Trivial quibble with Getz/Gilberto's Corcovado

With my new earphones I could hear what sounds like a splicing error in Corcovado at 2:57 ... anyone else hear it?

Retailers criticizing Mountain Equipment Co-op

This is an email I sent in response to a Vancouver Sun article [LexisNexis] I saw mentioned in the Wikipedia post on MEC.

Dear Don,

Your Apr 27th article on MEC ("Gear-without-guilt co-op now a Goliath") does a good job of explaining private retailers' complaints concerning MEC, and the article begins in a way that sounds sympathetic to the co-op.

But your article fails to explain what co-operatives are in the first place, why co-ops should have tax-free status, or any other substantive, positive differences that co-operatives have over for-profit companies. Anyone reading your article without prior knowledge of what a co-operative is would come away no wiser at all.

You fail to mention, e.g., that while at MEC's consumer base dictates who runs the company, consumers have no say (save their dollar) in the management of outfits like Trailhead. And you paint the positive work that MEC as 'feel good PR', which would make sense if there were shareholders or owners of MEC making millions of dollars, but that's not the way the incentive structure is organized at MEC, or at any other co-operative for that matter. All these vitally important points are missing in your article, which looks as though it was written at the behest of Vancouver Sun advertisers. If this is so, it is poor journalism indeed.

Finally, who cares if outdoors goods retailers can't hack it? MEC isn't for-profit: if it were the only retailer in town it wouldn't engage in monopolistic pricing because there's no one to reap the fruits of such a pricing policy.

-[me]
(Canada native)

P.S. You also fail to mention that while for-profit retailers have every incentive to be dishonest in their representations of the 'feel-good' things they do, MEC has in fact the opposite incentive. MEC has a better track record than any other retailer in Canada (and probably the world) for ethical sourcing, environmental sustainability, transparency, honesty, employee treatment, the development of extremely high-quality goods, and the encouragement of energy conservation. If this is what it means to become a 'Goliath' then I hope we see many more of them.

P.P.S. I wonder how many private retailers would respond to an email as comprehensively as MEC does in the following interaction.

(perhaps it should have been written in the past tense?)

After seeing an interview with MEC CEO Peter Robinson I was surprised to see that Patagonia and Nike are actually pretty good corporate citizens to which MEC is trying to aspire (in at least some respects).

'Infocrack'

I tried to come up with a term that described the addictiveness of a certain kind of information -- the kind that's bite-sized, oh so yummy, and instantly available. I settled, in my own head, on the term "infocrack" ... and then, as I always do with neologisms, punched it into Google to see what came up.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we are seeing the birth of a new concept (and associated word)!

Out-and-out propaganda

This is pretty scary ... I wish CNN's Gupta would do a 'factcheck' on this bit of Faux News.

'Opposed to the war'

There's an article describing the 'Biofuel Oasis' which I visited with some friends while in Berkeley for a concert. The authors do a pretty good job describing their clientèle, saying that many who bought fuel from there were ...

"strongly opposed to the war in Iraq and want to sever any link with a conflict they believe is motivated by desire for oil, and with a government they say is closely tied to the oil industry".

While if forced to choose I'd say this accurately describes me, but I take issue with the notion of being 'opposed' to the war. I suppose it boggles my mind that anyone would be 'for' war. I mean, I highly doubt even Dick Cheney wants people to be dying in Iraq right now ... so isn't everyone, at least at this point 'opposed' to the war?

I mean, what would it mean to support it?!?!

'Creatures of habit'

New Scientist has an article on some work done by MIT researchers who put 'black boxes' on people and record how people behave over the course of a typical day. They focus on how it shows people to be mechanical and habit-driven, but I think it can be looked at completely differently ...

... I think it is another indication that psychology and cognitive science are moving from trying to determine large aggregate 'laws' of human behavior to seeing how individuals actually behave, a development which I think will be very illuminating (and probably also unsettling). Science has heretofore focussed on 'shared', and therefore talked-about, concepts (which consist almost wholly of the kinds of thing that matter socially and in communication). That is, we only put words to the things that matter for our cooperation and social success. This has constrained the language we use, making it nearly useless for dealing with matters that are socially/communicatively/cooperatively irrelevance. This rise of the 'subjective' in science is probably the necessary first step in beginning to understand thorny issues like 'consciousness' (which at present can only be talked about using words developed for an entirely different
purpose).

The mainstream media: when they're not sensationalizing anti-Democrat propaganda

... they're hiding Republican crimes.

Mr. Yost,

After reading your article I have to say I feel more confused than before as to what the issues are and where precedence lies. I am politically savvy, a PhD student in cognitive science, and scored high on my verbal SAT but I _still_ can't make heads or tails of your article.

For instance, your article implies that Cheney's lawyer managed to get the visitor logs designated as Presidential Records, subsequently removing them from public access ("Such a designation prevents the public from learning who visited the vice president.").

But the PRA ensures that said logs _are_ kept public -- that Cheney's logs be designated as presidential means they must not be destroyed, must be archived and can be released per FOIA requests. The above quote is either false or misleading.

The rest of the article is similarly obfuscatory. The crying shame, however, is that this kind of article needs to be even clearer than the rest, given that the US VP might be breaking the law, which is presumably of vital national and international interest.

Yours sincerely,

[me]

UC San Diego

Suicide Bombers

A response to Thursday's Washington Times editorial.

Your entire editorial hinges on the contention that suicide bombings 'normally target civilians'. That may be true, but the Pew poll asked if respondents sympathized with the use of suicide bombing in some circumstances.

I'm sure Christians can imagine some circumstances in which suicide bombing would be justified (for instance if it directly targeted a brutally repressive regime).

But if you're having trouble understanding a suicide bomber's point of view, perhaps you should consider how non-Muslim Americans would answer this question: Are the deaths of innocent civilians sometimes justified in order to defend the American way of life?

The altruistic food industry is at it again ...

New revisions, supported by Anheuser-Busch, to the list of allowed non-organic food additives that will not invalidate a food's status as 'USDA Organic'. I think it speaks for itself, though I've taken the liberty of bolding a few choice items:

Sec. 205.606 Nonorganically produced agricultural products allowed as ingredients in or on processed products labeled as ``organic.''



Only the following nonorganically produced agricultural products may be used as ingredients in or on processed products labeled as ``organic,'' only in accordance with any restrictions specified in this section, and only when the product is not commercially available in organic form.

(a) Casings, from processed intestines.

(b) Celery powder.

(c) Chia (Salvia hispanica).

(d) Colors derived from agricultural products.

• (1) Annatto extract (pigment CAS 1393-63-1)--water and oil soluble.
• (2) Beet juice (pigment CAS 7659-95-2).
• (3) Beta-carotene (CAS 1393-63-1) derived from carrots.
• (4) Black currant juice (pigment CAS 's: 528-58-5, 528-53-0, 643-84-5, 134-01-0, 1429-30-7, and 134-04-3).
• (5) Black/Purple carrot juice (pigment CAS 's: 528-58-5, 528-53-0, 643-84-5, 134-01-0, 1429-30-7, and 134-04-3).
• (6) Blueberry juice (pigment CAS 's: 528-58-5, 528-53-0, 643-84-5, 134-01-0, 1429-30-7, and 134-04-3).
• (7) Carrot juice (pigment CAS 1393-63-1).
• (8) Cherry juice (pigment CAS 's: 528-58-5, 528-53-0, 643-84-5, 134-01-0, 1429-30-7, and 134-04-3).
• (9) Chokeberry--Aronia juice (pigment CAS 's: 528-58-5, 528-53-0, 643-84-5, 134-01-0, 1429-30-7, and 134-04-3).
• (10) Elderberry juice (pigment CAS 's: 528-58-5, 528-53-0, 643-84-5, 134-01-0, 1429-30-7, and 134-04-3).
• (11) Grape juice (pigment CAS 's: 528-58-5, 528-53-0, 643-84-5, 134-01-0, 1429-30-7, and 134-04-3).
• (12) Grape skin extract (pigment CAS 's: 528-58-5, 528-53-0, 643-84-5, 134-01-0, 1429-30-7, and 134-04-3).
• (13) Paprika (CAS 68917-78-2)--dried, and oil extracted.
• (14) Pumpkin juice (pigment CAS 127-40-2).
• (15) Purple potato juice (pigment CAS 's: 528-58-5, 528-53-0, 643-84-5, 134-01-0, 1429-30-7, and 134-04-3).
• (16) Red cabbage extract (pigment CAS 's: 528-58-5, 528-53-0, 643-84-5, 134-01-0, 1429-30-7, and 134-04-3).
• (17) Red radish extract (pigment CAS 's: 528-58-5, 528-53-0, 643-84-5, 134-01-0, 1429-30-7, and 134-04-3).
• (18) Saffron (pigment CAS 1393-63-1).
• (19) Turmeric (CAS 458-37-7).

(e) Dillweed oil (CAS 8006-75-5).

(f) Fish oil (Fatty acid CAS 's: 10417-94-4, and 25167-62-8)--stabilized with organic ingredients or only with ingredients on the National List, Sec. Sec. 205.605 and 205.606.

(g) Fructooligosaccharides (CAS 308066-66-2).

(h) Galangal, frozen.

(i) Gelatin (CAS 9000-70-8).

(j) Gums--water extracted only (Arabic; Guar; Locust bean; and Carob bean).

(k) Hops. [er ... then the only thing really organic in the beer's is the water ... no?]

(l) Inulin--oligofructose enriched (CAS 9005-80-5).

(m) Kelp--for use only as a thickener and dietary supplement.

(n) Konjac flour (CAS 37220-17-0).

(o) Lecithin--unbleached.

(p) Lemongrass--frozen.

(q) Orange shellac--unbleached (CAS 9000-59-3).

(r) Pectin (high-methoxy).

(s) Peppers (Chipotle chile).

(t) Starches.

• (1) Cornstarch (native).
• (2) Rice starch, unmodified (CAS 977000-08-0)--for use in organic handling until [date two years after effective date of final rule].
• (3) Sweet potato starch--for bean thread production only.

(u) Turkish bay leaves.

(v) Wakame seaweed (Undaria pinnatifada).

(w) Whey protein concentrate.

Letter to CNN's Glen Beck

Subject: Global warming 'controversy'

Mr. Beck,

I am writing to ask that the people at your program stop and think about who are the interested parties in the global warming debate. And then consider the way science works and how intellectually conservative and skeptical scientists are as a group. Oil companies and other _very_ vested interests are trying, and have succeeded (it's easy when one acts in bad faith), at spreading uncertainty and doubt about climate science. While truth and acting in _good_ faith matters not a bit for oil executives [cbs: http://tinyurl.com/2ucb8t], those two things are scientists' bread and butter.

Unfortunately, your May 2 program would have the public believe the reverse is true: that scientists are out to win buckets of money and the sober source of information is industry funded lobby groups and 'scientists'. Even more ironically, after saying that an inconvenient truth is going 'unchallenged', you bring the industry funded 'climate skeptics' on to your show and let them give their opinion completely outside of a context of debate.

Given how costly climate change will be and how little it will cost the economy to fix it, such television programming is despicable.

(omitted)
PhD student

PS While it is true that one gets more funding for science that has a broader relevance, that is not the main determinant for who gets funding. Most scientists are eager to debunk outlandish claims by their colleagues. It is good science that resists scrutiny and good researchers with a track record of rigor and innovation that get funding. The way many journalists spin it, one would think that 'more funding' means a bigger salary -- almost all funding is R+D money for technology, travel, and research assistants.

PPS The claims of the people on your program could have and should have been fact-checked. If you really want to see a well-cited and debated piece of writing on the topic, the Wikipedia articles on climate change and global warming work well (or at least serve as good pointers). Some fact checking has been done for you ex post facto here: http://tinyurl.com/2emjq9

First post

Here is a letter (responding to this) I just submitted to the Christian Science Monitor (it's a bit insulting so I'll be surprised if they publish it):

While the CSM's commentary on Wikipedia does a good job of paraphrasing the current journalistic narrative ('Wikipedia is democratizing knowledge! etc.'), because this narrative is horribly confused and flawed it misses the point entirely. No academic 'authority' finds Wikipedia threatening in the least.

Intellectual authority is decided not by who says it, but what they say. While perhaps lay people believe a scientist's words because she is an 'expert', her peers believe her because her arguments and evidence are convincing. The same applies to Wikipedia.

Similarly, in an age of 'information overload' the problem is not who or what has the knowledge or truth. The problem remains that knowledge and truth take work and effort to understand -- no quantity of factoids will lead you to understand a complex mathematical concept (or any other concept for that matter).

If anything is threatening about Wikipedia it is that it can lead to a false impression that one has an adequate grasp on a nuanced set of ideas -- a danger to which (evidently) journalists must pay particularly close attention.