Businessweek puts gay marriage on page 69, OSU gay widow, also Wayne Dynes reflects on changing goals

PHOTO: (above left) the cover of a large-circulation business magazine ironically displayed an erect "up and to the right" graph on the July 15-21, 2013 issue, which convinced me that a clueless editor or a subversive gay art director is doing the magazine layout because in the previous printed issue (seen above right) Businessweek ran a gay marriage story on page 69 -- a common slang term for a homosexual act! (See the story by Jessica Grosse, "The Gay Wedding Gift is money. Here come the brides and grooms. Companies are hoping to profit from same-sex marriage," Businessweek magazine, July 8-14, 2013, p. 69 and published on line as "The $51 Billion Wedding Industry Toasts a Post-DOMA Bump," posted June 28, 2013)

Other loosely related notes on things I've recently read:

• Angelicque E. White, "'Gay widow'seeks marriage equality," Gazette-Times, July 19, 2013, p. A9 "Angelicque E. White is an assistant professor of Oceanography in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at OSU"
• UPDATE: (July 24, 2013) the OSU student newspaper also reprinted the opinion by Angelicque E. White, assistant professor of Oceanography in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at OSU, "'Gay Widow' calls for marriage equality," Barometer, July 24, 2012, p. 7 (not posted on Barometer Website)
• Rick Settersten, Oregon State University Professor of social and behavioral health sciences,Rick Settersten, "Commentary, A Patchwork of Rights, Gay Couples are still left out," Los Angeles Times, July 6, 2013, reprinted in Portland, Sunday Oregonian, July 21, 2013, p. B9
• Rick Settersten, Oregon State University Professor of social and behavioral health sciences was previously featured in the article by Bill Graves, "Oregon State University professor describes why today's youth take a slower path to adulthood," The Oregonian, December 23, 2010 "Author of many scientific articles and several other books, including "On the Frontier of Adulthood." Family: He and his partner of 25 years have a daughter, 11; son 7."
• David Crary, "Gay-Rights activists say marriage isn't only issue," July 18, 2013, printed in Oregonian, Jul. 21, 2013, p. A8 from "Some Gay-Rights Activists Regret Focus on Marriage," Associated Press, July 18, 2013
• Andy Humm, "Earliest Veterans of Marriage Fight Revel in Victory," gaycitynews.com posted July 10, 2013 - Andy Humm is a very good journalist and longtime reporter on gay issues, but his writing represents the typical back East bias that ignores the marriage activism of Jack Baker.
• Wayne Dynes, "Untitled," dyneslines.blogspot.com posted July. 21, 2013 - Wayne Dynes talks about the fault-line in America over gay marrage and says, ". . .the major phase of my gay activism and scholarship lasted from about 1970 to 1990, when the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality appeared. At the end of this period the ground began to shift, first with the rise of Queer Theory and the LGBT complex, and now with other factors. The following piece represents a preliminary effort to grapple with this latest set of changes." Wayne's post did a good job putting into context the latest buzzwords in the study of LGBT, which he notes is a new term that developed over the last few decades. He talked about the shift toward assuming sexual orientation and gender identity are "fluid and changing." Buzzwords are intersectionality, the idea of overlapping minority statuses, also anticategorical complexity, the idea that society arbitrarily defines categories, and intracategoical complexity. My interpretation, using the mathematical terminology of engineering systems modeling, is that sexual orientation and gender identity are not discrete variables (e.g. gay or straight, male or female) and are continuous variables (e.g. a continuous range from exclusively gay to bisexual to exclusively heterosexual -- an idea embraced by Kinsey, but ignored by early gay activists -- or a range from female to male -- an idea still resisted by the vast majority of society.) In engineering systems theory, the mathematics of discrete variables (such as computer logic that is represented by either a binary one or zero) and analog variables (such as the analog noise and power level of a Wi-Fi radio signal required for a digital computer to receive the correct discrete binary data of ones or zeros) are both useful and compatible models depending on what you are trying to do. I anticipate that the brains wetware (neural network of biological components) will be capable of analysis just as complex computer systems are analyzed. Anybody who has done complex engineering system analysis knows that only the most simple of systems have closed form and deterministic mathematical formulas that can predict how the system will behave. The more complex a system, the more it likely it will be described and analyzed using statistics, such the signal to noise ratio of a Wi-Fi radio signal correlates with the probability that a digital computer signal can be received correctly by a computer. Also, uses of digital electronics, which work on only discrete states of one or zero, can be analyzed with a stochastic system model because they are so complex that they can appear to be operating randomly. Likewise, even a digital coputer can suffer from a logic gate randomly failing that can't be fully corrected by the digital circuitry. (Digital error detection and correction has made computer networks feasible.) I suspect the analog brain wetware will be understood well enough someday to allow for it to be simulated, which will lead to the breakthroughs in understanding that digital computers have provided analog electronics, even though there will always be some random variation that is measured. Perhaps I can develop these thoughts in a future blog post if my vision and health hold OK.

OSU student newspaper on queer course development

PHOTO: front page headline of an Oregon State University student newspaper article by Megan Campbell, "Queer courses developing on, off campus, expanding to a minor program," Barometer, Jul. 10, 2013, p. 1-2. Also see the previous editorial by Staff, "Queer studies: great addition to OSU," Barometer, June 5, 2013 and an article by Irene Drage, "Rainbows, glitter, short-shorts in the pride parade," Barometer, posted June 4, 2013, which mentioned my Oregon State University Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld Fund Agreement that I have created to fund research at OSU concerning humans or animals with a minority sexual orientation or gender identity.

PHOTO: In honor of Magnus Hirschfeld, I created the Oregon State University Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld Fund Agreement to fund research at OSU concerning humans or animals with a minority sexual orientation or gender identity. Shown above, Berlin university students carrying away the library from the home of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) on May 6, 1933 for a May 10-11 Nazi book burning, (New York Herald Tribune, May 17, 1933). Magnus Hirschfeld was targeted by Nazis due to his pioneering research into homosexuality and gender. My grandmother clearly recalled being in Germany at this time, when my grandfather was giving lectures on his colloid chemistry research at a Berlin university. My grandmother also vividly described the boat they left on back to America that had to be escorted by German submarines because Germany had become so politically unstable.

See previous posts OSU School of Language, Culture and Society is perfect for OSU Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld Fund (2/19/12), Gay marriage boosts Pride turnout in Corvallis, Oregon (6/30/13) and New queer studies professor, OSU Magnus Hirschfeld Fund and OutHistory mentioned in student paper (7/7/13)

Some other interesting reading:

• The birthday of the gay Oregon State University football player is mentioned in the post by Jim Burroway, "The Daily Agenda for Thursday, July 11," boxturtlebulletin.com posted Jul. 11, 2013 - "Esera Tuaolo: 1968. The Samoan from Hawaii was an NFL defensive lineman for nine years, beginning with the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings. After a stint with the Jacksonville Jaguars in 1997, he went to Atlanta, where he reached the Super Bowl in 1999. He ended his career the following season with the Carolina Panthers. In 2002, he announced that he is gay on HBO's Real Sports, making him the third NFL player to come out (after David Kopay and Roy Simmons). In 2006, he released his autobiography, Alone in the Trenches: My Life As a Gay Man in the NFL, and he has actively campaigned on ending homophobia in sports. In 2010, he was arrested on a domestic violence charge with his boyfriend, but those charges were dropped with his boyfriend saying it was all a misunderstanding." See previous post OSU gay football player Esera Tuaolo boyfriend troubles (8/2/12).
• "Bookstore parking lot gone as work starts on OSU Student Experience Center," Gazette-Times, Jul. 9, 2013
• A map of construction projects at OSU is available at http://tinyurl.com/lsx69lr - he Student Experience Center is one of many construction projects on campus this summer, including the new business building, Austin Hall and the Beaver Bookstore.
• Gabi Scottaline, "VAIN helps those diagnosed with AIDS," Barometer, July 10, 2013, p. 2 plus article on old-time AIDS activist by Andy Humm, "Larry Kramer Still a Spirited, Uncompromising Fighter," gaycitynews.com posted July 10, 2013

Computer mouse inventor dies after inspiring Xerox PARC, Apple and HP

PHOTO: The Hewlett-Packard Integral PC was developed between 1982 and 1984 in Corvallis, Oregon, including a mouse. The IPC was a sewing machine size "transportable computer" that included a built-in flat panel electroluminescent display, letter size fan-fold paper inkjet printer and it ran the HP-UX UNIX operating system with a graphical windows interface. See previous posts HP Integral PC 1985 video demo (4/14/09) and HP Integral PC 1984 (8/26/06)

My local newspaper printed the AP news story by Michael Liedtke, Associated Press, "Inventor of computer mouse dies at 88," Gazette-Times, July 4, 2013, p. A3, I wrote the following letter to the editor:

Oregon State University alum Doug Engelbart was correctly credited in a July 4 headline written by the Gazette-Times for an Associated Press story, "Inventor of computer mouse dies at 88."

I witnessed firsthand how Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' Macintosh computer mouse was inspired by research, based on Engelbart's ideas, done at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and the Corvallis Hewlett-Packard Co. personal computer research lab in 1981.

HP half-heartedly introduced a mouse about the same time Apple did in 1984 because an HP corporate vice-president, unlike Jobs, demanded a touch-screen interface for the sexist reason that only "female secretaries" used typewriter keyboards. Ironically, touch-screen computer interfaces today are rapidly replacing mice for non-sexist reasons!

(Quoted from Thomas Kraemer, "Letter: Engelbart was the real genius behind computer innovations," Gazette-times, July 8, 2013, p. A7)

See previous post Patent laws being abused by Apple iPhone claims (8/28/12) that elaborates on my letter: Thomas Kraemer, "Patent laws don't protect inventors of technology goods," Gazette-Times, Aug. 28, 2012, p. A7)

VIDEO: See the Video of Doug Engelbart's 1968 computer conference demonstration of the future of computing, including the graphical interface and mouse controller: http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html

See the book by Stephen Segaller, "Nerds 2.0.1: A brief history of the Internet," Oregon TV Books, Oregon Public Broadcasting, 1998 for more on the invention of the computer mouse (Google Books search).

Google Reader gone, low-vision alternatives still needed

PHOTO: screen shot of Google Reader set up for a low vision reader to read the full text RSS feed from his local city newspaper. The newspaper's Web site is nearly impossible to read for a low vision person compared to the simple reformatted text that Google Reader optionally provides. The full text RSS feed consumes very few bytes and costs the newspaper almost nothing to provide compared the many megabytes that is downloaded just accessing the main newspaper Web site home page and Google Reader allowed the user to easily click on the headline to access the main site for photos and other ancillary information. See previous post Customer feedback on Google Reader shutdown - is Blogger next? (3/16/13)

"Google Reader has been discontinued. We want to thank all our loyal fans. We understand you may not agree with this decision, but we hope you'll come to love these alternatives as much as you loved Reader." quoted from google.com/reader/about/ page accessed July 2, 2013.

A blog post by Urs Holzle, SVP Technical Infrastructure and Google Fellow, "A second spring of cleaning," googleblog.blogspot.com.au posted Wednesday, March 13, 2013 said, "We're living in a new kind of computing environment. Everyone has a device, sometimes multiple devices. It's been a long time since we have had this rate of change -- it probably hasn't happened since the birth of personal computing 40 years ago. To make the most of these opportunities, we need to focus -- otherwise we spread ourselves too thin and lack impact. So today we're announcing some more closures, bringing the total to 70 features or services closed since our spring cleaning began in 2011 . . ."

Google linked to the following page, which amazingly appears to be from a third party: "Google Reader alternatives for Windows" alternativeto.net accessed Jul 2, 103.

Google also directed me to Digg Google reader alternative - Digg reader Google Search and "Digg Reader is Live," blog.digg.com accessed July 2, 2013

Given the limitations of my low vision blindness, I have been unable to access and use a new Google Reader alternative because nearly every site I've gone to and very reader people have shown me override the accessibility features built-in most modern internet browsers. Apparently, accessibility is being thrown under the bus to provide a sexier experience for sighted users.

In the meantime, I have set up my own custom coded RSS reader, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel and so my reader is unfinished and requires much manual work, which the old Google Reader did for me automatically in the cloud.

I would love to know the real reason Google Reader was canned. Yes, I am sure the concept of RSS feeds is not well understood and probably the usage is limited to a few dedicated users as Google claims. However, I am suspicious that content creators and intellectual property copyright owners have pressured Google to eliminate the service because it bypasses much of their monetization. Google could have easily monetized Google Reader by providing a sidebar with ads relevant to what I was reading - they could even share the profits with the RSS feed content creators.

Content creators who think they will get more money and drive more traffic to their site by blocking full text RSS feeds are wrong in my opinion. In my experience using Google Reader, I more frequently accessed original Web sites to see ancillary information that was mentioned in RSS feeds, which in turn generated more traffic and revenue for the site. This happened more frequently only because I was able to skim read more text. The full text RSS feed costs sites almost nothing to provide because full text RSS feeds use very little computer network resources compared to the many megabytes commonly transferred by web sites' main pages. Yes, I am sure many webmasters have seen their feed abused by robots, etc., but these problems are better solved other ways than by making it hard to read your site.

In any case, I see an emerging opportunity for a new business that would provide better accessibility to the internet as Web sites become less and less accessible. My feedback to the Google founders, also as a Google stock holder and a champion of computer accessibility, is Google should fund a charitable group to implement better accessibility for people with disabilities. They probably could get a tax write off and also great publicity for doing this when nobody else seems to be interested.