Digital Divide

What a world we live in, huh?

(Mostly) reliable information about anything and everything (including the “Boys Are Stupid, Throw Rocks At Them” controversy) are at your fingertips on Wikipedia. Pandora and Lala let you uncover music that you’ve never heard of or that you never would possibly think you'd like. And oh, by the way, Apple’s iPad is released Saturday for a mere half-thou.

Notice that the above luxuries are just that: luxuries. They require computers (expensive), smart phones (expensive), Internet access (expensive), knowledge (expensive), etc. OK, luxuries cost money. But they're non-essential and superfluous. That’s all well and good.

But, more and more, these expensive technologies (and therefore, the resources to acquire the means to these technologies) are becoming a necessity to live and thrive in this world.

Take education for example. It’s understood that, as a computer science major, I was wholly dependent on all of this fancy technology to fulfill my degree. It’s even understandable that, at any institute of higher education, all of this is a given. But take it down a notch, to low-income primary/secondary education, and then you start getting into murky territory.

Listen to the following NPR story:



(link to article)

When students start being forced into underachievement because they simply can’t afford the means to meet their goals, while others comfortably research and write up their report on the Spanish-American War on their parents’ iMac (complete with cable internet), you’ve got a real problem.

I’m not suggesting we slam the brakes on the use of technology in educational settings. That would be backwards thinking (like a certain state Board of Education I know). But who is there to help these underprivileged students? At what point do they get help? And if they do, to what extent do they get help?

On the heels of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, this issue can’t be all that far behind. It’s a little easier to argue that healthcare is a right, and that your economical position shouldn’t interfere with that right.

But it’s not that big of a leap to say that, since access to a computer and the Internet are essential to get a decent education -- and it’s a basic right to get a good education -- that a computer and Internet access are a basic right as well? At that point, do the disadvantaged deserve help to gain this right?

Amalia Deloney from the Center for Media Justice: “There's really not a way that you can see Internet as anything other than a necessity, and it's no longer a luxury.” And that trend is only going to continue. As dependent as we are now on all this stuff, where will we be fifteen years from now?

Free Roddy B!

On a note related to my earlier post tonight...this is one reason why I'm excited about the Dallas Mavericks' impending playoff run. Other teams don't know about him yet, which will only serve the Mavs well. Rookie Rodrigue Beaubois:



Just once in my life, I want my short, white self to be able to do this.

John Hollinger is an Idiotface

I NEVER like sharing bad news, and I NEVER insult people behind their back. Which makes my writing of this blog entry so damned difficult. I'm sure he's a real nice guy, probably fun to have a few beers and laughs with, but the fact (or, more accurately, my opinion) remains:

John Hollinger is an idiotface.

Or at least his perception of the game of basketball is consistent with that of idiotfaces. Allow me to explain.

One of the many meaningless things ESPN does in order to satisfy the ravenous hunger of sports fans like me who just CAN’T get enough vacuous sports talk is a daily ranking of NBA teams based on statistics. The man behind this ranking is -- you guessed it -- John Hollinger. And my issue is that, before their 10-point win over the Clippers last night, my Dallas Mavericks were ranked 15th out of 30 teams, just behind the Miami Heat. (You knew I was going there, didn’t you?)

I might remind you that the Mavs are SECOND in the Western Conference, which is utterly LOADED with the greatest talent not named LeBron James in the best basketball league in the world. Especially given their recent trade which DRAMATICALLY improves their chances of winning in a postseason environment, these guys aren’t just good, they’re almost the best of the best. And yet, as Mike Fisher of DallasBasketball.com pointedly quips in a recent blog, “John has dropped the Mavs to just behind the UConn [women’s college basketball team].”

So why the discrepancy? As it turns out, at +1.89 points per game, Dallas’s average point differential is very mediocre. They’ve lost by over 20 points a handful of times this season, and have won by more than 10 surpisingly few times. At least fewer than a team with the 4th-best record in the league “should” have. Their home court dominance has been less than stellar (almost losing to the possibly worst-ever New Jersey Nets a couple of weeks ago). All strikes against them.

Fine. Statistics say that they just ain’t so great. As long as you don’t draw any unfair conclusions about the art of winning basketball games -- which the Mavs are clearly good at doing, having done it 47 (and counting) times this year -- based on numbers.

...except that’s exactly what John Hollinger did a couple of weeks ago. In a defense of his indefensible system, he explains why almost ALL of the teams ranked ahead of Dallas would emerge victorious if they locked horns in a seven-game series, including lowly Milwaukee and Portland. I’ll leave it to the aforementioned Mike Fisher to tear his analysis to miniscule shreds, because I have another more interesting (and less contentious...I feel like I’ve done enough of that) point to make.

A minute ago, I touched on the inability of logic and numbers to adequately describe something that could be considered an art form. The game of basketball is far too complex and abstract to do so, and no formula could definitively predict a game’s outcome. Would you predict the success of a Picasso based on a mathematical formula? Even with what seems like sound statistical reasoning, this just isn't possible.

That’s not to say that there isn’t some value to these statistical trends. I’m just saying it’s too much of a leap to say that numbers have any sort of definitive predictive value. In my opinion, John Hollinger makes this leap.

A frequent quote from another ESPN personality whom I hold in far higher regard sums it up SO well. I believe it is Chris Berman who says, every Sunday during the NFL season, “THAT'S why they play the game.”

JoshCast #21 - Do You Realize??

Oddly enough, only 6 days ago, I had never consciously heard a Flaming Lips song. I had a general impression that they were out there and that they were cool. But I hadn't seen (nor, frankly, had I really sought) any hard evidence of this. My cousin saw them at ACL Festival a few years back, and she described how the lead singer crowd-surfed in a giant bubble. So I took her at her (very capable) word that they were worth the hype.

That was 6 whole days ago. My, how times have changed.

The upstart Denton, Texas, music festival NX35 was highlighted by a FREE show at the North Texas Fairgrounds by the Flaming Lips and a couple of openers (Midlake and the White Dwarfs). Despite some untimely technical difficulties, including a total stage blackout right smack in the middle of their big intro, they were able to put on a helluva show. And it didn't matter that I had only bought my first Flaming Lips CD hours earlier. Sure, I couldn't really sing along, but I was speechless anyway:


So in case you were just as ignorant as I was, let me open your eyes. You might recognize "Do You Realize??", which is actually the official rock song of the state of Oklahoma. (Fitting, since they hail from OKC.) Listen up, and you'll see these guys are a little different:



The most striking feature of their style is actually their lyrics. A bittersweet (and mildly trippy) example:

"Do you realize / that everyone you know someday will die / And instead of saying all of your goodbyes / let them know you realize that life goes fast / It's hard to make the good things last / You realize the sun doesn't go down / It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round."

OMG

And isn't it just a little ironic that I'm blogging this cartoon, and that you're reading this on your fancy little iWhatever?