You can log in under Windows and take over, using either:
1. vnc (my favorite) 2. PCAnywhere (s'alright), or 3. Microsoft NetMeeting, latest version (though I don't trust it yet.)
The nice thing about vnc is you can remotely administer a Windows box from a Unix/X workstation (you can even do it from a Palm Pilot - there's a vnc client for Palm).
Due to questionable hardware support and inconsistant UIs between applications, I'm afraid that I have to share my doubts about the viability of a Linux solution in this case. I do think that the Gnome/KDE projects will soon make the latter less of a teneble objection, as they are introducing uniformity of interface among applications. But for today, I would stick with Win9x.
The idea that if a pantent-based profit can't be made of research, it won't be done, is (ahem) patently absurd - it belies the centuries of scientific research that occurred without such institutions.
It's a tragedy of the contemporary imagination that it cannot concieve of any motivation other than profit - that it has actually come to believe that monetary gain is the only effective motivator.
A fairly clear debunking of this motivational claim is available here on the FSF site. I also refer you to Maslow's heirarchy of needs - short version is that when one is no longer anxious about one's material well being, one persues more elevated "needs," such as the need for creativity and intellectual expression. (Those institutions which depend on our drive for material accumulation thrive by using media to artificially maintain our sense of material anxiety, by linking it to social anxiety - ie, we won't be happy and shall lack social credibility without a New Car, New Shoes, the Right Deoderant, a Bigger Car, a Bigger House, etc.)
As less money is available to academic research environments, and our media culture continues to elevate the materially successful as heroes above the scientifically, culturally and intellectually successful, this whole "only profit will motivate people" line becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, unfortunately, and it's especially tragic to see it promulgated among those of us who a. have the least to fear as far as our material well-being is concerned and b. have the most to gain by valuing intellectual achievement for its own sake. The spiritual virus, our new sickness-unto-death, is among us.
Coincidentally enough, I just saw an exhibit at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts of sound-based music installations, including a piece called Conloninpurple. It's a tribute to Noncarrow, and it consists of a series of hanging mallets and chimes controlled by a MIDI controller - it was an interesting take on digital music, because none of the music was itself synthesized. Truly electroacoustic music.
I suggest anyone in the Bay Area check it out (the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts slumbers under the long shadow cast by the new Sony Metreon/Temple of Doom.)
A lot of your work recently has been on the Viridian project - a movement dedica ted to innovative, practical, and far-reaching responses to environmental crisis . You've focused on the use of design and engineering to create a less destructi ve way of living on this planet.
You're doing so in a way that seeks to avoid politics - you'll name names, but s eem unwilling to pitch battles. Is this fatalism, or an attempt to preserve cons ensus in a movement that includes both libertarians and communitarians? Do you b elieve that conscientious consumerism is going to be sufficient to avert continu ed environmental destruction? Do you believe that "local minima" of the immediat e benefits of good design will always win in the market? Do you think lasting ch ange will be possible without global regulation? And what do you think the most promising recent Viridian-positive developments have been?
Inasmuch as ringworm is actually a fungus without a nervous system, I'm a little perplexed by that claim. Tapeworm, maybe? Planaria?
Ringworm (tinea) is a fungus that covers the skin, causing discomfort, itching, and leaving an unsightly rash. Microsoft has managed to reproduce this behavior in software without using neural net technology at all.
And the lack of fussy laws is also the reason for the ridiculous sprawl, the two-mile-an-hour gridlock commutes, the decision by several high-tech companies to not expand in Atlanta until it starts to control its development and stop sprawl, and the most rapidly deteriorating air quality in the US.
O'Reilly is in an awkward position - it is apparent that there isn't the kind of benefit to publishers for Open Content that there is for technology interests for Open Source. There are a number of big differences between the two - for one thing, there's no 'hood' to look under in content, so the advantages of openess in publishing are almost entirely political/ethical/social.
That said, I do believe there *is* a way to do business with open content, and that is to run a printing/binding service for open content material with direct distribution. I don't know that ORA is really the one to do that sort of thing, but it could work. The disadvantages of non-exclusivity might be compensated by the lack of need for large inventories; the consumer would get valuable reference work, possibly with high-quality production values, bound to order as most convenient (wire bound, cloth bound, whatever.)
This would be a good very-small, one-to-three person sort of business, that could even be run without facilities - a web-based order form and a high-end copy shop are all that are needed.
(I must admit to having violated one of my own cautions - avoid *anyone* who tells you "you could make a lot of money if..." unless they're stinking rich. And even then, be careful.)
This article isn't about image processing per se, it's about attention - the selective subcognitive process by which we focus additional processing power on specific elements of perception. It's a vital, essential skill, and works in a variety of levels and situations.
Notice how you can always hear your name mentioned in a loud party, even though you otherwise can't make out a single conversation? Or how a tired mother can sleep through a storm, yet awaken to the quieter sound of her infant crying?
There's a sort of "thunk" procedure that works in these situations. What the studies you've cited show, as well as the one cited in the article, is just which tasks require this "thunk" and which do not.
I'm not fond of the Star Wars franchise, and I understand what Guiness is saying, yet I agree with those here who take him to task for his biting the hand that is feeding him caviar.
But he's old. And one of the few consolations of old age is that you can say exactly what you think without a grain of reservation or diplomacy. Frankly, I think that the older segment in our society should be given their pensions only if they are willing to roam our civic spaces and declaim their crotchety screeds, as a sort of public service.
This is good work, great for medical applications and interesting and all, but just because you can map the neural pathways onto a schematic, doesn't mean that neural connectivity is the same thing as simple circuitry.
Brains use things like neurotransmitters that have different actions, pulses that are somehow responsible for binding different activations, local effects in which "neighborhood" activations affect nearby thresholds, and other phenomena that are quite different from simple circuitry.
Still, mapping out neural connectivity is the cog-sci version of the human genome project, and ultimately could be relevant to neural net engineering.
At first, I was going to comment that Bowie probably didn't have the least idea what technology was being used to put his music online - I suspected that he was focused on making the music, and that some schlemiel in Virgin was responsible for the format and the context of distribution.
But then I reread his comments:
"I couldnt be more pleased to have the opportunity of moving the music industry closer to the process of making digital download available as the norm and not the exception. We are all aware that these broadband opportunities are not yet available to the overwhelming majority of people. However, just as colour television broadcasts and film content on home video tapes were required first steps to cause their industries to expand consumer use, I am hopeful that this small step will lead to larger steps by myself and others ultimately giving consumers greater choices and easier access to the music they enjoy. Concurrently, the Internet, with its low barriers of entry will allow retailers large and small to compete on a level playing field. This can only be of benefit to the consumer"
While I know that Bowie was always sensitive to the vagaries of pop-culture-as-industry, and was always a competent and astute businessman, I get a sense of this extending to a "music as commodity" attitude that, to be honest, I don't feel makes for very good music. Even if the idea of artistic purity is a fiction, artists that subscribe to that fiction seem to produce better work.
Of course, Bowie is enough of a wily satirist that he may, in fact, simply have been aping typical press release rhetoric out of ironic instinct.
At first, I was going to comment that Bowie probably didn't have the least idea what technology was being used to put his music online - I suspected that he was focused on making the music, and that some schlemiel in Virgin was responsible for the format and the context of distribution.
But then I reread his comments:
"I couldnt be more pleased to have the opportunity of moving the music industry closer to the process of making digital download available as the norm and not the exception. We are all aware that these broadband opportunities are not yet available to the overwhelming majority of people. However, just as colour television broadcasts and film content on home video tapes were required first steps to cause their industries to expand consumer use, I am hopeful that this small step will lead to larger steps by myself and others ultimately giving consumers greater choices and easier access to the music they enjoy. Concurrently, the Internet, with its low barriers of entry will allow retailers large and small to compete on a level playing field. This can only be of benefit to the consumer"
While I know that Bowie was always sensitive to the vagaries of pop-culture-as-industry, and was always a competent and astute businessman, I get a sense of this extending to a "music as commodity" attitude that, to be honest, I don't feel makes for very good music. Even if the idea of artistic purity is a fiction, artists that subscribe to that fiction seem to produce better work.
Of course, Bowie is enough of a wily satirist that he may, in fact, simply have been aping typical press release rhetoric out of ironic instinct.
Not according to utility value,l actually. The entire $100 of someone who has only $100 is going to be used for survival. It's utility value is higher. The 'second' $250,000 of someone who has $500,000 does not have the same utility value - it is going to probably going to be applied to nonessentials (perhaps invested, it is true.)
In other words, the value of money is not a linear function.
Anyone who has take an AI class should understand and be able to explain why $50 is worth more to someone who has $100 than it is to someone who has $500,000.
Unless they are interested in nothing other than bona fide goldbricking, I doubt that most people would want a partner that was unwilling to leave his data center, development shop, or hardware laboratory to meet people.
I know lots of geeks with successful love lives; the main thing they have in common, other than crossing an elementary clue threshold (oh God, the stories some of my friends could tell you) is that they just know how to get away from the damn monitor on weekends!
I'm doing that very thing, emigrating to another country. Almost half my friends have left to move to Latin America or Europe. (Latin America has its share of corruption, but really, it's not as bad as the US. Personally, I'm considering Argentina.
Law enforcement in the US in general is out of control, and the constitutional protections we used to enjoy are being eroded or ignored, due to the hysteria of fear about crime and drugs. Currently we imprison a larger percentage of our population that any other country in the world (a little over one percent of our population, if I remember.)
Vehicular seizure for mere suspicion of drug use has become a normal practice (one that, by the way, disproportionately targets blacks and latinos) - police in many states do not even need to arrest a suspect or charge them with anything, and they can simply take and sell their vehicle. It has become a very profitable enterprise for many departments.
The ACLU has a good resource page with links to information about some of the abuses - both illegal and currently legal - that law enforcement agencies are engaging in, but one of my favorite sites is this one, run by a former LA policeman who began documenting police abuses and racism after he was attacked by another cop while operating undercover - he now leads a non-profit group that 'stings' officers with hidden cameras and recorders in new vehicles being driven by black men, and the results are dismaying. It's a bit disappointing to me that many so-called libertarians seem a lot more concerned about getting rid of environmental and consumer protection regulations and lowering taxes, than actually protecting citizens from direct and overt abuses of power. The selectiveness of law enforcement is excrutiangly painful in light of the G.W. Bush debacle - the powers-that-be are more than happy to jail the rest of us for mistakes that they have the luxury to simply "outgrow."
I think of the revolutionary component of linux being the fact that a free, open source operating system has made inroads into the computing mainstream and rigorously shaken the computer industry.
What's next is the fallout from that - developing the GUI's, developing the applications, integrating into appropriate environments, and expanding support mechanisms. That's not revolution, that's consolidating the gains of the revolution. It means the life after the hype.
Most all studies are regional samples, since most law enforcement is local. The statements of Janet Reno are consistent with that finding. So are the wide variety of statements made in the report I linked.
I meant, and subsequently linked to, the Nation Institute on Drug Abuse. I frequently mistype.
The crack-cocaine statistic is also from the report I linked to, and no one contests it. In fact, the difference between enforcement and sentencing procedures between races is well documented therein.
Note: talking about pervasive, systematic racism in law enforcement and the justice system is distinct from discussions about affirmative action or equal opportunity.
You want numbers> here are some numbers. Keep looking around that report for a more detailed breakdown. Frankly, I despair of knowing just what you think would qualify as a sound basis for criticism - you seem to have invested a lot of energy in trying to deny this phenomenon is real.
There was also a study in Florida done on pull-overs and searches of cars, and the numbers are available if you poke around on the web. (current Florida law makes it legal for police to sieze and sell your car and keep any cash over $100 if they just suspect you of drug activity.)
A study of six California counties showed that 100% of their drug convictions were of people of color, although 60% of the drug-using population was white.
The National Institute for Drug Abuse estimates that while 12% of drug abusers are black, 50% of drug possession arrestees are black.
55% of the prison population is black, despite the fact that only 12% of the US population is black. 96.5 % of those tried for crack cocaine charges are minorities, although 2/3rd of all crack cocaine users are white.
Re: GWB - frankly, if it weren't for his hypocrisy in regards to the whole war-on-drugs thing, I'd rather like him as a candidate. His willingness to send other people to very long jail sentences for the mistakes that he had the luxury to simply 'outgrow' puts him on the other side of the pale for me. At best, his opportunistic cowardice to keep playing the war-on-drugs game is despicable. If his hypocrisy is genuine, all the worse.
The fact that he didn't get caught is part and parcel of the continuing racism in this country: the selectiveness of law-enforcement. 27% of black men will go through the prison system - I believe as many as 70% of them for non-violent drug offenses. Law enforcement agencies target black (and often hispanic) men - racial profiling remains a widespread phenomenon. George W. Bush was never really in danger of being caught doing drugs unless he was INCREDIBLY stupid, while just being a black man driving a car can expose you to vehicular search.
The metric for a fair society isn't how it treats its best members, it's how it treats its average members, people who make some mistakes, aren't completely driven to success, and generally just want to get by.
Slashdot Mirror
You can log in under Windows and take over, using either:
1. vnc (my favorite)
2. PCAnywhere (s'alright), or
3. Microsoft NetMeeting, latest version (though I don't trust it yet.)
The nice thing about vnc is you can remotely administer a Windows box from a Unix/X workstation (you can even do it from a Palm Pilot - there's a vnc client for Palm).
Due to questionable hardware support and inconsistant UIs between applications, I'm afraid that I have to share my doubts about the viability of a Linux solution in this case. I do think that the Gnome/KDE projects will soon make the latter less of a teneble objection, as they are introducing uniformity of interface among applications. But for today, I would stick with Win9x.
It's a tragedy of the contemporary imagination that it cannot concieve of any motivation other than profit - that it has actually come to believe that monetary gain is the only effective motivator.
A fairly clear debunking of this motivational claim is available here on the FSF site. I also refer you to Maslow's heirarchy of needs - short version is that when one is no longer anxious about one's material well being, one persues more elevated "needs," such as the need for creativity and intellectual expression. (Those institutions which depend on our drive for material accumulation thrive by using media to artificially maintain our sense of material anxiety, by linking it to social anxiety - ie, we won't be happy and shall lack social credibility without a New Car, New Shoes, the Right Deoderant, a Bigger Car, a Bigger House, etc.)
As less money is available to academic research environments, and our media culture continues to elevate the materially successful as heroes above the scientifically, culturally and intellectually successful, this whole "only profit will motivate people" line becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, unfortunately, and it's especially tragic to see it promulgated among those of us who a. have the least to fear as far as our material well-being is concerned and b. have the most to gain by valuing intellectual achievement for its own sake. The spiritual virus, our new sickness-unto-death, is among us.
Coincidentally enough, I just saw an exhibit at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts of sound-based music installations, including a piece called Conloninpurple. It's a tribute to Noncarrow, and it consists of a series of hanging mallets and chimes controlled by a MIDI controller - it was an interesting take on digital music, because none of the music was itself synthesized. Truly electroacoustic music.
I suggest anyone in the Bay Area check it out (the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts slumbers under the long shadow cast by the new Sony Metreon/Temple of Doom.)
And thanks to Bruce for giving Good Interview.
A lot of your work recently has been on the Viridian project - a movement dedica
ted to innovative, practical, and far-reaching responses to environmental crisis
. You've focused on the use of design and engineering to create a less destructi
ve way of living on this planet.
You're doing so in a way that seeks to avoid politics - you'll name names, but s
eem unwilling to pitch battles. Is this fatalism, or an attempt to preserve cons
ensus in a movement that includes both libertarians and communitarians? Do you b
elieve that conscientious consumerism is going to be sufficient to avert continu
ed environmental destruction? Do you believe that "local minima" of the immediat
e benefits of good design will always win in the market? Do you think lasting ch
ange will be possible without global regulation? And what do you think the most promising recent Viridian-positive developments have been?
Inasmuch as ringworm is actually a fungus without a nervous system, I'm a little perplexed by that claim. Tapeworm, maybe? Planaria?
Ringworm (tinea) is a fungus that covers the skin, causing discomfort, itching, and leaving an unsightly rash. Microsoft has managed to reproduce this behavior in software without using neural net technology at all.
And the lack of fussy laws is also the reason for the ridiculous sprawl, the two-mile-an-hour gridlock commutes, the decision by several high-tech companies to not expand in Atlanta until it starts to control its development and stop sprawl, and the most rapidly deteriorating air quality in the US.
Seems Atlanta could use a few fussy laws.
American law prohibits half of its people from appearing in public without a shirt.
O'Reilly is in an awkward position - it is apparent that there isn't the kind of benefit to publishers for Open Content that there is for technology interests for Open Source. There are a number of big differences between the two - for one thing, there's no 'hood' to look under in content, so the advantages of openess in publishing are almost entirely political/ethical/social.
That said, I do believe there *is* a way to do business with open content, and that is to run a printing/binding service for open content material with direct distribution. I don't know that ORA is really the one to do that sort of thing, but it could work. The disadvantages of non-exclusivity might be compensated by the lack of need for large inventories; the consumer would get valuable reference work, possibly with high-quality production values, bound to order as most convenient (wire bound, cloth bound, whatever.)
This would be a good very-small, one-to-three person sort of business, that could even be run without facilities - a web-based order form and a high-end copy shop are all that are needed.
(I must admit to having violated one of my own cautions - avoid *anyone* who tells you "you could make a lot of money if..." unless they're stinking rich. And even then, be careful.)
You are completely correct.
This article isn't about image processing per se, it's about attention - the selective subcognitive process by which we focus additional processing power on specific elements of perception. It's a vital, essential skill, and works in a variety of levels and situations.
Notice how you can always hear your name mentioned in a loud party, even though you otherwise can't make out a single conversation? Or how a tired mother can sleep through a storm, yet awaken to the quieter sound of her infant crying?
There's a sort of "thunk" procedure that works in these situations. What the studies you've cited show, as well as the one cited in the article, is just which tasks require this "thunk" and which do not.
I'm not fond of the Star Wars franchise, and I understand what Guiness is saying, yet I agree with those here who take him to task for his biting the hand that is feeding him caviar.
But he's old. And one of the few consolations of old age is that you can say exactly what you think without a grain of reservation or diplomacy. Frankly, I think that the older segment in our society should be given their pensions only if they are willing to roam our civic spaces and declaim their crotchety screeds, as a sort of public service.
Frankly, I can't wait!
This is good work, great for medical applications and interesting and all, but just because you can map the neural pathways onto a schematic, doesn't mean that neural connectivity is the same thing as simple circuitry.
Brains use things like neurotransmitters that have different actions, pulses that are somehow responsible for binding different activations, local effects in which "neighborhood" activations affect nearby thresholds, and other phenomena that are quite different from simple circuitry.
Still, mapping out neural connectivity is the cog-sci version of the human genome project, and ultimately could be relevant to neural net engineering.
But then I reread his comments:
"I couldnt be more pleased to have the opportunity of moving the music industry closer to the process of making digital download available as the norm and not the exception. We are all aware that these broadband opportunities are not yet available to the overwhelming majority of people. However, just as colour television broadcasts and film content on home video tapes were required first steps to cause their industries to expand consumer use, I am hopeful that this small step will lead to larger steps by myself and others ultimately giving consumers greater choices and easier access to the music they enjoy. Concurrently, the Internet, with its low barriers of entry will allow retailers large and small to compete on a level playing field. This can only be of benefit to the consumer"
While I know that Bowie was always sensitive to the vagaries of pop-culture-as-industry, and was always a competent and astute businessman, I get a sense of this extending to a "music as commodity" attitude that, to be honest, I don't feel makes for very good music. Even if the idea of artistic purity is a fiction, artists that subscribe to that fiction seem to produce better work.
Of course, Bowie is enough of a wily satirist that he may, in fact, simply have been aping typical press release rhetoric out of ironic instinct.
But then I reread his comments:
"I couldnt be more pleased to have the opportunity of moving the music industry closer to the process of making digital download available as the norm and not the exception. We are all aware that these broadband opportunities are not yet available to the overwhelming majority of people. However, just as colour television broadcasts and film content on home video tapes were required first steps to cause their industries to expand consumer use, I am hopeful that this small step will lead to larger steps by myself and others ultimately giving consumers greater choices and easier access to the music they enjoy. Concurrently, the Internet, with its low barriers of entry will allow retailers large and small to compete on a level playing field. This can only be of benefit to the consumer"
While I know that Bowie was always sensitive to the vagaries of pop-culture-as-industry, and was always a competent and astute businessman, I get a sense of this extending to a "music as commodity" attitude that, to be honest, I don't feel makes for very good music. Even if the idea of artistic purity is a fiction, artists that subscribe to that fiction seem to produce better work.
Of course, Bowie is enough of a wily satirist that he may, in fact, simply have been aping typical press release rhetoric out of ironic instinct.
Not according to utility value,l actually. The entire $100 of someone who has only $100 is going to be used for survival. It's utility value is higher. The 'second' $250,000 of someone who has $500,000 does not have the same utility value - it is going to probably going to be applied to nonessentials (perhaps invested, it is true.)
In other words, the value of money is not a linear function.
Anyone who has take an AI class should understand and be able to explain why $50 is worth more to someone who has $100 than it is to someone who has $500,000.
Unless they are interested in nothing other than bona fide goldbricking, I doubt that most people would want a partner that was unwilling to leave his data center, development shop, or hardware laboratory to meet people.
I know lots of geeks with successful love lives; the main thing they have in common, other than crossing an elementary clue threshold (oh God, the stories some of my friends could tell you) is that they just know how to get away from the damn monitor on weekends!
I'm doing that very thing, emigrating to another country. Almost half my friends have left to move to Latin America or Europe. (Latin America has its share of corruption, but really, it's not as bad as the US. Personally, I'm considering Argentina.
Vehicular seizure for mere suspicion of drug use has become a normal practice (one that, by the way, disproportionately targets blacks and latinos) - police in many states do not even need to arrest a suspect or charge them with anything, and they can simply take and sell their vehicle. It has become a very profitable enterprise for many departments.
The ACLU has a good resource page with links to information about some of the abuses - both illegal and currently legal - that law enforcement agencies are engaging in, but one of my favorite sites is this one, run by a former LA policeman who began documenting police abuses and racism after he was attacked by another cop while operating undercover - he now leads a non-profit group that 'stings' officers with hidden cameras and recorders in new vehicles being driven by black men, and the results are dismaying. It's a bit disappointing to me that many so-called libertarians seem a lot more concerned about getting rid of environmental and consumer protection regulations and lowering taxes, than actually protecting citizens from direct and overt abuses of power. The selectiveness of law enforcement is excrutiangly painful in light of the G.W. Bush debacle - the powers-that-be are more than happy to jail the rest of us for mistakes that they have the luxury to simply "outgrow."
Here's another story of police enforcement going out of control, and another.
And I think that's a good thing.
I think of the revolutionary component of linux being the fact that a free, open source operating system has made inroads into the computing mainstream and rigorously shaken the computer industry.
What's next is the fallout from that - developing the GUI's, developing the applications, integrating into appropriate environments, and expanding support mechanisms. That's not revolution, that's consolidating the gains of the revolution. It means the life after the hype.
Most all studies are regional samples, since most law enforcement is local. The statements of Janet Reno are consistent with that finding. So are the wide variety of statements made in the report I linked.
I meant, and subsequently linked to, the Nation Institute on Drug Abuse. I frequently mistype.
The crack-cocaine statistic is also from the report I linked to, and no one contests it. In fact, the difference between enforcement and sentencing procedures between races is well documented therein.
Um, here are some numbers.
Note: talking about pervasive, systematic racism in law enforcement and the justice system is distinct from discussions about affirmative action or equal opportunity.
You want numbers> here are some numbers. Keep looking around that report for a more detailed breakdown. Frankly, I despair of knowing just what you think would qualify as a sound basis for criticism - you seem to have invested a lot of energy in trying to deny this phenomenon is real.
There was also a study in Florida done on pull-overs and searches of cars, and the numbers are available if you poke around on the web. (current Florida law makes it legal for police to sieze and sell your car and keep any cash over $100 if they just suspect you of drug activity.)
The National Institute for Drug Abuse estimates that while 12% of drug abusers are black, 50% of drug possession arrestees are black.
55% of the prison population is black, despite the fact that only 12% of the US population is black. 96.5 % of those tried for crack cocaine charges are minorities, although 2/3rd of all crack cocaine users are white.
Look here (wherein Janet Reno admits a 100 to 1 disparity in enforcement, and commits to get it down to "only" a 10 to 1 disparity) and here (a surprisingly good essay in a Scientologist magazine. Go figure.).
Re: GWB - frankly, if it weren't for his hypocrisy in regards to the whole war-on-drugs thing, I'd rather like him as a candidate. His willingness to send other people to very long jail sentences for the mistakes that he had the luxury to simply 'outgrow' puts him on the other side of the pale for me. At best, his opportunistic cowardice to keep playing the war-on-drugs game is despicable. If his hypocrisy is genuine, all the worse.
The fact that he didn't get caught is part and parcel of the continuing racism in this country: the selectiveness of law-enforcement. 27% of black men will go through the prison system - I believe as many as 70% of them for non-violent drug offenses. Law enforcement agencies target black (and often hispanic) men - racial profiling remains a widespread phenomenon. George W. Bush was never really in danger of being caught doing drugs unless he was INCREDIBLY stupid, while just being a black man driving a car can expose you to vehicular search.
The metric for a fair society isn't how it treats its best members, it's how it treats its average members, people who make some mistakes, aren't completely driven to success, and generally just want to get by.
My fingers did not type what my brain thunk. I hate it when that happens.