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3 Misconceptions That Need to Die

3 Misconceptions That Need to Die (WMT, X):

At a conference in Philadelphia earlier this month, a Wharton professor noted that one of the country’s biggest economic problems is a tsunami of misinformation. You can’t have a rational debate when facts are so easily supplanted by overreaching statements, broad generalizations, and misconceptions. And if you can’t have a rational debate, how does anything important get done? As author William Feather once advised, “Beware of the person who can’t be bothered by details.” There seems to be no shortage of those people lately.

[1) Misconception: Most of what Americans spend their money on is made in China. 2) Misconception: We owe most of our debt to China. 3)Misconception: We get most of our oil from the Middle East. Now tell me you weren’t surprised at, if nothing else, how pervasive things like this are without facts. Shoddy reporting and willful suspension of disbelief will take us far down this awful road.]

Dear Congress, It’s No Longer OK to Not Know How the Internet Works

Here’s the official White House anti SOPA petition.

Dear Congress, It’s No Longer OK to Not Know How the Internet Works:

Joshua Kopstein:

When the security issue was brought up, Rep. Mel Watt of North Carolina seemed particularly comfortable about his own lack of understanding. Grinningly admitting “I’m not a nerd” before the committee, he nevertheless went on to dismiss without facts or justification the very evidence he didn’t understand and then downplay the need for a panel of experts. Rep. Maxine Waters of California followed up by saying that any discussion of security concerns is “wasting time” and that the bill should move forward without question, busted internets be damned.

Bipartisan willful ignorance.

[Well said. Here’s the link again: The official White House anti SOPA petition.]
Source: Daring Fireball

Fight SOPA.

If you hate Big Government, fight SOPA.:

Nobody who opposes Big Government and favors degregulation should favor the Stop Online Piracy Act, better known as SOPA, or H.R. 3261. It’s a big new can of worms that will cripple use of the Net, slow innovation on it, clog the courts with lawsuits, employ litigators in perpetuity and deliver copyright maximalists in the “content” business a hollow victory for the ages.

A few years back, a former government official confidentially issued a warning to a small group I was part of, which favored some kind of lawmaking around technology. While this isn’t a verbatim quote, it’s pretty close, because it has been burned in my mind ever since: “In the course of my work I have met with nearly every member of Congress. And I can tell you that, with only a handful of exceptions, there are two things none of them understand. One is economics and the other is technology. Now proceed.”

Know-nothing lawmakers are doing exactly that with SOPA. As Joshua Kopstein says, Dear Congress, It’s No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works.

SOPA is a test for principle for members of Congress. If you wish to save the Internet, vote against it. If you wish to fight Big Government, vote against it. If you wish to protect friends in the “content” production and distribution business at extreme cost to every other business in the world, vote for it. If you care more about a few businesses you can name and nothing about all the rest of them — which will be whiplashed by the unintended consequences of a bill that limits what can be done on the Internet while not comprehending the Internet at all, vote for it.

[Go read the rest of Doc’s piece. And then get off your hands and get in touch with your congress people.]
Source: Doc Searls Weblog

Teens triple data usage

Teens triple data usage:

Nielsen:

Teens have officially joined the mobile Data Tsunami, more than tripling mobile data consumption in the past year while maintaining their stronghold as the leading message senders. Using recent data from monthly cell phone bills of 65,000+ mobile subscribers who volunteered to participate in the research, Nielsen analyzed mobile usage trends among teens in the United States. In the third quarter of 2011, teens age 13-17 used an average of 320 MB of data per month on their phones, increasing 256 percent over last year and growing at a rate faster than any other age group. Much of this activity is driven by teen males, who took in 382 MB per month while females used 266 MB.

∞ Permalink

[Unsurprising and amazing at the same time.]
Source: The Loop

Iraq war

Iraq war:

It’s over today. Today will never be a holiday. There will be no V-I day. There will be no pictures of revelers in Times Square.

[Marking the occasion. That is all. Thanks to everyone who served, and welcome home to all those finally returning.]
Source: inessential.com

The diagnosis

The diagnosis:

I do not know all of what’s ahead. I know a little. I know that there is a new kind of life on the other side of this thing. A changed mind and body. A new appreciation of time, and breath, and health, and life, and loved ones.

The gravity in this place is different. I’ve spoken to others who’ve traveled out here, too, and returned home safely. When you become one of them, you learn quickly that you share a language others can’t understand.

The trick, these fellow travelers tell me, is to accept the not knowing and find your equilibrium in that new gravity. Calm the mind. Find your balance out on the cold planet, whether or not you know the next step, or the date of the next appointment, or what good or bad news the Technetium-99 isotopes floating around in your blood during the last scan reveal.

[So painful.]

New York City’s Digital Deficiency

New York City’s Digital Deficiency:

You are circling the block yet again, desperately seeking a parking space–and then you remember there’s an app for that. You whip out your phone and pull up Roadify, the high-profile winner of New York City’s second BigApps contest, which is supposed to provide a real-time list of parking spaces near your location. You watch as Roadify loads and quickly discover there are no free parking spaces within a 10-mile radius of where you are currently circling the block. This shouldn’t surprise you because there are usually almost no parking spaces listed in the app, rendering it fairly useless. Then, as you slam on your breaks to avoid hitting a pedestrian, you remember that driving while using your phone is difficult, dangerous, and often illegal.
And this is the app that won?
Undeterred by Roadify’s failure, the city announced the third installment of the BigApps contest in September, in which the city awards $50,000 in cash to the best app that uses city data. So far the first two contests have yielded apps that have received a fair amount of media attention but have lagged in user adoption. Sportify, another winner that garnered a lot of press, also relies on a critical mass of users to function. It, too, is a great idea in principle (find people near you who want to play pickup sports!), which has yet to catch on. All of this is the predictable result of the city’s approach to digital development, which focuses on plenty of sizzle, not much steak. It’s time for the city to deeply explore what New York’s citizens actually need, and the ways in which those citizens are likely to behave.

[How unsurprising.]

Episcopal cleric: Let’s Take Christ Out of Christmas

RAYMOND J. LAWRENCE is an Episcopal cleric for 46 years, recently retired Director of Pastoral Care, New York Presbyterian Hospital, and author of numerous opinion pieces in newspapers in the U.S. and wrote the following.

Let’s Take Christ Out of Christmas:

Christmas was adopted by Christianity late, by some three hundred years. It was incorporated into Christianity in the 4th century, the same way Friday fish-eating was incorporated and during the same time. (Imperial Romans ate fish on Fridays to honor Venus, the goddess of love, fish being the food of love and sex.) The venerial fish-eating was simply co-opted by Christianity and given a revised rationale, namely that Jesus died on Friday, so one should abstain from eating meat on Friday.

In imperial Rome, the December 25 feast in honor of the Invincible Sun, Sol Invictus, was accompanied by the exchange of gifts, cutting of greens, lighting of candles, and public festivals commemorating new life. The sun, after all, had turned in the sky and was rising earlier and setting later, after the winter solstice.

[snip ed.]

To liberate Christmas from the clutches of Christianity would demonstrate a generosity of spirit on the part of Christians that would set a good example in these times of increasing strife between the various religions of the world.

[It certainly would improve my solstice celebration.]