Good Reads: gun laws, lottery winners, online education, and tech gets sensory
The Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut brought a deluge of media attention to gun control. One useful perspective came from the Lexington鈥檚 Notebook column in The Economist magazine. Britain鈥檚 gun-related homicide rate is drastically lower than that of the United States not only because guns are harder to purchase, but because ammunition is scarce, the writer points out. In one recent incident in a crime-plagued British neighborhood, for example, 鈥渢he gang had had to make its own bullets, which did not work well....鈥�
In one recent year England and Wales experienced 39 fatalities from crimes involving firearms; the US had 12,000. In Britain, 鈥淭he firearms-ownership rules are onerous, involving hours of paperwork. You must provide a referee who has to answer nosy questions about the applicant鈥檚 mental state, home life (including family or domestic tensions) and their attitude towards guns. In addition to criminal-record checks, the police talk to applicants鈥� family doctors and ask about any histories of alcohol or drug abuse or personality disorders.鈥�
Some US gun owners argue that they might need firearms to fight a tyrannical government. But 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think America is remotely close to becoming a tyranny, and to suggest that it is is both irrational and a bit offensive to people who actually do live under tyrannical rule,鈥� the writer responds.
Lottery burdens
Are you eager to win the next big lottery? offers the cautionary tale of Jack Whittaker, a contractor in Scott Depot, W.鈥塚a., who 10 years ago found that his $1 Powerball lottery ticket had won him a $93 million payout after taxes.
Mr. Whittaker tried to do good with his bonanza, giving away a good portion to charitable groups, especially churches. But he still descended into alcohol addiction; was divorced by his wife; became tied up (by his own count) in some 460 legal actions; and lost his beloved granddaughter, on whom he had lavished piles of cash, to drug addiction. Before his lottery 鈥渨in,鈥� Whittaker鈥檚 contracting business had afforded him a comfortable life. 鈥淣obody knew I had any money,鈥� Whittaker said. 鈥淎ll they knew was my good works.鈥� His life back then, he notes sadly, 鈥渨as a lot easier.鈥�
Online courses vs. college life
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are the wave of the future, 鈥渢he end of higher education as we know it,鈥� as one university president has predicted.
Or are they? Writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education (鈥溾��), Scott Carlson and Goldie Blumenstyk give Luddites their due. While it鈥檚 true that an online course conducted by a top teacher might trump a large lecture class offered by a second-rate live lecturer, those pushing MOOCs as inevitable should be heard with a skeptic鈥檚 ear.
鈥淭he idea that [students] can have better education and more access at lower cost through massive online courses is just preposterous,鈥� says Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C. 鈥淭here is an awful lot of hype about ... the need for reinvention that is being fomented by people who are going to make out like bandits on it.鈥�
Even David Stavens, a founder of the MOOC provider Udacity, concedes that 鈥渢here鈥檚 a magic that goes on inside a university campus that, if you can afford to live inside that bubble, is wonderful.鈥澛�
High-tech touch and taste
IBM forecasts that within the next five years technology will vastly improve the way humans experience the five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch), according to newsletter. Online shoppers, for example, will be able to 鈥渢ouch鈥� a product using mobile devices, 鈥渦sing haptic, infrared and pressure-sensitive technologies to simulate touch 鈥� such as the texture and weave of a fabric as a shopper brushes their finger over the image of the item on a device screen.鈥�
Clever sensors will also be able to detect sounds in the form of pressure, vibrations, and sound waves. This data will allow predictions of events such as when a tree might fall or when a landslide is about to happen. 鈥淏aby talk鈥� will be decoded as a language, letting parents or other caregivers know what infants are trying to communicate. Computer systems will learn to detect emotions and sense a person鈥檚 mood by analyzing factors such as pitch, tone, and hesitancy in speech, allowing automated call centers to be more helpful and understanding between human cultures to improve.
Even the finest chefs will be challenged by technology. Computer programs 鈥渨ill break down ingredients to their molecular level and blend the chemistry of food compounds with the psychology behind what flavors and smells humans prefer,鈥� IBM predicts.
Healthy foods will be made more palatable 鈥� and programming will pair up foods in ways that maximize taste and flavor. 鈥淎 system like this can also be used to help us eat healthier,鈥� IBM predicts, 鈥渃reating novel flavor combinations that will make us crave a vegetable casserole instead of potato chips.鈥�
