Mr Deity returns

As one or two of the two or three regular readers know, I’m impressed by the Mr. Deity shorts. Well, after a delay following the second season, the third season is available. I recommend it.

Books Behind Bars comes back

Last month after officials with the Virginia corrections department blocked Books Behind Bars, the Charlottesville non-profit organization that sends books to inmates, from conducting its activities in Virginia prisons, things looked pretty grim for the venerable program supported by local bookstore owner Kay Allison. Citing concerns about contraband (a CD and paperclips) slipping into prisons with the books sent to prisoners by Books Behind Bars and demands on corrections staff to manage the prison end of the program, corrections officials refused to permit the organization to accept any more books that BBB sent in response to requests for them by prisoners.

Birthers’ record

I started this post 31 July, but then I stopped working on it to do something more important. About then, though, Bill Maher published an editorial in the Los Angeles Times that was much better than where I was going.

Here’s my start:

One of the marvels of the US Constitution’s First Amendment is that it essentially gives folks the right to say silly, ill-informed, and downright false things. The folks expressing doubt about Mr. Obama’s citizenship surely do not consider themselves silly or ill-informed, but they are promoting false information. The doubts were conclusively laid to rest in August 2008 (see, e.g., FactCheck.org’s coverage).

For Immediate Release: July 27, 2009 09-063

STATEMENT BY HEALTH DIRECTOR CHIYOME FUKINO, M.D.

“I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, Director of the Hawai‛i State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawai‘i State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawai‘i and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago.”

Now, here’s Mr. Maher’s lead:

Never underestimate the ability of a tiny fringe group of losers to ruin everything.

For the last couple of weeks, we’ve all been laughing heartily at the wacky antics of the “birthers” — the far-right goofballs who claim Barack Obama wasn’t really born in Hawaii and therefore the job of president goes to the runner-up, former Miss California Carrie Prejean.

I recommend folks read the remainder of Mr. Maher’s opposite-the-editorial-page column.

Robots running amok?

In “Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man,” John Markoff reports on concerns about whether machines might overrun their human creators. It’s the stuff of science fiction, no? Reminds me of the endgame in Sim Earth.

A robot that can open doors and find electrical outlets to recharge itself. Computer viruses that no one can stop. Predator drones, which, though still controlled remotely by humans, come close to a machine that can kill autonomously.

Impressed and alarmed by advances in artificial intelligence, a group of computer scientists is debating whether there should be limits on research that might lead to loss of human control over computer-based systems that carry a growing share of society’s workload, from waging war to chatting with customers on the phone.

Although I pretty much dismiss this concern out of hand (who would build a machine that’s out of control?), I did have a what-if moment.

• If machines ran the world, would they wage wars?
• If machines ran the world, would they immediately take steps to resolve global heating?
• If machines ran the world, would there be capital punishment?
• If machines ran the world, would they behave differently toward each other based on the color of their paint?
• If machines ran the world, would they prevent each other from saying or writing things?
• If machines ran the world, would they worship humans?

Link to Mr. Markoff’s article from the New York Times.

Books Behind Bars on TV

Wowzie! Books Behind Bars will apparently be the subject of a local (i.e., Hook City) television news feature on 2 Jul 2009.

Pat sez that Kay sez that there was a CBS TV crew at Quest today at 11. They were filming a segment that is ’sposed to air at 6:45 AM Thursday.

I think this is the generic link.

Rah!

Seeger’s b’day show

There’s to be a celebration for Pete Seeger’s 90th birdthay in New York at Madison Square Garden. It promises to be quite a show.

HB, Web

Early in-line image

On 13 March 1989 Tim Berners-Lee submitted to the administration of the European Organization for Nuclear Research a paper that led to the birth of the World Wide Web. In “Information Management: A Proposal,” Professor Berners-Lee connected hypertext with the Internet. As reported by Sharon Gaudi at Computerworld under the headline “Hurrah Berners-Lee! Web celebrates 20th anniversary: Analyst: A single paper written 20 years ago today became a great 20th-century idea,” this paper changed things dramatically.

Twenty years ago, computers were either the size of a basketball court or they were novelties that we played with. Twenty years ago, we got our news at 6 p.m. on television or in the morning newspaper. Twenty years ago, if you wanted to buy a sweater, you drove from store to store until you spent as much on gas as you did on the sweater.

And then 20 years ago today, Tim Berners-Lee wrote a paper that laid out his thoughts for the World Wide Web. That one paper would be the seed that changed the way we communicate, shop, gather friends, date and do business. That one paper arguably held one of the most important ideas of the 20th century.

Internet Archive

Ms. Guadi may not, I fear, be pushing the influence of the Web far enough. The long-term impact surely will be felt in shopping and such, but it’ll likely be felt even more in more abstract and political ways: Equity, freedom, and such. Despite the efforts of some governments to throttle Web traffic, people the world over are communicating both directly and indirectly, and it will almost certainly be impossible to put that genie back into the bottle. When we communicate we can tell our stories and, unless the censors get to them virtually immediately, those communications likely will have been grabbed by some browser somewhere and be potentially out in the wild. Furthermore, with the advent of searching robots and large caches, lots of communications will be archived, even if they’ve been erased from the original source.

Tim B-L @ TED 09

Learn more about Professor Berners-Lee—ahem, Sir Tim—from his MIT page. Read the HTML version of the original paper: “A hand conversion to HTML of the original MacWord (or Word for Mac?) document written in March 1989 and later redistributed unchanged apart from the date added in May 1990. Provided for historical interest only. The diagrams are a bit dotty, but available in versioins linked below. The text has not been changed, even to correct errors such as misnumbered figures or unfinished references.” And, connected with my point in the previous paragraph, watch Sir Tim’s TED talk from February 2009 that includes an account of his work at the time; in that talk he goes on to talk about “The next Web of open, linked data“: Raw data now!

Link to Ms. Guadi’s story. For a grin or two, check the contents of the US popular magazine Time for 13 March 2009.

Religious discrimination?

Mr. Richard Mullens, who has been a teacher since 1971 and in in Brookeland (TX, US) for 6 years, resigned his position after the Brookeland Independent School District placed him on paid administrative leave. Brad Watkins of Democracy for America published an account of events by Mr. Mullens in which Mr. Mullens said that being placed on leave and then resigning had followed confrontations with a parent who accused him of being an atheist and of being “too liberal.”

According to Emily Guevara of the Beuamont (TX, US) Enterprise, writing under the headline “Brookeland ISD teacher resigns under pressure from school, parents,” Mr. Mullens believes that he was forced to resign because of his views on religion and government (a parent apparently accused him of being an atheist and a liberal).

Richard Mullens, a teacher for more than 30 years, resigned his position as history teacher after being placed on paid administrative leave by the Brookeland Independent School District.

Richard Turner, the high school’s principal, said parents had voiced concerns about Mullens’ classroom management.

These parents told school board members at a January board meeting that Mullens ran his classes too loosely and allowed students to discuss inappropriate topics, Turner said by phone Thursday.

According to Ms. Guevara’s story, Nicole Ard (who has been a student of Mullens’ for five years and is senior class president) “said that two students started a petition to get Mullins back, but were told by the school principal to stop. Turner said he had not heard of any students starting a petition.” That sounds pretty questionable to me. I’d like to know what some free speech folks would say about whether it’s appropriate for a school administrator to squelch students’ speech in that way.

Of course another issue is the question about whether a teacher’s purported atheism should play a role in hiring and firing decisions. I do not know Mr. Mullens’ religious views, but if they were a factor in the events, I have to bet that it’s going to blow up in the Brookeland schools’ faces.

This should be an entertaining story to follow! I wonder if the TJ Center will pick up on it.

Link to Ms. Guevara’s story from which I quoted. Link to the post by Mr. Watkins of Democracy for America that includes Mr. Mullens’ recounting of events (and some interesting comments). Flash of the electrons to Liz Ditz for this one. Liz noted that PZ Myers had an entry on this topic at Pharyngula.