Author Archives: Hue White

Courtesy my Arts Editor, I’m not sure what these might be, but they’re mighty fun!

Indeed it is. A friend directs me to a recent paleontological discovery, as described in National Geographic by Kristin Romey:

If you’re interested in the ill-fated Franklin Expedition of 1845 in search of the Northwest Passage, the Royal Ontario Museum has information on the finding of the HMS Erebus, including videos (via american archaeology, summer 2016). And Archaeology (July/August 2016) has a full article:

The search to determine the fate of Franklin’s 1845 expedition began almost immediately after the realization that the ships were lost. Since then, explorers have turned up bodies, bones, weapons, tools, a sunken rescue ship, and even a handwritten note with precise coordinates of where the quest veered so horribly off course. But the shipwrecks themselves remained elusive, lost amid a constellation of archipelagos and the whims of sea ice. After nearly 170 years, Canadian archaeologists were finally on the cusp of a breakthrough in one of the great maritime mysteries. The potential find carried the weight of decades of anticipation and even modern geopolitical ramifications, as the nations that surround the now increasingly ice-free Arctic jockey for access to the natural resources that are thought to lie beneath it.

The romance of exploration mixed with the horror of running into conditions beyond our management. Is that our future as well, exploring outer space (or the Marianas Trench) and encountering disastrous conditions combined with failing equipment?

Is that the fate of an individualist, the likes of which has only arisen in the last 50 years? Or does this fate belong more to those who feel themselves an inextricable part of the human society, such as T. E. Lawrence, whose letters (T. E. Lawrence: The Selected Letters, ed. Malcolm Brown, although I shan’t dig out the page number as it’s been many years since I read that tome) include his envy that two of his brothers died in World War I, in service to the British Empire – a find that brought me up short many years ago. I would have reacted in horror, knowing the possible final fates of those men, cut down by machine gun fire, or choking to death on any of several poison gases employed by both sides, perhaps bayoneted… But, for him, it was their honor to give their lives in the employ of the empire.

Never mind his own exploits.

Franklin, Shackleton, Lawrence – no doubt very different men, but who put their lives on the line in very chancy circumstances. Will we see those days again? Will we see those days where craters are explored by future drones – not in search of new frontiers, but in search of those who went before, and became ever-silent?

Here we have Ornamental Onions, not so tasty but cute as all get out. These have gotten out of their corner and will have to be ripped out at some point.

And back behind them are the raspberry bushes!

Here we have the return of hollyhocks to our garden. They had disappeared for several years…

On the one hand, I’m not sure if I’m pleased to share the same thought process with Elon Musk, as reported by Geraint Lewis in NewScientist (11 June 2016, paywall):

ARE we, and the universe we are in, a simulation? SpaceX chief Elon Musk thinks there is a tiny billions-to-one chance that we actually exist physically, and it is much more likely that we are data swirling around on someone’s supercomputer. What leads him to this strange conclusion?

However, given how nominative determinism keeps popping up these days, one is forced to conclude the programmer-in-chief needs to cut down on the random correlations.

Musk is immersed in a technological world that has advanced rapidly, and it seems inevitable to him that a functioning human brain, consciousness and all, will exist within a computer in the not too distant future. With the growth in computing power over the next few millennia, this first lonely brain will be joined by many more in a computed universe.

Which all sounds quite pleasant, I suppose, but I have to wonder if the limits of computation would have an impact on our capabilities once we’re encapsulated in a computer. I’ve mentioned this before, but there are days in which, wondering at how woefully awful we are at understanding our world, even with the use of science, I have to wonder if, already embedded in a computer, we’re also already operating with some inherent burdens springing from the computational model used by whoever has put us in here.

Of course, both sides of the issue should be considered: perhaps we are improved by our sojourn in the speculative computer? Better memories, perhaps, although that might lead to insanity. One is left to wonder: how to determine the edges of our computer simulation? It’s an interesting thought, at least to me.

Once I got over the wretched title of I Bury the Living (1958), my Arts Editor and I discovered an eccentric little horror thriller, a low-key movie about a man named Kraft (Richard Boone) who is elected chair of the cemetery committee. A nearly honorary post, he’s assured, but soon he discovers the cemetery map under the management of a man-of-all-work (Theodore Bikel), full of white pins (reserved but unused lots) and black pins (lots with the body already in residence).  Soon he’s replacing white pins with black pins and watching the bodies pile up.

Is he, in some occult way, responsible? The movie takes the question seriously, and as we build to the dénouement, he quite logically removes the black pins he has placed (symbolizing his supposed ‘victims’) and replaces them with white pins, in the belief that, if he can end someone’s life by placing a black pin on their plot on the map, he can restore their life by changing their pin back to white.  So at this point, we wonder if we’re about to see a legitimate predecessor to the various zombie movies & plays of today?

But no…

This is not a movie of a man moved beyond his abilities by some power, but rather a man overwhelmed by a power, within or without him, and its arbitrary requirements of him, and all he’ll do – or not – to satisfy it. Eating away at the edge of insanity, as he watches his life fall apart around him, a moral man whose very life appears to violate those very moral norms of traditional society. What is the solution? A gun? A mad urge to dig the bodies up? He becomes a rag doll to the competing demands of morality and power. In deep ways, questions of responsibility become paramount, and this movie deviously leaves those answers to the viewer.

From CNN’s report on the turmoil in the UK Labor Party:

Benn’s sacking was followed by several shadow Cabinet resignations: shadow cabinet of shadow health secretary Heidi Alexander, shadow Scottish secretary Ian Murray, shadow education secretary Lucy Powell, shadow secretary for environment, food and rural affairs Kerry McCarthy and shadow chief secretary to the treasury Seema Malhotra.

I want to know the nature of “shadow health”!

When it comes to the British Exit from the EU, Timothy Edgar is not happy from the perspective of international security. On Lawfare he’s published an opinion delineating a few possible ways this could go down:

The UK’s decision to leave the European Union could be a big blow for United States national security – and for global privacy.  The UK has always served as a bridge between America and Europe.  Its decision to leave the EU makes it a less effective one.

In the wake of Brexit, the United States government is emphasizing continuity.  President Obama is stressing the special relationship, and the intelligence community is saying its partnerships with both the UK and other European nations will not be affected.  Of course, if Brexit triggers a breakup of the United Kingdom, which seems an entirely plausible outcome, the impact on transatlantic security would be quite severe.

Which leaves me wondering if the USA should interfere if Scotland and Northern Ireland decide to hold a referendum on leaving the UK.

RedState quotes Ted Cruz’s statement:

The British people have spoken clearly: They choose to leave the European Union.

The results of the ‪#‎Brexit‬ referendum should serve as a wake-up call for internationalist bureaucrats from Brussels to Washington, D.C. that some free nations still wish to preserve their national sovereignty.

The British people have indicated that they will no longer outsource their future to the EU, and prefer to chart their own path forward. The United States can learn from the referendum and attend to the issues of security, immigration and economic autonomy that drove this historic vote.

In addition, we should treat the #Brexit as an opportunity to forge a closer partnership with our historic friend and ally, including immediately starting negotiations for a targeted US-UK free trade agreement.

Which seems a brilliant misreading of history, from the small margin of victory, the appropriateness of even holding a referendum, to calling the country with whom we’ve fought two wars a historic ally – we’ve had better relations with France. RedState then continues with its own comment.

To a great extent the #Brexit vote was a metaphor for our own struggle over federalism. Just as Brussels permeated every facet of daily life in the UK, from business practices and product labeling to family law, so, too, has Washington run roughshod over the historic autonomy of states and municipalities. The anxiety and anger expressed by the voters in 2010, 2014 and during the 2016 primary campaigns is no different that the anxiety and anger expressed by the voters in Britain yesterday. #Brexit was a vote for freedom and personal autonomy and against rule by a self-anointed elite.

I suppose the Republicans in the North Carolina statehouse fit that description, for just one fine example of the self-anointed running roughshod over the wishes of the public. Then there’s gun control laws (or lack thereof), marriage equality, and a number of other such topics. And you have to love the attempt to cleave the voters from those they chose, while blandly ignoring the fact that the GOP holds Congress

But, for perspective, that entire paragraph fits into the conservative strategy of inventing anger in the conservative voter against the Federal government. After all, how are you going to increase clicks if you tell everyone that everything is fine?

National Review’s David French echoes RedState:

Across the ocean, America faces its own crisis. Our technocratic elite has constructed its own self-serving system — one that mirrors the very system that Britain rejected yesterday. Our politics are more uncertain and chaotic than at any time in decades. We can’t predict what will happen. But one thing I do know — history never truly had a “side.” Instead, it is the story of action and reaction, and no outcome is inevitable.

As if the elite isn’t subject to voters. The echo chamber of the Right is sometimes amazing. But the Left has its own odd delusions, as simply the title of this Huffington Post article suggests:

Brexit Chaos Could Shock Trump Voters Back To Common Sense.

Why?

And definitely in the short term, Trump’s ideas just got a big test overseas and they failed — here’s hoping Americans are paying attention.

If that’s not clear to me, why should it be clear the average American voter who’s not paying any attention to overseas action? Still, this is interesting.

The specter of job loss hangs ominously over the U.K., particularly for 2.2 million financial workers in the country. Before the historic vote on Thursday, employers signaled that they’d flee the country if it voted itself out of the Union. In April, John Cryan, the British-born chief executive of the German giant Deutsche Bank said he planned to move operations to Frankfurt, Germany’s financial capital.

In Iran, AL Monitor‘s Arash Karami reports some initial responses:

Deputy chief of staff of the armed forces Brig. Gen. Masoud Jazayeri was the first Iranian official to offer a comment after the shocking June 23 vote that surprised most Western experts and analysts. “The desire by the people of England to leave the EU is in reality a ‘No’ by the majority of the people for the continuation of the compliance of the British government with respect the imposition of America’s will on this country,” Jazayeri said.

I can only think that the General, like most blogs and partisan media sources, insists on seeing everything through his own personal prism.  Arash summarizes the terrain in Iran:

There’s always fall out from SCOTUS decisions, and those good folks on the Web are always there to track them.  Here’s one for Obergefell v. Hodges.^1,2 I’m told it’ll be updated with every change by a crack team.

In case this surprises you, perhaps you should consider getting your news & views from some other source than Fox News and WorldNetDaily.

¹You are not being Rick-rolled.

²h/t Steve Benen @ MaddowBlog.

Steven Weissman publishes an article on health care pricing in a blog on Center for Health Journalism:

I am going public to reveal the astonishing truth. There is a simple way to instantly, with ease, end our nation’s health cost misery!

When the founder of a Miami area hospital, who was a longtime friend and client died, I became interim president. The insider’s view of the healthcare system is enough to make anyone sick. …

Laws requiring health providers to publish price ranges or average prices are growing in popularity. Such so called “price transparency” serves as a public relations gimmick to relieve ever mounting public pressure on elected representatives. Simply put, each of us is entitled to know the actual price we will be charged for our healthcare. Limiting disclosure to price ranges or averages, while permitting providers to predatorily bill each person a different amount, unfairly benefits providers at the expense of all patients.

While it sounds nice, it remains a truism that a person in an ambulance doesn’t have time for price shopping. Now this may be ameliorated by the very act of publishing a price list, as then consumer groups can compare and publish conclusions to the general public, and hospitals and other providers who are out of line on price may then revise their prices downward – or possibly upward.

On the other hand, the sheer volume of procedures and prices may be such that ‘price transparency’ becomes a meaningless concept, even for consumer groups. On this I’m uncertain, but Steven’s conclusion rings some warning bells for me:

When rates are set, patients will be able to shop for good healthcare value. Providers will be forced to compete based on price, quality and service. Healthcare costs will plummet. The cost of health insurance, which is simply a direct function of underlying medical costs, will plummet as well.

Perhaps it’s just the cynic in me, but I think that last sentence is naive. Health insurance must include a profit margin, based on health actuarial calculations. Nor do I really see anything here about wellness pricing, which I recall Mayo Clinic had advocated a very long time ago – possibly before the Web was invented. It never seemed to go anywhere, but as I recall the concept was to pay the provider based on the health outcome of the patient. By removing the ‘price by procedure’ practice, duplicate tests become a negative, and the provider (especially the commercial side of the operation) is focused on outcome, rather than piecework. Sounds great in abbreviated theory, but how do you compensate, say, oncologists who work on what is currently terminal cancer? Or hospice centers? I suppose outcome expectations have to be detailed, but that becomes a moving target. Perhaps that’s why this concept didn’t make it.

Down in the comments section is a suggestion of something of which I’ve had a suspicion, but not the time to investigate.

Free market competion in healthcare.

Posted by Thomas Johnson (not verified) | Wed, 2016-06-22

More than a year ago I wrote about an ongoing effort to promote geocentrism, and now the latest issue of Skeptical Inquirer (July/August 2016, apparently not online) has published an in-depth criticism of the movement’s film, The Principle. This bit caught my eye:

Ernst Mach is the next scientist brought to our attention, where it is claimed that his ideas show that you could get the same effect from a rotating Earth as from a stationary Earth with a rotating universe. [pp 51-52]

What about tangential speed? After all, the stars appear fixed and thus must be modeled as if on a disc, rotating about the Earth. From Wikipedia:

Tangential speed and rotational speed are related: the greater the RPMs, the larger the speed in metres per second. Tangential speed is directly proportional to rotational speed at any fixed distance from the axis of rotation. However, tangential speed, unlike rotational speed, depends on radial distance (the distance from the axis). For a platform rotating with a fixed rotational speed, the tangential speed in the centre is zero. Towards the edge of the platform the tangential speed increases proportional to the distance from the axis.

Or, in other words, the further from Earth, the faster they have to be going. Otherwise you’d see relative star motion, and lots of it. A lot more than you see today, where you have to wait centuries for the relative motion to become visible.

So, think about it. What happens when the that disc’s tangential speed is greater than the speed of light? Yeah, I have no idea. Maybe they treated that problem in the film, but the review doesn’t mention the problem nor a resolution.

I think this is a problem.

Unlike the previous review, so difficult to write it was, this review can say the worst thing about The Monster That Challenged the World (1957) may have been the title of the movie. An ugly, uncouth mouthful, devoid of grace or inspiration, it sits like a bad piece of cheese, neither mold nor food, but something in between.

But the movie itself – for its era, this is not too bad at all. Tension, anticipation, initial success, a setback, the plot elements are there and are competent. Shockingly, a pretty girl dies – so we know, again for the era, this is a serious movie with some thought in it. The acting is competent, or even more than competent; the sudden deaths somewhat macabre, somewhat mysterious; the characters have a life outside of hunting monsters, although the romantic subplot was a bit stereotypical. The cinematography was competent at worst; the SCUBA scenes were mostly very clear and well presented.

The special effects were variable. Much of it was actually well above our expectations; however, the final monster was a trifle cheesy. Interestingly, the extermination of the monsters left us with the question – are they really all dead? How do you know? Did the scriptwriter really mean to leave us with this ambiguous ending? The characters don’t seem to be aware of it, so was a sequel planned?

So it makes for a better afternoon movie than we expected, overall. We even looked forward to it (we spread it over three nights). Now, I’ll grant the themes appeared to be mundane and uninteresting, but there’s something to be said for a well-made monster movie.

And if you don’t want to strangle the little girl at the end of the movie, you’re a better viewer than I.

The poster is courtesy Wikipedia.

As I grabbed chocolate from a colleague’s jar, he turned, and I said, “Never mind me, it’s not worth it.”

“Come, you must take self-esteem classes!” he replied.

“I have, but I keep failing them.”

A few days ago we finished watching When Worlds Collide (1951), based on the 1932 book of the same title by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer, which I’d read years ago. When I say, “a few days ago”, I do mean to imply that it’s taken me this long to try to review it.

Possibly the worst part about it is so much of it is fairly competent, from the acting to the script-writing to even the science (excepts the limited genetics part). The painted backdrops are actually rather striking, and my Arts Editor liked them a lot.

Yet, you come to the end of the movie and the reaction is, at best, “meh.”

There are minor variances to the book, such as the French metallurgist who doesn’t appear in the movie, or the chief scientist being left behind, but these engender no anguish. But perhaps the real problem lies in its treatment of a couple of moral problems. The movie is about the detection of a star and accompanying planet, and how the star will destroy the Earth, while the planet of the intruder will survive; the plan is to send a rocket ship off the Earth and to the intruder planet, hoping it’ll be habitable. There’s very limited capacity on the ship, and they correctly note that fuel is quite problematic as it takes fuel to lift fuel. The qualifications of the passengers is paramount, and a lottery is held amongst the highly qualified to decide who gets to fly.

Except a medical doctor uses his position to ensure a man, whose only qualification is as a airplane pilot, gets a place on the trumped up reason that the rocket ship pilot needs a backup. It’s purely to curry favor with a pretty girl, and there is no attempt to address the moral questions. What about the excluded, faceless person? Indeed, the pilot who is saved seems more aware of this than the doctor, purportedly highly educated, as the pilot, initially guaranteed a spot, gives it up in a moment of moral courage. The movie transitions from a momentary examination of how principle influences concrete life, to how moral turpitude can be ignored if you don’t know the person so impacted.

And it really dilutes the impact of the story. Better to have the pilot stay behind and hold off the rioters who are discontented at losing the lottery (and the ill-logic of the rioters needed its own examination), where he could show courage and leadership. True, the chief scientist gets to fill a similar role, but the impact is minimal; at best, we can celebrate the betrayal of the man who funded the spaceship, a dubious, if understandable, emotion to experience at that time.

This really isn’t worth your time.

This single entry thread finally gets a follow-on as the general election starts into full swing. Steve Benen was commenting today on Hillary’s early assault on the Trump campaign, as well as its generally weak state:

Today, she’s reportedly going to take another swing, this time hammering the presumptive GOP nominee over economic policy.

But before considering Clinton’s indictment, it’s worth appreciating what independent economic analysts are saying about Trump’s economic agenda. The Wall Street Journalreported yesterday:

A new analysis concludes Donald Trump’s economic proposals, taken at face value, could produce a prolonged recession and heavy job losses that would fall hardest on low- and middle-income workers.

The Moody’s Analytics report, which a person close to the Trump campaign strongly disputed, is the first that attempts to quantify the cumulative economic benefits and costs of Mr. Trump’s proposals on taxes, trade, immigration and spending. It determines that full adoption of those policies would sharply reduce economic output during his first term and reduce employment by 3.5 million jobs.

Under almost any scenario, the report says, “the U.S. economy will be more isolated and diminished.”

The report is available in its entirety here (pdf). Were it not for Trump’s campaign turmoil and anemic fundraising, it’s likely this scathing analysis would have been pretty big news yesterday.

Kevin Drum @ MotherJones has a schadenfreude article on the state of Kansas these days:

Ouch. From 2005 to 2011, Kansas was growing faster than the US economy. This continued for about a year after Brownback took office, at which point economic growth declined and then flatlined. But hey—maybe things are just tough in the Midwest? Not really, it turns out. Here’s how Kansas compares to her neighboring states since 2011:

I think this is the right chart, I had to recover it after the link disappeared. HAW

The chart comes from EconBrowser, run by Professors Hamilton (UCSD) and Chin (UW-Madison). And – fully acknowledging that a single economic factor isn’t going to have that much of an impact – I can’t help but notice the ascendancy of Colorado in terms of economic growth and note that Colorado is one of the few states that have legalized marijuana. This occurred in late 2012, and the first stores opened the first day of 2014. The chart indicates Colorado was already well ahead of Kansas, and the story just gets worse as time flows by.

The Colorado story could easily be one of personal freedom / responsibility, but that’s a bit of a fairy tale without numbers. I’d like to see a time-series for each state indicating how the tax changes each state has implemented (or not) has impacted the the personal income quintiles of the citizenry. That is, in the typical division of the citizens into 5 chunks by income, how much tax burden by percentage does that quintile carry? Taking that as an inverse proxy for personal freedom might indicate that the Kansas tax cuts have, in reality, increased the relative burden of most folks, while benefiting just a few. And that might explain, in some small part, the Kansas disaster.

My Arts Editor espied a dragonfly tonight, and I went click-happy on it. First, her two favorite pics:

And now my two favorite. I should probably just pick one…

Let me know if you have a favorite…

Jonathan Chait published a report in New York Magazine on Trump’s campaign that rang a bell in that interview with Arne Carlson. First, Jonathan:

Trump dominated the Republican primary because he mastered one weird trick. The trick was to constantly spout wild and offensive comments, frequently targeted at women or people of other races or nationalities, generating a constant stream of news coverage focused on Trump’s latest outrage. Since most Republican voters really like outrageous comments, especially when they’re directed at women and people of other races or nationalities, this technique worked well enough to overcome Trump’s massive strategic and organizational liabilities as a candidate. But since most voters in the electorate as a whole feel differently, Trump’s outrageousness is now compounding rather than hiding his technical incompetence.

And from Arne Carlson’s interview in City Pages:

Two people came into the campaign with public policy. And it was Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. And the media very quickly galvanized behind Donald Trump. They saw their ratings go up the more they covered Trump. They ignored Bush’s attempt to talk about public policy, and virtually ridiculed him. I’m not often critical of the media, but I am this year. And it’s driven mostly by television, and ratings.

I.e., money and ego – because the very few people do something and hope to be ignored. While I had no great hopes for Jeb, it’s unfortunate that the hollow circus performing in his neck of the woods attracted more attention, and now the GOP is left with a nominee who not only has little chance of winning, but is beginning to drive GOP members away.

But for all that it’s tempting to blame the media, it’s important to note that the facts of the matter are out there, available to everyone with a computer and an urge to do the research. To my mind, it’s more accurate to blame the sub-culture involved, a culture nurtured by the radio talk show hosts and Fox News (recall that Fox News viewers are not as well informed as other segments of voters), spoon-fed misleading views, false ‘facts’, and trained not to really think. Trained on outrageous statements, as Chait notes Donald has that down to a T – but he’s not on their leash, and so the GOP threatens to spin so hard it may fragment.

Tensions have continued to grow stronger between Turkey and the United States because, as AL-Monitor reports, this:

A photographer for Agence France-Presse posted photos of US special forces soldiers fighting alongside the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) near Raqqa wearing the Kurdish army’s patch on their uniforms on May 27. The YPG is considered a terror organization in Turkey, but not by the United States and its allies. US support for the YPG in its fight against the Islamic State (IS) has been a point of growing tension between the United States and Turkey. As more photos and videos started circulating on social media, the public reaction in Turkey snowballed as well.

The reason for the anger?

Their importance goes beyond just spontaneous outbursts of anger. There is a strong undercurrent of resentment and anger, particularly among Islamist and ultranationalist groups.

Although no prominent members of Muslim organizations would signal overt support for IS, their resentment toward the United States has grown loud and clear after these photos. Ibrahim Sediyani, a journalist and prominent writer, was the lone voice of dissent among those contacted by Al-Monitor. Sediyani said, “The YPG is not attacking Turkey, and the United States and others have repeatedly told Turkey they do not consider the YPG a terror organization and will continue to support the YPG in its battle against IS. So what is the big deal about the patches, which is just a standard procedure in the field?”

Other pundits would not agree. Murat Ozer, chairman of the nongovernmental organization Imkander, told Al-Monitor, “Remember the photo of knocking down Saddam Hussein’s statute with its face wrapped with the US flag? That photo remains in the minds of Iraqis not as the liberation of Iraq from dictatorship, but as a sign of the US invasion of Iraq

Several other opinions are expressed, I suspect more reflective of internal ideologies of the organizations than reality on the ground. Still, this serves as a warning about the difficulties of having a coherent foreign policy. I’d hate to imagine Trump – or any of his proxies – trying to figure this mess out.

It is a movie of thighs. The Seven Magnificent Gladiators (1983 or 1984, depending on the source) is a Lou Ferrigno vehicle in which he is hired, much like the Samurai of the classic Seven Samurai, to chase away bandits harassing a village. Everyone is showing a lot of thigh in this movie, and while Lou’s is the most muscular, the bad guy undoubtedly shows the most, a length of thigh which would probably be more at home on a style runway than serving as the showpiece of a villain with merely ugly designs on a village.

And yet this villain is the best acted in the piece, leering one moment, introspective the next, no doubt wondering at the implications of his immortality, even as he slices and dices his own mother. The rest of this movie reeks of incompetence, from script to acting (although the Roman emperor was entertainingly chewing the scenery at every opportunity) to effects; if this movie has not been the subject of an MST3K documentary, Joel has missed a bet.

In the end, my Arts Editor and I were forced to debate: was Lou’s right pectoral concealed because of poor plastic surgery, or was the left pec just that much better of an actor?

Computers, that is. NewScientist’s Hal Hodson (4 June 2016) reports on the new technology used for processing those thousands of hours of audio recordings:

Every call into or out of US prisons is recorded. It can be important to know what’s being said, because some inmates use phones to conduct illegal business on the outside. But the recordings generate huge quantities of audio that are prohibitively expensive to monitor with human ears.

To help, one jail in the Midwest recently used a machine-learning system developed by London firm Intelligent Voice to listen in on the thousands of hours of recordings generated every month. …

The company’s CEO Nigel Cannings says the breakthrough came when he decided to see what would happen if he pointed a machine-learning system at the waveform of the voice data – its pattern of spikes and troughs – rather than the audio recording directly. It worked brilliantly.

Training his system on this visual representation let him harness powerful existing techniques designed for image classification. “I built this dialect classification system based on pictures of the human voice,” he says.

What’s interesting is that the translation of the data from the poorly understood audio realm to the better-understood visual realm comes as a surprise. The translation of a problem from one realm to another is actually an approach often employed in many areas – just as Mr. Cannings did here.

NewScientist (4 June 2016) reports on a reputedly new technology, by a company named Faception, that … well, it sounds like the latest version of phrenology. Implementing some standard facial recognition technology, it then proceeds to this:

The controversial part is what happens next. Faception maps these features onto a set of 15 proprietary “classifiers” that it has developed over the past three years. Its categories include terrorist, paedophile, white-collar criminal, poker player, bingo player and academic. To come up with its custom archetypes, Itzik Wilf, Faception’s chief technology officer, says the system was trained on the facial features of thousands of images of known examples. The software only looks at facial features, he says, and ignores things like hairstyle and jewellery.

Since the facial bones characterize the look of the face, phrenology is spot-on. They claim successes, but from the descriptions they do not seem statistically significant; indeed, they sound like mind-readers’ tricks. Their final claim,

“This is a new idea,” Wilf says. “New ideas are often greeted with friction.”

Rings all sorts of warning bells in my mind.

Fingerprinting, when it comes to the web, refers to the ability to recognize an otherwise anonymous user based on those facets of a visit that are not under the user’s control. NewScientist (4 June 2016) reports on a reverse fingerprinting effort by scientists at Princeton – that is, recognizing the fingerprinting techniques used by the million busiest web sites based on the web site’s behavior:

Studying a million websites is hard. To do it, Arvind Narayanan – who heads the Web Transparency and Accountability Project at Princeton University – built a tool called OpenWPM with graduate student Steven Englehardt. OpenWPM can visit and log in to websites automatically, taking more than a dozen measurements of each one. It took two weeks to crawl through the top million websites, as ranked by web traffic firm Alexa.

Narayanan and Englehardt discovered that many trackers are sharing the information they gather with at least one other party, sometimes dozens of times. The audit also revealed several previously unknown “fingerprinting” techniques that sites are using. Here, the website asks the browser to perform a task that is hidden from the user. The site then fingerprints individual machines based on slight differences in their performance. Trackers used to do this by watching how the browser draws a graphic; now, they check what fonts are installed or how the browser processes audio. A couple of trackers even gathered the device’s battery level.

I’m disturbed that browsers permit access to those resources, even only in a monitoring mode. And, really, the battery level? How does that even apply? The scientists comment:

“You often don’t know how much tracking is going on, who’s doing the tracking, or what data they’re collecting about you and what that will be used for,” [Narayanan] says. “There needs to be external oversight, somebody holding companies’ feet to the fire.”

Overall, they discovered more than 81,000 third-party trackers. News websites had the most, on average. Adult websites and those owned by government agencies and universities tended to have the fewest.

It would be interesting to have a pop up window which would tell you which fingerprinting technique is being used by the website. I doubt it could tell you what the data would be used for, though.