Linky Friday #26

49 Comments

1. Too much goodness here! Superheroes and maps of fantasy worlds? I think my brain is shutting down!

   (Seriously, that link to fantasy world maps will keep me going for ages. If only they’d shown Columbia Games’ Harn, all would be perfect.)

   I think I have problems with the arguments raised in the two housing-lending pieces you cite (though perhaps not with the underlying studies they are working from). I’ve not read them closely, but the two pieces also seem to be arguing against each other to an extent. Fortunately, I’m hitting the road for the weekend, so I have an excuse not to delve too deeply.

   • Every time I feel bad about names I chose for characters or places in game worlds I played, I look at the World of Greyhawk map and I feel better.

2. D1 is FASCINATING! In part because we see the exact opposite phenomenon in independent schools, in two slightly different ways. We often get students with lower SES (often kids of color but sometimes white) who struggle with the touchy-feely nature. As I mentioned elsewhere, they’re the kids who don’t realize when they are “asked” something they are really being told something and their non-compliance is viewed as defiance. On the other end, we get wealthier parents of color who busted their ass to get where they are, view an educational environment of high expectations as the reason why they did and the key for their children’s future, and give a big, “WTF?” when we let the kids play all day and tolerate behavior they never would. I had a black colleague articulate it quite succinctly: “Our kids can’t act that way out in the real world… they’ll get arrested.” It is very easy for me to say, “It’s okay to make mistakes! Don’t worry about it!” when my white privilege gives me the room to err and still succeed. The margin for error for kids of color is much smaller… mistakes are not okay! As a black parent said to me once about her son and another black child, “Give them a shorter leash. They need it.”

   For a variety of reasons, I blend the two approaches. I personally don’t favor “yelling” because I think it often comes from a place of emotion and, thus, is not necessarily part of a thoughtful approach to management. But I will get real firm with real consequences real quick when necessary. However, I’ve also seen people be REALLY successful with a rather yell-y approach, though generally with much older students.

   Curiously, I’ve seen some research that certain aspects of the progressive method exacerbate the achievement gap. Constructivism (my preferred approach, which in a nut shell is the idea that children learn better by doing than by being lectured at) tends to work really well for already high-achieving kids who can learn very well independently but leaves other students behind. So, in a way, the method espoused in these public schools might actually be preferable for the bulk of students. I need to look more closely at the research before concluding that but it is an interesting development.

   Lastly, the ability of white, wealthy parents to identify the cultural issues, speak to them, and choose otherwise is a real privilege. A number of families in our school, be they families of color, of lower SES, or both, feel that culture clash every single day. But because they are very much given a vibe of, “Just be happy you’re here,” they have to swallow the indignities to keep their place. The culture clash goes both ways. But families with privilege and/or from the culture of power are much better able to influence culture and/or find an ideal scenario regardless of if they are in the minority or the majority.

   So, yea, fascinating article!

   • To sum up that last point, there article read to me as a bit of, “Oh noes… wealthy white folks find themselves in a culture that does not mirror their own!” To which I say, “Welcome to the experience of a whole host of people on an every day basis.”

     But, yes, diversity in schools is complicated.

     • Kazzy, while this is true, it remains the case that it’s the wealthy people we need to “buy in” because, if they don’t, they have other options. This is one of the things about the charter schools versus local schools that a lot of people on both sides don’t like to talk about. Having posh schools in the city encourages geographical integration, to an extent. The alternative isn’t usually that gentrifiers are going to send their kid to the local assigned school and help make it better. It’s that they’ll either send their kids to private school (which I don’t know if that’s better or worse) or they’ll stay in the suburbs (which is definitely worse, from an integration standpoint).

       I’m glad you liked the article. I meant to email it to you when I ran across it. It definitely made me think of you.

       • “Buy in” is so damn hard. As we’ve discussed elsewhere, helping to point out to people what it actually feels like to be part of a marginalized or oppressed group can be really helpful.

         If I really came across a parent saying, “I just don’t feel at home at that school. The adults, the kids, they do things so differently,” I would respond much more sincerely, but still try to point out that many other folks feel similarly in the spaces where they feel most comfortable. Which doesn’t make them bad or wrong! But it does help them to understand the perspective. Many of us don’t know what it’s like to be on the outside, which makes it easy to dismiss the experiences of those who so often find themselves there. These parents can actually be huge change agents if supported the right way.

         And… you thought of me? Awwww! In all seriousness, I plan to pass this along to other diversity practitioners… it has some really valuable stuff in it.

         • Yeah, your point is quite valid from a fairness standpoint. I was just pointing to the logistics of it.

           Back when I was two and we lived in Queenland, my parents unwittingly bought a house that would have had us directed to schools that fit certain stereotypes. Mom really tried to be a “change agent” (was a founder of the school’s first ever PTA). Unfortunately, it didn’t do much good. The problem solved itself when we relocated to Colosse.

         • The most difficult thing is to show people from privileged groups that they will actually benefit from “diversity work*”. Problem is, many efforts within diversity work won’t actually benefit them. And not because you can’t achieve the goals in a mutually beneficial way, but because the view tends to be too myopic.

           * I don’t always love the term “diversity” or “diversity work”, but it tends to be the best we got.

   • To me, the passive-agressive touchy-feely approach wouldn’t work either, so I don’t blame the kids one bit. In fact, the inner-city old-school approach might be the better approach to keeping students in line.

3. hmm… fantasy maps. Always find it interesting when folks don’t put the whole world on the map.
   At least with Kulthea there’s a reason:
   http://bullgod.co.uk/twilight/images/maps/kulthea.pdf

4. M2 — I’m a fiber artist, and wool is my medium. I work in other fibers, sure, but typically only if blended with wool.

   So, if you’re going for the wool shirt I have a couple of pieces of advice:

   1) It may not need regular cleaning, the way we think of laundering, but it will benefit from being regularly aired — hung in a place where there’s plenty of air movement around it;

   2) Remove stains via spot cleaning, don’t let them set it;

   3) Don’t air in direct sunlight;

   4) Beware of moths; wool is yummy.

   And a tidbit: Every bit of wool we have is sheered by hand; they do not make machines that sheer sheep.

   Most wool is processing intensive; fleece naturally as a lot of stuff in it (sheep droppings, vegetable matter, etc.), and this is removed using a lot of water and chemical solvants; and then it’s often dyed using heavy metals. It is not always as ‘environmentally sound’ as it seems; if the wool’s treated so that it won’t felt (superwash, it’s called, essentially removing the scales of the surface of the wool fibers so that they will not bond together in the presence of moisture, heat, and agitation), there’s additional chemical processing. Many people who think they are allergic to wool are, in fact, allergic to the residues left from all this processing, each is an irritant.

   Wool warms when it’s wet, actually generating heat; it’s well known as a good fiber for wearing in the cold. But it’s insulating properties also are beneficial in heat; it insulates you from heat, something I discovered while working at Plimoth Plantation, wearing wool through a hot, humid summer. Linen makes an excellant layer under wool; particularly in heat.

5. This is a helluva list Mr. T; I don’t think there’s been a previous one where I felt compelled to click on so many links.

   On M3, the trend I saw personally twenty some odd years ago was the public universities offering merit based scholarships to poach students from Ivy’s (and their peers) who did not. I wonder if that trend is still the case, as the linked article is mostly about small (non-elite(?)) private schools which I have little familiarity with. (other than a reflexive notion that they’ve always been overpriced for what one gets.)

   I can’t figure out if R4 is about using nuclear power to make liquid fuels (which makes sense, though not right now – i.e. petroleum is still the best tool for the job in aviation) or about putting actual nuclear reactors on airplanes (which does not make sense and never will)

   The big problem I have with D1 is the same problem I have with the Philadelphia magazine from a few months ago (the one about ‘being white in the big city’ or something like that). The author of the D1 article should have taken the time to actually talk to ‘the other side’ rather relying on anecdotes from a single point of view. (and probably additionally, interview those (white) parents who have decided not to bail)

   In A2, I got the impression that Mary actually wanted to date Eve.

   On A3, I lost track if Richard Florida is supposed to be history’s greatest monster or not.

   • M3 This is something I plan on writing more about later. The private schools doing these sorts of things bug me because it revs up my righteous indignation. The public schools… well that’s where my feelings become mixed.

     D1 See my comment to Kazzy. This is one of those cases where the POV displayed inordinatey matters. A lot. I can agree that they should have talked more to the parents that stuck it out, find out what helped them stick it out, and so on.

     A3 Not histories greatest monster, but someone that everyone really, really wanted to believe. I have a little bit of schadenfreude because I was told for years “everybody knows…” when I was a knuckledragger on the subject.

   • R4 is definitely about using energy from fission plants (could be process heat, could be electricity) to “manufacture” liquid hydrocarbon fuels from sources other than petroleum.

     Too many people don’t understand just how good liquid hydrocarbons are for energy storage. Easy to store, easy to handle, easy to move long distances, easy to refine the nastier contaminants out (eg, sulfur and heavy metals), high chemical energy density, and the energy can be converted to useful form in relatively small and simple devices. Pretty safe, too — we let the typical suburban household store 10-30 gallons of the stuff in their garage every night. Commercial aviation is one of three areas where there aren’t any viable alternatives to liquid hydrocarbons even in sight. The other two are the military, and industrial agriculture. Take away their JP8 and diesel and the US military machine largely comes to a complete halt. To borrow a punchline from somewhere, “What do you call a nuclear aircraft carrier that doesn’t have JP8 for its planes and diesel for its screening ships? A target.”

6. A1- if they make a sexy robot far more then 10% of americans will have sex with it. Certainly a lot more men would.

   D3 and T2 belong together and do suggest the Luddites were right about some things.

   • I can’t remember when I had a tougher time with categorization as I did with this set of links. There were a lot of links I wanted to put together but couldn’t.

7. A4 – The piece glosses over much of the political process on how Yucca Mountain was singled out as the sole site under study.

   More than 90% of US commercial reactors are in the eastern half of the country (east of 100 degrees west longitude). The original plan acknowledged this and proposed two repositories, one in the East and one in the West in order to minimize the perceived risks of hauling waste containers long distances. Candidate eastern sites were eliminated from the list, for the most part, by politics rather than science — for example, removing a possible site might be the price for getting an eastern state’s senators to vote “aye” on a bill on a different topic. The final two alternatives to Yucca Mountain, one in Washington and one in Texas, were removed as part of a budget reconciliation bill. The House Speaker and majority leader (from Texas and Washington respectively) had the amendment added in conference committee. None of Nevada’s Congressional members were on that committee, and TTBOMK, none of them were allowed to bring the subject of the amendment up after the bill come out of the conference committee. Another of Washington’s representatives was blunt about what was happening at the time: “I am participating in a nonscientific process—sticking it to Nevada.”

   I get into arguments about the waste repository too often. I have found that the best way to annoy people — particularly those from the East — who say, “I don’t understand what Nevada is fussing about, nuclear wastes aren’t that dangerous,” is to come back with, “If it’s not that dangerous, why don’t we just bury it 90 miles from the largest city in your state?”

   • I very much couldn’t wait to hear your take on this. Interestingly, there was a time when Utah wanted some of it. Or the money that came with it. Ultimately, I think this is one of those things where you have to exploit the struggling states, to a degree. Offer enough money so that somebody offers up on it. If we want to be fair, anyway. Of course “fairness” to some is “Nobody lives in your state, you’re outnumbered, democracy dictates your screwed and if you object you hate democracy.”

     • I very much couldn’t wait to hear your take on this…. Offer enough money so that somebody offers up on it. If we want to be fair, anyway. Of course “fairness” to some is “Nobody lives in your state, you’re outnumbered, democracy dictates your screwed and if you object you hate democracy.”

       Yeah, poke the paranoid guy :^) With tongue somewhat in cheek — I’m sure you could buy off one of Nevada or Utah if you offered enough. Say, $100K per ton of waste as an annual fee (weight of waste only, not counting the casks). There’s about 60,000 tons of waste, so call it $6B per year. Payments would start lower than that — not all of the spent fuel is cool enough to put in casks and ship yet — but you’ll get there in a decade or so. Enough to replace a large part of the state and local taxes collected in either state. Price it at $200K per ton and it should replace all of the state and local taxes. Probably don’t have to confine the search to the West with this kind of scheme. I suspect that for $6B per year, Mississippi or Louisiana would reconsider the use of one of their deep salt domes.

       Somewhat more seriously, IIRC there are 39 states with commercial power reactors that don’t want the wastes stored in their state. I don’t see them collectively agreeing to add $6B or $12B to their electric bills each year. 39 is enough that they can, with some effort, authorize dumping the wastes in whichever of the other 11 they decide on. To be blunter, 39 is enough to amend the Constitution. Not soon, but in 25-30 years. Like I said, paranoid.

8. F1: Hate it? It’s an opportunity you didn’t know you had!

   • Yeah, but it’s going to be tough to arrange.

9. D3: Monitoring boosts productivity while increasing employee stress, so profits go up, and we can all have more stuff and less mental health. Go, free enterprise system!

   • Now you’re getting it! Yay stuff!

   • Yeah, those studies always show a boost in productivity in the short run. They don’t show total cost of employment turnover, or health care costs, or any one of a number of other contributing factors.

     Inevitably, some idjit reports a very limited finding, someone reads a headline, and goes out and buys a bunch of tracking software and then underpays the IT department to install it and maintain it (another cost not included in the original study).

     Have I mentioned that I hate science reporting?

     • Also see: The Hawthorne Effect

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

       • When I went to work at Bell Labs many years ago, all the new systems engineers had to take a semi-formal “Systems Engineering in the Bell System” class. Labs’ systems engineering indirectly did a lot of the work defining/improving work process flows for the operating telephone companies. The Hawthorne effect was covered in the class as an example of measurement problems in determining if a change in process flow was going to be an improvement in the long term.

         • When I was at Indian Hill Main, writing patches for 5ESS in 55514 Viewmap, the next aisle over was 55516. All 55516 ever did was look at our patches, determining if we’d fixed a specific problem germane to the specific switch we were on — or a general problem germane to all switches. They’d apply general patches to subsequent releases.

         • Not my sort of systems engineering. I was in Holmdel and funded out of the General Departments. Large-scale optimization models for budget and deployment planning, investigation of non-circuit switching (did a bunch of that with the Research folks — the X.25 people hated me), cost/benefit analysis. Somewhere down in the basement I think I’ve got a 5ESS first office application mug. As I recall, my only contribution was coming back to NJ after getting a group of 5ESS developers drunk at an IEEE conference and telling my department head, “If we pry the lid off, 5ESS software development is a year behind schedule, no matter what the official project reports say.” I vaguely remember when the subject of moving some of the switching systems engineering functions to Indian Hill came up, but my kind of stuff wasn’t ever considered for that list.

     • It’s perfect for sweatshops, as opposed to luxurious frills like fire exits.

       • Funny to walk into a group think. Some monitoring is foolish. Some is necessary and prudent. Some works for the short term, others for the long haul.

         The package offered to an employee includes, pay, benefits and working conditions. Over time, the competition across multiple dimensions will determine which approaches win out. My guess is that some monitoring will prove really beneficial in some cases and will even be appreciate by some employees (who after all don’t appreciate free riders).

         • Roger,

           Generally speaking, I agree. Where I start to get testy is when these measures are put in place mid-stream, with little to no warning and without employee input. From a contract perspective, I struggle with it. I recognize that we need to allow room for businesses to adapt and change and experiment with new models and procedures. But we should also demand (via appeals to ethics and positive interpersonal interactions, not via the arm of the state) that businesses generally treat their employees with respect and dignity. This includes soliciting their input and/or giving them proper warning before instituting such sweeping and impactful reforms.

         • From what I have heard from teachers, this is especially true for your profession. I have long suggested that the best reward for teacher performance is actually freedom from the overbearing bureaucracy and red tape. This of course is so totally alien to the bureaucratic mindset that the likelihood of it occuring is near zero.

           In less monopolistic fields, I would place more faith in market forces. Employers compete for employees, and being treated with respect and dignity are important parts of the draw. Stupidity in employee relations creates a head wind for an employer.

           Of course, Mike and LWA will promptly respond (accurately) that the least skilled are least able to leave bad employers. And we are back to “the greedy and the needy” divide. Not only does this division exist, but it requires active and passionate interference to fix….

         • As an aside, Bregna’s atrocious HR monitoring policies didn’t affect black folks because for the most part they didn’t hire any. No one with black skin, no one crippled, nobody over forty (unless you were hired beforehand). They also had hiring mechanisms (an IQ test) that favored college degreed individuals (though they never required a degree). So after hiring, they tended to beat up on the “right” people.

           I think I need to do a Bregna post.

         • Roger,

           I work in an independent school, so my experience is different from most teachers, but as I understand the public system, I agree. I have a lot of autonomy… it is one of the reasons I chose the independent system in general and my school specifically.

           As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m a firm believer in contract law. If I agree to work for an employer with contracted terms A, B, and C, they should not be able to simply change to terms X, Y, and Z without my accepting those terms barring extenuating circumstances. And if they seek to and simply say, “Well, we’ll tear up the contract,” I think that is problematic. People choose where they live, what type of residence they’ll inhabit, where they send their kids to school, and other major decisions that cannot necessarily be switched at the drop of a hat based on the terms of their employment. Employers should be dissuaded from exploiting that to bait-and-switch employees on the terms of their employment.

           I don’t know how it works elsewhere, but the cyclical nature of schools lends itself to yearly contracts. Each year I sign a new contract with new terms and conditions. The contract has a clear start date and end date during which the terms apply. This means I have at least 12 months (and usually more… the contract is often signed well in advance of its start date because of the “hiring season”) during which I have reasonable assurance of how I will be treated as an employee. This is comforting to a great degree.

           Conceding I don’t know all the complexities of other fields, I do think a similar model would be good. I recognize the importance of at-will employment, but I do not think employers ought to bend employees over a barrel because of it.

           “We’re going to film you in the bathroom now. I know you didn’t agree to it, but you can always quit. Good luck making your mortgage payment!”

           I don’t know if that should necessarily be illegal, but it is at the least unethical and immoral and we should not accept that as standard operating procedure.

         • I basically agree. Filming people in the bathroom should be illegal, and building this into an employment contract is unacceptable to just about everyone.

           I am also fine with people standing up in opposition to what they see as unacceptable employment practices. I am fine with them putting out lists of unacceptable employers and unacceptable practices. I am fine with them boycotting.

           Of course, we all know that what this really means is those on the far left will capture these groups, and next thing it will be a political platform for economic illiteracy. It all starts with not filming in the bathroom and asking for sex to keep a job. In fifteen minutes it will really be about living wages and the requirement to never hire someone not joining the union, and requiring a formal set of requirements when terminating employment. Thus people like Mike and LWA will subvert the justification of a good thing for their personal intolerance. As usual, they will do more harm than good, but feel good about doing so.

           When their voluntary efforts fail due to a “race to the bottom” and the selfishness of rampant consumerism (for people to buy cheap tee shirts from the lowset cost producer). They will resort to standardized coercion from the top down. This will lead to well documented distortions in the market, which will lead to lower growth and productivity and higher unemployment. This will lead to ND suggesting some creative social engineering so we can be more like Sweden or Denmark.

           Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

         • Roger,

           I’m not going to comment on Mike or LWA because I haven’t had sufficient conversations with them to know their positions.

           I agree that there should be certain limitations on the terms of employment contracts.

           But let’s take something less obvious than filming in the background. Imagine you went to work for a company under the conditions that you’d work from 9-5. One day, your boss approaches you and says, “We need you to start working the 4am-12pm shift. We need you to start tomorrow. We will not adjust your salary since you are still working an 8 hour shift. If you do not report at 4am tomorrow, you’ll be fired.” Do you consider this fair or appropriate? Note that the boss’s request is in no way punitive; there are regular 4-12 shifts and they are necessary for keeping the business running as it does. He simply wants to move you to that shift because of a shortage of employees there.

         • I do not consider it very fair or appropriate, and strongly support employees forming cooperative arrangements to oppose it, and other employers and media sources capitalizing upon such foolishness.

         • “…strongly support employees forming cooperative arrangements to oppose it…”

           If I may, this would seem to imply you are on board with the idea of unionizing, if not necessarily the current construction and behavior of most existing unions?

           That would mirror my own thinking. My colleagues and I should have every right to assemble, to approach our employer, and say, “We will all leave if you do not meet these terms.” Of course, she ought to have every right to say, “Exit to the left.”

           I recognize that public sector unions present unique challenges to this general model. I’ve seen Radley Balko make really compelling arguments that such should be outlawed. I’m not sure if I’d go quite that far, but I think they necessarily need to function differently because of how far removed the “employer” is from actually managing the consequences of his negotiation. I’ll see if I can dig up how he spelled it out as he did it much better than I would. It was in an exchange in the comments section between he and I on the Agitator, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to. Of course, you might be able to construct a similar argument.

         • Yeah, I support the freedom for employees to form unions and voluntary alliances.

           The concern I have with government employees forming a union is that they a coercive monopoly. I still support their theoretical freedom to voluntarily cooperate together. The danger is that they can use their monopoly power to cooperate to exploit tax payers. The specific problem is with the coercive formation of a monopoly, not with the union though. If taxpayers and citizens have no exit rights or alternatives, the situation is pretty much guaranteed to devolve into one of rent seeking and exploitation.

           I would suggest exchanging the freedom of competing alternatives for the freedom to organize. Once the coercive monopoly is gone, they can unionize all they want.

         • Roger,

           The concern I have with government employees forming a union is that they a coercive monopoly. I still support their theoretical freedom to voluntarily cooperate together. The danger is that they can use their monopoly power to cooperate to exploit tax payers. The specific problem is with the coercive formation of a monopoly, not with the union though. If taxpayers and citizens have no exit rights or alternatives, the situation is pretty much guaranteed to devolve into one of rent seeking and exploitation.

           How is are government workers forming a ‘coercive monopoly’ while other employees are not? I don’t understand the difference; in either case, once a union has been formed, contract would bind agreements, and the only ‘exit rights’ corporations have that governments wouldn’t have would be sale or dissolution.

         • That sounds much like what Balko said, what I remember of it.

           I support unions right to exist (though often disagree with specific tactics specific unions take) but also don’t think they should have any special protections or privileges. They should simply serve as a negotiating strategy, one among many.

         • Edit that: my discussion of exit rights should include re-negotiating contracts, but that would apply to both government and corporations.

         • The union doesn’t create a coercive monopoly. The government created a coercive monopoly. The union just allows the employees to exploit the monopoly and the citizenry’s lack of alternatives.

           Once the state says “only we can pick up your garbage,” and that any competitive garbage service is illegal, then garbage collectors have the ability to establish their own salary. This is unfair to the citizens.

         • Roger, do you believe the government ought to be able to prevent police officers from striking?

         • I guess so. Longer answer would be that I believe that employment contracts offered to potential employees in government mandated monopolies should be required to waive their right to strike.

           Otherwise we have a situation prone to exploitation and duress. “You have to buy it from us and we aren’t going to work until you pay us x.”

       • I admit, I’d rather live in Denmark or Sweden than Bangladesh.

10. Cross inner-ear-stimulation part of T1 with thinness of T4: Develop a mobile phone transceiver that can be worn as a tooth cap. Add a fuel cell for power that burns sugars in the saliva. No more annoying ear-mounted transceiver, and you can subvocalise to, say, dial a number or do transcription. I think I’d find more use from that than the hearing mask they developed.

    The visual part of T1, though–I hope that functionality can be folded into Google Glass!

    • Butt-dialing people is bad enough without introducing tongue-dialing.

      • Burger dialing.

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