'I never did anything for money. I never set money as a goal. It was a
result." So says Bob Diamond, formerly the chief executive of
Barclays. In doing so Diamond lays waste to the justification that his
bank and others (and their innumerable apologists in government and
the media) have advanced for surreal levels of remuneration – to
incentivise hard work and talent. Prestige, power, a sense of purpose:
for them, these are incentives enough.
Others of his class – Bernie Ecclestone and Jeroen van der Veer (the
former chief executive of Shell), for example – say the same. The
capture by the executive class of so much wealth performs no useful
function. What the very rich appear to value is relative income. If
executives were all paid 5% of current levels, the competition between
them (a questionable virtue anyway) would be no less fierce. As the
immensely rich HL Hunt commented several decades ago: "Money is just a
way of keeping score."
The desire for advancement along this scale appears to be insatiable.
In March Forbes magazine published an article about Prince Alwaleed,
who, like other Saudi princes, doubtless owes his fortune to nothing
more than hard work and enterprise. According to one of the prince's
former employees, the Forbes magazine global rich list "is how he
wants the world to judge his success or his stature".
The result is "a quarter-century of intermittent lobbying, cajoling
and threatening when it comes to his net worth listing". In 2006, the
researcher responsible for calculating his wealth writes, "when Forbes
estimated that the prince was actually worth $7 billion less than he
said he was, he called me at home the day after the list was released,
sounding nearly in tears. 'What do you want?' he pleaded, offering up
his private banker in Switzerland. 'Tell me what you need.'"
Never mind that he has his own 747, in which he sits on a throne
during flights. Never mind that his "main palace" has 420 rooms. Never
mind that he possesses his own private amusement park and zoo – and,
he claims, $700m worth of jewels. Never mind that he's the richest man
in the Arab world, valued by Forbes at $20bn, and has watched his
wealth increase by $2bn in the past year. None of this is enough.
There is no place of arrival, no happy landing, even in a private
jumbo jet. The politics of envy are never keener than among the very
rich.
This pursuit can suck the life out of its adherents. In Lauren
Greenfield's magnificent documentary The Queen of Versailles, David
Siegel – "America's timeshare king" – appears to abandon all interest
in life as he faces the loss of his crown. He is still worth hundreds
of millions. He still has an adoring wife and children. He is still
building the biggest private home in America.
But as the sale of the skyscraper that bears his name and symbolises
his pre-eminence begins to look inevitable, he sinks into an
impenetrable depression. Dead-eyed, he sits alone in his private
cinema, obsessively rummaging through the same pieces of paper, as if
somewhere among them he can find the key to his restoration, refusing
to engage with his family, apparently prepared to ruin himself rather
than lose the stupid tower.
In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is
reconfigured. The welfare state is dismantled. Essential public
services are cut so that the rich may pay less tax. The public realm
is privatised, the regulations restraining the ultra-wealthy and the
companies they control are abandoned, and Edwardian levels of
inequality are almost fetishised.
Politicians justify these changes, when not reciting bogus arguments
about the deficit, with the incentives for enterprise that they
create. Behind that lies the promise or the hint that we will all be
happier and more satisfied as a result. But this mindless, meaningless
accumulation cannot satisfy even its beneficiaries, except perhaps –
and temporarily – the man wobbling on the very top of the pile.
The same applies to collective growth. Governments today have no
vision but endless economic growth. They are judged not by the number
of people in employment – let alone by the number of people in
satisfying, pleasurable jobs – and not by the happiness of the
population or the protection of the natural world. Job-free,
world-eating growth is fine, as long as it's growth. There are no ends
any more, just means.
In their interesting but curiously incomplete book, How Much is
Enough?, Robert and Edward Skidelsky note that "Capitalism rests
precisely on this endless expansion of wants. That is why, for all its
success, it remains so unloved. It has given us wealth beyond measure,
but has taken away the chief benefit of wealth: the consciousness of
having enough ... The vanishing of all intrinsic ends leaves us with
only two options: to be ahead or to be behind. Positional struggle is
our fate."
They note that the nations with the longest working hours – the United
States, the United Kingdom and Italy, in the graph of OECD nations
they publish in the book – are those with the greatest inequality.
They might have added that they are also the three with the lowest
levels of social mobility.
Four possible conclusions could be drawn. The first is that inequality
does indeed encourage people to work harder, as the Skidelskys (and
various neoliberals) maintain: the bigger the gap, the more some
people will strive to try to close it. Or perhaps it's just that more
people, swamped by poverty and debt, are desperate. An alternative
explanation is that economic and political inequality sit together: in
more unequal nations, bosses are able to drive their workers harder.
The fourth possible observation is that the hard work inequality might
stimulate neither closes the gap nor enhances social mobility.
Nor, it seems, does it make us, collectively, any wealthier. The Dutch
earn an average of $42,000 per capita on 1,400 hours a year, the
British $36,000 on 1,650 hours. Inequality, competition and an
obsession with wealth and rank appear to be both self-perpetuating and
destined to sow despair.
Can we not rise above this? To seek satisfactions that don't cost the
earth and might be achievable? The principal aim of any wealthy nation
should now be to say: "Enough already".
guardian
Friday, 10 May 2013
Pakistan's hardliners' political clout protecting them from the law
Throwing money around in mosques is not usually the done thing at
Friday prayers, Islam's weekly holy day.
But when Maulana Ahmed Ludhianvi exhorts the 1,500 followers that cram
into the mosque that towers over the back alleys of Jhang city to put
their hands in their pockets to help his election campaign, the
faithful immediately begin tossing crumpled banknotes in the direction
of their leader.
"Do you truly love the Caliphs of Islam?" he shouts at the crowd.
"Stand up and sacrifice your money like showers of rain!"
There are strict rules banning all campaigning in mosques, but it's
doubtful there will ever be consequences. Ludhianvi's critics say he
is getting away with far worse because the police, the courts and the
election authorities are too scared to touch him.
Many are troubled that a man who has been in and out of prison on
suspicion of terrorism and inciting hatred against Pakistan's minority
Shias should be allowed to run at all.
Ludhianvi is one of dozens of hardline Islamist candidates running in
Saturday's elections whose names have been lodged under a clause in
the country's anti-terrorism law that allows police to keep close tabs
on anyone suspected of involvement in terrorism and sectarian
violence.
In theory Ludhianvi is meant to report to a police station each day,
but he never does, he says.
"He's a proclaimed offender, he should be arrested rather than allowed
to contest elections," said Waqas Akram, the former Pakistan Muslim
League-Nawaz (PML-N) occupant of the Jhang seat who is now
masterminding the extremely close-fought campaign for another
candidate, his father.
Akram says Ludhianvi could have been banned from standing on other
grounds, including failure to declare a number of court cases pending
against him. "He didn't mention a single case against him but none of
the courts will hear our petition," he told the Guardian at a meeting
of party workers in a campaign headquarters complete with a mobile
cage containing a snoozing lion – the big cat being the PML-N's
symbol.
Ludhianvi was one of the leaders of the banned Sunni sectarian group
called Sipah-e-Sabah Pakistan (SSP) that has been linked to hundreds
of murders of Shias, a minority sect of Islam in Pakistan. In recent
years gunmen have hauled Shias off buses on remote mountain roads and
suicide bombers have brought carnage to major cities.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a spin-off organisation from SSP, is one of
Pakistan's most deadly terrorist organisations. Although SSP was
banned more than a decade ago, the organisation simply changed its
name to Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamat (ASWJ), which Ludhianvi heads. ASWJ says
it is fielding more candidates for the national and provincial
assemblies than ever before.
The prospect of Ludhianvi winning a place in parliament will be taken
as a sign that Pakistan is failing to tackle one of the country's most
serious security threats.
Ludhianvi, who came second in 2008, looks well placed to win the seat
he is contesting in Jhang city, a ramshackle town that was the source
of violent sectarianism in the 1980s. Activists claim the anti-Shia
sentiment arose in response to economic hardships among rural workers
who revolted against their Shia landlords. However, there are plenty
of Sunni landlords in Jhang, a vast area comprising several national
assembly seats.
Ludhianvi's followers, all of whom wear little ladders – the electoral
symbol of the alliance of religious parties ASWJ belongs to – have
been going door to door in an impressive effort to get out the vote.
Speaking to the Guardian after prayers in the bedroom of the mosque's
guesthouse, Ludhianvi said that should be no bar to him standing,
saying he had never been convicted. "It is against the most basic
fundamental rights to have to go to a police station each day, to be
put in a cell without a trial," he complained.
Indeed, a common complaint of Pakistan's approach to extremists is
that while they get arrested from time to time, they are eventually
released when the controversy has blown over.
Hasan Askari Rizvi, a security analyst, said candidates like Ludhianvi
are also being protected by the political clout they demonstrate at
election time.
He said: "These groups are using democracy to assure their survival.
They are creating the space that enables them to go around and pursue
their extremist agendas and resort to violence. The government then
finds it very difficult to control them."
For weeks Ludhianvi has been cruising around his constituency in a
four wheel-drive vehicle, holding stump speeches and generally
presenting himself as regular politician.
"I have no anti-Shia agenda, I want to bring peace," he says. "We just
demand that sharia law is fully impended."
He said his main effort if he gets into parliament will be to sponsor
a bill that would further tighten the country's much-criticised
blasphemy laws and introduce sanctions such as hand amputations for
thieves.
But his followers freely speak of their deep revulsion towards Shias.
Mohammad Anwar Saeed, a Ludhianvi aide, said other clauses of the
hoped for bill would include a ban on Shias conducting any religious
events outside their own places of worship.
Traditionally during the month of Muharram members of the Shia
community process through the streets engaging in public acts of
mourning, and even self-flagellation, that hardline Sunnis abhor.
Another worker, when asked why they the party does not canvas among
the town's shias, laughed at the idea. "The Shias are like dogs, we
cannot ask them to vote for us," he said.
Some counter-terror experts argue that groups like ASWJ should be
encouraged to take part in the political process. They hope that they
will concentrate on broadly legal activities, such as preaching and
running welfare organisations, rather than perpetrating acts of
violence and terrorism.
Others are not so sure. "When they were doing politics last time in
Jhang they were killing more people," said Akram, the former national
assembly member for Jhang. "There was more terrorism, more crime and
more attacks on the Shia."
It's a view echoed by Jhang's alarmed Shia community, who remember all
too well the last time an SSP leader held the seat in 2002. "I was
only a child, but a remember seeing bodies in the street and curfews
every night," said Sadar Farrukh, a young English teacher and member
of the Shia community. "We don't want to go back to those times."
guardian
Friday prayers, Islam's weekly holy day.
But when Maulana Ahmed Ludhianvi exhorts the 1,500 followers that cram
into the mosque that towers over the back alleys of Jhang city to put
their hands in their pockets to help his election campaign, the
faithful immediately begin tossing crumpled banknotes in the direction
of their leader.
"Do you truly love the Caliphs of Islam?" he shouts at the crowd.
"Stand up and sacrifice your money like showers of rain!"
There are strict rules banning all campaigning in mosques, but it's
doubtful there will ever be consequences. Ludhianvi's critics say he
is getting away with far worse because the police, the courts and the
election authorities are too scared to touch him.
Many are troubled that a man who has been in and out of prison on
suspicion of terrorism and inciting hatred against Pakistan's minority
Shias should be allowed to run at all.
Ludhianvi is one of dozens of hardline Islamist candidates running in
Saturday's elections whose names have been lodged under a clause in
the country's anti-terrorism law that allows police to keep close tabs
on anyone suspected of involvement in terrorism and sectarian
violence.
In theory Ludhianvi is meant to report to a police station each day,
but he never does, he says.
"He's a proclaimed offender, he should be arrested rather than allowed
to contest elections," said Waqas Akram, the former Pakistan Muslim
League-Nawaz (PML-N) occupant of the Jhang seat who is now
masterminding the extremely close-fought campaign for another
candidate, his father.
Akram says Ludhianvi could have been banned from standing on other
grounds, including failure to declare a number of court cases pending
against him. "He didn't mention a single case against him but none of
the courts will hear our petition," he told the Guardian at a meeting
of party workers in a campaign headquarters complete with a mobile
cage containing a snoozing lion – the big cat being the PML-N's
symbol.
Ludhianvi was one of the leaders of the banned Sunni sectarian group
called Sipah-e-Sabah Pakistan (SSP) that has been linked to hundreds
of murders of Shias, a minority sect of Islam in Pakistan. In recent
years gunmen have hauled Shias off buses on remote mountain roads and
suicide bombers have brought carnage to major cities.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a spin-off organisation from SSP, is one of
Pakistan's most deadly terrorist organisations. Although SSP was
banned more than a decade ago, the organisation simply changed its
name to Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamat (ASWJ), which Ludhianvi heads. ASWJ says
it is fielding more candidates for the national and provincial
assemblies than ever before.
The prospect of Ludhianvi winning a place in parliament will be taken
as a sign that Pakistan is failing to tackle one of the country's most
serious security threats.
Ludhianvi, who came second in 2008, looks well placed to win the seat
he is contesting in Jhang city, a ramshackle town that was the source
of violent sectarianism in the 1980s. Activists claim the anti-Shia
sentiment arose in response to economic hardships among rural workers
who revolted against their Shia landlords. However, there are plenty
of Sunni landlords in Jhang, a vast area comprising several national
assembly seats.
Ludhianvi's followers, all of whom wear little ladders – the electoral
symbol of the alliance of religious parties ASWJ belongs to – have
been going door to door in an impressive effort to get out the vote.
Speaking to the Guardian after prayers in the bedroom of the mosque's
guesthouse, Ludhianvi said that should be no bar to him standing,
saying he had never been convicted. "It is against the most basic
fundamental rights to have to go to a police station each day, to be
put in a cell without a trial," he complained.
Indeed, a common complaint of Pakistan's approach to extremists is
that while they get arrested from time to time, they are eventually
released when the controversy has blown over.
Hasan Askari Rizvi, a security analyst, said candidates like Ludhianvi
are also being protected by the political clout they demonstrate at
election time.
He said: "These groups are using democracy to assure their survival.
They are creating the space that enables them to go around and pursue
their extremist agendas and resort to violence. The government then
finds it very difficult to control them."
For weeks Ludhianvi has been cruising around his constituency in a
four wheel-drive vehicle, holding stump speeches and generally
presenting himself as regular politician.
"I have no anti-Shia agenda, I want to bring peace," he says. "We just
demand that sharia law is fully impended."
He said his main effort if he gets into parliament will be to sponsor
a bill that would further tighten the country's much-criticised
blasphemy laws and introduce sanctions such as hand amputations for
thieves.
But his followers freely speak of their deep revulsion towards Shias.
Mohammad Anwar Saeed, a Ludhianvi aide, said other clauses of the
hoped for bill would include a ban on Shias conducting any religious
events outside their own places of worship.
Traditionally during the month of Muharram members of the Shia
community process through the streets engaging in public acts of
mourning, and even self-flagellation, that hardline Sunnis abhor.
Another worker, when asked why they the party does not canvas among
the town's shias, laughed at the idea. "The Shias are like dogs, we
cannot ask them to vote for us," he said.
Some counter-terror experts argue that groups like ASWJ should be
encouraged to take part in the political process. They hope that they
will concentrate on broadly legal activities, such as preaching and
running welfare organisations, rather than perpetrating acts of
violence and terrorism.
Others are not so sure. "When they were doing politics last time in
Jhang they were killing more people," said Akram, the former national
assembly member for Jhang. "There was more terrorism, more crime and
more attacks on the Shia."
It's a view echoed by Jhang's alarmed Shia community, who remember all
too well the last time an SSP leader held the seat in 2002. "I was
only a child, but a remember seeing bodies in the street and curfews
every night," said Sadar Farrukh, a young English teacher and member
of the Shia community. "We don't want to go back to those times."
guardian
"I will not rest until I see you behind bars."
Guatemala's former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt battles genocide charges
86-year-old denies he was complicit in rape, torture and murder of
indigenous civilians by troops during his rule in 1980s
The former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt has made a last-gasp
effort to assert his innocence as judges prepared to rule on the
charges of genocide and crimes against humanity that he faces.
Breaking the silence he has maintained until now in the historic case,
the 86-year-old used his closing statement on Thursday to deny claims
that he was responsible for the deaths of at least 1,771 Mayan Ixils.
Prosecutors have alleged that, as head of state and the military for
17 months from 1982, Ríos Montt was complicit in the rape, torture and
murder of indigenous civilians carried out by his troops during a
counter-insurgency campaign in the heartlands of the leftist guerrilla
movement.
In an hour-long rebuttal, the elderly defendant blamed his field
commanders, who he said acted autonomously.
"I never authorised, I never signed, I never proposed, I never ordered
an attack against any race, against any ethnic group," he told the
court. "I never did it, and of everything that has been said here,
there has never been any evidence of my participation."
Ríos Montt's intervention provided a dramatic finale to a fraught,
month-long court case that has rekindled painful memories of one of
Latin America's bloodiest civil wars.
An estimated 200,000 people died during the 36-year conflict, while
45,000 others "disappeared". The targeting of the Mayan population –
in an attempt to undermine support for the insurgents – was one of the
grimmest episodes of the battle for control of the country that
finally ended in 1996 with a peace accord.
The prosecutor Orlando López wrapped up the case against Ríos Montt by
summarising the testimonies of almost 100 witnesses: 94 had lost a
family member, 83 had suffered arson attacks, 16 were sexually
assaulted and seven were tortured. He said forensic experts had
examined mass graves that showed many victims, including children,
were killed in assassination-style shootings.
Having presented detailed plans of the chain of command and testimony
from former officers, López said Ríos Montt must have had full
knowledge of the army operations. He demanded 75 years in prison for
the former dictator and his co-defendant, the former intelligence
chief José Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez.
Both defendants deny the charges.
Ríos Montt, who took and lost power as a result of coups, said the
Guatemala he inherited was a failing, bankrupt nation that was full of
"subversive guerrillas". But he insisted that he never ordered
genocide.
Since hearings opened last month, the case has become increasingly
heated. Earlier this week, the defence lawyer García Gudiel reportedly
challenged the authority of the three civilian judges and warned them:
"I will not rest until I see you behind bars."
A verdict and sentence are expected shortly.
86-year-old denies he was complicit in rape, torture and murder of
indigenous civilians by troops during his rule in 1980s
The former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt has made a last-gasp
effort to assert his innocence as judges prepared to rule on the
charges of genocide and crimes against humanity that he faces.
Breaking the silence he has maintained until now in the historic case,
the 86-year-old used his closing statement on Thursday to deny claims
that he was responsible for the deaths of at least 1,771 Mayan Ixils.
Prosecutors have alleged that, as head of state and the military for
17 months from 1982, Ríos Montt was complicit in the rape, torture and
murder of indigenous civilians carried out by his troops during a
counter-insurgency campaign in the heartlands of the leftist guerrilla
movement.
In an hour-long rebuttal, the elderly defendant blamed his field
commanders, who he said acted autonomously.
"I never authorised, I never signed, I never proposed, I never ordered
an attack against any race, against any ethnic group," he told the
court. "I never did it, and of everything that has been said here,
there has never been any evidence of my participation."
Ríos Montt's intervention provided a dramatic finale to a fraught,
month-long court case that has rekindled painful memories of one of
Latin America's bloodiest civil wars.
An estimated 200,000 people died during the 36-year conflict, while
45,000 others "disappeared". The targeting of the Mayan population –
in an attempt to undermine support for the insurgents – was one of the
grimmest episodes of the battle for control of the country that
finally ended in 1996 with a peace accord.
The prosecutor Orlando López wrapped up the case against Ríos Montt by
summarising the testimonies of almost 100 witnesses: 94 had lost a
family member, 83 had suffered arson attacks, 16 were sexually
assaulted and seven were tortured. He said forensic experts had
examined mass graves that showed many victims, including children,
were killed in assassination-style shootings.
Having presented detailed plans of the chain of command and testimony
from former officers, López said Ríos Montt must have had full
knowledge of the army operations. He demanded 75 years in prison for
the former dictator and his co-defendant, the former intelligence
chief José Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez.
Both defendants deny the charges.
Ríos Montt, who took and lost power as a result of coups, said the
Guatemala he inherited was a failing, bankrupt nation that was full of
"subversive guerrillas". But he insisted that he never ordered
genocide.
Since hearings opened last month, the case has become increasingly
heated. Earlier this week, the defence lawyer García Gudiel reportedly
challenged the authority of the three civilian judges and warned them:
"I will not rest until I see you behind bars."
A verdict and sentence are expected shortly.
They want to live forever
They were counting us out. They figured it was the millennials who
were going to come in and save their bacon. But at the end of the day
who's filling up the booths at T.G.I. Fridays? Who's getting the
Lumberjack Slam breakfast at Denny's? Who's dialing up for pizza
because, really, who feels like cooking tonight?
Baby boomers, that's who.
A recent study by a market research company, the NPD Group, found that
over the last five years, restaurant visits by boomers and older
Americans have grown steadily, while those by millennials (basically
people under 30) have declined.
It wasn't supposed to be this way.
Bonnie Riggs, NPD's restaurant industry analyst, said the assumption
had been that baby boomers would follow traditional patterns and spend
less on dining out as they got older. "So even though there are a lot
of them," she said, "they were not going to provide the support to the
industry that they had when they were younger. Well, lo and behold,
that turned out not to be true."
We'll get to why that might be in a moment, but first a word of
reassurance for our millennial friends: we are not trying to pick a
fight. We know it has been a tough week for you. Just the other day,
the folks at the Institute of Politics at Harvard put out a report
describing you as disillusioned with major institutions and turned off
by politicians. If you feel like just staying home and eating ramen,
we understand.
But we're heading out! Cause that's what we boomers do.
In fact, that might help explain why older Americans now are hitting
restaurants at an age when many people before them were slowing down.
"The baby boomers, not surprisingly, are America's most-experienced
restaurant generation," said Hudson Riehle, a senior vice president at
the National Restaurant Association. (They also helped fuel the
take-out food market, so the next time you see a pizza truck bearing
down on you, thank a boomer.)
Simple economics also plays a role. Many boomers are retiring later
than people did in generations before them, giving them more
disposable income. And they are also likely to be earning more than
younger people, many of whom have been especially hard hit by the
economic downturn.
But some if it comes down to attitude. "The boomers happen to be very
different than their predecessors," Ms. Riggs said. "They act younger.
They eat younger. They want to live forever."
That seems unlikely to happen. In fact, restaurant owners who want to
keep boomers' business will have to think about things like readable
menus for aging eyes and reduced ambient noise for aging ears, experts
say. They will also need to make sure the furniture is comfortable.
And a restaurant association study suggests that they may need to
tread carefully when it comes to restaurant features that appeal to
younger people, like electronic ordering systems at tables.
The NPD study found that boomers and older people have increased their
share of restaurant traffic by six percentage points, while
Millennials have decreased their share by the same amount. This
suggests, the group said, that restaurants that had been aiming their
marketing at the younger audience need to rethink their approach.
One of the ways NPD measures consumer behavior is with a longstanding
survey involving 3,000 people at a time. "We go out every day and ask
them what they did yesterday," Ms. Riggs said.
This, of course, may pose a problem for many boomers:
Who remembers?
nyt
were going to come in and save their bacon. But at the end of the day
who's filling up the booths at T.G.I. Fridays? Who's getting the
Lumberjack Slam breakfast at Denny's? Who's dialing up for pizza
because, really, who feels like cooking tonight?
Baby boomers, that's who.
A recent study by a market research company, the NPD Group, found that
over the last five years, restaurant visits by boomers and older
Americans have grown steadily, while those by millennials (basically
people under 30) have declined.
It wasn't supposed to be this way.
Bonnie Riggs, NPD's restaurant industry analyst, said the assumption
had been that baby boomers would follow traditional patterns and spend
less on dining out as they got older. "So even though there are a lot
of them," she said, "they were not going to provide the support to the
industry that they had when they were younger. Well, lo and behold,
that turned out not to be true."
We'll get to why that might be in a moment, but first a word of
reassurance for our millennial friends: we are not trying to pick a
fight. We know it has been a tough week for you. Just the other day,
the folks at the Institute of Politics at Harvard put out a report
describing you as disillusioned with major institutions and turned off
by politicians. If you feel like just staying home and eating ramen,
we understand.
But we're heading out! Cause that's what we boomers do.
In fact, that might help explain why older Americans now are hitting
restaurants at an age when many people before them were slowing down.
"The baby boomers, not surprisingly, are America's most-experienced
restaurant generation," said Hudson Riehle, a senior vice president at
the National Restaurant Association. (They also helped fuel the
take-out food market, so the next time you see a pizza truck bearing
down on you, thank a boomer.)
Simple economics also plays a role. Many boomers are retiring later
than people did in generations before them, giving them more
disposable income. And they are also likely to be earning more than
younger people, many of whom have been especially hard hit by the
economic downturn.
But some if it comes down to attitude. "The boomers happen to be very
different than their predecessors," Ms. Riggs said. "They act younger.
They eat younger. They want to live forever."
That seems unlikely to happen. In fact, restaurant owners who want to
keep boomers' business will have to think about things like readable
menus for aging eyes and reduced ambient noise for aging ears, experts
say. They will also need to make sure the furniture is comfortable.
And a restaurant association study suggests that they may need to
tread carefully when it comes to restaurant features that appeal to
younger people, like electronic ordering systems at tables.
The NPD study found that boomers and older people have increased their
share of restaurant traffic by six percentage points, while
Millennials have decreased their share by the same amount. This
suggests, the group said, that restaurants that had been aiming their
marketing at the younger audience need to rethink their approach.
One of the ways NPD measures consumer behavior is with a longstanding
survey involving 3,000 people at a time. "We go out every day and ask
them what they did yesterday," Ms. Riggs said.
This, of course, may pose a problem for many boomers:
Who remembers?
nyt
why pay more?
When Radosław Sikorski, Poland's foreign minister, went to Ukraine for
talks last month, his Ukrainian counterparts reportedly laughed at him
because he was wearing a Japanese quartz watch that cost only $165. A
Ukrainian newspaper reported on the preferences of Ukrainian
ministers, several of whom have watches that cost more than $30,000.
Even a Communist member of Ukraine's parliament, the Rada, was shown
wearing a watch that retails for more than $6,000.
The laughter should have gone in the opposite direction. Wouldn't you
laugh (maybe in private, to avoid being impolite) at someone who pays
more than 200 times as much as you do, and ends up with an inferior
product?
That is what the Ukrainians have done. They could have bought an
accurate, lightweight, maintenance-free quartz watch that can run for
five years, keeping virtually perfect time, without ever being moved
or wound. Instead, they paid far more for clunkier watches that can
lose minutes every month, and that will stop if you forget to wind
them for a day or two (if they have an automatic mechanism, they will
stop if you don't move them). In addition, the quartz watches also
have integrated alarm, stopwatch, and timer functions that the other
watches either lack, or that serve only as a design-spoiling,
hard-to-read effort to keep up with the competition.
Why would any wise shopper accept such a bad bargain? Out of
nostalgia, perhaps? A full-page ad for Patek Philippe has Thierry
Stern, the president of the company, saying that he listens to the
chime of every watch with a minute repeater that his company makes, as
his father and grandfather did before him. That's all very nice, but
since the days of Stern's grandfather, we have made progress in
time-keeping. Why reject the improvements that human ingenuity has
provided to us? I have an old fountain pen that belonged to my
grandmother; it's a nice memento of her, but I wouldn't dream of using
it to write this column.
Thorstein Veblen knew the answer. In his classic The Theory of the
Leisure Class, published in 1899, he argued that once the basis of
social status became wealth itself – rather than, say, wisdom,
knowledge, moral integrity, or skill in battle – the rich needed to
find ways of spending money that had no other objective than the
display of wealth itself. He termed this "conspicuous consumption."
Veblen wrote as a social scientist, refraining from rendering moral
judgments, though he left readers in little doubt about his attitude
toward such expenditure in a time when many lived in poverty.
Wearing a ridiculously expensive watch to proclaim that one has
achieved an elevated social standing seems especially immoral for a
public official in a country where a significant portion of the
population still lives in real poverty. These officials are wearing on
their wrists the equivalent of four or five years of an average
Ukrainian's salary. That tells Ukrainian taxpayers either that they
are paying their public servants too much, or that their public
servants have other ways of getting money to buy watches that they
would not be able to afford otherwise.
The Chinese government knows what those "other ways" might be. As the
International Herald Tribune reports, one aspect of the Chinese
government's campaign against corruption is a clampdown on expensive
gifts. As a result, according to Jon Cox, an analyst at Kepler Capital
Markets, "it's no longer acceptable to have a big chunky watch on your
wrist." The Chinese market for expensive watches is in steep decline.
Ukrainians, take note.
Wearing a watch that costs 200 times more than one that does a better
job of keeping time says something else, even when it is worn by
people who are not governing a relatively poor country. Andrew
Carnegie, the richest man of Veblen's era, was blunt in his moral
judgments. "The man who dies rich," he is often quoted as saying,
"dies disgraced."
We can adapt that judgment to the man or woman who wears a $30,000
watch or buys similar luxury goods, like a $12,000 handbag.
Essentially, such a person is saying; "I am either extraordinarily
ignorant, or just plain selfish. If I were not ignorant, I would know
that children are dying from diarrhea or malaria, because they lack
safe drinking water, or mosquito nets, and obviously what I have spent
on this watch or handbag would have been enough to help several of
them survive; but I care so little about them that I would rather
spend my money on something that I wear for ostentation alone."
Of course, we all have our little indulgences. I am not arguing that
every luxury is wrong. But to mock someone for having a sensible watch
at a modest price puts pressure on others to join the quest for
ever-greater extravagance. That pressure should be turned in the
opposite direction, and we should celebrate those, like Sikorski, with
modest tastes and higher priorities than conspicuous consumption.
project syndicate
talks last month, his Ukrainian counterparts reportedly laughed at him
because he was wearing a Japanese quartz watch that cost only $165. A
Ukrainian newspaper reported on the preferences of Ukrainian
ministers, several of whom have watches that cost more than $30,000.
Even a Communist member of Ukraine's parliament, the Rada, was shown
wearing a watch that retails for more than $6,000.
The laughter should have gone in the opposite direction. Wouldn't you
laugh (maybe in private, to avoid being impolite) at someone who pays
more than 200 times as much as you do, and ends up with an inferior
product?
That is what the Ukrainians have done. They could have bought an
accurate, lightweight, maintenance-free quartz watch that can run for
five years, keeping virtually perfect time, without ever being moved
or wound. Instead, they paid far more for clunkier watches that can
lose minutes every month, and that will stop if you forget to wind
them for a day or two (if they have an automatic mechanism, they will
stop if you don't move them). In addition, the quartz watches also
have integrated alarm, stopwatch, and timer functions that the other
watches either lack, or that serve only as a design-spoiling,
hard-to-read effort to keep up with the competition.
Why would any wise shopper accept such a bad bargain? Out of
nostalgia, perhaps? A full-page ad for Patek Philippe has Thierry
Stern, the president of the company, saying that he listens to the
chime of every watch with a minute repeater that his company makes, as
his father and grandfather did before him. That's all very nice, but
since the days of Stern's grandfather, we have made progress in
time-keeping. Why reject the improvements that human ingenuity has
provided to us? I have an old fountain pen that belonged to my
grandmother; it's a nice memento of her, but I wouldn't dream of using
it to write this column.
Thorstein Veblen knew the answer. In his classic The Theory of the
Leisure Class, published in 1899, he argued that once the basis of
social status became wealth itself – rather than, say, wisdom,
knowledge, moral integrity, or skill in battle – the rich needed to
find ways of spending money that had no other objective than the
display of wealth itself. He termed this "conspicuous consumption."
Veblen wrote as a social scientist, refraining from rendering moral
judgments, though he left readers in little doubt about his attitude
toward such expenditure in a time when many lived in poverty.
Wearing a ridiculously expensive watch to proclaim that one has
achieved an elevated social standing seems especially immoral for a
public official in a country where a significant portion of the
population still lives in real poverty. These officials are wearing on
their wrists the equivalent of four or five years of an average
Ukrainian's salary. That tells Ukrainian taxpayers either that they
are paying their public servants too much, or that their public
servants have other ways of getting money to buy watches that they
would not be able to afford otherwise.
The Chinese government knows what those "other ways" might be. As the
International Herald Tribune reports, one aspect of the Chinese
government's campaign against corruption is a clampdown on expensive
gifts. As a result, according to Jon Cox, an analyst at Kepler Capital
Markets, "it's no longer acceptable to have a big chunky watch on your
wrist." The Chinese market for expensive watches is in steep decline.
Ukrainians, take note.
Wearing a watch that costs 200 times more than one that does a better
job of keeping time says something else, even when it is worn by
people who are not governing a relatively poor country. Andrew
Carnegie, the richest man of Veblen's era, was blunt in his moral
judgments. "The man who dies rich," he is often quoted as saying,
"dies disgraced."
We can adapt that judgment to the man or woman who wears a $30,000
watch or buys similar luxury goods, like a $12,000 handbag.
Essentially, such a person is saying; "I am either extraordinarily
ignorant, or just plain selfish. If I were not ignorant, I would know
that children are dying from diarrhea or malaria, because they lack
safe drinking water, or mosquito nets, and obviously what I have spent
on this watch or handbag would have been enough to help several of
them survive; but I care so little about them that I would rather
spend my money on something that I wear for ostentation alone."
Of course, we all have our little indulgences. I am not arguing that
every luxury is wrong. But to mock someone for having a sensible watch
at a modest price puts pressure on others to join the quest for
ever-greater extravagance. That pressure should be turned in the
opposite direction, and we should celebrate those, like Sikorski, with
modest tastes and higher priorities than conspicuous consumption.
project syndicate
The Food-Truck Business Stinks
Stefan Nafziger seemed oddly downbeat for a guy watching a dozen or so
hungry people line up to buy his falafels. Three years ago, when it
seemed as if food trucks might take over Manhattan, he planned to have
a fleet of his Taim trucks dispensing Middle Eastern fare throughout
the city. He even got a Wall Street investor. Now, he says, his one
truck barely justifies the cost.
I was originally hoping that Nafziger would help me figure out a
decidedly New York puzzle. As I was walking through Prospect Park
recently, I wanted to find a healthful snack for my son and something
for me. The only options, though, were the same sort of carts that my
dad took me to in the '70s: Good Humor ice cream, overpriced cans of
soda and overboiled hot dogs sitting in cloudy water. This seemed
ridiculous. In the past few decades, food in New York City has gone
through a complete transformation, but the street-vendor market, which
should be more nimble, barely budges. Shouldn't there be four Wafels &
Dinges trucks for every hot-dog cart?
David Weber, president of the New York City Food Truck Association,
explained that the ratio is more like 25 to 1 the other way. That's
because despite the inherent attractiveness of cute trucks and clever
food options, the business stinks. There are numerous (and sometimes
conflicting) regulations required by the departments of Health,
Sanitation, Transportation and Consumer Affairs. These rules are
enforced, with varying consistency, by the New York Police Department.
As a result, according to City Councilman Dan Garodnick, it's nearly
impossible (even if you fill out the right paperwork) to operate a
truck without breaking some law. Trucks can't sell food if they're
parked in a metered space . . . or if they're within 200 feet of a
school . . . or within 500 feet of a public market . . . and so on.
Enforcement is erratic. Trucks in Chelsea are rarely bothered,
Nafziger said. In Midtown South, where I work and can attest to the
desperate need for more lunch options, the N.Y.P.D. has a dedicated
team of vendor-busting cops. "One month, we get no tickets," Thomas
DeGeest, the founder of Wafels & Dinges, a popular mobile-food
businesses that sells waffles and things, told me. "The next month, we
get tickets every day." DeGeest had two trucks and five carts when he
decided he couldn't keep investing in a business that was so
vulnerable to overzealous cops or city bureaucracy. Instead, DeGeest
reluctantly decided to open a regular old stationary restaurant.
Nafziger also knows well the regulatory hassles of the business. After
one of his employees spent eight hours in jail for selling falafel
without a license, he strictly follows the rule insisting that every
mobile-food employee has Health Department certification. The trouble
is that he needs to employ four people, each with his own license; if
one quits, it can take two months for a new worker to get the proper
paperwork. Nafziger said he holds on to his truck only because it's
basically a moving billboard for his two, more successful
brick-and-mortar restaurants, in Greenwich Village and NoLIta. And
stationary restaurants, by the way, require that only a single
employee on duty have a Health Department certification.
Nafziger and DeGeest may have become experts in the rules and
regulations, but many of the city's vendors are constantly flummoxed.
I spent one recent morning in the offices of the Street Vendor
Project, a worker-advocacy group. As I sat with Sean Basinski, the
group's founder, a stream of vendors came in with pink tickets in
their hands. One woman, an Ecuadorean immigrant who sells kebabs in
Bushwick, Brooklyn, handed Basinski the six tickets that she and her
husband received on a single afternoon. The total came to $2,850,
which, she said, was much more than what she makes in a good week. She
had a street-vendor's license, she said, but didn't understand that
she also needed a separate permit for her cart.
The food-truck business, I realized, is a classic case of bureaucratic
inertia. The city has a right to weigh the interests of food-market
owners (who don't want food trucks blocking their windows) and diners
(who deserve to know that their street meat is edible, and harmless).
But many of the rules governing location were written decades ago. In
the '80s, the city capped the number of carts and trucks at 3,000
(plus 1,000 more from April to October). Technically, a permit for a
food cart or truck is not transferable, but Andrew Rigie, executive
director of the N.Y.C. Hospitality Alliance, said that vendors
regularly pay permit holders something like $15,000 to $20,000 to
lease their certificates for two years. Legally, the permit holder
becomes a junior partner in the new business.
As Rigie spoke, I was reminded of corrupt countries that I've visited,
like Iraq and Haiti, where illogical and arbitrarily enforced rules
create the wrong set of incentives. Perhaps the biggest winner in our
current system is an obscure type of business known as an authorized
commissary. By city law, every food cart and truck must visit a
licensed commissary each day, where a set of mandated cleaning
services can be performed. These commissaries also sell and rent carts
and sell vendors food, soda, ice cream and propane. Rigie told me that
many commissary owners make a bit extra by acting as informal brokers,
facilitating the not-quite-legal trade of permits, which, by some
estimates, is a $15 million-a-year business. Given their city-mandated
stream of business, these commissaries have essentially formed an
oligopoly. As a result, they have little incentive to compete
aggressively by offering different kinds of food. No wonder we have an
oversupply of hot dogs and knishes and nowhere near enough waffles and
falafels.
Economically speaking, the problem is a standard one, known as the
J-curve, which represents a downslope on a graph followed by a steep
rise. Some sensible changes to the current food-vendor system may have
long-term benefits for everyone, but the immediate impact could spell
short-term losses for those who now profit from the system. A small
group of New Yorkers — particularly owners of commissaries and
physical restaurants — are highly motivated to lobby politicians not
to change things. And most of the potential beneficiaries don't
realize they're missing out. Many of the rest of us would love to have
more varied food trucks, but we don't care enough to pressure the City
Council.
The one group that clearly suffers from the current system — the
ticketed vendors — are often poorly paid immigrants without legal
status and virtually no power. This sort of dynamic more or less sums
up the economies of the third world. Economists generally agree that
one of the distinguishing factors between rich countries and poor ones
is that it is much easier to start businesses in rich countries. In
Ecuador, for example, it takes about 56 days and 13 separate
procedures to get all the legal paperwork done to start a new
business. In the United States, it's an average of six days and six
procedures. But if you want to open a mobile-food business in New
York, it's essentially like starting a business in Ecuador — and
that's if you can somehow arrange a permit.
After I left Prospect Park, I went home and began to read about
Portland, Ore. The city embraced food-truck and cart culture and has
made the procedure for starting a business remarkably easy. I found a
Web site listing the carts and trucks operating there: Caribbean,
Cajun, Central American, creperie, Cambodian, Cuban, Czech. And that's
just the C's.
nyt
hungry people line up to buy his falafels. Three years ago, when it
seemed as if food trucks might take over Manhattan, he planned to have
a fleet of his Taim trucks dispensing Middle Eastern fare throughout
the city. He even got a Wall Street investor. Now, he says, his one
truck barely justifies the cost.
I was originally hoping that Nafziger would help me figure out a
decidedly New York puzzle. As I was walking through Prospect Park
recently, I wanted to find a healthful snack for my son and something
for me. The only options, though, were the same sort of carts that my
dad took me to in the '70s: Good Humor ice cream, overpriced cans of
soda and overboiled hot dogs sitting in cloudy water. This seemed
ridiculous. In the past few decades, food in New York City has gone
through a complete transformation, but the street-vendor market, which
should be more nimble, barely budges. Shouldn't there be four Wafels &
Dinges trucks for every hot-dog cart?
David Weber, president of the New York City Food Truck Association,
explained that the ratio is more like 25 to 1 the other way. That's
because despite the inherent attractiveness of cute trucks and clever
food options, the business stinks. There are numerous (and sometimes
conflicting) regulations required by the departments of Health,
Sanitation, Transportation and Consumer Affairs. These rules are
enforced, with varying consistency, by the New York Police Department.
As a result, according to City Councilman Dan Garodnick, it's nearly
impossible (even if you fill out the right paperwork) to operate a
truck without breaking some law. Trucks can't sell food if they're
parked in a metered space . . . or if they're within 200 feet of a
school . . . or within 500 feet of a public market . . . and so on.
Enforcement is erratic. Trucks in Chelsea are rarely bothered,
Nafziger said. In Midtown South, where I work and can attest to the
desperate need for more lunch options, the N.Y.P.D. has a dedicated
team of vendor-busting cops. "One month, we get no tickets," Thomas
DeGeest, the founder of Wafels & Dinges, a popular mobile-food
businesses that sells waffles and things, told me. "The next month, we
get tickets every day." DeGeest had two trucks and five carts when he
decided he couldn't keep investing in a business that was so
vulnerable to overzealous cops or city bureaucracy. Instead, DeGeest
reluctantly decided to open a regular old stationary restaurant.
Nafziger also knows well the regulatory hassles of the business. After
one of his employees spent eight hours in jail for selling falafel
without a license, he strictly follows the rule insisting that every
mobile-food employee has Health Department certification. The trouble
is that he needs to employ four people, each with his own license; if
one quits, it can take two months for a new worker to get the proper
paperwork. Nafziger said he holds on to his truck only because it's
basically a moving billboard for his two, more successful
brick-and-mortar restaurants, in Greenwich Village and NoLIta. And
stationary restaurants, by the way, require that only a single
employee on duty have a Health Department certification.
Nafziger and DeGeest may have become experts in the rules and
regulations, but many of the city's vendors are constantly flummoxed.
I spent one recent morning in the offices of the Street Vendor
Project, a worker-advocacy group. As I sat with Sean Basinski, the
group's founder, a stream of vendors came in with pink tickets in
their hands. One woman, an Ecuadorean immigrant who sells kebabs in
Bushwick, Brooklyn, handed Basinski the six tickets that she and her
husband received on a single afternoon. The total came to $2,850,
which, she said, was much more than what she makes in a good week. She
had a street-vendor's license, she said, but didn't understand that
she also needed a separate permit for her cart.
The food-truck business, I realized, is a classic case of bureaucratic
inertia. The city has a right to weigh the interests of food-market
owners (who don't want food trucks blocking their windows) and diners
(who deserve to know that their street meat is edible, and harmless).
But many of the rules governing location were written decades ago. In
the '80s, the city capped the number of carts and trucks at 3,000
(plus 1,000 more from April to October). Technically, a permit for a
food cart or truck is not transferable, but Andrew Rigie, executive
director of the N.Y.C. Hospitality Alliance, said that vendors
regularly pay permit holders something like $15,000 to $20,000 to
lease their certificates for two years. Legally, the permit holder
becomes a junior partner in the new business.
As Rigie spoke, I was reminded of corrupt countries that I've visited,
like Iraq and Haiti, where illogical and arbitrarily enforced rules
create the wrong set of incentives. Perhaps the biggest winner in our
current system is an obscure type of business known as an authorized
commissary. By city law, every food cart and truck must visit a
licensed commissary each day, where a set of mandated cleaning
services can be performed. These commissaries also sell and rent carts
and sell vendors food, soda, ice cream and propane. Rigie told me that
many commissary owners make a bit extra by acting as informal brokers,
facilitating the not-quite-legal trade of permits, which, by some
estimates, is a $15 million-a-year business. Given their city-mandated
stream of business, these commissaries have essentially formed an
oligopoly. As a result, they have little incentive to compete
aggressively by offering different kinds of food. No wonder we have an
oversupply of hot dogs and knishes and nowhere near enough waffles and
falafels.
Economically speaking, the problem is a standard one, known as the
J-curve, which represents a downslope on a graph followed by a steep
rise. Some sensible changes to the current food-vendor system may have
long-term benefits for everyone, but the immediate impact could spell
short-term losses for those who now profit from the system. A small
group of New Yorkers — particularly owners of commissaries and
physical restaurants — are highly motivated to lobby politicians not
to change things. And most of the potential beneficiaries don't
realize they're missing out. Many of the rest of us would love to have
more varied food trucks, but we don't care enough to pressure the City
Council.
The one group that clearly suffers from the current system — the
ticketed vendors — are often poorly paid immigrants without legal
status and virtually no power. This sort of dynamic more or less sums
up the economies of the third world. Economists generally agree that
one of the distinguishing factors between rich countries and poor ones
is that it is much easier to start businesses in rich countries. In
Ecuador, for example, it takes about 56 days and 13 separate
procedures to get all the legal paperwork done to start a new
business. In the United States, it's an average of six days and six
procedures. But if you want to open a mobile-food business in New
York, it's essentially like starting a business in Ecuador — and
that's if you can somehow arrange a permit.
After I left Prospect Park, I went home and began to read about
Portland, Ore. The city embraced food-truck and cart culture and has
made the procedure for starting a business remarkably easy. I found a
Web site listing the carts and trucks operating there: Caribbean,
Cajun, Central American, creperie, Cambodian, Cuban, Czech. And that's
just the C's.
nyt
Wednesday, 8 May 2013
Courting controversy: Facebook's 'confession pages'
It remains to be seen whether this latest trend in social media is a boon or a bane, says Paloma Sharma. Illustrations: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com
On March 29 this year, Dr Mansing Pawar, Dean of Mumbai's Government Dental College, was forced to lodge an official complaint against a Facebook page titled 'GDC Mumbai Confessions' with the city police's Cyber Crime Cell.
The 'confessions' GDC students posted on this page contained derogatory remarks about female classmates and criticism of the teachers, the dean and the college -- and although the page had been taken down a day before the official complaint was filed, the police are still on a hunt for the perpetrators.
While this is an extreme case of misuse of the latest trend in social media, ie Facebook's 'confession pages', it is far from being the only one. The Mumbai police have sent notices to the administrators of five other confession pages, two of which are attributed to disgruntled students of Jai Hind College, and Holy Angels High School and Junior College. It is also believed that confession pages of prestigious Mumbai schools like Jamnabai Narsee have been nipped in the bud by internal forces.
Confessions posted on these pages may be a source of entertainment to those who write or read them, but they can cause serious embarrassment to the teachers or classmates they target. Almost always, these confessions are made from behind a veil of anonymity that empowers the writer to post practically anything and get away with it. Although the administrators of confession pages must censor obscene remarks and other explicit content, they often allow inappropriate material to be posted to make it more 'exciting'.
Facebook's confession pages went viral a few months ago and now the problem has spiralled out of control. With every other school, college or residential complex getting its own confession page, the situation has become highly volatile. A majority of young, regular Facebook users is active, on an average, on at least two confession pages -- that of their school/college, and the locality they reside in. Though not all confession pages are misused, the risk lingers and a single malicious comment from an unknown source can create social paranoia in an individual or affected minority.
Google Glass Picks Up Early Signal: Keep Out
SAN FRANCISCO — Google's wearable computer, the most anticipated piece of electronic wizardry since the iPad and iPhone, will not go on sale for many months.
But the resistance is already under way.
The glasseslike device, which allows users to access the Internet, take photos and film short snippets, has been pre-emptively banned by a Seattle bar. Large parts of Las Vegas will not welcome wearers. West Virginia legislators tried to make it illegal to use the gadget, known as Google Glass, while driving.
"This is just the beginning," said Timothy Toohey, a Los Angeles lawyer specializing in privacy issues. "Google Glass is going to cause quite a brawl."
As personal technology becomes increasingly nimble and invisible, Glass is prompting questions of whether it will distract drivers, upend relationships and strip people of what little privacy they still have in public.
A pair of lens-less frames with a tiny computer attached to the right earpiece, Glass is promoted by Google as "seamless and empowering." It will have the ability to capture any chance encounter, from a celebrity sighting to a grumpy salesclerk, and broadcast it to millions in seconds.
"We are all now going to be both the paparazzi and the paparazzi's target," said Karen L. Stevenson, a lawyer with Buchalter Nemer in Los Angeles.
full report
But the resistance is already under way.
The glasseslike device, which allows users to access the Internet, take photos and film short snippets, has been pre-emptively banned by a Seattle bar. Large parts of Las Vegas will not welcome wearers. West Virginia legislators tried to make it illegal to use the gadget, known as Google Glass, while driving.
"This is just the beginning," said Timothy Toohey, a Los Angeles lawyer specializing in privacy issues. "Google Glass is going to cause quite a brawl."
As personal technology becomes increasingly nimble and invisible, Glass is prompting questions of whether it will distract drivers, upend relationships and strip people of what little privacy they still have in public.
A pair of lens-less frames with a tiny computer attached to the right earpiece, Glass is promoted by Google as "seamless and empowering." It will have the ability to capture any chance encounter, from a celebrity sighting to a grumpy salesclerk, and broadcast it to millions in seconds.
"We are all now going to be both the paparazzi and the paparazzi's target," said Karen L. Stevenson, a lawyer with Buchalter Nemer in Los Angeles.
full report
Easing Brain Fatigue With a Walk in the Park
Scientists have known for some time that the human brain's ability to stay calm and focused is limited and can be overwhelmed by the constant noise and hectic, jangling demands of city living, sometimes resulting in a condition informally known as brain fatigue.
With brain fatigue, you are easily distracted, forgetful and mentally flighty — or, in other words, me.
But an innovative new study from Scotland suggests that you can ease brain fatigue simply by strolling through a leafy park.
The idea that visiting green spaces like parks or tree-filled plazas lessens stress and improves concentration is not new. Researchers have long theorized that green spaces are calming, requiring less of our so-called directed mental attention than busy, urban streets do. Instead, natural settings invoke "soft fascination," a beguiling term for quiet contemplation, during which directed attention is barely called upon and the brain can reset those overstretched resources and reduce mental fatigue.
But this theory, while agreeable, has been difficult to put to the test. Previous studies have found that people who live near trees and parks have lower levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, in their saliva than those who live primarily amid concrete, and that children with attention deficits tend to concentrate and perform better on cognitive tests after walking through parks or arboretums. More directly, scientists have brought volunteers into a lab, attached electrodes to their heads and shown them photographs of natural or urban scenes, and found that the brain wave readouts show that the volunteers are more calm and meditative when they view the natural scenes.
But it had not been possible to study the brains of people while they were actually outside, moving through the city and the parks. Or it wasn't, until the recent development of a lightweight, portable version of the electroencephalogram, a technology that studies brain wave patterns.
With brain fatigue, you are easily distracted, forgetful and mentally flighty — or, in other words, me.
But an innovative new study from Scotland suggests that you can ease brain fatigue simply by strolling through a leafy park.
The idea that visiting green spaces like parks or tree-filled plazas lessens stress and improves concentration is not new. Researchers have long theorized that green spaces are calming, requiring less of our so-called directed mental attention than busy, urban streets do. Instead, natural settings invoke "soft fascination," a beguiling term for quiet contemplation, during which directed attention is barely called upon and the brain can reset those overstretched resources and reduce mental fatigue.
But this theory, while agreeable, has been difficult to put to the test. Previous studies have found that people who live near trees and parks have lower levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, in their saliva than those who live primarily amid concrete, and that children with attention deficits tend to concentrate and perform better on cognitive tests after walking through parks or arboretums. More directly, scientists have brought volunteers into a lab, attached electrodes to their heads and shown them photographs of natural or urban scenes, and found that the brain wave readouts show that the volunteers are more calm and meditative when they view the natural scenes.
But it had not been possible to study the brains of people while they were actually outside, moving through the city and the parks. Or it wasn't, until the recent development of a lightweight, portable version of the electroencephalogram, a technology that studies brain wave patterns.
Are ‘Hot Hands’ in Sports a Real Thing?
Winning streaks in sports may be more than just magical thinking,
several new studies suggest.
Whether you call them winning streaks, "hot hands" or being "in the
zone," most sports fans believe that players, and teams, tend to go on
tears. Case in point: Nate Robinson's almost single-handed
evisceration of the Miami Heat on Monday night. (Yes, I am a Bulls
fan.)
But our faith in hot hands is challenged by a rich and well-regarded
body of science over the past 30 years, much of it focused on
basketball, that tells us our belief is mostly fallacious. In one of
the first and best-known of these studies, published in 1985,
scientists parsed records from the Philadelphia 76ers, the Boston
Celtics and the Cornell University varsity squad and concluded that
players statistically were not more likely to hit a second basket
after sinking a first. But players and fans believed that they were,
so a player who had hit one shot would be likely to take the team's
next, and teammates would feed this "hot" player the ball.
Other studies showed that fans supported and bet on teams that they
thought were on a hot streak, even though these bets rarely paid off.
Our belief in them revealed how strongly humans want to impose order
and meaning on utterly random sequences of events.
Now, however, some new studies that use huge, previously unavailable
data sets are suggesting that, in some instances, hands can ignite,
and the success of one play can indeed affect the outcome of the next.
In the most wide-ranging of the new studies, Gur Yaari, a
computational biologist at Yale, and his colleagues gathered enormous
amounts of data about an entire season's worth of free throw shooting
in the N.B.A. and 50,000 games bowled in the Professional Bowlers
Association. Subjecting these numbers to extensive (and, to the
layperson, inscrutable) statistical analysis, they tried to determine
whether the success or failure of a free throw or a bowling frame
depended on what had just happened in the competitor's last attempt.
In other words, if someone had just sunk a free throw or rolled a
strike, was the person more likely to succeed immediately afterward?
Or were the odds about the same as tossing a coin and seeing how it
landed?
In these big sets of data, which were far larger than those used in,
for instance, the 1985 basketball study, success did slightly increase
the chances of subsequent success — though generally over a longer
time frame than the next shot. Basketball players experienced
statistically significant and recognizable hot periods over an entire
game or two, during which they would hit more free throws than random
chance would suggest. But they would not necessarily hit one free
throw immediately after the last.
Similarly, bowlers who completed a high-scoring game were more likely
to roll strikes in the next game. But a strike in one frame of each
game was not statistically likely to lead to a strike in the next
frame.
Hot streaks have some relevance in volleyball as well, as a 2012 study
helpfully titled "The Hot Hand Exists in Volleyball" explores.
Researchers at the German Sport University in Cologne examined match
results for 26 elite volleyball players and identified statistically
meaningful scoring streaks among half of them. The researchers also
found that when a players got hot, teammates and coaches responded
almost immediately in ways that moved the ball to the streaking
player, increasing the team's likelihood of winning.
But if winning streaks have some rational basis, then by inference so
would losing streaks, which makes the latest of the new studies, of
basketball game play, particularly noteworthy. In that analysis,
published last monthin the journal Psychological Science, Yigal
Attali, who holds a doctorate in cognitive psychology, scrutinized all
available shooting statistics from the 2010-11 N.B.A. season.
He found that a player who drained one shot was more likely than
chance would suggest to take the team's next shot — and also more
likely than chance would suggest to miss it.
Essentially, he found that in real games, players developed anti-hot
hands. A momentary success bred immediate subsequent failure.
The reason for this phenomenon might be both psychological and
practical, Dr. Attali wrote; players seemed to take their second shots
from farther out than their first ones, perhaps because they felt
buoyed by that last success. They also were likely to be defended more
vigorously after a successful shot, since defenders are as influenced
by a belief in hot hands as anyone else.
But what the findings underscore, more subtly, is that patterns do
exist within the results. The players were more likely to miss after a
successful shot. And this anti-hot hand phenomenon, said Dr. Yaari,
who is familiar with the study, was itself a pattern. "It is not
completely random and independent" of past results, he said.
These new studies do not undermine the validity of the magisterial
past research on hot hands, but expand and augment it, Dr. Yaari and
the other authors say, adding even more human complexity. Yes, we
probably imagine and desire patterns where they do not exist. But it
may be that we also are capable of sensing and responding to some cues
within games and activities that are almost too subtle for most
collections of numbers to capture.
"I think that our minds evolved to be sensitive to these kinds of
patterns," Dr. Yaari said, "since they occur frequently in nature."
And that is enough encouragement for me to believe that, against all
rational expectations, the Bulls will carry the series against Miami.
They're hot.
nytimes
several new studies suggest.
Whether you call them winning streaks, "hot hands" or being "in the
zone," most sports fans believe that players, and teams, tend to go on
tears. Case in point: Nate Robinson's almost single-handed
evisceration of the Miami Heat on Monday night. (Yes, I am a Bulls
fan.)
But our faith in hot hands is challenged by a rich and well-regarded
body of science over the past 30 years, much of it focused on
basketball, that tells us our belief is mostly fallacious. In one of
the first and best-known of these studies, published in 1985,
scientists parsed records from the Philadelphia 76ers, the Boston
Celtics and the Cornell University varsity squad and concluded that
players statistically were not more likely to hit a second basket
after sinking a first. But players and fans believed that they were,
so a player who had hit one shot would be likely to take the team's
next, and teammates would feed this "hot" player the ball.
Other studies showed that fans supported and bet on teams that they
thought were on a hot streak, even though these bets rarely paid off.
Our belief in them revealed how strongly humans want to impose order
and meaning on utterly random sequences of events.
Now, however, some new studies that use huge, previously unavailable
data sets are suggesting that, in some instances, hands can ignite,
and the success of one play can indeed affect the outcome of the next.
In the most wide-ranging of the new studies, Gur Yaari, a
computational biologist at Yale, and his colleagues gathered enormous
amounts of data about an entire season's worth of free throw shooting
in the N.B.A. and 50,000 games bowled in the Professional Bowlers
Association. Subjecting these numbers to extensive (and, to the
layperson, inscrutable) statistical analysis, they tried to determine
whether the success or failure of a free throw or a bowling frame
depended on what had just happened in the competitor's last attempt.
In other words, if someone had just sunk a free throw or rolled a
strike, was the person more likely to succeed immediately afterward?
Or were the odds about the same as tossing a coin and seeing how it
landed?
In these big sets of data, which were far larger than those used in,
for instance, the 1985 basketball study, success did slightly increase
the chances of subsequent success — though generally over a longer
time frame than the next shot. Basketball players experienced
statistically significant and recognizable hot periods over an entire
game or two, during which they would hit more free throws than random
chance would suggest. But they would not necessarily hit one free
throw immediately after the last.
Similarly, bowlers who completed a high-scoring game were more likely
to roll strikes in the next game. But a strike in one frame of each
game was not statistically likely to lead to a strike in the next
frame.
Hot streaks have some relevance in volleyball as well, as a 2012 study
helpfully titled "The Hot Hand Exists in Volleyball" explores.
Researchers at the German Sport University in Cologne examined match
results for 26 elite volleyball players and identified statistically
meaningful scoring streaks among half of them. The researchers also
found that when a players got hot, teammates and coaches responded
almost immediately in ways that moved the ball to the streaking
player, increasing the team's likelihood of winning.
But if winning streaks have some rational basis, then by inference so
would losing streaks, which makes the latest of the new studies, of
basketball game play, particularly noteworthy. In that analysis,
published last monthin the journal Psychological Science, Yigal
Attali, who holds a doctorate in cognitive psychology, scrutinized all
available shooting statistics from the 2010-11 N.B.A. season.
He found that a player who drained one shot was more likely than
chance would suggest to take the team's next shot — and also more
likely than chance would suggest to miss it.
Essentially, he found that in real games, players developed anti-hot
hands. A momentary success bred immediate subsequent failure.
The reason for this phenomenon might be both psychological and
practical, Dr. Attali wrote; players seemed to take their second shots
from farther out than their first ones, perhaps because they felt
buoyed by that last success. They also were likely to be defended more
vigorously after a successful shot, since defenders are as influenced
by a belief in hot hands as anyone else.
But what the findings underscore, more subtly, is that patterns do
exist within the results. The players were more likely to miss after a
successful shot. And this anti-hot hand phenomenon, said Dr. Yaari,
who is familiar with the study, was itself a pattern. "It is not
completely random and independent" of past results, he said.
These new studies do not undermine the validity of the magisterial
past research on hot hands, but expand and augment it, Dr. Yaari and
the other authors say, adding even more human complexity. Yes, we
probably imagine and desire patterns where they do not exist. But it
may be that we also are capable of sensing and responding to some cues
within games and activities that are almost too subtle for most
collections of numbers to capture.
"I think that our minds evolved to be sensitive to these kinds of
patterns," Dr. Yaari said, "since they occur frequently in nature."
And that is enough encouragement for me to believe that, against all
rational expectations, the Bulls will carry the series against Miami.
They're hot.
nytimes
Graphic designer Saul Bass immortalised with a doodle
The search engine giant pays a tribute to Saul Bass on what would have been his 93rd birthday.
Today's Google doodle pays tribute to the legendary graphic designer and filmmaker Saul Bass who revolutionised title sequences in movies. Besides his credit sequences, Saul Bass also designed film posters as well as corporate logos.
In the 40 years that he was active, Bass worked for and alongside filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese and Billy Wilder among others.
Perhaps the most well-known title sequence by Saul Bass was for The Man with the Golden Arm in which he used an animated paper cut-out of a heroin addict's arm.
Saul Bass was also the brain behind the iconic poster of the Alfred Hitchcock movie Vertigo, Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder as well as Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.
Born on May 8, 1920 in the Bronx, New York to Eastern European Jewish immigrant parents, Saul Bass studied part time at the Art Students League in Manhatten and began working in Hollywood during the '40s where he did work for film advertisements.
He then collaborated with filmmaker Otto Preminger and designed the poster for his 1954 film Carmen Jones and went on to also produce the movie's title sequence.
It was here that Saul Bass realised that the title sequence could also enhance the viewing experience. He was among the first to understand the potential credit sequences held in a movie.
Saul Bass went on to create revolutionary title credit sequences for numerous films including North by Northwest (1959) and Vertigo (1958) among others.
In the pre-Saul Bass era, opening and closing credit sequences were fairly uninspiring and would often be played on the screen's curtains which would open just about before the first scene of the film.
Using various filmmaking techniques, Saul Bass designed title sequences for over four decades. They ranged from simple cut-out animation as in Anatomy of a Murder to animated mini movies as was the case for the epilogue for Around the World in 80 Days.
The opening sequences of Saul Bass were so strong that they often would serve as prologue to the movies itself and would transit almost effortlessly into the movie's opening scenes.
Saul Bass continued to work with the next generation of filmmakers who had grown up watching his sequences such as James L Brooks and Martin Scorsese.
He created the title sequence for Scorsese's Goodfellas along with his wife Elaine Bass. Among the other Scorsese movies he worked for include Cape Fear (1991), The Age of Innocence (1993) and Casino (1995).
Saul Bass was known equally for creating corporate logos including ones for Quaker Oats, Warner Communications as well as the 'bell' logo of AT&T and its 'globe' logo (that is in use to this day), Continental Airlines' 'jetstream' logo and United Airlines' 'tulip' logo.
Some of the more recent films that paid tribute to Saul Bass in their opening credits include Catch Me If You Can (2002) and X-Men: First Class (2011) and the television series Mad Men.
Google pays tribute to Saul Bass with an animated doodle.
Google Glass: The Future is Now!
Google Glass's price simply isn't good enough to justify a purchase. It does represent the next step in mobile computing, however. It is the first real hands-free wearable computer and also the most portable one till date. While it doesn't boast the latest technology, or the best battery life, or even the most functionality (not to mention privacy concerns), Glass's full potential is yet to be realised.
In the past two decades, computers have gotten smaller and smaller. It's no stretch to think that the mid-range smartphone from HTC or Samsung will be more powerful than a computer made a decade ago. But as computers have become more portable, there was always the vision that they would one day be fully integrated into our daily lives.
This forms the principle of wearable computers. These are devices that are incorporated into one's clothing and wardrobe. We've come a long way from having to actually "wear" the computer as part of our daily dress however thanks to the new Google Glass.
Google Glass is a singular, spectacle shaped device that fits on to one's head like eye wear. With its relative portability, there has been both celebration and concern.
Will Google Glass represent the next big leap in mobile computing or become an enormous breach in privacy?
The technology behind Google Glass
Google Glass uses an old TI OMAP 4430 processor, and has 1 GB of RAM along with 12 GB of hard disk space. This is incorporated in a small plastic unit on the right side of the device.
Glass's main interface is a transparent display that fits over one's eyes like sunglasses. This is supposed to be similar to having a 25-inch HD display just 8 feet from your eyes according to Google. However, the resolution for the display is actually 640x360. The battery rests in a small segment just behind the user's right ear.
Google Glass connects to the Internet via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. If you're not in an area with Wi-Fi, you can tether the device to your smartphone via Bluetooth to stay connected.
This also allows one to make phone calls. To start using the device, you have to install MyGlass on to your smartphone and have Glass identify the QR code that appears.
You'll be signed into your account and can then configure settings for Glass. From then on, the device is always connected, be it through Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. As of now, there is no option for switching connectivity off.
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There is also a 5MP camera embedded in the device. It allows for taking pictures and videos and uploading them to YouTube and Facebook.
It's important to note at this point that there are still problems for Glass when it comes to actually wearing it.
The presence of the plastic unit over the right hand side of the device makes it a little unbalanced. While there are plenty of help videos from Google, Glass is even more difficult to use for people who already require glasses.
As such, Glass can't be used as a standalone device for helping people see better (at least, not at present). So those who want to utilise Glass as a replacement for their standard eyewear will be out of luck.
Google Glass also reportedly has a poor battery life, lasting for no longer than five hours.
Did we mention that it currently costs $1500 for the basic Explorer Edition, which is only available to those who pre-ordered it at Google's I/O last year?
And while it may be shaped like eyewear, you can't fold it and place it in your pocket when not in use. There is a special case available to place Glass in, which just adds to the load you'll be carrying.
What can you do with Glass?
Google Glass allows you to do just about anything you can do with your smartphone's Google functions.
For example, you can search using Google and find different details with the company's search engine. Glass can also serve as a navigation tool to provide directions from one location to the next.
Combined with Google Now, you can view different cards containing useful information related to your searches.
You view information on Google Glass by either swiping away at information in front of you or using voice commands. You can also tilt your head up and in different directions to see information in front of you.
Voice commands allow one to dictate e-mails, messages, and search for different items, perform calculations and even start Hangouts on Google+. Calling friends is easy as well, as you simply need to speak the word "Call" along with the name of your contact.
However, there are problems. You need to perform several gestures to be able to read email in Glass -- something which isn't advised while one is driving. The voice dictation isn't perfect, and you can only compose mails and messages by voice.
Make one mistake and you have to go back and do it all again. Hangouts are also limited to those in your own Circles on Google+. Right now, you can't initiate Public Hangouts.
Other problems arise with the limited app selection.
Facebook and Twitter still work fine, and there will be more additions in the future. For now, this is a strictly Google-centric device.
Privacy in the face of Glass
The biggest concern with Google Glass, however, is with privacy.
As stated, you can't fold the device up like ordinary sunglasses. You'll be carrying it all the time, and even worse, it's nearly impossible for others to tell when you're recording video. There is no indication light or anything -- just the faint recognition of the display being turned on, which most won't be able to identify except on closer inspection.
This creates problems when speaking to normal people, as can be seen even in the face of news cameras and the like. Not everyone will be comfortable speaking if they know they're being recorded, and the device itself isn't so inconspicuous as to be ignored.
Through the looking Glass
Google Glass's price simply isn't good enough to justify a purchase. It does represent the next step in mobile computing, however.
It is the first real hands-free wearable computer and also the most portable one till date. While it doesn't boast the latest technology, or the best battery life, or even the most functionality (not to mention privacy concerns), Glass's full potential is yet to be realised.
rediff
Miniature flying robots
An insect-like robot, no bigger than a fly, takes to the air
SOME people are convinced they are already out there: swarms of tiny
flying drones discreetly surveying the world on behalf of their
shadowy masters. In 2007 anti-war protesters in America claimed they
were being watched by small hovering craft that looked like
dragonflies. Officials maintained they really were dragonflies.
Whatever the truth, robotic flies actually are now getting airborne.
This week the successful flight of what are probably the smallest
hovering robots yet was reported in Science by Robert Wood and his
colleagues at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering
at Harvard. These robots (pictured above) are the size of crane flies.
Most small flying robots are helicopters—kept aloft by one or more
rotating wings. These, though, are ornithopters, meaning their wings
flap. Wingtip to wingtip they measure 3cm and they weigh just 80
milligrams. Like true flies (those known to entomologists as Diptera),
and unlike dragonflies or butterflies, they have but a single pair of
wings.
Dr Wood, as he is quick to point out, is not trying to build a
military drone. Rather, it is the basic science behind flying insects
that he and his team are interested in. No doubt the armed forces are
taking a keen interest in this sort of work. But civilian applications
such as search and rescue, he thinks, are likely to be as important as
military and security ones. Indeed, the idea that inspired the study
was that of using swarms of robotic flies to pollinate crops.
Flies, as anyone who has tried to swat one knows, are the most agile
of flying creatures. Dr Wood and his colleagues considered it
impossible, even with the best miniaturised mechanical and electrical
parts currently available, to build an artificial version of one that
would show anything like that level of aerial prowess. They therefore
had to come up with a new form of manufacturing, which they call smart
composite microstructures (SCM), to do the job. SCM employs lasers to
cut shapes from extremely thin sheets of material and then bonds them
together and folds them to make components. The materials' properties
come from their layered structures.
Getting into a flap
The robot's wings, for example, are powered by artificial muscles.
These are made from layers of a piezoelectric material—one that
deforms when an electric current is applied to it. Correct alignment
of these layers creates a structure analogous to an insect's flight
muscles, which it contracts and relaxes in order to flap its wings.
Dr Wood's robots are modelled on a hoverfly called Eristalis. They
have a long way to go before they can mimic the precision of such a
creature's flight. They can, nevertheless, hover. They can also carry
out simple manoeuvres. These include turning by flapping one wing
harder than the other.
These acrobatics are possible because of the flight-control system Dr
Wood has designed. Like jet fighters, flying insects are inherently
unstable. And so are Dr Wood's robots. Insects have nervous systems to
deal with this. Fighters have computers. Dr Wood's flies are similarly
computer-controlled—and this, for the moment, is where the illusion
breaks down, because the computer is on a desktop and is connected to
the robot by a thin copper wire.
That could be fixed with a suitable chip. But the wire also carries
electric power: 19 milliwatts, which is equivalent to the power
consumed by a flying insect of the same size. Batteries light enough
to fly with do exist. But they would keep the robot going for only a
few minutes.
theeconomist
Dr Wood's robot is not the only experimental tiny flying machine
around. The others, though, are bigger and heavier than most insects.
Some, such as the DelFly Micro, a robot with a 10cm wingspan build by
Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, are also
ornithopters. Others are helicopters. Researchers at the University of
Pennsylvania have demonstrated how a swarm of palm-sized devices with
a rotor on each corner can fly together in formation. And Seiko Epson,
a Japanese firm, has built an 8cm-tall robot that uses contra-rotating
blades mounted on the same shaft to achieve stability.
What is really needed is a breakthrough in battery technology. In the
meantime, though, Dr Wood says there is plenty of research to get on
with, in order to improve the flying abilities of his new robots and
the way they are made. And eventually, like real insects, they will
have to fly outdoors. Buzzing around a cosy laboratory is one thing.
Coping with rain, gusts of wind and even predators that cannot tell
the difference between a robot and the real thing is quite another.
SOME people are convinced they are already out there: swarms of tiny
flying drones discreetly surveying the world on behalf of their
shadowy masters. In 2007 anti-war protesters in America claimed they
were being watched by small hovering craft that looked like
dragonflies. Officials maintained they really were dragonflies.
Whatever the truth, robotic flies actually are now getting airborne.
This week the successful flight of what are probably the smallest
hovering robots yet was reported in Science by Robert Wood and his
colleagues at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering
at Harvard. These robots (pictured above) are the size of crane flies.
Most small flying robots are helicopters—kept aloft by one or more
rotating wings. These, though, are ornithopters, meaning their wings
flap. Wingtip to wingtip they measure 3cm and they weigh just 80
milligrams. Like true flies (those known to entomologists as Diptera),
and unlike dragonflies or butterflies, they have but a single pair of
wings.
Dr Wood, as he is quick to point out, is not trying to build a
military drone. Rather, it is the basic science behind flying insects
that he and his team are interested in. No doubt the armed forces are
taking a keen interest in this sort of work. But civilian applications
such as search and rescue, he thinks, are likely to be as important as
military and security ones. Indeed, the idea that inspired the study
was that of using swarms of robotic flies to pollinate crops.
Flies, as anyone who has tried to swat one knows, are the most agile
of flying creatures. Dr Wood and his colleagues considered it
impossible, even with the best miniaturised mechanical and electrical
parts currently available, to build an artificial version of one that
would show anything like that level of aerial prowess. They therefore
had to come up with a new form of manufacturing, which they call smart
composite microstructures (SCM), to do the job. SCM employs lasers to
cut shapes from extremely thin sheets of material and then bonds them
together and folds them to make components. The materials' properties
come from their layered structures.
Getting into a flap
The robot's wings, for example, are powered by artificial muscles.
These are made from layers of a piezoelectric material—one that
deforms when an electric current is applied to it. Correct alignment
of these layers creates a structure analogous to an insect's flight
muscles, which it contracts and relaxes in order to flap its wings.
Dr Wood's robots are modelled on a hoverfly called Eristalis. They
have a long way to go before they can mimic the precision of such a
creature's flight. They can, nevertheless, hover. They can also carry
out simple manoeuvres. These include turning by flapping one wing
harder than the other.
These acrobatics are possible because of the flight-control system Dr
Wood has designed. Like jet fighters, flying insects are inherently
unstable. And so are Dr Wood's robots. Insects have nervous systems to
deal with this. Fighters have computers. Dr Wood's flies are similarly
computer-controlled—and this, for the moment, is where the illusion
breaks down, because the computer is on a desktop and is connected to
the robot by a thin copper wire.
That could be fixed with a suitable chip. But the wire also carries
electric power: 19 milliwatts, which is equivalent to the power
consumed by a flying insect of the same size. Batteries light enough
to fly with do exist. But they would keep the robot going for only a
few minutes.
theeconomist
Dr Wood's robot is not the only experimental tiny flying machine
around. The others, though, are bigger and heavier than most insects.
Some, such as the DelFly Micro, a robot with a 10cm wingspan build by
Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, are also
ornithopters. Others are helicopters. Researchers at the University of
Pennsylvania have demonstrated how a swarm of palm-sized devices with
a rotor on each corner can fly together in formation. And Seiko Epson,
a Japanese firm, has built an 8cm-tall robot that uses contra-rotating
blades mounted on the same shaft to achieve stability.
What is really needed is a breakthrough in battery technology. In the
meantime, though, Dr Wood says there is plenty of research to get on
with, in order to improve the flying abilities of his new robots and
the way they are made. And eventually, like real insects, they will
have to fly outdoors. Buzzing around a cosy laboratory is one thing.
Coping with rain, gusts of wind and even predators that cannot tell
the difference between a robot and the real thing is quite another.
Sunday, 21 April 2013
THE CULPRITS
In the midst of the Second World War, Joseph Stalin, seized by one of his historic fits of paranoia and cruelty, declared the Chechen people disloyal to the U.S.S.R. and banished them from their homeland in the northern Caucasus to Central Asia and the Siberian wastes. Tens of thousands of Chechens, along with members of other small ethnic groups from the Caucasus and the Crimean Peninsula, died in the mass deportation or soon after—some from cold, some from starvation. The Tsarnaev family eventually settled in a town called Tokmok, in Kyrgyzstan, not far from the capital, Bishkek. Most who survived the next thirteen years in exile were permitted to return home, in the late fifties, under Nikita Khrushchev, and they reëstablished a sense of place as well as identity. Some remained expatriates. Chechens speak Russian with a thick accent; more often they speak their own language, Noxchiin Mott. The Caucasus region is multicultural in the extreme, but the predominant religion in the north is Islam. The Chechen national spirit is what is invariably called “fiercely independent.” When the Soviet Union collapsed, in 1991, nationalist rebels fought two horrific wars with the Russian Army for Chechen independence. In the end, the rebel groups were either decimated or came over to the Russian side. But rebellion persists, in Chechnya and in the surrounding regions—Dagestan and Ingushetia—and it is now fundamentalist in character. The slogan is “global jihad.” The tactics are kidnappings, assassinations, bombings.
Anzor Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen who lived much of his life in Kyrgyzstan, emigrated a decade ago to the Boston area with his wife, two daughters, and two sons. Despite arthritic fingers, he made his living as an auto mechanic. Members of the family occasionally attended a mosque on Prospect Street in Cambridge, but there seemed nothing fundamentalist about their outlook.
Anzor’s elder son, Tamerlan, appeared never to connect fully with American life. “I don’t have a single American friend,” Tamerlan told a photographer named Johannes Hirn, who asked to take pictures of him training as a boxer. “I don’t understand them.” He studied, indifferently, at Bunker Hill Community College, for an engineering degree. He described himself as “very religious”; he didn’t smoke or drink. Twenty-six and around two hundred pounds, he boxed regularly at Wai Kru Mixed Martial Arts. He loved “Borat” (“even though some of the jokes are a bit too much”). He had a daughter, but scant stability. Three years ago, he was arrested for domestic assault and battery. (“In America, you can’t touch a woman,” Anzor told the Times.)
David Bernstein, a retired mathematician from Moscow, who emigrated thirty-three years ago, said he knew the family because he used to take his car in regularly to Anzor. He noticed that Tamerlan sometimes worked at the body shop, although he didn’t seem happy about it. “I talked with Tamerlan about stupid things,” Bernstein recalled. “I asked him if he knew about his name, the great warrior. He talked a little about religion and politics. I said everyone is religious in a certain sense, and he said I should become a Muslim. I put him off, saying everyone invents his own religion.” When Bernstein discovered that his acquaintance was believed to be responsible for an act of terror at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, he was mystified. “I feel like Forrest Gump,” he said. “Suddenly, he is famous through this terrible act, and I had these conversations with him. But who can say they know him, really?”
Dzhokhar, nineteen, had graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where he was a locally celebrated wrestler, described as slight, agile, and a little shy. He won a scholarship from the City of Cambridge. He worked for a couple of years as a lifeguard at a pool on the Harvard campus. A fellow-lifeguard remembered him as a “nice” kid with a “good sense of humor.” Dzhokhar’s high-school friends remembered him fondly, too. “He was a cool guy,” Ashraful Rahman said. “I never got any bad vibes from him. He wasn’t a star student, but he was smart. We met sometimes at the mosque in Cambridge. Dzhokhar went to the mosque more than I did, but he wasn’t completely devoted. When I think about this, I have to ask, was he forced to do this? Was he brainwashed? It’s so out of character. And you have to remember—he was a stoner. He was really into marijuana. And generally guys like that are very calm, cool.”
Essah Chisholm, a fellow-wrestler, said, “He was a cool dude.” But when Chisholm and a couple of his friends saw photographs of the Tsarnaev brothers on television Thursday night, they called the F.B.I. tip line. Late that night, the armed confrontation began—a shoot-out, a furious chase, hurled bombs. “It’s mind-boggling,” Chisholm said on Friday afternoon. “Every time I see his name on TV, it’s just unbelievable. To see Dzhokhar’s name, to see his face. I think this had to do with his older brother. Unless he was some sort of sleeper agent, I think his brother had a pretty strong influence. Tamerlan maybe felt like he didn’t belong, and he might have brainwashed Dzhokhar into some radical view that twisted things in the Koran.”
The sense of bland unknowingness—“He seemed so nice!”—began to evaporate the closer we got to the Tsarnaev brothers. Tamerlan’s YouTube channel features a series of videos in support of fundamentalism and violent jihad, including a rant by Feiz Muhammad, an Australian cleric and ex-boxer based in Malaysia; in one video, the cleric goes on about the evil “paganism” in the Harry Potter movies. Another video provides a dramatization of the Armageddon prophecy of the Black Banners of Khurasan, an all-powerful Islamic military force that will rise up from Central Asia and defeat the infidels; it is a martial-religious prophecy favored by Al Qaeda.
Dzhokhar’s Twitter feed—@J_tsar—is a bewildering combination of banality and disaffection. (He seems to have been tweeting even after the explosions at the finish line last Monday.) As you scan it, you encounter a young man’s thoughts: his jokes, his resentments, his prejudices, his faith, his desires.
March 14, 2012—a decade in america already, I want out
August 16, 2012—The value of human life ain’t shit nowadays that’s #tragic
August 22, 2012—I am the best beer pong player in Cambridge. I am the #truth
September 1, 2012—Idk why it’s hard for many of you to accept that 9/11 was an inside job. I mean I guess fuck the facts y’all are some real #patriots #gethip
December 24, 2012—Brothers at the mosque either think I’m a convert or that I’m from Algeria or Syria, just the other day a guy asked me how I came to Islam
January 15, 2013—I don’t argue with fools who say islam is terrorism it’s not worth a thing, let an idiot remain an idiot
March 13, 2013—Never try to fork a mini tomato while wearing a white shirt, it will explode
April 10, 2013—Gain knowledge, get women, acquire currency #livestrong
April 15, 2013—Ain’t no love in the heart of the city, stay safe people
April 15, 2013—There are people that know the truth but stay silent & there are people that speak the truth but we don’t hear them cuz they’re the minority
April 16, 2013—I’m a stress free kind of guy
Gregory Shvedov, the editor of a Web site based in Moscow called Caucasian Knot, visits the Caucasus regularly and studies both the jihadist movement and the Russian government and military’s draconian behavior in the region. He was hardly shocked that two ethnic Chechens, raised largely in the U.S. but with a strong attachment to their homeland, might carry out such an act on a “soft target” like the marathon. “These days there are social networks, and people make their decisions from them,” he said from Moscow. “I would not be surprised if they had another life over social media. What kind of videos are they watching? What kind of lectures and YouTubes about jihad?” If Tamerlan did what he is suspected of doing, he might not have got his education, or instructions, entirely through digital means. On January 12, 2012, he flew from New York to Moscow, a regular target of Chechen rage; he didn’t return until seven months later.
The greatest sympathy is reserved for the families of those who were killed by the bombing and in the violent pursuit that followed—and for the dozens who were severely injured in the blasts. Even the most ardent New Yorkers felt a profound allegiance to, and love for, the people of Boston. But, as the day was coming to an end, you could not help but feel something, too, for the parents of the perpetrators, neither of whom could fathom the possibility of their sons’ guilt, much less their cruelty and evil. Interviewed at their apartment in Makhachkala, the capital city of Dagestan, they spoke of a “setup,” an F.B.I. plot. The mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, told the television station Russia Today, “Every single day, my son used to call me and ask me, ‘How are you, Mama?’ Both of them. ‘Mama, we love you.’ . . . My son never would keep a secret.” The father described Dzhokhar as an “angel.” By the end of Friday (Saturday morning in Dagestan) their sons were gone—one dead, the other wounded, hospitalized, and under arrest.
The Tsarnaev family had been battered by history before—by empire and the strife of displacement, by exile and emigration. Asylum in a bright new land proved little comfort. When Anzor fell sick, a few years ago, he resolved to return to the Caucasus; he could not imagine dying in America. He had travelled halfway around the world from the harrowed land of his ancestors, but something had drawn him back. The American dream wasn’t for everyone. What they could not anticipate was the abysmal fate of their sons, lives destroyed in a terror of their own making. The digital era allows no asylum from extremism, let alone from the toxic combination of high-minded zealotry and the curdled disappointments of young men. A decade in America already, I want out.
the newyorker
Anzor Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen who lived much of his life in Kyrgyzstan, emigrated a decade ago to the Boston area with his wife, two daughters, and two sons. Despite arthritic fingers, he made his living as an auto mechanic. Members of the family occasionally attended a mosque on Prospect Street in Cambridge, but there seemed nothing fundamentalist about their outlook.
Anzor’s elder son, Tamerlan, appeared never to connect fully with American life. “I don’t have a single American friend,” Tamerlan told a photographer named Johannes Hirn, who asked to take pictures of him training as a boxer. “I don’t understand them.” He studied, indifferently, at Bunker Hill Community College, for an engineering degree. He described himself as “very religious”; he didn’t smoke or drink. Twenty-six and around two hundred pounds, he boxed regularly at Wai Kru Mixed Martial Arts. He loved “Borat” (“even though some of the jokes are a bit too much”). He had a daughter, but scant stability. Three years ago, he was arrested for domestic assault and battery. (“In America, you can’t touch a woman,” Anzor told the Times.)
David Bernstein, a retired mathematician from Moscow, who emigrated thirty-three years ago, said he knew the family because he used to take his car in regularly to Anzor. He noticed that Tamerlan sometimes worked at the body shop, although he didn’t seem happy about it. “I talked with Tamerlan about stupid things,” Bernstein recalled. “I asked him if he knew about his name, the great warrior. He talked a little about religion and politics. I said everyone is religious in a certain sense, and he said I should become a Muslim. I put him off, saying everyone invents his own religion.” When Bernstein discovered that his acquaintance was believed to be responsible for an act of terror at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, he was mystified. “I feel like Forrest Gump,” he said. “Suddenly, he is famous through this terrible act, and I had these conversations with him. But who can say they know him, really?”
Dzhokhar, nineteen, had graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where he was a locally celebrated wrestler, described as slight, agile, and a little shy. He won a scholarship from the City of Cambridge. He worked for a couple of years as a lifeguard at a pool on the Harvard campus. A fellow-lifeguard remembered him as a “nice” kid with a “good sense of humor.” Dzhokhar’s high-school friends remembered him fondly, too. “He was a cool guy,” Ashraful Rahman said. “I never got any bad vibes from him. He wasn’t a star student, but he was smart. We met sometimes at the mosque in Cambridge. Dzhokhar went to the mosque more than I did, but he wasn’t completely devoted. When I think about this, I have to ask, was he forced to do this? Was he brainwashed? It’s so out of character. And you have to remember—he was a stoner. He was really into marijuana. And generally guys like that are very calm, cool.”
Essah Chisholm, a fellow-wrestler, said, “He was a cool dude.” But when Chisholm and a couple of his friends saw photographs of the Tsarnaev brothers on television Thursday night, they called the F.B.I. tip line. Late that night, the armed confrontation began—a shoot-out, a furious chase, hurled bombs. “It’s mind-boggling,” Chisholm said on Friday afternoon. “Every time I see his name on TV, it’s just unbelievable. To see Dzhokhar’s name, to see his face. I think this had to do with his older brother. Unless he was some sort of sleeper agent, I think his brother had a pretty strong influence. Tamerlan maybe felt like he didn’t belong, and he might have brainwashed Dzhokhar into some radical view that twisted things in the Koran.”
The sense of bland unknowingness—“He seemed so nice!”—began to evaporate the closer we got to the Tsarnaev brothers. Tamerlan’s YouTube channel features a series of videos in support of fundamentalism and violent jihad, including a rant by Feiz Muhammad, an Australian cleric and ex-boxer based in Malaysia; in one video, the cleric goes on about the evil “paganism” in the Harry Potter movies. Another video provides a dramatization of the Armageddon prophecy of the Black Banners of Khurasan, an all-powerful Islamic military force that will rise up from Central Asia and defeat the infidels; it is a martial-religious prophecy favored by Al Qaeda.
Dzhokhar’s Twitter feed—@J_tsar—is a bewildering combination of banality and disaffection. (He seems to have been tweeting even after the explosions at the finish line last Monday.) As you scan it, you encounter a young man’s thoughts: his jokes, his resentments, his prejudices, his faith, his desires.
March 14, 2012—a decade in america already, I want out
August 16, 2012—The value of human life ain’t shit nowadays that’s #tragic
August 22, 2012—I am the best beer pong player in Cambridge. I am the #truth
September 1, 2012—Idk why it’s hard for many of you to accept that 9/11 was an inside job. I mean I guess fuck the facts y’all are some real #patriots #gethip
December 24, 2012—Brothers at the mosque either think I’m a convert or that I’m from Algeria or Syria, just the other day a guy asked me how I came to Islam
January 15, 2013—I don’t argue with fools who say islam is terrorism it’s not worth a thing, let an idiot remain an idiot
March 13, 2013—Never try to fork a mini tomato while wearing a white shirt, it will explode
April 10, 2013—Gain knowledge, get women, acquire currency #livestrong
April 15, 2013—Ain’t no love in the heart of the city, stay safe people
April 15, 2013—There are people that know the truth but stay silent & there are people that speak the truth but we don’t hear them cuz they’re the minority
April 16, 2013—I’m a stress free kind of guy
Gregory Shvedov, the editor of a Web site based in Moscow called Caucasian Knot, visits the Caucasus regularly and studies both the jihadist movement and the Russian government and military’s draconian behavior in the region. He was hardly shocked that two ethnic Chechens, raised largely in the U.S. but with a strong attachment to their homeland, might carry out such an act on a “soft target” like the marathon. “These days there are social networks, and people make their decisions from them,” he said from Moscow. “I would not be surprised if they had another life over social media. What kind of videos are they watching? What kind of lectures and YouTubes about jihad?” If Tamerlan did what he is suspected of doing, he might not have got his education, or instructions, entirely through digital means. On January 12, 2012, he flew from New York to Moscow, a regular target of Chechen rage; he didn’t return until seven months later.
The greatest sympathy is reserved for the families of those who were killed by the bombing and in the violent pursuit that followed—and for the dozens who were severely injured in the blasts. Even the most ardent New Yorkers felt a profound allegiance to, and love for, the people of Boston. But, as the day was coming to an end, you could not help but feel something, too, for the parents of the perpetrators, neither of whom could fathom the possibility of their sons’ guilt, much less their cruelty and evil. Interviewed at their apartment in Makhachkala, the capital city of Dagestan, they spoke of a “setup,” an F.B.I. plot. The mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, told the television station Russia Today, “Every single day, my son used to call me and ask me, ‘How are you, Mama?’ Both of them. ‘Mama, we love you.’ . . . My son never would keep a secret.” The father described Dzhokhar as an “angel.” By the end of Friday (Saturday morning in Dagestan) their sons were gone—one dead, the other wounded, hospitalized, and under arrest.
The Tsarnaev family had been battered by history before—by empire and the strife of displacement, by exile and emigration. Asylum in a bright new land proved little comfort. When Anzor fell sick, a few years ago, he resolved to return to the Caucasus; he could not imagine dying in America. He had travelled halfway around the world from the harrowed land of his ancestors, but something had drawn him back. The American dream wasn’t for everyone. What they could not anticipate was the abysmal fate of their sons, lives destroyed in a terror of their own making. The digital era allows no asylum from extremism, let alone from the toxic combination of high-minded zealotry and the curdled disappointments of young men. A decade in America already, I want out.
the newyorker
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