RIP Gil Scott-Heron

Lyrics                            Guide to Cultural References

In 1985 he helped compose and sang "Let Me See Your I.D." on the Artists United Against Apartheid album Sun City, containing the famous line, "The first time I heard there was trouble in the Middle East, I thought they were talking about Pittsburgh."

Scott-Heron died on the afternoon of May 27, 2011, at St. Luke's Hospital, New York City, after becoming sick upon returning from a European trip. He is survived by his wife, Brenda Sykes, and daughter, Gia.

Gil Scott-Heron , Rest in Peace

500 Days of Delayed Justice

It's been 500 Days since Jordan Miles was attacked and beaten by three Pittsburgh Police officers. 500 days is a very long time.

It's interesting that the Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees the defendant's right to a speedy trial, but doesn't guarantee the victim any right to a speedy trial of the accused.

Everything gets verklempt when the police are the defendants.

PIttsburgh's Mac Miller : Twitter - Rapper 2.0

Interesting article in Rolling Stone Magazine about Mac Miller, another scion of Pittsburgh (Point Breeze) poised to make the big time as a rapper.

---

Nineteen-Year-Old Twitter Sensation Mac Miller Poised for Hip-Hop Stardom

Rapper is following in the footsteps of fellow Pittsburgh native Wiz Khalifa as he records first LP

"Less than a year removed from Pittsburgh’s Taylor Allderdice High School — former stomping grounds of Wiz Khalifa — Mac Miller is poised for a breakout."


Optional Pittsburgh Newspaper Assignment: Perhaps a journalist could update the previous report and suss out who's doing such a good job at Allderdice. Somebody's doing something right over there.


In keeping with this time of year: Senior Skip Day.

There Are No Secrets: WSJ Jet Tracker, Easy Pass

This is kind of cool, in an Information Wants to be Free sort of way. (I don't subscribe to that concept, I don't think that information wants anything; my view is "Information is increasingly difficult to keep secret or control".)

This story reports that the Wall Street Journal has obtained a copy of the entire Enhanced Traffic Management System (ETMS) database, which contains flight records for aircraft that flew in the U.S. under instrument flight rules. The Journal analyzed the flight data for non-airline, non-military jet aircraft traffic for a four-year period, 2007 through 2010.

The Cool 2.0 thing to do with that data, of course, is to make it available on the web so that other people can do their own cool things with it, and that's exactly what they've done at http://projects.wsj.com/jettracker/.

The flights are indexed by the business that's operating them, so it's not just a list of N-numbers (airplane license plate numbers) - you can search it by corporation. The caveat is that over a 4-year timeframe in a M&A environment, you need to be aware of previous and subsequent corporate names.

Fractional ownership, charter flights, and turboprops are not represented - just corporate-owned jets.

For instance,

Where did Mellon Financial jets go in 2007-2010?

I'm thinking that some clever person familiar with the geographic location of companies could connect the dots in some interesting ways. A mashup with Twitter, Facebook, or FourSquare geo-tags would help.

There really are no secrets, and no privacy, anymore.
Got an EasyPass?

Jordan Miles Interview and the Calculus of Justice in Pittsburgh

Bonus Assignments:
     1. Interpret the non-verbals in these two photos.
     2. Which people would you rather share a meal with? Explain.

• Beating someone does not violate their civil rights (be sure to read the comments)
  
• Dept of Justice report on why no charges were brought.
  
• The Calculus of Justice: it takes at least 250 protesters to get justice, Apparently it's some kind of New Math.
  
• Eighteen months after he was beaten and arrested by Pittsburgh Police, a Jordan Miles interview by Chris Young of Pittsburgh City Paper, a publication that sometimes does more journalism per page than the so-called daily papers.
  

Perp Walks, Perquisites, and Unauthorized Penetration

The Collusion of Power, Police, and the Press: Perp Walks and Presumed Innocence.




Power, Position, and Perquisites: The Subordinate Woman




A nation penetrated at will has no border integrity, an impotent sham defense, and no sovereignty. Examples: Lebanon, Pakistan, the United States.

My Last Rapturous Blog Post, Maybe

This may be my last blog entry; a fringe group has analyzed scripture and determined that the Rapture will occur at 6pm local time Saturday, working its way around the globe one time zone at a time, initiating the "end times" and signalling the Big Finish.

They may be right. Nobody can tell the future, and if you believe the premise of The DaVinci Code (Tom Hanks wouldn't lie) then it's possible that somebody has decoded the hidden secret. New York's Mayor Bloomberg is making preparations.



In case these folks are right, I would like to thank my gentle readers for their support and comments, and I'd like to identify my favorite blog post of 2011, from the Centers for Disease Control.

Zombie Apocalypse

Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse uses the pop-culture Zombie phenomenon to build interest for a discussion of emergency preparedness. This is an excellent communications piece, especially for a government website. My compliments to the authors.

The month of May is, after all, Zombie Awareness Month.

Armageddon is an Opportunity

The moment does present some opportunities.

• You could set outfits of rumpled clothing on the ground, hoping to convince people that the chosen have left and they're still here. (always good for a laugh)
• Since most EOTW believers used up their money and assets (Not to mention not making their beds on Saturday) there will be some quality items up for sale cheap on your local Craigslist on Sunday. I'm looking for a Surly Pugsley for a snow bike, an iPad II, maybe a 3-D printer. It'll be the ultimate Going Out Of Business Sale, with a twist - nobody went out of business!
• At least one entrepreneur is selling contracts to take care of your pets after you go.

See you Sunday. Or Not

Santorum Understands Torture, McCain Doesn't : HOTW

Headline of the Week (HOTW):

• Why is John McCain wrong about torture? Because while Rick Santorum was studying the topic at Penn State, McCain had gotten himself locked up in a foreign prison and missed reading the journal articles.
  
• How does Rick Santorum understand torture? His wife told him what it's like. I think she's had repeated experience.

Go The F To Sleep: An Adult's Bedtime Story

Most parents have probably had the experience of the young child who will not sleep, in spite of all attempts to get them to nod off. The parent may be pushed beyond the point of good humor, beyond the point of exhaustion, and beyond any memory that (at one time) having the kid seemed like a good thing.

This book provides those parents with a coping mechanism that makes explicit and brings out of the closet the dark thought, whether muttered or unsaid, that most parents have experienced: "Go the f--- to sleep. Please."

For the very young child, the content of the book may be irrelevant**; the child has their parent speaking to them in gentle, rhythmic tones. You could be saying anything to the kid, just like you might say to your dog, "Good dog, rover, I wish you were a cat Rover, good dog, you're a jerk, good dog" and the dog just loves it. The content of the book is really for the adult, and by focusing on the likely affective state of the adult reader this book may be doing a great service.

The cats nestle close to their kittens now.
The lambs have laid down with the sheep.
You're cozy and warm in your bed, my dear
Please go the f--k to sleep.

The eagles who soar through the sky are at rest
And the creatures who crawl, run and creep.
I know you're not thirsty. That's bullshit. Stop lying.
Lie the f--k down, my darling, and sleep.

The book is beautifully illustrated.




The profanity is gratuitous, but rather than the button-pushing provocation of a Lenny Bruce these doggerel verses give expression to the frustration that most parents face. They may be the equivalent of "It Gets Better" for parents of young children.

Several Experiments in One

There are a few interesting things about this 32-page book. It hasn't been published. You can't go to the store and buy it, but you can pre-order it at Amazon.com and it's on their best-seller list.

Viral Freemium

It has managed to make the best seller list without any marketing, and without any physical product. A PDF version of the book somehow made it to the web, and it's gone viral. Here's a GoogleDocs link to the book.

It's an interesting marketing experiment. By giving the book away, they're creating buzz, people are pre-ordering the book, and then they're printing the physical book in response to known demand rather than on risky speculation.

When a best-selling book has never been printed yet, there's probably some implications for selling virtual books in the context of e-readers like the Kindle or the Nook.

Beneficial Piracy

They leaked the PDF of the 32-page book hoping that people would distribute it to their friends, in a way tempting/enabling their customers to pirate copies of their intellectual property.

Some people contend that piracy helps content creators more than it hurts - content piracy, that is, not Somalia piracy - because piracy builds demand and grows the total market.

** Infant Learning

The premise of the book is that you might read this to the child because they're just a kid and they won't understand it anyway. It's going to be fun to watch when they ask Grandma, "Want to hear my poem?"

Stuxnet Epidemiology

Let's say you want to disable the Iranian centrifuges. You take some generic thumbdrives and load them with pictures of girls that also contain malware, and you leave them where 22-year old technicians will find them. Viola Voilà, you've set the Iranian nuclear program back five years. Thanks, Frank!

Let's say you want to figure out how widely you can distribute a virus. You might embed it in a children's book PDF, start some buzz about how it exists, and let people hunt for and find the file. They'll do the work for you.

Maybe you know enough to not open zip files of free books from unknown sources, and maybe you'll do what most people do - take it to work and use your work computer to open it. (They have virus protection and IT support).

I hope you don't work at NASA.

That'll keep the grownups awake at night.

The Elders: AARP Meets the Illuminati

Yesterday's NY Times brought the news that The Drudge Report delivers 7% of all web action going to major news outlets, making it the second largest driver of web news traffic. (Google: 20%, Facebook, 3%) If you want something to get major exposure, you get it on the Drudge Report.

Close on the heels of that factoid, today's Drudge showcases this:


The best thing that could happen an organization, web-wise, is a Drudge headline about Hillary Clinton refusing to meet you (in capital letters, no less: HELL No!!)

At that link you'll read that the Secretary of State didn't just refuse to meet with former US President Jimmy Carter — she refused to meet with Jimmy and with former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, in their capacity as two of The Elders.
Potential Caption: "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice Join AARP"

Who Are The Elders?

No, they are not the four sons of Katie Elder.

The Elders is an international non-government organization of public figures noted as elder statesmen, peace activists, and human rights advocates, brought together by Nelson Mandela in 2007. The goal of the group is to solve global problems, using "almost 1,000 years of collective experience" to work on solutions for seemingly insurmountable problems like climate change, HIV/AIDS, and poverty, as well as to "use their political independence to help resolve some of the world's most intractable conflicts".

They have a website, of course: TheElders.com
Potential Caption: "The Elders: AARP meets the Bavarian Illuminati"

Who Do They Think They Are?

They probably think they are former world leaders with a lot of skill, experience, and contacts. They probably think they can make the world a better place. They probably think that's worth trying.

Some Things I like About The Elders

• The have no ties to the military-industrial complex. None, zip, nada.
• They're trying to stop wars, not start them.
• They can travel internationally without fear of arrest for war crimes.
  Jealous: Kissinger, Bush, Rumsfeld.
• 12 Elders. 6 Nobel Peace Prizes. Not bad.
• They look a gajillion times better than these chuckleheads:

Just saying.

Newt Gingrich's "It Gets Better" Message

It Gets Better (I-G-B) (wiki) is a web project developed in response to the suicides of gay teenagers.

It Gets Better hopes to prevent suicides by having adults convey the message that their lives will improve. The project now has its own website, itgetsbetter.org.

Here's an early example from Tim Gunn:


Between YouTube and the It Gets Better website there are more than 10,000 entries, including many celebrities and public figures. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have both posted their own It Gets Better messages.

In an unexpected development, conservative Republican politician and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has posted his own It Gets Better message online.

In his It Gets Better video, Newt Gingrich describes his own teenage difficulties as a 16-year-old in a sexual relationship with his high school math teacher. He talks about the pressures and conflicts involved with being a young person in a non-traditional relationship, dealing with family disapproval and eventually finding an alternative support network.

This is really a surprise. Newt Gingrich's political posture has not been very open or tolerant.

Two Riders Go Off the Front

• The Australian cycling community is in mourning following the unexpected death of 19-year-old cyclist Shamus Liptrot, who died from injuries sustained in a 2007 race.
  
  With about 150 metres to go the lead group including the talented young rider fell to the ground with seven riders hitting the track. Liptrot skidded across the top of the surrounding perimeter fence hitting one of the light poles. He suffered brain trauma, a fractured jaw, femur, and skull.
  
  
• Leopard-Trek's Wouter Weylandt was fatally injured today in a crash on the third stage of the Giro d'Italia. The 26-year-old went down on the Passo del Bocco. Paramedics worked to revive the Belgian, who was airlifted to a nearby hospital. Doctors were unable to revive Weylandt.
  
  Riders were not informed of the grave nature of Weylandt's crash until after his wife was notified because of fears that she would learn of the death via a radio broadcast.
  

I've been doing something wrong. Maybe we all have.

Fascinating piece in the Atlantic (naturally), "Chart of the Day: 9% of Americans are Millionaires". The headline requires some clarification. It really means 9% of American households are million-dollar households.



We notice that the percentage was up to almost 11% just before the housing bubble popped.

I think about this and wonder, "What, what, what have I been doing wrong? I'm a one-in-ten kind of guy, I'm nowhere near a millionaire, what have I been doing wrong?"

And the soothing answers trickle back, There, there, it's just that there's a lot of New Yorkers and Californians in the mix, their real estate has such crazy numbers, there's a lot of Silicon Valley / Google types, and there's a lot of Wall Street / finance types, you haven't done anything wrong per se, just go on about your work, keep punching the clock, move along ...

I still think I must be doing something wrong.

I am a Boomer, and in general We tend to avoid attributing flaws, failures, or responsibilities to ourselves and We prefer to project those perfectly understandable foibles onto the larger population. It's not me, it's societal, damn it. I can't be responsible for that.

I look at the papers and teh interweb and the news and I see how we're trying to fix America's clearly established problems - we're going to pay the teachers less, and we're going to strip the cops and firemen of their union rights, and we're going to gut Medicare/Medicaid, and we're going to defund universal health care and instead of reverting to the previous path we're going to design something much more draconian than the old normal.

• 9% of households are millionaires
• We're going to fix things by reducing teacher, cop, and firefighter pay and benefits

I think we've all been doing something wrong.

The Giro d'Italia (the Italian Tour) starts today

The Grand Tour of 2011 begins today (Saturday).

The Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy, aka The Giro (wiki) is a three week bicycle race held in and around Italy. It is one of the three Grand Tours along with the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España.

The origins of the Giro are similar to those of the Tour de France. The Giro was prompted by competition between two newspapers La Gazzetta dello Sport and Corriere della Sera. La Gazzetta wished to boost its circulation by holding a professional road race based upon the Tour de France and organized along the lines of the Corriere della Sera car rally. The inaugural Giro d'Italia was held in 1909.

Just as the Tour de France's winner's jersey is yellow to remind people of the newspaper using that color paper, the Giro d'Italia's winner in the general classification wears a pink jersey called the maglia rosa, reflecting the paper color of the sports newspaper originally sponsoring the race.

The Italian Tour does have a parallel event for female cyclists, Giro d'Italia Femminile, aka Giro Donne. American Mara Abbot took second in 2009 and first in 2010.

Riders hoping to be a winner in the Tour de France generally use the Giro as a training opportunity and do not seek to win, and riders who contest the Giro usually peak early in the year and are unable to regain their form for the Tour de France.

This has the effect of making the Giro a showcase for younger, up-and-coming riders and some teams (and sponsors) that may not make the Tour de France. Another aspect of the Giro is that conditions in the Alps are still harsh (see the photo of a training ride taken this week, above).

In 2011, the current alpha-Euro-cyclist Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank-SunGard) is riding the Giro, and has insisted that his decision to race has not been influenced by the possibility that he might be forced to forgo the Tour de France due to a positive finding of clembuterol.

Stage One of the 2011 Giro opens Saturday May 7, with a Team Time Trial between Venaria Reale and Turin, a distance of 19.3 km (12 miles).

The Prone : Minimalist NYC Bike Porn

The internet today brings us this photo of a bicycling duo photographed at last weekend's 5 Boro Bike Ride in NYC. The iconic backdrop is the Empire State Building.


Where do they mount the rear reflector, the child-seat, the rear rack, the saddlebags? This bike isn't for carrying groceries or text-books, it's for carrying a thumb-drive.

Although this is pitched as an impromptu "found" photo opportunity, it's really the public rollout of the Prone, a new bike looking for viral buzz. Clues include: (1) they're very clean and un-schmattered, (2) they've got coffee, (3) the pedal-crank on his bike is perfectly aligned with the down-tube (classic bike posing) (4) there's no way she's riding that bike in that skirt - her frame should be a step-through and/or it should have a skirt-guard, (5) you can't get a photo of two New Yorkers without seeing at least one cellphone, and (6) it seems unlikely he'd ride that bicycle for the 35-mile course.

It is a cool new frame that appeals to the urban minimalist aesthetic:


It's an intriguing design. Web-surfing bike enthusiasts wonder, what is that? So you look at the high-res version, hoping to see a brand name or a model name, and instead you see that the photo is designed to deliver the website address, the now-ubiquitous URL. This was known in web 1.0 marketing as "hurl the url".


They do a good job of providing some minimal specs: it's single-speed with a freewheel and a 3.4 gear ratio (90 gear inches), disk brakes, clipless pedals, steel frame. Future versions will include replacing the freewheel with a fixed-gear rig, possibly using a flip-crank instead of a flip-wheel to provide two gear combinations.

I'd like to suggest another upgrade: stick to the Minimalist theme by replacing the front fork with a Cannondale Lefty fork, which only has one fork-arm descending from the frame to the wheel.


Nobody's going to buy one of these to be their main-squeeze bicycle, it's definitely a "second bike" purchase. Of course, it's hard to sell a second bike on a minimalist concept, because then they'd have two bikes... Oops.

National Bike Month: May 2011

May is National Bike Month, and if it ever stops raining we may again see bicyclists out there. Here's a few bicycling links:

• Google Bike Directions
  
• May 16-20: Bike to Work Week
  
• May 20th: Bike to Work Day
  
• May 22nd: Pedal Pittsburgh