Aaron Swartz: 1986 -2013

There are some rare people who are driven to put it all on the line for what they believe - despite the risks. Swartz was one of those people. As an independent researcher, I often ran into the closed doors he fought so hard to prop open. Thanks. RIP.

P.S. To read a petition requesting the government terminate the US District Attorney for overreach against Swartz, click (here).

James C. Collier

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Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by RSAnimate

James C. Collier

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The End Of The University As We Know It

by Nathan Harden

"In fifty years, if not much sooner, half of the roughly 4,500 colleges and universities now operating in the United States will have ceased to exist. The technology driving this change is already at work, and nothing can stop it. The future looks like this: Access to college-level education will be free for everyone; the residential college campus will become largely obsolete; tens of thousands of professors will lose their jobs; the bachelor’s degree will become increasingly irrelevant; and ten years from now Harvard will enroll ten million students.

We’ve all heard plenty about the “college bubble” in recent years. Student loan debt is at an all-time high—an average of more than $23,000 per graduate by some counts—and tuition costs continue to rise at a rate far outpacing inflation, as they have for decades. Credential inflation is devaluing the college degree, making graduate degrees, and the greater debt required to pay for them, increasingly necessary for many people to maintain the standard of living they experienced growing up in their parents’ homes. Students are defaulting on their loans at an unprecedented rate, too, partly a function of an economy short on entry-level professional positions. Yet, as with all bubbles, there’s a persistent public belief in the value of something, and that faith in the college degree has kept demand high.

The figures are alarming, the anecdotes downright depressing. But the real story of the American higher-education bubble has little to do with individual students and their debts or employment problems. The most important part of the college bubble story—the one we will soon be hearing much more about—concerns the impending financial collapse of numerous private colleges and universities and the likely shrinkage of many public ones. And when that bubble bursts, it will end a system of higher education that, for all of its history, has been steeped in a culture of exclusivity. Then we’ll see the birth of something entirely new as we accept one central and unavoidable fact: The college classroom is about to go virtual."...

Read the full article at the American Interest (here).

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: The End of the University as We Know It, Nathan Harden, Education Bubble, Student Debt, On-line Education, Acting White

Permanent Blue Eyes In 20 Seconds

If you were not fortunate at birth, like actress Reese Witherspoon (pictured), science just might give you another shot at blue eyes, but caution is advised.

Gregg Homer PhD., a Los Angeles area research scientist, is working on a procedure, dubbed Lumineye, that will turn brown eyes blue in a mere twenty seconds - and $5,000 (US). Homer's procedure entails beaming a laser onto the top layer of the iris (pigmented) portion of the eye. The laser 'agitates' the iris - some might say it 'burns' it - and the healing process carries away the tissue remnants, leaving an non-pigmented iris ready to reflect blue to its beholders - Hollywood here I come!

It seems that some eye professionals (and me) 'see' a problem brewing with Homer's invention, as pigment in the eye is protective, so permanently burning it away is not insignificant to long-term eye health. In fact, this blogger has previously written about blue eye problems (here).

Others have taken issue with Homer's ethics in pursuing an expensive, dangerous, cosmetic procedure that re-enforces blue eyes as a pillar of human beauty. Homer arguably believes his Jewish roots preclude his pursuits for reasons other than the best intentions. Huh?

Nevertheless, Homer's research continues with the objective of having the procedure available outside of the US in eighteen months, and on US soil within three years. The close-up photograph shows an eye that has undergone the procedure on the bottom half of the iris.

James C. Collier

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Romney's Losing Ground Game Revealed

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Yesterday, I wrote (here) about Obama's winning ground game. So, it makes sense to look up Mitt Romney's game for comparison-sake. His campaign's on-line voter turn-out approach was code-named ORCA, and by all inside accounts it beached itself on election day resulting in a whole lot of white votes for Romney/Ryan that went un-netted (to exhaust the whaling metaphor).

The Boston Globe describes the detail (here), but the plan was to station 30,000 field workers at key battleground polls on election day to track which of the Romney faithful were actually voting, versus sitting at home. In response, eight-hundred Romney staff were at the call-center in the TD Garden (new Boston Garden) prepared to telephone the slugs, as reported from the field, and talk their sedentary white-behinds into moving to vote.

It seems, however, that there were some problems with the execution, if not the plan itself. Many of the field workers were not properly credentialed to carry out their task of figuring out who was or was not voting, and were turned away by poll authorities. On top of this, the actual system for reporting crashed for at least ninety minutes in the middle of voting, throwing the whole she-bang in Boston and across the country into chaos. So there was limited Romney 'call-and-push' to match the Obama 'knock-and-drag' I spoke of in my Obama ground game post.

Unsurprisingly, Romney failed to mention this facet of failure, on the part of his campaign, in his election post-mortem analysis. Romney said he lost because Obama gave stuff to minorities and women (here).

After hearing his sorry excuses for losing, more than a few Romney supporters (check out the comments here) seemed glad their guy lost. Wow!

James C. Collier

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Obama’s Winning Ground Game Revealed

There has been much talk on the losing side of the presidential election about the Obama “Ground Game”. By example, losing VP candidate Paul Ryan (R) of Wisconsin focused (here) on what he called “record-breaking turnout numbers from urban areas”, code for black votes, as the reason for the Romney/Ryan pounding at the polls. What about the battleground states, like Colorado, Iowa and Ohio, that were mostly rural and/or white?

So now, about this Obama Ground game - was it a “fair and square” win as Ryan back-tracked, or something more sinister, as offered by Republican strategist Karl Rove, who stated (here) that “Obama won by voter suppression”, clearly an act that, if found to be true, would be illegal? For the record, Rove has yet to back up his allegation with anything resembling evidence.

Moving along, I dug deeper into the Obama Ground Game, with a reputable source – my retired sister Karen, an Obama volunteer from the trenches in the battleground state of Colorado, (she is pictured here with Obama volunteer/actor Laurence Fishburne, aka Morpheus from the Matrix series).

It seems that over the past months Karen has been phone-banking (calling); canvassing (walking door-to-door); registering and otherwise educating goo-gobs of people as to why they, within her assigned territory, should vote for Obama. She pursued Blacks, Whites, Asians, and Latinos, without distinction. She did this during the day, evenings and on weekends. She said there were thousands like her all over the city, counties, and the Columbine state. Each volunteer was prepped to get people to act their support of the President.

All the way from Bill Clinton holding a pep rally for volunteers at Manual HS, to actress Angela Bassett (What’s Love Got To Do With It) cheering on N.E. Denver precincts, to comedian/actor George Lopez working West Denver, and actor Jon Hamm (Madmen) in North Denver, the Obama machine left no motivating stone unturned or potential vote uncast. Fishburne not only 'bumped' the troops in the precinct offices, the actor was spotted hawking votes door-to-door in the eastern suburb of Montbello.

On election day, Karen was picking up and delivering sealed ballots from people she had earlier convinced to sign up for mail-in-ballots - but who had not mailed them. She drove people to the polls and back, when a ride stood between them and voting. The volunteers gleefully called this the knock-n-drag - knock on the door and drag them to the polls to vote. All of this was done on her time and dime – no reimbursement. She said people liked Obama over Romney when you lined up their positions, but the key was getting them into action - to vote. “That’s what our ground game did – that’s how we won!"

James C. Collier

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Jezebel Exposes Young Bigots In-Training

Young people are known for mixing up the sequence "ready, aim, fire" to something more akin to ready, fire, uh...aim", but Tracy Egan Morrissey, over at Jezebel has certainly taken some of the kiddies to 'school' on how responsibility goes hand-in-hand with the First Amendment right to free speech (here).

It seems that quite a few young white folks took to Twitter just after the presidential election to let their worlds know just how they feel about four more years of Mr. Obama. What many had to say was not indicative of good anything...parenting, schooling, coaching or anything else. Mrs. Morrissey/Jezebel simply gave these young people a greater public forum for their youthful vileness. Good for her. It is important for us to know the kids we are raising.

Black parents certainly get a daily dose of what vileness their kids can produce left unattended, but this time around it was white folk's turn to say 'what the hell?'. I also know that kids speak in ways that they were not taught, so I do not automatically blame parents for any particular kid, however, all parents collectively share the blame. You cannot assume that what your kid says in front of you is what they say to others. Parents need to be a little crafty in order to really know their kids - because kids are crafty. And for many parents, it all begins with setting a good example.

In the coming days their will be more made of this, but one thing is for sure, what you say in public forums, electronic or otherwise, follows you and is sticky like syrup. I'm sure Mr. Romney wishes he could take back "self-deportation", "binders of women", "the 47%...", and the like, when he considers how Latinos and women reacted to those words. Mitt certainly wasn't dropping N-bombs, but his gaffes showed that someone could have schooled him a little better about measuring his words.

James C. Collier

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Obama Shares Moment With Young Team

James C. Collier

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Disintermediation: The End of Black America

If the economic troubles of this country were a swimming pool - black folks, including their inability to swim, are definitely in the deep-end. Low-level jobs, not just the ones in manufacturing - are disappearing at an alarming rate.

I was buying something at the Apple store recently and was told that I did not need a sales clerk to 'check out'. There is now an app for this. I found my item, scanned and paid for it with my iPhone, and walked out without any intervention. I even asked the black security guard how he knew I was not shop-lifting, whereupon he instantly pulled up my name and picture of my purchase on, you guessed it, his iPhone.

Expect to see this capability in all retail stores soon - along with more double-digit black unemployment. It's called disintermediation when middle channel jobs go away due to whatever the reason - technology, globalization of labor, etc. - you name it. It is the process of squeezing out every penny of cost from the goods we just can't live without.

Blacks, as the lowest educated/skilled demographic (of size) in this country, are unemployed at minimally 2x the national average, and well beyond the reach of the Congressional Black Caucus, President Obama, or Bill Gates/Warren Buffet. Add to this the carte-blanche that US financial institutions have been given to exploit black financial ignorance (via financial deregulation), and you get one unmitigated economic and social disaster, with no end in sight!

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Disintermediation: The End of Black America, Unemployment, Apple, Globalization, Middle-man, Acting White

Random Engineering Genius: Robots That Fly...And Cooperate

A friend sent this to me yesterday. It is pretty cool and amazing. It reinforces that technology is a train leaving the station at regular intervals, and you must be aboard or find yourself obsolete and marginalized. And it all begins with constant curiosity about the things around you.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Random Engineering Genius: Robots That Fly...And Cooperate, TED 2012, Vijay Kumar, Quadmotors, Innovation, Acting White