Chris Aldrich Blog: BoffoSocko.com

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

Bookmarked The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (Liveright)

In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein, a leading authority on housing policy, explodes the myth that America’s cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation―that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation―the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments―that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day. Through extraordinary revelations and extensive research that Ta-Nehisi Coates has lauded as "brilliant" (The Atlantic), Rothstein comes to chronicle nothing less than an untold story that begins in the 1920s, showing how this process of de jure segregation began with explicit racial zoning, as millions of African Americans moved in a great historical migration from the south to the north. As Jane Jacobs established in her classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, it was the deeply flawed urban planning of the 1950s that created many of the impoverished neighborhoods we know. Now, Rothstein expands our understanding of this history, showing how government policies led to the creation of officially segregated public housing and the demolition of previously integrated neighborhoods. While urban areas rapidly deteriorated, the great American suburbanization of the post–World War II years was spurred on by federal subsidies for builders on the condition that no homes be sold to African Americans. Finally, Rothstein shows how police and prosecutors brutally upheld these standards by supporting violent resistance to black families in white neighborhoods. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited future discrimination but did nothing to reverse residential patterns that had become deeply embedded. Yet recent outbursts of violence in cities like Baltimore, Ferguson, and Minneapolis show us precisely how the legacy of these earlier eras contributes to persistent racial unrest. “The American landscape will never look the same to readers of this important book” (Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund), as Rothstein’s invaluable examination shows that only by relearning this history can we finally pave the way for the nation to remedy its unconstitutional past.

h/t Bill Gates

Given Livefyre‘s origin as a commenting platform along the lines of Disqus and Intense Debate, this photo of their current offerings from Adobe makes it sound a lot like what the Webmention Open Spec does for my WordPress-based website.

🔖 Computational Social Scientist Beware: Simpson’s Paradox in Behavioral Data by Kristina Lerman

Bookmarked Computational Social Scientist Beware: Simpson's Paradox in Behavioral Data by Kristina Lerman (arxiv.org)

Observational data about human behavior is often heterogeneous, i.e., generated by subgroups within the population under study that vary in size and behavior. Heterogeneity predisposes analysis to Simpson's paradox, whereby the trends observed in data that has been aggregated over the entire population may be substantially different from those of the underlying subgroups. I illustrate Simpson's paradox with several examples coming from studies of online behavior and show that aggregate response leads to wrong conclusions about the underlying individual behavior. I then present a simple method to test whether Simpson's paradox is affecting results of analysis. The presence of Simpson's paradox in social data suggests that important behavioral differences exist within the population, and failure to take these differences into account can distort the studies' findings.

️ Modernist Bread by Nathan Myhrvold, Francisco Migoya

Wished for Modernist Bread (The Cooking Lab)

Modernist Bread: The Art and Science is a revolutionary new understanding of one of the most important staples of the human diet. Created by the team that published the award-winning Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, this massive treasury of practical knowledge and groundbreaking techniques captures over four years of independent research and collaborations with leading industry professionals; the result is the most in-depth look at bread to date. Stunning photography brings the complete story of bread to life across five volumes—uncover its incredible history, loaves from every corner of the world, and the breath-taking beauty of scientific phenomena at work above and below the crust. In addition, you will discover innovative recipes and techniques developed by the Modernist Cuisine team that have not been published anywhere else. Housed in a sleek stainless steel case, this five-volume set contains more than 1,500 traditional and avant-garde recipes, as well as a wire-bound kitchen manual so that you can easily bring all of the recipes into the kitchen in one compact collection. Spanning over 2,300 pages, Modernist Bread will become an invaluable resource for anyone who has a thirst for knowledge about bread or wants to advance their craft. This book is a call to arms for any baker—whether you are a strict traditionalist, avid modernist, home baker, restaurant chef, or an artisanal baker—to embrace the possibilities of invention and follow your inspiration to make breads in your own way. The Modernist Cuisine team is an interdisciplinary group in Bellevue, Washington, founded by Nathan Myhrvold. The team comprises scientists, research and development chefs, a full editorial and photography department, and business and marketing staff—all dedicated to advancing the science of the culinary arts through creativity and experimentation.

I thought McGee’s 60 page synopsis of milk was interesting, but how is this to compare to a $520.00 treatise on bread that spans over 2,600 pages?

I’m thinking this would be an awesome Christmas present!! Hint, Hint

👓 Modernist BreadCrumbs | Episode 2: The Great Civilizations of Grain | Heritage Radio Network

Listened to Modernist BreadCrumbs | Episode 2: The Great Civilizations of Grain by Michael Harlan Turkell from Heritage Radio Network

This is Episode Two of Modernist BreadCrumbs: “The Great Civilizations of Grain,” on grains, flour, and milling.

In this episode, we look inside with a kernel of knowledge, sprout ancient grains, and take a journey through wheat’s history. We could go on for flours.

Modernist BreadCrumbs is a special collaborative podcast series with Heritage Radio Network and Modernist Cuisine, that takes a fresh look at one of the oldest staples of the human diet—bread. Although it may seem simple, bread is much more complex than you think.

From the microbes that power fermentation to the economics of growing grain, there’s a story behind every loaf. Each episode will reveal those stories and more, beginning with bread’s surprising and often complicated past, from the perspective of people who are passionate about bread, and shaping its future.

Alpha Release of Linkback Module for Drupal 8 with Webmention Support [8.x-1.0-alpha1]

Bookmarked Alpha Release of Linkback Module for Drupal 8 with Webmention Support [8.x-1.0-alpha1] by

Dan Feidt (Drupal.org)

We are proud to bring you the first alpha release of Linkback, an interesting suite of modules which can help integrate your website with the wider internet. Linkback provides the backend functionality to save both outgoing and incoming pings and webmentions involving remote sites.

Drupal 8, now (along with platforms like WithKnown, Perch, WordPress, Craft, Kirby, ProcessWire, Elgg, and Django) has Webmention support. Congratulations to Dan Feidt (aka HongPong) and everyone involved!

This means that more websites can communicate directly with each other on the open and decentralized web. (Wouldn’t you like to “@mention” someone from your own website to theirs?) It’s a rapidly growing reality on the internet.

Mismanaged road closures on 210 Freeway for the Creek Fire (and others)

I’ll note at the outset that there are larger, potentially more pressing problems relating to the current fires in Southern California, and I have every hope that they’re mitigated as quickly and smoothly as possible, particularly for the large numbers of displaced residents. But I also know that this is not our “first rodeo”, and therefore there should have been better planning and be a better coordinated response from state and local officials.

Apparently in a fit of poor thinking, the California Highway Patrol and the fine folks at CalTrans Distric 7 have closed almost all of the East and Westbound exits on the 210 Freeway from roughly Glendale to past Sylmar. This includes exits for areas that aren’t under immediate threat, nor, based on reports I’ve seen, for areas that are expected to be threatened.

While I understand that they’re evacuating much of the proximal area for the Creek Fire and public safety, they’re potentially causing not only undue burden on people moving around or through the area, but adding stress to resources needed to abate the issue. In particular, while it may be advisable to close several on/off ramps nearest the fire, it is neither smart, nor helpful to have all of them closed for miles and miles in all directions, particularly those closures at the furthest ends.

Because the Westbound Pennsylvania and Lowell freeway ramps were (unnecessarily) closed this morning on the Westbound 210, I and thousands of others, including countless parents taking their children to one of the several dozen schools in NorthWest Glendale, were unnecessarily forced to spend an additional hour or more this morning driving on the 210 through the worst of the smoke out past Sylmar only to need to turn around and drive back through the heavy smoke to return to our original destinations. After almost a day of issues, there is still no signage on the 210 Freeway indicating any closures. Easily one of approximately 20 CalTrans vans I saw blocking exits this morning could have been better used to pull a trailer with closure signage.

I get the need to evacuate the area and close roads, but why not close them at the surface street level? This would allow travelers to turn around and reroute instead of being unnecessarily forced to spend one or more hours in both heavy traffic and heavy smoke. If there aren’t enough resources to do this at every exit, why not at least one or two of them to alleviate the additional and unnecessary back and forth?

I noticed at least four accidents–which I’m sure is at least 3 standard deviations from the average–on this stretch of freeway, which I hope were small fender benders. I would posit that these were all caused as a result of (frustrated and distracted) people simply trying to exit and turn around. This stresses the EMS system further by requiring the additional response of police, ambulance, fire and other first responders. I saw at least one firetruck at such a scene this morning, which I’m sure could have been better deployed against low containment numbers in highly populated areas being threatened by fire.

I saw people attempting to go the wrong way down on ramps simply to access surface streets to turn around. I saw dozens of cars (far more than usual) pulled over on the side of the road attempting to figure out the predicament. At least one driver in a similar situation this morning was forced to cope with running out of gas as the result of lack of communication. I stopped at at least two exit ramps in an attempt to get information from CHP officers, none of whom had any information about where or how to turn around. They literally knew nothing except that they could not let me pass at that point. (To me this is painfully inept communication at a time when communication could be saving lives, and multiple hours after these issues should have long since been anticipated.)

If they’re going to pull the public safety card, local and state government should simply close the entire 210 freeway from the 2 North to past Sylmar. If they can’t do this they should do local street closures to allow constituents to exit the freeway to turn around and find alternate routes back and around instead of simply being stuck (due to the lack of zero signage) and put further in harms way.

Additionally, if CalTrans hasn’t figured it out yet, there’s also a very frequently used traffic app called Waze that can be quickly edited to indicate road closures that will drastically help to mitigate traffic issues in and around the area to prevent a lot of the problem. Because Google owns Waze and shares data, it also means that Google Maps, another popular navigation application, will also further mitigate the traffic and ancillary public safety issues. I don’t think that any of the closures I saw this morning were marked on either platform. (Nota bene to Waze/Google Maps, in high traffic areas like Southern California, I’m surprised that your systems don’t intuit major closings automatically given the amounts of data you’re receiving back.)

I hope that from an executive standpoint state and local systems will have their resources better deployed for this evening’s commute. I can’t help but note that these aren’t the first large fires in the Southern California area, so I’m shocked that the response isn’t better managed. Better managing small seeming issues like these could allow resources that have to be deployed to remedy distal issues like them to be better deployed to the proximal issues.

If they can’t manage to fix these issues in the near term, I hope they’ll at least file them into their future emergency plans for what are sure to be future incidents.