Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Good tech, bad tech
While napping, halfway listened to a BBC tech feature with two dramatically contrasting news items. I doubt they intended the contrast, but it banged into my mind.
First item: Young tech types in Afghanistan have set up an open-source clearing house for practical ideas to improve life in their country. Their basic notion is that the cell-phone system must become the backbone of not only tech but government and civilization. There's very little infrastructure outside the cell network. Afghanistan has about 18 million mobile phone users* in a population of 30 million. Covers just about every household, so it's a good choice for a backbone! These techies are starting with a 'promo' to show their abilities: an app** to schedule and register for the Hajj. Since every Muslim should make the Hajj at least once, it's a universal need, and the American puppet gov't is apparently doing a poor job of organizing the trips. Beyond this, the techies are working on many ways to streamline commerce and other activities.
Second item: London sidewalks are often tilted heavily toward the street to aid drainage. Wheelchair users have some trouble navigating the tilt. So a "human factors engineering" laboratory has built a small streetscape and a full set of telemetry equipment to "solve" the problem. Human subjects are weighed down with all sorts of stress analyzers, accelerometers, gait-analysis laser points, and cameras; then they do things like pushing wheelchairs around the sidewalks. Cost must be around a million dollars, and the result will be a bunch of numbers. Even if the numbers somehow lead to a proposed engineering solution, the solution would require rebuilding the whole city to compensate for a minor problem experienced by a few people.
= = = = =
Perfect parable of Good Tech and Bad Tech.
Good tech is simple, uses minimal equipment and directly solves the problems of real people.
Bad tech uses lots of money and equipment and serves only to generate more grants for the researcher.
How would you apply Afghan Tech to the London problem? There can't be more than a thousand serious chair-users in a town that size. Offer each of them a mechanism that senses tilt and biases the electronic steering controls accordingly. This isn't fancy; could have been done mechanically 200 years ago or electrically 100 years ago. Now it could probably be done with a hacked Wii or Kinect thingie.
If you get a thousand takers, you've spent maybe half a million and you've directly solved the actual problem without affecting anyone else. No need to measure human factors, analyze gait, or rebuild the city.
= = = = =
* Footnote 1: 18 million cell phone users in a pop of 30 million. Think about that. Meanwhile, American Repooflican commentators are still repeating the same old tired shit about Afghanistan being a 5th-century country where people don't have watches or calendars. Hmmmmmm. Who's behind the times?
** Footnote 2: The Hajj App. I can't imagine Western techies designing an app to assist ordinary people in the performance of their religious duties. Western techies are civilization-smashing commieshit fuckheads, as evidenced by their unanimous commieshit fuckhead response to the SOPA/MegaUpload situation. You couldn't pay them enough to write a program that would help people register for baptism or arrange a proper two-gender marriage. ¶ 5:04 PM
First item: Young tech types in Afghanistan have set up an open-source clearing house for practical ideas to improve life in their country. Their basic notion is that the cell-phone system must become the backbone of not only tech but government and civilization. There's very little infrastructure outside the cell network. Afghanistan has about 18 million mobile phone users* in a population of 30 million. Covers just about every household, so it's a good choice for a backbone! These techies are starting with a 'promo' to show their abilities: an app** to schedule and register for the Hajj. Since every Muslim should make the Hajj at least once, it's a universal need, and the American puppet gov't is apparently doing a poor job of organizing the trips. Beyond this, the techies are working on many ways to streamline commerce and other activities.
Second item: London sidewalks are often tilted heavily toward the street to aid drainage. Wheelchair users have some trouble navigating the tilt. So a "human factors engineering" laboratory has built a small streetscape and a full set of telemetry equipment to "solve" the problem. Human subjects are weighed down with all sorts of stress analyzers, accelerometers, gait-analysis laser points, and cameras; then they do things like pushing wheelchairs around the sidewalks. Cost must be around a million dollars, and the result will be a bunch of numbers. Even if the numbers somehow lead to a proposed engineering solution, the solution would require rebuilding the whole city to compensate for a minor problem experienced by a few people.
= = = = =
Perfect parable of Good Tech and Bad Tech.
Good tech is simple, uses minimal equipment and directly solves the problems of real people.
Bad tech uses lots of money and equipment and serves only to generate more grants for the researcher.
How would you apply Afghan Tech to the London problem? There can't be more than a thousand serious chair-users in a town that size. Offer each of them a mechanism that senses tilt and biases the electronic steering controls accordingly. This isn't fancy; could have been done mechanically 200 years ago or electrically 100 years ago. Now it could probably be done with a hacked Wii or Kinect thingie.
If you get a thousand takers, you've spent maybe half a million and you've directly solved the actual problem without affecting anyone else. No need to measure human factors, analyze gait, or rebuild the city.
= = = = =
* Footnote 1: 18 million cell phone users in a pop of 30 million. Think about that. Meanwhile, American Repooflican commentators are still repeating the same old tired shit about Afghanistan being a 5th-century country where people don't have watches or calendars. Hmmmmmm. Who's behind the times?
** Footnote 2: The Hajj App. I can't imagine Western techies designing an app to assist ordinary people in the performance of their religious duties. Western techies are civilization-smashing commieshit fuckheads, as evidenced by their unanimous commieshit fuckhead response to the SOPA/MegaUpload situation. You couldn't pay them enough to write a program that would help people register for baptism or arrange a proper two-gender marriage. ¶ 5:04 PM
