sampled organizations
 (profit and non-profit), with investigations of things both inside and
 outside their specific domains, all across the spectrum, from huge
 multinational corporations down to mom-and-pop shops, to try to find out
 a little more about how free speech really plays out in such
 organizations.

 My guess is that 

Re: [FRIAM] What you can do.

[Chris Feola]

Actually, Sarbajit is quite on point. If you read the decision you will see
that one reason the law was struck down was it tried to get around its
obvious violation of the 1st Amendment by carving out an exemption for
media since the press is, largely, corporate. Overturning this decision
therefore leaves two largely unpalatable choices:

1. The government decides what Fox News can broadcast and The New York Times
can print, since corporations do not have a 1st Amendment rights.
2. The government decides who and what are media and therefore get 1st
Amendment rights.

Both seem to be somewhat outside the spirit of Congress shall make no
law...

But don't take my word for it.  Here's noted 1st Amendment lawyer Floyd
Abrams, who won the Pentagon Papers case for The New York Times:

And my reaction is sort of a John McEnroe: You cannot be serious! We're
talking about the First Amendment here, and we're being told that an
extremely vituperative expression of disdain for a candidate for president
is criminal in America?

I think that two things are at work, Mr. Abrams says. One is that there
are an awful lot of journalists that do not recognize that they work for
corporations. . . .

A second is an ideological one. I think that there is a way of viewing this
decision which . . . looks not at whether the First Amendment was vindicated
but whether what is simply referred to as, quote, democracy, unquote, was
vindicated. My view is, we live in a world in which the word 'democracy' is
debatable . . . It is not a word which should determine interpretation of a
constitution and a Bill of Rights, which is at its core a legal document as
well as an affirming statement of individual freedom, he says. Justice
Potter Stewart . . . warned against giving up the protections of the First
Amendment in the name of its values. . . . The values matter, the values are
real, but we protect the values by protecting the First Amendment.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704094304575029791336276632.ht
ml


cjf, recovering journalist

Christopher J. Feola
President, nextPression
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/cjfeola

-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Merle Lefkoff
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 1:39 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What you can do.

merle lefkoff wrote:

Sarbajit misses the boat completely.  The reason that the government 
may not suppress that speech altogether is because under U.S. law 
corporations have the same rights as people.  This is the problem, 
because corporations are NOT by any stretch of the imagination a 
person.  Using the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to gain the 
legal financial takeover of the electoral process is a disaster for 
democracy.  What needs to be changed, however, is not the recent Supreme 
Court decision, but the legal definition of corporation.



sarbajit roy wrote:
 Dear Group,

 As a non-US member I also find this interesting.

 As an ordinary citizen who has personally argued and won some cases 
 before the Supreme Court of my country (India) on Free Speech issues 
 (one coincidentally involving large corporations and television 
 broadcasting), I was actually quite impressed with the reasoning in 
 the majority ratio handed down by your Supreme Court (although to be 
 frank, I am not up to speed on the case law of your country).in 
 *Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission*. The message I got 
 from the judgement is that the Court is adamant on ensuring that 
 citizens are fully informed no matter what the source of information 
 is so long as the mandatory disclaimers are in place and the bias is 
 spelled out up front. */The Government may regulate corporate 
 political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements, but 
 it may not suppress that speech altogether/*. Heck, now Osama-BL Inc. 
 has the right to buy air-time and tell you what he thinks of the 
 Georges Bush,

 I also find that the petition you signed is based on a limited and 
 incorrect understanding of the judgement,  and is designed on the 
 premise that *you can get at least one half of the American public to 
 sign anything if you word the question properly*.

 It would be instructive to those interested to read the actual 
 majority opinion summarised here
 http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZO.html

 Just in passing, if some people imagine that a Constitutional 
 democracy is a good thing, read this for an alternative view from one 
 of the greatest philosophers of our age .. its brilliant in parts.  
 http://www.mathaba.net/gci/theory/gb1.htm

 Sarbajit

 On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 7:42 PM, Robert J. Cordingley 
 rob...@cirrillian.com mailto:rob...@cirrillian.com wrote:

 Given the opining in this list, US members might find this site of
 interest:
 http://movetoamend.org/
 Perhaps a chance to actually do something?
 

Re: [FRIAM] What you can do.

[Chris Feola]

No problem, Robert-help me into the boat.

 

Who is press? Who isn't? Who decides?

 

cjf

Christopher J. Feola
President, nextPression
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/cjfeola

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Robert J. Cordingley
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 5:20 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What you can do.

 

Actually Chris, I think you are also missing the boat by focusing on the
technicalities of a legal argument most of us would have to pay someone to
help us with.

So see this quote:



Justice Stevens, in dissent, was compelled to state the obvious:

. . . . corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no
thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the
activities of human beings, to be sure, and their personhood often serves
as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of We the
People by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.


Thanks
Robert

On 5/14/10 3:35 PM, Chris Feola wrote: 

Actually, Sarbajit is quite on point. If you read the decision you will see
that one reason the law was struck down was it tried to get around its
obvious violation of the 1st Amendment by carving out an exemption for
media since the press is, largely, corporate. Overturning this decision
therefore leaves two largely unpalatable choices:
 
1. The government decides what Fox News can broadcast and The New York Times
can print, since corporations do not have a 1st Amendment rights.
2. The government decides who and what are media and therefore get 1st
Amendment rights.
 
Both seem to be somewhat outside the spirit of Congress shall make no
law...
 
But don't take my word for it.  Here's noted 1st Amendment lawyer Floyd
Abrams, who won the Pentagon Papers case for The New York Times:
 
And my reaction is sort of a John McEnroe: You cannot be serious! We're
talking about the First Amendment here, and we're being told that an
extremely vituperative expression of disdain for a candidate for president
is criminal in America?
 
I think that two things are at work, Mr. Abrams says. One is that there
are an awful lot of journalists that do not recognize that they work for
corporations. . . .
 
A second is an ideological one. I think that there is a way of viewing this
decision which . . . looks not at whether the First Amendment was vindicated
but whether what is simply referred to as, quote, democracy, unquote, was
vindicated. My view is, we live in a world in which the word 'democracy' is
debatable . . . It is not a word which should determine interpretation of a
constitution and a Bill of Rights, which is at its core a legal document as
well as an affirming statement of individual freedom, he says. Justice
Potter Stewart . . . warned against giving up the protections of the First
Amendment in the name of its values. . . . The values matter, the values are
real, but we protect the values by protecting the First Amendment.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704094304575029791336276632.h
tmlcjf,recoveringjournalistChristopherJ.FeolaPresident,nextPressionFollowmeo
nTwitter:http:/twitter.com/cjfeola-OriginalMessage-From:friam-bounce
s...@redfish.com%5bmailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com%5donbehalfofmerlelefkoffsen
t:Friday,May14,20101:39PMTo:TheFridayMorningAppliedComplexityCoffeeGroupSubj
ect:Re:%5bFRIAM%5dWhatyoucando.merlelefkoffwrote:Sarbajitmissestheboatcomple
tely.Thereasonthatthegovernment 
 
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704094304575029791336276632.h
tmlcjf,recoveringjournalistChristopherJ.FeolaPresident,nextPressionFollowmeo
nTwitter:http:/twitter.com/cjfeola-OriginalMessage-From:friam-bounce
s...@redfish.com%5bmailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com%5donbehalfofmerlelefkoffsen
t:Friday,May14,20101:39PMTo:TheFridayMorningAppliedComplexityCoffeeGroupSubj
ect:Re:%5bFRIAM%5dWhatyoucando.merlelefkoffwrote:Sarbajitmissestheboatcomple
tely.Thereasonthatthegovernment  
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704094304575029791336276632.ht
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704094304575029791336276632.h
tmlcjf,recoveringjournalistChristopherJ.FeolaPresident,nextPressionFollowmeo
nTwitter:http:/twitter.com/cjfeola-OriginalMessage-From:friam-bounce
s...@redfish.com%5bmailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com%5donbehalfofmerlelefkoffsen
t:Friday,May14,20101:39PMTo:TheFridayMorningAppliedComplexityCoffeeGroupSubj
ect:Re:%5bFRIAM%5dWhatyoucando.merlelefkoffwrote:Sarbajitmissestheboatcomple
tely.Thereasonthatthegovernment 
ml
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704094304575029791336276632.h
tmlcjf,recoveringjournalistChristopherJ.FeolaPresident,nextPressionFollowmeo
nTwitter:http:/twitter.com/cjfeola-OriginalMessage-From:friam-bounce
s...@redfish.com%5bmailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com%5donbehalfofmerlelefkoffsen
t:Friday,May14,20101:39PMTo:TheFridayMorningAppliedComplexityCoffeeGroupSubj
ect:Re

Re: [FRIAM] Arizona meets the Facebook community

[Chris Feola]

Ariz. gov signs bill revising new immigration law

April 28, 2010

Gov. Jan Brewer on Friday signed a follow-on bill approved by Arizona
legislators that make revisions to the state's sweeping law against illegal
immigration - changes she says should quell concerns that the measure will
lead to racial profiling.

 

The changes include one strengthening restrictions against using race or
ethnicity as the basis for questioning by police and inserts those same
restrictions in other parts of the law.

Another change states that immigration-status questions would follow a law
enforcement officer's stopping, detaining or arresting a person while
enforcing another law. The earlier law had referred to a contact with
police.

Another change specifies that possible violations of local civil ordinances
can trigger questioning on immigration status.

 

http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-04-28/news/20877675_1_illegal-immigration-im
migration-status-national-immigration-law-center

 

 

cjf

Christopher J. Feola
President, nextPression
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/cjfeola

 

From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Robert Holmes
Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2010 12:13 PM
To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Arizona meets the Facebook community

 

Russ, Nick,

 

Here is the relevant part of the Arizona Senate Bill 1070
http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf :

 

40  13-1509. Trespassing by illegal aliens; assessment; exception;

41  classification

42  A. IN ADDITION TO ANY VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW, A PERSON IS GUILTY OF

43  TRESPASSING IF THE PERSON IS BOTH:

44  1. PRESENT ON ANY PUBLIC OR PRIVATE LAND IN THIS STATE.

45  2. IN VIOLATION OF 8 UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1304(e) OR 1306(a).

 

1   B. IN THE ENFORCEMENT OF THIS SECTION, THE FINAL DETERMINATION OF AN

2   ALIEN'S IMMIGRATION STATUS SHALL BE DETERMINED BY EITHER:

3   1. A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER WHO IS AUTHORIZED BY THE FEDERAL

4   GOVERNMENT TO VERIFY OR ASCERTAIN AN ALIEN'S IMMIGRATION STATUS.

5   2. A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER OR AGENCY COMMUNICATING WITH THE UNITED

6   STATES IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT OR THE UNITED STATES BORDER

7   PROTECTION PURSUANT TO 8 UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1373(c).

 

The two codes referred to a line 45 are:

*   8 USC 1304 (e http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/8/12/II/VII/1304
), which demands that Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at
all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate
of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him; and
*   8 USC 1306 (a) http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/8/12/II/VII/1306
, which concerns the willful failure to register.

The important point is that 1070 puts no limitation on Law Enforcement
Officers (LEO) on how they determine an alien's immigration status. No
indication of how (or indeed if) the 4th amendment's probable cause should
be applied. Note: other states are explicit on what is allowed in an
interaction between LEOs and members of the public (see Google for details).

 

In short, the Arizona law allows Law Enforcement Officers to stop anyone and
demand proof that they are not an alien who is trespassing in Arizona. 

 

-- R

 

 

 

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 10:23 AM, Nicholas Thompson
nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote:

Russ,

Well, presumably i got those facts from some left wing rant.  They both
seemed like the kind of facts that would be difficult to fake, so I
believed them.  I will do my best to back them up.  Please hold your mind
open for a time while I do that.


Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]




 [Original Message]

 From: Russell Gonnering rsgonneri...@mac.com
 To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group friam@redfish.com
 Date: 5/9/2010 8:40:08 AM

 Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Arizona meets the Facebook community

 Nick-

 Please cite the facts that support your contention re the Arizona law
empowering the police to ask for papers if you just happen to look
Mexican and the source of the heavy weapons flowing to Mexico.

 The idea that the types of military-grade weapons used comes from
smuggling civilian weapons bought in border states is refuted by:

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2009/03/legal-us-arms-
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2009/03/legal-us-arms
-%0d%0aexports-may-be-source-narco-syndicates-rising-firepower 
exports-may-be-source-narco-syndicates-rising-firepower

 The 90% of weapons having a US origin figure quoted by the Obama
administration is called into question by that notoriously right-wing
organization, the Annenberg Public Policy Center:
  

Re: [FRIAM] xkcd - A Webcomic - Alternative Energy Revolution

[Chris Feola]

The sidekick was Sancho Panza, of course.  I'm Sancho, yes I'm Sancho ...

I can't even sing in email.

cjf

Christopher J. Feola
President, nextPression
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/cjfeola

-Original Message-
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of russell standish
Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 7:38 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] xkcd - A Webcomic - Alternative Energy Revolution

The man on horseback would be Don Qixote. The sidekick?

On Sat, Mar 28, 2009 at 10:19:50AM -0600, Owen Densmore wrote:
 A man on horse back.  His sidekick.  Windmills:
   http://xkcd.com/556/

 -- Owen



 
 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
 Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
 lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

-- 


Prof Russell Standish  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Mathematics  
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpco...@hpcoders.com.au
Australiahttp://www.hpcoders.com.au



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org