mononononon

http://www.wthr.com/story/14924988/person-shot-near-monon-trail-at-86th-street

I started biking to work this week (I did not ride today) and this story has me thinking. The fastest and easiest way for me to get to work is along the Monon, and for the record I do plan on continuing this (though I guess I now have to worry about more than being run over by impatient Carmel drivers). I see this as an isolated incident, which in a city of this size you will have from time to time, and I still see the Monon as a fairly safe route (certainly safer than the East side of Indianapolis). Also, in the event I am robbed at gunpoint*, I will gladly give up what I have on me – it’s really not worth getting shot over.

But here are some questions I have:

1) How does a city address a 16-year-old a) getting a gun b) robbing and shooting a 58-year-old man? There is a definite societal breakdown that leads to this – and yet our legislators seem to care more about denying healthcare to poor women and banning gay marriage. How does this fit into the gun control debate?

2) How does a city ensure that people are safe on what is technically a public park – in broad daylight? How do you police a 16 mile x 8ft stretch of land? Last year when a man was robbed a half mile south of my apartment (at 2pm on a Sunday), they had a cop car stationed on the trail for a few days, as though the robbers would try again. After that, I have seen no significant improvements to security on the trail.

3) Will the Black community of Indianapolis take responsibility for this? Should they? Is this an Indianapolis problem or a Black problem? Why does the WTHR story (linked) give the races of the victim/suspects but the IndyStar.com article not?

4) I criticize the Fox Business story for using terms like ‘hood’ and ‘hizzouse’ to refer to Obama’s guests, as they are clearly racial terms to paint a derogatory picture of the President as a black stereotype. But if I’m out riding on the trail and see several black men / youth together, I will speed up – just as I (and I’m guessing I’m not the only one) will go into ‘high alert mode’ if I’m walking alone at night and see a black man. Am I a hypocrite for criticizing public racism while harboring inner racial prejudices?

5) Where the hell was everyone? That stretch of the Monon is wide open, fully visible from 86th/91st street, and next to a huge apartment complex.

food for thought.

*again

persuasive speech re: doomsday robot apocalypse

cleaning out my room for move, found some old documents. transcribing them to electronic format for posterity.

as far as I can remember, this would’ve been given in spring of 2005 in a speech class. title unknown. had some funny visual aides to go along… not sure if I have the original files anywhere.

“The true enemy of America is already here. They’re vacuuming your houses, mowing your lawns, washing your windows, cleaning your pools, or even milking your cows. And no — it’s not illegal immigrants.

You may believe that the biggest threat to this country lies overseas in the Middle East, but in actuality, there is a bigger terrorist threat among us: Robots.

If we as a society do not take immediate action against the rising threat of robots, they will undoubtedly overtake us in a wave of metallic fury.

You may think this sounds like a conspiracy theory out of a science fiction B-movie, but what I’m going to tell you about the mounting menace of robots may surprise you.

If you are at home letting your vacuum-bot clean your room for you, there isn’t much of a chance that it is going to turn on you. The robots of today are programmed by humans to obey what instructions they have been given. But that same technology could eventually be used against you.

According to the Foster-Miller website, the makers of the Talon robot, 18 of their gun-toting unmanned vehicles are heading to Iraq. The robot, which was named one of the most amazing inventions of 2004 by Time magazine, is controlled by humans via radio controller. But what happens if that controller makes it into the hands of an insurgent?

In an article in PC Magazine, iRobot’s Roomba, an automated vacuum-robot, was listed as being able to create complex algorithms to determine how to properly traverse the room. The Motorola chip inside can also receive customizations or special objectives from the user.

On a NewScientist.com page, robotics experts at the University of the West of England are developing a self-sustaining robot named EcoBot II. In an electricity-generating reactor cell, the robot will digest flies and use the sugar from their exoskeletons to power its functions. Although the robot is in testing phase, it would be a step forward to a fully autonomous machine.

What do all of these seemingly unrelated tales of robotics in the world of today tell us? That there could be in the future able to generate its own energy via organic matter (possibly even humans), easily weld an M240 7.62-mm machine gun, and use advanced mathematics to determine the path of least resistance. In other words, this may be the robot of today. He can kick a soccer ball, he can bring you a drink, and he can even do a little dance. But this is the robot of tomorrow: kicking you down a flight of stairs, and doing a little dance on your grave.

Jim Morris, former dean of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science, said that as of now, robots needed to be programmed for every eventuality. However, he says that in the future, robots will be able ‘to change their perceptions of the world and adapt accordingly.’

In 1995, engineers from Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories created a robotic device able to mimic the human hand. With 360-degrees of rotation, four fingers and an opposable thumb, and strength comparable to a human, you might not even be able to tell it from a real hand were it masked under synthetic skin.

Sony’s SDR-4X, a humanoid-type robot, is capable of walking over irregular surfaces and even regaining its balance. With seven microphones and a speaker capable of synthesizing voices, this robot can both walk like you and talk like you. The robots of today are not only becoming more advanced, they’re becoming more like humans. Perhaps you should wonder if it’s really science fiction to believe that someday you may not know if it’s really a human residing under that skin.

The question of how to combat a robot invasion is as old as robots themselves. As a society, our number one priority should be to ensure that the technologies we are creating today, as well as the access codes to Zion, do not fall into the wrong hands. But we must also realize that this is inevitable, and therefore should prepare ourselves for the eventual battle between machine and man. For his experience in this type of post-apocalyptic warfare, we should give higher defense funding to the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzeneggar.

No one knows what possibilities are on the horizon as far as robotics. But they are already an integral part of our everyday life. But if we don’t adopt my plan of defense, they can and will turn against us someday.

Today, I have given you six examples of high-tech robots. Combine them together, and you might imagine that the future holds a slew of floor-vacuuming-fly-eating robots that can both hold a drink and a conversation, and perhaps you’re right. But on the other end of the spectrum lies an equally frightening future: a robot capable of adapting to the environment around it or being reprogrammed to serve an evil cause. The technology for mayhem exists today.

Technology plays a vital role in today’s world. Thus, companies should be encouraged to continue researching ways to improve robotics. However, I challenge you all to realize the threat posed by these robots and to support measures for drastic backup plans in case of catastrophic automated system failure.

You may think your robotic dog is cute, but when it’s about to kill you and everyone you love, you’ll wish you had only listened to me.”

grade received: 98/100

everything is data

american consumers pay multiple subscriptions for multiple services, at varying rates typically not grounded in reality, for what is essentially the same product. digital television, phone service, mobile phone, mobile texting, mobile internet, home internet, e-books, music, games, movies… all of these are transmitted via the same basic infrastructure, yet we still pay separately for them. the industries are so large, and have control of so much of the groundwork and fiber optics and wireless spectrum, that it would be near impossible for a newcomer to fix any of this, so for the most part we are stuck with it (unless Google decides to). the end result is this – at some point, someone will offer one package of data, for everything you do, and everyone else will adapt or go out of business.

dear companies

I (and I humbly speak for my peers on this) will almost never purchase or own one of the following:

• a landline phone
• a cable subscription
• a dedicated player of optical media (dvd, blu-ray, cd)
• an alarm clock
• any other sort of clock
• feature (dumb) phones

and we will buy significantly fewer point-and-click cameras, portable audio devices, and dedicated gps devices as our phones take over these capabilities.

Keep this in mind for future business planning.

Also RedBox, Blockbuster, and any other venue that wants to hold onto physical distribution of digital media will fail.

Sincerely,

Neil

i like to call it lost wages

Back from Vegas. The chill blast of stepping off a plane into freezing Indiana is getting too familiar.

I have a lot of thoughts about Microsoft’s new product line, which I may or may not go into at a future time.

Good networking, though. Good food, good sessions, saw cool movies/keynotes, played a lot of Gears of War 2 / Rock Band 2. Getting up on stage and singing strange songs is nervewracking. Until you realize that when you did it, there wasn’t even an audience, and now the band going up after you is a bunch of Frenchmen who don’t know any English and are still trying to rock out The Offspring, or the little timid Asian girl who comes up later and belts out Livin’ on a Prayer in front of a full crowd.

Everyone there was using a Macbook Pro running Windows 7. This is probably indicative of a lot of things. Although it’s not a surprise to see great hardware running great software.

I still don’t really like Vegas. Everything is tacky and dirty and old, like no one has bothered to update anything since the 70′s. It’s an exercise in consumerism, where the end goal of every facet you see from dawn to dusk is for you to spend money and make poor decisions. It seems like a playground for the rich, to flaunt nice cars and clothes and wealth and status. But most of all, I don’t like it because you don’t really see people being genuinely happy there.

But I guess I shouldn’t complain about a free stay in the Venetian.

march update

1. compliments of the CGT department and Microsoft, I’ll be flying to Vegas next week for the MIX conference about web development and design or something to that effect. this is yet another entry in the ‘someone else pays for neil to fly somewhere and do something’ list, which I assure you still has room to grow.

2. compliments of Heartland Neurology, I’m on round 2 of taking a bunch of random drugs till we find something else that works. Also getting an MRI at some point. Doctor suggested this could all be from a concussion or two back in the football days. seems reasonable.

indiana weather is depressing

it’s rarely pleasant to have to forego one event in order to attend another, and it’s even less so when both events are funerals for people you really liked; people who had tremendous vigor for life and were taken far before their time. people the world could’ve used more of. I wonder anymore if, as the saying goes, the good really do die young, or if the rest of us just grow bitter and old. let us hope the spirit they brought with them will stay above ground and live on with those who knew them. RIP John & Tex.

 

I try to look at the positive side of any situation, which is occasionally difficult when so many negatives seem to be apparent. being all but broke seems to fit into that category.

Not that I am criticizing any companies/individuals (okay I am), but if you come to a point where you aren’t in the financial position you’d like to be, the right course of action is not to sit back and hope someone comes along and bails you out. even if it takes futile efforts (as it turns out, most sit-down restaurants in the greater Lafayette area are, while cheerfully accepting applications, not interested in hiring) or drastic measures (anyone wanting to buy a laptop?) or, as I’m hoping to be the case, a kick-in-the-ass towards proving some caliber of knowledge in the skills I’m theoretically learning.  Ideas about freelance graphics works, running my own design firm/website, programming a video game, etc, have always been mulling about in the back of my mind. they stayed there, though, because why bother if you don’t have the need?

okay, so let’s take this personal experience and expand it to take some actual message out of it, possibly applying it to the American youth I’ve apparently been representing over the last few years. let’s say American children just don’t have the financial need in order to truly innovate, and that’s why in the long run the foreigners will develop skills faster and be better motivated. would I have ever seriously started looking into doing freelance graphics work online had I not been in a not-so-great financial position? perhaps after college, or somewhere else down the road. now I see that the majority of the competitors in all of these freelance fields – graphics, coding, writing (even English), etc – all foreign workers, willing to work quickly and cheaply.

 

so is it a good thing that the rest of America is also going broke? depends on the timeline. people aren’t going to be happy about it anytime soon, and I certainly wish I could buy a nicer coat. the global economy will enter into a lasting recession, and though the stimulus will provide jobs, they won’t be at the same level as those they are replacing. major companies across every industry are laying off mass numbers of businessmen and women, technicians and IT professionals, 6-figure white collar and blue collar and any other collar. Now we’ll ask them to go put on some orange vest and rebuild infrastructure. It’s like the end of Office Space, only not so much out of choice.

in the long run, I see this as positive. but I’m not sure how many people allow themselves to look in the long run anymore. the short-run problems, such as the large amount of homework I have due in less than 12 hours, always seem to get in our way.

not everything is falling

some businesses are failing. in fact, a lot of businesses are failing completely. a lot of people are going unemployed or underemployed. there are many industries which are built on the notion that people will always have disposable income that they would rather spend on consumer purchases than save for later times.

some businesses are thriving. nintendo had a great year, as did amazon. walmart, mcdonalds, etc will all do fine throughout this, as low cost sellers. differentiation companies, like starbucks, will have to rethink their entire perspective or face a grim year or two. and this will last at least through 2010.

so in the meantime, we have to look at this as an opportunity. in 2 million minutes, one of the commentators notes that Americans lack the basic economic urgency that Indians have, and thus are not as committed to innovation. well, I wouldn’t count on our security blankets to last too much longer. the financial bailout has done nothing. the auto bailout will do nothing. in the end, we will probably have to nationalize large swaths of public companies just to stay afloat. and to those laissez-faire free-market proponents, I’m sorry, you had your chance, people got greedy, and now we’re SOL.

what I ask myself, as a hopeful entrepreneur, is how to develop and deliver value to someone in a time when money is sparse, consumer confidence is low, and no one wants to buy anything. mainly I see that I don’t want to enter the job market anytime soon. even still, my prospects as far as employment opportunities/future education are looking great, so I’m not terribly worried. I’m worried for the rest of my peers. this may not be something that we bounce back from and grow stronger because of; this might be something that irrevocably changes the dynamics of the global economy. so what side of the globe will you be on when all is said and done?

final night

we’re back in bangalore, which isn’t nearly as exciting as before. it’s not nearly as colorful as jaipur, and there is more traffic than in delhi.

i’m more or less over my stomach troubles (which we pinpointed to some fish that Bob, Liza and I ate and Brittany skipped, leading the three of us to some rough days), but we are ready to come home for some bland American food.

at the same time, leaving a wonderful land of amazing customer service, clean and spacious rooms with beautiful views, and expensive wines and champagnes, and returning to the world of rude Americans, dirty fraternity life and cheap beer is a little tough.

more and more I become confused why the people and places of American and India are so backwards. Indians work hard day and night, are friendly and welcoming to others, care for the family, respect all religions, believe in a harmony of environment, and modernize without losing their thriving culture. Americans are by and large lazy and large, rude and suspicious of others, care for themselves above others, hate all religions but theirs, promote causes because it makes them feel better, and try to export their culture on the rest of the world.

yet America is beautiful, our streets are clean, our houses are large, our tap water is pristine (…and still people drink bottled), our schools are advanced, our malls are gigantic, our cars can transport livestock, our workweek is light, our job safety nets are expansive, our paychecks are huge…

it probably has a lot to do, among other things, with population size. with a billion and change people, India can’t keep up. so pollution rises, traffic rules can’t be obeyed, there is no social security, and as we recently saw, the government can do little to protect its citizens from an increasingly hostile part of the world. 

trying to get to a dinner last night, I was confused why there was so much traffic at 9pm. Apoorva told me it was Rush hour, which still didn’t make much sense to me. she explained, of course, that it was from all the people going to work at the call center, since they have to adjust for our daylight hours. it suddenly dawned on me that we have changed their entire culture, forcing people to work graveyard shifts just for our benefit. and yet, the best job in bangalore is still working these call centers, so that we can dial in and get “Joe” or “Mike” to help us with whatever electronic gadget we were too lazy to read the simple instructions for.

when things in nature are at such unequal levels as they are here, an equilibrium is always reached, with one side giving way and the other gaining. I fear for just how much way we are going to have to give in order to reach this balance, and I think my generation and my country is, as is typical, severely unprepared, unaware, and uncaring.

midpoint

internet connections are not always readily available here, even though driving through the streets one will see the ubiquitous “i.s.o. s.t.d.” signs all over the place, which we know have something to do with a telephone/internet connection.

but, more to the point, we have been busy. any image one can conjour up upon the thought of India, more than likely we have been there, done that, taken pictures, gotten the tshirt.

I saw a snake charmer (and had a cobra around my neck), sipped wine on the back of an elephant, had a camel almost fling me off his back, rode countless rickshaws through crowded city streets, visited the Taj Mahal, had a New Year’s celebration at what was once a Palace of the Maharaja (and won a prize for being the best dressed male there), eaten spicier food than I have ever had back home, gotten really sick because of it (I’m fine now), and all around been treated like a visiting king. The only time the men stop and stare more at me than Brittany is when I have been wearing my kurta and turban (there are plenty of pictures), at which point they must only assume I’m rather important. But, considering we were featured in around fourteen of the top newspapers in Bangalore and India as a whole on the first day we arrived, we might as well be.

We head tomorrow back to Bangalore, to the fourth hotel in four nights. A few more days remain.