tisiwoota

I heart the wallpaper in this house very much.

I dare you to find better wallpaper in the universe.

Considering all the other crazy things people have tried to snag IP rights for, it’s not surprising someone has come up with this (credit: Siona):

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“The idea is that Keats, 32, sells the rights to his brain, and with it his original thoughts, for perpetuity.

He came up with a novel approach. Keats has registered his brain as a sculpture which he created thought by thought.”

This is amusing. [pdf]

Introduction:

“THIS IS ME. I am a lawyer. Lawyers are important. They go to important offices and do important things. Color my underpants important.”

And another good frame:

“THIS IS MY DESK. It is mahogany. Important people have mahogany desks. My walls are mahogany, too. I wish I were mahogany.”

[These would make great book plates if anonymous lawyer got book-ified…]

There’s a thought-provoking piece by Malcolm Gladwell up at the New Yorker which argues that they key to solving some seemingly intransigent societal problems– namely homelessness, car emissions, and the L.A.P.D.’s “bad cop problem”– is recognizing that they conform to a power law distribution (with a few really bad cases wreaking a disproportionately high share of the damage) rather than a bell curve.

I’d like to highlight one small part:

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We want sweeping reforms. But what was the commission’s most memorable observation? It was the story of an officer with a known history of doing things like beating up handcuffed suspects who nonetheless received a performance review from his superior stating that he “usually conducts himself in a manner that inspires respect for the law and instills public confidence.” This is what you say about an officer when you haven’t actually read his file, and the implication of the Christopher Commission’s report was that the L.A.P.D. might help solve its problem simply by getting its police captains to read the files of their officers. The L.A.P.D.’s problem was a matter not of policy but of compliance. The department needed to adhere to the rules it already had in place, and that’s not what a public hungry for institutional transformation wants to hear.
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An important insight– but I have a quibbling thought about the characterization of this as a “matter not of policy but of compliance.” At the most literal level, that distinction is true. But I think lack of compliance can also be framed as a policy issue– i.e., the existing department policies didn’t adequately incentivize adherance to the rules (specifically, the requirement that captains should do the things necessary to be effective supervisors). One solution to this specific situation might be to institute a policy of randomly auditing the captains’ knowledge about the files of their inferiors. Quiz them. Penalize ignorance with a tangible, immediate personal consequence. The right policy at the right level can incentivise a culture of compliance– and quick.

And of course this isn’t uniquely a “police culture” problem either– the same patterns, I’m sure, emerge in management of any human institution (With the consequences, in corporations, being just as damaging yet far less visible).

Absolutely nothing insightful to say about this, but wow: you can check out the exchange here, which includes Obama’s Feb 2 letter and his reply to McCain’s sarcastic scorcher. Initially from reading an excerpt of McCain’s letter, I’d had the (totally un-informed) impression the collaboration discussions had taken place quite some time ago… but from reading Obama’s second letter it seems that this has all occurred in the span of less than a week.

Reallllly makes you wonder what the backstory is…

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The Daily Kos take on the matter.

Just in at the New York Times: DNA Kits Aim to Link You to the Here and Then, which reports on the growing use of DNA tests to flesh out genealogy searches.

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“The past comes at a price for Georgia Kinney Bopp. Retired and living in Kailua, Hawaii, Ms. Bopp has spent about $800 on tests to trace her ancestry, using samples of DNA from inside her cheek and from possible relatives.

‘If we travel, we keep a DNA kit with us, just in case we meet someone who might help identify an ancient ancestor,’ Ms. Bopp said. ‘You just never know.’”
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The article covers the three types of tests available (mitochondrial, Y-chromosome, and autosomal DNA), and describes the limitations on interpreting the results of each:

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“What some people do not realize — especially those tracing geographic origins — is that if they go back just 10 generations, or some 300 years, they will have 1,024 ancestors in that 10th generation. Clearly, then, DNA tracing yields a quite narrow view of one’s heritage: The Y chromosome test tells you about only one male ancestor in that generation, and the mitochondrial test tells you about only one female ancestor, said Henry T. Greely, director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford.

‘They’re not taking into account all the other ancestors,’ Mr. Greely said. ‘DNA can tell you a lot about your ancestry. As a consumer, you’ve got to pay a lot of attention to what it can’t tell you.’”
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Genography fans, by the way, will also be interested to know that MSNBC has an entire category devoted to genetic genealogy on its site.

DNA+test, genetics, genealogy, genetic genealogy

A Late Aubade
(or the fantasy of sleeping in)

You could be sitting now in a carrel
Turning some liver-spotted page,
Or rising in an elevator-cage
Toward Ladies’ Apparel.

Wait for a while, then slip downstairs
And bring us up some chilled white wine,
And some blue cheese, and crackers, and some fine
Ruddy-skinned pears.

–Richard Wilbur

As a friend commented after last night’s State of the Union, “Thank god this matter has been brought to public consciousness.”

Technorati: Posts that contain Human-animal Hybrids per day for the last 30 days.

Naturally, this has sparked some creative discussion along the lines of “Manimals I hope Bush Doesn’t Extinctify”. Here are some of the favorite suggestions I’ve seen:

mantelope
humanatee
girleopard
zebruncle
girlilla
guyger
croworker
mog

A maliger. (”It’s pretty much my favorite animal. It’s like a man and a lion and a tiger mixed…bred for its skills in magic.”)