tisiwoota

1. Programming Water to Display Digital Messages Whoa. “To understand the concept of digital water, imagine something like an inkjet printer on a large scale, which controls droplets of falling water.”

2. Why Are So Many Americans in Prison?

According to a 2005 report of the International Centre for Prison Studies in London, the United States—with five percent of the world’s population—houses 25 percent of the world’s inmates. Our incarceration rate (714 per 100,000 residents) is almost 40 percent greater than those of our nearest competitors (the Bahamas, Belarus, and Russia). Other industrial democracies, even those with significant crime problems of their own, are much less punitive: our incarceration rate is 6.2 times that of Canada, 7.8 times that of France, and 12.3 times that of Japan. We have a corrections sector that employs more Americans than the combined work forces of General Motors, Ford, and Wal-Mart, the three largest corporate employers in the country, and we are spending some $200 billion annually on law enforcement and corrections at all levels of government, a fourfold increase (in constant dollars) over the past quarter century.

3. Rise of Roboethics It is amazing how little it takes for humans to believe we are interacting with a creature that has agency.

Weizenbaum had developed a computer program that crudely mimicked a psychotherapist by rephrasing statements from human “patients” back to them as questions, thus supportively reflecting their thoughts. A user input of “I feel frustrated,” for instance, returned, “Why do you feel frustrated?”. . . Weizenbaum was deeply troubled by what he discovered during his experiments with ELIZA: Some of his students exhibited strong emotional connections to the program; some actually wished to be alone with it. Weizenbaum had unexpectedly discovered that, even if fully aware that they are talking to a simple computer program, people will nonetheless treat it as if it were a real, thinking being that cared about their problems—a phenomenon now known as the “Eliza Effect.”

4. Psychological Tricks to Make Sheep Better Weedkillers. Using aversion therapy to keep sheep from eating grapes and vines.

5.Lead Poisoning Linked to Crime Rates

The United States has had two spikes of lead poisoning: one at the turn of the 20th century, linked to lead in household paint, and one after World War II, when the use of leaded gasoline increased sharply. Both times, the violent crime rate went up and down in concert, with the violent crime peaks coming two decades after the lead poisoning peaks.

I figure while sitting in one airport (Oakland) it’s as good a time as any as to post these pics from another. The sculpture depicts a legend about Hindu gods and demons using a giant snake to churn the milky ocean to extract the nectar of immortality.

H’mong children selling bamboo walking sticks
(which were immediately helpful on the muddy trail down)

Inside:

(the clothes on the line were for sale to tourists)

Notice the pretty colored glass at the base of the wall

Outside, a barrel of dyes used to color the garments

(the fingers of many H’mong women are stained as a result)

View from Sapa Summit Hotel:

(Yes we were up in the clouds)

The yellow building is either a school house or a community center.
The tiered land is for farming rice paddies.

View from trekking:

We trekked all the way down to the river you can just make out in this picture.

I went to Sapa via a tour company affiliated with Sapa Summit Hotel. I’m told that it can be pretty difficult to book a train ticket there without being part of a tour, especially on a weekend, since the agencies book many tickets in advance. I’m glad I shopped around though– most of the two-day/three-night tours I’ve seen advertised around Hanoi (by Sinh Cafe, Kangaroo Cafe, and smaller operations) were over $100 US. My tour was well below that figure, but quite satisfactory (and though the hotel was “only” two stars, the room was a good size, had AC & a bathtub, and the view was great… with just the minor carp that it didn’t have high-speed internet).

Anyway, the itinerary went like this:
1. Eight-hour overnight sleeper train from Hanoi to Lao Cai.

DAY 1
2. Minivan for about an hour to Sapa Town itself.
3. Check-in around 7am-ish, eat breakfast in downstairs restaurant (included in price)
4. Free time for several hours, then short tour of nearby villages from 2 to 5pm-ish? led by a local H’mong girl.
5. Brief stint in central marketplace (lots of handmade textiles and crafts), then dinner (again included in price).

DAY 2
6. Checkout in early AM, leave for 10 kilometer tour at 9:30AM. Tour groups generally have 6 people per guide, but due to sickness/pregnancy concerns of several members, my group consisted of me and two other people (one from Australia, the other originally from Romania but living in London). We were also accompanied by several even younger Hmong girls, who spoke English better than many workers in Hanoi. The trail was very muddy, especially going downwards, so they were a help for many big or ungainly westerners who needed steadying (or at least pointers on where to step). For the most part, I exclude myself from that category of tourist– um, except for the one time I slid down a small embankment when I tried to find a new way around an extra-gloppy patch. On the plus side, our slothly, low-impact jaunt through the muddy stretches (including pretty much the entire downward portion of our trek) meant that none of us got very sore.

And fortunately the ickiness was worth it– the scenery was beautiful and we got to stop by several villages inhabited by people from a handful of different ethnicities.

7. In the mid-afternoon we went back to the hotel, where we showered in an outbuilding (since we had checked out already) and ate an early dinner. For some reason we were dropped off at the train station two hours early; which was a pity since it would have been nice to linger and see more of Sapa Town itself. This last night was less restful for me since I’d booked my tour too late for a sleeper car and instead had to take a normal train seat for the night. At least we got in so early (5am) that I was able to sleep in my hotel bed for several hours before having to do anything requiring any degree of alertness.

Anyway, it was a fun time and hopefully sometime in the future I’ll have a chance to take a longer trekking tour, perhaps one involving a homestay.