‘Anonymous’ GPS data reveals speed habits
Based on this data, I tend to drive 9 or so percent faster than the average American. Except when I’m testing engineering limits of the various vehicles I drive, of course.
Based on anonymous driving habit data from customers in 45 states, GPS navigation firmTomTom reckons that Americans tend to drive at about 70 MPH on the freeway, regardless of the posted speed limit. More specifically, most Americans tend to stay within a few miles per hour of the speed limit on interstate freeways. The WSJ [sub] reports that these findings are consistent with efforts to raise freeway speed limits around the country, as Virginia recently became the latest state to raise its freeway speed limit to 70 MPH or above. Naturally, there are still safety advocates still sticking to their “speed kills” talking points, but despite these state-by-state speed limit increases, America’s road fatalities per vehicle mile traveled has been dropping consistently. That Americans rarely drive over 70 MPH, even when limits are as high as 75 MPH, shows that motorists tend to find their natural comfort limit at that speed anyway. And the fact that states with higher freeway speeds tend to be large, sparsely-populated Western states indicates that motorists tend to vary their speed only slightly from the 70 MPH “state of nature” even when faced with longer distances and less traffic. [Hat Tip: ClutchCarGo]
There are a few points worth noting. The only reason the data is currently “anonymous”is because the GPS maker wants it that way. Market forces combined with social mores dictate that anonymity is dead or dying in America. If lawmakers and manufacturers decide we aren’t going to fuss about it, your car and/or GPS will soon track you. Rental companies track your every move. OnStar does as well (read the privacy policy very carefully; there is no expectation of privacy). Eventually, vehicles being driven contrary to acceptable societal norms will auto alert authorities who will come punish you in various nefarious ways to include clumsy attempts at re-education.
I wonder if my 9% deviance from norms will be tolerated when that day arrives.
Finally, a master’s degree
It may be worth mentioning briefly that I have completed my final course in a master’s program at Bellevue University.
The Master of Science in Management Information Systems is a customized degree tailored specifically to prepare students for management positions in the Information Technology profession. It consists of multiple components: the core and concentrations. The core explores the characteristics of information systems with emphasis on critical management issues. After completing the core, students may select one or more of six concentrations to obtain additional depth in business administration, computer information systems, healthcare, information security, project management, or solutions architecture. To satisfy the requirements for degree, students must take 27 semester hours of core courses and at least nine semester hours from one of six concentrations.
For a guy who got started pretty late on college, I feel pretty good about my achievement. I ended the program with a 3.9 GPA while working full time in a civilian job and part time for the National Guard and with a 3-hour a day commute. I’m not quite sure how I kept it together.
I can highly recommend the Bellevue online program. It felt a bit more personal than the similar online program from the University of Phoenix and I would note for the record that the quality of student effort was much higher. In the irony department my final course at Bellevue was Information Technology Ethics and a student in the course was kicked out for plagiarizing.
Information Warfare had to be my favorite course of the bunch. I really enjoyed planning attacks on information infrastructure for some reason. Everything is more fun in theory than in reality. Bellevue was much more reasonably priced than the University of Phoenix. I am planning on starting on doctorate work in a few months in the same field.
Porn, tech and mores
From an article I recently read claiming that pornography might be good for us:
According to the conservative media watchdog group Family Safe Media, the porn industry makes more money than the top technology companies combined, including Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Amazon.
Without debating the relative merits of porn, if there are any besides temporary satiation of carnal desires, I find it fascinating that moving and still pictures of naked people copulating generate more revenue than the top technology companies combined. I suppose it makes perfect sense. After all, every human being on the planet is pretty much hard wired to enjoy looking at naked people of one or both sexes. All the counter programming that human societies attempt to instantiate (mostly via religion) cannot overpower basic biological programming.
Whether we admit it or not, our genitals and our brains work together to influence our thoughts and actions.
The illegality of prostitution in most U.S. jurisdictions continues to bother me on about the same level as the federal government’s continuing need to pretend that the War on Drugs is somehow making the United States a better place to live. As a society, we are doing a woefully poor job of channeling natural behaviors into more constructive venues. If violent video games are outlawed too, we’ll have an unholy triumvirate of repression and suppression of natural human urges. While I don’t think that will happen, it really makes me wonder how long we’ll continue the juvenile societal attitudes and puritan set of mores we have towards human sexuality in America.
Tech is definitely changing sexual mores in this country. I get the distinct impression from generations younger than mine that ideas like polyamory, open relationships and casual sex with many partners are getting a new look. And when it comes to acceptance of homosexuality, I know attitudes are changing drastically. My feeling is that porn must have played a role in the changing attitudes. Even more important, technology was the delivery vehicle for most of the porn.
Technology and porn aren’t just changing sexual mores in the U.S. Sites like 4chan have worldwide reach, and they affect the way their audiences think. They change the memeset. In two generations, human sexual mores of the technorati will be completely alien to a typical 20th century American.
The only constant in the universe is change
When I was about 14, I had an earth sciences teacher whose name, I believe, was Mr. Privett. I liked Mr. Privett because he took pains to keep the class engaged and because I am, in my heart, a complete nerd. Mr. Privett was a nerd too. He loved science and he cared about his students and their welfare. Near the end of our class year he put the class in a big chair circle and made us go around the room and talk like we were in an AA meeting. One of the things we were supposed to talk about was our positive qualities. I said “adaptability” and to this day, I still believe in the answer I gave more than two decades ago.
Aging is an unnecessary disease process and I will fight it as hard as I am able. For many people, at least from my perspective, part of giving up on life and accepting the inevitability of death is a slow process whereby one stops accepting and embracing new technologies. This rejection of the new and insistence on resisting the inevitable change that is part of being human is usually counterproductive. I have never felt inclined to say anything remotely approaching “that’s how we’ve always done it” when arguing for any given process, policy or procedure. In my experience such an argument almost always comes out of the mouth of a self-serving idiot who wants to force me to follow his or her way of doing things primarily due to intellectual laziness.
Technology is a stronger social force than “that’s the way we’ve always done it.” Those who refuse to see that become obsolescent despite their best efforts. They grow old and are ignored, marginalized and pushed further and further from the center of things.
And that is why I asked for a Nook for Christmas. I love books but I am also of the mind that they are a dying technology. Paper is on its way out, at least as far as the technorati are concerned. Knowledge will no longer live between hardbound covers. No, it now spins on hard drive platters and flits across radio waves to land on your NAND. I must embrace the idea that my beloved paper tomes with their lovely smell and their wonderful weight will no longer be the way I collect and organize information.
I’ve been absorbing data, knowledge and information from screens since about 1977 or so but I’ve never read a book on a screen until recently. I started with an author I knew would be easily digestible, Stephen King. His new novel, Under the Dome, served as a good introduction to the world of E Ink. Having now digested 828 pages of delicious and often chilling pulp, I can report that I found the experience of reading a novel using the Nook quite pleasurable. With a few caveats, of course. I’ve never had to recharge a book before. I’ve never accidentally turned a page before and become confused about how to go backwards or forwards to get back to where I used to be. Nook and Kindle are infant technologies but they are developed enough that I will be moving my library from paper to electrons and reporting on the pros and cons of doing so.
Meanwhile, go buy Under the Dome. It’s well worth a few lazy hours in your favorite recliner. Buy a Nook or Kindle while you’re at it because the only constant in the universe is change. E-books are here to stay, and they are Mr. Privett approved.
Pompous thugs in uniforms with guns and badges should be resisted and disobeyed
The TSA does a miserable job when it comes to the things it is supposed to be doing – providing security at airports and on airplanes. The TSA does seem to be good at bullying people without guns and badges though, in the name of its agents who do have guns and badges. Oh, and lists too.
“They’re saying it’s a security document but it was sent to every airport and airline,” says Steven Frischling, one of the bloggers. “It was sent to Islamabad, to Riyadh and to Nigeria. So they’re looking for information about a security document sent to 10,000-plus people internationally. You can’t have a right to expect privacy after that.”
Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Suzanne Trevino said in a statement that security directives “are not for public disclosure.”
“TSA’s Office of Inspections is currently investigating how the recent Security Directives were acquired and published by parties who should not have been privy to this information,” the statement said.
Frischling, a freelance travel writer and photographer in Connecticut who writes a blog for the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, said the two agents who visited him arrived around 7 p.m. Tuesday, were armed and threatened him with a criminal search warrant if he didn’t provide the name of his source. They also threatened to get him fired from his KLM job and indicated they could get him designated a security risk, which would make it difficult for him to travel and do his job.
This sort of behavior by governments, when pervasive enough for long enough, leads to revolutions. Governments should protect life and liberty. Governments should not bully citizens because they have internal leaks. Organizations with internal leaks should probably a) re-examine the logic and ethics of internal policies or b) implement better internal security policies or c) do both. The problem here is that the federal government doesn’t get it and probably never will. You cannot improve security by making living conditions worse for everyone. It doesn’t matter if you are destroying the economy or making people stand in herd lines and treating them like herd animals. You’re just pissing everyone off a little more each day and that is a recipe for long term fail.
Some of the idiotic directives make no sense at all. Someone explain the purpose of inflicting these foolish rules:
Passengers are also required to remain seated during the last hour of flights, and cannot access carry-on baggage or have blankets, pillows or other personal belongings on their lap during this time.
What the hell does this accomplish other than making everyone miserable? Generally speaking that is all the TSA has done during its existence. Western society is slowly but calmly ensuring its own demise by breeding and encouraging retarded memes to prevail. Once enough of us are miserable enough and have had enough of being mindlessly herded from point to point everything will burn and we’ll start over. I hope to God we find a way to keep the cretins from running things eventually.
