CenSEARCHip

Most people are aware that the major search engines abide with censorship restrictions in some countries in order to be able to do business there. China is the prime example, but there are others - France and Germany, for instance. A new visual tool created by a doctoral student at the University of Indiana gives an interesting comparison between the search results for different countries' versions of search engines.

The tool is called CenSEARCHip, and there is a helpful summary of it on First Monday. For image searches, the tool returns thumbnails that can be visually compared by the user. For text searches, the results come in the form of a "tag cloud"-like representation, where the terms that appear much more frequently for one search engine than the other are in larger font.

The visual display of the comparison is a distinctive feature of this tool compared to others that have been developed. The authors are aware that some challenges in interpretation still exist, such as being able to know which differences are the result of censorship and which are not.

I tried comparing Google Image Search for China and the United States with the search term "Nanking." The results were substantially similar. This contrasts with the example of "Tianenmen Square" given in the First Monday paper above, where the results were quite different. It made me wish that Japan were a comparison option. Next I tried "e-waste," a term of little political importance, but one where China may be associated with negative terms. The China/US comparison produced few interesting differences.

"Falun gong" produced some notable differences - in particular, the greater popularity of the terms "mentally ill" and "obsessed" in the Chinese version. One helpful modification of the CenSEARCHip tool would be the ability to recognize groups of words together - "mentally" and "ill" actually appeared as separate terms in the results.

I agree with the authors overall that the tool has some merit, and also could be improved. I appreciate that the interface and displayed results are simple and intuitive. It would be interesting to probe how different users interpret the results in order to understand how people find meaning in image and tag-cloud comparisons; I am not sure we know that.

A Real Revolutionary

This poem was read at an honoring ceremony at BGI connected to graduation. It seemed worthy of passing along...

-A real revolutionary-
by Michael Lee Seliga aka RandoMike, of Cascadian Edible Landscapes

Just because ………………………………………………… does not make you a revolutionary

- you wear a Che shirt, or Travel around Latin America…
-have political bumper stickers on your Toyota Prius, or your Bio-Diesel truck….
- You Read or write zines, or Install the Linux operating system on your computer ……
- You’re a vegetarian, shop at the Co-op and reuse cloth bags….
-you ride a bike, dumpster dive, or do political theater
-you Rock climb, do Kung Fu, smoke herb, or get a vasectomy
-you live in a Collective House, compost food scraps, and make your own tofu
-you write poetry, play capoeira, or work on an organic farm
- you listen to folk music and wear flip flops, or hip hop and sport shell tops, or punk rock and have a Mohawk, or Reggae and got dread locks….
-You “damn the man”, Fuck the system, capitalism, Bush, or War…. …………..

Don’t-get-me-wrong. I consider the above good and support you doing them.
However, what is revolutionary to me…..

-is if your Toes are like roots of a mobile tree, which provide
you balance, strength and Patience;
you walk with a WIRY Resilience , Wily resistance,
and kick up dust with non complacence

-- Revolutionary to me is if your spine is built with of peace cranes, and your hips and legs are constructed out of titanium Slinkys.
-- Revolutionary to me is if You use one set of Fingers as sculpting tools to facilitate people’s negative comments into positive thoughts; and with the other you drop literal and metaphorical seeds so you propagate life wherever you flow.
-- Revolutionary to me is if your Rib Cage is not locked so your heart is free to inspire humble speech, which your Lungs bellow, in addition to harmony and thunder, the one depending on the situation
-- Revolutionary to me is if you use your arms to bridge chasms previously thought impassable…if you’re comfortable in your skin, as well as with other people’s melanin, and your chin is stuck up but your Nose is not.
-Revolutionary to me is if you are Fluent in three-year-old, if Truth emanates from your mouth constantly curled up; if your lips are puckered to deliver quick kisses or so you can whistle your theme song when having fun in the struggle.
-The shape and size of your ears don’t matter..…What matters is whether you Resist judgments and assumptions; whether you listen from your soul as intensely as a hummingbird flaps it’s wings because you know in the scraps of syllables and sounds is where aural nectar can be found
-Revolutionary to me is ….If you can see color and be color blind simultaneously, and although you have X-ray vision and can see sickness around you, you can also enjoy the beauty that surrounds you.
….. What helps you do this is that, tattooed on the inside of your eyelids, is “there is hope”….so even on the days when it’s hard to see, you still have visionary dreams.
-Revolutionary to me is if the glass on the windows [Eyes] to your soul is clear so when people look in they see….. fire
-if the lobes of your Brain are divided into Self-Respect and Focus, and if you move as though you’re a piece of art with divine purpose.

I am not trying to claim anything here.
The above are only criteria of what I hold to be revolutionary,
and allow me to move towards an ideal.
Because, yeah: I too want to be a real revolutionary

Calm technology

Mark Weiser and John Seeley Brown of Xerox PARC wrote this article called Designing Calm Technology more than a decade ago. I found the distinction between "attending" and "attuning" to be interesting, as well as the notion that calm technology explicitly supports features in our periphery.

Designs that encalm and inform meet two human needs not usually met together. Information technology is more often the enemy of calm. Pagers, cellphones, newservices, the World-Wide-Web, email, TV, and radio bombard us frenetically. Can we really look to technology itself for a solution?

But some technology does lead to true calm and comfort. There is no less technology involved in a comfortable pair of shoes, in a fine writing pen, or in delivering the New York Times on a Sunday morning, than in a home PC. Why is one often enraging, the others frequently encalming? We believe the difference is in how they engage our attention. Calm technology engages both the center and the periphery of our attention, and in fact moves back and forth between the two. [...]

Where we place our attention is so important. It is something we have quite a lot of control over, and yet rarely account for explicitly. Encalming technology helps us by helping to manage our attention in supportive ways. What if this were an explicit design principle in all technology? We would live in a different (healthier and friendlier) world.

Good sports

A friend passed along this inspiring story of sportswomanship. I'll let it speak for itself.

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/24392612/from/ET/

PORTLAND, Ore. - With two runners on base and a strike against her, Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University uncorked her best swing and did something she had never done, in high school or college. Her first home run cleared the center-field fence.

But it appeared to be the shortest of dreams come true when she missed first base, started back to tag it and collapsed with a knee injury.

She crawled back to first but could do no more. The first-base coach said she would be called out if her teammates tried to help her. Or, the umpire said, a pinch runner could be called in, and the homer would count as a single.

Then, members of the Central Washington University softball team stunned spectators by carrying Tucholsky around the bases Saturday so the three-run homer would count — an act that contributed to their own elimination from the playoffs.

Doing work that is disconnected from your own heart

A friend passed along this patent application for an outsourcing assessment methodology from Bank of America. From the patent text:

A typical American employee demands a high salary, good benefits, a good work environment, vacation time, and other job-related perks such as reimbursement for higher education. These job-related perks are expensive and may not be cost-effective for the business entity. A business entity is forced to commit significant resources to employ an American work force and may often find that the demands of American employees far exceed the allotted budget.

B of A's methodology will allow companies to select countries where workers will work for a low salary, without benefits, in a poor work environment, without vacation or training. It is worth noting that all the inventors on this patent are American.

I am finding this quite puzzling, and also sad.

The Rise of the Rest

Newsweek ran an interesting article called The Rise of the Rest. It is an upbeat look at how the world is moving away from having a single superpower-- a situation that was always unstable, of course.

The post-American world is naturally an unsettling prospect for Americans, but it should not be. This will not be a world defined by the decline of America but rather the rise of everyone else. It is the result of a series of positive trends that have been progressing over the last 20 years.

[The author then debunks a number of potential objections to the phrase "positive trends"...] It turns out that we'll probably survive just fine as the rest of the world grows in prosperity and power:

Per capita, it turns out, the United States trains more engineers than either of the Asian giants [China and India].

But America's hidden secret is that most of these engineers are immigrants. Foreign students and immigrants account for almost 50 percent of all science researchers in the country. In 2006 they received 40 percent of all PhDs. By 2010, 75 percent of all science PhDs in this country will be awarded to foreign students. When these graduates settle in the country, they create economic opportunity. Half of all Silicon Valley start-ups have one founder who is an immigrant or first generation American. The potential for a new burst of American productivity depends not on our education system or R&D spending, but on our immigration policies. If these people are allowed and encouraged to stay, then innovation will happen here. If they leave, they'll take it with them.

More broadly, this is America's great—and potentially insurmountable—strength. It remains the most open, flexible society in the world, able to absorb other people, cultures, ideas, goods, and services. The country thrives on the hunger and energy of poor immigrants. Faced with the new technologies of foreign companies, or growing markets overseas, it adapts and adjusts. When you compare this dynamism with the closed and hierarchical nations that were once superpowers, you sense that the United States is different and may not fall into the trap of becoming rich, and fat, and lazy.

American society can adapt to this new world. But can the American government?...

Yes, it's true. Our greatest weakness is likely to be the slow adaptation of those in Washington, D.C.

But like the author, I see the "demotion" of the US from Leader of the World as a potentially positive shift. It would allow us to change our values from an unending quest to stay on top to a more gentle and cooperative role. That was a shift we couldn't make when the rest of the world was still agreeing that we are "#1". As they change their attitude, we are freed.

There are models for peacefully relinquishing power, by the way. The dismantling of the British Empire was largely peaceful, at least compared to other examples from history. We'd do well to step down gracefully.

Vote in Dell's ReGeneration Green Computing contest

Recently, Dell solicited entries for its "Green Computing Technology Design Contest" and got 180 responses. A panel of experts has already narrowed the field down to five, all of whom received $10,000. Now the public can vote to choose the top finalist, who will receive an additional $15,000.

Entrants were encouraged to consider all aspects of sustainability, including materials, logistics, power use, end-of-life, and even the service model.

Details of the contest and a description of the five final entries is here.

I invite folks to vote for a finalist (by May 7)! Some of the entries really seem to "get it," including multiple dimensions of sustainability in their designs. Sure, they're all concept models, far from finished products. I find it encouraging that such things can even be envisioned in fairly complete form.

A better mousetrap

There is a hole in the wall behind my refrigerator. I think it was made by the previous owners of the house because they ran water lines there for the water-spout-enabled fridge they bought. Anyway, I didn't think about it much until I looked over from my computer one fine day in February and saw.... a mouse. In the middle of my kitchen floor. Believe it or not, I caught this mouse with nothing more than a paper bag. It scooted out of the kitchen to the hall closet, and when I got it to emerge, I strategically put the bag in its path, and it ran inside. Donning garden gloves, I carried the bag to the local creek and let the little terrified guy (or gal) go free. I told it to watch out for cats!

I wasn't really sure what would transpire from that, so I didn't do anything. And then a couple weeks ago, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye -- a little black mouse was slinking from the space behind the fridge to the space under the oven. Hmmmmm.

This one was much more timid, and hence impossible to catch in a bag. (Proving once again why we have a natural tendency toward fear, caution, and suspicion -- these mental qualities are evolutionarily valuable, even though they don't apply as much now as they did in the savannah). So I ordered a Smart Humane Mousetrap, which catches the mouse live.

It's a brilliant design. The mouse catches itself via a lever that springs the box closed. The bait is placed between two panels of a plastic lift-off door so that when you lift it open, the mouse must eat its way out. In this way, you avoid contact with the mouse, and the mouse gets the fuel it needs to survive out in the wild.

So I've had a relationship with this little black mouse for a while, as I worked to catch it in the trap. And consequently, I learned a few things about humans too. At first, I followed the directions to bait the trap exactly, placing the bait (bread with peanut butter) between the plastic panels. But this takes some effort, so after a couple days I got lazy and just put a little piece of bread inside the trap.

At first nothing much happened - the bread remained, the trap was unsprung. It got to be routine to check the trap, replace the rock-hard bread, and reset the trap. Sometimes I tried a bit of granola or cereal instead. Then one day I noticed that the bread was gone! But no mouse! Clever fellow. Or maybe it was a giant spider taking the bait?

When it happened a second time, I decided I was the problem. The directions did say to set the trap very lightly, and I wasn't sure how lightly I was setting it. With some experimentation, I found that I could set it like a hair-trigger, sometimes springing it just trying to set it down. I also went back to putting the bait behind the window, so the mouse would have to spend a little more time in the trap figuring out that the bait was not accessible.

Nothing happened the first night. In the early afternoon, I got the idea of weighting the level arm with a few pennies to make it even more sensitively triggered. As I typed on the computer at 2 pm, the trap sprung.

Yes! A little black mouse was inside!

I immediately felt the fear of the trapped mouse. And I felt sorry that I had put the bait behind the window because it meant that the mouse didn't even get a reward for venturing into the trap. In the future, I will bait the trap inside.

I put the whole trap in a paper bag and walked again to the creek. I got out the trap and set it on the ground. The mouse and I made eye contact. I apologized for scaring him. I reflected on the fact that mice can carry diseases, so that it was really better not to have him in my kitchen. And about the fact that not everyone would use a live trap, so if a neighbor had noticed him, he might have been killed in a deadly trap. Yes, there are cats out here, but there are cats in my neighborhood too.

I opened the box at one end. The prison door was gone. But the mouse did not go out. It stayed huddled at the other end, staring at me. Freedom was fully available in that moment, but the mouse did not get up and walk out the door. How similar it is for us.

Finally the moment shifted, and the mouse shot out and over a small ledge in two big bounds. May you be well, mouse.

(And just to be sure, I am baiting the trap again...)