Eric's Notes

City living affects brain structure

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 12:13:54 -0400

“The risk for anxiety disorders is 21 percent higher for people from the city, who also have a 39 percent increase for mood disorders,” says co-author Jens Pruessner, a researcher at McGill’s Douglas Mental Health University Institute in Montreal. “In addition, the incidence for schizophrenia is almost doubled for individuals who are born and brought up in cities. These values are a cause for concern and determining the biology behind this is the first step to remedy the trend.”

Interestingly, it didn’t seem to make much difference whether individuals lived in a concrete jungle or a city with a lot of green space. The implication is that it’s population density, rather than any other factor, which causes the changes in the brain.

I’m very curious what exactly causes this, and what steps might be taken to reduce it.

Our national shame

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:59:00 -0400

The U.S. Department of Justice recently released its first-ever estimate of the number of inmates who are sexually abused in America each year. According to the department’s data, which are based on nationwide surveys of prison and jail inmates as well as young people in juvenile detention centers, at least 216,600 inmates were victimized in 2008 alone. Contrary to popular belief, most of the perpetrators were not other prisoners but staff members—corrections officials whose job it is to keep inmates safe. On average, each victim was abused between three and five times over the course of the year. The vast majority were too fearful of reprisals to seek help or file a formal complaint.

When our descendants look back on us, they will think us barbarians.

Members Of Congress Introduce First Federal Measure Since 1937 To Legalize The Adult Use Of Marijuana

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 16:45:59 -0400

NORML:

House lawmakers introduced legislation in Congress today to end the federal criminalization of the personal use of marijuana.

The bipartisan measure, HR 2306 – entitled the ‘Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011’ and sponsored by Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank and Texas Republican Ron Paul along with Reps. Cohen (D-TN), Conyers (D-MI), Polis (D-CO), and Lee (D-CA) – prohibits the federal government from prosecuting adults who use or possess marijuana by removing the plant and its primary psychoactive constituent, THC, from the five schedules of the United States Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Under present law, all varieties of the marijuana plant are defined as illicit Schedule I controlled substances, defined as possessing ‘a high potential for abuse,’ and ‘no currently accepted medical use in treatment.’

J. K. Rowling to sell Harry Potter eBooks DRM-free

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 15:14:40 -0400

J.K. Rowling’s Pottermore Details Revealed

Until recently, reports have been speculating that the rights to sell the e-books would be worth as much as $160 million. By retaining the rights and selling them through her own platform, Rowling stands to make much more. She is not, however, completely turning her back on hands that fed her — her publishers around the world will get a cut of e-book sales and will no doubt benefit from the “halo effect” of an uplift in print sales.

In a further bold move, Rowling has opted to keep the e-books DRM-free, meaning that they are not locked into one device or platform. She is instead opting for digital watermarking that links the identify of the purchaser to the copy of the e-book. This doesn’t prevent copyright theft but does ensure that any copies will be traceable to a particular user. This is similar to how iTunes is DRM-free, but embeds user account information within each file purchased.

Can’t wait to buy my copies.

Our Trainwreck of a Healthcare System Exhibit 6

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 10:55:00 -0400

Unemployed man robs bank for $1 to get free prison healthcare

Only in America.

People are Stupid, Exhibit 6

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:29:35 -0400

This from Oklahoma:

“Centralized anything doesn’t really work,” Hager said, adding that he was unperturbed by the prospect of a federal shutdown. “I’m not sure what they do has a big impact on my life.’’

That jaundiced view of the federal government is common here, local leaders say, even though the region’s surging economy is built to a large degree on a foundation of federal spending.

About 7 percent of the area’s workers are federal employees, more than double the U.S. average, according to a Washington Post analysis. Meanwhile, federal spending on roads, a huge Federal Aviation Administration center and a sprawling Air Force base not only keeps more than 20,000 civilians employed but also is helping to nurture entire sectors of the area’s increasingly prosperous and diverse economy.

Overall, the state gets back $1.35 for every dollar its residents and businesses pay in federal taxes, according to the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax research group. That’s the 15th most generous return among the 50 states.

Does College Make You Smarter?

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:11:40 -0400

A discussion hosted by the New York Times, spawned by a study that shows students study less now than in previous decades.

I tend to think that the role of college has changed since then. Everyone is supposed goes to college now, whereas previously that wasn’t the case. A college diploma is what a high school diploma once was - proof to would-be employers you’re capable of showing up every day if they hire you.

To the degree it makes you any smarter it really depends on the student. But the same is also true for any other pursuit. You can learn a lot in college if you want, the college can’t make you do it.

Just because something is unexplained doesn't mean it's supernatural

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 12:36:00 -0400

Harry Houdini, stating what should be obvious to all but sadly isn’t:

Sir Arthur, I have devoted a lot of time and thought to this illusion … I won’t tell you how it was done, but I can assure you it was pure trickery. I did it by perfectly normal means. I devised it to show you what can be done along these lines. Now, I beg of you, Sir Arthur, do not jump to the conclusion that certain things you see are necessarily “supernatural,” or the work of “spirits,” just because you cannot explain them….

People are stupid, Exhibit 5

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 11:30:45 -0400

This is from 2004, but it’s no less relevant today:

Converse claimed that only around ten per cent of the public has what can be called, even generously, a political belief system. He named these people “ideologues,” by which he meant not that they are fanatics but that they have a reasonable grasp of “what goes with what”—of how a set of opinions adds up to a coherent political philosophy. Non-ideologues may use terms like “liberal” and “conservative,” but Converse thought that they basically don’t know what they’re talking about, and that their beliefs are characterized by what he termed a lack of “constraint”: they can’t see how one opinion (that taxes should be lower, for example) logically ought to rule out other opinions (such as the belief that there should be more government programs). About forty-two per cent of voters, according to Converse’s interpretation of surveys of the 1956 electorate, vote on the basis not of ideology but of perceived self-interest. The rest form political preferences either from their sense of whether times are good or bad (about twenty-five per cent) or from factors that have no discernible “issue content” whatever. Converse put twenty-two per cent of the electorate in this last category. In other words, about twice as many people have no political views as have a coherent political belief system.

Just because someone’s opinions don’t square with what a political scientist recognizes as a political ideology doesn’t mean that those opinions aren’t coherent by the lights of some more personal system of beliefs. But Converse found reason to doubt this possibility. When pollsters ask people for their opinion about an issue, people generally feel obliged to have one. Their answer is duly recorded, and it becomes a datum in a report on “public opinion.” But, after analyzing the results of surveys conducted over time, in which people tended to give different and randomly inconsistent answers to the same questions, Converse concluded that “very substantial portions of the public” hold opinions that are essentially meaningless—off-the-top-of-the-head responses to questions they have never thought about, derived from no underlying set of principles. These people might as well base their political choices on the weather. And, in fact, many of them do.

Noprivacyville

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 14:19:20 -0400

An interesting thought experiment from Scott Adams:

This made me wonder how much money could be saved by creating an entire city with no privacy except in the bedroom and bathroom. I will stipulate in advance that you do not want to live in such a place because you’re an urban pirate. You want the freedom to do “stuff” that no one ever finds out about. I get it. This is just an economic thought experiment.

Although you would never live in a city without privacy, I think that if one could save 30% on basic living expenses, and live in a relatively crime-free area, plenty of volunteers would come forward.

Basically he’s hypothesizing a city where what Bruce Schneier calls societal security is completely unnecessary. (And also, not too much different from what David Brin talked about in The Transparent Society).

My thought on this is that we’re basically headed in this direction no matter what. The challenge is to avoid privacy asymmetries that lead to dystopian nightmares. It’s a problem when the information is available only to a privileged few who are themselves exempt from this kind of scrutiny. But as long as Barack Obama is just as “transparent” as anyone else, as long as anyone can access the same databases as the NSA - it probably wouldn’t be all that bad, and I can even see most people choosing such a world.

I also tend to think that the aside about “urban pirates” would quickly become a moot point - self censorship wouldn’t last for long; social norms would very quickly adjust such that what people actually do behind closed doors right now would be viewed as quite normal. Taboos can only last as long as hypocrites pretend they don’t do them.

When it comes to relationships, women are now men and men are women

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 15:14:24 -0400

Men, women flip the script in gender expectation

“Men are now expressing some traditionally female attitudes, while women are adopting some of those long attributed to men,” says biological anthropologist Helen Fisher, who helped develop the survey with social historian Stephanie Coontz and Justin Garcia, a doctoral fellow with the Institute for Evolutionary Studies at Binghamton (N.Y.) University.

[…]

Data show men are quicker to fall in love and more likely than women to want children: 54% of men say they have experienced love at first sight, compared with 44% of women; among singles without children under 18, more men (24%) than women (15%) say they want children.

And, across every age group, women want more independence than men in their relationships: 77% of women say having their personal space is “very important,” vs. 58% for men; 78% of women say the same about having their own interests and hobbies (vs. 64% for men). And 35% of women (vs. 23% of men) say regular nights out with the guys/girls are important.

This makes me think about the self proclaimed defenders of “traditional marriage”, who seem utterly blind to the fact that their conception of it is a pretty new development in human history, and it turns out a pretty short lived one at that.

The social changes that we’ve witnessed in the last forty years, and those that will come in the next forty, are far more drastic and profound than mere acceptance of homosexuality.

Hugs Follow a Three Second Rule

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:07:18 -0500

Ever wondered how long a hug lasts? The quick answer is about 3 seconds, according to a new study of the post-competition embraces of Olympic athletes. But the long answer is more profound. A hug lasts about as much time as many other human actions and neurological processes, which supports a hypothesis that we go through life perceiving the present in a series of 3-second windows.

Crosscultural studies dating back to 1911 have shown that people tend to operate in 3-second bursts. Goodbye waves, musical phrases, and infants’ bouts of babbling and gesturing all last about 3 seconds. Many basic physiological events, such as relaxed breathing and certain nervous system functions do, too. And several other species of mammals and birds follow the general rule in their body-movement patterns. A 1994 study of giraffes, okapis, roe deer, raccoons, pandas, and kangaroos living in zoos, for example, found that although the duration of the animals’ every move, from chewing to defecating, varied considerably, the average was, you guessed it, 3 seconds.

What I find curious is that given this, a second is 1/60th of a minute rather than 1/20th. Why didn’t we standardize on something closer to our biological rhythm?

The problem with budget cutting

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 11:09:15 -0500

Unemployed public workers are bad for the economy:

The worst thing for an unemployed person is another unemployed person. It means more competition for job openings, lower wages and less job security. The idea that it would somehow have been more “fair” for the public sector to shed jobs in 2008 and 2009 is one of these intuitions that cuts against the economic logic of the situation: More unemployed public workers would’ve meant more competition for unemployed private workers seeking jobs, lower tax revenue for states, worse services and more idle resources. It would’ve been bad on every level — and with 9 percent unemployment, it would still be bad today. And yet there’s a substantial number of voters and commentators who seem to abstractly favor the idea, despite the fact that it will, in practice, make most of our problems worse rather than better.

Why Movies Suck

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 09:37:30 -0500

And the prospects for their resuscitation look grim:

For the studios, a good new idea has become just too scary a road to travel. Inception, they will tell you, is an exceptional movie. And movies that need to be exceptional to succeed are bad business. “The scab you’re picking at is called execution,” says legendary producer Scott Rudin (The Social Network, True Grit). “Studios are hardwired not to bet on execution, and the terrible thing is, they’re right. Because in terms of execution, most movies disappoint.”

How to Pass through a Door

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 17:22:31 -0500

An easy to follow flowchart:

The Gory Death of the Music Industry

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 17:12:28 -0500

In one inflation and population adjusted chart:

At this point my attitude is simply “good riddance”. The industry did it to itself, through years of producing little more the pop drivel and treating their customers like crap.

People will always make music. Maybe when no one can become millionaires doing it it’ll return to the real art form it once was.

Eight Charts that Explain Everything that's Wrong with America

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:34:43 -0500

Here’s the most frustrating. Click through for the source and the other seven.

A History of Hello

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:31:14 -0500

The unexpected origins of an everyday phrase:

The Oxford English Dictionary says the first published use of “hello” goes back only to 1827. And it wasn’t mainly a greeting back then. Ammon says people in the 1830’s said hello to attract attention (“Hello, what do you think you’re doing?”), or to express surprise (“Hello, what have we here?”). Hello didn’t become “hi” until the telephone arrived.

When Income Grows, Who Gains?

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 14:57:33 -0500

Great visualization illustrating income inequality.

Societal Security

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 12:24:02 -0500

Bruce Schneier gives an introduction to a new book he’s writing. Sounds fascinating:

Humans have a natural propensity to trust non-kin, even strangers. We do it so often, so naturally, that we don’t even realize how remarkable it is. But except for a few simplistic counterexamples, it’s unique among life on this planet. Because we are intelligently calculating and value reciprocity (that is, fairness), we know that humans will be honest and nice: not for any immediate personal gain, but because that’s how they are. We also know that doesn’t work perfectly; most people will be dishonest some of the time, and some people will be dishonest most of the time. How does society — the honest majority — prevent the dishonest minority from taking over, or ruining society for everyone? How is the dishonest minority kept in check? The answer is security — in particular, something I’m calling societal security.