A highly advanced system of video surveillance that Chicago officials plan to install by 2006 will make people here some of the most closely observed in the world. Mayor Richard M. Daley says it will also make them much safer.
“Cameras are the equivalent of hundreds of sets of eyes,” Mr. Daley said when he unveiled the new project this month. “They’re the next best thing to having police officers stationed at every potential trouble spot.”
Police specialists here can already monitor live footage from about 2,000 surveillance cameras around the city, so the addition of 250 cameras under the mayor’s new plan is not a great jump. The way these cameras will be used, however, is an extraordinary technological leap.
Monthly Archives: September 2004
Overture: All Hat No Cattle?
The exciting Overture Opening was brought back to reality via Tom Laskin’s Isthmus article (apparently not online) on the financial challenge that several local arts groups face as they migrate to the new facilities:
Off the record, members of the local arts community have suggested that the Rep’s problems stem from lavish spending by artistic Director Richard Corley, who joined the company in 2002. But (acting Rep managing director) Fadell says that such speculation is off the mark. Problems with the bottom line had been building for years.
This quote, surprisingly unattributed reminds me of the challenges Wisconsin faces in business as well as arts.
I remember being pleased years ago, while living in San Francisco, with the can do and risk friendly business (and arts) culture. People are willing to try, fail and try again, generally without fear.
Our local culture is not so tolerant of risk and change, despite the image we try to present. In fact, we tend to protect the status quo (Overture itself is testament to this with it’s compromised facade), rather than relish in it’s demise (and therefore let others benefit – see WARF’s biotech offices in California).
It’s the rare local banker/investor that is willing to take a risk. Better to invest in treasuries, evidently. There’s plenty of cash in Madison & Wisconsin. It just needs to be put to good use, for our children.
Jerry Frautschi and Pleasant have thrown down the gauntlet. Let’s all take advantage of that risk taking. After all, there would be no $700M had they not started Pleasant Company years ago (and Jill Barad’s willingness to write the check).
Corley has certainly stepped up the Rep’s tempo. I hope he continues to push.
We already have one Miller Park….. [All Hat No Cattle]
Failure:
Failure is the rule rather than the exception, and every failure contains information. One of the most misleading lessons imparted by those who have reached their goal is that the ones who win are the ones who persevere. Not always. If you keep trying without learning why you failed, you’ll probably fail again and again. Perseverance must be accompanied by the embrace of failure. Failure is what moves you forward. Listen to failure.
But there are different kinds of failure. Sometimes, failure tells you to give up and do something else entirely. Other times, it tells you to try a different approach, a new route to the top of the mountain. Or it may tell you to make a detour. Sometimes, it tells you that you need help. Sometimes, it doesn’t seem to tell you anything. Linda Stone, a former executive at both Apple Computer and Microsoft, recalls a conversation she participated in with Steve Wozniak and Dean Kamen, perhaps the two best-known living inventors.
“I’ll never forget it,” Stone says. “They just were talking about all their failures, and how they both felt like failures.”1 They were almost bragging about various laboratory fiascoes and catastrophes. Given their success, this seemed extraordinary. According to Stone, the conversation occurred just before an awards ceremony. “They were both being celebrated,” she says. So Wozniak and Kamen clearly weren’t talking about their failures as a way of feeling sorry for themselves. Rather, they were identifying with a thinking strategy they both had in common. “Every failure is a learning experience,” concludes Stone, “and it should be seen as part of progress, rather than seeing it as the enemy.”
Most don’t want to see innovations fail, yet this process is essential, as Schwartz points out.
Arts & Madison Schools
This weekend’s opening of the 200M+ Overture Center has created a great deal of excitement and activity downtown. Interestingly, the Madison School District has been de-emphasizing arts via:
- increased student fees
- Depleting the reserve fund for increased athletic spending (without looking at a more balanced extra-curricular approach such as re-instating the district arts coordinator)
- Failing to fund West High School’s fall Performance ($11,000) while increasing sports dollars.
Trusted Traveller?
Bruce Schneier on the DHS’s “Trusted Traveller” Program:
IF YOU FLY OUT of Logan Airport and don’t want to take off your shoes for the security screeners and get your bags opened up, pay attention. The US government is testing its “Trusted Traveler” program, and Logan is the fourth test airport. Currently, only American Airlines frequent fliers are eligible, but if all goes well the program will be opened up to more people and more airports.
Participants provide their name, address, phone number, and birth date, a set of fingerprints, and a retinal scan. That information is matched against law enforcement and intelligence databases. If the applicant is not on any terrorist watch list and is otherwise an upstanding citizen, he gets a card that allows him access to a special security lane. The lane doesn’t bypass the metal detector or X-ray machine for carry-on bags, but it bypasses more intensive secondary screening unless there’s an alarm of some kind.
Unfortunately, this program won’t make us more secure. Some terrorists will be able to get Trusted Traveler cards, and they’ll know in advance that they’ll be subjected to less stringent security.
DHS: Dept of Agriculture for 21st Century?
I have long predicted that the Department of Homeland Security will become the Department of Agriculture for the 21st century. What do I mean by that? The joke on Ag is that it now has something like two bureaucrats for every farmer in America. Well, this review notes that DHS has 186,000 employees, and most good estimates of global terrorism put the highest numbers of active players in the 10,000 range, with a potential for almost 100,000 more active sympathesizers or potential recruits. That means we already have one DHS employee for every terrorist on the planet and, with any luck (given the recent Republican flare for enlarging government), we’ll pass the 2-for-1 mark within the second Bush Administration.
Patriot Act: 5 Legal Signs for your Librarian
Librarian.net:
Five Technically Legal Signs for Your Library
Our Politicians: Where is the money coming from?
Open Secrets, a very useful site, has a great summary of where our incumbent politicians raise their cash. I’ll expand on this over the next few weeks.
H.G. Wells War of the Worlds Secretly Filmed in the UK
In news fit to set Steven Spielberg’s hair on end, Pendragon Pictures has just announced the completion of principal photography on their take of H.G. Wells’ The War Of The Worlds. Set in Wells’ intended turn-of-the-century English locale, the movie is the world’s first authentic adaptation of the H.G. Wells classic 1898 novel
God’s Sky
Clearing storms produce incredible light, as this photo illustrates. This 9MB Quicktime movie says it all. Gorgeous….!!!