geephroh

Absolute must-read for anyone who hasn't already. Postman was remarkably prescient, especially given that it was written in 1985.

Trash pandas

You might check out the Super Mercato Bros podcast. They've done a couple of episodes on the Monkey Island franchise:

http://www.supermarcatobros.com/podcast/tag/monkey+island

(And FWIW, my brother played marimba and some assorted percussion on Escape from Monkey Island. One of his weirdest gigs ever...)

Right now, Slack and Zoom are probably the only things holding my small org's collective culture together. Email just doesn't cut it when we're not in the same physical space anymore.

I..am..so..with..you.

IXL is absolute garbage, as should be expected from any Pearson product. And the morons at Seattle Public Schools are dumping money into that dumpster fire like it's going out of style.

Problem is, while Netsential and the cops who use their services may feel embarrassed, the ones really hurt by the leak are going to be the victims and suspects whose personal information (addresses, ssns, employers, banking info) are now exposed. Now they get to suffer even more because of their interaction with the police.

My non-profit org -- densho.org -- documents and preserves the history of the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans. IA has partnered with us to provide the backend storage and delivery of the 1000+ hours of video oral history interviews in our online digital repository (ddr.densho.org). Their support has been invaluable to our mission to make our materials freely available.

Been able to log into Analytics web dashboard, but get "try again later" errors for all our properties. Been that way since about 8am PDT here in Seattle.

Yep -- was going to say the tagline should be, 'If grandma dies, grandma dies.'

Seattle public schools just announced a two-week closure starting March 12 as well.

Only for the sailors who like to remain alive and well...

And check out the Living Computer Museum if you're in Seattle (https://livingcomputers.org/). They have a ton of systems you can play with including a CDC 6500 and a DEC PDP-8e.

Pro tip: Don't try to punch an extra timing hole.

An apt analogy in that much of the chair's time is spent cleaning up sh*t...

Like tears in the rain. RIP, Rutger.

My org has been using the client and python library for a couple of years to interact with IA. It's a fantastic tool -- Jake Johnson's a superhero in my book!

Funny that there isn't much vitriol directed at Canadians who overstay their visas, despite the fact that they represented the top slot in DHS's own data.[1][2]

[1] https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/...

[2] https://www.dhs.gov/news/2018/08/07/dhs-releases-fiscal-year...

Go Roadrunners!

Came to post this, too. Sounds like he led a full life of boundless curiosity. Really inspirational.

I think the article makes a pretty persuasive argument for the relevance:

"It matters all the more now. On May 14 of last year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law that had forbidden states from legalizing sports gambling within their own borders. It's widely believed that the ruling will lead to a lifting of the interstate prohibition on sports betting, which, in turn, would give rise to a massive increase in the money wagered on American sports. At the same time, the NBA -- which once balked at gambling -- has now openly embraced legalized sports betting more than any other U.S. pro sports league. In 2014, commissioner Adam Silver penned an op-ed in The New York Times advocating for legalization. In July of 2018, he announced a multiyear deal for MGM Resorts to be the 'official gaming partner of the NBA.'"

Postman was ahead of his time. Also worth checking out is his 1985 book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business." Can't say we weren't warned...

"Ask Me About Amazon" -- City of Seattle

Bummer -- sold out already...

My group is part of a coalition organized by the Washington chapter of the ACLU. We have been engaging both Microsoft and Amazon about their surveillance technologies and AI/ML offerings. ACLU-WA, in collaboration with the Northern CA chapter of the ACLU were largely responsible for the well-publicized test of Amazon’s Rekognition using photos of members of Congress against criminal mugshot databases.[1]

[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/amazons-rekognit...

My organization is Densho. We are a civil rights education and digital archive focusing on the history of the WWII Japanese American incarceration experience.

I would recommend reading Oren Etzioni's piece in this month's Communications of the ACM, "Should AI Technology Be Regulated?: Yes, and Here's How."[1] He lays out some very specific, practical ways that regulation can work, while minimizing impacts on innovation.

[1] https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/12/232893-point-should-a...

This is a laudable first step in advocacy for real regulation of a technology that already has huge impacts on privacy and civil society. I was in the room for one of the meetings with Microsoft's senior leadership as a representative of a Seattle-based civil liberties group. While our coalition would like to see MS go further, it was quite clear that they take their commitment to corporate responsibility and ethics around the AI issue very seriously. In particular, they seemed to understand our concerns about how facial recognition technologies can magnify existing biases in our criminal justice system.

This stands in stark contrast to the meeting I attended on Tuesday with Amazon's general counsel regarding their Rekognition service. There was a near complete rejection of the idea that mass deployment of surveillance technologies in today's largely unregulated environment posed any danger to civil society. He also denied that Amazon had any responsibility for the negative impacts of their AI/ML technologies, or role to play in industry efforts to self-regulate.

For anyone who wants to mess around with Face API, MS has a simple python implementation along with a sample desktop app here:

https://github.com/Microsoft/Cognitive-Face-Python

"Seals Used to Protect Voting Machines Can Be Bribed With a Can of Sardines"

It has nothing to do with the technology -- it's all about the land. Dunno how long you've been here, but my brother-in-law grew up in Eastlake when the I-5 corridor and ship canal bridge were under construction. There was a several block wide zone stretching miles right through the middle of the city most of which had been eminent-domained by the government for the project. Give that a try in 2018.