Idea Lawyer Blog

I confess I enjoy watching the broadcast show "MythBusters," vicariously rigging all manner of apparatus winches, clamps, rotary arms, timing circuits and generally playing around within the arena of physics.
If you haven't seen the show, they start with some myth and the questions about the properties at play. (Example: Can a man stop a samurai sword by clapping it in his hands?) Then state the proposition they intend to test and the challenges. ( Can man clap hands together at sufficient speed to stop descending sword given speed man with sword can slice down? Test hand clap speed and strength, test sword swinging speed, do the math, and find an answer.

I ran my own "mini-mythbuster" on Sunday. The myth: hanging a large carpet vertically on a wall is a two person job.
Dimension 8 feet by 8.5 feet. Weight- bloody heavy! When rolled up, it was liftable to carry but not hoistable from a ladder to the desired height. It was empirically determined that one could not climb the ladder, flop it against the wall, hold with one arm against the wall and hammer with another. Second, it was flopping when unrolled.

What to do? The solution took 4 hours, using only the limited tools at hand (ladder, hammer, eight 3 inch nails, and four 8 foot lengths of stud wood, and a never-been used staple gun which triggered the hunter- gatherer instinct when I saw it was ON SALE at a drastically reduced at the Hardware Store).

What did I learn? Because of the limits (physical strength, available tools) most of the time I spent thinking about the problem. No, I did not use the Internet (do they have this stuff on YouTube under "pig-headed DIY") - honestly, I just thought by myself, trying to envision how to overcome the weight and flop problems. When the solution appeared, the execution did not take long. I see a future for me ---- in sticking to my day job :)

noon- the carpet and the intended wall

2:45- not much progress can be seen, but I have an idea

4pm: job done

photo credit: me and my iphone

Try new things, and keep the mind young.
A few weeks ago, while in beautiful San Diego, a friend and I rented Segways. I had admired the technological achievement, and wanted first hand experience. Although we were given helmets and a half hour orientation, I was not ready to ride on the path a few yards from the beautiful Pacific Ocean. Being raised up, all eyes turn to gawk if not stare. Segways are still a novelty. I felt I wanted an external sign- a student driver plaque, a handicap sticker, a blinking neon sign saying "BEWARE: twitchy newbie with no peripheral vision" - something to deflect expectation from any witnesses to the escapade that my demonstration should reflect on Segways as a device or Segway pilots with an XX profile.

Designed to be responsive to shifts in center of gravity, the Segway seemed to sense my ambivalence via muscle tension. One's body usual expresses intention in the musculature, and my muscles were a symphony of contradiction. The old Jimmy Durante rasping of the lyrics "did you ever have the feeling that you wanted to go, but still had the feeling that you wanted to stay?" wormed its way into my thoughts, squirming like nervous giggles.
While my riding companion zipped along like Ben Hur with his favorite chariot steeds, I strained along, tense and poised for some tryst with a gravity induced event. In particular, I reasoned that as I have always been a bit weak in the art of stopping on ice skates (and roller skates) my Segway skills might follow suit. And the abundance of baby strollers, dogs, darting hobbit-sized creatures (oh- children I suppose- my vision was very "tunnel" under piloting stress) - all the activity triggered every "safety first" and "be prepared" fiber imbued by my deep and abiding Girl Scout training.
Nothing of note happened, other than during the Segway jaunt, it rained (sprinkled, I suppose, is more accurate) which is a rare event in San Diego in August. I did not melt and the Segway ignored the rain entirely.
Creep forward to this week. While catching up on August periodicals, I found a Business Week blurb on security at the Olympics. hence the pic above.
You can rent the latest model in San Diego, but it doesn't come "fully loaded". Next time maybe I'll try the crouched driving position - I can do it on ice skates - and hope I don't have to a) see anything clearly or b) stop.

San Francisco Event: September 15 2008
Book Talk and Reception for Born Digital: Understanding The First
Generation of Digital Natives by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser
Monday, September 15th, 2008
6:00PM, to be followed by a cocktail reception.
Free and open to the public, no RSVP required.

Hotel Vitale
8 Mission St
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 278-3700
Directions and map: http://www.hotelvitale.com/location/directions&map.html

Mark your calendars and hope to see you there;
Below is the full text of the invitation letter from Catherine Bracy, The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. Please note she requests the invite be passed along, so pass it forward -

Dear Friends,

As part of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard
University?s commitment to building human networks and community
around our projects, connecting our friends and colleagues with one
another, and protecting against Cambridge isolation, we have initiated
a series of gatherings around the country where we jointly explore
substantive issues and social time to reflect on them.

In San Francisco, we'll be celebrating the release our newest
publication -- John Palfrey and Urs Gassers' Born Digital:
Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives -- in which they
explore many of the key issues at the intersection of new technology
and young people, including privacy, safety, creativity, learning,
civic engagement. We're hoping Berkman friends, colleagues, alumni,
and others who have interest in Internet and society issues will
attend, and we would love to bring you and your community into the
mix, by both joining us and inviting people you think would be
interested.

The book talk and reception will take place on Monday, September 15 at
Hotel Vitale at 6:00PM, and is generously co-hosted by our colleagues:
David Hornik (HLS '94) of August Capital, the Berkeley Center for Law
and Technology, Creative Commons, Tod Cohen of eBay Inc., the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, Stanford's Center for Internet &
Society, and Meg Garlinghouse of Yahoo! Inc. Directions and details
are below.

We look forward to the 15th, and hope you will be able to join us!
Please be in touch if you have any questions, thoughts, or suggestions.

Sincerely,
Catherine Bracy
on behalf of
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University

PS: We would love your recommendations for individuals and groups that
we should reach out to in the San Francisco area, including
entrepreneurs, policy makers, educators, and academics working in the
Internet field. You are encouraged to send this invitation along to
them and/or send their contact information back to me at
cbracy@cyber.law.harvard.edu.

= = =

Book Talk and Reception for Born Digital: Understanding The First
Generation of Digital Natives by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser
Monday, September 15th, 2008
6:00PM, to be followed by a cocktail reception.
Free and open to the public, no RSVP required.

Hotel Vitale
8 Mission St
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 278-3700
Directions and map: http://www.hotelvitale.com/location/directions&map.html

More about the Event: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/4575
More about Born Digital and the Authors: http://www.borndigitalbook.com/
Born Digital in Seattle 9/17/08: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/4576
About the Berkman Center: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/about

Heroes the TV show is great, right. We won't discuss the problems of time travel as described by Cauchy and string theory (next time - I know you can't wait !) But in a ligher vein, after you've read Berlinski's short history of mathematics, Infinite Ascent, you'll enjoy seeing how Jame Kakalios maps (jovially and with nary an equation up his sleeve) so many of the mathematical concepts into the world of Spiderman, Ironman, Batman : superheroes.

Quarterly taxes will soon be due. Again. A few days ago I posted the fun comparative approach to animal courtship, mating and reproduction (Headless Males Make Great Lovers. Read it and see why the geeky male bower bird steals toothbrushes along with baubles, bangles and bright shiny things). Switching to intellectual fecundity, and to get an appreciation of the many species of mathemeticians, try reading David Belinski's Infinite Ascent. His prose rolls trippingly on the (retinal) tongue, and he puts personality behind his short history of mathematics. It is short, it is mainly history, and yes the players are mathematicians.

Voting time means the usual circulation of emails recounting American suffragettes suffering to change a prohibition on the right to vote. Often jail and hunger strikes are mentioned. I read and send along various useful historical reminders, each calculated to revive appreciation for a right fought for by others. A real sock in the jaw- or stomach- is this book- which not only goes into detail on so-called "force feeding" of hunger strikers (later legally categorized as torture), but also recounts the calculus of human starvation ( the 1944 Minnesota Experiment : WWII conscientious objectors voluntarily participated in a being starved to prepare- scientifically- for dealing with the long starved masses of Europe). And take away tidbits, such as the fact that, except in extraordinary circumstances, the brain, retina and gonads run exclusively on glucose.