The famous violinist Joshua Bell once played in a DC metro station for nearly an hour. He played six Bach pieces (some of the hardest ever composed) on a $3.5MM violin. Over a thousand people rushed by, unperturbed. He made $32 and some change.
I still don't know how this makes me feel. You can say it's human to ignore things on the street, but there were more children who stopped than adults.
I think it's moreso that the older we get, the less we trust our emotions. We're scared to have an original opinion, or go against the grain. We let the responsibilities of life take over-- it's easier than reflecting on who you are and how things feel. We don't want to get in trouble, don't want to be late for work, don't want people to laugh at us, don't want to feel alone.
I wish I knew how to fix this in the world. I think we're missing out on a lot.
This is a great piece of writing, but before you take too much of a lesson in human nature realize this was also in a commuter station at 8am on a work day. Even if people had wanted to stop, they had somewhere to be.
I've seen musicians on the level of a talented high schooler draw a big crowd and rake in cash at chinatown a few stops away. If Bell had done that experiment in Dupont Circle at 6pm on a Saturday night he'd have probably started a riot =).
I think your assessment that grown-ups ignore fascinating things, because we have a filter that only lets us see the mundane, is spot on. This is probably unfixable. In Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, he gives this phenomenon a straightforward personification — whenever the character Death enter the real world, he gets lots of attention from children and cats, but is invisible to grown-ups.
I've often seen people say that one of the great things about having kids is getting an opportunity to see the world through their "everything is interesting" perspective. So there's an option…
BTW, my favorite part about Gene Weingarten's Pulitzer Prize-winning Joshua Bell subway busking experiment is that after he won the prize, someone noticed that this experiment had also been performed in 1930 with similar results — see http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2008-06-29/opinions/36873... .
In the context of a street performance, the difference between a bad musician and a good musician is much greater than that between a good and a world-class one, particularly if you're only briefly exposed to it. For the most part, you're just not focusing on the music - it's not like sitting in a hall intending to be entertained.
Should people at a metro station even be able to tell the difference between a violin worth $3.5k and one worth $3.5M anyway?
Another conclusion you could draw is that when you remove the hype Banksy's work just isn't very compelling (anymore, or perhaps just on canvas). Or perhaps this is evidence of the opposite: a fair number of people were willing to pay $60 for a small monochrome, hastily-sprayed stencil piece.
When it comes to street art/graffiti, the context is just as, if not more, important than the art itself. For example, massive roller paintings on the sides of buildings or pieces on trains are interesting partially because of the danger involved in putting up the work in the first place. When the context is removed and it's just put on a piece of canvas, it loses a lot of its significance. It's a similar reason why some feel that paid murals aren't true graff since then it's not really street art, it's just art on the street.
This. part pf street art is the 'vandalism' aspect. in banksy's case there is almost always an ironic play on this. in others, we've seen thinkgs in the uk like using "powerwashers" to do grafitii, as a relief of light (clean) against normal (dirty). oh, and this selective washing was "illegal", and deemed "vandalism" even though by most sane standards washing a wall (however selective) would seem in the public interest. But the marking of the wall (claiming it as your own) is the inherent social transgression...sad statement on our modern world. Yes, and none of this gets communicated with the same techniques ex-situ.
In this case, not sad at all. As abat says above, these pieces look flat and boring. Usually Banksy's work melds with the environment it's in, often in clever ways. Taken out of that environment, it's just stencil art. The special essence has left, and it does become boring.
Agreed. But think how much additional work would have to be done to create unique interiors for every house. It already took a thousand man-years to create that huge virtual place without interiors...
Also, we have ample proof that the US Government cannot be trusted period. An entity that cannot be trusted can still reflect on itself, realize it has done lots of wrongs, and trust others that are reaching for higher standards.
I have a hunch icons and text are recognized by a different part of the brain, and the best way is to use them together, e.g. have an icon plus some text right next to it.
Some people are image oriented, and can go by the icons. Some people are text oriented and can just read the text.
The text helps first timers who might not yet be aware of certain icon conventions. The icons help power users because icons with clear silhouettes can be read very fast.
And yet another group of people read the text and look at the icon every time - even during repeated use. Because there are several parts of the brain that recognize a command, they feel more assured that what they are about to click is the right thing, and therefore feel more comfortable with the GUI.
All of this is nothing new, really. It goes back to the very first GUIs. There is 30 years of experience with this, there are probably lots of studies that this is indeed a good way to go.
> I have a hunch icons and text are recognized by a different part of the brain
It doesn't "feel" like that to me, as far as my own metaperception goes. At least not at a purely semantic level: I see a word, and I associate it with a concept; I see an icon, and I associate it with a concept. There's rarely any syntactic relationship among icons as there is among words, so icons are equivalent to merely seeing an single word in isolation, labelling something.
NSA critic Ilija Trojanow: German writer not allowed to enter US
Despite an invitation to a conference, german writer Ilija Trojanow was denied entry to the US - without reasoning. In the past, Trojanow signed a petition of protest against NSA surveillance.
Hamburg - Writer Juli Zeh broke the news: Through Facebook, she passed on a message from her college Ilija Trojanow. According to it, Trojanow was denied entry into the US. "He's marrooned at the airport in Brasil and can't participate in a conference on german studies in the US", said Zeh.
Ilija Trojanows' publisher Hanser confirmed this account upon request from Spiegel Online. Trojanows reported monday evening via SMS from Brasil "I was denied entry into the US today. Will be an arduous journey home".
Juli Zeh linked the denial of entry with a protest against NSA surveillance she initiated. Zeh presented the german chancellery a petition with 65000 signatures on september 18.
Trojanow was not present at the presentation, but he was one of the first signees, the Schöffling publisher coordinators told Spiegel Online. The writers alluded to a "historic attack on our democratic state under the rule of law".
"Let's frame it in a positive light: Our commitment makes an impact. It is being noticed", writes Zeh on Facebook on the entry ban to her "friend and fellow activist". Zeh and Trojanow wrote a non-fiction book on internet surveillance called "attack on freedom" in 2009. Zeh continues: "Let's frame in a negative light: it's a farce. Pure paranoia. People sticking up for civil liberties are treated like public enemies". In the comments on her posting Zeh emphasizes that Trojanows' ESTA application was answered positively, so in her opinion there can't be a problem with his visa or a work permit issue.
Ilija Trojanow, born 1965 in Bulgaria and escaped to Germany in 1971, received the Leipzig Book Fair Prize 2006 for his adventure novel "Der Weltensammler" (The Collector of Worlds). He held a honorific speech for nobel laureate Herta Müller at the Franz-Werfel human rights award. He was in Salvador de Bahia on invitation from the Goethe institute. He was supposed to talk about his latest novel "EisTau" (IceDew) on a conference of the German Studies Association in Denver.
So the congress invites someone, and the NSA branch steps in to block it by censoring the speaker at the border.
I wonder whats next in this hollywood movie. Drone strike in central london to take out an embassy? A firewall blockade directed at news paper articles? Secret kill lists and torture?
Maybe someone should sneak a telepresence robot to congress, give it a dark trench coat and a code name. This is Truth Teller congress members, let the robot speak!
Thank you. Still a bit of an movie plot move, but slightly less so than if it had been the congress.
I guess visiting speakers should always have a backup plan, and be able to do a video conference stream from the airport directly to the conference. That is if they are allowed to keep their electronics equipment intact at the border, which I guess is doubtful. Maybe a prerecorded speech?
As a U.S. citizen, this is actually my biggest concern - this is all going to hurt us economically. Of course most people will think it is Snowden's fault for making it known, rather than the government's fault for doing it.
> As a U.S. citizen, this is actually my biggest concern - this is all going to hurt us economically.
Of course it is. Always the effect on you "as a US Citizen". Because that's the only way you can think. What about the rest of the World?
Are you not a "World citizen" too?
Think about this for a moment. Is your economy really your biggest concern? What is the US doing to the rest of the world? Do you disapprove of this behaviour just because of the effect it might have on you, economically? Of course it is a reason, but is it really the first and foremost reason? When you look at it in the light of what the US is actually doing in your name?
You do realize that when you write things like this you post them in front of an international audience, right?
I'm not singling you out, I see this attitude everywhere. In particular in regard to the blatant spying and thrashing of our privacy. If it's your privacy it is an outrage, if it's everybody else's privacy it is "expected".
I just can't understand this attitude. If my country would be engaging in such behaviour, in my name, I would strongly denounce it because it is wrong to treat people like this regardless of where they live! Sure I might think "huh this could be bad for trade-relations of the Netherlands, and we're a trade country", but not for a single moment would I consider this a major reason to fault those actions. It is wrong because you should not treat people that way.
Like, what you just said is basically, if this couldn't hurt you economically, it would be much less of a concern to you. Because economically is your biggest concern. So all the other concerns must be so much smaller.
First of all, no, saying something is my biggest concern does not imply that barring it this would all be "much less of a concern" because all other things are "so much smaller" concerns. Those conclusions simply don't follow from what I said.
The rest of your points are pretty good and they are well taken. It is possible that U.S. citizens generally view ourselves less as "World citizens" than we should. For me, personally, I feel like this is because we have (largely through our own past mistakes!) made many enemies throughout the world, and I struggle to feel like there is any useful world citizenship that includes both me and those enemies. So yes, it royally pisses me off that you in the Netherlands are being spied on, and that German writers are being mistreated, and that European embassies are being bugged, all in my name, but no, it really doesn't bother me that we are spying on the North Koreans. I'm mad that we don't seem to know our friends from our enemies and are embarrassing ourselves by just drag-netting everything, but from a legal standpoint, within my own government, I think there is a useful line between U.S. citizens, and non-citizens.
For what it's worth, I absolutely think that I belong on the other side of that line for you in the Netherlands, and if I found out your government was spying on me, I would be more upset with my own government for failing to protect me than with your government for the spying.
I'm sure none of that made you like me or other Americans any more, which bums me out, and I wish there were a big happy World family for me to feel a part of, but as far as I can tell, there isn't.
Thanks, that was pretty good, thanks for saying that.
And I do like many/most Americans that I've met, it's just that the discourse on this subject on HN had started feeling a little bit one-sided. As I said, I wasn't trying to single you out, it was something that had been bubbling under my skin for a while now (and others too).
For what it's worth, if my government was spying in NK, the way yours is intercepting, recording, cataloguing and datamining the lives of all (Internet/technology-using) humans on this planet, I would in fact not be okay with this. Because it's no way to treat people, anywhere. As we've seen every single time, just because something that is actually wrong seems justifiable, doesn't mean it should be done because it'll just lower the threshold for it to be used again in situations where you wouldn't agree with it. Because you can't close that door, you can't say "I trust your judgement, this time", because in a few years it'll be somebody else making that call, and the machinery is already there.
Of course irony has it that not even the US gov is spying on NK in that manner, because they can't really get a useful intelligence foothold in that place. So the comparison doesn't actually quite work, because they're doing all this very deep hard-core intercepting/recording/datamining on pretty much all places except NK, and a few others that you might consider "justified". Why is it that the places where they far exceeded the boundaries of what can be reasoned as "justifiable intelligence" are in fact not the places where it might actually matter? Because they were allies. The UK hacked Belgium, FFS! It is an abuse of trust. For what, for nothing, well I'm guessing for business intelligence.
So yeah, that's a bit of a conundrum. With "national security" and all. Some tough choices maybe? But really, nobody said it would be easy. If you're dealing in global politics, affecting the lives of billions of people all over the world, all with different attitudes and beliefs, that's what you're signing up for. And there is no easy way out, 100% "Total Information Awareness" isn't a solution, for similar reasons as "let's bomb the ever-loving shit out of everybody" is not (as the US seems to be slowly learning).
See, the Dutch NSA, called AIVD, is doing just as bad. At some point they were tapping more phones than the US. If you buy Bitcoin you're on a list. They are already tracking our locations via the cellphones and "invisible text messages" and "Bob" knows what. It's pretty bad. But they're doing it to just these 17M people and it's our problem. This is why I donate money to Bits of Freedom, which is like the Dutch version of the EFF. One thing they're very good at, is informing politicians what all this new-fangled technology can do, so they can make better choices. So I hope B.o.F. can put some brakes on that. However, if my government were to turn its eyes outward, and decide it can just invade and intercept the personal lives of, well, anybody guilty of the crime of not being a Dutch citizen, I'd damn well be outraged, and expect my gov to cut it the hell out. ("Some of my best friends aren't Dutch citizens!!", Americans, in fact). And I'd demand that even though B.o.F. is a Dutch foundation, they'll work to put a stop to that as well even if it doesn't directly affect Dutch citizens.
Because, really, should allies have to be protecting their citizens from each other? Well they should protect their citizens, that's one thing a government is for, but ostensibly the point of having allies is that you're not trying to screw one another over.
Okay, and sorry this is getting a bit long, but I must point out that it is in fact more complicated than this :) Now it seems like I say just the US is screwing over its allies (and I also said the UK was). But part of the reality of the situation is also that many of these both-heavily-spied-upon-as-well-as-allied countries, are in fact governments screwing over their own citizens, with agreements that say basically "you spy on my back, I'll spy on yours". Which is another reason why you need to look past your own boundaries instead of asking/expecting your gov to better protect just your privacy. Because they don't really want to. And they use the excuse of spying on other countries as a distraction. As has been pointed out many times already, in the US there's some things in your Constitution that says, if anyone was listening, roughly that they shouldn't spy on US citizens for no good reason. That is why they have the deals with other countries, we can't legally spy on our own people, so you spy on ours, we spy on yours, deal? (this has been the case since ECHELON, it's right there on Wikipedia).
And THAT, is why you should not just expect your government to protect you from the other spying eyes, but why you should demand that they stop the type of intrusive surveillance / intercepting / recording / datamining they're doing to others as well. Because you're not alone in this world. Or, if only, to view from an economical perspective again, it removes the bargaining chip, if they don't have the deep intelligence on their "allies" they cannot trade it back for the deep intelligence that they are legally prohibited from gathering on their own citizens.
One should refer to the US federal legislative body as "Congress"; capitalized and without 'the'.
States each have their own legislatures and can be referred to as "the state legislature of X" or "X state legislature". But they all have their own names, New York's is called the New York State Assembly. California simply calls theirs the California State Legislature. Either way works.
Is this a case of incompetence at the junior levels or conspiracy at the senior? We tend to blame the latter, when it's frequently the former. (The folks at the airline terminal seem to be too incompetent to be entrusted with any kind of grand plan.)
Apparently, for the US, the right to free speech only applies to US people, not the world.
That has always been the case with the US "right to privacy". The Snowden leaks have caused a fuss (in the USA) because it's the US Government spying on US citizens in the USA. Us foreigners have always been spied on.
Yes, but the grandparent is talking about the hypocrisy of American freedom.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The US goes to war to bring 'democracy' to foreign lands, but at the same time it doesn't think it's appropriate to follow it's own principles with regard to it's treatment of foreigners (and their data) at home.
Looks like it. Same deal with the International Tribunal for War Crimes in the Netherlands. It's "for the other guy", not for "us. We don't commit war-crimes".
That's generally how nations work. If you aren't subject to their laws and don't pay their taxes, you don't get the rights granted to the citizens. I can't show up in the UK and demand they treat my health problems, even though they consider health care a right (so far as I know).
Not saying right or wrong, just how the system works.
There is a common distinction between Human Rights and Civil Rights. All of them vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction but the former are granted regardless of citizenship and the later only to citizens of a state.
To foreigners and law layman it often seems that the wording of the U.S. constitution means Human Rights but that has often turned out not to be the case and those are more understood as Civil Rights. Personally I have the feeling that there are no Human Rights in the U.S. given what we know about Guantanamo and NSA surveillance but I'd like to hear a more knowledgeable opinion about that.
Well the UK doesn't have a constitution in the sense of the USA, so technically there aren't any rights there in that sense.
But, yes, some countries enforce their laws on companies there that deal with anyone. If you're not in the USA or Canada and have a Facebook account, Facebook is bound by Irish Data Protection (i.e. privacy) law. You, as a non-Irish citizen, or resident, talk to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner and get them to enforce your rights. And Austrian person did just that: http://europe-v-facebook.org/EN/en.html
Right to free speech sadly does not conflict with the right of US to refuse entry to a person without reasons. US Visa does not guarantee entry - it is stated there in the application entry. It gives to the right to beg and immigration officer to grant you entry.
And at the border the majority of your rights are suspended anyway.
>And at the border the majority of your rights are suspended anyway.
Isn't this a fairly recent phenomena, and predicated on dubious legal grounds? In any case, this sort of thing can only survive because people accept it (and perhaps because they may be careful not to harass influential people).
Actually not my rights because I have not traveled to the US yet, but yes. Disclaimer (IANAL)
The answer is has many faces - until you have entered any country you are not subject to the full jurisdiction there - Snowden was not having full rights in Moscow for the months he spent at the terminal. He was also not having full obligations - in Russia you need to register with the police as a foreigner and generally help them keep track of you when you switch your residence. So even as a US citizen while on the border you are not in the US fully.
The second is that the Supreme Court has balanced the rights and obligations of the government (the right to refuse entry and the duty to protect the country) and has determined that it is greater than the rights given by the fourth amendment.
I'm not even sure if free speech even applies to us Americans anymore, since immigration and the ability to board a plane to/from the states seems to not fall under any constitutional rights.
So happy to live in a country-wide free-speech zone here in Denmark. I'm shocked that people must hide themselves behind fences to express their opinions.
It seems circumscribed, if that Wikipedia article is correct. Blasphemy laws are one worrying aspect.
On the other hand, I'd rather have even that constitutional guarantee instead of the complete lack of any guaranteed freedom of speech that is the situation in the UK.
In the switch to https everywhere, we have barely started. For every HN and wikipedia with https there are 20 websites without (and whether the ones that do https do really secure https is yet another question).
Somebody should go through the top 10k websites and make a list, then repeat every few months.
Well, if you go by % of internet traffic Google is 40-50% of all internet traffic. You could probably get above 99% of all internet traffic with a shockingly small number of sites. While Google, for example, uses SSL it's not like your data is really secure from monitoring there.
Do you have a user account at Wikipedia by any chance? They've been redirecting logged-in users to the SSL version for a while, and under some circumstances it also seems to redirect users who have been logged in but aren't right now.
I think that somebody is the EFF. HTTPS-Everywhere (look to the bottom of the page to DL the latest .xmi) has a LOT (certainly hundreds) in their list ... with qualifiers noted.
I understand that some time ago there were reasons behind not using https (price, setup, performance), but now you can get a certificate for few bucks[1].
Put something into a museum and everybody will look at it reverently. Sell it on the street and most will ignore it. Sad. But human.