Opinion: Sure, an AI aced an 8th-grade science test, but the method it used highlights its lack of common sense or anything resembling human understanding.
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Tuesday, September 10, 2019
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Objects can now change colors like a chameleon
The color-changing capabilities of chameleons have long bewildered willing observers. The philosopher Aristotle himself was long mystified by these adaptive creatures. But while humans can’t yet camouflage much beyond a green outfit to match grass, inanimate objects are another story.
A team from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has brought us closer to this chameleon reality, by way of a new system that uses reprogrammable ink to let objects change colors when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) and visible light sources.
Dubbed “PhotoChromeleon,” the system uses a mix of photochromic dyes that can be sprayed or painted onto the surface of any object to change its color — a fully reversible process that can be repeated infinitely.
PhotoChromeleon can be used to customize anything from a phone case to a car, or shoes that need an update. The color remains, even when used in natural environments.
“This special type of dye could enable a whole myriad of customization options that could improve manufacturing efficiency and reduce overall waste,” says CSAIL postdoc Yuhua Jin, the lead author on a new paper about the project. “Users could personalize their belongings and appearance on a daily basis, without the need to buy the same object multiple times in different colors and styles.”
PhotoChromeleon builds off of the team’s previous system, “ColorMod,” which uses a 3-D printer to fabricate items that can change their color. Frustrated by some of the limitations of this project, such as small color scheme and low-resolution results, the team decided to investigate potential updates.
With ColorMod, each pixel on an object needed to be printed, so the resolution of each tiny little square was somewhat grainy. As far as colors, each pixel of the object could only have two states: transparent and its own color. So, a blue dye could only go from blue to transparent when activated, and a yellow dye could only show yellow.
But with PhotoChromeleon’s ink, you can create anything from a zebra pattern to a sweeping landscape to multicolored fire flames, with a larger host of colors.
The team created the ink by mixing cyan, magenta, and yellow (CMY) photochromic dyes into a single sprayable solution, eliminating the need to painstakingly 3-D print individual pixels. By understanding how each dye interacts with different wavelengths, the team was able to control each color channel through activating and deactivating with the corresponding light sources.
Specifically, they used three different lights with different wavelengths to eliminate each primary color separately. For example, if you use a blue light, it would mostly be absorbed by the yellow dye and be deactivated, and magenta and cyan would remain, resulting in blue. If you use a green light, magenta would mostly absorb it and be deactivated, and then both yellow and cyan would remain, resulting in green.
After coating an object using the solution, the user simply places the object inside a box with a projector and UV light. The UV light saturates the colors from transparent to full saturation, and the projector desaturates the colors as needed. Once the light has activated the colors, the new pattern appears. But if you aren’t satisfied with the design, all you have to do is use the UV light to erase it, and you can start over.
They also developed a user interface to automatically process designs and patterns that go onto desired items. The user can load up their blueprint, and the program generates the mapping onto the object before the light works its magic.
The team tested the system on a car model, a phone case, a shoe, and a little (toy) chameleon. Depending on the shape and orientation of the object, the process took anywhere from 15 to 40 minutes, and the patterns all had high resolutions and could be successfully erased when desired.
“By giving users the autonomy to individualize their items, countless resources could be preserved, and the opportunities to creatively change your favorite possessions are boundless,” says MIT Professor Stefanie Mueller.
While PhotoChromeleon opens up a much larger color gamut, not all colors were represented in the photochromic dyes. For example, there was no great match for magenta or cyan, so the team had to estimate to the closest dye. They plan to expand on this by collaborating with material scientists to create improved dyes.
“We believe incorporation of novel, multi-photochromic inks into traditional materials can add value to Ford products by reducing the cost and time required for fabricating automotive parts,” says Alper Kiziltas, technical specialist of sustainable and emerging materials at Ford Motor Co. (Ford has been working with MIT on the ColorMod 3-D technology through an alliance collaboration.) “This ink could reduce the number of steps required for producing a multicolor part, or improve the durability of the color from weathering or UV degradation. One day, we might even be able to personalize our vehicles on a whim.”
Jin and Mueller co-authored the paper alongside CSAIL postdocs Isabel Qamar and Michael Wessely. MIT undergraduates Aradhana Adhikari and Katarina Bulovic also contributed, as well as former MIT postdoc Parinya Punpongsanon.
Adhikari received the Morais and Rosenblum Best UROP Award for her contributions to the project.
Ford Motor Co. provided financial support, and permission to publish was granted by the Ford Research and Innovation Center.
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Uncovering links between architecture, politics, and society
A building is many things: a stylistic statement, a form shaped to its function, and a reflection of its era.
To MIT architectural historian Timothy Hyde, a building represents something else as well.
“Every building is ultimately a compromise,” says Hyde. “It’s a compromise between the intentions of architects, the capacities of builders, economics, politics, the people who use the building, the people who paid for the building. It’s a compromise of many, many inputs.”
Even when architecture is stylish and trend-setting, then, buildings are developed within political, legal, and technological limits. And Hyde, formerly a practicing architect himself, has built a niche for himself at MIT as a scholar exploring those issues.
In a relatively short span, Hyde, an associate professor at MIT, has written two books on the relationship between architecture and society, one exploring modernism and democracy in 20th century Cuba, and the other looking at the connections between architecture and power in modern Britain.
In both, Hyde, whose sharp archival work matches his grasp of buildings, shows how buildings have co-evolved along with the political and legal practices of the contemporary world.
“I really think about myself first as a historian of modernity,” Hyde explains. “Architectural history is the particular vehicle that I use to explore the history of modernity.”
The writing on the wall
Hyde grew up in New York City’s Greenwich Village and double-majored in English and architecture at Yale University. He then received a master of architecture degree from Princeton University and became a practicing architect, mostly working on residences. But he kept writing about architecture, a fairly common practice in the field.
“In architecture, as a profession, writing has always been a companion to the building,” Hyde says. “Many architects write.” But before long, he says, “I just had a recognition that the ideas I wanted to explore were best expressed through writing, as opposed to through building.”
At about the same time, Hyde was teaching a course at Northeastern University and soon realized he wanted to fully commit to the academic life.
“Instead of trying to write alongside my practice, I realized at that point I wanted to flip the two around and focus on writing as a historian, and to be able to teach and work in academia but still remain engaged in a contemporary conversation about architecture,” Hyde says.
Hyde thus returned to school, earning his PhD at Harvard University. He sought out an academic position, and at MIT, has landed in the Program in History, Theory, and Criticism, a highly active group of architectural and art historians within the School of Architecture and Planning.
“We’re a humanities discipline, but we’re affiliated very tightly to a professional practice that is itself a composite of art and engineering,” Hyde says. “So the role of the historian within the architecture program is a very broad one. We can talk about many facets of buildings.”
Cuba, Britain, and … the South Pole?
One hallmark of architectural history at MIT is geographic scope: Professors at the Institute have often made a point of examining the subject in global terms. Hyde takes that approach as well.
Hyde’s 2012 book on Cuba — “Constitutional Modernism: Architecture and Civil Society in Cuba, 1933-1959” — stemmed from his realization that Cuba at the time “was an incredibly exciting and fertile place for cultural exchanges and avant-garde aesthetics, and had an economic boom that allowed the commissioning of very innovative projects.”
When Cuba drafted a new constitution in the 1940s, philosophers, artists, and writers were a part of the process. Architectural thinking, Hyde contends, was an integral part of the planning and vision of the country — although that became discarded after Cuba’s communist revolution of the late 1950s.
“I wrote about the relationship between a national project that was being articulated in political and legal terms, and a national project that was being articulated in terms of architecture and planning,” Hyde says.
His book on Britain — “Ugliness and Judgment,” published in 2019 — explores several distinct episodes in which aesthetic disagreements over architecture in London helped produce modern social and legal practices. For instance, Britain’s libel law took shape in response to failed lawsuits filed by Sir John Soane, whose early 19th-century buildings were the object of stinging put-downs from critics.
Moreover, in Britain, environmental science and policy have important roots in a controversy of the Houses of Parliament, rebuilt in stone in the 1840s. When the parliament building quickly became smothered in soot, it instigated a decades-long process in which the country gradually charted out new antipollution laws.
Hyde is currently working on a third book project, which looks at the historical legacy of buildings that have vanished, from Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond to shelters in Antarctica. Their presence as architectural objects was crucial to the people who inhabited them; Hyde is exploring how this shapes our understanding of the history surrounding them.
“Thoreau’s cabin at Walden has an enormous textual presence, but it has virtually no physical presence,” Hyde says. “If the architecture is so central to Thoreau’s book, yet no longer has a presence as a material object, how should architectural history approach that?”
Working well with others
Beyond his own work, Hyde has helped establish a new, cooperative group of scholars in his field, the Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative.
The group holds workshops and produces published volumes and pamphlets in architectural history, to aid scholars who often work in isolation. Their edited volume, “Governing by Design: Architecture, Economy, and Politics in the Twentieth Century,” was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press.
The idea, Hyde says, is “to try to allow for a collaborative conversation that is otherwise not cultivated very strongly within the field.” The group’s in-depth workshops provide scholars with substantive feedback about works in progress.
“Having a workshop where you can spend two days talking about each other’s work is an enormous luxury, and something that I have not experienced elsewhere in our field,” Hyde says.
Scholars participating in the collaborative can thus can enjoy a win-win situation, pursuing their own work while getting help from others. Perhaps every building is a compromise — but architectural history don’t have to be one.
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Using rigorous evaluation to reduce and prevent homelessness in North America
For millions of people in the United States, the struggle for stable housing both shapes and is shaped by numerous factors, such as employment opportunities and wages, housing market dynamics, access to health care, financial stability, and involvement with the criminal justice system. In the United States, more than 500,000 people experience homelessness on a given night, and 1.4 million people pass through emergency shelters in a given year. Many more individuals experience housing instability in other, often uncounted forms, whether living doubled up with friends or family, living in temporary accommodations such as motels, or living under threat of eviction.
The scope and complexity of housing instability and homelessness in the United States highlight the need for rigorous evidence on the effectiveness of strategies to prevent and reduce homelessness. Each year, billions of dollars in public financial resources are devoted to combatting housing instability, between federal expenditures and additional spending within local jurisdictions. It is critical that these resources fund policies and programs that will efficiently help to end homelessness.
In the past few decades, many organizations have shifted the types of services offered to individuals and families experiencing housing instability to prioritize immediate housing, referred to as a Housing First approach. Evidence played a fundamental role in building support for this new model from the beginning, with several randomized evaluations demonstrating that a Housing First approach could more effectively house people experiencing chronic homelessness than shelter-based approaches.
While the rigorous evidence on the Housing First model and other approaches to reducing and preventing homlessnesss provides a start, open questions remain as to effectiveness of the current organization of homelessness programs in North America. How can rigorous evaluation continue to drive improvements to policies and services aimed at helping people experiencing housing instability access and maintain stable, affordable housing?
To answer this question, J-PAL North America released an Evidence Review summarizing results from 40 rigorous evaluations of 18 distinct programs related to homelessness prevention and reduction. The publication focuses mainly on questions that can be answered through rigorous impact evaluation methods and outlines a research agenda for additional evaluation based on a recently released academic working paper on homelessness, “Reducing and Preventing Homelessness: A Review of the Evidence and Charting a Research Agenda,” by William Evans (University of Notre Dame), David Phillips (University of Notre Dame), and Krista Ruffini (University of California at Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy).
The body of evidence suggests some areas of promise, but demonstrates that additional research on the effectiveness of other strategies to reduce homelessness is needed.
First, homelessness prevention is an area that demands more rigorous evaluation. An existing body of research demonstrates that emergency financial assistance and more comprehensive interventions that provide a range of financial assistance, counseling, and legal supports can prevent homelessness among families at risk of eviction. Additionally, legal representation for tenants at risk of losing their homes holds promise for reducing evictions. However, more research is needed on how prevention programs can best be delivered and targeted towards those most in need.
Second, permanent supportive housing programs, which provide long-term housing support and wrap-around services with no preconditions, can increase housing stability for veterans and individuals with severe mental illness. Based on the body of rigorous evidence behind Housing First approaches to homelessness reduction, many organizations have shifted toward this model of intensive assistance, and away from the traditional model of requiring preconditions, such as sobriety and employment, before obtaining permanent housing. However, there has been little rigorous evaluation of the impact of permanent supportive housing programs for other groups of people.
Third, although rapid re-housing is a potentially cost-effective solution to provide immediate access to housing, there is limited evidence on the impacts of rapid re-housing on long-term housing stability. Rapid re-housing aims to house people experiencing homelessness as quickly as possible by providing short-term rental assistance and services to help households overcome barriers to long-term housing stability.
Fourth, subsidized long-term housing assistance in the form of housing vouchers helps low-income families avoid homelessness and stay stably housed. The federally subsidized housing program with the most rigorous evidence to date is the Housing Choice Voucher program. Also known as Section 8, the program provides eligible low-income households with rental assistance to pay for private-market housing in units that they select.
The publication also identifies existing gaps in the literature and outlines key open questions about the effectiveness of strategies to reduce and prevent homelessness to consider going forward. For instance, it is important to rigorously test the impact of existing programs with a limited evidence base, such as rapid re-housing. Additional questions remain on how homelessness programs and services affect non-housing related outcomes and how best to design and target services to maximize potential impact.
To help answer these questions, J-PAL North America’s work on homelessness seeks to expand the base of rigorous evidence on strategies to reduce and prevent homelessness and promote housing stability by partnering directly with nonprofits and government agencies.
Organizations interested in being paired with researchers to rigorously evaluate strategies to ameliorate homelessness are encouraged to contact project manager Rohit Naimpally. J-PAL North America may be able to offer technical assistance, matchmaking with researchers, and funding to cover the cost of an evaluation. For more information, please see our Housing Stability Evaluation Incubator.
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South Africa: Nigeria to repatriate 600 citizens amid violence
Kawhi Leonard’s sister arrested and charged with the murder of 84-year-old woman
The sister of NBA star Kawhi Leonard has been arrested and charged with the brutal murder of an 84-year-old woman.
—LA Clippers star Kawhi Leonard gives away 1 million backpacks to kids in need—
Kimesha Williams is reportedly Leonard’s sibling, according to Williams’s aunt Denise Woodard.
Williams and another woman, Candace Townsel, 39, have been accused of killing Afaf Anis Assad inside a bathroom at the Pechanga Resort Casino in California on Aug. 31, according to police.
Assad reportedly died four days after she was brutally assaulted. Williams and Townsel have been charged with murder and robbery, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office.
The Pechanga Resort Casino released a statement saying: “We are absolutely saddened over this incident and are praying for the victim and her family. The suspects were quickly identified through surveillance footage and the information was immediately provided to law enforcement,” Munoa said.
“We pride ourselves on putting the safety of our guests and Team Members first and are fully cooperating with law enforcement to bring these perpetrators to justice.”
According to the Press-Enterprises, the suspects stole the elderly woman’s purse, which reportedly contained $1,200.
—Big Sean donates $100K recording studio to Detroit Boys and Girls Club—
Leonard has yet to release a statement.
“He didn’t have anything to do with this,” Woodard told the newspaper.
Leonard recently signed with the Los Angeles Clippers after an impressive NBA Championship win with the Toronto Raptors.
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Kevin Hart is reportedly walking and on the road to recovery after horrific car crash
Kevin’s Hart on the road to recovery after a severe car crash and is reportedly exercising his limbs as he begins therapy by walking around.
—Let’s discuss why Kevin Hart gaslighting Lil Nas X is so infuriating—
Although Hart is getting his rehab in at a local hospital in Cali, he is reportedly walking slowly and gently as he builds up his strength but he’s still is excruciating pain, The NY Daily News reports.
Hart’s lucky to be alive, according to reports, after he was a passenger in a horrific car crash in Calabasas and his vehicle tumbled over several times. Hart’s vehicle, a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda, reportedly was driven by Jared Black, and plummeted off the side of the road into an embankment. Rebecca Broxterman, another passenger reportedly had minor injuries.
It remains unclear how the accident will affect Hart, who has emerged from his roots in standup comedy to become one a major Hollywood star. His next major release, “Jumanji: The Next Level,” is scheduled for release in December.
—Syracuse welcomes Central Park 5 member to coveted campus—
Hart’s team has been mum about his condition, but last week his wife Eniko Hart did say her bruised and banged up husband would be “just fine.”
The accident, which remains under investigation, occurred on a stretch of road in the hills above the city of Malibu.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Angela Bassett preaches about the power of purpose for epic Black Girls Rock speech
In all her fabulousness, ageless actress Angela Bassett stood on the Black Girls Rock stage and accepted the Icon Award and served up a heartfelt lesson and powerful speech about what it means to walk in your purpose.
—Ageless beauty Angela Bassett admits she’s gotten a ‘little bit’ of Botox—
On Sunday, BET aired the BGR ceremony, created by DJ Beverly Bond, and gives voice to the excellence Black women share with the world across the disciplines of music, entertainment, education and more.
Bassett was the recipient of the Icon Award, and shared the ups and especially the downs she experienced despite attaining critical acclaim for tackling roles like playing Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to Do With It. Still, Bassett said her phone stopped ringing and she had to dig deep and walk in her purpose. Through it all she said she maintained her integrity and refused to compromise on that.
“My purpose as a Black woman, as an actress, has always been to portray excellence on the screen, to be proud, unapologetic and without regret,” the Black Panther actress said.
“It hasn’t always been easy, and there have been tough times, days when the phone didn’t ring, even after ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It.’ As well as moments of uncertainty and doubt,” she said. “But what women like my mother, Betty Jane, and my Aunt Golden taught me was that there will be times when you seem to face insurmountable obstacles but that’s when you dig deep into your soul with confidence and fortitude.”
“We have much work to do and, together, we are unstoppable,” she said. “Always remember that our voices, the very power that we hold individually, and all of us collectively, it does matter. Now is not the time to be silent. Find your purpose, pursue it relentlessly, passionately and loudly. Be persistent and win.”
.@ImAngelaBassett gives her acceptance speech at #BlackGirlsRock! pic.twitter.com/MeTeY7cPnA
— BET (@BET) September 9, 2019
Basset, who was introduced by Oscar winning actress Regina King, gave thanks to her family for “giving me the opportunity and the space to be a Black girl who rocks.”
She also gave a nod to Bond, BET and trailblazing women in history, Rosa Parks, Betty Shabazz, Coretta Scott King and yes, Tina Turner.
—Angela Bassett is awesome in Netflix’s touching comedy ‘Otherhood’—
Bassett then took it there when she preached about the nasty rhetoric, typical of Trump and white supremacists, of being told to go back to where you came from.
“So when you’re told you’re not good enough, you tell them, not only am I good enough, I’m more than good enough,” she said. “When they say send her back home, you tell them I am home. I am the foundation of what you call home. When they tell you that you’re angry or nasty, you tell them that they’re mistaken. This is me. This is me being resolute and standing firmly in my truth. And when they say you’re not beautiful, you tell them that you are the descendant of royalty.”
“We have much work to do and, together, we are unstoppable,” she said. “Always remember that our voices, the very power that we hold individually, and all of us collectively, it does matter. Now is not the time to be silent. Find your purpose, pursue it relentlessly, passionately and loudly. Be persistent and win.”
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Syracuse welcomes Central Park 5 member to coveted campus
Through the eyes of a 14-year-old with a love of basketball and the trumpet in 1989, Syracuse University had everything Kevin Richardson would ever want in a college: Big East idols like Dwayne “Pearl” Washington and Derrick Coleman, along with the spirited band that played at games.
“All of my friends, we all had different teams and mine was Syracuse,” Richardson says today, 30 years removed from those days as a youngster in New York City. “I just had a love for Syracuse.”
Any dreams he had of attending would come to a sudden end that year, when he and four friends were convicted of a rape in Central Park they never committed. As one of the “Central Park Five,” Richardson spent his high school and would-be college years in prison.
To this day, as a 44-year-old father of two, he’s never set foot on the Syracuse campus.
He aims to change that this weekend when he accepts the university’s invitation to visit and lend his name to a scholarship.
A separate student-led effort is pushing for an honorary degree.
“My main goal is just to visit the campus. Anything that happens beyond that is like a bonus,” Richardson said by phone before the visit. “I’m just thrilled just to be connected to the university 30 years later.”
The connection grew out of the recent four-part Netflix series “When They See Us” and a related interview with Oprah Winfrey, where Richardson talked about his dream of playing trumpet in the Syracuse University band.
The series introduced the saga of the Central Park Five to a new generation of justice-minded young people, many of whom weren’t born when it was playing out, Richardson said. Details of the questionable police practices that led to the convictions of Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise, all black and Latino teenagers, in the rape of a white woman still resonate today, he said.
The five were exonerated after spending between five and 13 years in prison.
“Now, when they see ‘When they See Us,’ it becomes fresh to them, the story. The story has been around for 30 years, and even before that, and the same thing is still happening,” Richardson said. “So I think kids now are very eager to do something.”
Student Jalen Nash’s petition to award an honorary degree had nearly 6,000 signatures ahead of Richardson’s visit.
“While this dream could never be fulfilled due to circumstance, it is never too late to do the right thing,” Nash wrote.
In the meantime, while on campus with his wife, Johansy, Sunday and Monday, Richardson will meet with beneficiaries of the Our Time Has Come Scholarship program, which will name one of its scholarships for him. He will also talk with student athletes and musicians — though he says it’s been too long since he’s played to join them on trumpet this visit.
“When I was incarcerated, I always thought about what could have happened, so it will be bittersweet because I know that, wow, this could have been me when I was younger on campus,” he said. “But just to be there will surpass the negative things that happened to me in my childhood.”
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South Africa: Two dead in new bout of mob violence
Robert Mugabe died a 'very bitter' man, nephew says
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