Collective Development

More Swype

2010-12-20T22:25:00.000-08:00

If you have an Android which does not come preloaded with Swype, it looks like sign-up for the beta accounts are open again. I cannot overstate Swype's awesomeness.

Teachable Moments

2010-12-06T20:58:00.000-08:00

The President has condescendingly talked about Teachable Moments in the past. In other contexts, he has promoted and promised Openness in Government. His Administration has been far from transparent, and has relied on Washington-insider deals to do and mostly not do anything. While modest gains have been made particularly in terms of transparency of government contracts, precious little of the vast amount classified data has been revealed to the public.

Meanwhile, in the name of safety and security, Federal Government drones, undeserving of basic customer service roles, have been deputised to examine naked photographs of all travellers and to grope their genitalia as a matter of standard procedure. When I was travelling last week, I sustained an uppercut to the groin because the TSA agent was nervous, untrained, and utterly incompetent. At this time, I am still considering legal action.

Recently, citizens have taken matters into their own hands and have shared classified documents with the public through WikiLeaks. This action has been condemned by the same administration which has promised openness. Upholding the law is the appropriate role of the Executive. However, an administration that has promised openness and has been elected on such reasonable assurances ought to use this Teachable Moment to open the records and procedures of the government, as was promised.

HTC Incredible

2010-10-19T16:16:00.000-07:00

Do not bother with the HTC Incredible. It has way too many restrictions, does not even have a physical keyboard, and will not allow the installation of Swype. It makes typing frustrating and cumbersome.

Droid 2

2010-09-24T14:17:00.000-07:00

The Droid 2 from verizon which will be sold under the international name of Droid Pro, is slightly faster than the Droid, but comes with significantly more bloatware. It does come prepackaged with the Swype keyboard, which makes on screen typing vastly easier, but all told, if you must buy a phone at a retail price, the Droid 2 is not worth it. The origainal Droid can be made to have all the same functionality with nearly the same performance. Buy a used or refurbished Droid 1 on eBay instead of a Droid 2.

Root

2010-08-08T22:57:00.000-07:00

Recently we upgraded our Verizon Motorola Droid to the Android 2.2 Froyo OS (upgrade available). Froyo is almost entirely a win. It runs everything much faster, and includes plenty of upgrades all around although some apps are not yet fully debugged for the new OS. However, in their infinite inanity, Verizon locked down the Droid's tethering ability with the new OS, and any attempts lead one to a page for a new plan upgrade they can purchase to enable previously free tethering. This is a brilliant way to alienate loyal customers. Fortunately, there is an app for that. EasyRoot safely roots the Droid phones for $1. Rooting, is giving the user and with user permission other applications, superuser complete control over their Linux phone. Once rooted, many other free applications allow users to take full advantage of their phone's potential including effective use of the terminal, phone-wide ad-blocking, and fixing USB tethering, and turning the phone into a wifi hotspot. EasyRoot has been blocked from the Android Market owing to Verizon's cozy relationship with Google, however it is still available for manual install. EasyRoot even has unroot capability in case you have to take your phone in for service.

*Update* - We also managed to root the Droid 2 using the following procedures: link.

Capitol Green Girls

2010-07-29T18:40:00.001-07:00

Capitol Green Girls is a blog focusing on Conservation, Sustainability, and Green Commerce. The authors have a particular insight into the ENGO community, environmental businesses and environmental legislative developments in Washington, DC. CGG also provides insight into greenwashers in Washington who discredit those trying to make real progress towards long term sustainability. In this way, greenwashers undermine the health of the planet. Consider subscribing to Capitol Green Girls.

Gasland

2010-07-01T05:53:00.000-07:00

The new documentary Gasland (torrent) has been released. It is an eye opening look at the poisoning caused by Hydraulic Fracturing, not to be confused with fraking, in natural gas extraction from shale. The film is an investigative report made by one man whose local water-source was under threat. As it stands, drilling companies generally do not even have to publish which chemicals they use in fracking. The film is worth seeing. It reveals how State and Federal governments, and particularly the Bush administration, trampled the interests of the environment and the people in favour of profit-motivated energy companies. Generally, energy companies refused to speak in the documentary, and so the film is unintentionally one-sided, yet probably accurate.

Remote Desktop and Android

2010-06-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

Power users of M$ Windows know well the usefulness and neatness of Remote Desktop. XtraLogic has an RDP Client for Android which works brilliantly; we have tested it. Check out the video on the site. On the Motorolla Droid, connecting through the built in PPTP VPN it does not work as well, but we have noticed many problems with this VPN functionality on Android. Unfortunately this means you might be stuck having to open up RDP connectivity to the internet which is a very clear security risk. Be productive, but be careful.

Human Accidents

2010-06-08T20:21:00.000-07:00

Dukes of Douches is a relatively new and interesting blog concerned with hypocrisy and injustice on the world stage and often in the US mainstream media. It sometimes sinks to the level of a celebrity tabloid, but shines through with insight and relevance when its attention is turned to the larger issues of mankind and its leaders. I was particularly impressed by the recent post regarding the Bopal criminal decision. The post makes reference to the Yes Men, producers of two films everyone should see.

The recent Bopal court decision sets dangerous precedent and the topic fits in well with our previous post on Environmental Accidents. We are witnessing an incomprehensible lack of punishment of Union Carbide or compensation for the victims of an industrial and environment disaster. Such court decisions only incentivise companies to externalise their costs - even in the form of human lives and suffering.

We must recognise that by design, Corporations are psychopathic. We should not expect them to make moral or socially responsible decisions. Instead, they should be assumed to maximise their own profit potential while minimising financial risk, even if it means placing enormous costs on others. Rather than worrying about whether corporations are good or evil, the laws and the enforcement of laws must effectively internalize costs to the corporation and guarantee prohibitory insurance requirements for companies who in an extreme scenario might inflict costs on other lifeforms. Courts bear the brunt of the responsibility to ensure these requirements are enforced so as to protect human life and the environment from the inexorable profit maximisation calculations and occasional incompetence of industry.

Environmental Accidents

2010-05-26T15:19:00.000-07:00

The modern economy is utterly dependant on the scarce and non-renewable natural resource crude oil. Unfortunately, a failure to tax the price of crude and to mandate sufficient insurance, and to exact sufficient environmental penalties has created industries like nuclear power and offshore drilling which ought to be uninsurable in a well designed marketplace.

The failure of regulation aside, British Petroleum, Transocean, and Haliburton ought to be nationalised in the United States. The combined value of the companies at USD 200B is insufficient to cover the damages that they have caused through their excessive risk-taking and poor engineering. While there has been a response to try to stop the leak, it is a global emergency that requires the most urgent of responses from the world.

The Exxon Valdez incident should have been the turning point in the late 80s where the governments of the world should have agreed to property rights and regulations for activities on the Oceans and a penalty schedule for environmental accidents. Nothing of course has ever been agreed. Within the United States, a jury demanded only a modest penalty of $5B. Exxon fought this very light penalty and eventually the Supreme Court reduced the fee to a pitiful $500 million. The Supreme Court should have increased the fee 10 times rather than decreasing it 10 times. From an environmental perspective, it was the worst ruling the Supreme Court has ever made. Congress should have quickly enacted new legislation which would have exacted proper penalties for these disasters, but they too are a complete failure along with the executive branch. Other countries should demand compensation for these disasters, particularly the latest one which affects more than just the United States.

Themes in GWT

2010-04-26T23:21:00.000-07:00

As a Google junky, we tend to prefer Google products over competitors if we can help it. Therefore when faced with a need to learn a website creation package preferably based in Java, we inevitably learned to use GWT. GWT is a brilliant software which allows you to write web apps with the ease of Java and many of its libraries, and compile them into fast, obfuscated, and optimised Javascript for every browser. Google Wave runs on GWT. Unfortunately, the real brilliance of the toolkit lies in the compiler and the development tools and hooks. Unfortunately, they have completely neglected the CSS skinning of the toolkit, and generally leave it up to developers to hire their own CSS designers. There are only 3 primary themes built into the toolkit, and they all look amateurish. Instantiations makes a tool, GWT Designer, which allows WYSIWYG manipulation to help design GWT based pages. This can speed in basic layout development and simple colour and font manipulations, but you pay for it with awkward, ugly, and verbose Java code you then have to manually clean up later. If you know Java and the GWT library well, it is almost worth it just to skip GWT Designer entirely. That said, we fully respect and have been impressed by the features of GWT Designer.

To help developers make compelling apps and websites and perhaps to stimulate interest in GWT, we encourage Google to devote more resources to design, themes, and templates for GWT. What do other GWT developers think?

Verizon Skype

2010-04-02T22:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Verizon started a new promotion to allow free Skype-to-Skype calling on its Smartphones, sending and receiving. On Android, this is possible with the new and improved Skype Mobile App. Verizon actually enables this through its voice network rather than over the datafeed, allowing good integration with Bluetooth devices and much higher fidelity of communication. Skype is a closed source, proprietary P2P voice protocol and unless that changes, it is probably a dead-end company. However, with sponsorship and special privilege from large telecoms, Skype perhaps has a new lease on life against the coming existential threat from the refactoring of Gizmo5 with Google Voice. In conclusion, if you have a Verizon smartphone or communicate regularly with someone who has a Verizon smartphone, consider using Skype.

Healthcare in the United States

2010-03-22T17:38:00.000-07:00

We have pointed out on here many of the reasons the US health care system is distorted, monopolistic, and inefficient. Obviously there are many things wrong that we did not address. We largely avoided discussing the demand side of the equation, including brokerage services like insurance. From what we have seen, those demand side elements are all that was tweaked in the latest legislation. Thus there remains the entire other side of the equation needing legislative redress.

We are most happy for the moment though that a passage of this bill will finally mean people will stop talking about "Health Care". The protraction of the issue in the public forum with little to no substantive progress has been excruciating. Let us celebrate the end to the collective insanity.

Secure Obfuscated and Encrypted Web Browsing for Iranians

2010-02-10T16:10:00.001-08:00

For those, particularly Iranians, who wish to browse the web safely, Haystack may be a good solution.

Haystack is not an ordinary proxy system. It employs a sophisticated mathematical formula to hide users' real Internet traffic inside a continuous stream of innocuous-looking requests. In addition to providing anonymity, Haystack uses strong cryptography, ensuring that even if users' traffic is detected, it cannot be read. Trying to find and decipher our users' traffic amidst all the other traffic on the web really is like trying to find a needle in the proverbial Haystack.

Once installed Haystack will provide completely uncensored access to the internet from Iran while simultaneously protecting the user's identity. No more Facebook blocks, no more government warning pages when you try to load Twitter or access news sites -- just unfiltered Internet.

...Not that Facebook is how you should be spending your time online.

VPN Solutions

2010-02-03T21:35:00.000-08:00

Previously we mentioned OpenVPN, a solid VPN solution. Hamachi by Logmein.com is a VPN solution which uses UDP, non error correcting protocol wrapping an encryped TCP connection. This creates a large efficiency gain over other VPNs which wrap error correcting encrypted TCP protocol inside of error correcting TCP packets. From our testing, Hamachi was able to maximise our bandwidth of 2.8 MB/s without processor strain, while the best performance we received through OpenVPN was 600KB/s.

Unlike OpenVPN which is very difficult to set up, Hamachi sets up in about a minute and requires a virtual LAN name password. In this way your computer starts VPN connections as easily as one might join a chat room and you become connected not just to one machine, but every machine that has been authorised on that virtual LAN and whom the user has authorised. Included in the client is also an IP to IP non-recording encrypted chat mechanism.

Hamachi is freemium software and is actively developed. Here is a great podcast explaining the intelligent design of Hamachi.

Hamachi is the Japanese word for Yellow Fin Tuna.

Google Chrome Extensions

2010-02-03T16:50:00.000-08:00

Google Chrome has finally added Extensions, and so far all the standard extensions I use in Firefox now have equivalents in Chrome. This includes Readability, Google Translate, Google Voice, Adblocker, and Flash Block. Since its inception, Chrome was faster than Firefox. Now that there are extensions Chrome, it is the best browser available. We will keep Firefox around as a backup and will always respect the Open Source Mozilla Foundation.

Soon we will be demoing the Google Chrome OS and will give our review.

Annular Eclipse

2010-01-14T21:23:00.000-08:00

As in an Annulus or Ring. Today features the longest annular solar eclipse for the next 1 k years.

Our Review of Avatar

2010-01-08T21:19:00.000-08:00

Watching Avatar in 3D was an incredible experience. Avatar seems 10 years ahead of its time in terms of technology and effects. In terms of story, it was refreshing to see a major film so blatantly subversive towards the status quo of military imperialism and corporate environmental destruction. James Cameron has demonstrated that the traditional theatre must adapt and push the envelope of what is possible to stay relevant. Audiences will pay.

Technocalyps

2010-01-04T16:10:00.000-08:00

Technocalyps is the most detailed documentary I have seen yet on the topic of the coming Transhuman revolution. While the mainstream is obsessed with the usual tired propaganda, distraction, and manipulation, scientists are moving forward in building our post-human future. Issues of science, technological progress, environmental change and humanity's role therein should be at the forefront of cultural awareness.

As Bruce Sterling points out in the film:

It is important to realize that [Posthumanity] is not the end of history. It does not solve all our problems. It just creates new problems and this is going to intensify...Posthumanity does't liberate you from yourself, it makes you more than you were before...You are just going to have more power..When you have more power you have more responsibility not less.

Technocalyps can be found on Google Video and preferably on the Torrent Networks.

Alex Jones Reviews Avatar

2010-01-02T16:13:00.000-08:00

Alex Jones is a man with a perspective worth understanding. His review of Avatar succinctly expresses many of his fears about the direction society is heading. In his mind, Elites, Corporations, and Environmentalists are collaborating to depopulate the planet and subjugate those remaining. His vision may not be too far from the mark. Humanity needs to properly understand and address the forces at work which could bring about the next depopulation event, be it from nature or human design.

Recommended Android Applications

2009-12-22T20:40:00.000-08:00

Google Voice,Nestoid,Listen,Advanced Task Killer,PDANet,Nestoid,DroidLight,i Music,ApkInstaller,AK Notepad.

Guava is good if you have a Gizmo5 Account, but it interferes with the Google Voice Ap. It is good to have available but uninstalled if you get in a bind and have used all your 'Anytime' minutes.

We are looking forward to Fennec.

Swype Keyboard works quite well.

Game Emulation on Android

2009-12-14T00:34:00.001-08:00

We are not hugely in favour of video games as they suck up a lot of time. When that is what you are going for, keep in mind that Android has a free NES and SNES emulator. iPhone has an emulator also, but no keyboard which makes it effectively unplayable. The Droid keyboard and D-pad work, but cannot compare to a proper Nintendo controller. The G1 keyboard looks better for gaming than the Droid's which is too compact. Gaming should not influence your smart phone decision much, but if it does, remember that the iPhone has a ton of $2-5 games, but there are hundreds of classic S/NES ROMs free with BitTorrent. Palm Pre was a nice try for a Linux Smartphone, but it is a dead-end platform with poor signal coverage and no applications or games to speak of unless it involves NFL, NASCAR, or ESPN. Enough said.

Off The Record

2009-11-27T04:02:00.000-08:00

Pidgin, Trillian and Adium are great IM softwares. Off The Record is a plugin for those programmes which enables encrypted communications with Perfect Forward Secrecy using standard clients such as Google Talk, ICQ, AIM etc.

Trillian now has an iPhone version. It is very important that an OTR application, or similar technology, is developed for mobile platforms like iPhone and Android so that people might have secure mobile communication.

*UPDATE: It recently came to our attention that Pidgin Saved Passwords are saved in plain text in an obvious location. Thus, anyone gaining access to the user's filesystem can obtain all their IM passwords, including their Google Account if they use it for Google Talk. This is a major security vulnerability. Be aware!

Please Don't Tell

2009-11-26T01:25:00.000-08:00

If you would like to have a nice evening in New York, we highly recommend you visit the speak easy 'Please Don't Tell.' The service and retro 1920s ambiance is top notch and one of a kind. It creates a brilliant use of what would have been a rather mediocre piece of basement real estate next to a Hot Dog joint. In fact one must enter through the hot dog stand and ring the phone in the booth to gain access. If you visit, you had better have a reservation made by phone, 212-614-0386. Call at 1500 or shortly after that day if you are going to successfully make a reservation. We failed two nights in a row before successfully making it in, but they were the best $14 drinks we have had.

Droid - Acquired

2009-11-21T15:00:00.000-08:00

We have acquired a Verizon Motorola Droid. Verizon is known to have the best network as far as coverage and Voice service in the United States. Compared to what we have witnessed for Sprint and ATT, this is quite believable.

Droid runs on Android 2.0, the soon the be Open Sourced OS sponsored by Google. Google Voice is integrated seemlessly, and the Gizmo5 Guava ap allows VoIP through a WiFi connextion (although it is currently a bit buggy). For us as Java programmers, it is an ideal match. The OS is very slick and functional and quite competitive with the iPhone. Furthermore the Droid has a built in Keyboard in addition to an on-screen keyboard, thus giving it a bit more utility than the iPhone.

Droid is capable of USB Tethering through the PDANet software. At first we had trouble establishing a normal PPTP VPN through this tether, but OpenVPN seems to work with no problems, thus solving our practical problem.

Up until the Droid, the iPhone was clearly the best phone available, but finally a competitive product has arrived that does not need to be jail-broken by default.

Once we get the Spotify Mobile Ap working, then all your base are belong to us.

We are at last upgrading to the Droid from a seven year old Samsung N400. Good Riddance.

Media Centres

2009-11-08T22:08:00.001-08:00

Tonight we were introduced to LinuxMCE, a slick Computer Media Interface. We will update this post with further details, but what was really novel was to see a WiiMote configured to control LinuxMCE. WiiMotes cost about $30 USD versus $100 USD for an equivalent Bluetooth Remote Product.

Another good programme to consider is XBMC.

Lastly, the very impressive PS3 seems to do everything under the sun in Media Centre Entertainment, including the most powerful gaming console around, for $300 USD.

Droid

2009-11-08T22:00:00.000-08:00

Motorolla has finally released Droid. The company tries to rape its customers with the Data Plan Tethering $30/month option, but luckily a $30 One time programme delivers the same functionality to the user. PDANet. Overall, Droid looks like solid hardware and quite hackable. We plan to start a demo this week. PDANet also works for jailbroken iPhones.

Fall of the Republic

2009-10-25T18:48:00.000-07:00

I will have more to say about Alex Jones. In the meantime, his new propaganda film, Fall of the Republic, is worth watching.

Google Voice

2009-10-15T18:49:00.000-07:00

Google Voice allows callers to forward calls to their Google Voice number to any other phones simultaneously until one picks up. Therefore someone could set their home, mobile, and work phones all to ring when someone calls. Constant availability with one number including SMS and it is free. Google Voice provides a web interface and an Android Application for mobile phones to change settings. It can be connected with Gizmo5, a Skype alternative, to allow one to send and receive free US phone calls or make cheap international calls.

Google voice will maintain a permanent record of voicemails and will transcribe them and email them along with the audio to the owner. The option exists to receive SMS of the transcription as well.

We have been using Google Voice for over a year and it is wonderful. It has become our primary phone number. All other phones have become access points to the Google Voice interface.

GV is brilliant, unparalleled and free.

The Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-10T02:24:00.000-07:00

Many Americans were stunned by the award of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama. Indeed, he has "changed to tone" of US foreign policy towards greater cooperation, internationalism, and globalism. As we noted before we are encouraged by nuclear disarmament, the logical consequence of peace.

Barack Obama has already committed war crimes in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He joins a cadre of other war criminals who have won the prize including Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. The Barack Obama Nobel is even more ridiculous than Al Gore's award for a poorly made Powerpoint on Global Warming.

In a very well stated response to the news, Ron Paul indicates that Obama has in fact suppressed the peace movement in the United States because those members largely voted for him and so do not want to criticise their man. Ron Paul has been actively campaigning for a true position of peace and military isolationism for his long career. If any US politician were to have been awarded a Nobel it should have been Paul; not a president who has continued the Bush legacy of two Wars going on a third in Pakistan, secret CIA detention facilities, and an illegal Guantanamo Bay Prison.

Perhaps Obama will end up accomplishing some very significant substantive movements towards Peace, but at the moment his actions have been far too mixed to merit a significant Peace Prize. We must conclude in light of this and past questionable awards that the Nobel Peace Prize has simply become a politicised tool with no merit.

The Folly of Near Term Manned Mars Exploration

2009-10-06T04:20:00.000-07:00

The Mars Underground (torrent) (imdb) is a well made documentary film featuring director of the Mars Society Robert Zubrin. Zubrin was instrumental in shaping the current direction of NASA towards a Manned Mission to the Red Planet. Despite any romanticism, this is a complete waste of time, effort, and resources.

Long term, of course people will need to inhabit Mars and establish presence elsewhere beyond the Earth if we are to guarantee human existence. However, in the short term, governments would be better off developing artificial intelligence and robotics, and sending their best and most robust machines to explore and one day terraform Mars. The public investment in such useful technology pays off for everyone. The Mars Underground film does not even address this possibility. It unquestioningly assumes that the pinnacle of Humanity's existence would be to make physical contact with the Mars then expediently return to the Earth. Ultimately, the film amounts to a piece of cultist propaganda.

Make no mistake, the Apollo Moon programme was a waste of resources, but it did produce some political, scientific and economic dividends that offset some of the costs. At the time, computers were primitive although robotic probes were nonetheless useful. The Moon is also significantly closer to the Earth.

Regarding Mars, there is a third way which would waste far fewer resources, and do something to satisfy the Monkeys on Mars Cultists. The answer of course is to send people on a one way trip to establish a permanent Mars colony. Put in this context, the cultists are forced to ask themselves why they are so obsessed with returning people to Earth if Mars is worth visiting. Is this nothing more than a sexually frustrated egotistical fantasy of trillion dollar tourism, or is there some sensible purpose? If Mars is worth visiting, it should be worth staying. This is the argument of Lawrence Krauss who fundamentally advocates robotic explortation of Mars. Audio of his NPR Science Friday Interview. Crazy though it may be, plenty of sexually frustrated scientists who would jump at the chance for a one way ticket to Mars.

Robots are expendable, cheaper, and far more effective as a tool of scientific exploration and human colony construction than people will ever be. Let the private sector send people into space if it is economical and put public funds back where they belong: in scientific and technological research and development.

OpenVPN

2009-10-05T02:02:00.000-07:00

We highly recommend the Open Source OpenVPN software. It is not necessarily a comprehensive VPN package, and as far as we can see is not compatible with other VPN products such as the convenient VPN client built into Windows, but it is nonetheless a free and effective way for one to create a secure highly encrypted software based tunnel between many locations. It works for any major OS. The major drawback is that the install and setup is not trivial. To create an OpenVPN server you must know something about command-line, config files, and something about the basics of computer networking. Once established, it allows for extremely fast encrypted connections with the potential to max out one's bandwidth capacity with a normal processor. With such levels of security, imagine the possibilities...

Envirosax

2009-10-04T21:55:00.000-07:00

Envirosax are a great idea, and we own several. They are attractive, strong, durable bags which can fold up to a very small volumes. They are perfect as shopping bags holding up to 20 kg, and women can easily fit them in their purses. They also make great gifts. If the trend of such products picked up, possibly encouraged by taxation or interdiction of paper or plastic shopping bags, the environmental footprint of consumers would be noticeably reduced.

doubleTwist

2009-10-04T21:35:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia:

doubleTwist Corporation is a digital media company founded by Monique Farantzos and Jon Lech Johansen. It is backed by Index Ventures (Skype, Last.FM) and Northzone Ventures.

The doubleTwist application enables users to send photos and videos to their friends and sync their media library to a wide variety of portable devices.

We do not particularly endorse the doubleTwist product, but we admire their philosophy, the work of their financial backers, and particularly love the founder: DVD Jon. This new anti-Apple advert from doubleTwist is certainly worth watching. Despite the original 1984 Apple propaganda, Apple has always been the product of monopoly, the company of total enslavement, the brand to eliminate choice, thought, freedom and convenience. Just ask anyone over age 50 who has needed to move their iTunes library.

The Anti-Transhumanists

2009-10-02T23:25:00.000-07:00

We are not well versed in the Anti-Transhumanist movement, but in full recognition that some Transhumanist outcome is inevitable, we respect challenges to any trends towards human elimination, subjugation, or redundancy. The folks at TransAlchemy have a website a blog a Youtube channel and to me most significantly, have produced a documentary entitled "The Age of Transitions" expressing their reservations about transhumanism. Most notably, the TransAlchemists assert that Transhumanism directly succeeds the politically defunct Eugenics and Social Darwinist movements which enabled the National Socialist Holocaust. TransAlchemy is currently filming a second documentary featuring Singularity Summit coverage. Their motto: Save the Humans.

Palm Post

2009-09-23T17:12:00.000-07:00

Our trial of the Palm Pre is concluded. With tethering enabled, the Pre is adequate, but despite being a Linux phone, there are simply no applications for it to realise its potential, and a 2 year lock in to Sprint is a tough pill to swallow - not to mention the $350 price tag for the Pre.

We are holding out for an Android phone hopefully on Verizon later this year. The greater support, adoption, flexibility and programmability of Android we hope will make it worth the wait.

Nuclear Disarmament

2009-09-22T23:30:00.000-07:00

Disarmament does not lead to peace. Disarmament is a consequence of peace.

- Stephen Schuker, 2002

Nuclear Disarmament should be seen as a sign of tremendous human progress. The Twentieth Century saw mankind reach for the bomb and with it the power of life and death over all complex life on the planet. The threat now of Environmental Destruction from pollution or biological weapons manufacture pales in comparison to the nuclear button. Nuclear armament has been the first existential threat humanity has faced in all recorded history. It surely will not be the last. This threat has not been nor probably will it ever be completely eliminated. Nevertheless, the current push towards global reduction of arms reflects increasing world peace and security.

Palm Pre

2009-09-02T22:06:00.000-07:00

We are currently demoing a Palm Pre. Today we succeeded in "rooting" it (gaining Unix administrator control) and enabling it into a wifi router. It is still a hack, and not completely reliable and usable, but good enough to get the job done. (In the course of writing this post, the connection dropped, and we chose to switch to a more reliable connection.) The connection seems unrestricted by port and protocol so that VPN, Remote Desktop, Bit Torrent etc all seems to work on it. With Palm Pre which in USA is on the Sprint network, speed seems to be 1 Mb/s down, 0.15 Mb/s up.

Here are the directions to enable the WiFi router most easily. With root access, one can change many settings with a bit of determination.

The Pre itself is adequate as a phone and web browser. We are still not sure if we will keep it or abort it, as Bruno would say. Sprint allows 30 days to return it. Waiting for a proper Android on a proper network or submitting to the tyranny of Apple ATT are the only other options to remain a functional mobile Internaut. All choices require a 2 year lock in.

Update: Given new moves to block tethering, ATT/IPhone is a completely nonviable option.

Furk - Bittorrent Proxy and Media Repository

2009-08-12T01:11:00.001-07:00

Furk.net has emerged on the scene recently with some very serious hardware and bandwidth, and a bonanza of useful services. Search the name of a popular film and you are likely to find it there already available for direct reasonably fast download. Assuming you were worried about joining a torrent swarm because of the lack of privacy and perchance a potential legal action, with Furk, such risks are largely eliminated. They aquire a massive repository of content from Mininova or PirateBay, and make it freely and directly available.

They also offer BitTorrent proxy services and speed enhanced downloads for a modest fee. Thus you can use Furk as a shield to do all the dirty work of high risk torrenting for you.

The fact that Furk is able to exist and is even able to claim a measure of legality further demonstrates that copyright enforcability is impossible.

Torrent Freak Article

Miniluv

2009-07-22T00:08:00.000-07:00

Walking around Manhattan the other day, we found the Ministry of Love from "1984". It has no windows.

33 Thomas St.

Google Security Vulnerabilities

2009-07-15T22:12:00.000-07:00

To access anything in a person's Google account, all one must know is email address and password. For someone who has either a well placed key recorder, or knows their victim personally, or happens to just access a person's machine after they have used it - a tremendous amount of information is thence available to an attacker. An author of this blog has been the victim of the third type of attack from a trusted loved one whose temptation to delve into personal information, like a sailor to the Sirens, was too great.

The third type of attack is perhaps unavoidable from a technical perspective and is the responsibility of the user to avoid, but the other types of attacks could be better avoided with an option for a paid security token and perhaps more regular security questions.

Although security for an average user is very important, it is perhaps even more valuable to businesses. Twitter, which the authors of this blog find an annoying fad, recently had some private corporate documents stolen and published as a result of a Google account being compromised. In the end, Google's online suite of tools are simply too useful not to use despite the vulnerabilities, and the potential for a government sub poena - nonetheless caveat emptor. Let this be a lesson to us all - and to Google especially.

William Blake Quote

2009-07-15T02:54:00.000-07:00

"Truth can never be told so as to be understood and not be believed."

Robert McNamara

2009-07-08T20:51:00.000-07:00

Robert McNamara died recently. A confessed unconvicted War Criminal, McNamara was a logitician for the firebombing campaigns on Japan, and a reluctant architect of the Cuban Missle Crisis and most significantly, the Vietnam War. In addition to being a profoundly intelligent and capable CEO, Cabinet Secretary and World Bank Chief, Mcnamara was striking for his deep reflection and appreciation for the moral complexity of his actions as revealed in the excellent documentary Fog of War (torrent).

Here is the synopsis of an interview at Berkeley in 2004 including a webcast.

Who better to deduce the lessons and folly of War than a man who was its Commander. Here are a list of his 11 lessons:

Empathize with your enemy
Rationality will not save us
There's something beyond one's self
Maximize efficiency
Proportionality should be a guideline in war
Get the data
Belief and seeing are often both wrong
Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning
In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil
Never say never
You can't change human nature

Controversial, terrible, and flawed as he was, a great man has died.

All the Pb in Zhong Guo

2009-07-08T00:41:00.000-07:00

This story from the financial press ignores what is really going on. Forget importation of toxic goods; why is Zhong Guo so backwards that they are even manufacturing toys, or other consumer products, that contain lead. If Zhong Guo is ever to be part of an advanced glorious civilistation, this will have to stop.

C-SPAN Funding

2009-07-02T23:13:00.000-07:00

Given the lack of commercials or NPR style begathon fund-raising and the intended lack of political bias of C-SPAN, it is surprising to learn from their recent public service announcements that they do not receive public ie government money. They are in fact sponsored as a public service by the US Cable Television companies.

We all owe these companies a debt of gratitude for documenting and archiving governmental proceedings, bringing more openness to government, and making it widely and freely available without a hint of commercialism or political favouratism. This is a task which should have been the responsibility of the National Archives in a well run government, yet corporate charity has come through to do the job better and cheaper than a Government run programme ever could.

Manuel Zelaya - Drugs Policy of an Ousted Honduran Presidente

2009-07-02T22:13:00.000-07:00

We do not pretend to know the motivations for the recent coup of Presidente Manuel Zelaya, overthrown by members of the Honduran Army last week. Was the CIA involved? These are open questions.

All else aside, we do want to commend and support el Presidente on one particular issue. He was strongly in favour of ending the oppressive and immoral 'War on Drugs.'

It is always suspicious when such a person is overthrown, particularly when the CIA is known for having a history of profiting from the drugs trade and political meddling in the region. As Alex Jones stated, 'The Drug Dealers want to make sure the Drugs stay illegal.'

First Human in Space

2009-06-30T22:51:00.000-07:00

Apparently Yuri Gagarin was not the first person in space. It was cosmonaut Colonel Vladimir Illysushin. Other conspiracies are also alleged.

Documentary Link

Digital Currency Trading Declared Illegal in China

2009-06-29T20:09:00.000-07:00

Virtual Currencies threaten the power of governments by weakening their grip over the medium of exchange - ie Fiat Currency. In that sense, it is not surprising to see one of the more Authoritarian States definitively cracking down on Virtual Currency exchange. In practise, this will lessen the booming virtual currencies business and put many Chinese "gold farmers" out of work, but generally drive the digital currency market to ever higher levels of sophistication and security.

We have touched on this issue before.

An exposition on the topic of secure digital currencies can be found in David Friedman's Future Imperfect.

We suspect that the collapse of the value of the private US Federal Reserve Dollar will spark a real push for legalisation of competing Commodity backed digital currencies.

The Often Misleading State of Electronic Waste Recycling

2009-06-29T11:41:00.001-07:00

PBS Frontline featured a disturbing piece recently concerning the processing of electronic waste. With an undercover investigation, Frontline revealed how Americans and Europeans are assured they are "recycling" electronic waste safely and locally. Instead it is all loaded onto containers that are shipped to Ghana or the southern Chinese city of Guiyu where people work in extremely dangerous conditions burning plastics, and poisoning themselves with heavy metals to extract trace amounts of precious metals. The waste is transported under the guise of "donations." While Africa particularly needs electronics if they have any hope of ever developing, Westerners should be made aware of the environmental and human dangers of e-waste "recycling," and law enforcement agencies ought to investigate fraud and environmental destruction in this regard. Hearing that one is "recycling" tends to eliminate a feeling of guilt for many Westerners, but the reality in this case is far from that.

Galapagos Tourism

2009-06-22T23:29:00.000-07:00

Respect the nature of the Galapagos and the importance it had in informing Evolutionary Science, by never going there. Policymakers should strictly limit the number of allowed visitors or residents through licensing and taxation, and give collected rents to foundations which protect other nature preserves.

The Google God

2009-06-22T22:15:00.000-07:00

Tonight's discourse:

Pace: I really think once people realise the efficiency, many will start programming to the Google Ap engine

Consigliere: uuuuuuuuuugh
that's a TERRIBLE idea
we already have one giant fucking monolith, i.e. Microsoft
why would we want to trade one for another?
the last thing the web needs is a single point of failure, like if google goes down and takes everybody's webapps with it

Pace: they are at least better than M$ - should theoretically still be reployable elsewhere without too much modification

Consigliere: they're only tbetter than M$ at the moment b/c htey';re not as big/dominant
but they certainly will become so
and there's a huge difference between "theoretically" and "in realitiy"

Pace: they do support open source though

Consigliere: it doesn't matter
I"m glad they do
but it'd still be a single point of failure

Pace: agreed

Consigliere: and god only knows what they'd do with all that data once they had it

Pace: they would become God

Consigliere: yeah, but a God beholden to capitalist shareholders

Pace: yes

Consigliere: it woudl be very Old Testament

Pace: haha

The Iranian Revolution

2009-06-21T02:07:00.001-07:00

When one attempts to shut down or contain the Internet to suppress a discontented populace, one has lost all legitimacy to rule. خدا بزرگ است.

Augmented Reality and other Smartphone News

2009-06-08T23:03:00.000-07:00

We've been holding out on buying a smart phone given the rapid acceleration taking place. Some of the applications we have seen are quite impressive. Here is one: Wikitude. Wikitude takes GPS and phone camera input, and overlays points of interest on the image.

By the way, if you check out the Recommended Stories section, you will see more reasons NOT to get an iPhone. Once again, Apple's insistence on running their users' lives drags down the company. Apple has banned an application which remotely administers legal torrent software, and now has also banned the Electronic Freedom Frontier's RSS application because they linked to a parody video Apple found potentially politically incorrect.

Information Technology in a Free Society should be used to enable Free Speech and Expression. We can not abide a company with such anti-human business practices, unless compelled by an oppressive regime as in Israel, Iran, or Zhong Guo. A California based company protected by the US Bill of Rights has no such excuse. We posit that in a well regulated market, such suppressions themselves would be illegal. In the meantime, boycott Apple.

US Foreign Policy Under President Obama

2009-04-17T21:59:00.000-07:00

We voted for Barack Hussein Obama for one primary reason: foreign policy. Having traveled as Americans overseas, we have seen how much antipathy has been created against the American Empire by the mismanagement of the Bush regime. Barack Obama brings a fresh, worldly perspective to the Executive Branch which has been badly lacking for the last decade. His ethnic heritage adds to his allure and his goodwill, especially in Africa. His manifest intellect, open-mindedness, and respect for all people, combined with his brilliant oratory in the style of martyred human rights activists has made him a "Rock Star" both inside and especially outside the United States.

Isolationist Conspiracy Theorists will point to Obama's ethnicity as a strategy by Globalist Power-brokers, to command much greater leadership in Africa as a prelude to economic recolonisation and competition with the Chinese in the region. This agenda may indeed come to pass, but is not sufficient reason to oppose Obama. After all, the Americans generally take a greater humanitarian interest in Africa than do the Chinese or many African leaders themselves in recent years. It should be stated though that despite any rhetoric and recent good intentions, the American track record in Africa has ranged from ignorance and neglect to enslavement.

Conspiracy theories aside, this is 'Change [in Which] We Can Believe.'

Japanese Gardens

2008-11-29T00:53:00.000-08:00

Stumbled Across this one. Well Designed site of Kyoto gardens.

Zeitgeist

2008-11-26T20:16:00.000-08:00

I have been remiss in addressing many issues on this forum, let alone keeping up with the current events. I do apologise as there is much to be said, and much to be reported. Zeitgest is a propaganda film worth seeing. It addresses a very rough history of the origin of the Christian myth in Western Mythology with connections to astrology. This is somewhat interesting and entertaining though by no means a BBC documentary. Next, a stright up 9-11 Truth Conspiracy section (which I dont buy and do not recommend) ended with an informative and largely correct section on the origins, illegality, and fraud that genuinely is the Federal Reserve Banking Cartel.

Zeitgeist Addendum, the sequel, is even better. It refreshes us to the problems, and again addresses the Federal Reserve, fractional banking fiasco. It misunderstands monetary dynamics and fundamental economics in many respects,but makes some excelent points. Next it features the Economic Hitman followed by ample time to a living treasure, Jacque Fresco, and the Venus Project. .

By the way, I visited Jacque last march in Venus and will have more to say on him including a filmed interview.

In telling you to watch these films, know also that I do not agree with at least 50% of its assertions and analyses. Please also read and watch the criticisms which have merit, ironically coming from other Conspiracy Theorits who agree with most of the major premises but not the analyses or conclusions. Alex Jones. G Edward Griffin.

From Griffen:

All of the evils to which this program alludes are the result, not of the free enterprise system, but of the abandonment of free enterprise and the adoption of collectivism. This program creates a mythological boogeyman and then advocates more of the very thing that has brought us to the mess we are in today.

I think it is safe to say that money, trade and free enterprise as general technological systems are not the root of all our problems as Zeitgeist suggests. The redistribution of wealth is debatable as are laws and restrictions of markets and limitation of free contract. Money however is an inevitable property of combining scarcity, divisibility, transferability, durability and common perceived value.

The real battle emerging is between collectivist central-planning green technocrats - and the libertarian, self-sufficient, privacy-loving anarcho-Capitalists - perhaps these should be our emerging and conflicting dominant paradigms. Throw in some chaos from Fundamentalist Abrahamic Apocalypse Cult Fascists and Nihilists. Welcome to the Future.

The Trade

2008-11-26T14:52:00.000-08:00

Go long Gold with stocks like GLD or more securely with a VIA MAT vault and private, tradable, liquid market through BullionVault. Higher priced GoldMoney is an alternative. With BullionVaut you can buy and sell gold in London, Zurich and New York.

Go long other precious/industrial metals: Silver (SLV, Goldmoney, and soon BullionVault), Platinum (PHPT), Palladium (PHPD), Copper (COPA), Steel

Go long the mineral slime Crude Oil (CRUD) and oil services companies particularly non-American companies. American Oil companies make huge profits and will make even more in the near future, but they could easily become subject to Windfall Profits Taxes under an Obama Administration. PetroChina (PTR) Petrobras (PZE) etc.

Go long Agricultural Commodities: Wheat (WEAT), corn, rice, cotton etc.

Go long Dividend Paying Value stocks in non-American companies, especially in the Developing World, that have strong balance sheets and are essential for civilisation. This includes mining companies, utility companies, etc. Later I will provide some specific recommendations.

America is a sinking ship. The Titanic really was struck on September 11, 2001 when the wars began, and the Federal Reserve began lowering interest rates, effectively rolling the Dot Com bubble into the Financial and Housing Bubbles which have just collapsed. Perversely we are now in the strange situation where investors are investing more in the unsinkable Titanic empire because they think it is more stable than any alternatives. As a result, the final bubble which has yet to burst is the United States Dollar bubble. The profligate borrowing, consumption, and deficit spending by the American Government and American Consumer has limits. When those limits are finally reached and the World decides to stop throwing good money after bad in lending to the United States, there will likely be a hyper-inflationary spiral, exchange controls, potential rationing of goods, and socialisation of most remaining wealth in the United States through taxation and inflation. No indication from the political leaders entering power suggests otherwise.

Now is a phase of the financial market in which traditionally safe strategies such as going long AAA bonds, going long Blue Chip companies, holding cash in a bank, or holding cash in a mattress do not make sense as a means to preserve let alone appreciate wealth. Given the artificially low interest rates, and regular "liquidity injections" on the order on trillions of dollars, there is naught but destruction of the value of the dollar in the post. In this scenario, if one has good credit and can borrow at a low interest rate - borrowing to invest in commodities and non-US assets could be a brilliant leveraged play for those with some risk tolerance. It is in effect a short sale of the US Dollar.

Currencies such as the Yen and CHF are probably safer plays than most others, but they are still fiat currencies exposed to political risk of inflation and devaluation.

Lastly, listen to Peter Schiff (Video, Radio Show) and Jim Rodgers (Video) and make up your own mind. Also read through the many pieces I have shared through Google Reader on the topics of the Federal Reserve Bank and the Financial Markets.

Warning: All trading and "investing" is gambling and involves exposure to losses in real wealth.

Aldous Huxley

2008-10-09T03:17:00.000-07:00

Aldous Huxley deserves great attention for his deep intellect as well as his analysis of the human condition and the potentials for human life and society and the dangers of power and control enabled by emerging technology. Huxley, who wrote 'Brave New World' in the 1930s clearly saw much more clearly into the future than most other major intellectuals of his day. To that end listen to Huxley's "Ultimate Revolution" speech at UC Santa Barbara March 20, 1962.

Q & A

Lastly, read his books.

The Wire

2008-07-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

Available on any major torrent tracker, the HBO's 5-season television series The Wire is one of the best shows ever made. The Wire focuses on organized crime, drug abuse, poverty, social services, law enforcement, and politics in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. The Baltimore inner city, like so many inner cities in America, has gone from a once developing industrialised center to a third world backwards wasteland of despair and violence. The fuel for this downward spiral is not surprisingly the war on drugs and its selective or sporadic enforcement and large profit potentials for dealers and suppliers. In contrast to "the game" of drug dealing and related crime, there exist precious few realistically attainable economic alternatives than a life of crime and violence for those born into it. The series addresses all of these issues directly, deeply, and poignantly. The show proves its social value by making it clear that the most effective way to address the disastrous economic situation of the inner-city is to decriminalise all forms of drug sale and use whilst allowing a protected environment for various charitable and social services to administer care to those in need unhindered. Besides its value for the exploration of American inner city life, corruption, and social ills, The Wire entertains and captivates with well-developed, interesting characters at all levels of position and power. Watch consecutively and in order.

9.7 IMDB rating.

The creators of the Wire have a new mini-series, Generation Kill, on HBO.

Impeach Bush, Impeach Cheney

2008-06-09T16:58:00.000-07:00

I am watching live Dennis Kucinich calling for the Impeachment of the President and Vice President on the floor of the House. Rep. Kucinich is one of only a small handful of honest politicians in Washington. You can look for this speech on cspan.org or youtube. This post by Brad DeLong outlines some of the impeachable offenses:

David Kurtz writes:

Talking Points Memo | Phase II: Here are the key points from the reports, according to a press release from Sen. Jay Rockefeller's office:

Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa'ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa'ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.
Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.
Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.
Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq's chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community's uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.
The Secretary of Defense's statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.
The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.

These gross violations by Richard Cheney and George W. Bush to take care that the laws be faithfully executed are High Crimes, demanding immediate impeachment and removal from office.

Kx

2008-05-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

K and the more comprehensible Q are languages created by Artur Whitney based on APL. Kdb+ is the database system and interpreter for these languages. Kdb+ allows extremely efficient analysis of high-volume real-time and historic data simultaneously in a column based database. At $100,000 per Dual-Core Processor license, K is absurdly priced and only affordable for large financial institutions and the United States military. K is a vector based language with analogies to mathematics and human language. Nearly every character represents either a noun, verb, or adverb allowing extremely terse and efficient development and processing for those who are able to wrap their heads around the syntax.

K is powerful enough that an experienced quantitative analyst with the full range of tools could go from an idea, to a full tick-level back-test, to a fully deployed trading system in under an hour.

While this product is unfordable to nearly everyone in its full form, Kx Systems has released a limited version of the software free of charge. I highly recommend anyone interested in computer languages, analysis, finance, etc. to download and explore this amazing software which takes less than 200 KB on disk including the interpreter, an http server, and socket connectivity!

As a final note for those with a particular interest in providing programming services, it is our understanding that a capable K programmer averages about $250,000 per year working for a large investment institution.

Population Control

2008-04-27T15:59:00.000-07:00

The concept of being "Green" is gaining increasing momentum in the developed world. One hopes that the removal of the Bush regime from power will result in improved legislation to slow the decline of the Earth's natural wealth which is being rapidly depleted. Bush aside, no major policy leader in any nation except China has bothered to propose measures to curb the growth of population. Meanwhile, European countries and many other countries have policies which encourage childbirth and increasing population seemingly to support their aging and selfishly infertile populations whilst reducing the need for importation of foreign labourers. While the economic decisions of humans are ultimately to blame for most environmental destruction, the quantity of humans certainly contributes directly to these problems as does the population of any pest species. We have already mentioned on this blog the 12 Monkeys scenario. In the spirit of Malthus, population limitation must be made a priority for governments. If measures are taken quickly to impose limits on population growth, 12 Monkeys can be avoided.

Unlike most of human history, we are now at a stage of having not just exceeded, but having overwhelmed the carrying capacity of our environment given the standard of living that we demand. In the absence of extremely harsh environmental regulation and economic restriction, Reproduction can no longer be seen as a right, but as a privilege, one which must be approved and earned by the collective authority. China's template solution allows only one child per couple and imposes varying degrees of penalties for any violations. A better solution would be one of progressive taxation. The degree of progression could be debated, but the overall outcome should be a birthrate which is less than or equal to the deathrate.

Such scheme would also have a positive effect on economic development, education, economic opportunity, and wealth per capita in nearly every region on Earth.

Room Temperature Superconductivity

2008-03-19T18:32:00.000-07:00

If the research conducted by a Canadian and German team proves valid, scientists will have made an enormous leap by creating a room temperature superconductor with highly compressed Silane, SiH4. Superconductors can transmit electricity with miniscule resistance thus reducing energy loss. Since electric current generates magnetic fields, superconductors are required to generate enormously strong and sustained magnetic fields. MRI machines and the Large Hadron Collider at Geneve, Suisse are examples of the application of superconductors, but require expensive cooling.

A significant application of cheap superconductivity would be magnetic levitation.

*Update - I have been informed by an astronomer that the pressures required to acheive this (in the gigaPascals or millions of Atmospheres) are far in excess of anything we could engineer for industrial purposes, and are akin to the pressures existing at the center of Jupiter where hydrogen is metalic. We will have to keep waiting for cheap, practical room temperature superconductors.

Creative Zen

2008-02-29T13:53:00.000-08:00

I have been the happy user of an Apple iPod 4th generation for a few years now. Aside from issues of hard drive failure, I was impressed most especially with the sleek design of the device, elegant in form and function, intuitive to navigate, and possible to control with one thumb often without looking. With the advent of the video iPod, the inevitable successor, Apple began falling into old, protectionist, sclerotic patterns. The formats which will play on the video iPod are limited only to Apple's proprietary format, supporting neither divx nor xvid, the most common formats for compressed digital video. Instead the video iPod owner was forced to convert their videos to Apple's format or even to rip their own DVDs. The Apple format is itself very low quality and conversion further destroys quality.

Last Christmas, while Apple was cashing in on $300 Video or Touch iPods and $2000 iPhones (inclusive of contract) I gave my partner a $150 refurbished Creative Zen M player. It is as good as new, for half the price of a video iPod. The Zen plays all the major video formats. I was really sold on it when a friend pointed out divx and xvid capability and the A/V converter cable available for $5 delivered. It allows one to watch video content from the Zen on a television in high quality. Creative further does not impose any inane software requirements to use their products, ie iTunes and the inexcusable Quicktime. For anyone interested in a portable media player, I strongly suggest considering Creative products.

Apple seems to have some major philosophical shortcomings: image over substance, dominance over compatibility. They have been guilty of this from the beginning. Though they are first to market with very nicely designed products, their greediness in trying to dominate their market and every file format that is used on their system or software that runs on their platform ultimately alienates users and erodes market share.

If you want an iPod, consider Creative: the interface is not as slick as Apple, but they are more functional and cheaper than the Apple version.

GWT Conference

2008-02-22T23:42:00.000-08:00

In December of 2007, I attended the Voices that Matter: Google Web Toolkit conference in San Francisco. This was my first professional technical conference and I found it a very valuable experience. I had only been coding webpages for a year since discovering this technology. I was all at once surrounded by all the developers and experts who could answer all my questions and teach me so much more besides.

I was particularly interested to meet the engineers from Google, the company that fascinates me, gives me hope, inspiration, and a little envy. They were all brilliant, nerdy people as I suspected, deserving to work for the top firm in the world. All of my hopes for Google as a benevolent and beneficent force in society were strengthened and confirmed by the conference. If I have not said enough already about it, this technology is wonderful for any java developer looking to develop a web application. I have developed front-end database applications with this, basic marketing websites, and furthermore have developed a financial trading application with it, all in java with no knowledge of javascript or DOM.

I commend the Palace Hotel for hosting the conference and Prentice Hall and Addison-Wesley for doing a magnificent job organising and filming the conference. All the videos from every session are freely available on youtube.

Furthermore, given the wonderful time I had seeing friends and relatives in the area, I am all the more convinced that the Bay Area as the capital of technology is a good place for a person like me to establish myself. It has a horribly lacking transportation system unfortunately, but adequate enough if you have 2 hours to get from A to B. European engineers ought to redesign the entire infrastructure.

Panasonic Toughbook CF-74 Review

2008-02-22T22:12:00.000-08:00

Here is a video of a Panasonic Toughbook, and another. Pansonic's line of well designed, and durable laptops is far superior to any other I have seen. Their retail price is absurdly high for this, but somehow maintain a more reasonable secondary market (ie ebay) where they can be found at a more reasonable price. My new CF-74 Semi-rugged laptop with 4 GB RAM cost $1750 on ebay.

It has a touchscreen! It is not a tablet that swivels, but of course other Panasonic models do have that. Using a stylus rather than a mouse or touchpad on a portable device is very nice. The electronic outlets like USB, card slot, and monitor output are well protected by covers. The built in handle is fantastic, and this thing is durable enough that I could beat and assailant while it was running and it probably would not impact performance, though I have not tried. I have not examined thoroughly what technology they have regarding disk drive breaking during device acceleration as the Macbooks have. Nonetheless the hard drives are also said to be well protected. It is highly water resistant and the battery lasts for 5 or 6 hours.

If you are willing to pay a bit extra for a truly well made and useful machine, I recommend buying a CF-74 if you can find it for under $2000.

I do want to mention that there seems to be no support for Linux on this device. Virtualising obviously should be no problem, but it is annoying to be condemned to Windows to be able to utilise all the hardware devices such as touch screen. I will report my results when I really start messing around with it.

A word on Macs: the Macbook pro I used last year with 2 GB runs about $2500. After a year of use, I acknowledge that the OS is nice to have. The capability of Apple, a Unix based very flashy graphical OS to also Parallelise Windows and Linux is impressive, but overall, Macs are just attractive designer products and trendy status symbols. They are not at all worth their price tag when it comes to productivity or usefulness. Anyone hardcore about Unix like my astrophysicist friends runs Linux on a cheaper machine like a Lenovo Thinkpad. Those machines can virtualise Windows or emulate using WINE as needed. My cousin who is a professional film maker does well to have a MacBook pro, but I would not recommend a Mac to anyone outside that field at this point.

Irony

2007-12-16T20:00:00.000-08:00

Via Ron Paul:

“The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.”
-Alan 'Bubbles' Greenspan, 1966

The 'Bubbles' were my addition.

WC Socialism

2007-12-12T22:12:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has ever traveled to Amsterdam or a developing country can appreciate a clean city and good sanitation when suddenly it is no longer there. In Amsterdam, and to a lesser extent the rest of Holland, bathroom usage comes at a price varying by establishment. The result of this price means that a large percentage of inhabitants use the city itself as their toilet rather than the costly facilities all around. In Amsterdam, the practice is so widespread that the city wreaks of urine and public outdoor urinals without proper drainage are placed through the city as a patch on a problem seen as impossible to enforce. The United States and many other developed countries by contrast mandate that most establishments which serve food and all gas stations provide free facilities which meet some minimum health standards though results vary. As a result, most places in those countries do not smell of human waste. Sensible Switzerland, on balance the best run country on Earth, provides very clean, well designed, and low-maintenance public toilets complete with drug paraphernalia disposal facilities in many public parks.

Bathroom regulation is a good example of how a minimal and passive government standards on quality and service provision can create tremendous welfare benefits for society as a whole as widespread negative externalities are cheaply eliminated. In general, I prefer a society in which government governs as little as possible and only when the welfare benefits far outweigh the costs to the affected members of society. Though it is vague to say it, freedom itself should be valued at a high price in social welfare calculations in evaluating the merits of a potential new tax, public work project, or regulation. Negative externalities can however quickly outweigh even very high freedom opportunity costs in justifying regulation. There is unquestionably some role for government to grease the wheels of society and preserve social order and wellbeing. After visiting Amsterdam, I did become a bathroom socialist.

Jacque Fresco: Future by Design

2007-10-28T21:03:00.000-07:00

Jacques Fresco is an engineer, inventor, futurist and visionary. I believe his name will eventually become commonly known years after his passing. Future By Design (torrent) is a documentary film about the work and ideas of Jacque Fresco. Fresco has a fairly coherent vision for the transition of our civilisation to a prosperous and harmonious Type I civilisation. Mostly this involves education and culturally focusing humanity towards embracing and shaping technology to take care of our living needs, so that we might be free to pursue the higher goals. The DVD currently available on the Venus Project's website contains a book, Designing the Future.

He does not have all the answers nor does he propose that he will make a Utopia. He claims only that his ideas are a far better direction that the one in which we are currently headed. He takes a rational, analytical engineering approach towards designing an economy and infrastructure which automatically satisfies the basic needs of humanity in a sustainable way. A must see.

Ron Paul News Blog

2007-10-14T15:47:00.000-07:00

Ron Paul's Campaign has been picking up momentum. Unfortunately he is still way too far behind Guiliani for the moment. That aside, Ron Paul News is a great new blog tracking the best Presidential candidate to come forth in generations.

Incidentally, I have donated 50 USD to Paul's campaign as a small token of my support.

Google Shared Stuff

2007-10-02T23:13:00.000-07:00

Google has a new feature, Shared Stuff. My "Shared Stuff" page is linked to on the right of this blog in the Recommended Section. This section will include pages which are not shared in the Google Reader Shared section.

Demonoid, Down Again.

2007-09-25T21:13:00.000-07:00

Demonoid, one of the best torrent sites featuring rich content of all sorts has been taken down by its Canadian ISP. A sad day indeed.

*Update* Apparently the info was incorrect. They had a problem in upgrading servers, and this useful resource will return.

*Update 2* Sorry, its really dead this time.

Columbia University hosts Ahmadinejad

2007-09-25T10:35:00.000-07:00

Reacting to yesterdays news regarding behaviour unbefitting an elite academic institution, a loyal reader had this to say.

*Update* A good Charlie Rose interview conducted before the Columbia University incident.

The Northwest Passage

2007-09-17T07:11:00.000-07:00

In all of recorded history, the Northwest Passage has been blocked by arctic ice making the route unnavigable. It is now open for business, a cause for great concern.

Google Reader Part Deux

2007-09-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

In the past few months, I have come to use Google Reader as a source for 95% of my news. Even high frequency sites I have come to accept on the reader as I have better learned to skim the headlines and not read every posting or article. There is now some fracturing of the RSS domain in which some sites give you all the content via the feed so you need not leave the Reader interface, whilst others, usually commercial news outlets, give just a snippet and force you to visit their page to view the entire article. They then can bombard you with adverts, assuming one lacks the appropriate Firefox plugins.

Unfortunately Google Reader can be so useful that it becomes somewhat addicting and time consuming. The more feeds to which one subscribes, the more one feels compelled to read. Technologies are available to distil and repackage customised information from feeds.

Besides the aforementioned sharing ability of the Reader, the Reader finally received a Search box recently which greatly enhances its utility. My shared feed is of course available. I would point to this as the cause of my decline in postings. Many of the things I wish to share with the world speak for themselves in these articles.

Today, on the Companion Page, I have exported and published my current list of RSS feeds. You can import this file directly into your own Reader Account. (More Podcasts to come)

Happy Reading.

Monetary Theory and Policy

2007-09-11T11:07:00.000-07:00

Having had some brilliant lecturers in college, particularly in History, I have always wished that those lectures would have been recorded for the world to appreciate. Gradually lectures are making their way onto the Internet. Berkeley seems to be making progress. I just discovered Mark Thoma, author of the quality Economist's View blog has his Monetary Theory and Policy course online through Google Video.

A Suggestion for Microsoft

2007-09-10T20:42:00.000-07:00

With the Windows Vista flop, M$ tried to position itself to compete directly with Apple on image alone. Undoubtedly, the Vista eye candy was in impressive display as are the animations of OSX. Having used a MacBook Pro for over a year now, I can tell you that I am less and less impressed by Apple by the day. Perhaps the biggest reason is that virtualised Windows under Parallels seems to run faster and more cleanly than all of the Mac applications. OSX I end up just using as a shell in which I run Windows. Everyone loves to slam Windows, but XP runs stably, quickly, and very easily. Compared to Linux, getting something to run just as you want it in Windows is a real breeze especially for the amateur. This has much to do with market share and demand, but some credit has to be given to good design also.

M$ is now aiming to compete directly with VMWare in the Virtualisation market. A wise move. By the way, VMW is a really good short and I am going to start buying Put options. I did not track the dot com era stocks much at the time, but this is a classic dot com irrational exuberance or simply a misinformed market. Dont get me wrong, they have a great product, but they also have much powerful competition right on their tails (Citrix, M$, Parallels). They are already giving their VMWare Server away for free. How could the market capitalisation then be anywhere near Adobe? Remember you heard it here first.

Back to M$. The one thing I still respect and cannot take away from Apple after all the pretty graphics and sexiness has lost its lustre: it is based on Unix, ie FreeBSD. It is therefore able to run any Linux application with an easy to use front end and the possibility to Virtualise or incorporate M$ products. In other words, it is a computing Superset. This flexibility alone makes having an Apple somewhat justifiable especially for scientists, quantitative researchers, and anyone in Graphics Editing.

M$ could close this gap and take back some market share from Apple by taking a few years to completely rewrite its OS this time with a Unix kernel following Apple's lead. I believe there are intelligent people in Redmond and working for M$ in India and China who still have much to offer humanity be it in OS, personal or industrial intelligent devices, other periferal software, etc. They yet could sell an OS which would be far less the disdain of computer geeks everywhere and which they actually might start to prefer above other Unices (OSX, Ubuntu, Fedora). It would be a bold and risky move to radically change course as I proposed. They should either do this and have hope of long run survival and even leadership, or they can suck out whatever is left from their current OS whilst pursuing something entirely different and dooming themselves to eventual irrelevance, hopefully still returning significant value to stockholders in the meanwhile.

As a closing thought, I used to think like one of those geeks unsatisfied with closed-source models of mediocrity, or perhaps just like an economist opposed to monopolies. However, M$ can no longer be considered a monopoly and their products, closed source though they may be, are much more stable than they used to be. I therefore have for the most part lost my disdain for them.

Charlie Rose

2007-09-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

Charlie Rose is probably the best Interviewer I know. His interview technique is calm, respectful, engaging, and empathetic set in a minimalist black set with an unparalleled guest list. The programming used to be pay-only Google Video (besides being broadcast on PBS). Thankfully, that arrangement has terminated. It now seems his content is available freely and rightly so. Valuable video feed.

Brad DeLong Lecture Podcast

2007-09-09T21:20:00.000-07:00

My favourite economist, J. Brad DeLong of Berkeley has published on his new Podcast his lectures from this years course American Economic History. The sound quality is unusually good.

Open Media Content

2007-09-09T12:18:00.001-07:00

Occasionally on this blog I make strong criticisms of Copyright Law. Given the recent controversy of the BBC iPlayer OS limitation and DRM, I would like to state unequivocally that publicly sponsored media including NPR, PBS, BBC, CBC, ABC, etc, should all be licenced as Creative Commons or similar licence. The distribution of such content should therefore not be distributed with DRM but rather under the most cost effective means to deliver the information to the masses and allow even the "mashup" or editing and redistribution of such content with the appropriate credit and disclaimers. This would also apply to scientific articles supported by publicly funded research. In that case, all research materials including lab notebooks and instrument readouts should be published freely in the public domain excluding information which could violate personal privacy or public (National) security.

Richard Dawkins, Galapagos Lectures

2007-09-06T00:34:00.000-07:00

On an eco-tourist cruise to the Galapagos aboard the Santa Cruz, Richard Dawkins delivers several lectures on population genetics and the evolutionary process. Having read several of his books and watched most of his documentaries, I assumed I had just about exhausted his educational potential. This lecture series showed me the fallacy of this assumption. These are some of the best lectures I have heard on the subject, beautifully delivered as always by the eloquent professor. Available at Demonoid. Some lectures available at Google Video.

Irrational Living Practices

2007-09-05T10:40:00.000-07:00

Every year, some fairly predictable natural disaster occurs and devastates large areas of land creating human death and misery and property damage. Earthquakes, flooding, and hurricanes come to mind. After the disaster, affected regions usually prey upon the sympathy of others to rebuild their homes and cities through both charity and governmental subsidy. A notable example is the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Army Corps of Engineers was widely blamed for the failure of the levies and the subsequent flooding. 1) The inefficiencies of the legal code to deploy National Guard soldiers without the consent of a State Government combined with 2) the normal inefficiencies and ineffectiveness of government at all levels and 3) a general lack of psychological preparedness for infrequent devastating events resulted finally in an anarchistic, violent scenario of devastation and distress. The reconstruction efforts have basically followed in the same mode despite billions in subsidies and tax cuts.

The critical problem which is politically incorrect to address is who decided it was a good idea to build their house in a flood zone in the first place. In the case of New Orleans, the sad answer was everybody, but especially the poor. Since in economic terms the wealthy had far more to lose, it makes sense that the wealthiest areas of New Orleans were constructed on somewhat more secure ground. It is not fair to say, however, that the risks living below sea level next to one of the world's largest rivers which regularly changes course was properly priced into the housing market. Most people who build their houses in flood zones are either ignorant of the risks, risk loving and possibly irrational, a very high personal discount rate, or a very high preference for living in those areas. Unfortunately psyche of humans, like many pack or herd species, is far more prone to feel secure in a clearly irrational situation so long as everyone else does the same.

A related problem of course is the question of climate change. Far more people are in far greater danger than Katrina owing to probable climate change from human activity. Many major cities are rationally addressing the fallout by considering dikes and other technologies to ensure the cities survive intact. Others are intelligent and ambitious enough to build flood-proof houses.

Whenever possible, avoiding a confrontation with nature is the wisest course of action. Reducing greenhouse emissions and not constructing cheaply in a predictable future disaster area are good rules of thumb. In the event of an inevitable but unfortunate catastrophe, federal governments in all of their fiscal inefficiency ought not be expected to pay.

Death in Iraq

2007-08-28T08:05:00.000-07:00

The 20th Century saw unprecedented violence, crimes of war, and deliberate genocide on a scale never before seen. Thanks to George Bush and all those who supported his invasion of Iraq, it seems the 21st Century is starting out in the same tradition. Last year the Lancet published this article from researchers at the John's Hopkins School of Public Health with the following findings:

...data from 1849 households that contained 12 801 individuals in 47 clusters was gathered. 1474 births and 629 deaths were reported during the observation period. Pre-invasion mortality rates were 5·5 per 1000 people per year (95% CI 4·3–7·1), compared with 13·3 per 1000 people per year (10·9–16·1) in the 40 months post-invasion. We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654 965 (392 979–942 636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2·5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601 027 (426 369–793 663) were due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire.

Forgetting that many American soldiers jingoistically volunteered to fight in Iraq, American propaganda outlets regularly report on the number of US soldiers that have been killed in the invasion of Iraq while rarely reporting on cumulative death tolls among Iraqi civilians. Meanwhile, the United States accepts less than 100 (figure awaiting confirmation) Iraqi or Afghan refugees every year. The mass genocide and crimes against humanity that have been caused directly or indirectly by the US Government with popular support need to be acknowledged, taught, and remembered alongside the numerous atrocities of the previous century. The politicians complicit in an immoral, illegal, and unjustified invasion including Senators and members of Congress should be tried before an International War Crimes body. The removal of a single tyrranical ruler and his imaginary war machine could have occurred with a single bullet or missile. The neoconservative experiment to impose a peaceful democratic system of government on an unwilling people by force and at great expense in money and lives has failed utterly as any informed and thinking person could have predicted. Never again.

Urban Liveability

2007-08-24T08:47:00.000-07:00

Economist Intelligence Unit has ranked world cities by liveability. Unsurprisingly, Canadian, Australian, and Swiss cities rank highest.

Suprnova

2007-08-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

The legendary torrent site Suprnova, down for several years, has been resurrected with the help of the PirateBay. Warning: Users of such public torrent sites in areas vulnerable to copyright enforcement tend to be more exposed to monitoring and legal threat. Private sites like Demonoid, BitMe, BitMeTV, and UKNova tend to be safer because of their requirements for upload ratios and their exclusivity.

More Screens

2007-08-19T07:05:00.001-07:00

Most people still use one monitor 17-19 inches for their computing display needs. Quality large screen monitors with good resolution such as the Apple 2560x1600 Cinema display still run an unreasonable 1800 USD. A good solution to increase productivity and ease of use is to add 200 USD 19 inch flat monitors to your display. Going from 1 to 2 monitors yields a vast improvement. My workstation consists of a 8 x 19 inch monitor grid powered by 2 x NVIDIA Quadro NVS graphics cards physically supported by 2 x Ergotron DS 100 Quad monitor desk stands for a combined 10.4 million pixel display for around 2700 USD, or 3800 px/USD. Considering the Cinema displays run at 2275 px/USD, my setup, though somewhat excessive, provides good bang per buck.

When using several monitors in Windows, the programme Utramon (torrents) is an indispensable addition. It extends the task bar to every monitor and adds several other simple but effective multiple monitor utilities.

Cosmic Variance

2007-08-18T10:21:00.000-07:00

Cosmic Variance is a highly regarded web log for those with a particular interest in Astronomy and Physics but do not necessarily hold graduate degrees. It is authored by seven different contributors, experts in their field.

Blog Recommendation: Charles Kenny

2007-08-15T08:16:00.000-07:00

Charles Kenny has a blog about Development and Welfare Economics.

Scitalks

2007-08-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

Scitalks is a Web video site which links to interesting scientifically relevant material.

(Unfortunately much of the content is in RealPlayer or streaming Windows Media format)

Virgin America Inaugural Flight

2007-08-08T18:28:00.000-07:00

For too long, American air travel has been dominated by behemoth, union-dominated, subsidised monsters which offer generally poor service all around including flight attendance. Even State airlines from socialist countries are consistently better. Virgin America gives great hope to the future of domestic airline travel in the United States in terms of both quality and competition. The San Francisco based airline has taken its inaugural flight as documented by Engaget.

gPhone

2007-08-07T07:56:00.000-07:00

Rumours abound regarding the development of a Google Phone. Certainly it makes a great deal of sense in light of their continued development of applications for mobile devices as well as their recent bid commitment for 700 MHz spectrum with the caveat of open access for mobile devices. A new rumour suggests the Google phone could be built upon the Open Source Linux openMoko phone currently under development and due to be released this fall. The openMoko has all the potential in itself to be a dominant device or at least force other commercial phones (ie iPhone) to open themselves up more (VoIP, etc). Creating an open source, add-driven phone would probably be the wisest business decision for Google and surely would highlight everything that is good about the company.

Heroin

2007-08-06T17:19:00.000-07:00

From The Insider - Heroin on the NHS (torrent):

15 years ago the Swiss had one of the highest rates of drug addiction and AIDS in Europe. They decided to radically change their drug laws. To combat the spread of the disease 6000 clean needles were dispensed every day in the Zurich park. In this safe zone, addicts could shoot up openly. Shocked by the thousands of addicts who came forward, the government swiftly took control of the illegal market. They stopped criminalising heroin and made it a medical issue instead. Clinics were set up where addicts, now patients, were given as much heroin as they needed. The results have been astonishing. Drug crime and deaths have gone down dramatically, and addiction has gone down by 90%. Prescribing heroin has almost eradicated the Swiss drug problem. Addicts can now lead normal lives and because heroin is no longer seen as cool and rebellious, far fewer young people are drawn to it in the first place.

Criminalising drug use is a formula for social disaster be it alcohol or even heroin. Drug regulation through taxation, registration, or controlled usage may be beneficial to a society, but the focus of any law should be in maximising the welfare of everyone affected. At the end of the day, what a person does with their own body is their business so long as others are not negatively impacted.

Heroin by the Velvet Underground.

Missile Defence

2007-08-06T15:36:00.000-07:00

Under the Bush administration, in 2002 the United States withdrew from the anti-Ballistic Missle Treaty and began to pursue an ABM system. According to a Congressional Budget Report, the total estimated expense of the system by 2024 could be as high as 247 billion USD. In the Cold War, an ABM system would have been quite an advantage given the Nuclear Missile Technology of the 20th Century. I put forward the idea that if a legitimately recognised Nation State possessing nuclear weapons did wish to deliver them to a target, 21st Century technology including unmanned subs and UAVs will make the delivery of such devices far easier to deliver than launching a Ballistic Missile. Even using 3000 year old technology such as shipping the nuclear device covertly in a standard shipping container would have a high probability of success. Subverting an advanced technology is always much cheaper than the technology's development.

A regular criticism of the US military is that they are constantly fighting the previous war rather than looking ahead. The money spent on Missile Defence will be completely wasted. The United States in developing this technology continues to alienate its allies, a cost which is high but difficult to quantify. Imagine if instead the $247 billion were either never spent at all or rather spent on basic scientific research grants or technological competition such as the DARPA Challenge.

Wii

2007-08-06T06:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I played Wii for the first time. The game was Mario Strikers Charged, which should be called Mario Football. A motion sensitive vibrating pointing wand adds a completely new dimension to human-machine interaction. It reminds me of the leap from keyboard to mouse. In itself, it is just a toy, but one which demonstrates the advanced creativity and ingenuity of the Japanese and foreshadows future technology interfaces.

Mormons

2007-08-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

PBS recently produced a 4 hour documenatary series about the Mormons (torrents). An accurate and fairly respectful work, it does gloss over some of the stranger sides of Mormon theology. Mormonism is in many respects an American Muslim styled religion although this parallel is completely ignored by the documentary and probably most Mormons themselves. South Park had a very good episode "All About the Mormons" from Season 7. Given that Mormons now even have a US Presidential candidate, they are worth understanding.

Atom

2007-08-04T18:35:00.000-07:00

The new BBC 4 documentary, Atom, hosted by Jim Al-Khalili, is one of the best documentary series I have seen this year. It focuses on the development of the modern theory of the atom and quantum physics. Available on the usual torrent networks.

NASA

2007-07-26T21:45:00.000-07:00

Thanks to one of Bush's brilliant ideas, NASA's budget is now mostly wasted in M2M (the human Mission to Mars) and the rest on the shuttle and ISS. A recent NPR interview put the orginisation further in question. Michael Griffin, director of NASA, doubted whether we would not all be better off under global warming and therefore should not prioritise its abatement.

With regards to the manned Space programme, NASA has recently experienced an astronaut bizarre love triangle and now allegations of drunken flight and systems sabotage. If NASA is to exist, which I believe it no longer should, its beneficial role should be to fund Earth Science, Astronomy, Aerospace Engineering, and general technology research in the public interest.

The Mars Rover and the Galileo and Cassini missions are examples of the incredible benefits that can come from a serious scientifically driven Space agency. The scientific value for those programmes has vastly exceeded the costs because they had the right idea: robotic exploration of outer space. Humans were not designed to live in space and so far the cost of such adventures is no were close to the benefits. Let human space exploration take place commercially as Richard Branson and Burt Rutan are demonstrating. Let scientists do their jobs correctly, and stop distorting their mission and their budgets with a child's fantasy. If children want to go into space, let them finance it themselves.

Linux, Peu à Peu

2007-07-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

I mentioned before that given my disgust with M$ Vista, all future PCs I run would be Linux with a virtualised Windows Server 2003 Enterprise session. Despite my flirtations with Linux, Windows frankly works for every application I need personally or professionally and I cannot use Linux just as I cannot use OS X perpetually without a Parallels Windows session running inside. Do not get me wrong; I want to see Open Source Linux come to dominate computer operating systems, but in the short run it can only attract users by doing absolutely everything a normal Windows PC can do with the same level of convenience and full compatibility. Even some of the most enthusiastic Linux geeks I know have found themselves getting sucked back into Windows.

I have recommended Parallels especially for Mac users given the coherence feature. VMWare has some other advantages like hosting and remote connection as well as mountable bootable partitions rather than strictly virtual hard drives. VMWare Server is now free!

Finally, I have made this change for my personal PC which is set to Ubuntu Fiesty Fawn 32 bit natively with VMWare running WinXP32. Using this guide it was fairly straightforward as far as Linux installs go. Unfortunately for enterprise level 64 bit computing, the free VMWare Server does not yet cut the mustard. You need the multi-k$ version for that apparently. Peu à peu, we will be always running Linux. I am now doing it, and so can you.

Robert Hanson on Intellectual Property

2007-07-26T09:50:00.000-07:00

Robert Hanson, GWT developer and author of the well regarded guide GWT in Action, has a great new post on his blog. He shares the practical viewpoint with the rest of the rational and uncorrupted world that piracy is generally a good and inevitable phenomenon and that Open Source is generally the best model to develop software not just in the aggregate, but also for specific customers. He rightly chastises those who follow the closed-source model of development. Furthermore this post explains the usefulness to Java developers of the JAD Eclipse plugin. Since Hanson praises piracy, it is worth noting that his book is available on several torrent networks.

Ron Paul

2007-07-19T13:42:00.000-07:00

Ron Paul, a staunch libertarian, recently interviewed at Google as part of his campaign for the Presidency of the US - a must see. Many of his espoused positions such as supporting the gold and silver standards for public currency seem impractical or irrelevant, yet they are based upon sound legal foundation, ie the US Constitution. He is a candidate who is easy to distort, yet his solid character, sound principles, and political idealism are undeniable.

It is clear that the letter of the law set out by the Constitution has gradually been eroded and perverted by activist judicial decisions, misguided lawmakers, and tyrannical Presidents. Rather than a politically isolationist Republic of free citizens, the United States has become a fascist empire, able to invade, occupy, or completely eliminate other nations in blitzkrieg at the whim of a single individual. While most other current presidential candidates have supported these illegal and immoral policies, or at least in principle would use such illegal power under certain circumstances, Ron Paul is one of the few who has always in principle and practice been opposed (eg the Conquest of Iraq).

Through the "War on Drugs," a war against its own populace, their property, and freedom itself, the United States Government manifestly defecates upon the Enlightenment principles upon which it was founded and the cannabis paper upon which it was written. Any convoluted judicial argument for the legality of such policies should have long ago resulted in the prompt impeachment of any supporting justices and the arrest of any enforcing agents. By continuing to prosecute this crime against humanity, the US Government has undermined its own legitimacy.

As directed in the Constitution, Ron Paul supports States' rights in legislating or enforcing powers not guaranteed to the federal government in the Constitution.

On the Colbert Report where I was exposed to Paul, he supported the elimination of almost every federal agency and administration including United Nations agencies. In the interview, he comes off as somewhat of an extremist, yet in fact he is perhaps one of the few sane, thinking, and principled. I have little doubt that if given a proper chance, most of the World would gladly welcome a man such as this to take over the Presidency.

I realise that that the ideas asserted in this post probably do more to paint both Paul and myself as extremists than anything else, but I encourage readers to watch the Google interview and decide for themselves what the best course would be for the United States to follow.