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James Howard Kunstler: Globalisation is an anomaly and its time is running out

The big yammer these days in the United States is to the effect that globalisation is here to stay: it's wonderful, get used to it. The chief cheerleader for this point of view is Thomas Friedman, columnist for the New York Times and author of The World Is Flat. The seemingly unanimous embrace of this idea in the power circles of America is a marvellous illustration of the madness of crowds, for nothing could be further from the truth than the idea that globalisation is now a permanent fixture of the human condition. Today's transient global economic relations are a product of very special transient circumstances, namely relative world peace and absolutely reliable supplies of cheap energy. Subtract either of these elements from the equation and you will see globalisation evaporate so quickly it will suck the air out of your lungs. It is significant that none of the cheerleaders for globalisation takes this equation into account. In fact, the American power elite is sleepwalking into a crisis so severe that the blowback may put both major political parties out of business. The world saw an earlier phase of robust global trade run from the 1870s to a dead stop in 1914. This was the boom period of railroad construction and the advent of the ocean-going steamship. The great powers had existed in relative peace since Napoleon's last stand. The Crimean war was a minor episode that took place in backwaters of Eurasia, and the Franco-Prussian war was a comic opera that lasted less than a year - most of it the static siege of Paris. The American civil war hardly affected the rest of the world. This first phase of globalisation then took off under coal-and-steam power. There was no shortage of fuel, the colonial boundaries were stable, and the pipeline of raw materials from them to the factories of western Europe ran smoothly. The rise of a middle class running the many stages of the production process provided markets for all the new production. Innovations in finance gave legitimacy to all kinds of tradable paper. Life was very good for Europe and America, notwithstanding a few sharp cyclical depressions and recoveries. Trade boomed between the great powers. The belle époque represented the high tide of hopeful expectations. In America, it was called the progressive era. The 20th century looked golden. It all fell apart in 1914. Historians are still baffled about what really brought on the first world war. What did France or Britain really care about Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of a country already in deep eclipse? There were no active contests over territory at the time, not even in the Asian or African colonies. And yet the diplomatic failures of that fateful summer led to the great slaughter of the trenches, the death of a substantial portion of the younger generation, and a virtual nervous breakdown of authority in politics and culture. It would take a depression, fascism, and a second world war to resolve these issues and a new round of globalisation did not ramp up again until the mid-1960s. It may be significant that the first collapse of globalisation occurred as the coal economy was transitioning into an oil economy, with deep geo-political implications for who had oil (America) and those who might seek to control the other major region closest to Europe that possessed it (then the Caspian, since Arabian oil was as yet undiscovered). The first world war was settled by those nations (Britain and France) that were friendly with the greatest producer of oil most readily accessed. Germany was the loser and again in the reprise for its poor access to oil. Japan suffered similarly. We are now due for another folding up of the periodic global trade fair as the industrial nations enter the tumultuous era beyond the global oil production peak, which I have named the long emergency. The economic distortions and perversities that have built up in the current era are not hard to see, though our leaders dread to acknowledge them. The dirty secret of the US economy for at least a decade now is that it has come to be based on the ceaseless elaboration of a car-dependent suburban infrastructure - McHousing estates, eight-lane highways, big-box chain stores, hamburger stands - that has no future as a living arrangement in an oil-short future. The American suburban juggernaut can be described succinctly as the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world. The mortgages, bonds, real estate investment trusts and derivative financial instruments associated with this tragic enterprise must make the judicious goggle with wonder and nausea. Add to this grim economic picture a far-flung military contest, already under way, really, for control of the world's remaining oil, and the scene grows darker. Two-thirds of that oil is in the possession of people who resent the west (America in particular), many of whom have vowed to destroy it. Both America and Britain have felt the sting of freelance asymmetrical war-makers not associated with a particular state but with a transnational religious cause that uses potent small arms and explosives to unravel western societies and confound their defences. China, a supposed beneficiary of globalisation, will be as desperate for oil as all the other players, and perhaps more ruthless in seeking control of the supplies, some of which they can walk to. Of course, it is hard to imagine the continuation of American chain stores' manufacturing supply lines with China, given the potential for friction. Even on its own terms, China faces issues of environmental havoc, population overshoot, and political turmoil - orders of magnitude greater than anything known in Europe or America. Viewed through this lens, the sunset of the current phase of globalisation seems dreadfully close to the horizon. The American public has enjoyed the fiesta, but the blue-light special orgy of easy motoring, limitless air-conditioning, and super-cheap products made by factory slaves far far away is about to close down. Globalisation is finished. The world is about to become a larger place again. · James Howard Kunstler is the author of The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century kunstler@aol.com

When Capital Goes to the Founders, Not the Company

The phenomenon isn't entirely new. John Doerr, a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, notes that when he and his partners invested in Intuit, the business software maker, in the mid-1980s, "none of the money went into the company. It was all to buy founders' stock shares." "We always prefer that the money be used to build the company," Mr. Doerr said. But the desire to own a piece of a hot company, he said, sometimes trumps that sentiment. Indeed, he said Kleiner Perkins was currently considering just such an investment in one enterprise. Typically, the founders are the sole beneficiaries of these deals. Webroot, for instance, raised $108 million in venture capital last February. A large share of that money is being used to open offices around the globe, said Mike Irwin, Webroot's chief financial officer, and to expand the company's product offering. But some of that $108 million -- Mr. Irwin would not say how much -- went directly to the company's two creators, Steve Thomas and Kristen Talley, who founded the company in 1997. They still own a share of Webroot but neither works for the company. In eHarmony's case, 116 people benefited financially when the company, which was started in 1999, announced last December that it had raised $110 million. The word within the venture capital community is that less than $30 million of that sum went into the company coffers. Mr. Forgatch said that was inaccurate, but he would provide no specifics. "It's not my place to talk about personal finances of 115 other people," he said. Mr. Forgatch argues that the venture deal he helped to craft is good for the company, based in Pasadena, Calif., as well as for the people who benefited. And he may be right. The transaction served as a kind of release valve that helped quiet the collective impulse among eHarmony insiders to see the company go public. An incremental payoff for their hard work, Mr. Forgatch said, "allows everyone to focus on the mission."

Folic acid linked to birth weight

Bigger babies tend to be more healthy A team at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne studied nearly 1,000 women and their newborn babies. Low birth weight is associated with an increased risk of serious health problems, including respiratory disorders and diabetes. The research is published in the British Journal of Nutrition. FOLATE Also known as folic acid, or Vitamin B9 Found in vegetables (broccoli, spinach), fruit (oranges, grapefruits) and wholemeal products like bread or cereals Recommended intake is 200 micrograms per day Women are advised to take an additional 400 micrograms a day before conception and during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy Women are already advised to take folic acid supplements if trying to conceive, and through the early weeks of pregnancy as the vitamin is known to reduce the risk of neural tube defects such as spina bifida. But this is the first time the vitamin has been linked to birth weight. Smoking factor The Newcastle team say their work adds weight to the argument that bread and cereals should be routinely fortified with folic acid. They found pregnant women who smoked were more likely to have lower levels of folate in their blood - which might explain why women who smoke often have lighter babies. It is estimated that around 7% of all babies born in the UK are low birth weight - defined as less than 2.4kg (5.5lbs). THE BENEFITS Ruth Reckitt took folic acid before and during pregnancy She had twins: Jude was 2.6kg (5lb 10oz) and Nell was 2.9 kg (6lb7oz) Ruth said: "I knew that folic acid was good for me and my babies in many ways." Medical evidence suggests that folic acid influences birth weight because it is an essential nutrient for growth and plays a role in gene expression in the foetus. The researchers say smoking is likely to reduce a women's folate levels because it may alter the ability of the cell to metabolise and ultimately store the vitamin. Lead researcher Dr Caroline Relton said: "Folic acid is highly important in preventing birth defects which affect a small number of pregnancies. "This study suggests that it is also important in every pregnancy to help the developing baby reach a healthy birth weight. "However, many women are missing this critical window in the first few weeks of gestation during which their baby really needs folic acid to grow and develop. "The evidence from this study strengthens the argument for fortifying everyday foods like bread and cereals with folic acid. FORTIFICATION The Food Standards Agency has opposed fortification of foodstuffs with folic acid It is concerned increasing the amount of folic acid we eat could make it harder to spot a deficiency of vitamin B12, which can lead to neurological damage The FSA will reconsider its position after an investigation by a top team of scientists reports on the issue later this year "Fortifying a range of foods promises to be a more effective solution than a campaign to encourage women to take folic acid supplements. "Our previous research shows younger women and those from deprived backgrounds are less likely to take these supplements, and although some cereals are currently fortified in the UK, they tend to be the more expensive, brand-name products." Dr Robert Frazer, an expert in obstetrics at Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, told the BBC News website more work was required to prove cause and effect. He said low levels of folate were also associated with a poor diet in general, which might have a negative effect on a baby's growth. But he said: "There is already a strong case for fortification of flour to prevent neural tube defects, and if it turns out that higher levels of folate are also associated with improved growth rates for the baby, then that would be important as well."

Dylan single 'changed the world'

Bob Dylan released Like a Rolling Stone as a single in 1965 The 1965 single beat Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel into second place in the survey for Uncut magazine. Sir Paul McCartney, Noel Gallagher, Robert Downey Jr, Rolling Stone Keith Richards and Lou Reed were among those who gave their opinions. Rocker Patti Smith said of the winning song: "It got me through adolescence." MUSIC, FILMS, TV AND BOOKS THAT 'CHANGED THE WORLD' 1. Bob Dylan Like a Rolling Stone 2. Elvis Presley Heartbreak Hotel 3. The Beatles She Loves You 4. The Rolling Stones (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction 5. A Clockwork Orange 6. The Godfather and The Godfather II 7. David Bowie The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust 8. Taxi Driver 9. Sex Pistols Never Mind The Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols 10. The Prisoner Source: Uncut magazine Ex-Beatle Sir Paul picked Heartbreak Hotel as his number one choice. He said: "It's the way [Presley] sings it as if he is singing from the depths of hell. "His phrasing, use of echo, it's all so beautiful. Musically, it's perfect." Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange was the highest-placed movie at number five, followed by The Godfather and The Godfather II films. The Prisoner was the top-ranking TV series at number 10 while Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road was the highest book, in 19th place. Band Aid is the only song that has really changed the world MB, Nottingham Have Your Say Actors Edward Norton and Juliette Lewis and ex-Beach Boy Brian Wilson also took part in the poll, marking the magazine's 100th issue. Uncut editor Allan Jones said: "This list has been a massive undertaking and considering which films have had a greater cultural impact than Bowie, for example, has fuelled many discussions. "What we have been left with is Dylan as the most seminal artistic statement of the last five decades - but I'm sure others will disagree."

Who Do We Work For?

Hi, I’m Mark Nottingham. I currently co-chair the IETF HTTP and QUIC Working Groups, and am a member of the Internet Architecture Board . I usually write here about the Web, protocol design, HTTP, and caching. Find out more . Who Do We Work For? The FT Global 500 is pretty much what you see when you look up “capitalistic orgy” in the dictionary. It’s a compilation of the largest 500 mega-corporations in the world, as measured by the market. So, when I picked up the print edition while overseas last month, I was frankly a bit surprised to see an openly soul-searching article entitled “ Fair shares?” by FT’s management editor, Michael Skapinker. It relates the concerns of those who criticize unbridled capitalism; Every time a company declines or disappears (usually because another one acquires it), people suffer. Employees lose their jobs. Their lives and those of their families are disrupted. Workplace friendships are ripped apart as staff are made redundant or forced into early retirement. Pensioners who gave their working lives to the company are deprived of the satisfaction of knowing they helped to build something enduring. Neighborhoods decline as factories, bank branches or shops close. All this to satisfy the short-term whim of stock market investors. Things get even more interesting when he turns his gaze onto how people respond to “the way that companies put shareholder value above all other interests.” [T]he most impassioned attack came in an article by Sumantra Ghoshal of London Business School, published posthumously in the US Academy of Management’s Learning & Education Journal earlier this year. Ghoshal, who died in 2004 at the early age of 55, argued that putting shareholders’ needs first was based on the outdated notion that they were the risk-takers who made capitalism possible. In fact, he said, shareholders took little risk. If they were unhappy with the company’s management, they could sell their shares. The real risk-takers were company employees, he said. For dissatisfied employees, moving jobs was much harder. It was also more difficult for companies to recruit talented and committed workers than it was to find investors. “In every substantive sense, employees of a company carry more risks than do the shareholders,” Ghoshal wrote. “Also, their contributions of knowledge, skills and entrepreneurship are typically more important than the contributions of capital by shareholders, a pure commodity that is perhaps in excess supply.” Wow (emphasis mine); that’s one of the most thought-provoking things I’ve read in some time. Mind you, Ghoshal was a respected management guru, not a raving Marxist; that said, his words could be the basis of another revolution. Hungry for more, I Googled Ghoshal’s manuscript, “ Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good Management Practices.” [pdf] “By propagating ideologically inspired amoral theories, business schools have actively freed their students from any sense of moral responsibility.” — Sumantra Ghoshal In a nutshell, Ghoshal argued that business schools have, for the past 30+ years, been preoccupied by two things, to little good result. First, they have a need to have their work considered in the same favourable light that “hard” science is, by replacing ethics with “a firm belief in causal determinism for explaining all aspects of corporate performance.” This is problematic, according to Ghoshal, because unlike in science, where the universe acts in much the same way no matter what you say about it, the object of the social sciences — people — will change based on what you think about them, either rising to the occasion or sinking as appropriate. He calls this misapplication of the scientific method “the pretense of knowledge.” The second theme is that of ideology of liberalism (in the original economic, rather than subsequent social, sense), and no name pops up more in this context than Milton Friedman. Ghoshal posits that they’ve become focused on the negative aspects of business — i.e., risks — while ignoring the positive ways that businesses and people interact. He calls this “the negative problem” of an “ideology-based gloomy vision”, which has lead to phenomenon like the complete exclusion of social benefits from business planning, because it is “irrational” and considered an aberration in a free, open market. Dismal science, indeed. I can’t help but wonder how technology can be used to help put management back on track. Right now, for example, investors can easily buy and sell the rights to a company’s future revenues with the click of a mouse; the price the market pays sends a signal to management about how they’re doing. It’s a very coarse-grained signal, however; it doesn’t say whether the investors prefer a long-term approach, or are in it for a quick ride. Since we have the technology to buy and sell so easily, can we not also have the ability to impart more information into the transaction? To tell the Board that we’d prefer them to think beyond the next quarter? That maybe they’re paying the executives too much? How hard would that be for NASDAQ or E*Trade to do?

Kent M Pitman: Thinking Aloud: FDIC

Federal Deposit Insurance (FDIC) by Kent M. Pitman ( Monday, June 6, 2005 ) The real way to protect "the little guy" is to make the FDIC protect $100,000 or $130,000 or even $500,000 per person rather than per account. It's true that the multiplicative effect you cite scales, but what doesn't scale is the availability of enough funds for the little guy to fill more than one of these accounts. If rich people (for pretty much any value of rich you want to draw) have to self-insure above a certain amount per-person (rather than per-account), it would more than pay for the ability to extend more protection to the poor. The idea that FDIC has no per-person upper bound means that rich people are protected when they keep large amounts of cash in the bank, which I think is not a necessary service of government. Fixing the FDIC Every citizen should be protected directly for some amount of their savings in any qualified bank, let's say $200K. I say directly because it would not be the institution that would be insured, it would be them personally. Instead of institutions being "FDIC insured", they would be "FDIC qualified", indicating that the FDIC considered them to be an appropriate risk for consumers to be placing their money there, and is willing to pay to cover losses against the direct insurance if such an institution goes bust. Any citizen who has less than the protected amount deposited in FDIC insured institutions signs a notice with their bank confirming this fact. The FDIC must report the amount of the deposit and a tax-id number, and can cross-check retroactively that this was not violated before paying on a premium. If a citizen has more than $200K deposited, they may either elect to spread their protection generally across their money, such that no loss may cut into that base $200K, or they may designate a specific portion of their money to be protected and the other portion to not be protected. So if I have $300K in one bank and $150K in another bank, and the smaller bank went bankrupt, I would lose all $150K because I still had $300K remaining unless I specifically had designated that the $150K was protected from that account and only $50K from the other account. In that case, if the larger bank went bankrupt, I would lose $250K. Most people would probably want the blanket coverage, but some people might not. I add this option mostly for completeness because I don't really think it hurts things as long as the FDIC is doing a fairly good job of approving only reputable banks in the first place. There should be special protection (either special insurance, or a requirement to give back money recently acquired if bankruptcy is about to occur, as sometimes happens for other expenses recently occurred) for the case I heard someone on C-SPAN cite today where someone sells a house, deposits the check, and then the next day the bank is out of business. That's just a weird case that it can't be very expensive for the government to insure against specially. Making that be a justification as to why people need huge lines of protection doesn't make sense. Allow the person to safely cash any such large check once a year (to avoid people getting extra insurance by constantly moving money) and then to distribute the funds within a rational period of time (perhaps 2-3 months). This is critically important since in the modern world one cannot just walk in and get that much cash to hold themselves-they are veritably forced to put the money in a bank by present day banking laws, especially lately with the Patriot Act trying to track where such large amounts of money go. Rationale This proposal has the following good effects:

DIRELAND: THE REAL AIPAC SPY RING STORY--IT WAS ALL ABOUT IRAN

« RESTORING PASOLINI (Updated) | Main | AFTER THE BOMBINGS: TWO LETTERS FROM LONDON » August 05, 2005 THE REAL AIPAC SPY RING STORY--IT WAS ALL ABOUT IRAN Here's what the stories in today's Washington Post and New York Times on the new indictments of the two AIPAC spies aren't telling you: their espionage was principally about helping to prepare an attack by Israel on Iran. And one of the Israeli embassy officials who knows all about AIPAC's role in helping plan the attack on Iran has been whisked out of the country and out of the reach of U.S. prosecutors, the Israeli daily Ha'aretz reports this morning. The neo-cons in the Pentagon had long been arguing for an attack on Iran to take out its nuclear facilities that had the potential to be converted for development of nuclear weapons. Wolfie's man Doug Feith (below left) had been particularly assiduous in pressing the case for a "forward strategy" against Iran. Feith's views are madly extremist, and Jim Zogby collected them in an April profile of Feith that should scare the pants off of anyone rational. (Feith's been a major activist for years with the viciously anti-Arab crazies of the ZOA, the Zionist Organization of America). When, for purely electoral reasons with the Iraq occupation going so disastrously, the White House decided against a direct attack by the U.S. on Iran, the neo-cons went to Plan B -- an attack on Iran by proxy, from Israel. The principal classified documents leaked to Israel through AIPAC -- the leaks that that began the investigation of the AIPAC spy ring, which has been going on now for over a year -- concerned Iran. They were leaked by Feith's deputy, Larry Franklin, also now under a five-count indictment for spying. (At right, Feith and Franklin) The plan for an Israeli attack on Iran has been long envisioned -- both in Washington and by Sharon's government -- but this attack is now in a highy advanced state of planning and could come as quickly as Sharon snaps his fingers to order it. Back on March 13, the London Times -- in a report that was largely ignored in the U.S. -- reported that: "The inner cabinet of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, gave 'initial authorisation' for an attack at a private meeting last month on his ranch in the Negev desert," The London Times went on to describe how " Israeli forces have used a mock-up of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant in the desert to practise destroying it. Their tactics include raids by Israel’s elite Shaldag (Kingfisher) commando unit and airstrikes by F-15 jets from 69 Squadron, using bunker-busting bombs to penetrate underground facilities.if all international efforts to halt Iranian nuclear projects failed.And, the Times added, "US officials warned last week that a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities by Israeli or American forces had not been ruled out should the issue become deadlocked at the United Nations." Just a few weeks before that revelation of the concretization of Israeli plans for the Iran attack, Bush let the cat out of the bag in an off-the-cuff remark captured by London's Daily Telegraph, in a February 18 article headlined, "AMERICA WOULD BACK ISRAEL ATTACK ON IRAN." The Telegraph reported that Bush said: "Clearly, if I was the leader of Israel and I'd listened to some of the statements by the Iranian ayatollahs that regarded the security of my country, I'd be concerned about Iran having a nuclear weapon as well. And in that Israel is our ally, and in that we've made a very strong commitment to support Israel, we will support Israel if her security is threatened." (Above right, Bush at AIPAC's Convention). Noting that Bush had gone off the reservations and failed to follow his handlers' brefing to stick to the agreed-on script, the Telegraph dryly noted: "His comments appeared to be a departure from the administration's line that there are no plans to attack at present and that Washington backs European diplomatic efforts. The remarks may have reflected Mr Bush's personal thinking on an issue causing deep concern in Washington...." Bush's slip-of-the-tongue that revealed his real intentions was front-page news in Le Monde and other European dailies -- but got no attention in the Stateside major media. At the time Feith's deputy Franklin (and, today's indictments say, two other as yet unidentified Pentagon officials) were passing the classified documents on Iran to AIPAC for transmission to Israel, the White House had not yet given the green light to Sharon -- indeed, the Iran attack was in a holding pattern pending the outcome of negotiations over Teheran's nuke capacity being led by the European powers which, unlike the U.S., have diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Even so, U.S. fingerprints were all over the Israelis' Iran attack, which had long been envisioned by U.S. policy-makers. The respected Israeli daily Ha'aretz spelled it out last September 13, reporting: "The Clinton administration laid the foundation for that option [of attacking Iran] by giving the Rabin government the okay to purchase, with coupons, the F-15I (dubbed "Thunder" in Israel). The Bush administration will complete the task by agreeing to give Israel air-to-surface munitions that will breach the mysteries of the nuclear network in the depths of Isfahan and other sites, far more concealed than the reactor that is on worldwide display at Bushehr. What the Americans are unable to do, because of European, United Nations and Congressional pressure, Israel will do." The indictment of the two senior AIPAC staffers follows the indictment in may of Feith's footpad Larry Franklin. Franklin worked in the Office of Special Plans, run by then-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, who reported to then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. The OSP functioned as a "shadow" intelligence service on Iraq, and provided much of the information to the White House that was used to justify the American invasion of Iraq. Some wags have called it "Feith-based intelligence", since much of that intelligence and information has now been proven to be utterly false. At the beginning of May, Franklin was arrested by the FBI for the passing of classified documents to two AIPAC staffers, who were then to pass them to Israel. The documents in question concerned Iran. One of the two newly-indicted AIPACers isn't just anybody. Steve Rosen, 63, is the man who built AIPAC into the $40 million dollar Capitol Hill powerhouse it is today. (At right, AIPAC's 2005 banquet--featured speaker, Hillary Clinton). Buried in a Washington Post profile of AIPAC from May 19 is the skinny on Rosen as the power behind the scenes at AIPAC. Said the Post: "For more than two decades, Rosen has been a mainstay of AIPAC and the architect of the group's ever-increasing clout. Though Rosen was listed below Executive Director Howard Kohr on AIPAC's organizational chart, people familiar with AIPAC's history say that Kohr is a protege of Rosen's and got that job with his help. Kohr declined to be interviewed about Rosen. 'He [Rosen] is a quiet guy,' said M.J. Rosenberg, director of policy analysis for the Israel Policy Forum, another pro-Israel group, and a former AIPAC employee. 'But everyone knows he's the brains behind the outfit.'" Now, just what is AIPAC, you may well ask? AIPAC is the enforcer of the knee-jerk support for the Israeli government which characterizes the political and governing classes in this country, -- Israel is the real third rail of American politics: touch it with criticism, no matter how carefully couched, and you die. Both the Democratic and Republican parties fall all over themselves to kiss AIPAC's boots -- because AIPAC and its well-filled war-chest helps make sure they toe the line on Israel, and has been responsible for the defeat of a significant number of politicians over the years who dared to criticize Israeli policies. Earlier this year, AIPAC played a major role in destroying the candidacy of Tim Roemer for chairman of the DNC. There's an in-depth, critical profile of AIPAC by RightWeb's Michael Flynn that gives a detailed look at AIPAC's arm-and-leg-breaking political style. And the newly indicted Rosen is The Man Behind the Curtain. Even though he formally resigned from AIPAC, the organization is paying his legal bills, and Rosen is still pulling the strings. (Above left, cartoon representing Ariel Sharon, in drag, being chased in a race between the Republicans and Democrats--with AIPAC wielding the starters' gun.). The reason for putting some daylight between Rosen and AIPAC is that the puissant political arm-twister is deathly afraid it will be forced to register as a foreign lobby, as the Jewish weekly The Forward reported earlier this year. Americans don't like the sight of their elected officials pocketing campaign cash from foreign governments, and AIPAC fears being forced to register formally as a lobbyist for Israel would thus diminish their clout on Capitol Hill. Bush won't make AIPAC register, and the spineless Democratic Congressional leadership won't lead the charge to make them do so either. But today's indictments of string-puller Rosen and his AIPAC colleague for spying on the U.S. gives progressives who want to see a peaceful, two-state, land-for-peace solution between Israel and Palestine a strategic opening to press loudly for AIPAC's formal registration as a shil for the government that built the Israeli Wall of Shame. It's a measure long past due. One of the Israeli diplomats the feds want to question about the activities of the AIPAC spy ring has been quietly spirited out of the country, Ha'aretz reports this morning. "The Israeli diplomat in Washington who met several times with Franklin has been identified as Naor Gilon, head of the political department at the Israeli Embassy in Washington and a specialist on proliferation issues. Gilon returned to Israel a few days ago as 'part of a long-scheduled rotation' according to an Israeli official in Washington. U.S. investigators want to question Gilon and other Israeli diplomats about their contacts with Franklin, officials said," according to the Israeli daily. Posted by Direland at 05:53 AM | Permalink TrackBack TrackBack URL for this entry: https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c0c4453ef00d8345a624769e2 Listed below are links to weblogs that reference THE REAL AIPAC SPY RING STORY--IT WAS ALL ABOUT IRAN: » AIPAC Israeli Spies: It Was All About Iran from Shining Light in Dark Corners Since 9/11, Israel's Likud Party has had unprecidented access and influence on foreign policy in the Bush Administration. Through it's surrogate, AIPAC, and it's Administration allies, the Neocons, Likud has largely directed US foreign policy towards I... [Read More] Tracked on Aug 21, 2005 2:52:03 PM » Where do Indian Muslims go from Here from trying to retain Muslims are trying to retain their Indo-Islamic identity then so are all major ethnic groups in India.... 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[Read More] Tracked on Aug 4, 2006 9:15:36 AM » River Rising Around Small Town in Minn. from snow and heavy melting snow and heavy rain, the Red River is rising around a small town in Minn. [Read More] Tracked on Aug 8, 2006 4:07:03 AM » Villanueva Excited About Opportunity from player, 6-foot-11 On Tuesday, the Milwaukee Bucks' general manager introduced Exhibit A in his frontcourt makeover: [Read More] Tracked on Aug 8, 2006 7:13:10 AM » U.S. United by World View from game faces on enthusiastic. The Americans, in Las Vegas to prepare for the Aug. 19 to Sept. 3 world championships [Read More] Tracked on Aug 8, 2006 10:36:59 AM Comments In April 2005, AIPAC policy director Steven Rosen and AIPAC senior Iran analyst Keith Weissman were fired by AIPAC amid an FBI investigation into whether they passed classified U.S. information received from Franklin on to the government of Israel. 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How schools are destroying the joy of reading

How schools are destroying the joy of reading By Patrick Welsh The recent news hasn't been too good for English teachers like me. In July, the results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a congressionally mandated standardized test, showed the reading skills of high school students haven't improved since 1999. And last week, the Pew Research Center's Internet Project reported that for today's teenagers, "the Internet and cell phones have become a central force that fuels the rhythm of daily life." Eighty-seven percent of America's kids ages 12 to 17 spend time online. E-mail is no longer fast enough for most teens who are using instant messenger and text messaging to keep up with their friends. Faced with declining literacy and the ever-growing distractions of the electronic media, faced with the fact that —Harry Potter fans aside — so few kids curl up with a book and read for pleasure anymore, what do we teachers do? We saddle students with textbooks that would turn off even the most passionate reader. Just before the school year ended in June, my colleagues in the English department at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., and central office administrators discussed which textbook to adopt for the 9th- and 10th-grade World Literature course for next year. Of the four texts that the state approved, the choices came down to two: the Elements of Literature: World Literature from Holt, Rinehart and Winston and The Language of Literature: World Literature from McDougal Littell. The problems with these two tomes are similar to the problems with high school textbooks in most subjects. First, there's the well-documented weight problem. The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons has said that an increase in back injuries among children might be attributed to the enormous textbooks they lug around in their backpacks. Injuries aside, what kid is going to sit in a chair and relax with a heavy hardcover, 9-inch-by-11-inch compendium? Worse is the fact that for all their bulk, the textbooks are feather-weight intellectually. Substance lacking So, what books get passing grades? High school English teacher Patrick Welsh's assessment of two textbooks — and a few alternatives: What doesn't work ... The Language of Literature: World Literature (McDougal Littel) Assessment: Reduces literature to memorizing authors' names and dates. By trying to please every racial and ethnic group, it includes boring and inconsequential literature. Weight: 7 pounds Pages:1,551 Complete poems: 63 Complete short stories: 15 Complete plays: 4 Excerpts: 44 Elements of Literature: World Literature(Holt, Rinehart and Winston) Assessment: Pitched to the lowest common denominator of teacher and student. The classic "read the chapter and answer the questions at the end" kind of text. A dearth of good literature. Weight: 5.6 pounds Pages: 1,275 Complete poems: 95 (13 of which are four-line haikus) Complete short stories: 19 Complete plays: 0 Excerpts: 36 What does work ... Literature: A Portable Anthology(Bedfore/St. Martin's Press) Assessment: Half the price, a third of the weight and double the literature of the other two. Has great mix of poems and plays both classic and modern and appealing short stories. Weight: 2 pounds Pages: 1,480 Complete poems: 250 Complete short stories: 35 Complete plays: 9 Excerpts: 0 Whole paperback books: A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams Night, by Elie Wiesel The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger Take the McDougal Littell text that we finally adopted for 9th- and 10th-graders. It starts off with a unit titled "Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Hebrew Literature," followed by sections on the literature of Ancient India, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Ancient China and Japan. Then comes "Persian and Arabic Literature" and "West African Oral Literature" — and that's only the first third of the book. There are still more than 800 pages to plough through, but it's the same drill — short excerpts from long works — a little Dante here, a little Goethe there and two whole pages dedicated to Shakespeare's plays. One even has a picture of a poster from the film Shakespeare in Love with Joseph Fiennes kissing Gwyneth Paltrow. The other includes the following (which is sure to turn teens on to the Bard): "Notice the insight about human life that the following lines from The Tempest convey: We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. Shakespeare's plays are treasures of the English language." Both books are full of obtrusive directions, comments, questions and pictures that would hinder even the attentive readers from becoming absorbed in the readings. Both also "are not reader-friendly. There is no narrative coherence that a student can follow and get excited about. It's a little bit of this and a little bit of that," says T.C. Williams reading specialist Chris Gutierrez, who teaches a course in reading strategies at Shenandoah University in Virginia. For kids who get books and reading opportunities only at school, these types of textbooks will drive them away from reading — perhaps for life. Such texts bastardize literature and history, reducing authors and their works to historical facts to be memorized — what Alfie Kohn, author of The Schools Our Children Deserve, calls "the bunch o' facts" theory of learning. Students are jerked from one excerpt of literature to another, given no chance for the kind of sustained reading that stimulates the imagination. One of the most popular books I teach is Night, Elie Wiesel's powerful remembrance about Nazi concentration camps. Even the most reluctant readers are enthralled by the 109-page narrative. The Holt, Rinehart and Winston World Literature text throws in seven pages of Night, cheating students out of the experience of reading the whole work and giving them the illusion that they know the book. With my subject, English, special problems exist — any literature that has a whiff of controversy is kept out of texts to appease the moralists on the right, while second-rate "multicultural" literature is put in to appease the politically correct on the left. Quality is 'secondary' As researcher Diane Ravitch, author of The Language Police, wrote in the summer 2003 issue of American Educator, "Literary quality became secondary to representational issues." You will never see John Updike's A&P or Toni Cade Bambara's The Lesson - great short stories that kids can easily relate to — in these tomes because they might offend groups on either side of the political spectrum. No matter how highly esteemed poet Denise Levertov is in academia, The Mutes— her poem that evokes intense discussion about sexual harassment — will never make its way into the bland 1,000-plus pages of a high school textbook. The McDougal Littell text proudly lists its 10-member "Multicultural Advisory Board" in its introduction. A similar problem exists with math and science books. A study of textbooks by the American Association for the Advancement of Science concluded: "Today's textbooks cover too many topics without developing any of them well. Central concepts are not covered in enough depth to give students a chance to truly understand them." 'Teacher-proofing' Teachers who didn't major in science tend to "use textbooks — lean on them — more than better-qualified teachers do," Arthur Eisenkraft, former president of the National Science Teachers Association, told Science News in 2001. The desire of school officials to make courses teacher-proof — to put more faith in bland compendiums than in the skill of teachers — is only getting stronger with the spread of high-stakes state exams. Textbook companies now get state approval by boasting that their wares cover every possible skill demanded on state tests. The safe thing for school systems to do is to limit themselves to the state-approved books; if a school district adopts its own materials and its test scores go down, administrators could take the fall. The fact is that for all the anxiety schools have about state exams, with the exception of science and math, those exams have turned into nothing more than minimum competency tests that any average student can pass with little preparation. And no decent teacher needs a 1,500-page text to prepare below-average students for these dumbed-down tests. It's time for states and school districts to kick the mega-textbook habit that four or five big corporations control and start spending money on the kind of books that will make kids want to do sustained reading, to get lost in the written word. For English classes, that's paperback novels (whole novels) and collections of short stories (complete short stories) and poetry. Patrick Welsh is an English teacher at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., and a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.

Video gaming - Chasing the dream

IS IT a new medium on a par with film and music, a valuable educational tool, a form of harmless fun or a digital menace that turns children into violent zombies? Video gaming is all these things, depending on whom you ask. Gaming has gone from a minority activity a few years ago to mass entertainment. Video games increasingly resemble films, with photorealistic images, complex plotlines and even famous actors. The next generation of games consoles—which will be launched over the next few months by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo—will intensify the debate over gaming and its impact on society, as the industry tries to reach out to new customers and its opponents become ever more vocal. Games consoles are the most powerful mass-produced computers in the world and the new machines will offer unprecedented levels of performance. This will, for example, make possible characters with convincing facial expressions, opening the way to games with the emotional charge of films, which could have broader appeal and convince sceptics that gaming has finally come of age as a mainstream form of entertainment. But it will also make depictions of violence even more lifelike, to the dismay of critics. This summer there has been a huge fuss about the inclusion of hidden sex scenes in “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas”, a highly popular, but controversial, game in which the player assumes the role of a street gangster. The sex scenes are not a normal part of the game (see above for a typical image). But the offending scenes can be activated using a patch downloaded from the internet. Senator Hillary Clinton and a chorus of other American politicians have called for federal prosecutors to investigate the game and examine whether the industry's system of self-regulation, which applies age ratings to games, is working properly. Mrs Clinton accused video games of “stealing the innocence of our children” and “making the difficult job of being a parent even harder”. As a result of the furore, “Grand Theft Auto” had its rating in America changed—from “M” for mature (over-17s only) to “AO” for adults only (over-18s)—by the industry's rating board. But since most big retailers refuse to stock “AO” titles, of which very few exist, Rockstar Games, the maker of “Grand Theft Auto”, is producing a new “M”-rated version without the hidden sexual material. This is merely the latest round in a long-running fight. Before the current fuss over “Grand Theft Auto”, politicians and lobby groups were getting worked up over “Narc”, a game that depicts drug-taking, and “25 to Life”, another urban cops-and-robbers game. Ironically, the “Grand Theft Auto” episode has re-ignited the debate over the impact of video games, just as the industry is preparing to launch its biggest-ever marketing blitz to accompany the introduction of its new consoles. Amid all the arguments about the minutiae of rating systems, the unlocking of hidden content, and the stealing of children's innocence, however, three important factors are generally overlooked: that attitudes to gaming are marked by a generational divide; that there is no convincing evidence that games make people violent; and that games have great potential in education. Start with the demographics. Attitudes towards gaming depend to a great extent on age. In America, for example, half of the population plays computer or video games. However most players are under 40—according to Nielsen, a market-research firm, 76% of them—while most critics of gaming are over 40. An entire generation that began gaming as children has kept playing. The average age of American gamers is 30. Most are “digital natives” who grew up surrounded by technology, argues Marc Prensky of games2train, a firm that promotes the educational use of games. He describes older people as “digital immigrants” who, like newcomers anywhere, have had to adapt in various ways to their new digital surroundings. Just getting by in a foreign land without some grasp of the local language is difficult, says Mr Prensky. Digital immigrants have had to learn to use technologies such as the internet and mobile phones. But relatively few of them have embraced video games. The word “game” itself also confuses matters, since it evokes childish playthings. “What they don't understand, because they've never played them, is that these are complex games, which take 30, 40 or 100 hours to complete,” says Mr Prensky. Games are, in fact, played mainly by young adults. Only a third of gamers are under 18. “It's just a generational divide,” says Gerhard Florin, the European boss of Electronic Arts, the world's biggest games publisher. “It's people not knowing what they are talking about, because they have never played a game, accusing millions of gamers of being zombies or violent.” Digital natives who have played video games since childhood already regard them as a form of entertainment on a par with films and music. Older digital natives now have children of their own and enjoy playing video games with them. The gaming industry is trying to address the generational divide. It is producing games designed to appeal to non-gamers and encouraging casual gamers (who may occasionally play simple web-based games, or games on mobile phones) to play more. This has led to the development of games with a wider appeal. Some of them replace the usual control pad with novel input devices: microphones for singing games, cameras for dancing and action games, and even drums. In addition, the industry has started to cater more to women, who seem to prefer social simulation games such as “The Sims”, and to older people, who (if they play games at all) often prefer computerised versions of card games and board games. Other promising avenues include portable gaming, mobile gaming and online downloads of simple games. Many people enjoy gaming, but do not necessarily want to commit themselves to an epic quest that will take dozens of hours to complete. The industry, in short, is doing its best to broaden gaming's appeal, which is of course in its own best interests. For the time being, however, the demographic divide persists, and it does much to explain the polarisation of opinion over gaming and, in particular, worries about violence. It also provides the answer to a question that is often asked about gaming: when will it become a truly mainstream form of entertainment? It already is among the under-40s, but will probably never achieve mainstream status among older people. But aren't critics right to worry that gaming might make people violent? Hardly a week goes by in which a game is not blamed for inspiring someone to commit a violent crime. After all, say critics, acting out violent behaviour in a game is very different from passively watching it in a film. Yet surveys of studies into games and violence have produced inconclusive results, notes Dmitri Williams, who specialises in studying the social impact of media at the University of Illinois. And, in a paper on the subject published in June in Communication Monographs, he notes that such research typically has serious shortcomings. For example, studies have examined only the short-term effects of gaming. There have been no studies that track the long-term effects on the players themselves. Another problem, says Mr Williams, is that it is meaningless to generalise about “game play” when there are thousands of games in dozens of genres. It is, he notes, equivalent to suggesting that all television programmes, radio shows and movies are the same. Better-designed studies that measure the long-term effects of specific types of games are needed. They're beginning to happen. In his paper, Mr Williams describes the first such study, which he carried out with Marko Skoric of the University of Michigan. The study concentrated on a “massively multiplayer online role-playing game” (MMORPG) called “Asheron's Call 2”. This type of game requires the player to roam around a fantasy world and kill monsters to build up attribute points. It is “substantially more violent than the average video game and should have more effect, given the highly repetitive nature of the violence”, the researchers noted. Two groups of subjects were recruited, none of whom had played MMORPGs before and many of whom had never played video games at all. One group then played the game for a month, for an average of nearly two hours per day. The other group acted as a control. All participants were asked questions about the frequency of aggressive social interactions (such as arguments with their spouses) during the course of the month to test the idea that gaming makes people more aggressive. Moral choices Game players, it turned out, were no more aggressive than the control group. Whether the participants had played games before, the number of hours spent gaming, and whether they liked violent movies or not, made no difference. The researchers noted, however, that more research is still needed to assess the impact of other genres, such as shoot-'em-ups or the urban violence of “Grand Theft Auto”. All games are different, and only when more detailed studies have been carried out will it be possible to generalise about the impact of gaming. But as Steven Johnson, a cultural critic, points out in a recent book, “Everything Bad Is Good for You”, gaming is now so widespread that if it did make people more violent, it ought to be obvious. Instead, he notes, in America violent crime actually fell sharply in the 1990s, just as the use of video and computer games was taking off (see chart 2). Of course, it's possible that crime would have fallen by even more over the period had America not taken up video games; still, video gaming has clearly not turned America into a more violent place than it was. What's more, plenty of games, far from encouraging degeneracy, are morally complex, subtle and, very possibly, improving. Many now explicitly require players to choose whether to be good or evil, and their choices determine how the game they are playing develops. In “Black & White”, for example, the player must groom a creature whose behaviour and form reflects his moral choices (get it wrong and the results can be ugly—see the illustration). Several games based on the “Star Wars” movies require players to choose between the light and dark sides of the Force, equivalent to good and evil. Perhaps most striking is the sequence in “Halo 2”, a bestselling shoot-'em-up, in which the player must take the role of an alien. Having previously seen aliens as faceless enemies, notes Paul Jackson of Forrester, a consultancy, “suddenly you are asked to empathise with the enemy's position. It's very interesting. Games are much more complex than the critics realise.” The move away from linear narratives to more complex games that allow players to make moral choices, argues Mr Prensky, means that games provide an opportunity to discuss moral questions. “These are wonderful examples for us to be discussing with our kids,” he says. Indeed, perhaps the best way to address concerns over the effects of video games is to emphasise their vast potential to educate. Even games with no educational intent require players to learn a great deal. Games are complex, adaptive and force players to make a huge number of decisions. Gamers must construct hypotheses about the in-game world, learn its rules through trial and error, solve problems and puzzles, develop strategies and get help from other players via the internet when they get stuck. The problem-solving mechanic that underlies most games is like the 90% of an iceberg below the waterline—invisible to non-gamers. But look beneath the violent veneer of “Grand Theft Auto”, and it is really no different from a swords-and-sorcery game. Instead of stealing a crystal and delivering it to a wizard so that he can cure the princess, say, you may have to intercept a consignment of drugs and deliver it to a gang boss so he can ransom a hostage. It is the pleasure of this problem-solving, not the superficial violence which sometimes accompanies it, that can make gaming such a satisfying experience. Nobody is using “Grand Theft Auto” in schools, of course, since it is intended for adults. But other off-the-shelf games such as “Sim City” or “Rollercoaster Tycoon”, which contain model economies, are used in education. By playing them it is possible to understand how such models work, and to deduce what their biases are. (In “Sim City”, for example, in which the player assumes the role of a city mayor, no amount of spending on health care is ever enough to satisfy patients, and the fastest route to prosperity is to cut taxes.) Games can be used in many other ways. Tim Rylands, a British teacher in a primary school near Bristol, recently won an award from Becta, a government education agency, for using computer games in the classroom. By projecting the fantasy world of “Myst”, a role-playing game, on to a large screen and prompting his 11-year-old pupils to write descriptions and reactions as he navigates through it, he has achieved striking improvements in their English test scores. Another area where games are becoming more popular is in corporate training. In “Got Game”, a book published last year by Harvard Business School Press, John Beck and Mitchell Wade, two management consultants, argue that gaming provides excellent training for a career in business. Gamers, they write, are skilled at multi-tasking, good at making decisions and evaluating risks, flexible in the face of change and inclined to treat setbacks as chances to try again. Firms that understand and exploit this, they argue, can gain a competitive advantage. Pilots have been trained using flight simulators for years, and simulators are now used by soldiers and surgeons too. But gaming can be used to train desk workers as well. Mr Prensky's firm has provided simple quiz games for such firms as IBM and Nokia, to test workers' knowledge of rules and regulations, for example. For Pfizer, a drug company, his firm built a simulation of its drug-development process that was then used to train new recruits. Other examples abound: PricewaterhouseCoopers built an elaborate simulation to teach novice auditors about financial derivatives. Some lawyers are using simulators to warm up for court appearances. Convincing older executives of the merits of using games in training can be tricky, Mr Prensky admits. “But when they have a serious strategic training problem, and realise that their own people are 20-year-olds, more and more are willing to take the leap,” he says. So games are inherently good, not bad? Actually they are neither, like books, films, the internet, or any other medium. All can be used to depict sex and violence, or to educate and inform. Indeed, the inclusion of violent and sexual content in games is arguably a sign of the maturity of the medium, as games become more like films. Movies provide one analogy for the future of gaming, which seems destined to become a mainstream medium. Games already come in a variety of genres, and are rated for different age groups, just like movies. But just how far gaming still has to go is illustrated by the persistence of the double standard that applies different rules to games and films. Critics of gaming object to violence in games, even though it is common in movies. They worry about the industry's rating model, even though it is borrowed from the movie industry. They call upon big retailers (such as Wal-Mart) not to sell AO-rated games, but seem not to mind that they sell unrated movies that include far more explicit content. In June, Senator Charles Schumer held a press conference to draw attention to the M-rated game “25 to Life”, in which players take the role of a policeman or a gangster. “Little Johnny should be learning how to read, not how to kill cops,” he declared. True, but little Johnny should not be smoking, drinking alcohol or watching Quentin Tarantino movies either. Just as there are rules to try to keep these things out of little Johnny's hands, there are rules for video games too. Political opportunism is part of the explanation for this double standard: many of gaming's critics in America are Democrats playing to the centre. Another analogy can be made between games and music—specifically, with the emergence of rock and roll in the 1950s. Like games today, it was a new art form that was condemned for encouraging bad behaviour among young people. Some records were banned from the radio, and others had their lyrics changed. Politicians called for laws banning the sending of offending records by post. But now the post-war generation has grown up, rock and roll is considered to be harmless. Rap music, or gaming, is under attack instead. “There's always this pattern,” says Mr Williams of the University of Illinois. “Old stuff is respected, and new stuff is junk.” Novels, he points out, were once considered too lowbrow to be studied at university. Eventually the professors who believed this retired. Novels are now regarded as literature. “Once a generation has its perception, it is pretty much set,” says Mr Williams. “What happens is that they die.” Like rock and roll in the 1950s, games have been accepted by the young and largely rejected by the old. Once the young are old, and the old are dead, games will be regarded as just another medium and the debate will have moved on. Critics of gaming do not just have the facts against them; they have history against them, too. “Thirty years from now, we'll be arguing about holograms, or something,” says Mr Williams.

Porn in the woods.

Yes, this is a serious question. Porn in the woods. Did you, as a kid, find porn in the woods? I did, and I have noticed this is a worldwide phenomena. Why the porn in the woods? Where does the porn in the woods come from?

Bribery probe for DaimlerChrysler

Allegations centre on DaimlerChrysler's luxury Mercedes range DaimlerChrysler said it was co-operating fully, and has made all its accounts available. The criminal probe escalates a civil one by the US market watchdog, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. At issue is whether Mercedes staff paid bribes, and whether senior DaimlerChrysler executives knew. DaimlerChrysler revealed last year it was being investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. 'Co-operating' There are now two investigations. "We are working with the SEC and the Justice Department on the investigation. We have made all our accounts available," said a DaimlerChrysler spokesman following the Wall Street Journal on Friday. In July, DaimlerChrysler said in its interim financial results statement that it had identified "accounts, transactions and related payments that are subject to special scrutiny". It said it was "voluntarily sharing....information from its own investigation" after subpoenas from US federal agencies. DaimlerChrysler said in July that it had not yet reached "any definitive conclusions" about whether the payments it had identified breached the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Troubled times The latest embarrassment to hit the carmaker comes one day after the German financial market watchdog launched a probe into possible insider trading in the firm's shares. DaimlerChrysler's share price surged up 10% last week ahead of chief executive Juergen Schrempp's announcement that he was planning to step down two years early. Mr Schrempp will step down at the end of 2005. He had become a target of investor criticism, drawing fire over the firm's global expansion plans and problems at its flagship Mercedes division. DaimlerChrysler has seen its earnings come under pressure as steel prices have increased and competitors have offered cut-price deals to lure customers.

Art prankster sprays Israeli wall

Banksy's spray paint picture on security wall Enlarge Image The nine paintings were created on the Palestinian side of the barrier. One depicts a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. Banksy's spokeswoman Jo Brooks said: "The Israeli security forces did shoot in the air threateningly and there were quite a few guns pointed at him." Banksy said he was threatened by Israeli security forces The 425-mile (680-kilometre) long barrier, made of concrete walls and razor-wire fences, is still being erected by Israeli authorities. Israel says the structure is necessary to protect the country from suicide bombers, but the International Court of Justice has said it breaches international law. Banksy, who hails from the UK city of Bristol, never allows himself to be photographed and created the images last week. Banksy is well known for his art stunts around the world His previous creations, which critics condemn as stunts, have included a bronze spoof of the statue of Justice from the Old Bailey, London, wearing thigh-high boots and a suspender belt. He also embarrassed the British Museum by planting a hoax cave painting of a man pushing a supermarket trolley, which he said went unnoticed for three days. He has also smuggled and hung works in galleries including the Tate Britain in London and the Metropolitan and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Sean Mountcastle

Last weekend (Friday and Saturday), I attended RubyNation 2008, the first regional Ruby conference in my area. The speakers were excellent and it was great to meet up with folks from the Ruby community who I haven’t seen in awhile. As always, I left feeling energized and excited about my Ruby projects. There were two main themes of the conference: the ‘official’ one was Ceremony vs. Essence, while the ‘unofficial’ one was Test all the fucking time. The first theme was the subject of the opening and closing keynotes. The second came from Bryan Liles lighting talk on the first day and kept coming up afterwards (audience ‘hecklers’ would ask presenters how often they should test). Agenda Welcome to RubyNation Gray Herter Opening Keynote: Ceremony vs. Essence Neal Ford DSLs and Ruby: Blurring the Lines Between Programs And Data Russ Olsen The Culture of Innovation in Ruby Glenn Vanderburg Living on the Edge Yehuda Katz Lightning Talks Chris Bucherre, Bryan Liles Archaeopteryx: A Ruby MIDI Generator Giles Bowkett Welcome, Day 2 David Keener Keynote: Ruby, A Retrospective Rich Kilmer Ruby Puzzlers Mike Furr Pratical JRuby David Keener Tools for Your Ruby Toolbox Dave Bock Lightning Talks Soren Burkhart, Glenn West, Jesse Shock, Yehuda Katz, Bryan Liles Closing Keynote: Bad Ruby Stuart Halloway Neal Ford’s talk on Ceremony vs Essence was one of the best talks of the conference and a great way to kick it off. He criticized our industry for failing to look backwards and leveraging the lore of the past. Then he proceeded to look even further back discussing Plato’s doctrine of ideas, Aristotle’s essential properties vs accidental properties, Galileo’s use of experimentation to verify ideas, and William Occam’s principle that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible (KISS). Don’t confuse essential complexity (we have a hard problem to solve) vs accidental complexity (we’ve made the problem hard to solve). Some of the new patterns he presented were: Chicken Cognition: no memory, can’t learn from your mistakes Frozen Caveman: burned by something and was flash frozen at that point in time, everything revolves around that issue Rubik’s Cubicle: love to solve puzzles, not real issues During his keynote, Neal suggested learning from the lore of our past by reading classics like The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition), Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master. Next up was Russ Olsen who gave a talk about DSLs, both external and internal. Domain specific languages continue to be a hot topic in Ruby and the developer community in general. Ruby is very well suited to both external DSLs (involving a parser) and internal DSLs (use the Ruby parser and build language infrastructure). Ruby is great for DSLs because it doesn’t require parenthesis or semi-colons, it supports procs, the reflection capabilities (method_missing, instance_eval, etc), etc. Rich Kilmer called DSL building, syntax driven development. Glenn Vanderburg presented on the culture of innovation within the Ruby community. The Ruby community is seeing so much innovation because Rubyists are novelty junkies, the languages opens possibilities that deserve to be explored, the requirement to integrate with IDEs is hampering innovation in Java (Java developers won’t use it until it’s integrated within their IDE), and things are just easier to accomplish in Ruby (low ceremony). He said that sometimes its good to start over as being forced to reinvent can be an opportunity. To close out his talk he did have a warning: When learning new things costs are easier to spot than benefits, but when inventing new things benefits are easier to spot than costs. Yehuda Katz from Engine Yard spoke about living on the edge. As an aside, it appears that Engine Yard is trying to be a mini-Google in that they appear to have hired many of the top Rubyists as well as some very savvy operations folks. Yehuda said that we should expect Merb 1.0 by the end of summer, introduced the DataMapper ORM, YARD (a replacement for rdoc), and Johnson (a JavaScript/Ruby bridge). He urged those present to take the time to think things through and not rush an API (or software) out. During the Lightning Talks we heard from Chris Bucchere about BDG’s social network for conferences; David James of Community Goals about state machines, Simon Kaczar of Prognosoft about libncurses-ruby, and Bryan Liles about testing (where the meme test all the fucking time appeared). Bryan’s was one of the best talks of the conference, I highly recommend seeing him present. The first day closed with Giles Bowkett’s presentation on Archaeopteryx (a Ruby MIDI generator). The music it generated (through Reason) was pretty good. The software makes heavy use of lambda functions and so Giles has aliased lambda to L to reduce typing. His talk covered a wide range of topics and there’s no way I can do it justice. Hopefully he’ll have it recorded (since he’s given the presentation a few times now) and post it on the ‘net. The second day opened with Rich Kilmer of InfoEther who provided a look back at the early days of Ruby (from his involvement in 2001), the conferences, and all of the various projects he’s worked on with Ruby. Rich always has fun stories to tell and I enjoyed his talk immensely. I won’t go through the entire chronology, but he ended by stating that the community needs to develop tools to deal with the dynamic nature of Ruby in order for wider adoption of the language, though he did note that Ruby is becoming mainstream. He also announced HotCocoa, a DSL for Cocoa application development. Mike Furr spoke about issues he encountered when writing a Ruby parser for his DRuby project. These were somewhat interesting traps, pitfals, and corner cases for where the language is ambiguous. His slides are available here so you can see specific code examples. David Keener walked through installing, configuring and running JRuby. Unfortunately, I have no interest in JRuby. I started working with it at my previous job to add Ruby scripting to a Java application, but since I no longer program in Java nor have an operational environment that is setup to deploy Java, I just don’t care. Tools for your Ruby toolbox by David Bock was an interesting tour of three Ruby projects: StaticMatic, Sinatra, and GServer. StaticMatic looked interested for static website development, but then Mike Clark wrote about Webby and it looks even better. Sinatra appears to be a very light weight alternative to Rails and in combination with a static web site tool like StaticMatic or Webby could be extremely useful. GServer is a generic server which takes some of the pain out of setting them up. Dave’s an engaging speaker and I always enjoy his presentations as well as speaking with him in the hallways at conferences. The second day of Lightning Talks was even better than the first. Soren Burkhard from Hawaii Business Consulting had a great overview of starting your own business. Glenn West spoke about several Rails plugins that he uses on a regular basis: ActiveScaffold, Role Requirement, ActiveAuthentication, File_column, PDFtoRuby, DotR, and Tabnav. Jesse Shock from Engine Yard spoke about high availability planning: multiple sites, geographic diversity, data partitioning, sharding, etc. He said you need to establish costs up front so the customer knows which availability techniques they can afford. Yehuda Katz, also from Engine Yard, spoke about testing (in the context of Merb) and how you should use BDD for internal as well as external interfaces. The last of the lightning talks was by Bryan Liles on how to be a manager, his slides are available here. Finally, Stu closed out the conference with a talk on bad Ruby. Overall, Ruby is good but that there are some bad practices/decisions that could come back to bite us later as Ruby adoption grows. Some of the examples he provided were: constants (you can’t change them so testing becomes difficult), class attributes (prefer instance attributes on the eigenclass), direct access of instance variables, and proc workarounds (e.g. passing more than one block to a method). The code examples from his talk are available here. Luis de la Rosa was kind enough keep track of all of the URLs that folks were throwing around and has posted them here: – delicious: http://delicious.com/tag/rubynation – magnolia: http://ma.gnolia.com/tags/rubynation Overall, it was a great conference and I look forward to next year’s RubyNation in June 2009.

Plan 9 from User Space

Most obviously, plan9port derives from Plan 9 from Bell Labs and would not exist without the work of the Plan 9 team over the past many years. Rob Pike suggested the original X11 port of libdraw years ago, as part of drawterm, and strongly encouraged the Mac OS X work. He has also been a consistent source of good ideas to hide the ugliness of modern Unix. William Josephson handled troff(1) (with Taj Khattra) and many of the supporting programs. He also inspired the thread library clean-up and has ported a handful of applications. Andrey Mirtchovski and Axel Belinfante have done significant work dealing with X11 corner cases and fine-tuning rio(1). Axel never tires of finding bugs in the SunOS port. Latchesar Ionkov has contributed many fixes to tricky bugs, and got factotum(4) up and running. Many other people have provided help, ported programs, written bug reports, sent useful patches, and gotten plan9port running on new systems. Bigelow & Holmes, Inc. created the screen fonts in the luc, lucm, lucsans, and pelm directories and granted permission to redistribute them with plan9port. Thanks to all.

The Global Property Bubble

By Jesse Colombo After the cataclysmic mid-2000s real estate bubbles in the U.S. and European PIIGS nations, one would think that the world would never allow another property bubble to rear its ugly head again. Unfortunately, this thinking is completely wrong. Since 2009, the world has openly embraced new property bubbles with astounding vigor, in complete defiance of all lessons taught by the Global Financial Crisis. A series of new real estate bubbles have inflated in countless countries – I’ve named this bubble “The Global Property Bubble.” These new property bubbles are located in China, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, emerging market countries, northern & western Europe, and parts of the United States. Please follow my Twitter feed for commentary and news about the Global Property Bubble:

Now, if My Software Only Had a Brain ...

A practical way to master information from Web pages is so important that new programs for this purpose keep appearing. Those I have described in recent months (and still like) include Microsoft OneNote, with its attractive look and its integration with other Microsoft programs; Zooter from Zootsoftware and ADM from Advanced Data Management, which offer extensive ways to organize data once they have been captured; and Surf Saver from AskSam, with fast searches of stored pages. (Unless noted, all software can be found at Web sites with the name of the company or product.) Three more to consider are EverNote, Onfolio and Net Snippets. In functions, they are similar. With any of them, you can easily store a full Web page, or selected passages or any other material on your computer screen; you can apply a label or classifying information or just send the data to a general slush pile for later review; and you can search and reclassify the stored material at any time. The programs are also designed for journal entries, to-do lists and anything else you may want to jot down. All offer 30-day free trials. After that, basic versions of Net Snippets and Onfolio are free; EverNote's basic version costs $29.95. More advanced versions of each program are available at higher prices. The programs work with most major browsers, notably Internet Explorer and Firefox, but they run on the Mac only under the Virtual PC utility. Their differences are in style. EverNote's big idea is the time band, a kind of chronological ruler that runs down one side of the screen. As each bit of information is stored, it is attached to its specific point in the great river of time. The underlying insight, similar to the work of David Gelernter, a computer scientist at Yale, is that sequence of arrival is one of the brain's fundamental organizing concepts. EverNote has a variety of other unusual features, many aimed at people who take notes in handwriting on tablet computers. Onfolio's comparative advantage is in handling feeds of R.S.S., for really simple syndication, and other regular inflows of information. Its professional version also has many tools for publishing the information you've organized, in a blog or other formats. Net Snippets, in its basic version, is the simplest of the three. A little square icon sits on one side of the screen. You click on it or drag information to it whenever you want to store something, which you can dig up later with a search. I usually end up using Net Snippets, precisely because it is so easy. But all are worth trying. While this stage of computing hasn't given us the ideal program, if offers something to appeal to most tastes.

Radicals warned of treason risk

Omar Bakri Mohammed is one of three who may be prosecuted Lord Goldsmith and the Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald have discussed action against three individuals, a spokeswoman said. The Crown Prosecution Service's head of anti-terrorism will meet Scotland Yard officers in the next few days. Omar Bakri Mohammed, Abu Izzadeen and Abu Uzair are all expected to come under scrutiny. 'No decision' The spokeswoman for the Attorney-General's Office said it was not clear at this stage whether there was enough evidence to bring charges. Officials will be looking at broadcast and published comments as well as speeches and sermons made by the trip to followers. "No decision on charges has been made yet. The CPS will be looking at it to see if any offences have been committed," she said. For Muslims there, they have a duty to fight occupiers, whether they are British soldiers or American soldiers Omar Bakri Mohammed Profile: Bakri Mohammed Possible charges which will be considered include the common law offences of treason and incitement to treason. Omar Bakri Mohammed is a London-based cleric for the al-Muhajiroun group. On Friday while announcing new measures to clamp down on extremism, Prime Minister Tony Blair said that this group's successor organisation, the Saviour Sect, would be outlawed. Mr Bakri caused controversy when he said he would not inform police if he knew Muslims were planning a bomb attack in the UK. He also expressed support for Muslims who attacked British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. "For Muslims there, they have a duty to fight occupiers, whether they are British soldiers or American soldiers," he told Channel 4 News. 'Smell the coffee' British-born Abu Izzadeen, a spokesman for the group al-Ghurabaa (the Strangers) has declined to condemn the 7 July London bombings. He told BBC2's Newsnight the bombings were "mujahideen activity" which would make people "wake up and smell the coffee". Abu Uzair, a former member of al-Muhajiroun, told the same programme that the September 11 attacks in the US were "magnificent". He said Muslims had previously accepted a "covenant of security" which meant they should not resort to violence in the UK because they were not under threat there. "We don't live in peace with you any more, which means the covenant of security no longer exists," he said.

The Rise of the Digital Thugs

By 2003, MicroPatent had become so frustrated with its unknown stalker that it reached out to the F.B.I. for help. But with its resources spread thin, the F.B.I. could not pin down the stalkers identity, his motivations or how he managed to trespass on MicroPatents electronic turf. A year later, MicroPatent hired Stroz Friedburg and secured the services of Eric D. Shaw, a clinical psychologist who had once profiled terrorists and foreign potentates for the C.I.A. The first order of business, investigators said, was to narrow the field of MicroPatents potential stalkers and to try to isolate the perpetrator. You need to take the temperature of the person on the other side and determine how seriously you need to take them, said Beryl Howell, who supervised the MicroPatent investigation for Stroz Friedburg. Is it a youngster or is it someone whos angry? Is it someone whos fooling around or someone whos much more serious? Investigators said their examination of the stalkers communications indicated that he was much more than a hacker on a joy ride. That would be consistent with what law enforcement authorities and computer security specialists describe as the recent evolution of computer crime: from an unstructured digital underground of adolescent hackers and script-kiddies to what Mr. Bednarski describes in his study as information merchants representing a structured threat that comes from profit-oriented and highly secretive professionals. STEALING and selling data has become so lucrative, analysts say, that corporate espionage, identity theft and software piracy have mushroomed as profit centers for criminal groups. Analysts say cyberextortion is the newest addition to the digital Mafias bag of tricks. Generally speaking, its pretty clear its on the upswing, but its hard to gauge how big of an upswing because in a lot of cases it seems companies are paying the money, said Robert Richardson, editorial director of the Computer Security Institute, an organization in San Francisco that trains computer security professionals. Theres definitely a group of virus writers and hackers in Russia and in the Eastern European bloc that the Russian mob has tapped into. Mr. Richardson is a co-author of an annual computer-security study that his organization publishes with the F.B.I. The latest version said that while corporate and institutional computer break-ins increased slightly last year from 2003, average financial losses stemming from those intrusions decreased substantially in all but two categories: unauthorized access to data and theft of proprietary information. Among 639 of the surveys respondents, the average loss from unauthorized data access grew to $303,234 in 2004 from $51,545 in 2003; average losses from information theft rose to $355,552 from $168,529. The respondents suffered total losses in the two categories of about $62 million last year. While many cyberextortionists and cyberstalkers may be members of overseas crime groups, several recent prosecutions suggest that they can also be operating solo and hail from much less exotic climes like the office building just down the street.

Brain Workouts May Tone Memory

It's common knowledge that a proper exercise regimen can do wonders for the body. Only recently, however, have psychologists and gerontologists aggressively applied the same principle to the mind. Among people who work with older adults, the concept of "cognitive fitness" has become a buzzword to describe activities that stimulate underutilized areas of the brain and improve memory. Proponents of brain-fitness exercises say such mental conditioning can help prevent or delay memory loss and the onset of other age-related cognitive disorders. "Most people's idea of fitness stops at the neck," said Patti Celori, executive director of the New England Cognitive Center. "But the brain is the CPU of our body, and most people don't do much to keep it as fit as possible." The NECC runs one of a growing number of programs that work with older adults to improve cognitive abilities. Activities include computer programs designed to stimulate specific areas of the brain, replication of geometric designs using boards with pegs and rubber bands, and visual and auditory memory exercises. Some of the other programs are Maintain Your Brain, initiated a year ago by the Alzheimer's Association; Mind Alert, run by the American Society on Aging; and other regional programs such as the Center for Healthy Aging in Kent, Ohio. For do-it-yourself types, a plethora of books have been published on getting the brain in shape. Paula Hartman-Stein, a geropsychologist at the Center for Healthy Aging, recommends The Better Brain Book, by David Perlmutter and Carol Colman, and The Memory Bible by Gary Small. One purpose of mental exercises is to reinforce the idea that "in aging, not everything is downhill," said Elkhonon Goldberg, a Manhattan neuropsychologist and author of The Wisdom Paradox, which examines how some people grow wiser with age. "There are gains that are subsequent and consequent to a lifelong history of mental activity and mental striving," Goldberg said. He also believes brain exercises can benefit adults suffering from mild cognitive impairment, and he has developed computer puzzles designed to help them stimulate different areas of their brain. It's not clear how much targeted brain exercises can prevent the onset of cognitive disorders in older adults. But some findings indicate that high cognitive ability is tied to a lower risk of Alzheimer's. One of the most extensive and widely cited investigations on the subject, the landmark Nun Study, tracked 100 Milwaukee nuns who had written autobiographies in the 1930s. More than 50 years later, scientists gave them cognitive tests and examined the brain tissue of nuns who died. Those who demonstrated lower linguistic ability in the autobiographies were at greater risk for Alzheimer's disease. A similar study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association surveyed 801 older Catholic nuns, priests and brothers. The results linked reading newspapers and participating in other brain-stimulating activities with a reduced risk of Alzheimer's. A 2000 National Research Council report commissioned by the National Institute on Aging found some brain exercises were worthy of government funding. But skeptics question whether beginning an active regimen of brain teasers late in life will do much to prevent brain disorders. Research to date provides scant evidence that mental exercise can stave off dementia, wrote Margaret Gatz, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California, in an article published by the Public Library of Science. Gatz wrote in an e-mail that she would be more convinced if researchers randomly assigned cognitive training, then followed study subjects over several decades. She also said she was concerned that too much emphasis on the benefits of mental fitness could stigmatize Alzheimer's patients. "If mental exercise is widely believed to prevent (Alzheimer's disease), then individuals who do become demented may be blamed for their disease on the grounds of not having exercised their brains enough," she said. Still, supporters of cognitive-fitness programs are pushing for greater recognition from the federal government. During December information-gathering sessions leading up to the White House Conference on Aging, conference representatives said several speakers have made a case that brain health ought to be promoted in much the same way that physical fitness is today. Few people see much downside in pursuing brain-stimulating activities, said Nancy Ceridwyn, special-projects director at the American Society on Aging. Puzzles, spelling practice, memory exercises or book discussions don't pose much harm. That said, Ceridwyn isn't convinced that all the brain exercises being offered today are practical. She wonders whether workbooks that ask adults to do pages of math problems to get their brains in gear might be unnecessarily torturing people in their twilight years. "How many people are going to get up and say, 'I'm excited about doing my multiplication tables today'?" she said. "Not many."

'Thoughts read' via brain scans

The researchers monitored activity in the brain Teams at University College London and University of California in LA could tell what images people were looking at or what sounds they were listening to. The US team say their study proves brain scans do relate to brain cell electrical activity. The UK team say such research might help paralysed people communicate, using a "thought-reading" computer. We are still a long way off from developing a universal mind-reading machine Dr John-Dylan Haynes, University College London In their Current Biology study, funded by the Wellcome Trust, people were shown two different images at the same time - a red stripy pattern in front of the right eye and a blue stripy pattern in front of the left. The volunteers wore special goggles which meant each eye saw only what was put in front of it. In that situation, the brain then switches awareness between both images, sometimes seeing one image and sometimes the other. While people's attention switched between the two images, the researchers used fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) brain scanning to monitor activity in the visual cortex. It was found that focusing on the red or the blue patterns led to specific, and noticeably different, patterns of brain activity. The fMRI scans could reliably be used to predict which of the images the volunteer was looking at, the researchers found. Thought-provoking? The US study, published in Science, took the same theory and applied it to a more everyday example. They used electrodes placed inside the skull to monitor the responses of brain cells in the auditory cortex of two surgical patients as they watched a clip of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". They used this data to accurately predict the fMRI signals from the brains of another 11 healthy patients who watched the clip while lying in a scanner. Professor Itzhak Fried, the neurosurgeon who led the research, said: "We were able to tell one part of a scene from another, and we could tell one type of sound from another." Dr John-Dylan Haynes of the UCL Institute of Neurology, who led the research, told the BBC News website: "What we need to do now is create something like speech-recognition software, and look at which parts of the brain are specifically active in a person." He said the study's findings proved the principle that fMRI scans could "read thoughts", but he said it was a very long way from creating a machine which could read anyone's mind. But Dr Haynes said: "We could tell from a very limited subset of possible things the person is possibly seeing." "One day, someone will come up with a machine in a baseball cap. "Then it really could be helpful in everyday applications." He added: "Our study represents an important but very early stage step towards eventually building a machine that can track a person's consciousness on a second-by-second basis. "These findings could be used to help develop or improve devices that help paralyzed people communicate through measurements of their brain activity. But he stressed: "We are still a long way off from developing a universal mind-reading machine." Dr Fried said: "It has been known that different areas of the temporal lobe are activated by faces, or houses. "This UCL finding means it is not necessary to use strikingly different stimuli to tell what is activating areas of the brain."

O'Reilly Radar

Tim Bray writes: I just wanted to say how much I’ve come to dislike this “Web 2.0” faux-meme. It’s not only vacuous marketing hype, it can’t possibly be right. In terms of qualitative changes of everyone’s experience of the Web, the first happened when Google hit its stride and suddenly search was useful for, and used by, everyone every day. The second—syndication and blogging turning the Web from a library into an event stream—is in the middle of happening. So a lot of us are already on 3.0. Anyhow, I think Usenet might have been the real 1.0. But most times, the whole thing still feels like a shaky early beta to me. While being completely right in the details (we are quite arguably on 3.0 or even 8.0 if we’re thinking about the internet compared to other software versioning), Tim is completely wrong about the big picture. Memes are almost always “marketing hype” — bumper stickers is a better way to say it — but they tend to catch on only if they capture some bit of the zeitgeist. The reason that the term “Web 2.0” has been bandied about so much since Dale Dougherty came up with it a year and a half ago in a conference planning session (leading to our Web 2.0 Conference) is because it does capture the widespread sense that there’s something qualitatively different about today’s web. Kevin Kelly wrote about this change at length in an article in the current issue of Wired: the key to success in this next stage of the web’s evolution is leveraging collective intelligence. And yes, Google’s introduction of page rank was absolutely a milestone in this evolution of the web, but what was once an isolated stroke of genius is now being understood as one of the keys to the new paradigm. There’s a set of “Web 2.0 design patterns” — architecting systems so that they get smarter the more people use them, monetizing the long tail via a combination of customer-self service and algorithmic management, lightweight business models made possible by cooperating internet services and data syndication, data as the “intel inside”, and so on. More immediately, Web 2.0 is the era when people have come to realize that it’s not the software that enables the web that matters so much as the services that are delivered over the web. Web 1.0 was the era when people could think that Netscape (a software company) was the contender for the computer industry crown; Web 2.0 is the era when people are recognizing that leadership in the computer industry has passed from traditional software companies to a new kind of internet service company. The net has replaced the PC as the platform that matters, just as the PC replaced the mainframe and minicomputer. You have to remember that every revolution occurs in stages, and often isn’t recognized till long after the new world is in place. The PC revolution began in the early 80s, and most of the key PC companies and technology innovations were founded in that decade, but it wasn’t till the mid-90s that the new shape of the computer industry was clear to everyone. The Microsoft-Netscape equivalent of the 80’s was the debate about whether ATT’s entry into the computer industry would dethrone IBM. The crucial choices had already been made, though, that set the course for the Wintel-dominated industry of the 90s. Similarly, the writing was on the wall when Yahoo!, EBay, Amazon, Google and other web giants were started in the mid-90s. We’re now at a stage equivalent to the period in the PC market when people were debating whether OS2 or Windows was the operating system of the future. Perhaps I’m biased, because O’Reilly was the source and has been one of the biggest promoters of the Web 2.0 meme, but I think it captures exactly where we are at this moment: a widespread awakening to the fact that the game has changed. There might be a better name (I tried “internet operating system” on for size starting back in 2000), but the fact that Web 2.0 has caught on says that it’s as good a term as any. While the patterns that constitute Web 2.0 are far from completely understood, there’s a kind of intuitive recognition of sites that are expressing the new model. (For example, at Esther Dyson’s PC Forum last March, after presentations by two startups showing shared calendaring services, I overheard one attendee say to another, “xxx is so Web 1.0, and yyy is so Web 2.0” and the other attendee knew exactly what he meant. A meme is a pointer, and as long as it points in the right direction, so that the listener recognizes what is being pointed at, it works.) I guess it’s the old debate between language purists, and language pragmatists. The right words are the ones people actually use, and this word is catching on.

One Free Minute : Anonymous Public Speech

What would you say, given one free minute of anonymous public speech? One Free Minute is a mobile sculpture designed to allow for instances of anonymous public speech. Anonymous callers to One Free Minute's toll-free line can record a message of up to a minute, to be broadcast in the public soundscape. The speech produced by the speaker can be heard clearly more than 150 feet away from the sculpture. To participate in One Free Minute, call now and leave a message on our answering machine. We'll transfer your message the sculpture (that's it on the left), and play it back randomly during future performances: 1-888-500-**** Canada & USA (toll free) One Free Minute is in archive mode until its next performance. It was last performed in Montreal in May 2009 as part of La Biennale de Montréal. Come ride with us as we broadcast your speeches in public space. Your speeches have also been performed in Columbus Ohio, Quebec City, Vancouver, San Jose and Berlin! Have you called yet?

Soldier's mom digs in near Bush ranch

Soldier's mom digs in near Bush ranch Senator sees 'echoes of Vietnam' in vigil to meet president SPECIAL REPORT Interactive: Who's who in Iraq Interactive: Sectarian divide Timeline: Bloodiest days for civilians Coalition Casualties Special Report YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS George W. Bush Military Iraq or or Create Your Own CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) -- A mother whose son was killed in Iraq says she is prepared to continue her protest outside President Bush's ranch through August until she is granted an opportunity to speak with him. Later, in a TV interview, a Democratic senator from California said the episode evokes images that were commonplace during the Vietnam War. Cindy Sheehan's 24-year-old son -- Army Spc. Casey Sheehan of Vacaville, California -- was killed in Baghdad's Sadr City on April 4, 2004. The Humvee mechanic was one of eight U.S. soldiers killed there that day by rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire. (Full story) They are among the 1,829 American troops, including 31 this month, who have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. The president -- who is spending a nearly five-week-long working vacation at his Texas ranch -- said in a speech Wednesday that the sacrifices of U.S. troops were "made in a noble cause." (Full story) Sheehan said she found little comfort in his comments. "I want to ask the president, why did he kill my son?" Sheehan told reporters. "He said my son died in a noble cause, and I want to ask him what that noble cause is." Sheehan said hers was one of a group of about 15 families who each met separately with the president one day last June. "He wouldn't look at the pictures of Casey. He didn't even know Casey's name," she told CNN Sunday. "Every time we tried to talk about Casey and how much we missed him, he would change the subject." Sheehan said she was so distraught at the time that she failed to ask the questions she now wants answered. "I want him to honor my son by bringing the troops home immediately," Sheehan told reporters Saturday. "I don't want him to use my son's name or my name to justify any more killing." Sheehan, who co-founded the anti-war group Gold Star Families for Peace, led about 50 demonstrators near the Bush ranch Saturday. Some protesters were with the group Veterans for Peace, which was holding a convention in Dallas. The protesters stopped their bus miles from the ranch in Crawford, and walked less than a half-mile before being stopped by local law enforcement officials. A message on the Gold Star Families Web site says, "We want our loved ones' sacrifices to be honored by bringing our nation's sons and daughters home from the travesty that is Iraq IMMEDIATELY, since this war is based on horrendous lies and deceptions. "Just because our children are dead, why would we want any more families to suffer the same pain and devastation?" The message also urges Bush to send his twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, to Iraq "if the cause is so noble." The site says the group is made up of families of soldiers who have died as a result of war, primarily in Iraq. Joe Hagin, White House deputy chief of staff, and Stephen Hadley, national security adviser, met with Sheehan for about 45 minutes Saturday, according to White House spokesman Trent Duffy. Sheehan said that the two men "were very respectful." "They told me the party line of why we are in Iraq," she said. "I told them that I don't believe that they believed that." Duffy said Saturday that "many of the hundreds of families the president has met with know their loved one died for a noble cause and that the best way to honor their sacrifice is to complete the mission." Bush has refused to provide a time frame for U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, saying American forces will return home when Iraqis can take care of their own security. "President Bush wants the troops home as soon as possible, but the U.S. will not cut and run from terrorists," Duffy said. Sheehan elicited sympathy from both sides of the political spectrum on Sunday. "What you're seeing with that mom trying to meet with President Bush is echoes of Vietnam," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat. "Because no one is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel." "I think the president ought to meet with this mother," said Sen. George Allen, a Virginia Republican. "What I would say to her is her son will always be remembered as a great hero and a patriot, advanced freedom in Iraq and the Middle East, has made this country more secure." Boxer said her own message would be different: "I would tell her to do everything she could to spare other families this grief, to get us off this cycle of violence." Recent surveys have shown decreasing public support for the war. In a Newsweek poll released Sunday, 64 percent of those asked said they do not believe the war in Iraq has made Americans safer, and 61 percent said they disapprove of the way the president is handling the war. The telephone poll of 1,004 adults was taken from Tuesday to Thursday last week and has a margin of error of 4 percentage points. CNN's Elaine Quijano contributed to this story. Home Page Get up-to-the minute news from CNN CNN.com gives you the latest stories and video from the around the world, with in-depth coverage of U.S. news, politics, entertainment, health, crime, tech and more. Home Page Get up-to-the minute news from CNN CNN.com gives you the latest stories and video from the around the world, with in-depth coverage of U.S. news, politics, entertainment, health, crime, tech and more.

Clue to why some die during sleep

Sleep apnoea usually jolts people awake They say a cumulative loss of cells in the area of the brain that controls breathing is to blame - triggering a condition called central sleep apnoea. However, they believe many such deaths in elderly people are misdiagnosed as heart failure. The study, by the University of California, Los Angeles, is published in Nature Neuroscience. SLEEP APNOEA Central sleep apnoea: Triggered by problems with the brain's breathing centre Obstructive sleep apnoea: Breathing stops when the airway collapses The researchers had previously pinpointed a region of the brainstem they dubbed the preBötzinger complex (preBötC) as the command post for generating breathing in mammals. They had also identified a small group of cells within this area as being responsible for issuing the commands. Cells killed In the latest study, they injected rats with a compound to kill more than half of these cells - and then monitored the animals' breathing patterns. When the animals entered the rapid eye movement phase of sleep - when dreaming occurs - they stopped breathing completely, and were jolted into consciousness in order to start again. Over time, the breathing lapses increased in severity, spreading to other phases of sleep, and eventually occurring when the animals were awake as well. Rats possess 600 of the specialised cells. The researchers believe humans have a few thousand, which are slowly lost over a lifetime. Lead researcher Professor Jack Feldman said: "We speculate that our brains can compensate for up to a 60% loss of preBötC cells, but the cumulative deficit of these brain cells eventually disrupts our breathing during sleep. "There's no biological reason for the body to maintain these cells beyond the average lifespan, and so they do not replenish as we age. "As we lose them, we grow more prone to central sleep apnoea." The UCLA team believes that central sleep apnoea may pose a particular risk to elderly people, whose heart and lungs are already weaker due to age. They also suspect the condition strikes people suffering the late stages of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson's disease. These people often have breathing difficulties during sleep, and the researchers believe their bodies eventually reach a point where they are unable to rouse themselves from sleep when they stop breathing. The UCLA team plans to analyse the brains of people who die from neurodegenerative diseases to determine whether these patients show damage in their preBötzinger complexes. Frank Govan, of the UK Sleep Apnoea Trust, told the BBC News website that previous work had linked cot death to obstructive sleep apnoea - caused by collapse of the airways. However, he said science had failed to prove the link. He said: "These chaps may well be right, that the link is between central sleep apnoea - rather than obstructive sleep apnoea - and cot death, and unexplained adult death."

Why suicide attackers haven't hit U.S. again

Why suicide attackers haven't hit U.S. again By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY NEW YORK — After the bombings in London and Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, the question that rivets America is one that has no sure answer: Why haven't Muslim militants executed another suicide terror attack on the U.S. home front? Police officer Jose Morales inspects bags as people enter the Grand Central subway station in New York City in July. Mario Tama, Getty Images If suicide bombers can strike daily in the Middle East and hit the capitals of Europe, why does 9/11 remain a spectacular exception? There are theories about why the United States still hasn't had a homegrown attack like the ones last month in London. Suicide bombing isn't that easy. The USA isn't that vulnerable. American Muslims aren't that militant. Foreign terrorists aren't focused, not yet, on a domestic strike. Over the past four years, Jeremiahs as varied as Dick Cheney and Osama bin Laden have said another attack is inevitable. It could come at any time, and it could come from within; homegrown suicide terrorists are notoriously difficult to identify before they strike. Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political scientist who has studied suicide terrorists, says most are "walk-in volunteers who decide to do it only months beforehand. They're not long-term criminals you can track." He cites the July 7 London bombers — wage earners, family men, cricket fans and, apparently, suicides. Contrary to popular stereotype, most are not poor, ill-educated, disturbed or disconnected. Suicide terrorists are men and women, young and old, rich and poor, educated and ignorant. If anything, they tend to be relatively well off and, to outward appearances, well adjusted. Mohamed Atta, ringleader in the Sept. 11 attacks, was a college graduate and the son of a lawyer. "There is no accurate criminal profile for them. Anyone who tells you differently is trying to get on TV," says Mia Bloom, author of Dying to Kill, a study of suicide terror. "And if we had a profile, the terrorists would learn about it and use it against us." The other explanations — not all reassuring and not all compatible — for why there's been no repeat of Sept. 11 include the following: •Suicide terror takes a team. Such attacks in the Middle East usually are executed by a group that recruits the bomber, gets the explosives, builds the bomb, surveys the target and gets the bomber there undetected. Sometimes there's even a video crew. But the USA lacks such a "suicide terrorist infrastructure," says Bloom, a University of Cincinnati political scientist. There's no cottage industry in "suicide belts," as on the West Bank, where such a package of wearable explosives goes for less than $200. To the contrary, police in the New York City area visit chemical and demolition suppliers to ask about large purchases of explosives by new customers. Home Depot stores automatically tell authorities about any sale of more than 500 pounds of fertilizer, which can be used to make bombs. ATTACKS SINCE 9/11 Type of attack Location Casualties Date Car bomb Synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia Killed 21, including 14 Germans and 1 French citizen April 11, 2002 Car bomb Sheraton in Karachi, Pakistan Killed 14 May 8, 2002 Car bomb U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan Killed 12 local residents working for U.S. June 16, 2002 Car bomb Nightclub in Bali, Indonesia Killed 202, including 103 Australians Oct. 12, 2002 Car bomb Hotel near Mombasa, Kenya Killed 13, including 3 Israelis Nov. 28, 2002 Three car bombs Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Killed 34, including 8 Americans May 12, 2003 Car bombs Casablanca, Morocco Killed 31 May 16, 2003 Car bomb Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia Killed 15, including some Western tourists Aug. 5, 2003 Car bomb Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Killed 17 Arabs working with the U.S. Nov. 8, 2003 Two car bombs Synagogues in Istanbul Killed 25 Nov. 15, 2003 Two truck bombs British embassy in Istanbul Killed 31 Britons and Turks Nov. 20, 2003 Two truck bombs Targeted President Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi, Pakistan Killed 14 Dec. 25, 2003 Subway and bus bombs London transit system Killed 52 July 7, 2005 Source: List of confirmed attacks from Robert Pape, University of Chicago •U.S. Muslims want the American dream, not jihad. The United States has assimilated immigrant Muslims more successfully than Western Europe, where there is a higher proportion of poor, alienated Muslims, according to Ahmed Bedier of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. American Muslims seem to have more of a stake in keeping peace. "No one wants to attack their own people," Bedier says. "Muslims here see themselves as Americans more than Muslims in France see themselves as French." Last week a council of leading American Muslim scholars issued an edict condemning those who commit terrorism in the name of Islam as "criminals, not 'martyrs.' " Bloom, who has worked with the New Jersey Office of Counter-Terrorism, says the state's Arab and Muslim communities are "hotbeds of dissent. But they're not taking it to the next level. When a rabble-rouser comes to a mosque, he's met with a great deal of resistance. People in that community say (to the authorities), 'Please come get this person.' " Example: Last August, police charged two Muslims — one the American son of an Egyptian man, the other an illegal immigrant from Pakistan — with conspiring to bomb the Herald Square subway station. The suspects came to the attention of the New York police intelligence unit through tips from Brooklyn's Islamic community. Bedier says an experience last month left him modestly optimistic about relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. He stopped his car outside a house in Pinellas Park, Fla., that had a toilet in the front yard and a sign: "Koran flushing, 1 p.m." Bedier, 31, a native of Egypt, asked the homeowner, Mike Allen, what he was trying to say. Allen invited him inside, where he complained that Muslim Americans were not condemning terrorism. Bedier went to his car, got his laptop, and showed Allen what his own group had done. After a long talk, they parted amicably. "He realized we have the same issue," Bedier says. "We're both against terrorism." Allen told the St. Petersburg Times that he had taken down the display because Bedier was "so nice." Tom Ridge, the former homeland security secretary, points out, however, that it might not take a team: "You don't need too many committed to martyrdom to wreak havoc." •The U.S. homeland is better protected. America has become a land scoured, probed, patrolled and fenced by a web of informers, computers, guards, spies, tape recorders, detectors, sensors, Jersey barriers, concrete planters and bomb-sniffing dogs. It may have nipped some plots in the bud and deterred others. "We look differently as a country now to the terrorists," Ridge says. "We have created security measures unlike the terrorists have seen before, and we continue to upgrade them." In New York City, for instance, the police department has increased its counterterrorism squad from a few dozen officers to about a thousand. People who run parking garages, marinas and hunting stores routinely report anything unusual. Arabic, Pashto and Urdu-speakers, working with law enforcement authorities, monitor online chat and chatter on the airwaves. "I don't want to give a sense of false security," says Pape, author of a new book on suicide terrorism, Dying to Win, "but right now we're doing pretty well." •Al-Qaeda Central is dead. Since 9/11, the world's most notorious terrorist organization has lost its headquarters and training centers in Afghanistan. Most of its leaders are dead, in prison or on the run. Time and energy once devoted to elaborate terror attacks are spent staying alive and at large. Al-Qaeda has become less of an organization and more of a movement, Pape says. Sometimes there's coordination among leaders, or among leaders and followers. Sometimes things percolate from the bottom up. "The old centralized al-Qaeda is gone," agrees Bloom. "It's become more like a franchise operation." But terrorists don't always need directions from the home office. Last week a screen at a news media briefing at New York City police headquarters bore a list of lessons learned from the London bombings. No. 1: "This Can Happen Here." As Commissioner Ray Kelly put it, "The recipe to make a bomb, unfortunately, is as available on the Internet as a recipe for meat loaf." •Bin Laden is patiently planning another blockbuster. The man who brought down the World Trade Center likes to bide his time. If this is a struggle of centuries, as bin Laden has argued, what are four years? Eight years elapsed between attacks on the Trade Center. Ridge says that could explain why al-Qaeda hasn't struck again — "they're just not ready." "That they would attack again soon after 9/11 was our expectation, not their expectation," Bloom adds. "If they wanted to send a guy into Wal-Mart with an AK-47, they could have a long time ago. But usually they wait until they can do something shocking, maybe three or four simultaneous attacks. You need time to do that." Intelligence gathered after the invasion of Afghanistan stoked the U.S. government's fear of smaller suicide attacks on "soft" domestic targets such as shopping malls. By late 2003, however, information indicated a new focus on one spectacular plot. The detonation of a radioactive or "dirty" bomb in a suitcase in Times Square would panic the entire metro area. In minutes, the years of seeming immunity would be forgotten. •Muslim terrorists are focused on U.S. allies in Europe and U.S. troops in Iraq. In 2002-03, Australians and Europeans whose nations had troops in Afghanistan or Iraq became al-Qaeda's most frequent suicide attack targets. This was before the Madrid train bombings last year, and the attacks on the London transit system and the Egyptian resort last month. Pape, who has charted the hundreds of suicide bombings worldwide since 1980, says al-Qaeda even put its current strategy in writing. In 2003, a Norwegian intelligence agency discovered what appeared to be an al-Qaeda planning document on a radical Islamic Web site. It said direct attacks on America would be insufficient to compel U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and recommended attacks on its European allies to get them to withdraw their forces — thereby increasing the burden on the United States. Specifically mentioned: Britain and Spain. The other focus of suicide terrorism is Iraq. From a would-be martyr's perspective, what's better than killing a "crusader?" The Iraq war, Pape argues, inflames al-Qaeda's real dispute with the West — the presence of "infidel" troops in Arabia. It's also an effective way to tie down the United States in an unpopular war — a view bin Laden himself expressed in a videotape released before the 2004 election. Bin Laden's strategy effectively dovetails with the Bush administration's, which is to take the war on terrorism to the enemy by fighting over there instead of back here. Most suicide bombers in Iraq are not Iraqis, Pape says, suggesting that the war may be sucking up the supply of international suicide bombers. But Pape and Bloom say that by inflaming Muslim sensibilities, the war will only create more suicide bombers. The war, Bloom says, is "less a flame drawing the moths than a chrysalis in which many more are being created." •We've been lucky. Ridge speculated last year that the homeland's post-9/11 immunity from terror attack may simply have been luck. Bloom says there has been luck — certain clues and leads. But she doesn't believe in luck "if it means that if there's another attack, we were just unlucky. If there's another attack, it means we messed up." Contributing: Mimi Hall and Kevin Johnson in Washington

Extra daylight savings may confuse the gadgets

NEW YORK -- When daylight-saving time starts earlier than usual in the United States come 2007, your VCR or DVD could start recording shows an hour late. Cellphone companies could give you an extra hour of free weekend calls, and people who depend on online calendars may find themselves late for appointments. An energy bill President Bush is to sign today would start daylight time three weeks earlier and end it a week later as an energy-saving measure. And that has technologists worried about software and gadgets that now compensate for daylight time based on a schedule unchanged since 1987. ''It is unfortunately going to add a little bit of complexity to consumers," said Reid Sullivan, vice president of Panasonic Consumer Electronics Co. ''In some cases, depending on the product, they may have to manually increase or decrease the time." The upcoming transition evokes memories of Y2K, the Year 2000 rollover that forced programmers to adjust software and other systems that, relying on two digits for the year, never took the 21st century into account. ''It wouldn't be a society-wide catastrophe, but there would be a problem if nothing's done about it or we try to move too quickly," said Dave Thewlis, executive director of a group that promotes standards for calendar software. Newer VCRs and DVD recorders have built-in calendars to automatically adjust for daylight time. Users would have to override them. Computers with Windows operating systems would need to obtain updates. Though most affected applications would probably be taken care of by the Microsoft fix, calendar systems will need to be checked. Technologists sounded louder alarms as the year 2000 approached. A programming shortcut caused some computers to wrongly interpret 2000 as 1900, potentially fouling computer systems. Businesses and governments threw $200 billion at the problem. © Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.

Opinion | That Hissing Sound

This is the way the bubble ends: not with a pop, but with a hiss. Housing prices move much more slowly than stock prices. There are no Black Mondays, when prices fall 23 percent in a day. In fact, prices often keep rising for a while even after a housing boom goes bust. So the news that the U.S. housing bubble is over won't come in the form of plunging prices; it will come in the form of falling sales and rising inventory, as sellers try to get prices that buyers are no longer willing to pay. And the process may already have started. Of course, some people still deny that there's a housing bubble. Let me explain how we know that they're wrong. One piece of evidence is the sense of frenzy about real estate, which irresistibly brings to mind the stock frenzy of 1999. Even some of the players are the same. The authors of the 1999 best seller "Dow 36,000" are now among the most vocal proponents of the view that there is no housing bubble.

Scorpion gene gives plants a sting in their tail

Oilseed rape: the modified plants have scorpion and moth genesChinese scientists have inserted scorpion and moth genes into oilseed rape (canola) plants to make them poisonous to insects feeding on them. The researchers say that using two foreign genes at the same time means insect pests will be less likely to develop resistance to the genetically modified (GM) plants. The findings were published online in Plant Cell Report on 19 July. The researchers tested the GM plants by exposing them to caterpillars of the diamondback moth (Plutella maculipenis). All of the plants showed some defense against the caterpillars, although the extent of this varied from plant to plant. The caterpillars, which are major crop pests in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, have developed resistance to several available pesticides. There are also reports they are becoming resistant to 'Bt' plants, which are genetically modified to produce a toxin that kills insects but is harmless to birds and mammals. The Chinese team, led by Jingxue Wang of the Agri-Biotechnology Research Centre of Shanxi Province, inserted two genes at once to overcome this problem. The gene from the Asian scorpion (Buthus martensii) produces a poison that specifically affects insect nervous systems, leading to paralysis. The gene from the tobacco hawkmoth (Manduca sexta) produces a chemical that breaks down chitin, a major component of insects' outer surface and gut lining. Because it is unlikely that a caterpillar would be able to resist both toxins at once, the researchers say their approach could slow down and minimise the chance of an insect developing resistance to the plants. They also suggest using their approach in combination with the Bt toxin genes already widely used. Lead researcher Wang, told SciDev.Net the team is trying the same combination of genes in GM cotton. Eric Messens, a professor of plant molecular genetics at Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology at Ghent University, Belgium, warns however that some scorpion toxins previously thought to affect only insects can also affect mammals. He told SciDev.Net that detailed studies must be conducted to see whether the toxins produced by the GM plants affect human health. Another concern about GM oilseed rape is that insects or the wind could carry pollen with foreign genes into non-GM oilseed rape crops or related species. "Discussions about biosafety should be based on the results of practical case studies and not on worst case scenarios," says Gerhard Schwarz, a researcher at the Germany-based EpiGene company. Schwarz and colleagues published a two-year field study of GM oilseed rape online in the European Journal of Agronomy on 21 June. The team found that genetic contamination of non-GM plants with GM genes could be kept below the 0.9 per cent level required by European food labelling rules, without limiting the distance between the two sets of crops. "Our results showed that the gene flow by pollen dispersal can be brought under control and does not lead to a biological catastrophe," Schwarz told SciDev.Net. GM crops can therefore co-exist with conventional and organic farming, he added. Source : SciDev.Net

Is the Shuttle green?

By Zoe Smeaton BBC News Magazine Discovery launches amid clouds of exhaust emissions Observing the planet from her vantage-point in space, Discovery Commander Eileen Collins spoke last Thursday of the environmental destruction visible on Earth, likening the atmosphere to "an eggshell on an egg, it's so very thin". She added: "We know that we don't have much air - we need to protect what we have." But is Nasa itself really observing this need for the protection of Earth as it sends shuttles into orbit? The image of a shuttle at lift-off, enveloped in clouds of exhaust, is now iconic. As crowds gather to witness the dramatic displays as shuttles are made airborne though, many may wonder whether all those exhaust fumes are damaging our environment. 'Eco-friendly' main engines According to Nasa, the Space Shuttle Main Engine design, three of which powered Discovery, is "the most advanced liquid-fuelled rocket engine ever built". The International Space Station, and Earth, as seen from Discovery Inside the engines, this hydrogen fuel is combusted with liquid oxygen in a reaction that reaches temperatures of up to 3136C, "hotter than the boiling point of iron". This creates a high-speed stream of gas which ultimately generates the thrust necessary for launching the shuttle. Professor George Fraser, director of Leicester University's Space Research Centre says this exhaust gas, made from the combination of hydrogen and oxygen, consists of water vapour and as such does not harm the atmosphere, making the use of Nasa's main shuttle engines fairly environmentally safe. Fuel cell technology is often thought of as being an answer to the world's energy problems. Carbon dioxide can, however, be a by-product from the production of hydrogen, depending how it is made. Discovery was also made more environmentally friendly by the use of a certain type of insulating foam on its surface. NASA SHUTTLE FOAM 1997: US Environmental Protection Agency ordered many industries to phase out use of Freon 2001: despite an exemption from CFC ban, Nasa continued to use 'green' non-freon-based foam 2003: seven astronauts died when Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry - an investigation reported thermal protection system damage was initiated by sheared off foam striking the wing 2005: non-freon-based foam fell from the Discovery shuttle shortly after launch, and repairs were needed in space Shuttle return held for 24 hours Before 1997, Nasa preferred to use freon-based foam on the shuttles, but as a chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), freon is now linked to ozone depletion and so has been phased out. Opting to follow Environmental Protection Agency guidelines, Nasa switched to an environmentally friendly version of the foam. Despite these factors, however, all shuttle launches can nonetheless have damaging impacts on the local environment. Hydrochloric acid Professor Fraser said: "The classic example of environmental impact is in Kazakhstan at the Baikonur launch site, where there are reports of quite serious environmental damage." For most shuttles, the damage comes from the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs, require at shuttle launch to provide 71.4% of the thrust at lift-off and elevate the shuttle to an altitude of 45km (28 miles). As a shuttle launches, a "cloud" becomes visible which contains SRB exhaust products, either dissolved or as particles in the water vapour released by the main engines. Hydrochloric acid formed in this launch cloud leads to acidic deposits in the surrounding area, a phenomenon which may also be observed some distance away if exhausts are carried on prevailing winds. The scenes of dead fish in Spain could be repeated next to launch sites A 1993 Nasa technical manual considered environmental effects of space shuttle launches at Kennedy Space Centre, and stated that some cumulative effects of launches in the nearby area are "reduction in the number of plant species present and reduction in total cover". The manual also pointed out that acid deposits from the launch cloud can also impact nearby water lagoons and their wildlife. If hydrochloric acid is deposited, the pH value near the surface of the water may drop and prove too acidic for fish, although these impacts on wildlife do "appear minimal and manageable". Professor Fraser points out also that while shuttles may cause a small amount of damage to the ozone layer this will be "far less marked than that from the large number of high altitude aircraft in the World all the time". Add your comments on this story, using the form below. Compared to the vast benefits of the space program to conservation here on Earth, I feel that it can be safely suggested that the damage to the environment from these launches is relatively negligible. Although some damage to the local ecosystem can be expected it is almost certainly very limited and has been taken into account for the Space Program. Peter Humphreys, Cobham, Surrey Nice to know the Shuttle exhaust isn't damaging the enviroment. I am wondering what damage is done to the Global enviroment by producing all this hydrogen though? There must be a fair amount of enegry used to chill and pressurise the tanks? Ian Bonham, Gibraltar But how is the liquid hydrogen manufactured and then maintained at such a low temperature? Because of inevitable inefficiencies in the manufacturing and storage processes, this is bound to use more energy from fossil fuel than the total energy that the rockets use to lift the Shuttle into orbit. Damage to the atmosphere from the release of carbon is thus greater than if the Shuttle burnt fossil fuel direct. While the radiative forcing element of burning fossil fuel at altitude will be missing, the release of vapour at altitude also contributes to the formation of clouds, which also raises the temperature of the atmosphere. Peter Thomas, London We are in danger of getting onto the environmental and PR bandwagons here. Compared to the destruction on the rainforests, the close to home environmental degradation through all sorts of human activity and waste, any damage that may be caused by the launch of a few shuttles every few months will pale into insignificance. The benefits that come out of this programme far outweigh any environmental impact. Lets keep things in perspective. William, Patagonia, Argentina Since there are only two shuttles left, their environmental impact is minimal. To put things in perspective, there are underground fires around the world that are even more polluting. If we could find a way to put them out, we'd do a lot more for the environment. John Airey, Peterborough, UK Although the shuttle take-off without doubt requires a remarkable amount of energy, I'm sure compared to global usage it is a small number. Understanding of the climate system and its response to human burning of fossil fuels (particularly the associated increases in CO2) is getting better all the time, but there still remain some open scientific questions. Observation of Earth from space will help refine the debate about how our climate system operates and changes, and aid policymakers in decisions as to what constitutes "safe" levels of emissions. If shuttle missions are used to place Earth observing Satillites in orbit to provide this data, the little extra energy used achieving this will be worthwhile. Chris Huntingford, Wallingford Describing the main engines as "eco-friendly" is misleading. It's true that they only release water vapour as exhaust, but producing such vast quantities of super-cooled liquids consumes extremely large amounts of energy. We must consider the quantity of fossil fuels being burned in power stations to provide this energy - surely it is many times more than if the shuttle were to burn fossil fuels itself! Alex, Cheshire, UK The real enviromental effect is the energy consumed in the construction of the shuttle and its components. Not only is the production of the materials that go in to making the shuttle hugely energy intensive but the man hours also take a huge toll on the resources of the planet. Each worker drives to work, uses diposible tools and materials and due to the constant quest for safety the number of rejected components must be phenominal. What is the true cost of a shuttle mission? James , Vancouver, Canada ALL human activities effect the environment and shuttle launches are no different. One needs to consider the costs vs the benefits. Launch costs are quantifiable. However, benefits may not be realized for years. Look back on the first lunar landings. How could the benefits of micro-electronics, medical technologies, material sciences, computers, and many other spin-offs be quantified? What could be the benefits of our current program? Clean compact power sources, improved waste recycling, new materials, new manufacturing, and improved medical procedures, to name a few, could be used on Earth. Dennis Craggs, Flint, MI, US I could see the greenie's point of view if it was plutonium powered, but it's not. Yes, there is undoubtably some damage, but it could be far more harmful. Alex, Aylesbury, UK Many of the astronauts have logged thousands of hours in aircraft(s) during training sessions. I am sure none of them were powered by hydrogen. Karthik, Leipzig/Germany I think we are forgetting the main picture here. Hypothetically NASA launches one rocket per year, that won't even compare to the pollution of 1 highway truck running continuously for one year. i won't take it as a danger to the environment as long as we have the millions and millions of trucks and cars that pollute our environment everyday. Jayachandran Kamaraj, Dunlap US True, that the benefits of the shuttle far outweigh the manageable environmental impact that it may have. But is there any harm in evaluating the alernatives and trying to constantly improve? For e.g. is the method of sending men and material to the space station using the soviet capsule method less resource intensive and simpler? If yes, then may be there should be a rethink. Vasu, India I wonder how many 'environmentally concerned' folks are reading this on a computer screen in a fabricated workstation, whilst sitting on a plastic chair, having arrived with aid of a car, after dousing themselves in no less than 10 litres of warm water and scoured themselves with all manner of chemical compunds...of course being largely european, we will forgive them the use of the chemical compounds in their toilette. Matt O'Neill, San Francisco, US Name Your e-mail address Town/city and country Comments

Grafedia

What is Grafedia? Grafedia is hyperlinked text, written by hand onto physical surfaces and linking to rich media content - images, video, sound files, and so forth. It can be written anywhere - on walls, in the streets, or on sidewalks. Grafedia can also be written in letters or postcards, on the body as tattoos, or anywhere you feel like putting it. Viewers "click" on these grafedia hyperlinks with their cell phones by sending a message addressed to the word + "@grafedia.net" to get the content behind the link. What Kinds of Things Can I Do With Grafedia? You can make street art with grafedia, or just leave behind simple calling cards for others wherever you go. You can have running dialogues between authors, or create interactive narratives or poetry in public spaces. Grafedia is a boundless, interactive publishing platform, base, cheap, and easy to use. It is an open system - the places and ways to use it are limitless. With grafedia, every surface becomes potentially a web page, and the entire physical world can be joined with the Internet. How is Grafedia Made? Grafedia authors can make hyperlinked text at any time in three easy steps. Simply: 1. Choose a word. 2. Send a media file from your cell phone to that chosen word plus '@grafedia.net', e.g. 'myword@grafedia.net'. 3. Write that word anywhere in the real world in blue with an underline. That word will then be linked to the media file the author sent to grafedia.net, and viewers will be able to retrieve the file. You can also upload media from your computer directly to the grafedia.net server here in order to create grafedia with more precise images. Credits Grafedia was created by John Geraci while at the Interactive Telecommunications Program, NYU. You can contact him here. Special thanks to Amanda Marchand for her great ideas. Thanks, too, to Michele Chang, Yury Gitman, Alyssa Wright and Ian Curry. Grafedia logo by Amir. ©Copyright John Geraci 2004-2005

Denver Dispensary for Recreational Marijuana

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Microsoft Cuts Windows Vista Feature

Just days after the first public reports of viruses being written for an upcoming feature of Microsoft's Windows operating system, Microsoft confirmed that it will not include the feature in the first generally available release of Microsoft Vista, expected in the second half of 2006. The feature, called the Monad Shell, provides a way for users to access the operating system using text-based commands rather than the traditional Windows graphical user interface. In the past, Microsoft has said that Monad will be part of "Longhorn," the code name for both the next client and server versions of Windows. In an interview last week, Microsoft Director of Product Management Eric Berg said Monad will not be included in the first commercial version of Windows Vista, expected in the second half of 2006. But the product is expected to be included in Windows over the next "three to five years," he said. "Our intention is to synchronize it with both client and server operating systems." Cause for Concern Security experts had worried that if Monad were to be included in a widely used client, it might become an attractive target for hackers, especially if the shell were to be enabled by default. Whether it will be enabled by default is unclear. "There are multiple ways that we could introduce this technology to the client stream," Berg said. The first Microsoft product to use Monad will be the next release of Microsoft's Exchange messaging server, code-named "Exchange 12," which is due in 2006, Berg said. On the operating system side of things, Monad is then expected to be included in the Windows Server "Longhorn," expected in 2007, and then could be available in a future Windows Vista release, said Rob Helm, director of research with Directions on Microsoft. "Presumably, as time goes on, all of Microsoft's products will have Monad scripting interfaces," he said.

Massive ID Theft Ring Uncovered

Officials at Sunbelt Software, a Clearwater, Florida-based vendor of anti-spyware tools, say the company stumbled upon a massive ID theft ring that is using a well-known spyware program to break into and systematically steal confidential information from an unknown number of computers worldwide. The operation was discovered last week during research Sunbelt was doing on a spyware program belonging to a particularly dangerous class of browser hijacking tools called CoolWebSearch (CWS), according to Sunbelt's president, Alex Eckelberry. CWS programs are extremely hard to detect and remove, and are used to redirect users to Web sites that use spyware tools to collect a variety of information from infected computers. Treasure Trove of Information The CWS variant being researched by Sunbelt turned infected systems into spam zombies and uploaded a wide variety of personal information to a remote server apparently located in the U.S. That server holds a "treasure trove of information" for ID thieves, Eckelberry says. Sunbelt's research showed that the information being uploaded to the remote server included chat sessions, user names, passwords and bank information, he says. The bank information included details on one company bank account with more than $350,000 in deposits and another belonging to a small California company with over $11,000 in readily accessible cash, he says. Many of the records being uploaded also contained EBay account information, he says. Among the highly personal bits of information Sunbelt was able to retrieve from the server were one family's vacation plans, instructions to a limo driver to pick up passengers from an airport, and details about one computer user with a penchant for pedophilia. Sunbelt officials did not say how they accessed the material. But the existence of a large file that the company said it retrieved from the remote server was confirmed by Computerworld. Sunbelt says the file contained user names, addresses, account information, phone numbers, chat session logs, monthly car payment information, and salary data. "It's one of the most egregious things we have ever seen," says Eckelberry. "We know this kind of data is out there, but this is the first time we actually have the data that the criminals are using." Information gathered from infected computers is uploaded to the remote server and stored in highly organized files that appear to be accessed by multiple ID thieves, Eckelberry says. The files grow to anywhere from 10MB to 20MB in size before they are refreshed with new information, he says. Under Investigation The FBI has been contacted and is working on the case, Eckelberry says. In addition, Sunbelt has contacted some of the individuals and banks whose data has been logged to warn them of the compromise. The domain of the remote server appears to have been registered in China, although the server itself is located in the U.S., Eckelberry says. "We are working to get that server taken down." He declines to offer more details. A spokesperson for the FBI could not be reached for comment. Sunbelt's discovery brings home the seriousness and scope of the growing ID theft problem, says Pete Lindstrom, an analyst at Spire Security in Malvern, Pennsylvania. "I think this stuff is much more significant than the notification of [compromises] by credit card companies," Lindstrom says. That's because the credit card industry as a whole has better controls in place to detect and prevent abuses resulting from such compromises than individuals, he says. "This stuff hits home because it's personal. It's like taking something out of your home," Lindstrom says. "Each and every one of these accounts can be compromised, and it hurts someone." This story, "Massive ID Theft Ring Uncovered" was originally published by Computerworld .

G.M. Thrives in China With Small, Thrifty Vans

LIUZHOU, China - In this obscure corner of southern China, General Motors seems to have hit on a hot new formula: $5,000 minivans that get 43 miles to the gallon in city driving. That combination of advantages has captivated Chinese buyers, propelling G.M. into the leading spot in this nascent car market. Compact and utilitarian, these vehicles, called Wuling Sunshine minivans, hardly fit the big-is-better image of G.M., known in the United States for producing some of the largest gas guzzlers on the market, like Hummers. The minivans, which G.M. builds in a joint venture with a Chinese partner, have a quarter the horsepower of American minivans, weak acceleration and a top speed of 81 miles an hour. The seats are only a third the thickness of seats in Western models but look plush compared with some Chinese cars. Their development was led by an American, Philip F. Murtaugh, a native of Ohio and a maverick executive who was willing to zig while the rest of G.M. was zagging. Mr. Murtaugh was able to create in China the kind of innovative environment that G.M. has struggled for decades to achieve in its American operations. But whether G.M. can duplicate elsewhere its achievements in China or even keep its pace here is unclear.

Mars probe launches at third try

The $720m (£397m) Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) blasted off at 1243 BST (1143 GMT) on Friday after being delayed for two days running. A launch attempt on Thursday was scrubbed due to a sensor malfunction. MRO will arrive at Mars in March on a four-year mission; its cameras will send back the clearest images yet of the planet from space. "What a difference a day makes," said Nasa launch manager Chuck Dovale. "It couldn't have been any smoother." The spacecraft is the size of a small bus and weighs about 2,000kg; it will carry some of the most sophisticated instruments ever taken to the Red Planet. Cameras and spectrometers will enable scientists to study Mars' composition and structure and search for surface features related to water. MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER 1) 3m high-gain antenna 2) High-resolution Imaging Science Experiment 3) Electra UHF comms relay 4) Mars Climate Sounder 5) Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars 6) Orbit insertion thrusters 7) Shallow subsurface radar 8) Thrusters 9) Optical Navigation camera 10) Low-gain antennas "A prime goal of ours is to achieve higher spatial resolution in our observations of the surface and of the atmosphere and of the sub-surface by radar," said Richard Zurek, MRO project scientist. "When you increase your resolution and you still want to cover adequate areas of the planet what you have to be able to do is return much more data than previous missions have done." As such, MRO is also equipped with the largest communications antenna ever sent to the Red Planet, which will transmit 10 times more data each minute than previous Mars probes. This will allow the robotic probe to serve as a powerful communications relay for future missions to the surface. Life search Nasa has adopted the mantra "follow the water" in its approach to robotic exploration of the Red Planet, since water is an essential ingredient for life. One of the scientific objectives of the mission is to investigate whether Mars could once have supported microbial life forms. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will support future surface missions "Learning more about what has happened to the water will focus searches for possible Martian life, past or present." The US space agency mission could also reveal what happened to lost Mars landers such as the British-built Beagle 2 probe, which was lost in 2003, and the US Mars Polar Lander, which disappeared in 1999. Professor Colin Pillinger, from the Open University, who led the Beagle 2 mission, said: "If we could just see some trace of it on the surface then at least we could see how far it got - the not knowing is the worst bit. "It will be a very difficult thing to do, but this is our best chance of finding out what happened and we will be watching the progress of the mission with great interest and anticipation." Future plans Thursday's attempt was abandoned because sensors that monitor fuelling of the rocket were giving a "dry" reading even though the rocket was being filled with hydrogen propellant. A scheduled lift-off on Wednesday was scrubbed after a gyroscope of the type used in the Atlas V failed while being incorporated into a rocket unrelated to the MRO mission. MRO will join two operational US orbiters - the Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey - and one European orbiter, Mars Express, at the Red Planet. Two US robotic rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have been on the Martian surface for the past 18 months, investigating the geology of Mars. Nasa is planning two further Mars missions this decade: the Phoenix module, set for launch in 2007, and Mars Science Laboratory in 2009.

White House "Lost In Space" Scenarios

AUGUST 8--While we're hopeful that tomorrow's scheduled return of the Discovery space shuttle is a smooth one, TSG can't help but recall a couple of our favorite NASA-related memos, one which anticipated the demise of the Apollo XI astronauts. Though the July 1969 mission proved a success, President Richard Nixon's aides devised a contingency plan in case astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (and their lunar module) were somehow stranded on the moon. In a memo drafted two days before the Eagle landed, aide William Safire provided Nixon with a short speech to be delivered "In Event of Moon Disaster." After making condolence calls to the "widows-to-be," Nixon would have said, "Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace." We've also included a second memo--prepared by NASA for the president and vice president--suggesting statements in the event of Apollo "crew fatalities." The presidential lamentation ended by noting that the dead men "have followed a star, in night of space, and we for whom they went will not forget." (4 pages)

the biases of links – Corante

I have a hard time respecting anyone who believes that science or technology is neutral. Unfortunately, even when people consciously know that they are not, they give credence to the biased outputs without questioning the underlying assumptions. This is why i’m an academic – nothing gives me greater joy than to think about what biases go into the creation of a particular system. After reminding folks at Blogher that there are gender differences in networking habits, i decided to do some investigation into the network structures of blogs. Kevin Marks of Technorati kindly gave me a random sample of 500 blogs to play with. I began coding them based on gender (which is surprisingly easy to do given the amount of personal information people put about themselves) and looking for patterns in links and blogrolls. I decided to do the same for non-group blogs in the Technorati Top 100. I hadn’t looked at the Top 100 in a while and was floored to realize that most of those blogs are group blogs and/or professional blogs (with “editors” and clear financial backing). Most are covered in advertisements and other things meant to make them money. It’s very clear that their creators have worked hard to reach many eyes (for fame, power or money?). Here are some of the patterns that i saw*: Blogrolls: All MSNS paces users have a list of “Updated Spaces” that looks like a blogroll. It’s not. It’s a random list of 10 blogs on MSNS paces that have been recently updated. As a result, without special code (like in Technorati), search engines get to see MSNS pace bloggers as connecting to lots of other blogs. This would create the impression of high network density between MSNS paces which is inaccurate. paces users have a list of “Updated Spaces” that looks like a blogroll. It’s not. It’s a random list of 10 blogs on paces that have been recently updated. As a result, without special code (like in Technorati), search engines get to see pace bloggers as connecting to lots of other blogs. This would create the impression of high network density between paces which is inaccurate. Few LiveJournals have a blogroll but almost all have a list of friends one click away. This is not considered by search tools that look only at the front page. Bloggers who use hosting services tend to link to only others on the same hosting service (from the blogrolls on Xanga and Rakuten to the friend links on LJ). The blogroll structure on these is often set up to only accept lists of blogs from that service. Blogrolls seem to be very common on politically-oriented blogs and always connect to blogs with similar political views (or to mainstream media). Blogrolls by group blogging companies (like Weblogs, Inc.) always link to other blogs in the domain, using collective link power to help all. A fraction of the Top 100 have blogrolls of blogs. Some have blogrolls that are a link away (like Crooked Timber). Quite a few use that space to advertise or link to mainstream media or companies. Male bloggers who write about technology (particularly social software) seem to be the most likely to keep blogrolls. Their blogrolls tend be be dominantly male, even when few of the blogs they link to are about technology. I haven’t found one with >25% female bloggers (and most seem to be closer to 10%). On LJ (even though it doesn’t count) and Xanga, there’s a gender division in blogrolls whereby female bloggers have mostly female “friends” and vice versa. I was also fascinated that most of the mommy bloggers that i met at Blogher link to Dooce (in Top 100) but Dooce links to no one. This seems to be true of a lot of topical sites – there’s a consensus on who is in the “top” and everyone links to them but they link to no one. I also get the impression that blogrolls are not frequently updated (although i have to imagine that the blogs one reads are). I wonder how static blogrolls are. Linking patterns: The Top 100 tend to link to mainstream media, companies or websites (like Wikipedia, IMDB ) more than to other blogs (Boing Boing is an exception). ) more than to other blogs (Boing Boing is an exception). Blogs on blogging services rarely link to blogs in the posts (even when they are talking about other friends who are in their blogroll or friends’ list). It looks like there’s a gender split in tool use; Mena said that LJ is like 75% female, while Typepad and Moveable Type have far fewer women. Bloggers often talk about other people without linking to their blog (as though the audience would know the blog based on the person). For example, a blogger might talk about Halley Suitt’s presence or comments at Blogher but never link to her. This is much rarer in the Top 100 who tend to link to people when they reference them. Content type is correlated with link structure (personal blogs contain few links, politics blogs contain lots of links). There’s a gender split in content type. When bloggers link to another blog, it is more likely to be same gender. I began this investigation curious about gender differences. There are a few things that we know in social networks. First, our social networks are frequently split by gender (from childhood on). Second, men tend to have large numbers of weak ties and women tend to have fewer, but stronger ties. This means that in traditional social networks, men tend to know far more people but not nearly as intimately as those women know. (This is a huge advantage for men in professional spheres but tends to wreak havoc when social support becomes more necessary and is often attributed to depression later in life.) While blog linking tends to be gender-dependent, the number of links seems to be primarily correlated with content type and service. Of course, since content type and service are correlated by gender, gender is likely a secondary effect. Interestingly, there are distinct clusters of norms wrt linking in blogging, not a coherent and consistent one. The search engines (and the Technorati 100 and PubSub’s Daily 100 Top Links) are validating one of those clusters, regardless of whether or not that is what searchers are looking for. The Top 100 is a list of blogs who either fit into those norms or have adopted those norms in their patterns (most commonly the companies). I also want to point out a few other issues in link biases that are relevant here: All links are created equal. All relationships are not. Treating everything like a consistent weak tie is quantity over quality and in social networks, that means male over female. When the data being measured has inconsistent structure rules, any ranking metric is inherently flawed. In blogs, there’s no consistency for what a link means, no consistent social norms for blogrolls, no agreed-upon links norms. Metrics inherently squish out this nuance and force all of the square pegs into the round holes. Links indicate no weight, no valence, no attributes. I know Technorati has asked folks to indicate positive/negative in their links or to use nofollow, but few do this. And even if people did, that kind of articulation is a social disaster (::cough:: think Friendster). Traditionally, there is power in keeping your black book shut; one’s position in a network can be quite powerful. You get kudos by helping two unconnected people. You can limit information flow and acquire credit when you take something from one group to another. (This is the basis for some interesting work on creativity – creativity is when bridges connect information from disparate worlds.) While some think that transparency is good, some hide their network to maintain power. For example, if as a blogger, you provide “cool links,” you want others to read you, not the collection of people you read. Of course, a reasonable counter argument is that this person is no longer needed as a bridge, but as a curator. Still, some people hide so that they must be asked for recommendations directly and thus can control who they send people to. (Note: this is a particular kind of power move; transparency can also be a power move by through gifting.) There are social consequences to linking structures and those who have a lot of eyes on them are probably more aware of the consequences of their linking habits. This is another reason why people with a lot of eyes may get rid of blogrolls. Having to negotiate lots of requests for links can be a real turn-off. People will try to manipulate any ranking if there is an advantage to being up top. Static measurement algorithms cause harm to the entire community that is being measured. Web search engines know this, but it’s equally critical for blog search. These services are definitely measuring something but what they’re measuring is what their algorithms are designed to do, not necessarily influence or prestige or anything else. They’re very effectively measuring the available link structure. The difficulty is that there is nothing consistent whatsoever with that link structure. There are disparate norms, varied uses of links and linking artifacts controlled by external sources (like the hosting company). There is power in defining the norms, but one should question whether or companies or collectives should define them. By squishing everyone into the same rule set so that something can be measured, the people behind an algorithm are exerting authority and power, not of the collective, but of their biased view of what should be. This is inherently why there’s nothing neutral about an algorithm. While i’ve been looking into the linking patterns, Mary Hodder has been thinking through new metrics for measurement. These are very important but not because one is better than the other. In fact, if we all switched to any of her metrics, we’d have just as many biases as we have now. And many of the Top blogs would try to figure out how to get rank in that system. The significance lies in the ability to offer choice. Of course, choice is difficulty. Lots of people want to know what the “best” one is and don’t want to think about the metrics behind it (yes, these are the “neutral” people). Unfortunately, many of those types have a lot of power that motivate people to want their attention. The press want a list of the best and many bloggers want the attention of the press and thus want to be listed among the best. Breaking this cycle is virtually impossible, but it how power maintains power. And in our current system, we are doing a damn fine job of replicating the power structures that pervade everyday life under the auspices of creating a new system that usurps power. Ah, what fun. Still, i think it’s critical to work on new metrics so that we can at least start showing alternate ways of organizing information if for no other reason than to push back against the conception of neutrality. And thus, i’m stoked to help Mary out and i would encourage everyone else interested in altering the power structure to do so as well. At the least, i do think we need to really think about what is at stake and what we’re inadvertently supporting through our current systems. Are these the power structures that we want to maintain? Because there’s nothing neutral about our technological choices. Note: these are patterns, not findings. The methodology used here is not solid enough for findings. I am not offering quantitative data because i want it to be clear that these are trends based on tracking patterns. Think of them as guesstimated hypotheses (and i’d be ecstatic if someone would compute them). (Also posted at apophenia)

Science and Politics

The Evolution Education Site Ring This site ring is owned by John Stear

Private Company Plans $100 Million Tour Around the Moon

Another Space Adventures client, Greg Olsen, who made millions in the sale of his camera technology company, Sensors Unlimited, is preparing to visit the space station for several days in October. Of the Moon trip, he said, "It's certainly intriguing, and it's something I'd like to do." Will he buy a ticket, then? "One trip at a time," he replied. The trip seems feasible, said Dr. John M. Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. "As a nontechnical person, I don't see any technical showstoppers," Dr. Logsdon said, "if people are crazy enough to do it." And, he added, it would make "a lot of money for the Russians." Christopher C. Kraft, a former director of the Johnson Space Center, said his feelings about the enterprise were mixed. "I think it would be a fantastic journey," he said. "I could see why, if I had the price of the ticket and could use the money that way, that it would be tempting to go." But Mr. Kraft added that the flight would be cramped and probably extremely unpleasant. With three people in a small Soyuz craft for an extended trip, he said, "I imagine that you could endure that, but, man, it would be tough." Mr. Anderson of Space Adventures said the craft had about as much room as a sport utility vehicle. "Will it be cramped? Yes," he said. "But will it be doable? Yes." He noted that the Gemini capsule was smaller than the Soyuz, and that the astronauts James A. Lovell and Frank Borman orbited the Earth for 14 days in the Gemini 7 mission in 1965. But Mr. Kraft, who was the flight director for that mission, recalled that Mr. Lovell and Mr. Borman were miserable. They complained bitterly that the trip was like "14 days in a men's room," and Mr. Kraft said that he had to talk them out of ending the mission early. "They wanted to get out of there," he said.

Korean WWII sex slaves fight on

By William Horsley BBC News Former sex slaves are still demanding official compensation In their midst, a small group of elderly women sit silently. They are the survivors of the brutal, Asia-wide system of sex slaves for the Imperial Japanese Army, which the military government encouraged and helped to operate for 13 years, from 1932 until the end of World War II in 1945. They were euphemistically called "comfort women". But experts like Korean American scholar Edward Chang of the University of California say the network of "comfort stations" were actually officially-sanctioned rape camps. Many of the women were even killed as part of an attempt to cover up the crime. "There should be no time limit on prosecuting these crimes against humanity," Prof Chang said. Japan says all potential claims by individuals for sufferings inflicted in the war were closed years ago, by treaties normalising its ties with other Asian countries. But Kang Kyung-wha, a senior official at South Korea's foreign ministry, has recently urged Japan to come to terms with its "legal responsibility" and human rights obligations towards the former comfort women. Repeatedly abused Kim Gunja, now aged 80, is too frail to attend the Wednesday demonstrations. Her story is typical of the tens of thousands - some estimates say 200,000 - women from across Asia whose lives were ruined when they became military sex slaves to the Japanese. At the age of 17, she was tricked into being abducted by a Korean middle-man who delivered large numbers of young women and girls to his country's then Japanese colonial masters. Kim Gunja is especially angry at current Japanese leaders She was taken by train to the so-called comfort stations for the Japanese army in Manchuria, north-east China, where she says she was raped by the soldiers many times a day for three years. "The soldiers didn't know when they would die, and they were very cruel," she said. She was beaten so badly that she lost her hearing in one ear. After the war she could never marry or get a good job. She still cannot forgive. And she saves her fiercest hatred for current Japanese leaders. She wants them to show sincere atonement for Japan's past wrongdoings and to take responsibility by paying official compensation. Facing up to the past Japan stands accused of a series of evasions in facing up to the military sex slave issue. According to Mr Chang, Japan's first admission of involvement only came in 1991, after a wartime document came to light in the foreign ministry about the granting of travel permits for Asian women in areas occupied by the Japanese army. He says that, since then, the Japanese authorities have continued to hinder the search for detailed evidence about the fate of the former comfort women. But his own research team's trawl through America's national archives has produced a sheaf of files captured by the US army from the retreating Japanese forces. They contain photos and other personal details of dozens of young Filipino women - evidence, he says, of the most extensive system of female trafficking the world has ever seen. Since 1992 Japanese prime ministers have all made formal apologies for the war. But Shin Heisoo, head of the Korean council supporting the former military sexual slaves, believes these statements are just empty words. Only legal reparations, she says, will suffice to acknowledge what she sees as war crimes. In Japan, a recent opinion poll showed that only 13% of the population think further apologies to Asian countries are needed. Many in South Korea cannot just forget the past It also directly funded medical care for the recipients. A director of the fund, Yasuaki Onuma, acknowledges the criticism of Japan's slow and limited response. But he also holds some hard-line South Korean campaigners responsible for the impasse. Many of the Korean victims, he says, were put under intense social pressures to refuse the Japanese donations, although they sorely needed that support. It was recently decided that the fund will shut down within two years. So the poison from past cruelties will be passed on to a new generation of Koreans and Japanese. Kim Gunja now lives near Seoul in a home for former comfort women supported by the South Korean government. She says she hopes Japan will reveal the truth and offer her official compensation. "Otherwise", she said, "I will not be able to close my eyes when I die."

Artist corrects her infamous spelling mistakes in Livermore mural

Artist corrects her infamous spelling mistakes in Livermore mural Miami artist Maria Alquilar works on her art piece outside the front entrance to the Livermore library. Miami artist Maria Alquilar arrived in Livermore Sunday to correct the $40,000 ceramic mural she created outside Livermore's new public library. She replaced the tiles containing misspelled names of Einstein, Shakespeare, Vincent Van Gogh, Michelangelo and seven other historical figures. Photo by Michael Maloney / San Francisco Chronicle less Miami artist Maria Alquilar works on her art piece outside the front entrance to the Livermore library. Miami artist Maria Alquilar arrived in Livermore Sunday to correct the $40,000 ceramic mural she created ... more Photo: Michael Maloney Photo: Michael Maloney Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Artist corrects her infamous spelling mistakes in Livermore mural 1 / 8 Back to Gallery (08-09) 14:02 PDT Livermore (SF Chronicle) -- “What’s in a name?” Shakespere asked. Make that “Shakespeare.” Miami artist Maria Alquilar, much maligned for 11 misspellings that popped up in the educational mural she designed for the Livermore public library last year, spent today under the hot sun correcting her mistakes. In addition to fixing the bard’s name, she changed “Eistein” to “Einstein,” “Gaugan” to “Gauguin” and more. But Alquilar, who at first claimed artistic license and said she wasn’t going to return to fix the faux pas because people were being too mean about it, was giving no media interviews as she worked under a broad-brimmed straw hat and blue tent. She sliced and diced the tiles with power tools, protected from the public by a barrier. She wagged her finger at a television cameraman and threatened to throw a rock at a print photographer. “No pictures of me!” she yelled. “If I’m in it, I’m going to sue you.” Apparently, Alquilar wanted to return quietly to do the edits, for which city officials are paying her $6,000 plus travel expenses. That’s on top of the $40,000 she received for creating the 16-foot circular mosaic, made up of 175 historical names and cultural words. But after she arrived Sunday, word spread, and today she had a consistent audience for her work, which she expected to complete today or Wednesday. Assistant City Manager Jim Piper assured reporters that city officials were spell-checking Alquilar’s replacement tiles. “We certainly believe they are spelled correctly,” he said. Livermore officials selected Alquilar in 2000 to create a mosaic at the entrance to Livermore’s new library, which opened in May 2004. Icons representing science, art, literature and history surround a tree of life in the center. Library patrons were of varied opinions about whether a name by any other spelling smelled as sweet. A woman named Betty, who wouldn’t give her last name for fear of reprisal from her stickler school-teacher chums, said she didn’t mind the imperfect art. “I feel sorry for her out in the heat,” she said. “It was kind of fun to have something unique. I thought it was very nice.” But Jarod Vash, 17, who was borrowing videos with his girlfriend and her family, said he thought the misspellings were embarrassing. “When the story first broke, I thought, ‘Oh, Livermore, the town that misspells stuff,’ ” he said. “The only thing we’ve got in Livermore, and it’s misspelled.” But he added, “Everybody makes mistakes.” “Not this bad,” said his girlfriend’s 13-year-old brother, Eric Smyth.

Opinion | The Male Condition

What of Mr. Summers's other claim, that such sex differences are innate? We know that culture plays a role in the divergence of the sexes, but so does biology. For example, on the first day of life, male and female newborns pay attention to different things. On average, at 24 hours old, more male infants will look at a mechanical mobile suspended above them, whereas more female infants will look at a human face. It has also been found that the amount of prenatal testosterone, which is produced by the fetus and measurable in the amniotic fluid in which the baby is bathed in the womb, predicts how sociable a child will be. The higher the level of prenatal testosterone, the less eye contact the child will make as a toddler, and the slower the child will develop language. That is connected to the role of fetal testosterone in influencing brain development. Males obviously produce far more prenatal testosterone than females do, but levels vary considerably even across members of the same sex. In fact, it may not be your sex per se that determines what kind of brain you have, but your prenatal hormone levels. From there it's a short leap to the intriguing idea that a male can have a typically female brain (if his testosterone levels are low), while a female can have a typically male brain (if her testosterone levels are high). That notion fits with the evidence that girls born with congenital adrenal hyperplasia, who for genetic reasons produce too much testosterone, are more likely to exhibit "tomboy" behavior than girls with more ordinary hormone levels. What does all this have to do with autism? According to what I have called the "extreme male brain" theory of autism, people with autism simply match an extreme of the male profile, with a particularly intense drive to systemize and an unusually low drive to empathize. When adults with Asperger's syndrome (a subgroup on the autistic spectrum) took the same questionnaires we gave to non-autistic adults, they exhibited extreme Type S brains. Psychological tests reveal a similar pattern. And this analysis makes sense. It helps explain the social disability in autism, because empathy difficulties make it harder to make and maintain relationships with others. It also explains the "islets of ability" that people with autism display in subjects like math or music or drawing -- all skills that benefit from systemizing. People with autism often develop obsessions, which may be nothing other than very intense systemizing at work. The child might become obsessed with electrical switches (an electrical system), or train timetables (a temporal system), or spinning objects (a physical system), or the names of deep-sea fish (a natural, taxonomic system). The child with severe autism, who may have additional learning difficulties and little language ability, might express his obsessions by bouncing constantly on a trampoline or spinning around and around, because motion is highly lawful and predictable. Some children with severe autism line objects up for hours on end. What used to be dismissed by clinicians as "purposeless, repetitive behavior" may actually be a sign of a mind that is highly tuned to systemize. One needs to be extremely careful in advancing a cause for autism, because this field is rife with theories that have collapsed under empirical scrutiny. Nonetheless, my hypothesis is that autism is the genetic result of "assortative mating" between parents who are both strong systemizers. Assortative mating is the term we use when like is attracted to like, and there are four significant reasons to believe it is happening here.

Google says Cnet went too far in googling

Google says Cnet went too far in googling Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, USA, participates in a panel session at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Friday, Jan. 23, 2004. (AP Photo/ Keystone, Yoshiko Kusano) ALSO Ran on: 12-02-2004 Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, is pleased with the IPO's run-up. Ran on: 04-09-2005 ALSO RAN: 05/11/2005 ALSO Ran on: 06-22-2005 less Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, USA, participates in a panel session at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Friday, Jan. 23, 2004. (AP Photo/ Keystone, Yoshiko Kusano) ALSO Ran ... more Photo: YOSHIKO KUSANO Photo: YOSHIKO KUSANO Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Google says Cnet went too far in googling 1 / 1 Back to Gallery Googling someone -- a prospective job candidate, a teenage crush, your son's soccer coach -- is a commonplace ritual of modern life. But the search engine company evidently doesn't appreciate a taste of its own medicine. Google has blackballed online technology news service Cnet News.com for googling Eric Schmidt, CEO of the Mountain View company, and including some personal information about him in a story last month. Google told a Cnet editor that it will not speak with Cnet reporters until August 2006, according to Jai Singh, editor in chief of Cnet News.com in San Francisco. "We published a story that recounted how we found information on the (Google) CEO in a public forum using their service," Singh said. "They had issue with the fact that they felt it was private information and our point is it was public information obtained through public channels using Google search. " Google declined to comment. MBA BY THE BAY: See how an MBA could change your life with SFGATE's interactive directory of Bay Area programs. Reporter Elinor Mills' Cnet article made the point that Google, the search engine used by more than half of U.S. Internet users, has much potential for privacy invasion, particularly through data it collects that is not available to the public, such as logs of Google searches. She illustrated the story with information that could readily be obtained by anyone with access to Google and the Internet: Schmidt's net worth, home neighborhood, attendance at Burning Man and enthusiasm for amateur piloting. "From what I understand, most of (Google's objection to the article) had to do with the anecdotal lead we used to illustrate the point that information could be obtained rather easily using Google search," Singh said. Mark Glaser, a columnist with Online Journalism Review, run by the USC Annenberg School, said Google was overreacting. "Google helps people search for this kind of information. For them to be upset that someone would publicize it is a little bit strange. It could end up backfiring on them because it gives more attention to the (privacy) problem," he said. An entire company shunning an entire media outlet is unusual, although isolated bans are not. Athletes and movie stars are known for refusing to talk to reporters who have angered them. During the height of the steroids scandal in March, Barry Bonds once refused to speak to the media while The Chronicle's Giants beat reporter was present. Companies sometimes pull advertisements to retaliate for media coverage they consider unfair. In April, General Motors pulled all its ads in the Los Angeles Times over what it called "factual errors and misrepresentations," a ban that the Wall Street Journal reported could have cost the newspaper about $10 million annually. GM resumed advertising in the Los Angeles Times this month. Media critic Ben Bagdikian said Google and other everyday digital technologies indeed raise privacy concerns, but he predicted that the ban against Cnet will not last. "No one can force one party to speak to another party," he wrote in an e- mail. "My guess is that for business reasons, and to respond to unkind words directed at Google, it will be hard for Google not to reply, at which point the whole messy fight will make both parties look so ridiculous in public that the general public will get bored and both parties will suffer in their businesses." Original story on CNET: news.com.com/Googles+balancing+act/2100-1032_3-5787483.html

Theories of humour - Poking fun

THE true story of how your wife's stalker rang her to discuss killing you isn't supposed to provoke mirth. But when John Morreall, of the College of William and Mary in Virginia, related the events last week to a group of scholars in Tuebingen in Germany, they were in stitches as he divulged the details of how his wife tried to dissuade the confused young man by pleading that her mortgage was too large to pay without her husband's help. So why did they laugh? Dr Morreall's thesis is that laughter, incapacitating as it can be, is a convincing signal that the danger has passed. The reaction of the psychologists, linguists, philosophers and professional clowns attending the Fifth International Summer School on Humour and Laughter illustrates his point. Dr Morreall survived to tell the tale and so had an easy time making it sound funny. One description of how laughter is provoked is the incongruity theory developed by Victor Raskin of Purdue University and Salvatore Attardo of Youngstown State University, both in America. This theory says that all written jokes and many other humorous situations are based on an incongruity—something that is not quite right. In many jokes, the teller sets up the story with this incongruity present and the punch line then resolves it, in a way people do not expect. Alternatively, the very last words of the story may introduce the absurdity and leave the listeners with the task of reconciling it. For instance, many people find it funny that a conference on humour could take place in Germany. Why do people laugh at all? What is the point of it? Laughter is very contagious and this suggests that it may have become a part of human behaviour because it promotes social bonding. When a group of people laughs, the message seems to be “relax, you are among friends”. Indeed, humour is one way of dealing with the fact that humans are “excrement-producing poets and imperfect lovers”, says Appletree Rodden of the University of Tuebingen. He sees religion and humour as different, and perhaps competing, ways for people to accept death and the general unsatisfactoriness of the world. Perhaps that is why, as Dr Morreall calculates in a forthcoming article in the journal Humor, 95% of the writings that he sampled from important Christian scholars through the centuries disapproved of humour, linking it to insincerity and idleness. Fear of idleness is why many managers discourage laughter during office hours, Dr Morreall notes. This is foolish, he claims. Laughter or its absence may be the best clue a manager has about the work environment and the mood of employees. Indeed, another theory of why people laugh—the superiority theory—says that people laugh to assert that they are on a level equal to or higher than those around them. Research has shown that bosses tend to crack more jokes than do their employees. Women laugh much more in the presence of men, and men generally tell more jokes in the presence of women. Men have even been shown to laugh much more quietly around women, while laughing louder when in a group of men. But laughter does not unite us all. There are those who have a pathological fear that others will laugh at them. Sufferers avoid situations where there will be laughter, which means most places where people meet. Willibald Ruch of Zurich University surveyed 1,000 Germans and asked them whether they thought they were the butts of jokes and found that almost 10% felt this way. These people also tended to classify taped laughter as jeering. Future research will focus on the hypothesis that there is something seriously wrong with their sense of humour.

Apache Lucene Core

Apache Lucene Core Apache LuceneTM is a high-performance, full-featured text search engine library written entirely in Java. It is a technology suitable for nearly any application that requires full-text search, especially cross-platform. Apache Lucene is an open source project available for free download. Please use the links on the right to access Lucene. Lucene TM Features Lucene offers powerful features through a simple API: Scalable, High-Performance Indexing over 150GB/hour on modern hardware small RAM requirements -- only 1MB heap incremental indexing as fast as batch indexing index size roughly 20-30% the size of text indexed Powerful, Accurate and Efficient Search Algorithms ranked searching -- best results returned first many powerful query types: phrase queries, wildcard queries, proximity queries, range queries and more fielded searching (e.g. title, author, contents) sorting by any field multiple-index searching with merged results allows simultaneous update and searching flexible faceting, highlighting, joins and result grouping fast, memory-efficient and typo-tolerant suggesters pluggable ranking models, including the Vector Space Model and Okapi BM25 configurable storage engine (codecs) Cross-Platform Solution

Microsoft, Apple 'spar over iPod patent'

According to AppleInsider , a patent filed in 2002 by a Microsoft researcher has prompted the US Patent and Trademark Office to reject an Apple application to patent its iPod user interface. But leave the black helicopters grounded for a moment: the conspiracy theories may not be flightworthy. The AppleInsider story says the Apple application "to patent the menu-based software interface of its popular iPod digital music player has ultimately proved unsuccessful." However that isn't the case. The story is coy about the patents it discusses, doesn't mention the Microsoft connection and upon further research, it's clear that several key aspects of the iPod are adequately covered by separate Apple IP applications. Both patents discussed have weathered multiple rejections by the USPTO. The story reports that last month an iPod-related patent application for "rotational user inputs" by Apple was rejected, with the examiner citing an earlier 2002 application filed by John Platt. A Microsoft Research scientist who used to work for touch pad vendor Synaptics, Platt filed a claim for "playlist generation based on seed items" on May 30 2002, some seven months after the iPod was unveiled. Comparing the two applications, it's hard to see how they overlap. AppleInsider claims "the process by which the iPod's software displays its own menu-based interface is very similar to the process Platt's filing goes on to describe." Such a similarity eluded us, although you can judge for yourselves - the links are at the end of this report. Apple's application, assigned to iTunes engineer Jeffrey Robbins, Apple CEO Steve Jobs and VP of marketing Phil Schiller, was made on September 26 2002, and describes rotating an input device to navigate in a linear fashion through a user interface. "Although the type of computing device can vary, the improved approaches are particularly well-suited for use with a portable media player," according to the filing. AppleInsider reports that the rotational patent has been rejected by the USPTO. However, this isn't as final as the statement suggests. "Non-Final Rejections" (NFR) of this kind aren't unusual. Patents are frequently bounced back to the inventor, and many successful patents are accepted only after several NFRs. For example, an Amazon.com e-commerce patent we wrote about recently succeeded at the fifth attempt in four years. Apple's rotation application, we discover, received its first NFR on September 29, 2004 and was bounced again on June 13 this year. But Platt's playlist application also has a rejection history. It received an NFR on 17 November 2002, and a more serious Final Rejection on 14 June 2004. After further documentation was received, and extension granted, the application received another NFR on 11 December last year. Apple has filed a number of applications to protect the iPod and iTunes user interfaces, including 60/359,551 ("Touch Pad for Handheld Device") and 60/387,692 ("Method and Apparatus for Use of Rotational User Inputs"). Apple is facing two infringement suits claiming the iPod violates existing IP. ® Related links Robbin, Jobs, Schiller application Platt's application

Cindy Sheehan to Be Arrested Thursday

NOTE: CODE PINK is reporting that the idea of Thursday arrests started with speculation, not a threat from authorities. I am unable to confirm or deny that. Meanwhile, I have a voice message from Cindy saying that they left their spot on the side of the road because of a storm and now the Sherrif's men are trying to post no trespassing signs and force them to leave. I am unable to confirm or deny this or provide any more details. UPDATE: I got Cindy on the phone and she continued to maintain that the threat of arrest was real, but said that it came to her via Diane Wilson. I spoke to Diane, who said that it came from Texas State Rep Lon Burman, a Democrat. She said that he was not speaking on behalf of or communicating any information from the Bush Administration or the Secret Service or the Sheriff's Department. But she maintained that what he had predicted was already starting. Both Sheehan and Wilson said that the County Sherrif's deputies on Saturday identified several areas as county property on which they could stand. Now they claim that most of these area are private property, and that they had not known that. So, this afternoon the deputies forced Cindy and about 25 people with her onto one small area on one side of a road. Wilson said that they threatened arrest if anyone refused to move to the proper small area. Cindy was skeptical of the claims about who owned the land. "Can you believe that on the road to the President's house they don't know exactly who owns it?" Both she and Wilson said they expected they would get arrested Thursday. Cindy said, "I think we need as many people here on Thursday anyway, because Rice and Rumsfeld will be here....I'd rather not get arrested, but I'm willing to, I'm willing to have them pick me up and carry me away."

The Long Tail: Shorter, faster, smaller

A while back I argued that once it's freed from the tyranny of channels and schedules, TV would cease to come primarily in half-hour chunks. Instead, more video content would be in shorter canape-sized morsels, say three, five, or ten minutes in length, better suited to online viewing habits and bite-sized attention spans. And, sure enough, Al Gore's Current TV is doing just that (although why it isn't all stream/downloadable yet is a mystery). They explain: We slice the rest of the schedule into short pods -- each just a few minutes long -- that range far and wide, from international dispatches to profiles of cool people to intelligence on new trends. This is not a traditional TV network; watching Current, you'll see more, on more topics, from more points of view. The rise of shorter, smaller content is actually a trend that's affecting all media and entertainment, reflecting not just the taste of a quick-change generation but also an increasing variety and flexibility in the ways we can consume media. As we leave the era of one-size-fits-all distribution, we'll increasingly see the end of one-size-fits-all content. Indeed there's an increasing amount of evidence that this is already underway: Note that this increased range of distribution options can allow for longer content, too, with the rise of TV shows on DVD (where you can watch much of a season at a single sitting) as a prime example. But the overall trend is toward shorter, faster, smaller everything. We're increasingly fine-slicing both the time we give media and the media itself. Small is the new big.

Disaster Movies and Family Harmony

Michael Berube wrestles with "popular culture": Invasion of the Marriage Disaster Flicks: So Janet and I saw War of the Worlds last night, a movie we wanted to see precisely because it has no emotional content whatsoever. We were pleased, however, to find out that (and I think I’m paraphrasing a reviewer here, but I can’t remember which one) a brutal alien invasion will get Tom Cruise back in touch with his children (Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin). I suppose there’s more to say about the film, particularly about Tim Robbins’s bizarre appearance as himself in Mystic River (apparently he’s now ready to re-enact the child molestation in the basement bit, this time with himself as the molester). But what Janet and I wanted to know, as we left the theater, was how the hell the marriage between Mary Ann (Miranda Otto) and Ray Ferrier (Cruise) could ever have happened in the first place. That’s far less plausible than a mass invasion of insect-lizard aliens driving huge tripods around the globe. As for the closing scene, in which Cruise delivers the kids to Otto (who’s in Boston with her second husband) and Chatwin finally calls him “dad”: what is it with this narrative trope, anyway? There’s a disaster or an invasion or a lethal virus or a mysterious bunch of aliens living in our oceans, and the story ends when the family romance is completed in some way? Quoi? And pourquoi? I’ve been wondering about this for some time, and even tried to write about it a few years ago, but I don’t really know what to do with it aside from pointing it out. So, dear readers, I cheerily invite you to give it a go. Here are your Texts for Analysis. Please remember to write legibly!... Well, it seems to me that what what Michael and Janet regard as a strange deviation from the disaster-movie genre is an attempt by Hollywood to stretch the movie's appeal by combining typical narrative patterns expressed by preschool-age boys and girls. The boys want (and tell) stories about power, violence, chaos, and destruction. The girls want (and tell) stories about people embedded in family relationships doing things which end with the reaffirmation or restoration of the harmonious family. Here, for example, is Agelike Nicolopoulou of Lehigh, analyzing stories told by 4-year-olds at a western Massachusetts nursery school http://www.lehigh.edu/~inpsy/nicolopoulou1997.pdf: The preschool makes strong and deliberate efforts to create an egalitarian, nonsexist atmosphere.... [O]ne of the teachers' intentions in using this storytelling and story-acting practice is to help generate greater cohesion and a common culture.... [T]o a great extent, however, [the children]... build up two subcultures within the classroom, not one.... The kinds of stories told by the boys and girls differ systematically... in both form and content... embody two distinctive types of genuine aesthetic imagination (surprising as it may seem to assert this about preschoolers), each with its own inner logic and coherence.... The girls' stories show a strain toward order, whereas the boys' stories show a strain toward disorder.... The older girls in this group told stories that largely fit within what I call a "family genre"... start... with characters already embedded... in stable and given networks of social relations, the most favored of these being the family unit.... [T]he world outside the home may be a source of danger and disruption.... Once upon a time there was a castle, and a king and a queen and a prince and a princess and a unicorn and a pony lived in it. And they went for a walk. And they found a playground and they swang on the swings, and they slide down the slide, and then they went back home. But they had some trouble finding the way. But then a dog came to them and said, "I'll help you find the way home," and he did. The End. [W]hen the girls do introduce a danger, threat, or surprise, they are almost always careful to resolve it in a positive way before ending the story.... In short, the girls' stories are... organized around the representation, maintenance, and restoration of order... rooted in a frameork of stable social relationships... anchored topographically in the home.... In contrast, the overwhelming majority of 4-year-old boys' stories start with isolated individual characters... defined... through their actions.... The characters most often used by boys tend to be either big and powerful animals.. superheroes, villains, and other cartoon action characters... [and] a small number of small but lethal characters.... The stories focus on struggle and destruction... straightforward descriptions of destruction and/or chaos are not uncommon: Once there was Robin Hood. Then Batman came. Then prince John came--he's the king. Then Superman came. Superman battled with Batman and Batman died. Then he came alive again. Superman died. And then Splinter, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo came. Then an Indian came on a horse with a bow and arrow. Then a cowboy came on a horse with a bow and arrow just like the Indian and shot Superman so he wouldn't ever come alive again. And they lived happily ever after. The end. The standard action movie pattern used to be (a) that the movie ended when the antagonist had been overthrown and (b) that ending was announced by the clinch between the hero and the ingenue. This new "combinatory" narrative pattern is a shift. And I do not think it is a successful shift--the attainment of harmonious family relationships is simply grafted on, and does not emerge organically out of the central action of the movie. Hollywood is aware that it has an audience bifurcation problem with movies like "War of the Worlds," and it is trying to figure out how to fix it, but it is failing. In spite of the restoration of harmonious family relationships at its end, "War of the Worlds" does not make it as a chick flick. "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" is a much better movie, even though it lacks death rays and large explosions.

Stealing your neighbor's Internet? Experts urge caution

The spread of wireless is opening lots of opportunity to log on for free, but experts urge caution. QUICK VOTE Is using your neighbor's wireless Internet connection stealing? Yes No View results NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Forty bucks for high-speed Internet access? Not a bad deal. But how does free sound? To a growing number of Internet piggy-backers, it's the sweet sound of pirating their neighbor's wireless network. Most new computers are equipped for wireless Internet access, and more and more people are opting for Wi-Fi in their homes. But as the networks become stronger and more prevalent, more of those signals are available outside the home of the subscriber, spilling over into neighbor's apartments, hallways and the street. Add to this the growing number of cafes and other public "hot spots" that offer Wi-Fi (for wireless fidelity) connections and the ability to buy more powerful antennas that can pick up signals several hundred feet away. The coverage in some places can be pretty near flawless. One study by Jupiter Research said 14 percent of wireless network owners have accessed their neighbor's connection. Yet anecdotal evidence suggests that more and more people are logging on for free. "I haven't paid for Internet since I've been in New York City," said one friend of this reporter. "Ditto," chimed in another. And as the practice of using someone else's connection without paying for it expands, it raises the question: Is there anything wrong with that? Will this land you in jail? The legality of stealing your neighbor's connection is murky at best. "All of this stuff is so new, it's hard to say what the liability issues are," said Robert Hale, a San Francisco-based attorney who recently published an academic paper on the subject. Hale points out that there is a federal law on the books that ostensibly prohibits using someone's access point with out their permission. But "without permission" is vaguely defined and the law seems more geared towards computer hacking. It seems pretty clear that if you hack your neighbor's password then it could be reasonably argued you didn't have authorization. But securing many older wireless systems with a password is difficult and even newer ones can be a challenge if you're running multiple computers or multiple operating systems. And, while it may be a violation of the user agreements with Internet service providers, some community-minded users deliberately leave their connections open for others to borrow. "It's a gray area," said Paul Stamp, an analyst at the technology consultants Forester Research. "By not restricting access it could be argued that you're implicitly making that available." "A broad statement concerning the access of unprotected wireless networks as being always legal or illegal simply can't be made," said Jackie Lesch, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice. "It's just kind of dicey." On a federal level, according to Lesch, prosecuting decisions are made on a case to case basis, mostly depending on the type of system accessed and what it was accessed for. On the state level it could be more clear. "It's unlawful access", said John Geraty, an officer with the Internet crimes against children unit of the San Francisco Police Department. According to Geraty, using your neighbor's wireless is specifically prohibited in the California penal code. "It's not yours and you're taking it," he says. But Geraty said his department doesn't deal with that type of crime specifically and an officer at the department's fraud desk -- whose jurisdiction it would fall under -- said she couldn't recall anyone ever being arrested for it. Experts do agree that the likelihood of getting caught and prosecuted for stealing a wireless connection probably depends on how often you do it and how you're using it. "The damages are really the big issue," said Hale. "Are you just poking around, checking your e-mail, or are you doing it on a regular basis and affecting this person's bandwidth?" Location also seems to play a part. "If you're in a Manhattan building with 30 apartments that's one thing," said Julie Ask, research director at the technology consultants Jupiter Research. "But if you're the guy who parks your car in front of a suburban house in the middle of the night and you've got the screen from your laptop glowing, well..." speaking of a man who was arrested earlier this month in Florida for just that. Exposing yourself Legal questions aside, reliability is another reason to pay for your own access. If you are a heavy user or need the Internet to work from home, relying on a connection that your neighbor could shut off at any moment is probably not a good idea. There is also the possibility that someone could have set up the unsecured connection as a trap. Experts say it's possible for the network subscriber to gain at least partial access to your computer, read your e-mails and see the pages you visit if you are using their connection. Any personal information you send online could then be compromised. So while pirating your neighbor's Wi-Fi it may seem like a good way to siphon a free service, you may end up feeling pretty stupid if you get a summons for sneaking a peek at the latest sports scores or your favorite Web sites are the topic of conversation at the neighborhood Christmas party. ____________________________________________ Man charged with wireless trespassing, click here. The next gold mine: Moblogs. Click here

50 Fun Things To Do With Your iPod

In the four years since its introduction, the iPod has proven to be a versatile little device. Despite a relatively closed architecture, hackers have found their way in. Content creators and software makers put information at your fingertips when you're on the go. Would-be designers have added to the fashionable stylings of the now-ubiquitous white ear buds. Hardware makers and enthusiasts have augmented the iPod with new add-on gadgets. Here are a few dozen things you can do with your iPod besides listen to music. Note: This page is a bit outdated; it was published just after the first iPod shuffle came out and before the release of a video-capable iPod. 01 Make your own pirate radio station Just expose the antenna on your iTrip FM transmitter and you can broadcast your iPod's music library to any radio a short distance away. Useful for silencing loud radios or just messing with people. 02 Find good NYC pizza The piPod software will guide you and your musical friend to some of the best pizza places in New York City. Dress it up If Apple's iPod Socks don't catch your fancy, there's always the iPod Hoodie, complete with drawstring enclosures. Either is perfect for a cozy afternoon nap on the couch. 04 Record audio without extra hardware Rather than buying the iTalk for $40, you can install a program called Podzilla on your iPod and use a regular old microphone to record high quality audio. 05 Listen to your mp3 collection in the car Griffin and Kensington (among others) sell FM transmitters for the iPod. Just tune your radio to the proper frequency and out comes your music collection. Store your photos on the go If you're out shooting and don't have enough room on your camera's memory card for all the photos you want to take, offload them to your iPod with Media Reader, erase the card, and shoot away. 07 Call your friends Combine the iPod with early 1990s mobile phone tech, and you can play music and make calls with the same slim device. Fits neatly in the pocket of some very large pants. 08 Share your music with complete strangers Approach someone with the signature white ear buds, smile, and trade headphone jacks to get an earful of your new friend's music. 09 Find your way in the dark Griffin's iBeam turns your iPod into a laser pointer (for presentations, annoying people at the movies, or exercising your cat) or a flashlight. If only it would shine the currently playing song info. Look at yourself in the mirror The backs of the larger iPods are very shiny and make pretty good mirrors. Here are some folks who've documented this feature. 11 Get it a tattoo As your iPod gets older and grow more rebellious, it'll eventually want to get a tattoo. O'Reilly is happy to help with this guide to creating your own iPod tattoos. No word on any available piercings. 12 Record your vocal thoughts With the iTalk or Belkin Voice Recorder, your iPod has audio-in capability as well. Record notes to yourself, interviews for later transcription, or just ramble into it and share it with the world (see podcasting below). 13 Build yourself a portable jukebox Pair your iPod with a Tivoli PAL (Portable Audio Lab) unit and take your tunes anywhere, sans headphones. 14 Listen to text If you're sufficiently clever about Linux, you can install a text-to-speech app on your iPod, making it possible to listen to your menus or text files through your ear buds. 15 Modify the look and feel of the iPod OS iPod Wizard lets you modify the graphics and fonts that come with your iPod so that, for example, you're greeted by the Lego logo when you start it up. Live off the grid and charge your iPod shuffle by hand Phil Torrone made a hand-cranked contraption for charging your iPod shuffle. It's still in the experimental stages so there's no word on how many cranks it takes for a full recharge. 17 Get mugged Thieves in several cities have reportedly been targeting folks wearing the iPod's signature white headphones and stealing their iPods. Look at this as an excuse to get some better headphones. 18 Mix drinks at the bar Podtender contains recipes for over 900 mixed drinks. 19 Read the Constitution Brush up on US historical documents by perusing the US Constitution to your iPod "while listening to Avril Lavigne and Method Man". 20 Murder someone HeadlinedNews.com recently reported that "Memphis woman was arrested and charged with first-degree murder after she bludgeoned her boyfriend to death with an iPod" but was later revealed to be a hoax. Still, the 60GB iPod Photo is a hefty chunk of metal... Keep track of your appointments All iPods, except for the shuffle, come with calendaring functionality built in, so you can sync your desktop calendar to your iPod and keep track of where you're supposed to be and when if you're out and about. 22 Get inspired American Rhetoric has made available audio versions of many famous political speeches, including MLK's "I Have a Dream" and JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner". 23 Read your favorite weblogs Keep track of the news and what your friends are up to by putting their RSS feeds on your iPod. 24 Cook a nice dinner The PodGourmet software contains 260 recipes for the discerning chef. There's even a vegan version available with an additional 277 recipes. 25 Make a RAID array Unsatisfied with just listening to music on his new iPod shuffle, Jim Wright enlisted some friends' shuffles and made a RAID array out of them. "As far as the Mac is concerned, it's just another drive on the system." Play movies Well, not real movies, but by scrolling through thousands of screen caps from a movie while playing the audio from the same movie, you can kinda sorta simulate the effect. 27 Run your favorite Linux apps Linux runs on everything these days, and the iPod is no exception. Not sure how many existing applications run on Linux for the iPod, but I'm sure efforts are underway to port many useful apps. 28 Get religion Take the Book of God anywhere with BiblePlayer, listen to the Quran on your walk to the office, or discover the wisdom of the Torah on the train. 29 DJ at a club No need for turntables at some clubs these days. Some DJs just play from their iPods and some clubs even invite patrons to plug-in and play something from their own personal iPods. 30 Change the channel on your TV Using Griffin's TotalRemote software and IR device and a bit of elbow grease, you can set up your iPod as a remote for any number of devices, including your TV, DVD player, Xbox, and Roomba. 31 Relive the good old Walkman days If you pull the guts out of an old Sony Walkman, you can stow your iPod in there and wear it around pretending it's 1987 all over again. Hipster chic! 32 Jam to Meatloaf for all eternity I guess if you're going to be buried in a box six feet beneath the ground for the rest of time, you may as well bring along some music to keep yourself occupied...until the battery runs out. 33 Take photos of it with famous landmarks For whatever reason, lots of people like taking photos of their iPods in various locations around the world, including Stonehenge, the Sydney Opera House, and dozens of other places. 34 Explore alternative energy sources Solio is a solar powered charger for the iPod that also works with popular mobile phones and PDAs. Wouldn't it be cool if the entire back panel of the iPod were a solar cell so you'd never need a charger? Disguise it as breath mints The iPod shuffle is so small that it fits nicely within a case of Altoids. Punch a hole in the top for your headphones, and people watching you listen to an Altoids tin will think there's something curiously wrong with you. 36 View your photos With the recently introduced iPod Photo, you can store up to 25,000 photos in your pocket. Take it to grandma's house for a little slideshow of the grandkids' latest adventures or take it along to dump your digital photos onto when your camera's memory card gets full. 37 Make free phone calls Drop some phone tones on your iPod, make number playlists to dial, and play them back to dial phones. Not sure if this still works on modern pay phones or what, but if you've ever wanted to build a red, blue, or green box, this is an easy way to do it. Put on your makeup The mirrored surface on the reverse of the larger iPods makes for a good emergency make-up mirror, as this woman demonstrates (second photo down). 39 Podcast Using a voice recorder attachment, you can record your thoughts on your iPod, dump it to your computer, publish it to your web site in such a way that people can download your musings to their iTunes Library, sync that with their iPod, and listen to you babble about something on their way to work. It's called podcasting and hopefully it'll get much easier than that. 40 Add a (much) larger hard drive If the hard drive in your iPod dies, it turns out that with the proper converter, you can just replace it with a normal-sized 3.5" hard drive. Not that you'd want to, but still cool! 41 Sell it on eBay and use the profits to buy a Chinese knockoff The iPod is too popular not to have inspired Asian knockoffs. Here's a Chinese version of the iPod mini. It's got a USB 2.0 connector, plays MP3s and WMA files, and contains a built-in FM tuner. I'd love to see what the OS looks like and how exactly the navigation works...cause it doesn't really look like that wheel scrolls. 42 View stereoscopic images With two iPod Photos aligned in the proper manner, you can view stereoscopic (3-D) images just like our forebears did in Victorian England. Save this one for the next time you have friends over for tea in the parlor. Wake up to your mp3 collection Using an iPod with iTrip and a normal radio alarm clock, tune the radio to the frequency the iTrip is broadcasting to, set the wake-up times on both devices for the same time, and your music will play through the alarm clock when it goes off. 44 Look up old friends Keep track of your contacts on the iPod with built-in software. Supports standard vCard files. Note: Actual number of fun things you can do with your iPod may not equal 50. No refunds.

Warming hits 'tipping point'

Siberia feels the heat It's a frozen peat bog the size of France and Germany combined, contains billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas and, for the first time since the ice age, it is melting A vast expanse of western Sibera is undergoing an unprecedented thaw that could dramatically increase the rate of global warming, climate scientists warn today. Researchers who have recently returned from the region found that an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres - the size of France and Germany combined - has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. The area, which covers the entire sub-Arctic region of western Siberia, is the world's largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. It is a scenario climate scientists have feared since first identifying "tipping points" - delicate thresholds where a slight rise in the Earth's temperature can cause a dramatic change in the environment that itself triggers a far greater increase in global temperatures. The discovery was made by Sergei Kirpotin at Tomsk State University in western Siberia and Judith Marquand at Oxford University and is reported in New Scientist today. The researchers found that what was until recently a barren expanse of frozen peat is turning into a broken landscape of mud and lakes, some more than a kilometre across. Dr Kirpotin told the magazine the situation was an "ecological landslide that is probably irreversible and is undoubtedly connected to climatic warming". He added that the thaw had probably begun in the past three or four years. Climate scientists yesterday reacted with alarm to the finding, and warned that predictions of future global temperatures would have to be revised upwards. "When you start messing around with these natural systems, you can end up in situations where it's unstoppable. There are no brakes you can apply," said David Viner, a senior scientist at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. "This is a big deal because you can't put the permafrost back once it's gone. The causal effect is human activity and it will ramp up temperatures even more than our emissions are doing." In its last major report in 2001, the intergovernmental panel on climate change predicted a rise in global temperatures of 1.4C-5.8C between 1990 and 2100, but the estimate only takes account of global warming driven by known greenhouse gas emissions. "These positive feedbacks with landmasses weren't known about then. They had no idea how much they would add to global warming," said Dr Viner. Western Siberia is heating up faster than anywhere else in the world, having experienced a rise of some 3C in the past 40 years. Scientists are particularly concerned about the permafrost, because as it thaws, it reveals bare ground which warms up more quickly than ice and snow, and so accelerates the rate at which the permafrost thaws. Siberia's peat bogs have been producing methane since they formed at the end of the last ice age, but most of the gas had been trapped in the permafrost. According to Larry Smith, a hydrologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, the west Siberian peat bog could hold some 70bn tonnes of methane, a quarter of all of the methane stored in the ground around the world. The permafrost is likely to take many decades at least to thaw, so the methane locked within it will not be released into the atmosphere in one burst, said Stephen Sitch, a climate scientist at the Met Office's Hadley Centre in Exeter. But calculations by Dr Sitch and his colleagues show that even if methane seeped from the permafrost over the next 100 years, it would add around 700m tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere each year, roughly the same amount that is released annually from the world's wetlands and agriculture. It would effectively double atmospheric levels of the gas, leading to a 10% to 25% increase in global warming, he said. Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, said the finding was a stark message to politicians to take concerted action on climate change. "We knew at some point we'd get these feedbacks happening that exacerbate global warming, but this could lead to a massive injection of greenhouse gases. "If we don't take action very soon, we could unleash runaway global warming that will be beyond our control and it will lead to social, economic and environmental devastation worldwide," he said. "There's still time to take action, but not much. "The assumption has been that we wouldn't see these kinds of changes until the world is a little warmer, but this suggests we're running out of time." In May this year, another group of researchers reported signs that global warming was damaging the permafrost. Katey Walter of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, told a meeting of the Arctic Research Consortium of the US that her team had found methane hotspots in eastern Siberia. At the hotspots, methane was bubbling to the surface of the permafrost so quickly that it was preventing the surface from freezing over. Last month, some of the world's worst air polluters, including the US and Australia, announced a partnership to cut greenhouse gas emissions through the use of new technologies. The deal came after Tony Blair struggled at the G8 summit to get the US president, George Bush, to commit to any concerted action on climate change and has been heavily criticised for setting no targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Yahoo in $1bn Chinese online deal

The Alibaba deal ends Yahoo's independent China operations The US company will now hold a 40% stake - and 35% of the votes - in the Chinese firm, which runs the country's biggest auction and trading sites. The investment positions Yahoo to compete with world auction leader eBay in a key market. Chinese internet firms are in demand after the rip-roaring flotation of search engine Baidu.com a week ago. The firm's shares have more than tripled in value since the start of trading, to more than $90 a share. Auction rivalry Yahoo is to merge its Chinese search engine operations with Alibaba. The Chinese firm, in which Yahoo is now the biggest single investor - as well as the biggest investor in the sector in China to date - employs some 2,000 people in the eastern city of Hangzhou. It is best known for its online auction site Taobao.com, as well as flagship trading site Alibaba.com which helps small and medium-sized companies find customers at home and abroad. Its business model puts it in direct competition with eBay. Yahoo already leads eBay in Japan via its relationship with Softbank. Softbank - one of Japan's pioneer internet start-ups, and now a success despite finding itself in dire financial straits after the dot-com collapse in 2001 - is thought to have helped broker the Alibaba.com deal. But Alibaba.com is also competing in the field of online payments, an area in which eBay has a huge stake thanks to its ownership of US payment broker Paypal. Online surge The Chinese government last month reported that the number of people in the country using the internet had reached 103 million, putting it second only to the US. Leading overseas companies have recently been investing heavily in China's booming online market. EBay paid $180m for Shanghai-based Eachnet and US web firm Interactivecorp - which owns Expedia - paid $168m for a majority stake in Chinese online retailer Elong. And online book retailer Amazon bought Chinese rival Joyo for $75m.

File-sharers swap more than video

File-sharing is an efficient way to distribute large files to people It found that eDonkey was the most popular sharing network for video. BitTorrent saw a fall in video traffic, but more seemed to be using it to swap files which are not video or audio. CacheLogic used sophisticated traffic monitoring techniques to analyse file extensions and track packets of data across the four main file-sharing nets. It analysed global traffic over the main P2P services - Gnutella, FastTrack, BitTorrent and eDonkey - over a 48-hour period. CacheLogic surmised that more "legitimate" content was being swapped over BitTorrent. The way they can go forward is to embrace it. This is a technology that allows the distribution of content directly into people's homes Nick Farka, CacheLogic Such traffic could include software, software updates, or games, Nick Farka from CacheLogic told the BBC News website. "What we found this time last year was that BitTorrent was widely used for video distribution," he said. Mr Farka said that the fall in video and music content being swapped on BitTorrent could have been a result of the Motion Picture Association of America's (MPAA) recent legal action which specifically targeted BitTorrent tracker sites. The MPAA had some success in getting major tracking sites closed down last year. Suprnova was the most popular of the BitTorrent tracker sites and was forced to shut in December. "Then there are other files - CD images, software, compressed files. There has been marked shift in that mix," said Mr Farka. But, he added, there was no real way to tell what was copyrighted, illegal content and what was not. It could be pirated software being swapped illegally, for instance. "There are indications in as much as there is a lot of other traffic. File extensions will give some idea whether the content is legitimate or not. "There are groups of file formats that fall into certain categories and from that we can make assumptions. We can open the packet to know the payload, but we do not know what the content is," he explained. The report also found that 68.9% of audio files being swapped on the networks were in the MP3 format. A surprising figure, CacheLogic said, was that 12.3% of files were in the open source audio format, OGG. The OGG format is patent and royalty free, and is supported on most media players. Distributing bits BitTorrent tracker sites host links to where people can find the different bits of files needed for a full piece of content. Whole files, such as an episode of 24 for instance, are split into multiple parts. Trackers tell people the different locations where the parts of the files can be downloaded. The MPAA has been trying to close down BitTorrent tracker websites By splitting up files into multiple parts, and letting users find other users they can download the parts from, takes the bandwidth strain off of servers. The BBC, for instance, is trialing its iMP (Interactive Media Player) which is based on file-sharing techniques. It will let people download BBC programmes for up to seven days after they are first broadcast. Mr Farka said file-sharing technology was something that would not disappear because it was such an effective way to give people access to large digital files. Once set-top-boxes, such as Sky's boxes to be released in November, are hooked up to broadband connections, it is the way people will expect to get content. "I don't think they are ever going to overcome it [file-sharing]. The way they can go forward is to embrace it. "This is a technology that allows the distribution of content directly into people's homes," said Mr Farka. The analysis also showed that file sizes varied between networks. Larger files tended to be swapped on eDonkey and BitTorrent. Smaller files tended to be shared on Gnutella and FastTrack.

The Hiroshima Cover-Up

For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter. A story that the U.S. government hoped would never see the light of day has finally been published—60 years after it was spiked by military censors. The discovery of reporter George Weller’s first-hand account of conditions in post-nuclear Nagasaki sheds light on one of the great journalistic betrayals of the last century: the cover-up of the effects of the atomic bombing on Japan. On August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima; three days later, Nagasaki was hit. General Douglas MacArthur promptly declared southern Japan off-limits, barring the press. Over 200,000 people died in the atomic bombings of the cities, but no Western journalist witnessed the aftermath and told the story. Instead, the world’s media obediently crowded onto the USS Missouri off the coast of Japan to cover the Japanese surrender. A month after the bombings, two reporters defied MacArthur and struck out on their own. Weller, of the Chicago Daily News, took row boats and trains to reach devastated Nagasaki. Independent journalist Wilfred Burchett rode a train for 30 hours and walked into the charred remains of Hiroshima. Both men encountered nightmare worlds. Burchett sat down on a chunk of rubble with his Baby Hermes typewriter. His dispatch began: “In Hiroshima, thirty days after the first atomic bomb destroyed the city and shook the world, people are still dying, mysteriously and horribly—people who were uninjured in the cataclysm from an unknown something which I can only describe as the atomic plague.” He continued, tapping out the words that still haunt to this day: “Hiroshima does not look like a bombed city. It looks as if a monster steamroller has passed over it and squashed it out of existence. I write these facts as dispassionately as I can in the hope that they will act as a warning to the world.” Burchett’s article, headlined THE ATOMIC PLAGUE, was published on September 5, 1945 in the London Daily Express. The story caused a worldwide sensation, and was a public relations fiasco for the U.S. military. The official U.S. narrative of the atomic bombings downplayed civilian casualties and categorically dismissed as “Japanese propaganda” reports of the deadly lingering effects of radiation. So when Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter George Weller’s 25,000-word story on the horror that he encountered in Nagasaki was submitted to military censors, Gen. MacArthur personally ordered the story killed, and the manuscript was never returned. As Weller later summarized his experience with MacArthur’s censors, “They won.” Last month, Weller’s son Anthony discovered a carbon copy of the suppressed dispatches among his late father’s papers (George Weller died in 2002). Unable to find an interested American publisher, Anthony Weller sold the account to Mainichi Shimbun, a large Japanese newspaper. Now, on the sixtieth anniversary of the atomic bombings, Weller’s account can finally be read. (The first of Weller’s four dispatches can be found here.) “In swaybacked or flattened skeletons of the Mitsubishi arms plants is revealed what the atomic bomb can do to steel and stone, but what the riven atom can do against human flesh and bone lies hidden in two hospitals of downtown Nagasaki,” wrote Weller. A month after the bombs fell, he observed, “The atomic bomb’s peculiar ‘disease,’ uncured because it is untreated and untreated because it is not diagnosed, is still snatching away lives here.” After killing Weller’s reports, U.S. authorities tried to counter Burchett’s articles by attacking the messenger. MacArthur ordered Burchett expelled from Japan (the order was later rescinded), his camera mysteriously vanished while he was in a Tokyo hospital, and U.S. officials accused him of being influenced by Japanese propaganda. Then the U.S. military unleashed a secret propaganda weapon: they deployed their very own Timesman. It turns out that William L. Laurence, the science reporter for the New York Times, was also on the payroll of the War Department. For four months, while still reporting for the Times, Laurence had been writing press releases for the military explaining the atomic weapons program; he also wrote statements for President Truman and Secretary of War Henry Stimson. He was rewarded by being given a seat on the plane that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, an experience that he described in the Times with religious awe. Three days after publication of Burchett’s shocking dispatch, Laurence had a front page story in the Times disputing the notion that radiation sickness was killing people. His news story included this remarkable commentary: “The Japanese are still continuing their propaganda aimed at creating the impression that we won the war unfairly, and thus attempting to create sympathy for themselves and milder terms… Thus, at the beginning, the Japanese described ‘symptoms’ that did not ring true.” Laurence won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the atomic bomb, and his faithful parroting of the government line was crucial in launching a half-century of silence about the deadly lingering effects of the bomb. It is high time for the Pulitzer board to strip Hiroshima’s apologist and his newspaper of their undeserved prize. Sixty years late, Weller’s censored account stands as a searing indictment not only of the inhumanity of the atomic bomb, but of the danger of journalists embedding with the government to deceive the world.

Scientists discover asteroid with moons / Tiny planetary system orbiting between Mars and Jupiter

Scientists discover asteroid with moons / Tiny planetary system orbiting between Mars and Jupiter Asteroids triple - This is the image to go with Asteroids11. Credit: European Southern Observatory Asteroids triple - This is the image to go with Asteroids11. Credit: European Southern Observatory Photo: European Southern Observatory Photo: European Southern Observatory Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Scientists discover asteroid with moons / Tiny planetary system orbiting between Mars and Jupiter 1 / 1 Back to Gallery A UC Berkeley astronomer and his French colleagues have discovered what must be the smallest planetary system of them all, an asteroid with two tiny moons existing amid all the countless billions of asteroids circling the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter -- and the delighted scientists are guessing there may be as many as 10 more moons as yet undiscovered around the same asteroid. The group, scanning the sky with a huge telescope in Chile and the latest in high-tech optics, have calculated and clearly observed two of the asteroid's moons whirling around it in widely separated orbits. A report on their triple asteroid discovery is being published today in the journal Nature. The scientists' story is a neat one, harking back to the origins of our own solar system and the formation of planets; it's also an example of how star-gazing these days can be accomplished by computer links to distant telescopes without ever leaving home base. Berkeley research astronomer Frank Marchis, leading a group at the Paris Observatory, spent six months last year scanning a group of asteroids large enough to be considered minor planets. Marchis ultimately focused in on one object known as 87 Sylvia with a telescope run by the European Southern Observatory high on a mountain top in Chile's Atacama dessert. He didn't have to go to Chile to keep watch: Data from the telescope's observations flowed into the computers of his Paris colleagues, and e-mail relayed the data to his own computer in Berkeley. Sylvia, with a diameter of about 175 miles, is one of the largest objects among the immense swarms in the asteroid belt. Four years ago, planet hunter Michael E. Brown of Caltech and his colleagues used the Keck telescope in Hawaii to discover that Sylvia has one satellite barely 11 miles in diameter that circles its parent from about 860 miles away. Brown's discovery made Sylvia and its moon the 60th known "binary" asteroid in the sky, but Marchis and his colleagues examined Sylvia more closely, exploiting the high-resolution capabilities of a technology called adaptive optics. To their astonishment, they found another tiny moonlet only 4. 4 miles in diameter swinging around Sylvia at a distance of 450 miles. "We first saw this triple system last March, and we couldn't believe it," Marchis said in a telephone interview from Rio de Janeiro, where he is attending an international conference on asteroids, comets and meteors. "We were really skeptical, but all of us did our own analysis of the data independently, and it took us a month. Now, we think there might be as many as 10 more tiny moonlets in orbit there, but it will take a much more powerful telescope to find them. "This is a big step in the study of asteroids -- it's really enjoyable and more than exciting." The 87 in the name 87 Sylvia refers to Sylvia's being the 87th minor planet ever discovered. It was named for Rhea Sylvia, the vestal virgin in Roman mythology who was raped by Mars and bore the twins who founded Rome. So Marchis and his colleagues named the two new-found asteroid satellites Romulus and Remus -- names that the all-powerful International Astronomical Union has officially accepted. After calculating the mass and density of Sylvia and its two moonlets, Marchis has concluded that the mother asteroid is probably nothing more than a loose pile of rocky rubble -- more than half of it empty space with a little frozen water inside and all of the rocky bits held together by its own weak gravity -- weak, perhaps, but strong enough to keep the two small satellites in well-behaved orbits running in the same prograde direction as Earth's moon circles us high overhead. "It's really a neat result," said David Morrison, a longtime expert on asteroids who is the senior scientist of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View. "And it's wonderful what astronomers can accomplish using powerful ground-based telescopes equipped with adaptive optics." The origin of Sylvia and its satellites is a story in itself: It's one of many so-called "rubble pile asteroids," and according to Marchis, it must have been formed hundreds of millions of years ago. Like other asteroids with single satellites, it apparently formed when two larger asteroids smashed into each other with such force that they burst into showers of rocky fragments, each fragment a mini-planet all its own. Some of those small disrupted fragments began attracting each other under their own gravity until they clumped together by accretion and became massive enough to attract a moon -- or in this first-ever discovery, to attract two moons and become a full-scale mini-planetary system. The story of Sylvia and its accretion, Marchis and his colleagues said in their Nature report, can yield "unique information" about the formation of our own Solar System -- a process that began in a vast swirling ring of dust and gas surrounding the sun more than 4.5 billion years ago and that continued until all the planets, their satellites and the asteroids had formed by similar accretion.

John Battelle's Search Blog In This Battle, Size Does Matter: Google Responds to Yahoo Index Claims

As I posted earlier, Yahoo's claim of indexing more than 20 billion items ruffled more than a few feathers across the web, and nowhere more distinctly than at Google. I spent an hour or so on the phone with a group of Google folks, and they shared a lot… As I posted earlier, Yahoo’s claim of indexing more than 20 billion items ruffled more than a few feathers across the web, and nowhere more distinctly than at Google. I spent an hour or so on the phone with a group of Google folks, and they shared a lot of information about how they measure index size, how they deal with issues of duplicate URLs and documents, and why they are baffled by Yahoo’s claim. I am still reporting this story, so a longer post is forthcoming, but an update at the end of the day is worth penning. First of all, I agreed to review some of the Google information on background, agreeing not to disclose it save with permission. (I agreed to this only if I could tell you all that I did in fact agree to it). I am still digesting what Google had to say, and the information they sent me, but it did leave a distinct set of questions percolating in my mind, questions that I plan to speak to Yahoo about (Yahoo has agreed to talk as well, we just haven’t had time yet). In any case, the lead really is this: I asked Google to go on the record with their concerns about Yahoo’s index and whether they believed the news was in fact accurate, and Google agreed. The quote, which I can only attribute at this point to a “Google spokesperson,” is as follows: “Our scientists are not seeing the increase claimed in the Yahoo! index. The data we have doesn’t support the 19.2 (billion page) claim and we’re confused by that.” Now, the size of an index is only one part of the equation of what makes a good search engine – relevance, speed, UI, and other factors are also critical, but when it comes to comprehensiveness (size), Google has been king pretty much since day one, save a couple of short lapses with FAST in 2002 and another in 03, as I recall, with Yahoo (briefly). The company has always trumpeted its size on its home page, and Yahoo’s announcement had to come as a slap in the face. Down to the presumptive specificity of the pronouncement on their home page since 2000 – “searching 8,168,684,336 web pages” – Google set the tone for all future “size matter” battles. I plan a longer post on this, as I said, but there are some tantalizing examples (I will add some in the next post) that one might expect would yield significantly different results between Yahoo and Google, given Yahoo’s massive new size, but don’t. The math, in essence, seems not to be adding up. At least, that is what the Google scientists are saying. But then again, I am not a mathematician, and there are always at least two sides to the story. So stay tuned and we’ll see how this one plays out… (I must say, this calls for a benchmark/standard for measurement that might makes all of this moot…)

Daring Fireball: Trusted

Trusted It started with a forum thread and the following front-page blurb at OSx86, a site produced by people attempting to crack the Intel version of Mac OS X to get it to run on non-Apple computers: We’ve discovered that Rosetta uses TCPA/TPM DRM. Some parts of the GUI like ATSServer are still not native to x86 — meaning that Rosetta is required by the GUI, which in turn requires TPM. See the forum topic here. “TPM” stands for Trusted Platform Module, an industry standard hardware chip that provides for “trusted computing”. There’s an industry consortium, the Trusted Computing Group, whose primary promoters are AMD, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Sony, and Sun. The whole “trusted computing” thing is highly controversial. The Wikipedia, as usual, has a fine overview, covering both what trusted computing is, and why it’s controversial: Trusted computing is a term coined by the TCPA referring to the goal of their family of open specifications to make computers more secure through the use of dedicated hardware. Critics, including academics, security experts, and users of free and open source software, contend, however, that the overall effect (and perhaps intent) of trusted computing is to impose unreasonable restrictions on how people can use their computers. The Wikipedia also has a short entry on TPM. The gist of the situation, reportedly, is that at least some portions of the Intel Developer Transition Kit version of Mac OS X are strung up in such a way that depends upon the TPM module on the Transition Kit motherboard. I say “reportedly” because I can’t say for certain there is in fact such a module on the motherboard, because I don’t have a Developer Transition Kit, and even if I did, I’d be under an NDA that would prevent me from discussing it. But I think it’s safe to assume these reports are true. The effect of this, surprise surprise, is that the version of Mac OS X that ships with the Developer Kit hardware only runs on Apple’s Developer Kit Hardware. Which state of affairs is exactly what Apple stated, clearly and publicly, when they announced the transition at WWDC in June. What Apple hasn’t stated publicly is how, technically, they were going to keep Mac OS X compiled for x86 from running on non-Apple x86 computers. The TPM chip is, apparently, at least part of the answer. It’s hard to see how this news is surprising to anyone. Given (a) that Apple has stated, adamantly, that Mac OS X will only run on Apple hardware; and (b) that despite a lot of effort and a lot of interest, no one has been able to get the Developer Kit Mac OS X release to run on non-Apple hardware; it seems rather obvious that the Developer Kit boxes contain some sort of hardware that the software is tied to. This affects no one other than those who hope to install bootleg copies of Mac OS X on their x86 PCs.1 And so ends the reality-based portion of the saga. Tin Foil Hat Country On Monday, the story was picked up by Slashdot, with the following submission blurb: Several people have discovered that the new Intel kernel Apple has included with the Developer Kit DVD uses TCPA/TPM DRM. More specifically, it includes “a TCPA/Palladium implementation that uses a Infineon 1.1 chip which will prevent certain parts of the OS from working unless authorized. From here, we go to Cory Doctorow, who, after reading the “news” on Slashdot, penned a scathing diatribe on Boing Boing, titled, “Apple to add Trusted Computing to the new kernel?”. It starts: People working with early versions of the forthcoming Intel-based MacOS X operating system have discovered that Apple’s new kernel makes use of Intel’s Trusted Computing hardware. If this “feature” appears in a commercial, shipping version of Apple’s OS, they’ll lose me as a customer — I’ve used Apple computers since 1979 and have a Mac tattooed on my right bicep, but this is a deal-breaker. First, it seems a bit euphemistic to describe people trying to crack Mac OS X to run on non-Apple x86 hardware as “people working with early versions of the forthcoming Intel-based MacOS [sic] X operating system”. “People working with” creates the impression that these are legitimate developers, expressing legitimate concerns. Doctorow continues: I travel in the kinds of circles where many people use GNU/Linux on their computers — and not only use it, but actually call it GNU/Linux instead of just “Linux,” in the fashion called for by Richard Stallman. Some of these people give me grief over the fact that I use Mac OS X instead of GNU/Linux on my Powerbook, because the MacOS is proprietary. There is a word for these people. That word is asshole. No, wait, zealot. OK, there are two words for these people. When my free software companions give me grief over this, I tell them that I’m using an OS built on a free flavor of Unix, and that most of the apps I use are likewise free — such as Firefox, my terminal app, etc. Here’s the important part though: when I use apps that aren’t free, like Apple’s Mail.app, BBEdit, NetNewsWire, etc, I do so comfortable in the fact that they save their data-files in free formats, open file-formats that can be read by free or proprietary applications. That means that I always retain the power to switch apps when I need to. Here at least, Doctorow makes complete sense. Indeed, open, interchangeable file formats are much more important than free software.2 Best are apps that directly read and write to open formats; good enough are apps that import from and export to open formats.3 But then he enters tin foil hat country: The point of Trusted Computing is to make it hard — impossible, if you believe the snake-oil salesmen from the Trusted Computing world — to open a document in a player other than the one that wrote it in the first place, unless the application vendor authorizes it. It’s like a blender that will only chop the food that Cuisinart says you’re allowed to chop. It’s like a car that will only take the brand of gas that Ford will let you fill it with. It’s like a web-site that you can only load in the browser that the author intended it to be seen in. Certainly such a scenario is a potential use of Trusted Computing DRM mechanisms — and such a scenario would indeed be dreadful — but it’s a far stretch to call it the “point of Trusted Computing”. In the actual case here, Apple’s Developer Transition Kits — which, I’ll remind you, may bear zero resemblance, internally or externally, to the actual Intel-powered computers Apple will eventually ship to real customers — are (reportedly) using TPM for one and only one purpose: to prevent the OS from being run on non-Apple hardware. There is no indication, none, zero, not even a whiff, that Apple intends to enable, let alone encourage, developers to create software with the TPM file-access authorization-locking described by Doctorow above. None. This is not about third-party software developers limiting access to your data. This is about Apple limiting access to their operating system. Even if you ignore the fact that there isn’t any evidence, just think about it. What motivation would Apple have for allowing or encouraging this sort of lock-in? Ever since the transition to Mac OS X, Apple has been moving in the direction of openness, releasing the entire low-level OS core as open source, bending over backwards for compatibility with Windows wherever possible — and but now they’re going to allow for this? It boggles the mind. Or consider iTunes, the most prominent software from Apple that makes use of DRM. The DRM in iTunes doesn’t add any restrictions to music you already own. Apple went to bat for users’ rights with the ITMS, getting better rights and lower pricing (for hit singles at least) than what the record labels wanted to offer. And if you still don’t like the ITMS DRM policies — which is a perfectly reasonable stance — you can simply not use the ITMS and still be a happy iTunes / iPod user. Back to Doctorow: What this means is that “open formats” is no longer meaningful. An application can write documents in “open formats” but use Trusted Computing to prevent competing applications from reading them. This is completely wrong. The existence of a TPM chip on the motherboard does not mean that application developers will be able to create apps which can produce files which can only be opened in the app that created the file. You’d need operating system support for that, including a way to prevent files from being copied to other computers, and adding a feature like this to the OS would be suicidal. In what way could such a capability possibly be construed as beneficial to users? And, I repeat, there is no evidence whatsoever that Apple plans to do this. If a file is written to disk in an open format, no TPM chip can prevent you from opening it in another program. And if your data is written to disk in an encrypted format, with the decryption keys tied TPM hardware outside your control — then your software is clearly not writing to an “open format”. Apple may never implement this in their own apps (though I’ll be shocked silly if it isn’t used in iTunes and the DVD player), but Trusted Computing in the kernel is like a rifle on the mantelpiece: if it’s present in act one, it’ll go off by act three. No one has ever claimed that copy-protected DVDs are an “open format”, nor has Apple ever claimed that DRM-protected music from ITMS is an “open format”. The whole point of the DRM is that the formats aren’t open. These restrictions aren’t from Apple, they’re from the entertainment industry. Even if they wanted to, Apple couldn’t sell non-DRM protected major-record-label music from the ITMS, nor could they ship a version of DVD Player which allowed you to, say, export video from a commercial DVD to an unprotected QuickTime movie. If you’re not happy with these restrictions in iTunes and DVD Player, blame the entertainment industry. Again, I see no reason to believe that Apple is interested in making these restrictions even more onerous than they already are. So that means that if Apple carries on down this path, I’m going to exercise my market power and switch away, and, for the first time since 1979, I won’t use an Apple product as my main computer. I may even have my tattoo removed. Down what path, though? Down the path where individual Mac apps start using TPM-enabled DRM to prevent you from opening your files with other applications? Well, duh, if Apple does that, nearly every Mac user will be in line for a new brand of computer. Or is the mere presence of a bogeyman TPM chip on the motherboard, which chip is used as nothing more than a dongle that ties Mac OS X to Apple-sanctioned hardware, enough to count as “carr[ying] on down this path”? If that’s the case, Doctorow might as well start packing his bag. It’ll be interesting to see what platform Doctorow switches to. Windows is seemingly out of the question, considering that Windows Vista is slated to contain numerous TPM-based security features. But he can always switch to GNU/Linux, right? Actually, wrong — because the Linux kernel has driver support for TPM, too. Go ahead and look at the source code of drivers/char/tpm/tpm_infineon.c , which starts: /* * Description: * Device Driver for the Infineon Technologies * SLD 9630 TT Trusted Platform Module * Specifications at www.trustedcomputinggroup.org I suppose he could compile his own version of the Linux kernel minus any support for TPM, but the wiser course would be to realize that TPM support, in and of itself, is no more or less evil than support for any other chips on a motherboard. Decency When I told a few friends this week that I planned to write about Doctorow’s outburst, several indicated that I shouldn’t bother, more or less on the grounds that Doctorow deserves to be cut a bit of slack because his heart is in the right place. The idea being, OK, sure, he’s out of line in complaining about this, but at least he’s just looking out for users’ rights. But the fact that his intentions are good doesn’t make it right to let this pass. Doctorow is clearly ascribing deviousness onto Apple, without a single shred of evidence to back it up. But anyone who knows him as both an Apple aficionado and a champion of users’s rights, and who trusts his opinions on such matters, is going to take away from this the idea that Apple is doing something malicious, and that bad things are likely to start happening with users’ data on Intel-powered Mac systems. The idea that Doctorow’s critique, despite being unfounded, was good for the community simply because of its anti-DRM slant is like saying McCarthyism was good for the country simply because of its anti-Communist slant. Yet here we are, with Tim O’Reilly calling Doctorow’s post “a great rant”: In his usual lucid way, Cory goes on to explain why open data is more important than free software, and how the proposed DRM cuts to the heart of the essential freedom to switch to another program, or another computer. Well worth a read. Except that the only “proposed DRM” that would get in the way of any “freedom to switch” exists only in completely fabricated scenarios from Doctorow himself.

No more 'Hot Coffee' sex for GTA

The GTA series is one of the world's most popular games The scenes in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the best-selling game of 2004, were unlocked by a fan who created software called Hot Coffee. Installing Hot Coffee allowed people to play an explicit "mini game". As a result, the US Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) changed the rating to Adults Only. The change meant, however, that many shops were forced to stop stocking it as they have a policy of not selling adult-rated content. In Australia, the game was stripped of its official classification, meaning that shops could no longer sell the title. "The Hot Coffee scenes were not intended to be part of the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas experience," read a statement from the Rockstar, the game's developer. "If your copy of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for the PC has been altered by the unauthorised Hot Coffee download circulating on the internet, or you wish to prevent your version from being so altered, download and install the patch for your version of the game." From the start Before the ESRB's investigation, the game had an M for mature rating that meant it could be sold to those aged 17 and above. GTA: San Andreas has sold millions worldwide It later admitted it had created the secret scenes, following the ESRB investigation. The storm of protest over the game even attracted the attention of US senator Hillary Clinton. She called for an investigation into who was responsible for including the scenes in the game. In the UK, the game was originally granted an 18 age rating and that rating remains the same.

Erotic and Violent Images Cloud Vision, Study Finds

When people see violent or erotic images, they fail to process whatever they see next, according to new research. Scientists are calling the effect "attentional rubbernecking." “We observed that people fail to detect visual images that appeared one-fifth of a second after emotional images, whereas they can detect those images with little problem after viewing neutral images,” said Vanderbilt University psychologist David Zald. The effect is akin to rubbernecking on the highway, Zald and his colleagues say. Your brain might suggest you watch the road ahead, but your emotions force you to look at the accident on the side of the road. Research subjects were handed a stack of pictures that included pleasant landscapes and architectural photos. They were told to search for a particular image. Negative images were placed anywhere from two to eight spots before the search target. The closer the negative image was to the target picture, the more frequently people failed to spot the target. In a follow-up study, negative images were replaced by erotic shots. The effect was the same. "This suggests that emotionally arousing images impact attention in similar ways whether they are perceived as positive or negative," said colleague Steven Most of Yale University. The researchers suspect we can't control the effect. "We think that there is essentially a bottleneck for information processing and if a certain type of stimulus captures attention, it can basically jam up that bottleneck so subsequent information can't get through," Zald said. As for rubbernecking on the road, Zald has a caution: "If you are simply driving down the road and you see something that is sexually explicit on a billboard, the odds are that it is going to capture your attention and – for a fraction of a second afterwards – you will be less able to pay attention to other information in your environment," he said. The initial study is detailed in the August issue of the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. The follow-up research has not been published.

Stones song 'not attack on Bush'

Tickets to see The Rolling Stones in Toronto on Wednesday cost £4.60 "It's not aimed, personally aimed, at President Bush," he said. "It wouldn't be called Sweet Neo Con if it was." The singer told US TV show Extra: "It's not really aimed at anyone." On the track, he sings: "You call yourself a Christian, I call you a hypocrite." The band kicked off their latest world tour with an intimate gig in Toronto, Canada, on Wednesday. For just C$10 (£4.60, US$8.35) a ticket, 1,000 fans at the Phoenix Theatre saw the rock legends warm up for their A Bigger Bang stadium tour. 'Home from home' The band will play more than 40 shows in the US and Canada in the next five months before moving on to Mexico, South America, the Far East before reaching Europe next summer. They often rehearse and perform in Toronto, a city they describe as a "home away from home". Wednesday's gig saw them perform new songs as well as classics including Brown Sugar, Jumpin' Jack Flash and a cover of Bob Marley's Get Up, Stand Up. Their new album, also titled A Bigger Bang, will be released next month. Support acts on their tour will include Joss Stone, Black Eyed Peas, Metallica, Maroon 5 and Pearl Jam.

A Dog and the Mind of Newton – Corante

It’s bad enough to see basic scientific misinformation about evolution getting tossed around these days. USA Today apparently has no qualms about publishing an op-ed by a state senator from Utah (who wants to have students be taught about something called “divine design”) claiming there is no empirical evidence in the fossil evidence that humans evolved from apes. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do with the twenty or so species of hominids that existed over the past six million years. Perhaps just file them away under “divine false starts.” But history takes a hit as well as science. Creationists try whenever they can to claim that Darwin was directly responsible for Hitler. The reality is that Hitler and some other like-minded thinkers in the early twentieth century had a warped view of evolution that bore little resemblance to what Darwin wrote, and even less to what biologists today understand about evolution. The fact that someone claims that a scientific theory justifies a political ideology does not support or weaken the scientific theory. It’s irrelevant. Nazis also embraced Newton’s theory of gravity, which they used to rain V-2 rockets on England. Does that mean Newton was a Nazi, or that his theory is therefore wrong? Creationists are by no means the only people who are getting history wrong these days. Yesterday in Slate, Jacob Weisberg wrote an essay in which he claimed that evolution and religion are incompatible. He claims to find support for his argument in Darwin’s own life. That evolution erodes religious belief seems almost too obvious to require argument. It destroyed the faith of Darwin himself, who moved from Christianity to agnosticism as a result of his discoveries and was immediately recognized as a huge threat by his reverent contemporaries. I get the feeling that Weisberg has yet to read either of the two excellent modern biographies of Darwin, one by Janet Browne and the other by Adrian Desmond and James Moore. I hope he does soon. Darwin’s life as he actually lived it does not boil down to the sort of shorthands that people like Weisberg toss around. Darwin wrestled with his spirituality for most of his adult life. When he boarded the Beagle at age 22 and began his voyage around the world, he was a devout Anglican and a parson in the making. As he studied the slow work of geology in South America, he began to doubt the literal truth of the Old Testament. And as he matured as a scientist on the journey, he grew skeptical of miracles. Nevertheless, Darwin still attended the weekly services held on the Beagle. On shore he sought churches whenever he could find them. While in South Africa, Darwin and FitzRoy wrote a letter together in which they praised the role of Christian missions in the Pacific. When Darwin returned to England, he was no longer a parson in the making, but he certainly was no atheist. In the notebooks Darwin began keeping on his return, he explored every implication of evolution by natural selection, no matter how heretical. If eyes and wings could evolve without help from a designer, then why couldn’t behavior? And wasn’t religion just another type of behavior? All societies had some type of religion, and their similarities were often striking. Perhaps religion had evolved in our ancestors. As a definition of religion, Darwin jotted down, “Belief allied to instinct.” Yet these were little more than thought experiments, a few speculations that distracted Darwin every now and then from his main work: of discovering how evolution could produce the natural world. Darwin did experience an intense spiritual crisis during those years, but science was not the cause. At age 39, Darwin watched his father Robert slowly die over the course of months. His father had confided his private doubts about religion to Darwin, and he wondered what those doubts would mean to Robert in the afterlife. At the time Darwin happened to be reading a book by Coleridge called Friend and Aids to Reflection, about the nature of Christianity. Nonbelievers, Coleridge declared, should be left to suffer the wrath of God. Robert Darwin died in November, 1848. Throughout Charles’s life, his father had shown him unfailing love, financial support, and practical advice. And now was Darwin supposed to believe that his father was going to be cast into eternal suffering in hell? If that were so, then many other nonbelievers, including Darwin’s brother Erasmus and many of his best friends, would follow him as well. If that was the essence of Christianity, Darwin wondered why anyone would want such a cruel doctrine to be true. Shortly after his father’s death, Darwin’s health turned for the worse. He vomited frequently and his bowels filled with gas. He turned to hydropathy, a Victorian medical fashion in which a patient is given cold showers, steam baths, and wrappings in wet sheets. He would be scrubbed until he looked “very like a lobster,” he wrote to his wife Emma. His health improved, and his sprits rose even more when Emma discovered that she was pregnant again. In November 1850 she gave birth to their eighth child, Leonard. But within a few months death would return to Down House. In 1849 three of the Darwin girls, Henrietta, Elizabeth, and Anne suffered bouts of scarlet fever. While Henrietta and Elizabeth recovered, nine-year old Anne remained weak. She was Darwin’s favorite, always throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him. Through 1850 Anne’s health still did not rebound. She would vomit sometimes, making Darwin worry that “she inherits I fear with grief, my wretched digestion.” The heredity that Darwin saw shaping all of nature was now claiming his own daughter. In the spring 1851 Anne came down with the flu, and Darwin decided to take her to Malvern, the town where he had gotten his own water-cure. He left her there with the family nurse and his doctor. But soon after, she developed a fever and Darwin rushed back to Malvern alone. Emma could not come because she was pregnant again and just a few weeks away from giving birth to a ninth child. When Darwin arrived in Anne’s room in Malvern, he collapsed on a couch. The sight of his ill daughter was awful enough, but the camphor and ammonia in the air reminded him of his nightmarish medical school days in Edinburgh, when he watched children operated on without anesthesia. For a week–Easter week, no less–he watched her fail, vomiting green fluids. He wrote agonizing letters to Emma. “Sometimes Dr. G. exclaims she will get through the struggle; then, I see, he doubts.–Oh my own it is very bitter indeed.” Anne died on April 23, 1851. “God bless her,” Charles wrote to Emma. “We must be more & more to each other my dear wife.” When Darwin’s father had died, he had felt a numb absence. Now, when he came back to Down House, he mourned in a different way: with a bitter, rageful, Job-like grief. “We have lost the joy of our household, and the solace of our old age,” he wrote. He called Anne a “little angel,” but the words gave him no comfort. He could no longer believe that Anne’s soul was in heaven, that her soul had survived beyond her unjustifiable death. It was then, 13 years after Darwin discovered natural selection, that he gave up Christianity. Many years later, when he put together an autobiographical essay for his grandchildren, he wrote, “I think that generally (and more and more as I grow older), but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.” Darwin did not trumpet his agnosticism. Only by poring over his private autobiography and his letters have scholars been able to piece together the nature of his faith after Anne’s death. Darwin wrote a letter of endorsement, for example, to an American magazine called the Index, which championed what it called “Free Religion,” a humanistic spirituality in which the magazine claimed “lies the only hope of the spiritual perfection of the individual and the spiritual unity of the race.” Yet when the Index asked Darwin to write a paper for them, he declined. “I do not feel that I have thought deeply enough [about religion] to justify any publicity,” he wrote to them. He knew that he was no longer a traditional Christian, but he had not sorted out his spiritual views. In an 1860 letter to Asa Gray—a Harvard botanist, the leading promoter of Darwin in America, and an evangelical Christian–he wrote, “I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton.” In private Darwin complained about social Darwinism, which was being used to justify laissez-faire capitalism. In a letter to the geologist Charles Lyell, he wrote sarcastically, “I have received in a Manchester newspaper rather a good quib, showing that I have proved ‘might is right’ and therefore that Napoleon is right, and every cheating tradesman is also right.” But Darwin decided not to write his own spiritual manifesto. He was too private a man for that. Despite his silence, Darwin was often pestered in his later years for his thoughts on religion. “Half the fools throughout Europe write to ask me the stupidest questions,” he groused. The inquiring letters not only tracked him down to Down House but reached deep into his most private anguish. To strangers, his responses were much briefer than the one he had sent to Gray. To one correspondent, he simply said that when he had written the Origin of Species, his own beliefs were as strong as a prelate’s. To another, he wrote that a person could undoubtedly be “an ardent theist and an evolutionist,” and pointed to Asa Gray as an example. Yet to the end of his life, Darwin never published anything about religion. Other scientists might declare that evolution and Christianity were perfectly in harmony, and others such as Thomas Huxley might taunt bishops with agnosticism. But Darwin would not be drawn out. What he actually believed or didn’t, he said, was of “no consequence to any one but myself.” Darwin and and his wife Emma rarely spoke about his faith after Anne’s death, but he came to rely on her more with every passing year, both to nurse him through his illnesses and to keep his spirits up. At age 71, a few weeks before his death, he looked over the letter she had written to him just after they married. At the time she was beginning to become worried about his faith and urged him to remember what Jesus had done for him. On the bottom he wrote, “When I am dead, know that many times, I have kissed & cryed over this.” It is a disservice to Darwin, and to history, to turn his tortured, complex life into a talking point in a culture war. (Much of this post is adapted from the last chapter of my book, Evolution.)

The most expensive $94 Orbitz will ever make.

-A I have contacted Orbitz and let them know they will recieve no service from me, friends, family, or peers.� Thanks for the entertainment over the years. -Mike Sent to Orbitz: Just letting you know that because you ripped off Maddox, I will NEVER use your service. -Mike, Sarasota, FL I won't use orbitz any more either. I booked a flight for my husband and I to fly from Cincinnati to Boston for a friends wedding. A few days before the flight I got check and make sure no flights have been changed and corirm plans and that is when I noticed they booked both tickets under my name! I was pissed off!! Orbitz refused to do anything and basically said too bad. I had to use my frequent flyer miles to get my husband another ticket. I then proceeded to find the CEOs of Orbitz telephone number using the wonder of the internet. I called every day and left a message and had my friends do the same for me. Eventually my money was refunded. I guess someone getting paid big sacks of money with dollar signs on it decided that giving my my $150 back was better than dealing with my bitching every day into his voice mail. Melissa Hey maddox, I read your new article about orbitz. I'm pretty surprised you didn't mention orbitz' involvement with spyware companies (I believe comet cursor but possibly others.) They're a pretty sleezy company all around it seems, so I'm not too surprised they'd pull shit like they did to you. They're not getting any of my money that's for sure. Jordan I haven't written to you before, so I hope the first impression I make is good enough for a response. My father is a businessman who travels about 3 times a week to many different cities across the nation, and he has used orbitz almost every time he travels. I am proud to say through my encouragement, and him seeing that not only he can be screwed by such a fraudulent company, Orbitz will not be used by him, or his company as far as he sees fit. I know theres a 90% chance you don't give a shit, but just to let you know there are people out there who still like to see some civilian justice thrown down. Mike Sent to Orbitz: I don't know how else to forward this message, seeing as your site is irreparably impossible to navigate - but I wanted to inform the proper officers in your company that the customer service is - although not experienced by me directly - seriously flawed. Upon reading an article written by maddox (http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.com) , an associate in the company which I work for, I pledge to never conduct business with your company, and will reccomend that my peers do the same. I hope you will read his article, seeing as your company has decided it proper to ignore his correspondence, and award him the refund he rightfully deserves. Thank you, have a nice day. -Jon M. We too got ripped off. After sending the information on when we'd like the flight at Orbitz, we got a new screen showing us what our tickets looked like. And what do you know? IT HAD THE WRONG DATES IN A DIFFERENT MONTH. No question on us putting the dates in correctly--there was two of us filling it out. ...So we called. And they told us we have a faulty browser or something is wrong with our internet. Right. Definitely our Internet Explorer is faulty, and we are definitely the only people who use it. Or is it our internet service provider who is to blame? Yup, you guessed it: no refund. -TB Orbitz fucked me over too: I booked well in advance tickets from Rochester, NY to San Diego, CA.� 400 whatever dollars who gives a fuck.� A few days before the flight I check the Orbitz site to get my eticket code and come to find out... MY TICKET HAS BEEN CANCELED. Why?� The connection time was under 40 minutes. Pretty stupid of me right?� WRONG. I typed in Rochester, NY I typed in San Diego, and then the�days... and then Orbitz GAVE ME those flights with the under 40 minute connection time.� THEY TOLD ME to make those flights and didn't let me know that I needed a�longer connection time.� Not when I purchased the tickets, and not even by email to let me know there was a problem. So I had to purchase the tickets all over again, but since it was two days before the flight it cost three times as much. A call to customer support gave me the same bullshit you went through.� The stupid broad actually had the nerve to tell me, "You need to be your own travel agent."� I swear to fucking God if I haven't seen Orbitz listed under a million different "online travel agents" directories. I will never book with Orbitz again and applaud your efforts to bring down that sham of a company. -Steve Sent to Orbitz: I am 23 years old and a college student at Western Michigan University. My friends and I travel to�the western states�alot, since we are avid rockclimbers. We were�making plans�for a trip to Arizona this summer, and were considering Orbitz. After reading about one of your previous customer's unpleasant experiences with your company, and your refusal to compensate for his troubles, my friends and I decided that we did not want to take the risk of�having an experience as troublesome and unenjoyable as his. After hearing about your unwillingness to rectify the situation to the customer's satisfaction, we've decided to go with another company. I am writing this letter to let you know, that in not willing to pacify one customer's complaints to his liking, your company has lost the business of 5 customers who regularly travel, and several other potential customers. I just wanted to let you know that I informed Orbitz that I would not ever be a customer of theirs. Thanks for letting us know about this bullshit. Jake Ive been reading your site for a while and never felt compelled to email you until this day. As a semi-frequent air traveller your article about Orbitz really hit hard with me. I sent them an email telling them how I came across your story and how I would never do business with them and encourage others to do the same. I hope your crusade against asshole customer service and misleading advertising strikes them as hard as i think it will. Tim I completly agree with you about orbitz...those assholes need to treat their customers a little better...i have also lost money with them and got completly screwed..and just like you i got nothing in return. I hope your site helps out those of us who got completely fucked from them!!! I'm planning a trip to LA (from NY) in May for the E3 event. Not only will Orbitz be losing my business, but they will also be losing the business of everyone that's going with me. They've lost thousands of dollars from you to me to my direct friends alone. I sent them a nice E-mail to wrap things up. -ngamer Maddox, Upon reading your new post regarding Orbitz, I decided to email them to inform them that not only will I never do business with them in my entire life, I will make sure that everybody I know does not even consider Orbitz as an option to plan any future travel. Even though I have never used Orbitz before, they are forever out of the question as an option in my mind. On that note, NEVER underestimate how many people will support you on these kinds of things. You're still a dick though. -Brett Sent to Orbitz: Please forward this on to anyone left at your company who cares about the customer. I've decided to stop using Orbitz altogether after reading about how you sold someone an impossible itinerary and then refused to provide them with a refund. I simply can't take a chance that you'd do that with me. -Jeff After reading your most recent article I decided I would send orbitz an email.� Well, I will just inform you of their responses.� I wrote them this : I am just informing you that I and many others will never use Orbitz again and the $144 dollars you screwed this guy out of will not go unmentioned.� You have lost thousands of dollars of business.� He has a big crowd.� Summary: you fucked with the wrong person. Here's a link to his site and the page that he describes his problem with you.� By the way, at any given time his site has 120+ people visiting it. http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=orbitz_blows They responded with this:

SFP: Come see us (Aaron Swartz: The Weblog)

SFP: Come see us Editorial note: This entry has more dialogue and so on than usual and I’m pretty uncertain about ordering and attribution, so don’t start changing your opinions of people on the basis of things I say they said. Update: Earlier versions of this post contained some glaring errors which I have corrected. (Thanks to Paul Graham for pointing them out.) After yesterday’s talk, I head back with my friend Seth to my dorm room and he helps me pack. We walk to the train together and head back to his house, where he lends me his airplane neck pillow and some Boston subway tokens. I take the BART to Oakland airport where I catch my flight to Cambridge, Mass. As I leave, my roommates ask where I am going. “Well, the least impressive answer is that I’m interviewing for a summer job. The most impressive answer is that I’m getting funding for a startup company.” ‘Actually, you could make it more impressive,’ Seth says. ‘You could tell them that the guy you’re getting startup money from is a famous programmer and author of a popular book and already thinks that your idea is worthwhile.’ ‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘but they won’t know who that is.’ Seth couldn’t find any earplugs but despite the fact that a crying baby sits exactly one row in front of me, I sleep fine through the redeye. When I wake up, I am in Boston and it’s morning, which I have a little trouble wrapping my head around. I take the shuttle to the nearby subway terminal and deposit one of Seth’s coins, transfer twice, and find myself outside the hotel. I check in, take a shower, iron some clothes, put them on, and lie down. Then I jump up and start reviewing all sorts of things in preparation: imagining answers, trying out competitors, etc. Around 11 Dad arrives (he frequently works around here, so he flew in today) and he takes me out to lunch. We walk to restaurant after restaurant he knows about; all of them are closed. Eventually we end up at a pizza place and try to eat quickly. We leave to find the offices of Y Combinator, the funding company. It turns out that they’re a lot further down the street than we imagined, so as we watch the clock strike later we begin walking quickly and then jogging. We arrive at a sort of modern-looking “light green concrete box” with a skylight in the center. We open the door and a woman (who I will call 4 of 4) answers it. We enter, me sweaty and my Dad out of breath. Paul Graham appears from behind the corner, looking just like his picture brought to life. We shake hands. Paul notes my Daring Fireball shirt. ‘I just found out about that site the other day,’ he says. Paul beckons me in further as my Dad leaves. The building is decorated as a modernist home, with an expensive kitchen and some nice furniture. The other two are out getting lunch, so Paul tries to chat a bit about the big table they’ll need to fit everyone in here (they plan on serving us dinners in, so we’ll at least get some real food — “vegetables” — and some friends we aren’t spending all our days with). But he can’t resist getting down to business. ‘We’ve got another idea that we think might be better for you,’ he says. Paul begins to pace the floor, as if composing an essay right there and then; I try to spin around to keep facing him. Current technology in the area is all other things which just happened to be used this way, “like people eating out of jam jars” because they haven’t discovered plates. I mistakenly try to respond, but he’s still spinning the story. We flesh out the idea some and eventually Trevor Blackwell and Robert Morris, who Paul consistently calls rtm, turn up. Trevor also looks just like his photo, down to the form-fitting burgundy shirt. rtm looks just like his photo except for more pimples. Paul leads the conversation. Trevor fiddles with a PowerBook, occasionally chiming in with comments. rtm sits quietly eating or flipping through some pieces of paper. 4 of 4 plays the overseeing mother, careful to keep the boys on track. ‘Maybe we should give Aaron a chance to pitch his idea?’ she suggests. I tell them my idea and we discuss it for a bit and they later try to merge it with their idea. At one point we’re discussing trying to match people’s writing. ‘You can just look for similar words,’ Paul says. ‘I don’t think that will work,’ Trevor responds. ‘It works pretty well for spam filtering!’ Paul reports. ‘Yeah, but people writing about different things use the same words — people might talk about both capitalism and communism but they might be on completely different sides’ ‘True, but they generally use different words. If you find capitalism and sexism in the same paragraph it’s a pretty good guess the author’s liberal. They all believe it’s some grand conspiracy.’ 4 of 4 pushes Paul to explain the idea behind Y Combinator and he reiterates the things from his VCs article. He looks over our application, which he appears not to have read very carefully. He points to our company name, a long word meaning something like “insubstantial dot com”. ‘As the proud owner of hardtoremember.com, I can get that,’ he says. ‘I used to have easytoforget.com but I let the renewal lapse,’ Trevor retorts. ‘Actually, the only reason you have hardtoremember.com is because I let that lapse too and you snatched it up!’ I laugh rather loudly. He looks at the personnel. “A sophomore at 22? What’s his story?” After high school he went to join a startup. ‘Went to join a startup? Sounds like our kind of guy! Did you know him before?’ Yeah, we met through the ArsDigita Prize. ‘Oh, because he was emailing me too. You know that undergraduation essay I wrote? He’s the guy. Well, he was the straw that broke the camel’s back.’ (I think of the same phrase a moment before Graham says it.) ‘And Sean B. Palmer? Know him, like him?’ ‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘h—’. Paul cuts me off, moving on. ‘When would you have the first prototype done?’ ‘Well, we’d hope to work on it over the next term so we’d have it ready over the summer.’ ‘Oh, wonderful, wonderful.’ he says. ‘What about this name? Infogami? You’re going to always have to spell it out.’ Paul says. ‘Isn’t it just origami with info at the beginning?’ 4 of 4 asks. ‘Well, it’s confusing,’ Paul says. ‘In-FAH-gomee,’ Trevor chimes in. ‘All the names with blog in it are probably taken,’ 4 of 4 says. ‘No, you don’t want blog in it,’ Paul says. ‘You want something bigger, something that can face the world. You’re not wedded to the name, are you?’ ‘No, we just picked it so we could stop discussing the name and move on,’ I said. ‘Oh, good,’ Paul says, and moves on. ‘How much time do we have?’ he asks 4 of 4. ‘Well, you’re, uh, right on schedule — should be finishing up now.’ ‘Oh,’ he says, and gets up. ‘So you’ll start working on this right away?’ he asks. ‘Yeah, i—’. I try to say ‘if we’re accepted’ but he talks right over me. ‘Alright! Sounds great.’ He shakes my hand. ‘We’ll probably call you around 7.’ We say goodbye. ‘Feel free to take anything you like on your way out,’ 4 of 4 says; ‘sounds good,’ I reply. Paul and Trevor squeal. ‘Food! Any food you like!’ she exclaims. ‘See, I corrected myself,’ she adds to Paul and Trevor as I head out the door. I walk down the sunny Cambridge street, smiling. I feel pretty confident of being accepted. I head back to the apartment and email my cofounders. We spend the afternoon, sightseeing around MIT — visiting the MIT museum with its Arthur Ganson sculptures and walking around the deserted Media Lab (we try to smile at Kismet but while it locks onto our faces it doesn’t respond). Eventually we head back to the hotel and I take a nap. I begin to wake up around 7:15 when the phone rings. I hear my Dad answer it and start talking so I jump out of bed to grab it for myself. But he’s using his phone not mine. I sit at the computer, hungry and tired, trying to wake up. At 7:23pm the phone rings. ‘Hi Aaron, it’s Paul Graham. We’re willing to invest [such-and-such an amount]. Call me back in five minutes. You got a pen?’ He gave me the phone number and hung up. So I think about it for a minute or two, cal back and say yes. ‘OK. (off-phone) When’s Aaron tomorrow? (pause) Can you come by at 10am?’ Sure. We go to the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate. The next morning I wake up and take the T to Cambridge Square and take the long walk down Garden Street to the Y Combinator offices. (Bizarrely, the street always seems longer walking there than walking back.) I get there early and, my stomach burbling (not sure why I’m nervous now that I’ve already won), I sit down for a few minutes and fiddle with the zipper on my backpack. I eventually summon the courage to knock on the door — no response. I begin to wonder how I ever got inside last time. After some hemming and hawing I open the door, only to reveal: another door. I knock on this one. No luck. I slowly open it, only to hear voices chatting about Microsoft and something. I spy a backpack lying in the corner so I assume the previous appointment is still going on and retreat. I wander around the outside of the fancy little building, looking for anything interesting (wow, trash bags!). Finally, I manage to just walk in. Paul is talking to the previous appointment, who turns out to also be from Stanford, and welcomes me in. Paul points to a whiteboard and lists off all the winners. ‘We ended up flying everybody out to Cambridge. On the site we said we’d respond either yes, no, or come see us, but we ended up just using the last two. We figured it’s worth the $300 to see them face-to-face. Real life is so much more high-bandwidth. There were a lot of people whose ideas looked good on paper but weren’t so great when we talked about them in person. But we probably ended up making tons of mistakes.’ Stanford kid offers me a ride from the airport, but I get in too late. Trevor mentions he’s flying back tonight too. ‘Oh? I thought you lived here,’ StanfordBoy says. ‘No, he has a robotics startup in Mountain View,’ Paul explains. ‘Haven’t you seen the Segway he built?’ We walk into the other room. ‘See, this is typical Trevor-logic. He wants to lose weight so he starts biking to work, but biking is too easy so he teaches himself to unicycle. Then when he builds his own Segway, he decides that two wheels are redundant, so he builds a self-balancing unicycle.’ Trevor happens to have the Eunicycle right here and demos it for us. He manages to maneuver it right past me, sneaking into the little place between me and the counter. I almost jump out of the way, afraid to knock him over, but he’s quite good at it. ‘The problem is you still have to balance it laterally, so you really have to be a trained unicyclist. Even I haven’t ridden it,’ Paul says. ‘Do you ever go anywhere with it?’ StafordBoy asks. ‘Oh yeah, I ride it into Mountain View for coffee all the time.’ (That must really stop traffic, I think, remembering how much attention my little bicycle gets.) StanfordBoy and Trevor chat about (StanfordBoy plays with Segways, apparently) and Paul takes me into the other room to give me my checks. ‘How much did your flight cost?’ ‘Two hundred and eighty-six dollars and ninety cents,’ I say. He begins writing that out before realizing his error. ‘I just wrote “Pay to the order of two hundred and eighty-six dollars”. I wish I could just type these; I can’t write anything anymore.’ I sympathize. ‘How much do you think plane tickets and rent will cost?’ ‘I have no idea.’ ‘Well, two thousand dollars ought to cover it.’ He writes out another check and slides it over. ‘Now you want to go about finding an apartment. You want to get a place on the red line [the local subway] because then you can go see people and people can go see you. The best place to go is Davis Square, because it’s cheap, fun, and on the red line. Harvard is fun and on the red line but not cheap, Porter is cheap and on the red line but not fun, so I recommend Davis, Inman, and Central, in that order.’ Underneath the table I sneak my notebook and pencil out of my pocket and begin secretly taking notes. ‘Now the thing you want to get is one of these triple-decker houses converted into apartments, where the top floor is slightly smaller than the other two. And then you’ll be in exactly the same place as VisiCalc when they started it — in the top floor of a triple-decker in Davis Square.’ (Actually, Paul later told me VisiCalc was started in the neighboring town of Arlington.) ‘Yeah, but you don’t want to code like VisiCalc,’ Trevor says, ‘that stuff was rotten.’ ‘Well, it made money, didn’t it?’ Paul replies. ‘Oh, there’s one other charge we forgot to tell you about. It will cost $1000 to incorporate in the State of Delaware,’ Paul says. ‘How much will it cost to renew it?’ ‘It costs $400 to renew it after a year, but the $1000 takes care of the first year. I think that in a year you’ll be able to realize whether it’s worth the $400 or not.’ ‘Do you have any other questions?’ I know I have tons, but I can’t really think of any and two other kids are waiting in the other room. i see myself out. I smile at the two kids, since I figure we’re all friends now or something, but they just seem to glare at me. I head back to see my dad at his office in MIT’s Media Lab (which I dislike, only in part to annoy my dad) and begin looking for apartments. Some Media Lab big shot comes in to say hi and my dad introduces me and says I’m looking for apartments. ‘Well, you could stay here,’ he says. ‘You could set up in the conference room. There’s a shower just down the hall and coffee every morning. It’d probably be a month before [the boss] finds out.’ We all laugh extremely loudly, although my dad later insists this offer was serious. ‘You could put up flyers asking for volunteers for an undergraduate research program. You’d just say “Come to our office in the Media Lab” — you’d get tons of people, people love this place. And if they tried to ask you for paychecks, you could just say “oh, don’t worry, it’s for credit”.’ We decide to go have a look around Davis Square for lunch. (The T is fast; I notice it takes me the same amount of time to travel the three miles on the T between the two as it takes me to walk to class.) The area seems nice enough, although nothing special. A few places where bands play and so on, I guess, but I’m not really enamored of concerts. We eat lunch and head back to MIT. Arguing about the merits of MIT, my dad plays the Noam Chomsky card. I call him on it and we decide to go find Noam Chomsky’s office, which turns out to be in the fancy new Frank Gehry-designed Stata Center. I think we do, but it’s sort of surrounded by desks with people at them, so we’re too afraid to get close. Peeking in though, it looks like it’s being used for something else, since we see a couple sets of desks, although there is a jacket hanging outside the door. Maybe I’ll try a little harder over the summer sometime. We then set off to find my old friend Ben, who’s now a graduate student here and also works in the Stata Center. Since the building is rather complicated (I mean, just look at it!), I look him up on the directory computers and we head off in search of his listed office. We find the floor and proceed to walk down the hallway checking every office for his, but failing to find it. The number just isn’t listed. We walk back and check again. We check the number on a computer terminal and find we got it wrong, it’s on the other side, so we check that hallway. Still no luck. The number doesn’t seem to exist. We ask some people; they have no idea. Finally one confirms there’s no such number here. They suggest we try the same number in the opposite tower, so we do, and he’s there. (Lying directory!) Ben’s as bright and animated as ever and he sits down to talk with us. He asks what I’m doing out here and I tell him and he congratulates me. ‘Wow, that thing was everywhere,’ he says. (With some irony, this is partially my fault — according to Paul at least, I am partially responsible for getting the thing posted to Slashdot. I didn’t really think about how this might hurt my chances if I decided to apply.) ‘You must have been really impressive to get accepted.’ Ben tells us what he’s up to and we chat until we have to get going. Back at the Media Lab, I realize that it’s really not practical for me to get home from the airport. I thought I would just take public transportation, like I did to get there in the first place, but my flight gets in at exactly the same time the last bus to the train leaves. And even if I did manage to catch a taxi to the train station or something, I wouldn’t get home until 3AM. A taxi, on the other hand, apparently costs $100. My dad eventually finds some obscure site for a Chinese shuttle company with poor English that will do it for half that, so we pick that. It’s getting late so I head back to the hotel and quickly pack my stuff and catch a taxi to the airport. I again sleep most of the way back but we manage to get in like half-an-hour early, so I resign myself to sitting outside waiting for the bus to arrive. About ten minutes after it’s supposed to arrive I check my phone and see they’ve been calling me repeatedly to see if I’ve gotten in yet. I call them to say yes and they soon arrive. The shuttle is driven by a kid with his friend in front, neither of them are Chinese. ‘How is everything?’ the driver asks. ‘We’re a little new at this,’ says his buddy. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ shouts the driver. ‘You never tell the customer you’re new! That just scares them!’ I take out my book, trying not to get scared, but there’s hardly enough light to read by. We manage to get back around 1AM and I’m stunned to see that kids are sitting and talking and playing ping-pong. What’s wrong with them?, I wonder. I just came back from an arduous journey and they’re playing like it’s nothing! I head up to my room, but nobody seems to notice a thing. My roommates are also just sitting at their computers, as if everything is normal. I put my computer away and go to sleep, sleeping the sleep of a man who, whatever his surroundings, knows that at heart he is a capitalist. posted April 16, 2005 01:17 AM (Education) (9 comments) #

CCTV video mixes maps and images

By Jo Twist BBC News science and technology reporter Software brings together real-time video, location data and graphics The system automatically tracks and stitches 3D images with CCTV video, maps and other real-time information. It automatically alerts operators to intruders, unusual behaviour, left objects or anything it is told to spot. The UK's former defence research agency, QinetiQ, plans to bring the US system, called Praetorian, to the UK. It is currently in operation at airports in the US and other high security environments there. "This is a huge step, not just an incremental step [for CCTV]", Simon Stringer, managing director of QinetiQ's security division told the BBC News website. The London Underground system alone, the epicentre of the recent bombings, has more then 6,000 CCTV cameras on the network. The Praetorian system looks like something one would see in a computer game or the TV series 24. It has rendered graphics of landscapes and real-time video inserts of objects which can be seen and navigated from different angles. Camera to camera The term Praetorian was originally the name given to the tent of Roman commanding generals - praetors. The Praetorian Guard was the select gang of individuals who would protect it. "It [Praetorian] provides a composite picture which means you are not only able to determine where something is going on, but control the incident by deploying appropriate personnel to the area," explained Dr Stringer. The big advantage is that not only do you have situational awareness, but the system will automatically alert you to intruders, abnormal behaviour, left objects or anything else you tell it to look for Simon Stringer, QinetiQ Automatic handover from one camera to another, without operators manually switching views, is highly desirable for CCTV systems. Praetorian will graphically build up the terrain around the CCTV video insert and will swap camera views seamlessly in real-time too. Those movements can then be rendered and projected onto a 3D map which would allow the individual to be intercepted or isolated, away from busy public transport, for instance. By stitching different 3D and real-time information together, the system presents a rather game-like interface. Situational awareness "What it does is to give you an overall perspective on a region or a site or an area such that you get a composite picture of the whole thing," explained Dr Stringer. "The big advantage is that not only do you have situational awareness, but the system will automatically alert you to intruders, abnormal behaviour, left objects or anything else you tell it to look for." The software automatically tracks objects you tell it to Praetorian is not a biometric system that tries to pick out particular people, however. "It is not looking at a database of people. It is looking for anomalies in behaviour, for example, people loitering in places you would not expect them to be," said Dr Stringer. "Somebody loitering on a continual basis, or indeed leaving something would alarm it. You can then decide if you want to capture the image and refer it to other images." It is programmed to know what is considered "normal human behaviour" in any given context, so can detect the typical movements of someone speaking on a mobile, for example. Abandoned objects will also be detected because the system will know what is supposed to be in a particular image in ordinary circumstances. If it spots something it does not recognise, it will alert the operator who can then inspect the image more closely to decide whether it is deemed a threat or not. "The computer scans and recognises a normal environment," said Dr Stringer. "If something is put down and becomes part of the environment that computer does not see as normal, it will sound an alarm and the operator will see if it warrants further investigation." Dr Stringer said QinetiQ was confident that the system would be deployed in the UK and the company is in talks with UK authorities. As it is a software system, it can be overlaid on top of existing CCTV network architectures.

Siestas 'needed to beat heatwave'

Siestas are popular in continental Europe Met Office research has predicted by the second half of this century summers like the one in 2003 which killed thousands will become the norm. Professor Bill Keatinge, a University College London expert on how heat affects the body, said midday rests would be needed to help people cope. He said without a lifestyle change, the UK could see more people die of heat. The 2003 heatwave - the hottest summer for 500 years - was linked to 27,000 deaths across Europe, including 2,000 in Britain. 2003 was a foretaste of thing to come if we carry on emitting greenhouse gases Peter Stott, of the Met Office During the average summer, 800 people in Britain normally die because of the heat - most commonly through heart attacks or organ damage as the body heats up. But officials from the Met Office's climate research unit have predicted the UK could have summers as hot as 2003 - when temperatures hit 35ºC (95ºF) - every other year. The study which is yet to be published analysed how climate change would affect temperatures and concluded the hottest days could rise by 7C to top 40C (104ºF). Researcher Peter Stott said: "2003 was a foretaste of thing to come if we carry on emitting greenhouse gases. It is likely to become the norm." Already this summer temperatures in Spain and Italy have been nudging 40C, prompting reports of heat-related deaths. Change Professor Keatinge said a change in habits was needed if temperatures do rise. "When it is really hot people need to take precautions, especially the elderly. This means avoiding physical exercise, staying out of the heat. "Siestas are a good way of doing this, even in central Europe such as Germany they are becoming more common with people working later. "It is a simple way of staying cool without installing air conditioning." Professor Keatinge also said people should eat and drink more during heatwaves. Mark Gibbs, a Met Office official who advises the NHS on how to prepare for heatwaves, agreed lifestyle changes were needed. "We need to look at these countries that have already adapted to the heat... building design, changing lifestyle."

She's So Cool, So Smart, So Beautiful: Must Be a Girl Crush

Jane Weeks, 44, a freelance art and creative director in Truckee, Calif., knows what it is like to be the object of another woman's crush. She has encountered a few women who have eagerly adopted her tastes in food and interior design, her favorite colors, even her hairdresser. "At first it's flattering you're inspiring them," she said. "When they parrot back parts of yourself, it's extremely uncomfortable." Ms. Weeks, an outdoorswoman who has hiked through the Andes from Argentina to Chile, said some women are more enamored with what she represents -- "some National Geographic chick" -- than with who she is. "When you're on a pedestal, there's no way but down," she said. "And it's lonely up there. You can't share your weaknesses." Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington and the relationship expert at PerfectMatch.com, said she also has been a frequent subject of girl crushes -- from her students. Some have made it obvious by bringing gifts, including earrings, flowers and even poems. But Dr. Schwartz does not encourage her students to look at her with starry eyes. She would rather they look to her for guidance on developing their careers. "You're a hero because they think you've done something unimaginably powerful," Dr. Schwartz said. "Your job is to show them that they own something equally special." Perhaps the last time that young women were as willing as they are now to admit to their attraction to each other was in the 19th century."Back when Louisa May Alcott was writing, women were writing these letters to each other," Dr. Caplan said. "They wrote: 'I miss you desperately. I long to hug you and talk to you all night."' Referring to another woman as a girl crush, she said, is not dissimilar to that 19th century behavior. But such impassioned expressions of affection were uncommon, for instance, in the 1960's and 70's, when homophobia was even more rampant than it is today, Dr. Caplan said. Women were often uncomfortable admitting to strong feelings for other women, fearing that their emotions would seem lesbian, she said. And those same women, older now, can still be shy about expressing their emotions for each other. "Women my age are more likely to say 'I adore' or 'I value' my women friends,' not girl crush," she said.

The Flight of the Pringle

Tom Lange knows more about flying Pringles than probably anyone alive. As director of modeling and simulation at Procter & Gamble Co., it's Lange's job to use finite element analysis to predict what something will smell like, whether a bottle will break, and if a Pringles chip will take flight. "We break things into a million little parts and then write simple math equations about how each little part affects the other parts," says Lange, who is responsible for the economic, as well as structural, analysis of different materials. His latest challenge was to analyze airflow around the unique double-saddle design of Pringles chips. "Air flow over Pringles has some very unusual behavior," says Lange. "It sheds vortices and creates lift that causes the chip to be unstable." In English that means the chips will fly off the conveyer belt if production is throttled up. Though he won't say what modifications they made, "we were able to speed things up," says Lange, who adds, "I have the coolest job."

Google pauses online books plan

The New York Public Library is taking part in the project In its blog, the search giant said it would temporarily stop scanning copyrighted texts until November to allay concerns about the plan. The company's library project aims to put millions of volumes online and accessible everywhere via the web. Google's plan has come under fire from several groups who object to what they say are violations of copyright. Google is pumping $200m (£110m) into creating a digital archive of millions of books from four top US libraries - the libraries of Stanford, Michigan and Harvard universities, and of the New York Public Library - by 2015. It is also digitising out-of-copyright books from the UK's Oxford University. 'Grave misgivings' Google says the aim is to make the text of the world's books searchable by anyone in the world, especially when it comes to out of print and obscure texts. Google's procedure shifts the responsibility for preventing infringement to the copyright owner rather than the user, turning every principle of copyright law on its ear Patricia Schroeder, Association of American Publishers "But we know that not everyone agrees, and we want to do our best to respect their views too." In an attempt to assuage concerns about copyright, Google has stopped scanning books which are in copyright until November. The pause is designed to allow publishers to tell Google which books should not be included in the scanning programme. But the changes do not seem to go far enough for leading publishers. The trade body of the US publishing industry, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), said it still has "grave misgivings" about the project. "Google's announcement does nothing to relieve the publishing industry's concerns," said AAP president Patricia Schroeder in a statement. "Google's procedure shifts the responsibility for preventing infringement to the copyright owner rather than the user, turning every principle of copyright law on its ear," she added.

Physics enlisted to help singles

Waiting for Mr or Mrs Right might be the best option Richard Ecob adapted a system for modelling atoms in radioactive decay to investigate how we look for partners. He found that "super daters", people who have many short relationships, have a good effect on others' lives. This is because they break up weak couples, forcing their victims to find better relationships. Transit states At the root of the system, says Mr Ecob, is the similarity between the probability of the nucleus of an atom decaying and that of a couple breaking up. The decay of a nucleus is described in terms of "transit states": the series of change it has been through to get to its current situation. The probability of someone having been in two relationships, for example, is the same as that of a nucleus decaying twice. "We had an inkling that it might be the same because we saw similarities," he told the BBC News website. "When we worked it out, the graphs we got were very similar." Having more varied tastes has no impact on finding a partner Each single had a set of interests, which they also looked for in potential partners. The research suggested that multiple daters, those who form many relationships, were less effective at finding the right partner than those who remained in one place and let others come to them. "If you have a complex network and you stay in one site you see more traffic coming through," he said. "It's a denser network, so there are more possible matches." Another surprising discovery was that an increased set of preferences made no difference to a single's chance of ending up in a relationship. Despite modern people having more complex and varied interests than before, said Mr Ecob, this had no impact on their ability to date. So long as they were still willing to accept partners who met only a fraction of their criteria, the number of potential matches remained the same. Prestigious contest The next stage of the project is to show that it can also be applied to business and political matches as well as it can to personal relationships. "We think it'll match up the same," said Mr Ecob. "If you're with a phone company and you know they're not an ideal match, you're going to look for someone who is. It's a very similar situation." Mr Ecob, who was recently awarded a first class Physics degree, undertook the study as part of his Masters research project. He worked closely with his supervisors, David Smith and Neil Johnson, who are now taking the study further. They have entered the project in the prestigious Science, Engineering and Technology Student of the Year awards, which will be presented in London's Guildhall next month.

Pundits and knitters find common ground in Web logs

» Overview | Charts | Timeline | Tell your story online! | Special Report Pundits and knitters find common ground in Web logs Editor's note: As part of its Online Evolution special report, CNN.com is asking several Web and Internet pioneers for their thoughts on the impact and future of the Internet. Mena Trott is president and co-founder of Six Apart, a company that makes Web log publishing tools. SPECIAL REPORT RELATED YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS Blogs Internet or or Create Your Own (CNN) -- Mena Trott's personal Web log isn't exactly the stuff of headlines. She writes mostly about her daily life -- what she did over the weekend, what's she's reading, what she ate for dinner. Chances are, if she weren't the co-founder of a successful Web log publishing company (Six Apart), her Web log probably wouldn't get much press. Dollarshort.org, like many other Web logs, is a distant cousin of the popular political opinion sites that keep cropping up in the news. Both use the same technology, but to slightly different ends. Trott spoke recently by phone with CNN.com's Lila King about the phenomenon of Web logs -- what they're good for, where they're heading, and how they serve pundits and knitters alike. CNN: What do you think the Internet's biggest impact has been? TROTT: The ability for anybody to really be able to communicate online. ... Even if you're in sub-Saharan Africa, there is someone that can post your story. And that ability to communicate with anybody is something that we take so much for granted, but if it stopped, I don't know how we would live our lives. CNN: What do you use the Internet for primarily? TROTT: I use it to keep in touch with my friends and my family. I read what's going on in the world, but at the end of the day, that's not the thing I want to read. [I look at] photo-sharing services, my LiveJournal. It's like a part of me. ... I just write things documenting my life. ... For example, I have a Web log where I take a picture of myself every day. And it sounds incredibly vain, but it's something that I can go back and I can look at February 12 and I can see what I looked like, see what I was wearing, and I go back to that day. And there's no other way to really do that. Visual imagery is the best way to capture moments. CNN: What is it that makes you want to write these things publicly instead of, say, scribbling in your diary? TROTT: I think we do want an audience ... I think we have this desire to have our voices heard, even if you're not writing this diatribe about something. ... It's a nice way to kind of keep people in the loop in your life. We don't really have time to do that. It's funny, because people say technology is the thing that speeds up our lives and kind of prevents us from communicating the way we used to. What I'm seeing is it's enabling us to kind of have that. ... Knitting blogs are a huge phenomenon. I find it fascinating because knitting and sewing are things that have historically drawn women -- and now men, too -- together in groups to talk about their families, talk about their lives, talk about society. And they would use sewing and knitting and quilting as this way of getting together. I don't think it's any coincidence that knitting is one of the things that drives a lot of people to Web logging and to online communities. What I want to see and I what I think the Internet is really evolving to is this idea that taking these things that we've done offline for centuries and millennia and bringing it in a way that is compatible with our daily lives. We live in e-mail, we live in front of the computer, we live with our cell phones. But we have to figure a way to work all these things in together. CNN: How much will the Internet change over the next 10 years? TROTT: I think that blogging is going more and more mainstream, and in 10 years I doubt it will be called "blogging." It may not even look like what we're doing today. But the whole idea [of being] able to quickly express what you want to say online is going to be still a big part of what we do. Another big part is going to be mobile computing and devices. I use my cell phone right now to post to my Web log. I post something every day to that one with pictures of me. It's mindless, it's just something I can do really quickly and it doesn't interfere with my life at all. ... Being able to record your life is something that I can imagine everyone [doing]. [Everyone will] have terabyte after terabyte of all these instances of their lives. And certain information is going to be available to certain groups and other will be available only to like family and other stuff will be available only to you. So in 10 years, I can fully imagine every moment of my life is documented. And the privacy will be there to prevent it from being used in a malicious way. But that I think is the biggest thing. We're going into a recording of life. CNN: Anything you predict that will surprise us? TROTT: What needs to happen is we need to move away from the desktop computer model. Not everyone sits in front of a computer. There are a lot of people who see a computer every once in a while. They're either afraid to touch it or they don't have any reason to. I think we're going to have our devices, like cell phones that are going to ... have to be easy for everyone to use. ... We have to bring this technology to as many people as possible and not just have it limited to white, affluent, middle class Americans. ... I'm surprised I'm here right now, with this company. It was a hobby for me, and a passion, and there was such a need that it got to the point where it was a company. That I have any influence amazes me. CNN: Where are the women bloggers? TROTT: I think the women are there. I think what we see is a focus on topics that tend to be more male-dominated, so we don't get as much coverage. Men blog more about politics. Politics are more likely to get picked up by the media. Technology has always been male-dominated. So there's this sort of echo chamber. But there's knitting, this family, these topics that have been relegated to being sub-par blogging, which I disagree with completely. Seventy-five percent of our users on LiveJournal are female. And on Typepad and Movabletype it's almost a 50/50 split. There are women blogging, they just don't need to be so loud. CNN: How do you think blogging will evolve? What's next? TROTT: We need to get mainstream users blogging. They're very put off, I think, when we do focus groups. The words we hear are "egotistical," "too much free time," "people in their bathrobes ranting." But there's so much more about blogging. I don't fit any of those personas -- well, maybe egotistical. I started my blog because I wanted to write humorous stories about my life. And I think most people have the ability to do that. And once they get over the fear that everyone's going to read it or it's going to get you fired, ... when they hear about blogs, it's always about someone getting fired. When people get fired, it's not because they keep a blog, it's because they have no judgment. That sort of thing puts people off. What we need to do is get people informed and make it as easy to use as e-mail. I hope it doesn't take 10 years to get that way with blogging. That's what the Internet is to me. It has given me a voice that I had never imagined. ... There's a power you can harness if you know how to use a medium. Home Page Get up-to-the minute news from CNN CNN.com gives you the latest stories and video from the around the world, with in-depth coverage of U.S. news, politics, entertainment, health, crime, tech and more. Home Page Get up-to-the minute news from CNN CNN.com gives you the latest stories and video from the around the world, with in-depth coverage of U.S. news, politics, entertainment, health, crime, tech and more.

China on track for moon mission

The mission is christened Chang'e-1 after the Chinese Moon goddess The spacecraft will pave the way for future missions, which may include China putting a lander on the Moon. The expedition, christened Chang'e-1 after the Chinese Moon goddess, will map the moon in 3D in an effort to identify future landing sites. Designs for the spacecraft have been completed and development will begin next month, officials say. "The design of various plans which serve to meet different situations and simulation satellites has finished and all related professional experiments are ongoing," said the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation's Ye Peijian, chief designer of the satellite. Gaining prestige The satellite will also study the Moon's composition and radiation environment and may use radar to probe below its surface. Dean Cheng, senior Asia analyst at the think tank CNA Corporation in Alexandria, US, told New Scientist that a huge part of this mission is prestige. "The Chinese have consistently tried to make sure their 'first' was bigger, better and more capable than anybody else's," he said. After Chang'e-1's mission, some suggest China will send a lander to the Moon by 2010 and a robotic rover to sample the surface by 2020. "After this lunar flight, China will carry out soft landing exploration and auto inspection missions on the moon, with the core part being the realization of landing probes on the moon surface and carrying out scientific exploration," Ye said. However, Mr Cheng is sceptical about these dates. "The Chinese are generally reticent about putting out specific dates because it puts them in the position of potentially losing face," he said.

Welcome to the Data Retention Petition Campaign

[edit] Campaign News Personal signatures removed, personal data deleted Campaign closed: petition offered on 23 November EDRI falsely accused of sending spam to MEPs! 14-11-2005 EDRI distributes updated flyer to the European Parliament ( http://www.edri.org/docs/europarl_flyer_data_retention_v2.pdf ) 08-11-2005 EDRI distributes "Protecting Privacy in the Information Society" flyer to the EP ( http://www.edri.org/docs/europarl_flyer_data_retention.pdf ) Why this petition?, Summary petition results Extra URL: www.stopdataretention.com Press Links to this Campaign Link back show [edit] Data Retention News Verband der Anbieter von Telekommunikations- und Mehrwertdiensten e.V. asks MEPs not to bow down to Council demands ( http://www.vatm.de/content/pressemitteilungen/inhalt/08-12-2005.html ) (8.12.2005) (8.12.2005) German consumer protection agencies: There is no data protection in data retention ( http://www.vzbv.de/start/index.php?page=themen&bereichs_id=1&themen_id=4&mit_id=646&task=mit ) The recording industry calls for data retention for infringers (original document ( http://www.ffii.se/erik/misc/CMBAletterITRE22Nov05.doc ) ) ) Association of German Newspaper publishers: data retention undermines protection of persons who leak infomation ( http://www.pressrelations.de/new/standard/result_main.cfm?r=214438&aktion=jour_pm&quelle=1 ) German minister of the interior backs hardcore proposal (in German) ( http://www.dradio.de/dkultur/sendungen/interview/444143/ ) (02.12.2005) (02.12.2005) ECJ introduces criminal sanctions on EU level ( http://www.ffii.se/erik/misc/ECJ_JudgementOnCriminalLaw.DOC ) (23.11.2005) (23.11.2005) Statewatch Observatory on data retention ( http://www.statewatch.org/eu-data-retention.htm ) EP committee votes for watered-down data storage ( http://www.euractiv.com/Article?tcmuri=tcm:29-149617-16&type=News ) Commission Proposal for Data Retention Released ( http://www.statewatch.org/news/2005/sep/com-data-retention-prop.pdf ) (PDF) European Parliament rejects Member States' proposal on data retention ( http://www.europarl.eu.int/news/expert/infopress_page/019-669-270-9-39-902-20050921IPR00560-27-09-2005-2005--true/default_en.htm ) Live traffic data counter in NL ( http://www.xs4all.nl/bewaarplicht/ ) UK paper on data retention New date European Commission proposal German industry strongly rejects data retention Italy decrees data retention until 31 December 2007 Law enforcement wishlists DR proposal in Canada (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050819/COTLER17/TPNational/Canada) [edit] Top 10 Countries 58265 people signed the petition until 14.12.2005 23:0 GMT. Netherlands 21617 Germany 6975 Finland 5985 Bulgaria 3498 Sweden 2523 Spain 2410 Austria 1844 France 1557 United Kingdom 1547 Italy 1512 Full Report [edit] Campaign Ideas Visualisation Problem Call for support of political organisations Advertisement Contact your local consumers' organisation Carefully distribute copies of Orwell's 1984 [edit] Essential Policy Documents Note from Presidency setting out four areas for decision of Council on its position ( http://www.statewatch.org/news/2005/dec/eu-dat-ret-council-1-dec-05.pdf ) (01.12.2005) Draft Council text of the Directive ( http://www.statewatch.org/news/2005/dec/eu-coun-dat-ret-29-11-05-15101.pdf ) (29.11.2005) Extensive list of Member State Reservations on the draft text ( http://www.statewatch.org/news/2005/dec/eu-coun-dat-ret-29-11-05-15101-ADD1.pdf ) (01.12.2005) (01.12.2005) Final LIBE report ( http://www.edri.org/docs/364679XM.pdf ) (28.11.2005) (28.11.2005) Voting List ( http://www.euractiv.com/29/images/Voting_list_Data_%20Retention_tcm25-149694.pdf ) (pdf) : outcome of vote in LIBE Committee (24.11.2005) : outcome of vote in LIBE Committee (24.11.2005) Alvaro Compromise Amendments ( http://medlem.spray.se/flooodis/dataretention/ALVAROcompromiseamendments.doc ) (doc) (17.11.2005) (17.11.2005) Overview: LIBE compromise report Alexander Alvaro + amendments, ITRE report Angelika Niebler + amendments ( http://www.europarl.eu.int/meetdocs/2004_2009/organes/libe/libe_20051123_1500.htm ) amendments to IMCO report ( http://www2.europarl.eu.int/registre/commissions/imco/amendments/2005/364992/IMCO_AM(2005)364992_EN.pdf ) (14.11.2005) (14.11.2005) IMCO report ( http://www2.europarl.eu.int/registre/commissions/imco/projet_avis/2005/364929/IMCO_PA(2005)364929_EN.pdf ) (8.11.2005) (8.11.2005) Working Paper Alexander Alvaro, rapporteur LIBE ( http://www.europarl.eu.int/registre/commissions/libe/projet_rapport/2005/364679/LIBE_PR(2005)364679_EN.pdf ) (19.10.2005) (19.10.2005) Last known version Council of JHA Ministers ( http://www.statewatch.org/news/2005/oct/council-data-ret-draft-10-oct-05.pdf ) (10.10.2005) (10.10.2005) Commission Proposal for Data Retention ( http://www.edri.org/docs/EUcommissiondataretentionjuly2005.pdf ) (July 2005) (July 2005) Original proposal Council of JHA Ministers ( http://register.consilium.eu.int/pdf/en/04/st08/st08958.en04.pdf ) (April 2004) (April 2004) Commission "EXTENDED IMPACT ASSESSMENT" (http://europa.eu.int/comm/justice_home/doc_centre/police/doc/sec_2005_1131_en.pdf) (21.9.2005) [edit] Papers Against Data Retention Recommendations by the International Chamber of Commerce ( http://www.edri.org/docs/ICCstatement.pdf ) (14.11.2005) (14.11.2005) Opinion Article 29 Working Party ( http://www.edri.org/docs/Art29-WP113en-Data_Retention_Oct2005.pdf ) (21.10.2005) (21.10.2005) Opinion European Data Protection Supervisor ( http://www.edps.eu.int/legislation/Opinions_A/05-09-26_Opinion_data_retention_EN.pdf ) (26.09.2005) (26.09.2005) EuroCOP turns against data retention: "vast effort - little effect" ( http://www.eurocop-police.org/pressreleases/2005/05-06-02%20PRESS%20JHA%20Council_E.pdf ) (July 2005) (July 2005) Research BITKOM (German Industry) ( http://www.bitkom.org/files/documents/Studie_VDS_final_lang.pdf ) (October 2004) (October 2004) Opinion European Digital Rights and Privacy International (http://www.privacyinternational.org/issues/terrorism/rpt/responsetoretention.html) (September 2004) [edit] Localization New languages Catalan Catalan banners Translation of the petition into Catalan (http://www.softcatala.org/~jmas/bloc/pivot/entry.php?id=87) Finnish Finnish banners Finnish flyer German German Terminology German Banners (quintessenz) ( http://www.quintessenz.at/cgi-bin/index?id=000100003318 ) Flyer for Austria Italian Italian banner UK 6 reasons to oppose data retention 18-11-05 UK Labour (PSE) pro-data retention position (http://www.ael.be/pipermail/asbl-libre/2005-November/002118.html) Nederlands www.stopdebewaarplicht.nl Bits of Freedom dossier over de bewaarplicht Tien fabels over de bewaarplicht Spanish Spanish banner ¿Cómo te afecta la retención de datos? (Spanish) Carta a los eurodiputados para rechazar la directiva Romanian Romanian banners Slovenian Ko terorizem prav pride (clanek) - article in Slovenian language Full text in Slovenian Slovenian banners Slovenian flyer Greek Translation of the site's text in Greek Draft of a greek proclamation against data retention Basque Basque banners Poland Retencja danych - zbiór aktualnych doniesień na Prawo.VaGla.pl (http://prawo.vagla.pl/retencja_danych)

Senthoor thinking

Paul Graham] Americans are good at some things and bad at others. We're good at making movies and software, and bad at making cars and cities. Durability Hard disk Keyboard “Actuation of a key shall be accompanied by feedback. Feedback can be kinaesthetic, auditory or some combination of them. If the design allows only one method, then kinaesthetic feedback is preferred” "The visible surfaces of the keytops shall be matt finish." TrackPoint ThinkLight IBM UltraConnect antenna ThinkPad Cooling Embedded Security Subsystem ThinkVantage Technology Future of ThinkPad Conclusion Other Links I recently got myself some Black Gold . I want to write all about it. Here is the story of how I fell in love with my notebook…When you buy a ThinkPad you don’t buy a laptop, you are instead presented with an elegant invitation to join a community of mobile computing excellence, allowing you to be a part of a cutting edge technology ownership experience that only the high quality standards of IBM can deliver. The ThinkPad has a very interesting history - from how it was named to how the TrackPoint was called Magenta in color (even though it is clearly red). IBM Personal Computing Division embodies strict Quality control standards. One such IBM standard stated that the only thing that could be red on a product was an emergency power switch. Another story - IBM used to hand out pads to employees so they could jot down to-do lists. The pad, which was designed to fit into a dress-shirt pocket, was bound in leather and embossed in gold with the IBM motto, "Think." Wainwright, a senior planner at IBM Corp said, "Let's call it the ThinkPad.”. The IBM corporate naming committee objected to it since they felt the name would not translate into other languages. However it turned out, that they did not have to translate it anyway. How do you say ThinkPad in Japanese? Simple. Just “ThinkPad”.One of the few people who realized this fact was Cannavino, president of IBM's Entry Systems Division. He knew competitors in Japan would share more technical information among themselves than counterparts in the U.S. IBM moved the initial ThinkPad Design and Production operations to the IBM design center in Yamato, Japan. The initial design of the ThinkPad was inspired by the shoukadou bentou , the traditional, black-lacquered, Japanese lunch box.If you are fascinated by all the stories that have created such an illustrious ThinkPad history, let me point you to the source of these tales. A must read for any ThinkPad fan.{These link needs a free registration, don’t let that stop you from reading it}What makes ThinkPad(T & X Series) so different from its competition? Lets look under the hood of the Magnesium Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic frame of a T series.It’s built like a tank . If you read a review of any ThinkPad, one thing you are sure to notice is how it is built for durability. For example the lid is attached to the base with two large metal hinges so that in the long run it doesn’t loosen up. There is an outer frame around the LCD which protects you screen from any material sneaking in when you throw your laptop into your carrying case. The truth is that every component in a ThinkPad is built to last, from the hard disk with active protection system to only water resistant keyboard in mobile computing.The best part is that even in the Mac world it’s believed that IBM ThinkPad is better than the PowerBooks. It is no surprise that NASA has selected the ThinkPad to be on the International Space Station. NASA selected the ThinkPad after a 'torture drop test', 'bake and freeze environment test’ and the 'torture spill test'. If you have followed the previous link, you would know that the ThinkPad even withstood the infamous Himalayan challenge.Preventive failure in mobile computing has arrived. The active protection system consistently monitors the movement of the laptop with an accelerometer and parks the Hard disk within 500 milliseconds, if it detects a potential fall or any movement which can deliver a damaging shock to the hard disk. Now that is what you call the “coolness factor”. [ Whitepaper ]. Further to this, the hard drive is also equipped with Air Bags (the technology you find in automobiles) and a shock absorber (acts like a bumper in your vehicle) to reduce the amount of shock passed on to the drive.The latest ThinkPads are equipped with 7200 RPM hard drives from Hitachi, which recently acquired the hard drive operations from IBM. Hitachi developed a new component called “femto” for the hard drives that supports the read/write head above the surface of the disk. This reduces the power consumption, and increases performance. [ source This is one area where competing vendors are eating IBM dust. IBM has managed to fit in a full size keyboard, yes ladies and gentlemen, you read correctly…a FULL SIZE keyboard. You can’t find any review about a ThinkPad that does not praise the beauty of the ThinkPad keyboard. The keyboard conforms to the ISO 9204 Spec. Here are some extracts from the spec,The Keyboard is so unbelievable. Once you get used to it, you can’t possibly use another keyboard. There are people out there who are ripping of old ThinkPad keyboards and finding some way to fix them to their personal computers. They simply cannot live without it . I understand completely.I have disabled the Touch Pad on my ThinkPad. I don’t think I will ever use any other pointing device other than my beloved TrackPoint. TrackPoint history is as long as ThinkPad itself. The man behind this invention is Ted Selker . He fought hard to get his invention to market within IBM. The stories about the TrackPoint are very interesting. For example, the initial design of the TrackPoint was black. Since it got lost in the black keyboard they decided to make it Red. However IBM standards dictated that nothing can be red in a machine except the emergency power switch. So the team decided to call it Magenta instead of red. Ingenious. This is a story to prove that the passion in people is as important as the technology in machine itself.The ThinkLight is a LED placed at the top edge of the display which can shed some light onto your keyboard in low light condition, making it easier to type. “So what” you say? Well, apparently for some co-operations the ThinkLight has been the key deciding factor when selecting a ThinkPad over other notebook brands. One such company is Lufthansa which selected the ThinkPad over other notebooks because the ThinkLight made pilots lives so much more easier in the low light conditions of an aircraft cockpit. Once again the “coolness factor”. Will this pleasure ever end?There are dual antennas placed on both sides of the display for optimal signal reception. This link provides more information than what I could write here.This is another research spanning out from the IBM labs. I have scene some Siemens LifeBooks back at office that make more noise and get hotter than a used car. ThinkPad does not worry you with any of those problems. It uses Thermal Hinge technology to keep your notebook cool.This topic deserves a blog on its own. The Embedded Security Subsystem became so cool with the introduction of the Finger Print Scanner on the ThinkPad. The main problem enterprises faces is getting people to use good passwords and getting them to change and maintain their personal security regularly. The ThinkPad re-writes the security paradigm with the introduction of the breakthrough Finger Print scanner. You could argue that finger print scanner is not something new to the notebooks and Samsung X10 Plus already has a finger print scanner. However those are touch scanners rather than a swipe scanner. IBM introduced the swipe scanner which solved many problems found in a touch scanner. One of the problems the swipe scanner solves is that the user now has to drag their fingertip across the scanner, and therefore there is no way to "lift" a fingerprint from the surface. Pragmatic HCI excellence at its best. Here is a full review of the IBM fingerprint scanner.This is more suitable if you want to deploy a ThinkPad across your enterprise. In such cases the purchase cost of any notebook accounts only to 20% of the TCO. IBM has developed a set of technologies called ThinkVantage which address the other 80%. If you are a small company here is a classic case study as to how a ThinkPad deployment can increase productivity and help you to build an office where people just love to come to work each day.If you think this is it, don’t worry. IBM is already tossing around some breakthrough ideas for the future of ThinkPad. Get ready to be amazed.IBM reached its 10 millionth ThinkPad customer in the year 2000. In 2003 they reached the 20 million mark . 100% growth in 3 years. Obviously all this history and a continuous passion of excellence have paid dividends. I am proud to be a part of this group. The ThinkPad belongs in a new realm of prestige and is a class of mobile computing all on its own, to be compared with no other and revered by all. Like a BMW, a bottle of fine wine or a Villa in Italy, the only way to appreciate the ThinkPad is to drive it…taste it… and live it. Enjoy.

van Gogh's Letters

Excerpt of letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Etten, September 1881 Or search for specific words... e.g., "Renoir Monet" "M*net" or "potato -Hague" Plus + requires a word, minus - prevents it, * is wildcard

Bush warns Iran on nuclear plans

Work restarted at Isfahan this week He said he was working on a diplomatic solution, but was sceptical that one could be found. The UN's atomic watchdog has called on Iran to halt nuclear fuel development. Iran, which denies it is secretly trying to develop nuclear arms, restarted work at its uranium conversion plant at Isfahan on Monday. "All options are on the table," said Mr Bush, when asked about the possible use of force during an interview for Israeli TV. "The use of force is the last option for any president. You know we have used force in the recent past to secure our country," he said. NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE Mined uranium ore is purified and reconstituted into solid form known as yellowcake Yellowcake is converted into a gas by heating it to about 64C (147F) Gas is fed through centrifuges, where its isotopes separate and process is repeated until uranium is enriched Low-level enriched uranium is used for nuclear fuel Highly enriched uranium can be used in nuclear weapons In depth: Nuclear fuel cycle Iran's press defiant The BBC's Jonathan Beale in Washington says the president wants to send a clear warning to Tehran, although in reality the US already has its hands full in neighbouring Iraq. 'Cost them dearly' The former Iranian President, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has expressed surprise at Thursday's call by the UN nuclear agency, the IAEA, for Iran to suspend its nuclear activities. The IAEA asked its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, to report on Iran's compliance by 3 September. Speaking at Friday prayers in Tehran, Mr Rafsanjani said western opposition to Iran's decision to resume its nuclear programme would, as he put it, cost them dearly. "Our people are not going to allow their nuclear rights to be seized," Mr Rafsanjani said. He said he was astonished that no country opposed the European Union-sponsored resolution, adopted by the IAEA, that urged Iran to stop any work on processing uranium for enrichment. He emphasised that Iran's decision to resume its nuclear programme was irreversible, and said his country could not be treated like Iraq or Libya. The IAEA's 35-member governing body met in emergency session this week after Iran ended a nine-month suspension of work at Isfahan. Iran insists it needs nuclear power as an alternative energy source, but Western nations fear it has plans to produce nuclear weapons.

The oil supply tsunami alert

The oil market is vibrating, and crude oil prices are bobbing up and down like a float on the water. Around the world, experts make analysis and try to explain why. The fact that the price of crude oil is approaching $60 per barrel and the production costs for the same barrel fluctuates between $1 and $10 shows that common economic theories are not valid any longer, something new is in the air and the question is how to interpret today’s vibrations. Since 2001, the start of ASPO, Association for the Study of Peak Oil&Gas, we have tried to make the world aware of the fact that in a short while, we will have a problem supplying the world with crude oil when the demand is rising. We call it Peak Oil. The year for the peak at the first depletion workshop in Uppsala, Sweden, in 2002 was 2010, and in Berlin, in 2004 it had moved to 2008. Now it might be that the peak will come even earlier. The exact year depends very much on demand in the future, and we will not know when we have peaked until we have crossed the threshold. Unfortunately, very few have listened to our alerts even though the signs have been so significant that even a blind hen should have seen them. Fifty years ago the world was consuming 4 billion barrels of oil per year, and the average discovery was around 30 billion. Today we consume 30 billion barrels per year, and the discovery rate is now approaching 4 billion barrels of crude oil per year. If we make an extrapolation of the downward discovery slope from the last 30 years, we find that about 134 billion barrels will be found over the next 30 years. That would not be a bad achievement, being more than double the North Sea, which is the largest new province found since the Second World War. But it comes far short of providing sufficient discoveries to meet the IEA [1] scenario, which visualizes the consumption of 1000 billion barrels over the next 25 years, even though some of it may be drawn from reserves left over from past discovery. Each oilfield has a time when it reaches maximum production. One of the 40 largest oil fields in the world is the mythological East Texas field. They discovered the field in 1930, and some years later they reached a maximum production After a plateau production of 160 million barrels per year it started to decline in 1936 and when the production was 60 million barrels per year at the end of the 1960s new technology was applied. By injecting water into the field, the production rose to 80 million barrels, but since then the production has continued to decline and is now producing less the 10 million barrels per year. If you study the production from existing oilfields, experts around the world agree that the decline is between 3 and 5 percent. It means that all the oilfields that today produce 84 million barrels per day, m/bpd, will next year at this time produce 80.6 M/bpd and in the year 2030, 30 M/bpd. In the World Energy Outlook 2004, the IEA predicts that we will need 121 M/bps in 2030. In other words, we need to find more than 90 M/bpd in new production. The world needs ten new Saudi Arabias. Someone might call me a Doomsayer, but if so I’m accompanied by Sadad Al Husseini, as this is a citation from him. He was until recently vice director of Saudi Aramco, the largest oil company in the world. Of the 65 largest oil producing countries in the world, 54 have passed their peak of production just like in East Texas, and they are now in decline. Indonesia, a member of the oil-exporting club OPEC [2], can’t produce their production quota. But the most astonishing thing is that they now can’t produce enough oil for their consumption, they now belong to the oil importing countries. Six years from now five more countries will peak in their oil production. Cantrell in Mexico is the second largest oil-producing field in the world. Next year it is expected to start to decline, and the whole production in Mexico will decline. China has for the last five years has been fighting hard to keep their production flat, and the probability for them to keep it up is not very high. By 2010 the following countries have the potential to produce more oil than they have ever produced before; Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, and Bolivia. These countries will have to cover the decline in 59 countries and the increased demand from the rest of the world. Anyone that can provide information showing that this is possible must do it now. At the beginning of the 1980s, Saudi Arabia produced 9.6 million barrels per day. According to the scenarios of the IEA World Energy Outlook 2004 and the US EIA [3] International Energy Outlook 2004, Saudi Arabia must produce 22 M/bpd by the year 2030. Sadad Al Husseini just calls it plug-in numbers and claims, the American government’s forecast for future oil supplies are a dangerous over-estimate. The largest oil field in the world, Ghawar, is in decline, although Saudi Aramco says that the production can be increased to 12 M/bpd in the year 2015. They are not talking about 22 million barrels per day. In 1979 Iraq produced 3.4 M/bpd. The official reserve data claims that they have 112 billion barrels of crude oil. We think that one-third of the reported reserves are just political barrels. The reserves of Iraq were recently discussed in London, and the number that has leaked out through closed doors is 46 billion barrels. If this is the case, it will be hard for Iraq to reach their past peak production. It’s time to ask, can the Middle East come back to the peak numbers from the 1970s? Recently a report titled The Mitigation of the Peaking of World Oil Production was handed over to the Department of Energy. The report claims that World Oil peaking represents a problem like none other. The political, economic, and social stakes are enormous. Prudent risk management demands urgent attention and early action. If you start a serious program today, it will take 20 years before completion. A real tremble was felt from the Goldman Sachs alert, which predicts the price ceiling for a barrel of crude to reach 105$. “We believe oil markets may have entered the early stages of what we have referred to as a super spike period, they said. We call it Peak Oil. Figure 3. The 2004 updated scenario for oil and gas liquids updated by Colin Campbell Scientists and government authorities that noticed the earthquake that caused the tsunami in Thailand are blamed for not making a tsunami alert. They were afraid that the warning would hurt the tourism industry. I think it is time for energy authorities around the world to make an oil supply tsunami alert. The vibrations we are now feeling might turn into a wave of incredible magnitude. If we start doing something right now, we might be able to build a breakwater. If not, we will face an event that could change the life, as we know it, forever. [1] The IEA, International Energy Agency, was established in November 1974 in response to the oil crisis in the early 1970s as an autonomous inter-governmental entity within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to study energy supply and security, and advise the member nations accordingly. IEA has 26 member countries. [2] OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, was formed in 1960, and its current members are Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. [3] EIA, the Energy Information Administration, was created by Congress in 1977 and is a statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Starting June 29, 2005

Friday, August 26, 2005 Installing fiber into my home [ link ] I now have the Verizon FIOS fiber-optic-based Internet service in my home. I've written up how this all works (what goes in your neighborhood on the poles, how it goes into your house, what they do, what you get inside, etc.) in an essay with lots of pictures. See " Installing Verizon FIOS fiber-optic Internet service to my house ". Tuesday, August 16, 2005 "Professional" journalists are amateurs sometimes with podcasting [ link ] An observation: From when I first previewed my copyright training video at Demo earlier this year, I've had professional audio people (years in radio, TV, or public address sound) giving me pointers to help me with the sound on my video and podcasts. (I have produced at least three public series, Software Licensing , Open Cellphone , and Open Source SIG , and I've been interviewed on many more.) I've been relying on Doug Kaye of ITConversations more than you can imagine. I've watched a friend spend months and years learning the craft as he moved from being a print journalist to covering a similar beat for NPR. I constantly compare my work to what I hear on the airwaves, in movies and videos, and in other podcasts. I've even spent lots of my own money trying to make as pleasing sound as possible. I'm learning to hear the differences between different microphones, to understand why so much equipment is often used (de-essers, compressors, limiters, filters, etc.). I feel that sound is like layout, typography, writing, punctuation, print resolution, etc. -- it can get in the way when we don't take advantage of what has been learned over the years and when done well it helps get information across better. I'm getting sensitive to levels, clipping, and so much more. (Hopefully some of this is reflected in better podcasts from me, but I'm not always as successful as I'd like. Maybe if I buy just one more piece of equipment...) With the rush to podcasting by just about every "content" provider, we're now seeing "journalists" who are "professionals" in one medium (usually print reporters or bloggers) trying to publish in another (audio) and they often sound like total newbies. I like the new outlet for information that podcasting provides. I like it that newspaper and other "text-based" reporters are now filing stories in audio form with actual interviews where you can hear the interviewee squirming. But, as I hear the sometimes poor audio quality and blog-like "I'm doing it myself" character of these podcasts I'm reminded of how "professional" journalists just a little while ago were deriding us bloggers as something of poor quality. As I hear them learning-by-doing in the audio sphere, just as we bloggers-turned-podcasters are, I hope they are getting a greater understanding of us and how the rough quality of our blog writing may not reflect on the quality of our thoughts and messages. I am enjoying some of these "big media" podcasts, such as the Boston Globe Bizcasts with DC Denison, Scott Kirsner, and others. You can hear how rough the sound engineering is. (Scott did a wonderful podcast with me that was posted in early August but recorded last February -- you can hear the echoes in the room and the computer fans blowing and it wasn't just a bit during an intro for effect like the ambient sound NPR edits in. I talk a lot about innovation and inventing and VisiCalc.) Other newspapers are jumping into the fray, such as the San Francisco Chronicle with their " Chronicle Podcasts " (their recording quality varies, too). David Berlind and Dan Farber of ZDNet have the " Between the Lines " podcast series. David and I are frequently comparing notes about equipment and podcasting techniques and he posts what he's learning on his blog. Steve Gillmor's sound quality is all over the map as he experiments on the new Gillmor Gang . The original recordings, produced by Doug Kaye at ITConversations, were quite good and were the eye opener that got many of us sold on this medium. Some of these people are very good interviewers and it really shows in the podcasts. Scott has done the MITX Fireside Chat series of live interviews that I frequently write about here on my blog (such as with Malcolm Gladwell and Clayton Christensen ). Podcasting lets him use that talent for more of us. David Berlind often asks tough, knowledgeable follow up questions as he interviews vendors on his podcasts -- you can almost see the horror on the faces of the PR people in the room with the interviewee on speaker phone. Larry Magid has been a print columnist for many years, but he's also been doing radio shorts for NPR and then CBS for a long time. His interviews for ITConversations have been really interesting (like the ones with Gordon Moore and Buzz Aldrin), but he's been doing daily radio for years. Larry's style brings up an interesting question. He's been trained to do the "2 minute spot" style of recording with a zesty tone of voice. When you do long discussions with someone, what is the most appropriate tone? What about 10 minute podcasts? Should we edit and add additional laughs like Car Talk sometimes does according to On The Media's " Pulling Back the Curtain "? (By the way, I've always loved NPR's "On The Media" and now that it's available as a podcast I get to listen to it much more -- that's spoiling me to expect all NPR shows to be like that.) Larry and I have been discussing this whole tone thing. As we all experiment with podcasting, what lengths are natural for what type of listening? What style of affect should we use when? Over the years Larry's done live radio, 15-30 second spots, 2 minute segments, and 20 minute longer stuff - what are some of the "right" (most pleasing or helpful to the listener) styles for each genre? Larry reminds me this moving of many written reporters to audio and video is like the switch from silent films to talkies. Not all great motion and expression actors could sound the way that worked with audiences. New popular players emerged. Being a "multi" media person now might be a valuable thing. This switch to audio will be tough for some people trained only in writing. With writing you needed to know how to type (a skill) and manipulate a word processor and email and maybe part of a content management system. Nothing that hard for regular people, and most stuff is taught in grade school now. So, the main unusual skills are writing ability and "journalism" training. With audio, most of the reporters who are doing new podcasts need to have and be proficient with lots of expensive fussy equipment, do a new type of editing they don't teach in most schools (for making editorial changes as well as sound changes, compression changes, etc., etc.), speak fluently and clearly (or know how to fit it with editing, just as they often do with print), and more -- lots of geeky skills and a bit of how to "act naturally" on top of it. On the flip side, reporters are finding whole new ways to do their craft of "reporting". They may need additional skills but they have more outlets for their work. Of course for the techies at heart, it gives you a great excuse to learn about a whole new area and get lots of new toys. It's nice to all learn something new together. We are creating a new medium together, pros and "amateurs" alike. Video may have killed the radio star, but with the Internet the radio engineers are now finding that more people want to learn from or use their skills. Monday, August 15, 2005 Podcast with Donna Dubinsky about Palm and more [ link ] We've just posted another podcast in the DiamondCluster Wavelengths series. This one is an interview with Donna Dubinsky. Donna was the CEO of Palm in the early days when it came out with the Palm Pilot. She then co-founded Handspring and was very involved with the Visor and the Treo. Handspring was acquired by Palm in 2003. She's still on the board of Palm but not actively involved in day-to-day management. John Sviokla and I asked her questions related to her experiences with an eye to learning from history about creating an open platform. Not only do we talk about the "open cell phone" as we do on the other Wavelengths podcasts, but Donna talks about some of the history of developing the Palm as an open platform, how they learned about doing wireless devices at Handspring, what the wireless carriers' mindsets are, and more. This podcast should be of interest to a wide range of people, including people interested in modern computer history, the Palm platform, open systems, handhelds, the Treo, cellular carriers, and more capable cell phones. If you've never heard Donna speak it's worthwhile to listen to this to hear the voice of a real business pioneer who helped blaze new classes of uses of computing. One interesting observation related to the " Long Tail " discussion: Palm found out that most people used some of the core applications shipped with the device but that customers would also find one other application that was compelling for them and that was a "make it or break it thing" (listen at about 3:00 in the podcast). "There was always some additional compelling application for the Palm owner," she claims. A dedicated device without general programmability would do the core applications (like calendar) but not that one needed application (like connecting to a corporate database or tracking the stars). This is a step-function that relates to the Long Tail -- it's not that a large number of long tail apps added up to lots of "extra" money but rather they drove consideration of a product at all. This is a key aspect of understanding open systems and the Long Tail. The interview has additional important observations based on history, too. See " Show #4: Donna Dubinsky, ex-CEO of Palm and Handspring " for information on how to download this 41 minute podcast. You can also subscribe to the whole series with the RSS feed . Friday, August 12, 2005 What if VisiCalc had been patented? [ link ] My name has been brought up a few times in the last few weeks with regards to software patents. I publicly questioned a Microsoft representative in Zaragoza who was saying that software patents were good, asking him how patents played a role in Microsoft's early success (since they held very few patents until the early 1990's). You can read Jackie Danicki's write-up of the exchange (search for "bricklin" on the page) and you can listen to it at minute 24:25 of the MP3 of Simon Brown's session from the conference on the page that Jackie points to . I was a source for Randall Stross' article in the July 31, 2005, Sunday New York Times which has been picked up in a variety of places. (I also helped him find out how to get the information for the chart there that shows Microsoft had only a single issued patent by 1987 with company revenue of $350 million, 5 by 1990 with revenue of $1.2 billion, etc.) I pointed out that the software industry has used copyright and trademark for IP protection very well (both are keystones of the proprietary and the Open Source software worlds). The main quote: "Isn't Microsoft the poster child of success without software patents?" The issue comes up again in a recent piece in ZDNet/CNet " Open-source allies go on patent offensive " where my name is mentioned on the second page in discussing what the effect would have been of patenting VisiCalc. (See my old essay " Patenting VisiCalc " to understand why we didn't.) This morning a Newsgator custom keyword search feed found my name mentioned on Russ Krojec's blog entry " What if VisiCalc was Patented? " Russ argues that since VisiCalc wasn't patented competitors found it "...safer to copy the currently winning formula and avoid having to innovate. In this case, the lack of patents brought innovation to a standstill and we are all running spreadsheet programs that still operate like 25 year old software." I beg to differ with him. He seems to assume that people haven't tried really hard to find something better. I posted a comment to his blog (as of this writing it's awaiting anti-spam/troll verification): There actually were many different "non-VisiCalc-like" calculating systems developed over those years. We even tried one at Software Arts with TK!Solver, and Lotus tried Improv. Then there was T-Maker, Javelin, etc., etc. Many of us tried to find new metaphors. They didn't catch on (there are reasons why, I believe, but it isn't for lack of trying). On the other hand, innovation in VisiCalc-like spreadsheets continued, with Lotus doing things we wouldn't, and then Microsoft moving things further ahead with Excel going in areas Lotus neglected. When Mitch Kapor did 1-2-3, he copied the features of VisiCalc he thought were worthwhile and didn't (or changed) features he didn't think were appropriate. Microsoft added features (and Windows support) that Lotus held back on. Innovation sure didn't "stand still". There was no "avoiding" of innovation. I'm not against patents in general (they are good for some industries, I guess), but I do have real problems with how they are affecting the software industry which has other means of protection and incentive that have proven successful to society. Of course, as I've written, they are the current law of the land and I still apply for them at times. In fact just today I received one of those "It is my great pleasure to congratulate you on the granting of your patent!...Celebrate...by ordering a patent plaque or frame today" letters as another patent from the Trellix days finally came through this week (we applied in 1996). (I don't own the patent -- Interland does.) The topic seems hot, so I figured I should post this, but I've been talking about software and patents for over 15 years so I am a bit burnt out about it. In my copyright video I even have a very short clip showing me testifying (along with Mitch Kapor) in front of a Congressional subcommittee in 1990 on the topic (which I'll get onto the Internet one of these days -- the complete tape of the hearing is hours long). Thursday, August 4, 2005 New podcast-friendly version of ListGarden is released [ link ] I've just released the new ListGarden RSS feed generator Version 1.3.1. This is a major upgrade with lots of new features. It makes it very easy to create podcast RSS feeds, including automatically generating an HTML page with a "List of Shows" and links to the audio files like the one I use for my Software Licensing podcast. (There is a step-by-step tutorial on how to do this -- see " Setting Up an RSS Feed for Podcasting Using ListGarden ".) The product is still free Open Source released under the GPL and runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, client-side or server-side. I understand that many people create their podcasts pretty much by hand, uploading the audio files by FTP (easy) and then manually editing the RSS XML (tedious and error-prone). Some use external services to turn a blog feed into a clean podcast feed. The new version of ListGarden is a way to maintain the RSS feed more automatically yourself -- you just browse to a list of uploaded files and click on "Select" to fill in the enclosure information. The new features include support for enclosures, support for extra XML such as that used by iTunes, and automatic backup to a local file and/or the server. One special new feature, not in the beta version, is a way to download option settings from a web page. ListGarden has lots of option settings and some fields need HTML and other templates. This feature let me put sample settings on a web page and have you add those settings by just entering the URL. This made the tutorial much less tedious. It also lets anybody create such templates, much like templates for blogs. Since ListGarden can create HTML files (like the companion List of Shows file) this will make it easier for VARS and others to provide support. See " Version 1.3 " for a detailed list of the new features and where to download. Tuesday, August 2, 2005 Podcast with Tim O'Reilly [ link ] The fifth show in my Software Licensing podcast series is now available. I talked with Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media. The reason I first asked him to do a podcast was to discuss O'Reilly's policy for copying sample code from their computer books. They publish something like 500 books with a total of about 2 million lines of sample code and most programmers I know refer to at least some of those books periodically. Most of the books I checked don't tell you what the copying policy is. In 2001 Tim posted an informal description of their policy on the O'Reilly website which I assume most people have not read or don't find easily. I felt that it was of value to my listeners (which include corporate attorneys who like to know these things) to understand what the policy is and the philosophy behind it. While "fair use" law cover this, the ethical thing is to know the copyright holder's intent, too, in figuring out how to apply that law. The discussion of the policy takes up the first 10 minutes or so of the podcast. The rest has discussions of O'Reilly Media's experience with copyable and online books and the effects of piracy, Tim's thoughts about the value of openness and the "architecture of participation", where there's value in the Open Source ecosystem (who will be the "Dell" of Open Source), the balance between what you own and what you give away, and more. If you've heard Tim speak recently some of this will be familiar, but the difference here is that it is a conversation (literally) so he probably goes into more depth on some things and covers a wider area of topics in response to my questions. If you are interested in Open Source or business models and haven't heard Tim speak, it's definitely worth the time. He's runs a for-profit business that is heavily involved in the Open Source world and has real data on what works and what doesn't. See " Interview with Tim O'Reilly, O'Reilly Media " for the details of downloading the podcast or subscribing to it. I've been really pleased with the reaction to my Software Licensing podcast series . People especially comment about the interviews with Marten Mickos of MySQL and Linda Hamel of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ITD. I love how podcasting works where I just upload the MP3 file and update the RSS feed (using the hopefully final code I finished this morning of my podcast-friendly ListGarden upgrade, of course) and, voila!, dozens of people download it in the minutes before I can even let you know about it on this blog (thanks to podcatchers iTunes, iPodder, iPodderX, etc.). I love how I can see that listeners appreciate what I'm doing well enough to subscribe. A "page read" is one thing as positive feedback, but a "subscribe" is even better. Thursday, July 28, 2005 Beta of a new podcast-friendly upgrade to ListGarden [ link ] It's been almost a year since I last upgraded my ListGarden RSS creation tool. ListGarden has gotten great reviews, has been downloaded thousands of times (the rate has not dropped off), and is apparently being used by many people. ListGarden is pretty specialized because most people who create something that uses RSS (a blog or a database-driven site) have the RSS creation built into their system. The program been most helpful to people like me who use non-blogging tools to create their blog (like Trellix Web or Notepad). Being released under the GPL has helped it stand out (and help me learn about the GPL firsthand in a more meaningful way). I've just added some features that may make it helpful to a new set of users. When it came time for me to post my first podcast I realized that ListGarden couldn't help me create the type of RSS feed I needed to be a real, "podcatchable" podcast. It didn't support the <enclosure> element. Editing XML by hand is tedious and error-prone, so most people like using an automated tool. Phil Windley created a patch to make ListGarden work for him (that's what you can do with Open Source...) but I wanted a different UI and, anyway, there were other features and bug fixes I wanted to add, too. It was time to upgrade ListGarden. Before I started my podcast series I did some programming and added support for enclosures and a way to browse a directory on a server to choose the file and automatically fill in the file name and size (I assume that you can use a normal FTP program to upload the file). Since May I've been using that version for all the podcasts I've done but I didn't finish the coding so that I could release it to the public. (I did find and fix some bugs during that time, though.) Today I finally released the upgrade, including a variety of other features I've added in the past weeks. It is a beta version and there is barely any documentation for the new features, though for people who know podcasting RSS already that shouldn't be much of a problem. Over the next few days I'll upgrade the existing documentation and add new documentation about podcasting so you won't need to know any of that. The special podcasting-friendly features include: Support for enclosures, the ability to use namespaces and add additional sub-elements to both the channel and the item elements (which lets you, for example, set the new values that iTunes takes advantage of), and the ability to maintain an HTML-format list of shows on the website along with the XML-format RSS feed (for listeners who don't use podcatching software or when you want to link to an entry on a webpage for a single show). Other features: The ability to automatically save backups of all the data both locally and/or on the server, and a simple non-HTML way to markup the descriptions (this lets you podcast with formatted entries without needing to create a companion blog or know HTML). For more information on this beta version, see the ListGarden News page on the Software Garden website. I'd appreciate any feedback. Wednesday, July 27, 2005 Where is Don Bulens? [ link ] Regular readers of this blog have heard me refer many times to Don Bulens who was CEO of Trellix for many years. After I left Interland/Trellix last year I haven't mentioned him. Periodically, though, people ask me where he is (he has lots of friends in the industry). I've kept up with Don at least every few months since I stopped working with him and here's the info: Soon after I left, Interland scaled back the Massachusetts office where I had worked (I guess independent of me leaving). It's still there (at a slightly new location a block from the old one) and the complete service Don led that uses our website creation system is alive and well and contributing to their bottom line (as I read their latest PR about their relationship with Dex). Don left a while after I did and then did some work with various VCs and considered a variety of jobs (and finally stopped spending 60% of his time in Atlanta and being away from his dear family). In March of this year Don joined EqualLogic, Inc. as president and CEO. EqualLogic makes intelligent, all-inclusive iSCSI storage area network (SAN) solutions. That may sound quite different than doing website development software, but Don has always been a whiz at OEM and VAR relationships -- he got the Lotus Notes VAR channel going, for example, and got the old Trellix Web Windows client onto millions of OEM products and the server-based tool used by many well known brands. He likes being a CEO building a company and its sales channels. He also likes it that the company makes products that try to simplify things in a complex area, just like Trellix did. As I see it, EqualLogic is also in a much more family-friendly location, just over the border in Nashua, New Hampshire (Don lives north of Boston), so it's a win all around. So, for those of you who have been asking, now you know where to find him. Good luck, Don! Tuesday, July 26, 2005 Podcast with David Isenberg [ link ] The third "Wavelengths" Open Cellphone podcast is now available. This time John Sviokla and I talk with David Isenberg about his "Rise of the Stupid Network" essay that he wrote while at AT&T, the democratic principle of the "Freedom to Connect", cities putting in their own connectivity infrastructure, the turnover in buying new cellphones, and more. Wednesday, July 20, 2005 Open Cellphone podcast with Tom Evslin [ link ] We've just posted the second show in the "Wavelengths" Open Cellphone podcast series. DiamondCluster's John Sviokla and I talk with Tom Evslin about getting a big company to do new things, what he learned at AT&T starting WorldNet and at a successful Voice Over IP company, about the problems of vertical integration, and much more. John really like a metaphor that Tom mentioned about why parts of a vertically integrated company often have a hard time competing with those parts as used by (and sold to) a non-vertically integrated company: It's about "surface area", meaning how exposed the managers are to customers and markets. As Tom wrote on his blog last February in " AT&T: Lesson From the Crypt #3: Vertical Integration Doesn't Work Anymore ": Vertically integrated companies can't compete! The oxymoron of “internal customers” is poison to a competitive culture. That is the lesson of the computer industry and it is a lesson the telecommunications industry apparently has not learned yet... A horizontal company has a high surface to volume ratio. It sells all of its outputs in a competitive market. It is free to buy all its inputs in a competitive market. Its managers are not isolated from the markets they compete in. A vertical company spends most of its time and energy dealing with itself rather than the external market. Meetings are dominated by esoterica like transfer pricing between divisions because this is what determines internal success. The real marketplace is distant from most of the managers trapped inside the vertical structure. Buy vs. build and capital allocation decisions inside a vertical company are made by office politics in a vain attempt to optimize across the whole vertical organization. Horizontal competitors optimize only for the layer they are competing in and so end up being superior to the vertically integrated company layer by layer. Thursday, July 14, 2005 Podcast with MySQL's Marten Mickos [ link ] I've posted a new podcast in the Software Licensing series. This one is an interview with Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL AB. MySQL is a very popular database released under the GPL license that is also available under a "dual license" with a more traditional proprietary license that doesn't have the GPL "redistribute derivative works under GPL, too" requirements. I ask people about pronunciation before I start recording. In the USA, Marten will accept most reasonable pronunciations for his name -- like the "Mahr'-ten Mee'-kohs" I think I used -- and the original pronunciation for MySQL is to spell it out -- My-Ess-Que-Elle -- but the customer is always right, so "My-See'-quill" is OK, too, if that's what you want. The interview starts with about 15 minutes of talking about the dual licensing they have and the question of how to tell when you can't use the GPL license and need the commercial one. I hope this is helpful to the lawyers in my audience since the company does not like to say much about this. We then talked for the rest of the almost 40 minutes about business models, his feelings about Open Source, ensuring ownership of copyrights (in an Open Source project and in general), software patents, the fact that about 40% of MySQL's active installations are on Windows computers, various segmentations of their market with respect to different licenses, and whether an Open Source-based ISV can make a reasonable amount of money in the eyes of investors. Thursday, June 30, 2005 An interactive conference and thoughts on new media [ link ] The response to Friday's conference has been phenomenal. There was real energy in the room. When asked, at least half of the people in the room said they'd written code in the last 6 months. Almost everybody reads Groklaw. Dozens of people participated. It was this participatory, interactive nature that keeps coming up in descriptions. Pamela Jones of Groklaw, who did a long write-up of the meeting after listening to the 4 hours of recordings, mentions that multiple times. I tried hard (with the help of the other organizers) to make the conference work this way. I had gone to other events where there was little time left for the audience, and even that was for "questions" for the "esteemed panel" to answer. I've also gone to two of Dave Winer's BloggerCons which are mainly audience give and take. Dave's been pushing that format very strongly recently (thank you, Dave! Yet again you help the rest of us and make a big mark on the world), and I decided to get some flavor of that here, while trying to respect the fact that some of the invited panelists came great distances and should get a reasonable amount of time to put in their comments and that we only had 1 hour for each part. We posted in advance that "It is expected that all attendees will actively engage in collaborative discussions with panel members." We also told the panel members to encourage participation and only gave the big panel (with 5 speakers) a few minutes each to do an introduction, not the normal 10 or 15 that would have taken up all the time. Attendees paid attention to this and constantly had things to say. I'd run over with a handheld mike (which kept things under control so basically only one person was talking at a time) which made it obvious to whoever was speaking that it was time for someone else. Body language of a moderator can help communicate without needing to break in while someone's speaking, and keeping the mike in the moderator's hand let's you fade one person out and fade in another. The other thing about this meeting, I think, is that the attendees were mainly all used to the Open Source world which has a lot of participatory activity. Also, the area is so broad that for almost any question a different person was the local "expert". So the style fit the topic of the SIG. In today's world, the fact that everybody can participate is now a given. I view myself as a toolmaker and look to tools. The tools of the old world were for "broadcasters" where one small group (but not too small -- it needed "production" people, expensive equipment, and capital) tries to provide something that the general population "shares" by listening. Think: newspaper, radio, TV, books, magazines. The tools of today are for individual expression where anybody can decide what they want to communicate or listen to and there is no requirement to try to make it "broad" and interaction has a much lower threshold. The tools are designed for individuals with almost no money, but often scale to large groups. Think: the web, blogs, email, IM, podcasting, cellphones, search, wikis. Google searches are all "long-tail". Cellphone calls are all long-tail, not like top-40 radio. Even listening on music players and the Internet is long-tail: In an interview with Larry Magid on ITConversations, RealNetwork's Rob Glaser said [at minute 2:45] that in a given month over 90% of Rhapsody's one million songs are played at least once and the top 100 songs make up only 1% of the listens. I wonder how identical people's music libraries are if you look at their high-capacity music player. Probably many quite different mixes and that personal part is what makes an iPod so popular and better than radio. The "media" of yesterday were producers of broad content. The "media" of today are really tools for individuals to communicate with few or many people -- the tools scale and the thresholds are very low. The tools assume a long tail and are not area-specific for "broad interest content". So Google (and others) with search (a "newspaper" or "book" with very narrow grained material that has more or less whatever you want to read, not just what someone decided you want to read today), email, and blogging (a newspaper that's as easy to maintain as sending email to one person so it's worth it for one or ten or a thousand readers) is a new "media" company in that media means a way to read or hear what we want from others. Wikis are "books" that are easy for a group to write, either very small or large. Back to Open Source, Doug Heintzman of IBM said [at minute 43:45 of the " Business Models " session and on BetaNews ] that they're spreading the collaborative, "bottoms up" development process, culture, and tools to their other development projects because it works better than the siloed ways of the past. On my trip to Europe, I was reminded how many cultures and subcultures there are and how rich each is. I saw people interacting with others in so many ways. Nobody was listening to a radio -- they were all talking to others, texting, immersed in their personal worlds composed of so many diverse parts. Broadcast, one-way tools and thinking don't work there. Personal expression tools do and, like at IBM, they will change the world for the better to be more from us and, hopefully, of what's best in us. Wednesday, June 29, 2005 More recordings and creating a wiki to point to them [ link ] I've finished processing the three morning sessions of the Mass Software Council Open Source SIG meeting and posted them online. They are really good and the reviews so far have been quite positive. The main recording left to do is the lunch keynote, but I'm not sure yet if that one will be posted. To see the full list of what we have, go to the " Kickoff Meeting " page. To follow additions, check out the blog . The constant addition of recordings, associated slide files, links to reports in blogs, etc., fit in well with the blog I set up to notify those that are following along. A blog isn't, though, a good fit for people who come in later. It would be much better to have an organized webpage with everything neatly formatted. This is a volunteer-run organization with many contributors, so a centrally-controlled website would put the burden on the webmaster (who at present is me). At the meeting, a common refrain was the move to using wikis for organizing stuff for a group. The combination of blog and wiki looks really good. Until now I've never created a wiki of my own, but I really had no choice but to use one here. I searched a bit on the web and found good reviews of UseModWiki . It's written in Perl, is released under the GPL (good for an Open Source SIG) and is easy to install on a web server (no need to connect to databases, it's basically one Perl file, etc.). I just downloaded the zip file (which assumes you will be on a Windows server, which is not what I was going to do), edited the first line of the program to point to Perl, edited the line with the location of the data file, uploaded it to the server (using "ASCII" mode!) which is a normal inexpensive shared-hosting account, set a few permissions and created a data directory using an FTP program, and Voila!, a wiki. I then edited the sample config file to change the wiki name, added some passwords, and turned on calculating file differences, and then uploaded that to the data directory. Finally, I started creating the actual pages, a home page and one for the Kickoff Meeting, using my browser. Pretty easy. Of course now I'm itching to make a custom CSS file for the site, but I'm resisting the best I can. Quick and dirty direct edit web authoring is a major win for collaboration. Successful examples are blogs and wikis. In the Business Models session of the event, Doug Heintzman from IBM told us how IBM has been learning from the Open Source development model and that they're implementing it for other projects, even those that aren't with an Open Source license. The Novell people told how they've moved to wikis for project coordination. If you are interested in Open Source, I think listening to the recordings is very worthwhile. They can be listened to in any order. If you are wondering how an Open Source project is really organized, or what it's like to turn a proprietary software project into an Open Source one, at least listen to the third session. I found it fascinating.

Scientists aim for lab-grown meat

Pork cuts could come fresh from the lab Developments in tissue engineering mean that cells taken from animals could be grown directly into meat in a laboratory, the researchers say. Scientists believe the technology already exists to directly grow processed meat like a chicken nugget. The technology could benefit both humans and the environment. "With a single cell, you could theoretically produce the world's annual meat supply. And you could do it in a way that's better for the environment and human health. "In the long term, this is a very feasible idea," said Jason Matheny of the University of Maryland, part of the team whose research has been published in the Tissue Engineering journal. Growing the meat without the animal could reduce the need to keep millions of animals in cramped conditions and would lessen the damage caused by the meat production to the environment. Laboratory-grown meat could also be healthier, proponents say. Eating 'mush' Tissue engineering techniques were first developed for medical use and small amounts of edible fish tissue have been grown in research conducted by Nasa. Concerns have been raised about eating meat from cloned animals. "If you didn't stretch them, it would be like eating mush," said Mr Methany. Whilst the technology to produce processed meat is here now, producing a steak or chicken breast is still quite a way off, the researchers say. Questions The new techniques could also provide a dilemma for vegetarians. Some may feel able to eat meat that has been grown without an animal being harmed. Others feel that question marks remain about the way the cells would be taken from animals. "It won't appeal to someone who gave up meat because they think it's morally wrong to eat flesh or someone who doesn't want to eat anything unnatural," Kerry Bennett of the UK Vegetarian Society told the Guardian newspaper. How regulators might react is also unclear. The US Food and Drug Administration has asked companies not to market any products that involve cloned animals until their safety has been evaluated.

Creating Passionate Users: Physics of Passion: The Koolaid Point

« 37 Signals Passion Review | Main | An iPod Sheep Fights Back » Physics of Passion: The Koolaid Point You don't really have passionate users until someone starts accusing them of "drinking the koolaid." You might have happy users, even loyal users, but it's the truly passionate that piss off others enough to motivate them to say something. Where there is passion, there is always anti-passion... or rather passion in the hate dimension. If you create passionate users, you have to expect passionate detractors. You should welcome their appearance in blogs, forums, and user groups. It means you've arrived. Forget the tipping point--if you want to measure passion, look for the koolaid point. And it would appear that 37 Signals has hit it. Within 48 hours of one another, independently, three groups reviewed the company: this blog, Salon, and Paul Scrivens' blog. Two of the reviews glowed. The other... provided balance in the universe. Remember folks, we aren't going for user satisfaction. We aren't going for happy. We're going for all-out passion. And that comes with a price tag. Detractors. Lots of them. And they talk. For every passionate user out evangelizing you to everyone they meet, a koolaid-hunter will do his (or her) best to make sure everyone knows that your passionate users have lost their minds. That they're victim of marketing hype. Sheep. But consider this... The most popular and well-loved companies, products, and causes have the strongest opponents. You'll know when you get there, because the buzz goes from pleasant to polarized. Moderate, reasoned reviews and comments are replaced with stronger language and more colorful adjectives on both sides. Those who speak out against you will be referred to as "brave" or "having the balls" (see the comments on Scriven's review) for daring to criticize. They're hailed as the smart ones who finally call the emporer on his buck-nakedness. Should you ignore the detractors? Diss them as nothing but evidence of your success? Should you just wave them off with a "just jealous" remark? Absolutely not. Somewhere in their complaints there are probably some good clues for things you can work on. But if you start trying to please them all or even worse, turn them into fans, that could mean death. Death by mediocrity, as you cater to everybody and inspire nobody. It is physically impossible to have everyone love what you do. And the more people do love it, the more likely it is that you'll have an equal and opposite negative reaction. X = -Y the physics of passion. Would you want to be in 37 Signals' shoes right now, taking all this heat? You bet. Look who's been there before: * Apple (see the wonderful Cult of Mac blog) * Extreme Programming (see Matt Stephen's Software Reality blog) * The Sierra Club * The Red Sox (see the Yankees Suck site) * NASCAR (read instanpundit's notes) * The Hummer (read the official F*** You and your H2 site) * Britney Spears (see the I Hate Britney Spears site) * Java (see the delightful No-one-cares-about-my-language-and-therefore-I-hate-Java note, or my special Java fan site, javaranch) And on it goes. Oh yeah, besides the "koolaid" word -- another word the detractors will use to marginalize something: "fad". As in, "Oh, that's just a fad. It'll be over soon." I remember hearing that in 1998 about Java, now the leading programming language. The iPod is a fad. Our Head First Java book was just a fad (yesterday on Amazon, out of all 32,000 computer books, there were two Head First books in the top ten). Hip hop music was just a fad. Skateboarding. Snowboarding. The web. So we'll see. But remember during those dark days when you're fending off the detractors (especially when they have legitmate complaints), that -- as Seth Godin tells us-- "Safe is risky and risky is safe." You'll never be perfect. Apple isn't perfect. Java isn't perfect. Our books are far from perfect. 37 Signals isn't perfect. But you can be brave. Posted by Kathy on August 10, 2005 | Permalink TrackBack TrackBack URL for this entry: https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451b44369e200d834592b9969e2 Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Physics of Passion: The Koolaid Point: » Avoiding the Zone of Mediocrity from tony morgan | one of the simply strategic guys Creating Passionate Users has another great post on The Physics of Passion (some of the language is a little raw...you've been warned). The reality of life is that this same principle carries over to churches as well. Granger is a [Read More] Tracked on Aug 10, 2005 8:57:51 PM » Purple Cows and Physics from Tim Haines [Read More] Tracked on Aug 11, 2005 3:16:52 PM » Drink it in or spit it out from Signal vs. Noise "> Kathy describes The Physics of Passion and the “Koolaid” point.... [Read More] Tracked on Aug 12, 2005 9:03:46 AM » Reaching the Kool-Aid Point from CCUCEO Passion must be the topic of the day. Headrush has an excellent post from Thursday on the Physics of Passion: The Kool-Aid Point. Remember folks, we aren't going for user satisfaction. We aren't going for happy. We're going for all-out [Read More] Tracked on Aug 12, 2005 10:16:59 AM » Ruby on Rails rocks my world! from Viamentis Technologies Have you ever seen a a web framework and thought "this is it"? Ruby on Rails is coming surprisingly near that point to me. I've been reading up on Ruby and Rails a lot. Did some exercises, checked out tutorials and it feels just right. I think I'm already [Read More] Tracked on Aug 13, 2005 7:40:11 AM » First there was Electron Band from screaming-penguin.com First there was Electron Band Structure in Germanium, My Ass. Then there was Pirates vs Global Tempe. . . [Read More] Tracked on Aug 14, 2005 5:44:51 PM » KoolAid Point - when they care enough to really hate you from Canuckflack Thirty years ago, it was the boiling point - that moment in time when your sales projections and customer satisfaction ratings inverted. Instead of calling the CEO, major investors started calling the Chairman. The union leaders at your local plant sto... [Read More] Tracked on Aug 15, 2005 9:58:47 AM » In search of passion from The Journal Blog After reading this, I've come to the inescapable conclusion that I am not pissing off enough people. I hadn't thought about it this way before but clearly I've been much too mealy-mouthed for much too long. I'm going to have... [Read More] Tracked on Aug 21, 2005 10:31:49 AM » Organizations and Conferences from Perspective The area where business and design, design thinking if you will, come together is coalescing into a critical mass. For me, this shows signs of consolidation, that this will become a field of specialization, that may not be the darling [Read More] Tracked on Aug 25, 2005 1:07:31 AM » Rails Lessons Applied to Java from Java Entrepreneur With both Ruby on Rails and Java having reached the Koolaid Point a long time ago detractors on both sides are taking pop shots at each other. Comments from both side can get pretty childish at times which Im... [Read More] Tracked on Mar 26, 2006 8:06:28 AM » Single Table Inheritance from Handwriting Last night I gave a talk on Single Table Inheritance to the Austin on Rails user group. Single Table Inheritance (STI) is a way to have several Rails models all extend from a base class sharing properties and behavior. If y [Read More] Tracked on Apr 12, 2006 10:54:57 AM » Ny kompetens from mymarkup.net Tim O'Reilly har postat lite bubbelgrafer borta hos O'Reilly Radar, några föreställandes trenden för jobb med Web 2.0-expertis jämfört med... [Read More] Tracked on Aug 3, 2006 1:06:25 PM » Everyone hates you. Good job! from The Ziggurat of Doom An interesting post on phenomena, passion, love, and hate. Honestly, I think Im ready to retire the phrase drinking the Kool-Aid. Im just not sure what to replace it with. Suggestions? ... [Read More] Tracked on Aug 30, 2006 12:02:49 PM Comments Don't forget the word "cult". We're trained to be afraid of cults in the most traditional sense and yet we wholeheartedly embrace cult films, cult music, cult festivals, etc etc. Posted by: Jack | Aug 11, 2005 12:22:56 AM It's true: watching "2001: A Space Odyssey" the other night, it occurred to me that the film is actually quite dull, with very little dialogue. It's a great film because of what it represented, but anyone who harps on about how it's their fave film and they've seen it a gazillion times is just going along with the hearsay. A Clockwork Orange, banned for 25 years in the UK by the director, was hugely popular because of all the negative hype. Bad press generates interest. Posted by: Adam Hopkinson | Aug 11, 2005 3:49:21 AM I don't think cult has such a bad connotation anymore, now many people are anti-popular. They like being outside the crowd while at the same time being part of a group. Being in a cult, especially one based on technology or fashion or whatever; not religion seems very appealing. Cult, sounds more like a club really, a club of enthusiasts. Posted by: James McCarthy | Aug 11, 2005 4:56:53 AM It's always a pleasure to read your posts Kathy - this one in particular is excellent. Posted by: Matt Raible | Aug 11, 2005 8:43:35 AM Not to scare anyone or anything but... ... I want to be the first member of the Cult of Kathy. Who wants to be the second? No wait... that almost sounds like if she does not perform up to the standard of the cult, she will fall out of favor and end up being hated. Nah... instead I'll just say: Craptacular Post Kathy! Posted by: Shaded | Aug 11, 2005 9:15:02 AM Based on the statements in the post, it would seem that Microsoft also belongs to the group of companies who "gets it". God knows that their products aren't perfect and that they are derided by a whole bunch of folks. Would that be a correct assessment of the ideas delivered in this post? Regards Posted by: Sandy Boy | Aug 11, 2005 2:45:59 PM Sandy Boy, you bring up a fun spin on this... but the way I see it is that without the Koolaid factor, it doesn't count. It's not about how many (or even how voraciously) people dislike you... it's about balancing the equation. You might have a ton of people who dislike you simply because... you actually suck. Unless that passionate *hatred* is balanced out by passionate *love*, the equation doesn't balance and thus you probably don't have passionate users (or at least not enough of them to cross the Koolaid threshold). The Koolaid Point means that the nature of the passionate dislike for your product or company is specifically fueled by the opposite passion--passion on the "love" side. I don't hear too many people accusing users of "drinking the Microsoft Koolaid" or "falling for the slick Microsoft marketing hype and sexy products." If someone criticizes *you*, that in itself is of course NO indication that you have passionate users. It's when the detractors start criticizing *your users* that you know you're on to something, especially when that criticism revolves around users who are so passionate that they annoy--and sometimes frighten--others. Although it is true that people criticize MS users, they don't refer to them as cult followers. It's all about the Koolaid. Shaded: will you agree to wear the little uniform? Posted by: Kathy Sierra | Aug 11, 2005 3:21:00 PM http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2005/08/12/the_head_first_girls_double_life funny :) Posted by: Ian Tyrrell | Aug 11, 2005 9:03:30 PM No other sector apart from computer programming, that I know of, disses each other with the koolaid factor. This is mainly because everyone else is bothered about "increasing shareholder value" and not stroking/destroying the ego of the programmer or who ever created the tool/api/website in the first place. Perhaps we should go back to the gut feeling test, get programmers who give a thirty second elevator pitch about their proposed tool and see if that tickles the fancies of the community first. Programming can be sexy, fun and for the common good but what usually turns out is a tool inflicted on the community as it met the need of one individual (Yes I know RSSLibJ, one of mine, did this but I've managed to deflate my ego now). Then it's only a matter of time before the koolaid wolves prowl around looking for the next API prey. Northwest Airlines don't report about "passengers drinking the Delta koolaid" to get their passengers to change heart. They just get on and dream up the next competitive thing and get on with it. In the last month I've given a hard nosed sector a new way of working and trading, I don't have to sell it to programmers, thank goodness. Within a month it has been called "exciting", "a brilliant idea" and my favourite, "the future of aerospace leasing". The move from "Java consultant" to "CEO" was a brave move, but the right one. Enjoy your koolaid... I never got to taste it. Posted by: Jason Bell | Aug 12, 2005 2:27:04 AM That's called in urban slang "haterade" Posted by: GinaRenay | Aug 12, 2005 8:27:01 AM Kathy, What makes you think I'm not already? Tight spandex began the revolt A blue crested lightning bolt We frighten no one Still find it so fun To follow Kathy like a cult Learning to fly head first A way to quench our thirst Barely just begun Almost touch the sun So fast to best from worst CPU Cult Member # 1 P.S. When the sign reads "please don't feed the bears", what they really mean is,"please don't Create Passionate Users" Don't ask me what all this means, it is 10 am and I'm barely awake. Posted by: Shaded | Aug 12, 2005 10:56:01 AM (This is a dupe, I posted this over at SVN as well.) I was thinking about your post on my bike this morning. I can think of a few companies I'm really passionate about, but that don't inspire much hate from anyone. One is http://www.arcteryx.com/ (Arc'Teryx). They just make excellent gear. End of story. I think Apple has been feeding their users (I'm a proud PowerBook owner) sour Kool-Aid for a long time now. Their products do kick ass, but not always in the way they've been telling us they do. See http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,68501,00.html. Choice quote: "No one knows exactly why OSx86 appears to be running faster on the PCs than the Mac OS does on today's Macs." Enough said. Posted by: Beau Hartshorne | Aug 12, 2005 10:59:33 AM The key for companies is not to drink their own Kool-Aid. Apple did it and almost fell apart. It is the toughest thing in the world to have zealots supporting you because you get a lot of rah-rah noise that can really keep the clean, need-to-know, need-to-innovate signals from getting through. In the end, those that are impressive are never satisfied, never complacent, and never think they have the "right" way to do things. They are always challenging both convention and their OWN ideas. Posted by: sloan | Aug 12, 2005 12:02:13 PM You are such a hoot Kathy! I loved meeting you at OSCON. Just another passionate Kathy fan... ;-) Posted by: Anna Martelli Ravenscroft | Aug 12, 2005 1:19:06 PM >No other sector apart from computer programming, that I know of, disses each other with the koolaid factor. Actually, here in DC, "drinking the koolaid" is much more of a political term than one associated with computing. Any person who aroused strong feelings on either side of the aisle (Bush, Dean, McCain, etc.) would have supporters who were accused of DtK constantly. Amusingly, the term is actually more appropriate to politics because those who DtK often find themselves on the losing side later, because of all the enmity they've aroused. On the computer end, frequently those who DtK lose nothing, because the companies they adore (Apple, Google, etc.) tend to have either a high marketshare in whatever product is being adored or a high number of users who will ensure that said product doesn't go out of business. The problem occurs when the former disappears and only the latter remains. (See the Amiga, the Newton, Netscape, etc.) Posted by: edward | Aug 12, 2005 2:06:23 PM What is koolaid? Is drinking it good or bad? Talk about cultural imperialism. Posted by: Not an American | Aug 12, 2005 2:21:23 PM NaA: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kool-aid#.22Drinking_the_Kool-Aid.22 Posted by: John Smart | Aug 12, 2005 11:17:33 PM >Actually, here in DC, "drinking the koolaid" is much more of a political term than one associated with computing. In the UK you could pass Koolaid off as a pop concert for users of flared pants... Posted by: Jason Bell | Aug 13, 2005 6:42:56 PM this is as bad as Lovemarks. http://theheadlemur.typepad.com/ravinglunacy/2005/08/the_kool_aid_po.html Posted by: the head lemur | Aug 14, 2005 1:06:10 PM "Northwest Airlines don't report about "passengers drinking the Delta koolaid" to get their passengers to change heart. They just get on and dream up the next competitive thing and get on with it." Jason - I'm still bogglng over seeing "Northwest Airlines" "Delta" and "the next competitive thing" in the same paragraph. The airline industry, with some notable exceptions, is so full of examples of what not to do re competitive positioning, I almost feel sorry for them. They may not call it "drinking the Koolaid" but you can bet the honchos at the big airlines get snarly when talking amongst themselves about SW (and Jet Blue)and their loyal customers. Based on my experience - in multiple industry sectors - The Kool-Aid savaging isn't limited to programmers (we even use the actual term "drinking the kool-aid" when behind closed doors). And, don't forget politics! Great post and discussions. Glad I found you via Tom Peters. Posted by: Mary Schmidt | Aug 16, 2005 12:41:06 PM 2001 is a great friggin' movie *because* there is hardly any dialog. It's a work of genius. See, I drank the kool-aid *years* ago. :0) Posted by: doug | Aug 17, 2005 11:01:23 AM Reminds me of MySpace.com. They sell to Fox and suddenly thousands of users are recommending everyone stop using it because it is now "commercial." Funny thing is that absolutely nothing on the site has changed; all changes were "behind the scene" Posted by: Sandra Valente | Aug 23, 2005 8:35:45 PM You forgot to put pants on Mr. Koolaid. Posted by: Kathy | Aug 30, 2005 6:43:52 PM Somebody told me once (perhaps someone could confirm this) that the meaning of the word "passion" in the original latin meant "suffering". If this is the case, I guess that once you have people copping a hard time because they use your product and fiercely stand by it, they are suffering for the sake of (their love of) your product. And if they are suffering for your product in this fashion, BAM!, you have Passionate Users/Clients/Customers etc. (I don't have time to read all the comments here, so if I'm doubling up with point, sorry about that. Love this site though Kathy, keep up the good work!) Posted by: Stephen Hamilton | Aug 31, 2005 7:39:56 AM I happen to know that I AM perfect. There for I don't relate to this blog at all! Err.. wait.. no.. I'm in the screwed category.. Where not existing is the opinion and I would kill to be loved or hated. Posted by: Collin | Sep 10, 2005 1:25:15 AM The comments to this entry are closed.

Using the Rake Build Language

Rake is a build language, similar in purpose to make and ant. Like make and ant it's a Domain Specific Language, unlike those two it's an internal DSL programmed in the Ruby language. In this article I introduce rake and describe some interesting things that came out of my use of rake to build this web site: dependency models, synthesized tasks, custom build routines and debugging the build script. I've been using Ruby extensively now for many years. I like its terse but powerful syntax, and its generally well-written libraries. A couple of years ago I converted much of my web site generation from XSLT to Ruby and have been utterly happy with that change. If you are a regular reader of mine, you'll not be surprised to know that my entire web site is built automatically. I originally used ant - the build environment popular in the Java world - to do this as that fitted well with Java XSL processors. As I've been using Ruby more I've made more use of Rake, a build language based on Ruby developed by Jim Weirich. Recently I completely replaced the build process removing all the ant in favor of Rake. In my early days with Rake, I used it in a similar way to how I'd used ant. In this push, however, I tried to do things differently to explore some of the interesting features of Rake. As a result I thought I'd write this article to delve into some of these areas. Rake is my third build language. I used make many years ago (and have forgotten much of it). I've used ant quite a lot in the last six years or so. Rake has many features that these languages have, and a few more that are (to me) new twists. Although Rake is written in Ruby and heavily uses the language, you can use it for any automated build processing. For simple build scripts you don't need to know Ruby, but as soon as things start getting more interesting then you need to know Ruby to get Rake to do its best things. This is a somewhat skewed story. I'm not trying to write a tutorial on Rake - I'm going to concentrate on things I find interesting rather than give a complete coverage. I'm not going to assume you know Ruby, Rake, or indeed any other build language. I'll explain relevant bits of Ruby as I go along. Hopefully if you've done any messing with these, or are just interested in different computational models, you'll find this worth a diverting read. Dependency Based Programming Hang on - in the preceding paragraph I said "different computational models". Isn't that rather a grand phrase for a build language? Well no, it isn't. All the build languages I've used (make, ant (Nant), and rake) use a dependency based style of computation rather than the usual imperative style. That leads us to think differently about how to program them. It doesn't strike most people that way as most build scripts are pretty short, but it's actually quite a profound difference. It's time for an example. Let's imagine we want to write a program to build a project. We have several different steps to this build. CodeGen: take data configuration files and use them to generate the database structure and the code to access the database. Compile: compile the application code. DataLoad: load test data into the database. Test: run the tests. We need to be able to run any of these tasks independently and ensure everything works. We can't test until we do all the previous steps. Compile and DataLoad need CodeGen run first. How do we express these rules? If we do it in imperative style, it looks like this making each task a ruby procedure. # this is comment in ruby def codeGen #def introduces a procedure or method # do code gen stuff end def compile codeGen # do compile stuff end def dataLoad codeGen # do data load stuff end def test compile dataLoad #run tests end Notice there's a problem with this. If I call test I execute the codeGen step twice. This won't cause an error because the codeGen step is (I assume) idempotent - that is calling it multiple times is no different to calling it once. But it will take time, and builds are rarely things that have time to spare. To fix this I could separate the steps into public and internal parts like this def compile codeGen doCompile end def doCompile # do the compile end def dataLoad codeGen doDataLoad end def doDataLoad #do the data load stuff end def test codeGen doCompile doDataLoad #run the tests end This works, but it's a little messy. It's also a perfect example of how a dependency based system can help. With an imperative model, each routine calls the steps in the routine. In a dependency based system we have tasks and specify pre-requisites (their dependencies). When you call a task, it looks to see what pre-requisites there are and then arranges to call each pre-requisite task once. So our simple example would look like this. task :codeGen do # do the code generation end task :compile => :codeGen do #do the compilation end task :dataLoad => :codeGen do # load the test data end task :test => [:compile, :dataLoad] do # run the tests end (Hopefully you can get a sense of what this says, I'll explain the syntax properly in a moment.) Now if I call compile, the system looks at the compile task and sees it's dependent upon the codeGen task. It then looks at the codeGen task and sees no pre-requisites. As a result it runs codeGen followed by compile. This is the same as the imperative situation. The interesting case, of course, is the test. Here the system sees that both compile and dataLoad are dependent on codeGen so it arranges the tasks so codeGen runs first, followed by compile and dataload (in any order) and finally test. Essentially the actual order of the tasks run is figured out at run time by the execution engine, not decided at design time by the programmer who writes the build script. This dependency based computational model fits a build process really well, which is why all three use it. It's natural to think of a build in terms of tasks and dependencies, most steps in a build are idempotent, and we really don't want unnecessary work to slow down the build. I suspect that few people that knock up a build script realize they are programming in a funky computational model, but that's what it is. Domain Specific Language for Builds All my three build languages share another characteristic - they are all examples of a Domain Specific Language (DSL). However they are different kinds of DSL. In the terminology I've used before: make is an external DSL using a custom syntax ant (and nant) is an external DSL using an XML based syntax rake is an internal DSL using Ruby. The fact that rake is an internal DSL for a general purpose language is a very important difference between it and the other two. It essentially allows me to use the full power of ruby any time I need it, at the cost of having to do a few odd looking things to ensure the rake scripts are valid ruby. Since ruby is a unobtrusive language, there's not much in the way of syntactic oddities. Furthermore since ruby is a full blown language, I don't need to drop out of the DSL to do interesting things - which has been a regular frustration using make and ant. Indeed I've come to view that a build language is really ideally suited to an internal DSL because you do need that full language power just often enough to make it worthwhile - and you don't get many non-programmers writing build scripts. Rake Tasks Rake defines two kinds of task. Regular tasks are similar to tasks in ant, and file tasks are similar to tasks in make. If either of those mean nothing to you, don't worry, I'm about to explain. Regular tasks are the simplest to explain. Here's one from one of my build scripts for my testing environment. task :build_refact => [:clean] do target = SITE_DIR + 'refact/' mkdir_p target, QUIET require 'refactoringHome' OutputCapturer.new.run {run_refactoring} end The first line defines much of the task. In this language task is effectively a keyword that introduces a task definition. :build_refact is the name of the task. The syntax for naming it is a little funky in that we need to start it with a colon, one of the consequences of being an internal DSL. After the name of the task we then move onto the pre-requisites. Here there's just the one, :clean . The syntax is => [:clean] . We can list multiple dependencies inside the square brackets separated by commas. From the much earlier examples you can see that we don't need the square brackets if there's only one task. We don't need the dependencies at all if there aren't any (or indeed for other reasons - there's a fascinating topic in there that I'll get to later). To define the body of the task we write ruby code within do and end . Inside this block we can put any valid ruby we like - I won't bother explaining this code here, as you don't need to understand it to see how tasks work. The nice thing about a rake script (or rakefile as rubyists call it) is you can read this pretty clearly as a build script. If we were to write the equivalent in ant it would look something like this: <target name = "build_refact" depends = "clean"> <-- define the task --> </target> Now you can look at this as a DSL and follow it, but since it's an internal DSL you may be interested in how this works as valid ruby. In reality task isn't a keyword, it's a routine call. It takes two arguments. The first argument is a hash (the equivalent of a map or dictionary). Ruby has a special syntax for hashes. In general the syntax is {key1 => value1, key2 => value2} . However the curly brackets are optional if there's only one hash, so you don't need them while defining the rake task, which helps to simplify the DSL. So what are the key and the value? The key here is a symbol - identified in ruby by the leading colon. You can use other literals, we'll see strings shortly, and you can use variables and constants too - which we'll discover to be rather handy. The value is an array - which is really the equivalent of a list in other languages. Here we list the names of the other tasks. If we don't use the square brackets we just have one value instead of a list - rake copes with an array or a single literal - very accommodating of it, I must say. So where's the second argument? It's what lies between do and end - a block - ruby's word for a Closure. So as the rake file runs it builds up an object graph of these task objects, connected to each other through the dependency links and each having a block to execute when the right time comes. Once all the tasks are created the rake system can then use the dependency links to figure out which tasks need to be run in what order and then it does that, calling the blocks for each task in the appropriate order. A key property of closures is that they don't need to be executed when they are evaluated, they can be saved for later - even if they refer to variables that aren't in scope when the block is actually executed. The thing here is that what we are seeing is legal ruby code, admittedly arranged in a very odd way. But this odd way allows us to have to have a pretty readable DSL. Ruby also helps by having a very minimal syntax - even little things like not needing parentheses for procedure arguments helps this DSL stay compact. Closures are also vital - as they often are in writing internal DSLs, because they allow us to package code in alternative control structures. File Tasks The tasks I talked about above are similar to tasks in ant. Rake also supports a slightly different kind of task called a file task which is closer to the notion of tasks in make. Here's another example, slightly simplified, from my web site rakefile. file 'build/dev/rake.html' => 'dev/rake.xml' do |t| require 'paper' maker = PaperMaker.new t.prerequisites[0], t.name maker.run end With a file you are referring to actual files rather than task names. So 'build/dev/rake.html' and 'dev/rake.xml' are actual files. The html file is the output of this task and the xml file is the input. You can think of a file task as telling the build system how to make the output file - indeed this is exactly the notion in make - you list the output files you want and tell make how to make them. An important part of the file task is that it's not run unless you need to run it. The build system looks at the files and only runs the task if the output file does not exist or its modification date is earlier than the input file. File tasks therefore work extremely well when you're thinking of things at a file by file basis. One thing that's different with this task is that we pass the task object itself as a parameter into the closure - that's what the |t| is doing. We can now refer to the task object in the closure and call methods on it. I do this to avoid duplicating the names of the files. I can get the name of the task (which is the output file) with t.name . Similarly I can get the list of prerequisites with t.prerequisites . Ant has no equivalent to file tasks, instead each task does the same kind of necessity checking itself. The XSLT transform task takes an input file, style file and output file and only runs the transform if the output file doesn't exist or is older than any of the input files. This is just a question of where to place the responsibility of this checking - either in the build system or in the tasks. Ant mostly uses canned tasks written in java, make and rake both rely on the build writer to write code for the task. So it makes more sense to relieve the writer of the task of the need to check if things are up to date. However it's actually pretty easy to do the up to date checks in the rake tasks. This is what it would look like. task :rakeArticle do src = 'dev/rake.xml' target = 'build/dev/rake.html' unless uptodate?(target, src) require 'paper' maker = PaperMaker.new src, target maker.run end end Rake provides (via the fileutils package) a bevy of simple unix-like commands for file operations such as cp, mv, rm, etc. It also provides uptodate? which is perfect for these kinds of checks. So here we see two ways of doing things. We can either use file tasks or regular tasks with uptodate? in order to decide whether to do things - which should we choose? I must admit I don't have a good answer to this question. Both tactics seem to work pretty well. What I decided to do with my new rakefile was to push fine-grained file tasks as far as I could. I didn't do this because I knew it was the best thing to do, I did it mainly to see how it would turn out. Often when you come across something new it can be a good idea to overuse it in order to find out its boundaries. This is a quite reasonable learning strategy. It's also why people always tend to overuse new technologies or techniques in the early days. People often criticize this but it's a natural part of learning. If you don't push something beyond its boundary of usefulness how do you find where that boundary is? The important thing is to do so in a relatively controlled environment so you can fix things when you find the boundary. (After all, until we tried it I thought XML would be a good syntax for build files.) I'll also say now that so far I've not found any problems with pushing file tasks and fine-grained tasks too far. I may think otherwise in a year or two's time, but so far I'm happy. Defining Dependencies Backwards So far I've mostly talked about how rake does similar things to what you find in ant and make. That's a nice combination - combine both capabilities with the full power of ruby on tap - but that alone wouldn't give me too much of a reason for this little article. The thing that got my interest was some particular things that rake does (and allows) that are a bit different. The first of these is allowing to specify dependencies in multiple places. In ant you define dependencies by stating them as part of the dependent task. I've done this with my rake examples so far as well, like this. task :second => :first do #second's body end task :first do #first's body end Rake (like make) allows you to add dependencies to a task after you've initially declared it. Indeed it allows you to continue to talk about a task in multiple places. This way I can decide to add dependencies close to the pre-requisite task, like this. task :second do #second's body end task :first do #first's body end task :second => :first This doesn't make much difference when the tasks are right next to each other in the build file, but in longer build files it does add a new bit of flexibility. Essentially it allows you to think about dependencies either in the usual way, or add them when you add the pre-requisite tasks, or indeed put them in a third location independent of both. As usual this flexibility gives new questions, where is it best to define dependencies? I don't have a certain answer yet, but in my build file I used two rules of thumb.When I was thinking about one task that needed to be done before I could do another, I defined the dependency when I was writing the dependent task, in the conventional way. However I often used dependencies to group together related tasks, such as the various errata pages. When using dependencies for grouping (a common part of structuring build files) it seemed to make sense to put the dependency by the pre-requisite task. task :main => [:errata, :articles] #many lines of build code file 'build/eaaErrata.html' => 'eaaErrata.xml' do # build logic end task :errata => 'build/eaaErrata.html' I don't actually have to define the :errata task with a task keyword, just putting it as a dependency for :main is enough to define the task. I can then add individual errata files later on and add each to the group task. For this kind of group behavior this seems a reasonable way to go (although I don't actually do it quite like this in my build file, as we'll see later.) One question that this raises is 'how do we find all the dependencies when they are spread out all over the build file?' It's a good question but the answer is to get rake to tell you, which you can do with rake -P , which prints out every task with its pre-requisites. Synthesizing Tasks Allowing you to add dependencies after you've defined a task, together with having full ruby available to you, introduces some further tricks to the build. Before I explain about synthesized tasks, however, I need to introduce some important principles about build processes. Build scripts tend to have to do two kinds of build - clean builds and incremental builds. A clean build occurs when your output area is empty, in this case you build everything from its (version controlled) sources. This is the most important thing the build file can do and the number one priority is to have a correct clean build. Clean builds are important, but they do take time. So often it's useful to do incremental builds. Here you already have stuff in your output directories. An incremental build needs to figure out how to get your output directories up to date with the latest sources with the minimal amount of work. There are two errors that can occur here. First (and most serious) is a missing rebuild - meaning that some items that should have got built didn't. That's very bad because it results in output that doesn't really match the input (in particular the result of a clean build on the input). The lesser error is an unnecessary rebuild - this builds an output element that didn't need to be built. This is a less serious error as it's not a correctness error, but it is a problem because it adds time to the incremental build. As well as time it adds confusion - when I run my rake script I expect to see only things that have changed get built, otherwise I wonder "why did that change?" Much of the point of arranging a good dependency structure is to ensure that incremental builds work well. I want to do an incremental build of my site just by going 'rake' - invoking the default task. I want that to build only what I want to. So that's my need, an interesting problem is to get that to work for my bliki. The sources for my bliki is a whole bunch of xml files in my bliki directory. The output is one output file for each entry, plus several summary pages - of which the main bliki page is the most important. What I need is for any change to a source file to re-trigger the bliki build. I could do this by naming all the files like this. BLIKI = build('bliki/index.html') file BLIKI => ['bliki/SoftwareDevelopmentAttitude.xml', 'bliki/SpecificationByExample.xml', #etc etc ] do #logic to build the bliki end def build relative_path # allows me to avoid duplicating the build location in the build file return File.join('build', relative_path) end But clearly this would be dreadfully tedious, and just asking for me to forget to add a new file to the list when I want to add one. Fortunately I can do it this way. BLIKI = build('bliki/index.html') FileList['bliki/*.xml'].each do |src| file BLIKI => src end file BLIKI do #code to build the bliki end FileList is part of rake, it will generate lists of files based on the glob that's passed in - here it creates a list of all the files in the bliki source directory. The each method is an internal iterator that allows me to loop through them and add each one as a dependent to the file task. (The each method is a collection closure method.) One other thing I do with the bliki task is add a symbolic task for it. desc "build the bliki" task :bliki => BLIKI I do this so I can just build the bliki alone with rake bliki . I'm not sure I really need this any more. If all the dependencies are set up properly (as they are now) I can just do a default rake and there's no unnecessary rebuild. But I've kept it in for the moment. The desc method allows you to define a short description to the following task, this way when I run rake -T I get a list of any tasks with a desc defined for them. This is a useful way of seeing what targets are available to me. If you've used make before, you may be thinking that this is reminiscent of one of make's greatest features - the ability to specify pattern rules to automatically make certain kinds of file. The common example is that you want build any foo.o file by running the C compiler on the corresponding foo.c file. %.o : %.c gcc $< -o $@ The %.c will match every file that ends with '.c'. $< refers to the source (pre-requisite) and $@ to the target of the rule. This pattern rule means that you don't have to list every file in your project with the compile rule, instead the pattern rule tells make how to build any *.o file it needs. (And indeed you don't even need this in your make file as make comes packaged with many pattern rules like this.) Rake actually has a similar mechanism. I'm not going to talk about it, other than to mention it exists, because I haven't yet found I needed it. Synthesizing tasks worked for all I needed. Block Scoping Tasks One of the problems I found with using file names and dependencies is that you have to repeat the file names. Take this example. file 'build/articles/mocksArentStubs.html' => 'articles/mock/mocksArentStubs.xml' do |t| transform t.prerequisites[0], t.name end task :articles => 'build/articles/mocksArentStubs.html' In the above example 'build/articles/mocksArentStubs.html' is mentioned twice in the code. I can avoid repeating in the action block by using the task object, but I have to repeat it to set up the dependency to the overall articles task. I don't like that repetition because it's asking for trouble if I change my file name. I need a way to define it once. I could just declare a constant, but then I'm declaring a constant that's visible everywhere in my rakefile when I'm only using it in this section. I like variable scopes to be as small as possible. I can deal with this by using the FileList class that I mentioned above, but this time I use it with only a single file. FileList['articles/mock/mocksArentStubs.xml'].each do |src| target = File.join(BUILD_DIR + 'articles', 'mocksArentStubs.html') file target => src do transform src, target end task :articles => target end This way I define src and target variables that are only scoped within this block of code. Notice that this only helps me if I define the dependency from the :articles task here. If I want to define the dependency in the definition of the :articles task, I would need a constant so I get the visibility across the whole rakefile. When Jim Weirich read a draft of this he pointed out that if you find the FileList statement too wordy, you can easily define a method specifically to do this: def with(value) yield(value) end and then do with('articles/mock/mocksArentStubs.xml') do |src| # whatever end Build Methods One of the really great things about having a build language be an internal DSL to a full programming language is that I can write routines to handle common cases. Sub-routines are one of the most elementary ways of structuring a program, and the lack of convenient sub-routine mechanisms is one of the great problems of ant and make - particularly as you get more complex builds. Here's an example of such a common build routine I used - this is to use an XSLT processor to convert an XML file into HTML. All my newer writing uses ruby to do this translation, but I have a lot of older XSLT stuff around and I don't see any rush to change it. After writing various tasks to process XSLT I soon saw that there was some duplication, so I defined a routine for the job. def xslTask src, relativeTargetDir, taskSymbol, style targetDir = build(relativeTargetDir) target = File.join(targetDir, File.basename(src, '.xml') + '.html') task taskSymbol => target file target => [src] do |t| mkdir_p targetDir, QUIET XmlTool.new.transform(t.prerequisites[0], t.name, style) end end The first two lines figure out the target directory and the target file. Then I add the target file as a dependent to the supplied task symbol. Then I create a new file task with instructions to create the target directory (if needed) and use my XmlTool to carry out the XSLT transform. Now when I want to create an XSLT task I just call this method. xslTask 'eaaErrata.xml', '.', :errata, 'eaaErrata.xsl' This method nicely encapsulates all the common code and parametrizes the variables for my needs at the moment. I found it really helpful to pass in the parent group task into the routine so that the routine would easily build the dependency for me - another advantage of the flexible way of specifying dependencies. I have a similar common task for copying files directly from source to the build directories, which I use for images, pdfs etc. def copyTask srcGlob, targetDirSuffix, taskSymbol targetDir = File.join BUILD_DIR, targetDirSuffix mkdir_p targetDir, QUIET FileList[srcGlob].each do |f| target = File.join targetDir, File.basename(f) file target => [f] do |t| cp f, target end task taskSymbol => target end end The copyTask is a bit more sophisticated because it allows me to specify a glob of files to copy, this allows me to copy stuff like this: copyTask 'articles/*.gif', 'articles', :articles This copies all gif files in the articles sub-directory of my sources into the articles directory of my build directory. It makes a separate file task for each one and makes them all dependents of the :articles task. Platform Dependent XML Processing When I used ant to build my site, I used java based XSLT processors. As I started to use rake I decided to switch to native XSLT processors. I use both Windows and Unix (Debian and MacOS) systems, both of which have XSLT processors easily available. Of course they are different processors and I need to invoke them differently - but of course I want this to be hidden to the rakefile and certainly to me when I invoke rake. Here again is the nice thing about having a full blown language to work with directly. I can easily write an Xml processor that uses platform information to do the right thing. I start with the interface part of my tool - the XmlTool class. class XmlTool def self.new return XmlToolWindows.new if windows? return XmlToolUnix.new end def self.windows? return RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /win32/i end end In ruby you create an object by calling the new method on the class. The great thing about this, as opposed to tyrannical constructors, is that you can override this new method - even to the point of returning an object of a different class. So in this case when I invoke XmlTool.new I don't get an instance of XmlTool - instead I get the right kind of tool for whatever platform I'm running the script on. The simplest of the two tools is the Unix version. class XmlToolUnix def transform infile, outfile, stylefile cmd = "xsltproc #{stylefile} #{infile} > #{outfile}" puts 'xsl: ' + infile system cmd end def validate filename result = `xmllint -noout -valid #{filename}` puts result unless '' == result end end You'll notice I have two methods here for XML, one for XSLT transform and one for XML validation. For unix each one invokes a command line call. If you're unfamiliar with ruby notice the nice ability to insert a variable into a string with the #{variable_name} construct. Indeed you can insert the result of any ruby expression in there - which is really handy. In the validate method I use back-quotes - which execute the command line and return the result. The puts command is ruby's way of printing to standard output. The windows version is a bit more complex as it needs to use COM rather than the command line. class XmlToolWindows def initialize require 'win32ole' end def transform infile, outfile, stylefile #got idea from http://blog.crispen.org/archives/2003/10/24/lessons-in-xslt/ input = make_dom infile style = make_dom stylefile result = input.transformNode style raise "empty html output for #{infile}" if result.empty? File.open(outfile, 'w') {|out| out << result} end def make_dom filename, validate = false result = WIN32OLE.new 'Microsoft.XMLDOM' result.async = false result.validateOnParse = validate result.load filename return result end def validate filename dom = make_dom filename, true error = dom.parseError unless error.errorCode == 0 puts "INVALID: code #{error.errorCode} for #{filename} " + "(line #{error.line}) #{error.reason}" end end end The statement require 'win32ole' pulls in ruby library code for working with windows COM. Notice that this is a regular part of the program; in ruby you can set things up so that libraries are only loaded if needed and present. I can then manipulate the COM objects just as with any other scripting language. You'll notice there's no type relationship between these three XML processing classes. The xml manipulations work because both the windows and unix XmlTools implement the transform and validate methods. This is what rubyists refer to as duck typing - if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it must be a duck. There's no compile time checking to ensure these methods are present. If a method is incorrect it will fail at run time - which should be flushed out by testing. I won't bother going into the whole dynamic vs static type checking debate, just point out that this is an example of the use of duck typing. If you are using a unix system, you may need to use whatever package management system you have to find and download the unix xml commands I'm using (on the Mac I used Fink). The XMLDOM DLL usually comes with windows, but again depending on your setup you may need to download it. Going Pear-Shaped The one thing you can guarantee about programming is that stuff always goes wrong. However much you try there's always some mismatch between what you think you said and what the computer hears. Take a look at this bit of rake code (simplified from something that actually did happen to me). src = 'foo.xml' target = build('foo.html') task :default => target copyTask 'foo.css', '.', target file target => src do transform src, target end See the bug? Neither did I. What I did know is that the transformation that builds build/foo.html was always happening even when it didn't need to - an unnecessary rebuild. I couldn't figure out why. The timestamps on both files were correct even if I made damn sure the target was later than the source I'd still get a rebuild. My first line of investigation was to use rake's trace capability ( rake --trace ). Usually it's all I need to identify strange invocations, but this time it didn't help at all. It just told me that the 'build/foo.html' task was being executed - but it didn't say why. At this point one might be inclined to blame Jim for the lack of debug tools. Perhaps cursing might at least make me feel better: "your mother is a she wolf from Cleveland and your father is piece of wet carrot". But I have a better alternative. Rake is ruby and tasks are just objects. I can get a reference to these objects and interrogate them. Jim may not have put this debug code into rake, but I can just as easily add it myself. class Task def investigation result = "------------------------------ " result << "Investigating #{name} " result << "class: #{self.class} " result << "task needed: #{needed?} " result << "timestamp: #{timestamp} " result << "pre-requisites: " prereqs = @prerequisites.collect {|name| Task[name]} prereqs.sort! {|a,b| a.timestamp <=> b.timestamp} prereqs.each do |p| result << "--#{p.name} (#{p.timestamp}) " end latest_prereq = @prerequisites.collect{|n| Task[n].timestamp}.max result << "latest-prerequisite time: #{latest_prereq} " result << "................................ " return result end end Here's some code to see what all this should be. If you're not a rubyist you may find it odd to see I've actually added a method to the task class that's part of rake. This kind of thing, the same thing as an aspect-oriented introduction, is quite legal in ruby. Like many ruby things you can imagine chaos with this feature, but as long as you are careful it's really nice. Now I can invoke it to see more about what's going on src = 'foo.xml' target = build('foo.html') task :default => target copyTask 'foo.css', '.', target file target => src do |t| puts t.investigation transform src, target end I get this printed out: ------------------------------ Investigating build/foo.html class: Task task needed: true timestamp: Sat Jul 30 16:23:33 EDT 2005 pre-requisites: --foo.xml (Sat Jul 30 15:35:59 EDT 2005) --build/./foo.css (Sat Jul 30 16:23:33 EDT 2005) latest-prerequisite time: Sat Jul 30 16:23:33 EDT 2005 ................................ At first I wondered about the timestamp. The timestamp on the output file was 16:42, so why did the task say 16:23? Then I realized the class of the task was Task not FileTask. Task's don't do date checking, if you invoke them they will always run. So I tried this. src = 'foo.xml' target = build('foo.html') file target task :default => target copyTask 'foo.css', '.', target file target => src do |t| puts t.investigation transform src, target end The change is that I declared the task as a file task before I mention it in the context of other tasks later. That did the trick. The lesson from this is that with this kind of internal DSL you have the ability to interrogate the object structure to figure out what's going on. This can be really handy when weird stuff like this happens. I used this approach in another case where I had unnecessary builds - it was really useful to pop the hood and see exactly what was happening. (By the way my investigation method breaks if the output file doesn't exist yet, such as in a clean build. I haven't spent any effort to fix it because I only needed it when the file was already there.) Since I wrote this Jim added an investigation method, very close to this one, to rake itself. So you no longer need to do what I did here. But the general principle still holds - if rake doesn't do something you want, you can go in and modify its behavior. Using Rake to build non-ruby applications Although rake is written in ruby, there's no reason why you can't use it to build applications written in other languages. Any build language is a scripting language for building stuff, and you can happily build one environment using tools written in another. (A good example was when we used ant to build a Microsoft COM project, we just had to hide it from the Microsoft consultant.) The only thing with rake is that it's useful to know ruby in order to do more advanced things, but I've always felt that any professional programmer needs to know at least one scripting language to get all sort of odd-jobs done. Running Tests Rake's library allows you to run tests directly within the rake system with the TestTask class require 'rake/testtask' Rake::TestTask.new do |t| t.libs << "lib/test" t.test_files = FileList['lib/test/*Tester.rb'] t.verbose = false t.warning = true end By default this will create a :test task which will run the tests in the given files. You can use multiple task objects to create test suites for different circumstances. By default the test task will run all the tests in all the given files. If you want to run just the tests in a single file, than you can do that with rake test TEST=path/to/tester.rb If you want to run a single test called "test_something", you need to use TESTOPTS to pass in options to the test runner. rake test TEST=path/to/tester.rb TESTOPTS=--name=test_something I often find it helpful to create temporary rake tasks for running specific tests. To run one file, I can use: Rake::TestTask.new do |t| t.test_files = FileList['./testTag.rb'] t.verbose = true t.warning = true t.name = 'one' end To run one test method I add in the test options: Rake::TestTask.new do |t| t.test_files = FileList['./testTag.rb'] t.verbose = true t.warning = true t.name = 'one' t.options = "--name=test_should_rebuild_if_not_up_to_date" end File Path Manipulations Rake extends the string class to do some useful file manipulation expressions. For example if you want to specify a target file by taking the source and changing the file extension you can do so like this "/projects/worldDominationSecrets.xml".ext("html") # => '/projects/worldDominationSecrets.html' For more complicated manipulations there is a pathmap method that uses template markers in a similar style to printf. For example the template "%x" refers to the file extension of a path and "%X" refers to everything but the file extension, so I could write the above example like this. "/projects/worldDominationSecrets.xml".pathmap("%X.html") # => '/projects/worldDominationSecrets.html' Another common case is having things from 'src' turn up in 'bin'. To do this we can do substitution on elements in templates by using "%{pattern,replacement}X", for example "src/org/onestepback/proj/foo.java".pathmap("%{^src,bin}X.class") # => "bin/org/onestepback/proj/foo.class" You can find the full list of path manipulation methods in Rake's String.pathmap documentation. I find these methods so useful that I like to use them whenever I'm doing file path manipulations in my own code. To make them available you need: require 'rake/ext/string' Namespaces As you build up a larger build script, it's easy to end up with lots of tasks with similar names. Rake has a concept of namespaces which helps you organize these. You create a namespace with namespace :articles do # put tasks inside the namespace here eg task :foo end You can then invoke the namespaced task with rake articles:foo If you need to refer to tasks outside the namespace you are currently in, then you use a fully qualified name for the task - which is usually easier using a string form of task name. namespace :other do task :special => 'articles:foo' end Built in Cleaning A common need with builds is to clean up the files you've generated. Rake provides a built in way to make this work. Rake has two levels of cleaning: clean and clobber. Clean is the gentlest approach, it removes all intermediate files, it doesn't remove the final product, only temporary files that are used to derive the final product. Clobber uses stronger soap and removes all generated files, including the final products. Essentially clobber restores you to only the files that are checked into source control. There is some terminological confusion here. I often hear people using "clean" to mean removing all generated files, equivalent to rake's clobber. So be wary of that confusion. To use the built in cleaning, you need to import rake's built in cleaning with require 'rake/clean' . This introduces two tasks: clean and clobber. As they stand, however, the tasks don't know which files to clean. To tell it you use a pair of file lists: CLEAN and CLOBBER. You can then add items to the file lists with expressions like CLEAN.include('*.o') . Remember that the clean task removes everything in the clean list, and clobber removes everything in both clean and clobber lists. Odds and Ends By default, rake does not print out the stack trace if you get an error in the code that rake calls. You can get the stack trace by running with the --trace flag, but usually I'd just rather see it anyway. You can do that by putting Rake.application.options.trace = true into the rakefile. Similarly I find the file manipulation outputs from FileUtils to be distracting. You can turn them off from the command line with the -q option, but also disable them in your rakefile with the call verbose(false) . It's often useful to turn warnings onwhen you run rake, you can do this by manipulating $VERBOSE , there's some good notes on using $VERBOSE from Mislav Marohnić To look up a rake task object in the rakefile itself, use Rake::Task[:aTask] . The task's name can be specified either as using a symbol or as a string. This allows you to invoke one task from another without using a dependency using Rake::Task[:aTask].invoke . You shouldn't need to do this often, but it's occasionally handy.

Application Moved Permanently!

Brand New Version Available & Moved! The Color Scheme Designer application has been moved to its own domain: http://ColorSchemeDesigner.com Please update your bookmarks. Newest version: http://colorschemedesigner.com Previous version list: http://colorschemedesigner.com/previous

Long-sought flower-inducing molecule found

Researchers at the Umeå Plant Science Centre at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Sweden, report about a breakthrough in our understanding of how plants control their flowering. In an article published in the international journal Science, Thursday 11th, they show how a small molecule that is formed in the plant leaves is transported to the shoot tips where it induces the formation of flowers. This knowledge can lead to the development of new tools that can be used to control the timing of plant flowering, something that is of central importance in both agriculture and forestry. We are all familiar with the fact that different plants flower at different times of the year. Daffodils in spring, roses in summer and other plants in fall. It is absolutely vital for the plant survival to flower at exactly the right time to secure that it can pollinate, or be pollinated, by other plants of the same species. How then does the plant know when to flower? Intense Florigen hunt Already in the 30-ies scientists found out that plants can tell whether they are growing in spring, summer or fall by measuring the length of the day. One could also show that plants use their leaves to sense the length of the day. By grafting leaves from plants that had been induced to flower on non-induced plants one could show that the induced leaves produce a substance that is transported to the shoot tips where it induces the formation of flowers. In the 30-ies a Russian scientist called this mysterious substance "Florigen". During the following 70 years scientists have been involved in an intense hunt trying to find out the true nature of "Florigen" which has been described as something of a "Holy Grail" for plant physiology. The reason is that the nature of "Florigen" is central for our understanding of how plant flowering is controlled. All attempts to identify a single substance carrying the properties of "Florigen" have failed, until now. Messenger molecule A research group led by Professor Ove Nilsson at the Umeå Plant Science Centre at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences has now identified a "messenger molecule" that fulfills all the classical properties of Florigen. A gene called "FT" produces the "messenger molecule". This gene is active in leaves and its activity is controlled by the length of the day. When the gene is activated, a messenger molecule is produced that is transported to the shoot tips where it very efficiently induces the "gene programs" that control the formation of flowers. These groundbreaking results are published "online" on Aug 11 in the international journal Science. Together with other data published at the same time, it shows convincingly that the "messenger molecule" produced by FT either is florigen, or an important component of florigen. The researchers have used the small plant model species Arabidopsis in their research. But the group of Ove Nilsson has also other data showing that these results can be directly applied to other species, such as poplar trees. Ove Nilsson says: "With the help of this knowledge plant breeders will get a new tool to control and adopt the flowering of plants, something that has been of great importance for agriculture but that can also lead to the development of efficient tree breeding for forestry". Source : Swedish Research Council

The Future of Public Radio

That title sounds a bit too authoritative, so let me begin by saying that although I’m by no means an expert on public radio, I was involved with radio in the ’60s, I worked in television news in the ’70s, and I’ve been talking to many people in commercial and public radio over the past few months. I was initially reluctant to express my opinions on the topic because I thought they might be hurtful to people I care about. But as I’ve been stewing over this for the past few weeks, I’ve come to realize that what I think and what I’ve written here isn’t going to “make it so.” I’m merely describing what I see as an inevitable transformation. [I’ve also given given everyone mentioned in this article a chance to comment on it.] Unfortunately, I see Chris Lydon’s new PRI show, Open Source, as the poster child for this transformation. Now don’t get me wrong. I love the show, and I listen to almost every edition on my iPod. But Chris and his team have launched what may be the last of the old-time public-radio programs, and they’ve aimed it right at the middle of the black hole that will swallow them and the rest of public radio: the Internet and podcasting. I think Open Source may be a catalyst for its own defeat. This started for me when I blogged about Doc’s suggestion that we all call our local public radio stations and request they carry the new show. It took me no time at all to realize how little sense that made. There’s no doubt that if KQED-FM were to broadcast the show at all, it would be at some obscure time of day when I wasn’t likely to listen. No, that’s not even correct. There’s no time of day that would be good for me. I don’t plan my days around a radio or TV schedule because, quite frankly, I don’t need to. I have an iPod and I can listen to what I want, where I want and when I want. And given that there’s already more good programming than I have time for, anyone who doesn’t make it easy for me by providing an RSS feed with enclosures simply won’t make the cut. Even in my car, unless it’s just a trip to the grocery store, I no longer tune in a broadcast station. [In response to my earlier post on the subject, Brendan Greely, one of Chris’ producers, pointed out that “there are a lot of people who would enjoy the conversation who wouldn’t otherwise hear it; these are people who might be convinced in the future to listen to a podcast, of this or any show.” His point was well taken, and I did ultimately let KQED-FM know that this was an important show which they certainly should carry.] Two events then really drove this home for me. The first was a trip to Boston/Cambridge a few weeks ago to discuss plans for a future venture with some very smart people. Among them were Jake Shapiro of PRX and Robert Lyons and Eli Ingraham of the WGBH Forum Network. At WGBH I got a full tour of the facilities of this bastion of public broadcasting, and I was struck by two divergent observations. First, this is a very large and expensive operation. Second, it’s essentially the same as radio was in the 1960s. Robert and Eli understand this. Robert has been at WGBH for (I think) more than 20 years, and if anything, his Forum Network is one of the few really new projects in public radio that is trying to bring the community into the picture. But they are up against the Innovator’s Dilemma. If you haven’t read that book by Clay Christensen, you really should. As it applies in this instance, the dilemma is that the established organizations can only approach innovation on the basis of protecting their current way of operating. The future of public radio may not be podcasting, but it will certainly be based on much lower-cost methods of producing and distributing most programs, and as incumbents in the industry, the WGBHs of the world are unable to cannibalize their own operations to the extent they must to survive. To do so would mean walking away from all the buildings and studios and firing 80% of the staff. Just as 3.5″ disk drives replaced the 5″ drives at a far lower price/performance ratio, so will the new public radio produce and distribute programs at a far lower cost. And it won’t be done by the same organizations. The second event was a recent article in The New York Times about Chris’ show, Open Source. From listening to the on-air credits, I already knew that the show had a staff of perhaps 7-9 people even if not all of them are paid (much) and don’t work full time. But The Times reported that the show has a $1 million budget, and I said, “Sheesh! That’s a lot of money.” Now I’ve worked on $100+ million dollar films, and in TV news, and I know how easy it is to spend that kind of money. But I’ve also produced 600 programs and distributed them as podcasts and spent next to nothing. Even if I paid the team and myself decent salaries, my costs would be a mere fraction of Chris’ budget. Radio and TV are going to have to adjust to a new economy: the economy in which the long tail plays a major role. The music industry is painfully making this transformation now. The movie business is fighting the change in classic innovators-dilemma style. TV doesn’t know what to do. Its viewers are leaving in droves, and the three major networks’ reaction so far is to reduce not only the cost but also the quality of programs through the reality-TV and tabloid formulas. Those are just that industry’s way of denying the inevitable trap it’s in. In commercial radio we see the migration to the two models of talk and formulaic music. As others have said, there’s no humanity left. Commercial stations will die the same way some of the telecoms bit the dust: They’re competing for a limited base of customers with undifferentiated commodity products. It’s ironic that the broadcast spectrum is a scarce resource yet those with license to use it are writing their own death warrants by using it so inefficiently. Public radio is on the same path. Sure, it’s made worse by the facts that the Bush administration wants to rip the guts out of it, and that NPR and the local stations are always fighting over money and control. But the real problem is coming from the fact that listeners want long-tail time-shifted content. They want to hear programs that are more meaningful to them, and they want to listen at their convenience. The entire broadcast-radio system, with its distribution, simply can’t provide what the customers want. It’s not a flaw of management. There are very good people doing the best that can be done. The problem is inherent and systemic. Podcasting is to public radio what Garage Band and Pro Tools are to the music industry. Large recording studios are closing left and right because musicians — good ones — can produce great music in small project studios or even in their apartments. Moby is just one of the better-known examples. But more important than the stars are all the lesser-known artists. Because of iTunes and GarageBand.com, a significant portion of the market is shifting towards the long tail. The traditional music industry can only survive to the extent that it can support these new forms of production and distribution, and the same is true for public radio. If there was one bright light on the public-radio portion of my Boston/Cambridge trip, it was my visit with Jake Shapiro at PRX. Although their short-term function is to operate a marketplace where producers and stations can sell and buy programming, my sense is that Jake and his team are acutely aware of the larger changes needed in public radio, and I think they’re worth watching to see how they might play the role of the newcomer that replaces the incumbents. They match Clay Christensen’s scenario perfectly.

Braiding your own hair

Those of you who are now entering into the world of braiding may think that this is a confusing and difficult task. In this article, we are going to prove you that this is not true. Learning how to braid your own hair could be really useful for every girl. Once you learn how to use the basic techniques needed for the different types of braids you will be able to do for yourself many wonderful hairstyles. First of all, you need to make sure that your hair is brushed and then you can separate it in three sections. You will start braiding by flipping the right strand over the middle one (picture 2) and then the left strand over the new middle one (picture 3). And then again – the right section over the middle and the left section over the middle. All you have to do is to repeat these steps until you get to the end of your hair. Secure the braid in place with a band. We are going to start with a simple regular braid and then we will show you how to create a French braid and a Dutch braid. So, this is how you do the usual three strand braid. The French braid goes absolutely the same way, the only thing is that you will have to add some hair to the side sections every time you flip them. Prepare your hair by brushing it. You will start just like you did with the regular braid – separate your hair in three sections. When you are ready to flip the right strand you need to add a small part from the remaining hair on your right side to it and then flip it over the middle. The same goes for the left strand – add some hair to it and then flip it over the middle one. Repeat these steps until you get to the end. There you go – now you have your French braid. Now, when it comes to a Dutch braid there is one specific difference and it hides in the flipping. When you are Dutch braiding your hair you are not going to flip the sections of hair over the middle one, but under. And this is the only thing that is probably harder to get used to. You will get the idea when you see the next picture. Do not be scared – it is easier than it looks, you just need patience and some practice. Divide your hair in three sections and start with the right section by adding some hair to it flip it under the middle one. Do the same with the left side – add some hair to the strand and place it under the middle one. Keep repeating these steps until you have no more hair to add. Then just finish the braid. These braids are very simple but when you learn how to do them you will be able to create more and more gorgeous hairstyles for yourself every day.

The Book of Sand

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Rice pudding helped fuel Channel swim

By Jane Elliott BBC News health reporter Patrick had to plan his swim very carefully Twice on the 21 mile swim, Patrick had almost called it quits - once after four and a half hours, the second time just kilometres from his destination. The crew, like Patrick, were determined he would succeed, but knew it was a delicate balance between helping him achieve his goal and risking his health. For Patrick, from Watford, Hertfordshire, was no ordinary swimmer and when he reached terra firma after 14 hours and 12 minutes in the water, he became only the second diabetic to complete the swim and the first to do so on the first attempt. Fund-raising His mammoth effort helped raise thousands of pounds for a local diabetic charity. Consultant diabetic nurse Jo Butler, who monitored Patrick from the training stage and accompanied him on his swim this week, said his diabetes necessitated extra special monitoring. It was worrying for me during the swim thinking about whether he would be alright Jo Butler "Like with other swimmers, we had to count the number of strokes he did each minute to make sure he was not becoming too tired. But we also needed to check that he was not going into a hypo (hypoglycaemic coma) . "A couple of times he said that he was becoming too tired to continue and we had to decide whether that was because his energy stores had gone down too low. " Patrick normally has regular glucose monitoring tests, but Jo and he quickly realised that was going to prove impossible during the swim. Monitoring During his regular training sessions they carefully monitored his glucose levels and worked out how much glucose he would need and how often he would need to take-on other drinks and food. "We did agree though, that if he was unwell in the water that we would have to find a way to test him and to see if it was his diabetes that was causing the problem. "But that was not necessary thankfully as the water was so choppy on the swim we would not have been able to have done it," Jo said. "He was cold and shivering when he got back in the boat, but I did regular blood checks on the journey back and he was fine. "It was worrying for me during the swim thinking about whether he would be alright." Patrick needed to be carefully monitored Patrick was already training for the swim when he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes last October. Type 1 diabetes - also known as insulin-dependent or immune-mediated diabetes - is a disease that destroys the cells in the pancreas that produce the hormone insulin. Insulin is needed to control blood sugar levels. He started exhibiting the classic signs of diabetes - an excessive thirst, constantly dry throat, weight loss, tiredness and frequent urination. When his doctor confirmed that he had diabetes, Patrick decided to donated part of the charity cash raised by his swim to help build a specialist resource centre for diabetes at the local Ashford and St Peter's NHS Hospital. Would I do it again? It is too early to say, but probably not Patrick Turner During training, Patrick had to change his diet so it contained a very high proportion of carbohydrates to compensate for the increase in activity - swimming in the sea can burn up to 800 calories an hour. During the swim, he took in frequent snacks designed to boost his energy levels. Tired "They gave me the energy drink and hot chocolate in a sports cup which they held out on a piece of rope from the boat. I was not allowed to touch the boat. "I also had things like tinned peaches, rice pudding and chocolate rolls from a cup, which I had to eat while treading water. "I did get very tired and did think about getting out, but my crew persuaded me to stay in. I would not have got across without them. "I was so exhausted when I did finish that I fell asleep soon after getting into the boat." But despite the euphoria of finishing and of raising so much money for charity, Patrick is dubious that he will be attempting anything else as strenuous. "I felt so bad when I got into the boat. I was vomiting sea water. I am fairly stiff, but I do feel satisfied and glad that all my training paid off. "Would I do it again? It is too early to say, but probably not."

Breaking spaghetti

Breaking Spaghetti Short story B. Audoly, S. Neukirch Laboratoire de Modélisation en Mécanique, UMR 7607 CNRS/UPMC, 4 place Jussieu, case 162, 75252 Paris cedex 05, France The physical process of fragmentation is relevant to many areas of science and technology. Because different physical phenomena are at work, the fragmentation of solid bodies has mainly been studied from a statistical viewpoint. Nevertheless a growing number of works have included physical considerations: surface energy contributions, nucleation and growth properties of the fracture process, elastic buckling, and stress wave propagation. Here we focus on the quasi-static fragmentation of brittle elastic rods. Our main purpose is to understand why brittle rods (like dry spaghetti) break into many fragments — and not simply in half — when bent beyond their rupture curvature. Experiment. To study the dynamics of the rod following the first breaking event, we introduce a catapult experiment: a rod is bent quasi-statically and then suddenly released at one end. Surprisingly, instead of smoothly relaxing to its straight configuration, the rod often breaks at a intermediate point in between the free end and the clamped end shortly after its release. Elastic model. We used the Kirchhoff equations for elastic rods to study the dynamics of the rod in this catapult geometry. When released, the rod follows three regimes successively: (1) the released end quickly straightens up at short times, giving birth to a burst of flexural waves that (2) travel along the rod to the clamped end and (3) are amplified by reflexions on the opposite (clamped) edge. This behavior is described analytically by a self-similar solution with no adjustable parameter, whose relevance has been confirmed by numerical integration of the dynamic Kirchhoff equations. Comparing the simulations and experiments. Our main result is that the flexural waves which travel along the rod locally increase the curvature. Since the rod was initially in a strongly bent state, this increase is sufficient to break it. We have performed 25 catapult experiments and recorded the time and location of breakings (shown as white circles, triangles and diamonds of the following figure, corresponding to various pasta radii). We have also computed the time and location of curvature records in the dynamics of the released rod, as predicted by a simulation of the nonlinear Kirchhoff equations: for each value of the arc-length, the shaded areas in the graph show the times where the curvature is higher than any time before. The agreement between computations and experimental data is excellent as the experimental breaking events fall perfectly onto the predicted maximum records when rescaled variables are used. No adjustable parameter is used in the comparison. Conclusion We have shown that releasing an elastic brittle rod from a bent configuration is sufficient to make it break. This counter-intuitive result explains why brittle rods break in several pieces when bent beyond their limit curvature: a first breaking occurs when the curvature exceeds its limit value in some place, after which, as described above, flexural waves travel along the two newly formed halves of the rod, where they locally increase the curvature further. This increase leads to new breakings that give rise to new travelling waves, and a cascade mechanism can take place.

The Next Giant Leap

The Next Giant Leap The next big thing is small: Nanotechnology could lead to radical improvements for space exploration. When it comes to taking the next "giant leap" in space exploration, NASA is thinking small -- really small. In laboratories around the country, NASA is supporting the burgeoning science of nanotechnology. The basic idea is to learn to deal with matter at the atomic scale -- to be able to control individual atoms and molecules well enough to design molecule-size machines, advanced electronics and "smart" materials. If visionaries are right, nanotechnology could lead to robots you can hold on your fingertip, self-healing spacesuits, space elevators and other fantastic devices. Some of these things may take 20+ years to fully develop; others are taking shape in the laboratory today. Right: Nanotechnology could provide the very high-strength, low-weight fibers that would be needed to build the cable of a space elevator. Image by artist Pat Rawling. [More] Thinking Small Simply making things smaller has its advantages. Imagine, for example, if the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity could have been made as small as a beetle, and could scurry over rocks and gravel as a beetle can, sampling minerals and searching for clues to the history of water on Mars. Hundreds or thousands of these diminutive robots could have been sent in the same capsules that carried the two desk-size rovers, enabling scientists to explore much more of the planet's surface -- and increasing the odds of stumbling across a fossilized Martian bacterium! But nanotech is about more than just shrinking things. When scientists can deliberately order and structure matter at the molecular level, amazing new properties sometimes emerge. An excellent example is that darling of the nanotech world, the carbon nanotube. Carbon occurs naturally as graphite -- the soft, black material often used in pencil leads -- and as diamond. The only difference between the two is the arrangement of the carbon atoms. When scientists arrange the same carbon atoms into a "chicken wire" pattern and roll them up into miniscule tubes only 10 atoms across, the resulting "nanotubes" acquire some rather extraordinary traits. Nanotubes: have 100 times the tensile strength of steel, but only 1/6 the weight; are 40 times stronger than graphite fibers; conduct electricity better than copper; can be either conductors or semiconductors (like computer chips), depending on the arrangement of atoms; and are excellent conductors of heat. Right: A carbon nanotube. Copyright Prof. Vincent H. Crespi Department of Physics Pennsylvania State University. [More]. Much of current nanotechnology research worldwide focuses on these nanotubes. Scientists have proposed using them for a wide range of applications: in the high-strength, low-weight cable needed for a space elevator; as molecular wires for nano-scale electronics; embedded in microprocessors to help siphon off heat; and as tiny rods and gears in nano-scale machines, just to name a few. Nanotubes figure prominently in research being done at the NASA Ames Center for Nanotechnology (CNT). The center was established in 1997 and now employs about 50 full-time researchers. "[We] try to focus on technologies that could yield useable products within a few years to a decade," says CNT director Meyya Meyyappan. "For example, we're looking at how nano-materials could be used for advanced life support, DNA sequencers, ultra-powerful computers, and tiny sensors for chemicals or even sensors for cancer." A chemical sensor they developed using nanotubes is scheduled to fly a demonstration mission into space aboard a Navy rocket next year. This tiny sensor can detect as little as a few parts per billion of specific chemicals--like toxic gases--making it useful for both space exploration and homeland defense. CNT has also developed a way to use nanotubes to cool the microprocessors in personal computers, a major challenge as CPUs get more and more powerful. This cooling technology has been licensed to a Santa Clara, California, start-up called Nanoconduction, and Intel has even expressed interest, Meyyappan says. Right: An engineered DNA strand between metal atom contacts could function as a molecular electronics device. Credit: NASA Ames Center for Nanotechnology. [More]. Designing the future If these near-term uses of nanotechnology seem impressive, the long-term possibilities are truly mind-boggling. The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC), an independent, NASA-funded organization located in Atlanta, Georgia, was created to promote forward-looking research on radical space technologies that will take 10 to 40 years to come to fruition. For example, one recent NIAC grant funded a feasibility study of nanoscale manufacturing--in other words, using vast numbers of microscopic molecular machines to produce any desired object by assembling it atom by atom! That NIAC grant was awarded to Chris Phoenix of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology. In his 112 page report, Phoenix explains that such a "nanofactory" could produce, say, spacecraft parts with atomic precision, meaning that every atom within the object is placed exactly where it belongs. The resulting part would be extremely strong, and its shape could be within a single atom's width of the ideal design. Ultra-smooth surfaces would need no polishing or lubrication, and would suffer virtually no "wear and tear" over time. Such high precision and reliability of spacecraft parts are paramount when the lives of astronauts are at stake. Although Phoenix sketched out some design ideas for a desktop nanofactory in his report, he acknowledges that -- short of a big-budget "Nanhatten Project," as he calls it -- a working nanofactory is at least a decade away, and possibly much longer. Taking a cue from biology, Constantinos Mavroidis, director of the Computational Bionanorobotics Laboratory at Northeastern University in Boston, is exploring an alternative approach to nanotech: Rather than starting from scratch, the concepts in Mavroidis's NIAC-funded study employ pre-existing, functional molecular "machines" that can be found in all living cells: DNA molecules, proteins, enzymes, etc. Right: This bio-nanorobot envisioned by Constantinos Mavroidis and colleagues resembles a living cell. [More]. Shaped by evolution over millions of years, these biological molecules are already very adept at manipulating matter at the molecular scale -- which is why a plant can combine air, water, and dirt and produce a juicy red strawberry, and a person's body can convert last night's potato dinner into today's new red blood cells. The rearranging of atoms that makes these feats possible is performed by hundreds of specialized enzymes and proteins, and DNA stores the code for making them. Making use of these "pre-made" molecular machines -- or using them as starting points for new designs -- is a popular approach to nanotechnology called "bio-nanotech." "Why reinvent the wheel?" Mavroidis says. "Nature has given us all this great, highly refined nanotechnology inside of living things, so why not use it -- and try to learn something from it?" The specific uses of bio-nanotech that Mavroidis proposes in his study are very futuristic. One idea involves draping a kind of "spider's web" of hair-thin tubes packed with bio-nanotech sensors across dozens of miles of terrain, as a way to map the environment of some alien planet in great detail. Another concept he proposes is a "second skin" for astronauts to wear under their spacesuits that would use bio-nanotech to sense and respond to radiation penetrating the suit, and to quickly seal over any cuts or punctures. Above: A sprawling web of nanosensors maps the terrain of an alien planet. The cross-section at the top-right shows biologically derived molecules (yellow and red) that would perform the sensing and signaling functions. [More]. Futuristic? Certainly. Possible? Maybe. Mavroidis admits that such technologies are probably decades away, and that technology so far in the future will probably be very different from what we imagine now. Still, he says he believes it's important to start thinking now about what nanotechnology might make possible many years down the road. Considering that life itself is, in a sense, the ultimate example of nanotech, the possibilities are exciting indeed.

An Islamic Alienation

So far, at least, neither the carrot nor the stick has worked. Politicians talk of tighter immigration controls. Yet the reality is that a Europe in demographic freefall needs more, not fewer, immigrants if it is to maintain its prosperity. Tony Blair just proposed new laws allowing the deportation of radical mullahs and the shutting of mosques and other sites associated with Islamic extremism. But given the sheer size of the Muslim population in England and throughout the rest of Europe, the security services are always going to be playing catch-up. Working together, and in a much more favorable political and security context, French and Spanish authorities have, after more than 20 years, been unable to put an end to the terrorism of the Basque separatist group ETA. And there are at least twice as many Muslims in France as there are Basques in Spain. At the same time, it is difficult to see how the extremists' grievances can ever be placated by conciliatory gestures. It is doubtful that the British government's proposed ban on blasphemy against Islam and other religions will have a demonstrable effect. (What would have happened to Salman Rushdie had such a ban been in force when "The Satanic Verses" was published?) Meanwhile, the French government has tried to create an "official" state-sanctioned French Islam. This approach may be worth the effort, but the chances of success are uncertain. It will require the enthusiastic participation of an Islamic religious establishment whose influence over disaffected youth is unclear. What seems clearer is that European governments have very little time and nowhere near enough knowledge about which members of the Islamic community really are "preachers of hate" and which, however unpalatable their views, are part of the immigrant mainstream. The multicultural fantasy in Europe -- its eclipse can be seen most poignantly in Holland, that most self-definedly liberal of all European countries -- was that, in due course, assuming that the proper resources were committed and benevolence deployed, Islamic and other immigrants would eventually become liberals. As it's said, they would come to "accept" the values of their new countries. It was never clear how this vision was supposed to coexist with multiculturalism's other main assumption, which was that group identity should be maintained. But by now that question is largely academic: the European vision of multiculturalism, in all its simultaneous good will and self-congratulation, is no longer sustainable. And most Europeans know it. What they don't know is what to do next. If the broad-brush anti-Muslim discourse of Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front in France or the Vlaams Belang Party in Belgium entered the political mainstream, it would only turn the Islamic diaspora in Europe into the fifth column that, for the moment, it certainly is not. But Europeans can hardly accept an immigrant veto over their own mores, whether those mores involve women's rights or, for that matter, the right to blaspheme, which the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh so bravely asserted -- and died for. Figuring out how to prevent Europe's multicultural reality from becoming a war of all against all is the challenge that confronts the Continent. It makes all of Europe's other problems, from the economy to the euro to the sclerosis of social democracy, seem trivial by comparison. Unfortunately, unlike those challenges, this one is existential and urgent and has no obvious answer. THE WAY WE LIVE NOW: 08-14-05 David Rieff, a contributing writer, is the author, most recently, of "At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention."

Search engine race gets personal

By Spencer Kelly Reporter, BBC Click Online When you fire up your browser, do you go straight to a search engine, like Google, or do you go to a portal, like Yahoo or MSN? Spencer Kelly finds the battle for the number one spot is playing into our hands. Branching out into music or video is key to many search engines now Getting us to come back to any one site on a regular basis is certainly a tall order, but that is exactly what some of the web's big players want us to do. Google, Yahoo and MSN are just some of the companies which would love us to make them our homepage. After a year of trying to impress us with enormous e-mail accounts - Gmail is still constantly upping the amount of storage you get with an account - the big hitters are now hoping to dazzle us with increasingly glamorous products. It is a very exciting time, says MSN's Stuart Anderson. "Generally if you are someone using the internet, you've never seen more innovation than you've seen in the last year, and quite honestly the pace is not going to stop. "We're going to see more and more innovation in the next 12 months." Race for change Yahoo has recently bought Konfabulator, a download which gives you small widgets on your desktop. These can be used to display just about any information you want, from the current time to the latest news. It is also hoping to build on its online music radio service, Launchcast, which includes a personalised music selector that learns the types of music you like and streams you different tracks accordingly. As broadband take-up increases, MSN is embracing the increasing video content on the web. You can now compose and watch playlists of certain video content, interspersed, of course, with adverts. Other search engines have imitated Google's uncluttered style Google's Lorraine Twohill says: "We started with 10 TV networks. We've pulled in all their programmes plus the data, the tags that go around those programmes, so they're easily searchable. Most of them you can play." Naturally, search in general will always be a big web application, and after Google's enormous success it seems that everyone now agrees that a clean and simple search interface is a good thing. First came the MSN no-frills Search, and now we have Yahoo's new-look search, which has unashamedly been Googled. Even Jeeves the butler has put the duster round and had a clean-out. With many search results, he will even show you a preview of the page to make sure it is the right one before you click on it. Personal service But the key to winning our favour may not be just a nice empty search window with lots of empty space. It may not be video playlists, or widgets. It might not be the individual features at all. All the main search engines are now offering personalised services We do not just access the web from one place anymore. We can go online at home, at work, in an internet café. It would be nice if our favourite features followed us, wherever we were. Lisa Jones, the editor of Net magazine, says: "Because much of our lives now revolves around web services and things that we can do there, we need to be able to move our information around and not start from scratch every time we want to do a search. "So it's increasingly about building this customisable, personalised web interface that remembers us and that we can take anywhere." Create a Yahoo user ID and you not only get free e-mail, but you also get a chance to create your own homepage, to which you can add your own elements: calendar, e-mail inbox, news stories, weather, change the colour scheme, etc. Your homepage now really starts to become your homepage. Since imitation is the new innovation, it is not just a Yahoo thing. AskJeeves have MyAskJeeves, MSN has MyMSN, and in the last few weeks even Google have started testing its own personalised homepage service. MyGoogle, perhaps? You can also personalise your search options. Yahoo's MyWeb allows you to save and organise any search results you like into online folders, to be recalled at a later date. No free lunch All these facilities are free to us, so the web big guys will have to make their money elsewhere, namely advertising. By giving us a personal login and customisable homepage, it is hoped that we will start treating it like home, and keep coming back. But if we want free homes, we may just have to put up with a few adverts. Yahoo's Nick Hazell says: "Our revenue comes from a number of sources: media advertising, paid for searches, and our subscription services, where we have about 10 million subscribing customers to various of our premium services. "We see all of those businesses as quite complementary, and a range of businesses which add up to the whole and fund the kinds of services that we're able to offer to customers." In the next two weeks Click Online will look at the big areas in which the big players think there is money to be made: communications and sharing information. Click Online is broadcast on BBC News 24: Saturday at 2030, Sunday at 0430 and 1630, and on Monday at 0030. A short version is also shown on BBC Two: Saturday at 0645 and BBC One: Sunday at 0730 . Also BBC World.

Under Pressure

Chefs have found less lofty ways to employ the technique as well. At CityZen, in the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Washington, they make ice cream bases in sous vide. "There's no putting your sugar and egg and cream in a pan and stirring," says Eric Ziebold, the chef. His pastry chef blends the ingredients, seals them in a bag and cooks it in water. "More than anything, the vegetables and the proteins taste remarkably more like themselves," Dan Barber, the chef and owner of Blue Hill, wrote in an e-mail message. "When it comes to things like artichokes, steaming and boiling and braising are fine, but there's a great loss of liquid as it cooks -- which is another way of saying a great loss of flavor because the juice of the artichoke itself, while mostly water, is very flavorful. Sous vide eliminates this loss, and hence the sensation that you're tasting a true artichoke -- not just a delicious artichoke, but an artichoke the way it was intended to taste." Much is made of the artistry of chefs, but running a restaurant kitchen well often has more to do with control and consistency. And in large kitchens or multiple restaurants, those things can get out of hand pretty quickly. Alléno, the chef at Le Meurice, oversees 72 cooks; Daniel Boulud has a staff of 65 to 70 among his three New York restaurants. Most cooking relies on the cook's ability to judge doneness based on sight and feel. With sous vide, it is all about precise times and temperatures. "You can have your restaurant 6,000 miles away," Ziebold says, "and you don't have to worry about the cooks at your restaurant in D.C. getting the duck right because they're cooking it sous vide and they know the temperature." Every year, Janos Kiss, the corporate executive chef for Hyatt Hotels and Resorts, prepares a dinner for more than 5,000 people on Super Bowl weekend. It used to take 20 chefs four days to cook the dinner. Now, with sous vide, they do it with six chefs in two days. In the long run, sous vide's great contribution may well be this consistency. A chef with a restaurant empire, like Nobuyuki Matsuhisa, may finally be able to guarantee that the lobster with wasabi-pepper sauce at Nobu in London is every bit as good as the one at Nobu in New York. It may spell the end to bad wedding food. And if it catches on at companies from Stouffer's to Whole Foods, it could forever alter the state of convenience food. In the meantime, all the attention being paid to temperature and laboratory precision has pushed chefs in more creative directions. When Grant Achatz built his new restaurant Alinea in Chicago, thermal circulators from PolyScience, a laboratory-equipment manufacturer, were part of the kitchen design. To these, he has added a 40,000-r.p.m. homogenizer (what Philip Preston, the president of PolyScience, calls a "coffee grinder on steroids") -- for making the world's most emulsified vinaigrettes and confections like carrot pudding made with carrot juice, cocoa butter and grapeseed oil -- and an entirely new mechanism they're calling the Antigriddle, which has a surface that chills to minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit), allowing you to freeze food in the same way you would sauté it. A dollop of sour cream becomes brittle on the bottom and stays at room temperature on top. For all chefs' forward thinking, though, top kitchens still run on frat-house principles. So sous vide also comes in handy for hazing new cooks. At WD-50, Dufresne said, "I've seen virtually every kind of personal belonging end up in one of these bags." Veteran cooks are known to take a new cook's clothing from his locker and put it through the sous vide machine, compressing his jeans and shirt to the size of hockey pucks. In late July, Goussault went to Citronelle in Washington for a follow-up training session with Michel Richard's head cooks, David Deshaies and Cedric Maupillier. They were having trouble with the salmon and sweetbreads done sous vide. The salmon had a perfect silky texture but was too fragile and, they worried, undercooked. And the sweetbreads were losing too much liquid. Goussault is often called in to help chefs perfect their technique. "My job is to repeat, repeat, repeat," he says. He unpacked his briefcase, removing a laptop, a box of batteries, a jumble of wires and a number of handheld monitors that, when hooked up to the foods with probes, can record their minute-to-minute temperature arc during the cooking process. The large stoves around the kitchen were mostly unoccupied. Two thermal circulators sat poised on a steel countertop, humming like Jacuzzis. Deshaies dropped two pieces of salmon in ice water that contained 10 percent salt, then set a timer for 10 minutes. Salt, according to Goussault, "modifies the osmotic pressure in the cells," meaning it prevents the albumen, that white substance, ghastly to chefs, that gathers on the surface of fish, from leaching out of the salmon when it cooks. They sealed the salmon in sous vide and inserted probes. It now looked as if the salmon had a heart monitor.

Answers sought in death outside Wal-Mart

Answers sought in death outside Wal-Mart Man accused of theft begged to be let up from hot pavement, witness says A man suspected of shoplifting goods from an Atascocita Wal-Mart — including diapers and a BB gun — had begged employees to let him up from the blistering pavement in the store's parking lot where he was held, shirtless, before he died Sunday, a witness said. An autopsy for the man, identified as Stacy Clay Driver, 30, of Cleveland, was scheduled for Monday, but officials said results probably would be delayed by a wait for toxicology tests. Driver's family, as well as one emergency worker, are questioning company procedure, including whether Wal-Mart workers administered CPR after they realized he needed medical attention. When Atascocita Volunteer Fire Department paramedics arrived, Driver was in cardiac arrest, said Royce Worrell, EMS director. Worrell said Monday he heard from investigators that Wal-Mart employees administered CPR to Driver, but he was not sure that happened. "When we got there, the man was facedown (in cardiac arrest) with handcuffs behind his back," Worrell said. "That's not indicative of someone given CPR." Wal-Mart employees referred calls to the Harris County Sheriff's Department, where homicide detectives are investigating the death. "We're just not able to provide any comment at this time ... ," said Christi Gallagher, spokeswoman at Wal-Mart's headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. Jim Lindeman, a lawyer representing Driver's family, said the family is devastated. "We're waiting to learn the results of the Sheriff's Department investigation," he said. No charges have been filed. "The determining factor will be the (autopsy) report in whether we go forward with any charges," said Lt. John Martin, Sheriff's Department spokesman. Driver lived in Cleveland, where his parents own a small business, Lindeman said. Driver was a master carpenter with a 2-month-old son and was about halfway through taking flying courses to get his pilot's license, Lindeman said. Employees told investigators Driver had walked out the store with a package of diapers, a pair of sunglasses, a BB gun and a package of BBs, Martin said. Lindeman said otherwise. "It's our belief he was not shoplifting," he said. Houston lawyer Charles Portz was outside the store at 6626 FM 1960 East when employees chased Driver into the parking lot Sunday afternoon. Portz said three employees caught Driver, who twisted and turned until his shirt came off and he broke free and ran. "They chased him right past me," said Portz, who followed the chase, then saw four or five employees hold Driver on the ground. Driver was pleading with them to let him up, Portz said. "The blacktop was just blistering," he said. The high temperature at Bush Intercontinental Airport Sunday was 96 degrees. Portz said one of the Wal-Mart employees had Driver in a choke hold as other employees pinned his body to the ground. "He was begging, 'Please, I'm burning, let me up,' " Portz said of Driver. "He'd push himself up off the blacktop, like he was doing a push-up. "About 30 people were saying, 'Let him up, it's too hot,' " Portz said. He said another employee brought a rug for Driver to lie on, but one of those holding Driver said he was fine where he was. "After about five minutes, (Driver) said, 'I'm dying, I can't breathe, call an ambulance,' " Portz said. Employees struggled with Driver before he was handcuffed, Martin said. "There was a struggle, and when they finally succeeded after getting him detained in handcuffs, he continued to struggle," Martin said. After Driver was handcuffed, Portz said one employee had his knee on the man's neck and others were putting pressure on his back. "Finally the guy stopped moving" and the employees got off him, Portz said. "They wouldn't call an ambulance. "I looked at him and said, 'Hey, he's not breathing,' but one guy told me (Driver) was just on drugs. I told them his fingernails were all gray, and finally they called an ambulance." Martin said investigators have no indication that Driver was intoxicated. He also said a review of surveillance tape showed that nine minutes had elapsed between the time employees "got (Driver) under control and the time EMS showed up." Worrell said paramedics arrived two minutes, 19 seconds after they received the call. Paramedics performed CPR on Driver en route to Northeast Medical Center Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Store employees told investigators Driver entered the store with an item marked with a sticker indicating it had been paid for, then switched the sticker to a more expensive item and tried to leave with it. susan.bardwell@chron.comrobert.crowe@chron.com

Opinion | Someone Tell the President the War Is Over

But just as politics are a bad motive for choosing a war, so they can be a doomed engine for running a war. In an interview with Tim Russert early last year, Mr. Bush said, "The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me, as I look back, was it was a political war," adding that the "essential" lesson he learned from Vietnam was to not have "politicians making military decisions." But by then Mr. Bush had disastrously ignored that very lesson; he had let Mr. Rumsfeld publicly rebuke the Army's chief of staff, Eric Shinseki, after the general dared tell the truth: that several hundred thousand troops would be required to secure Iraq. To this day it's our failure to provide that security that has turned the country into the terrorist haven it hadn't been before 9/11 -- "the central front in the war on terror," as Mr. Bush keeps reminding us, as if that might make us forget he's the one who recklessly created it. The endgame for American involvement in Iraq will be of a piece with the rest of this sorry history. "It makes no sense for the commander in chief to put out a timetable" for withdrawal, Mr. Bush declared on the same day that 14 of those Ohio troops were killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha. But even as he spoke, the war's actual commander, Gen. George Casey, had already publicly set a timetable for "some fairly substantial reductions" to start next spring. Officially this calendar is tied to the next round of Iraqi elections, but it's quite another election this administration has in mind. The priority now is less to save Jessica Lynch (or Iraqi democracy) than to save Rick Santorum and every other endangered Republican facing voters in November 2006. Nothing that happens on the ground in Iraq can turn around the fate of this war in America: not a shotgun constitution rushed to meet an arbitrary deadline, not another Iraqi election, not higher terrorist body counts, not another battle for Falluja (where insurgents may again regroup, The Los Angeles Times reported last week). A citizenry that was asked to accept tax cuts, not sacrifice, at the war's inception is hardly in the mood to start sacrificing now. There will be neither the volunteers nor the money required to field thewholesale additional American troops that might bolster the security situation in Iraq. WHAT lies ahead now in Iraq instead is not victory, which Mr. Bush has never clearly defined anyway, but an exit (or triage) strategy that may echo Johnson's March 1968 plan for retreat from Vietnam: some kind of negotiations (in this case, with Sunni elements of the insurgency), followed by more inflated claims about the readiness of the local troops-in-training, whom we'll then throw to the wolves. Such an outcome may lead to even greater disaster, but this administration long ago squandered the credibility needed to make the difficult case that more human and financial resources might prevent Iraq from continuing its descent into civil war and its devolution into jihad central. Thus the president's claim on Thursday that "no decision has been made yet" about withdrawing troops from Iraq can be taken exactly as seriously as the vice president's preceding fantasy that the insurgency is in its "last throes." The country has already made the decision for Mr. Bush. We're outta there. Now comes the hard task of identifying the leaders who can pick up the pieces of the fiasco that has made us more vulnerable, not less, to the terrorists who struck us four years ago next month.

LEE SMOLIN -- EINSTEIN'S LEGACY--WHERE ARE THE "EINSTEINIANS"? -- LOGOS 4.3 SUMMER 2005

F or more than two centuries after Newton published his theories of space, time, and motion in 1687, most physicists were Newtonians. They believed, as Newton did, that space and time are absolute, that force causes acceleration, and that gravity is a force conveyed across a vacuum at a distance. Since Darwin there are few professional biologists who are not Darwinians, and if most psychologists no longer often call themselves Freudians, few doubt that there is an unconscious or that sexuality plays a big role in it. So as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s great discoveries, the question arises: How many professional physicists are Einsteinians? The superficial answer is that we all are. No professional physicist today doubts that quantum theory and relativity theory have stood up to experimental tests. But the term “Einsteinian” does not exist. I’ve never heard or read it. Nor have I ever encountered any evidence for a “school of Einstein.” There is a community of people scattered around the world who call themselves relativists, whose main scientific work centers on general relativity. But relativists make up only a tiny minority of theoretical physicists, and there is no country where they dominate the intellectual atmosphere of the field. Strange as it may seem, Albert Einstein, the discoverer of both quantum and relativity theory, and hence clearly the preeminent physicist of the modern era, failed to leave behind a following with any appreciable influence. Why most physicists followed other leaders in directions Einstein opposed is a story that must be told if this centennial year is to be other than an empty celebration of a myth, unconnected to the reality of who Einstein was and what he believed in. Physicists I’ve met who knew Einstein told me they found his thinking slow compared to the stars of the day. While he was competent enough with the basic mathematical tools of physics, many other physicists surrounding him in Berlin and Princeton were better at it. So what accounted for his genius? In retrospect, I believe what allowed Einstein to achieve so much was primarily a moral quality. He simply cared far more than most of his colleagues that the laws of physics have to explain everything in nature coherently and consistently. As a result he was acutely sensitive to flaws and contradictions in the logical structure of physical theories. Einstein’s ability to see flaws and his fierce refusal to compromise had real repercussions. His professors did not support him in his search for an academic job and he was unemployed until he found work as a patent inspector. The problem was not just that he skipped classes. He saw right through his elders’ complacent acceptance of Newtonian physics. The young Einstein was obsessed with logical flaws that were glaringly obvious, but only to him. While the great English physicist Lord Rayleigh said he saw “only a few clouds on the horizon” remaining to be understood, the 16-year-old Einstein wondered what would happen to his image in a mirror if he traveled faster than the speed of light. Einstein’s single goal in science was to discover what he called theories of principle. These are theories that postulate general rules that all phenomena must satisfy. If such a theory is true, it must apply universally. In his study of physics he identified two existing theories of principle: the laws of motion set out by Galileo and Newton, and thermodynamics. The basic principle of the first is the relativity of uniform motion, that the speed of your own motion is impossible to detect. Einstein’s discovery of special relativity came from 10 years of meditation on how to reconcile the relativity of motion with James Clerk Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism, which describes the propagation of light. While he mused about electromagnetism, Einstein made thermodynamics the focus of his early work. He began by following the Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann who argued that the laws of thermodynamics could be derived from applying statistics to the motion of atoms. This view was unpopular at the time because many influential professors did not believe matter was made of atoms. They instead believed matter was continuous. Einstein’s work led to his demonstration in 1905 that Brownian motion—the continuous, jerky movements of pollen grains or other tiny objects immersed in liquid—offered a proof of the existence of atoms. At the same time, Einstein applied Boltzmann’s approach to thermodynamics to electrodynamics. This led to his discovery of the photon, a discrete packet of electromagnetic energy, and to the realization that such a packet must be both a wave and a particle. Although Einstein was thus the discoverer of quantum phenomena, he became in time the main opponent of the theory of quantum mechanics. By his own account, he spent far more time thinking about quantum theory than he did about relativity. But he never found a theory of quantum physics that satisfied him. There are by now only a small minority of physicists who think Einstein was right to reject quantum theory as the foundation of our understanding of nature. No theory has been more successful at explaining a vast array of experimental data. It is the basis for our understanding of virtually all of physics, with the possible exception of gravity and cosmology. Einstein was willing to concede that quantum mechanics explains the recorded behavior of the subatomic world, but he was convinced it had two flaws. First, it fails to give precise predictions for the outcomes of individual processes. Instead, it gives only statistical predictions. To check them, one must do an experiment many times and compare the resulting distributions of outcomes with the predictions of the theory. Second, quantum theory fails to give an objective picture of the world that is unconnected to our role as observers. The formulas of quantum theory correspond to our actions preparing experiments and measuring their outcomes. Einstein objected to this because he believed strongly that physics should provide a picture of nature “as it is in itself.” After 1930, virtually all of Einstein’s colleagues were certain the revolution was over and that physics was nearly complete. Nearly alone in his stance, Einstein saw the quantum as only a stepping stone to the real thing, which he searched for the rest of his life. Quantum theory was not the only theory that bothered Einstein. Few people have appreciated how dissatisfied he was with his own theories of relativity. Special relativity grew out of Einstein’s insight that the laws of electromagnetism cannot depend on relative motion and that the speed of light therefore must be always the same, no matter how the source or the observer moves. Among the consequences of that theory are that energy and mass are equivalent (the now-legendary relationship E = mc2) and that time and distance are relative, not absolute. Special relativity was the result of 10 years of intellectual struggle, yet Einstein had convinced himself it was wrong within two years of publishing it. He rejected his theory, even before most physicists had come to accept it, for reasons that only he cared about. For another 10 years, as the world of physics slowly absorbed special relativity, Einstein pursued a lonely path away from it. Why? The main reason was that he wanted to extend relativity to include all observers, whereas his special theory postulates only an equivalence among a limited class of observers—those who aren’t accelerating. A second reason was to incorporate gravity, making use of a new principle he called the equivalence principle. This postulates that observers can never distinguish the effects of gravity from those of acceleration so long as they observe phenomena only in their immediate neighborhood. By this principle he linked the problem of gravity with the problem of extending relativity to all observers. Einstein was the only one who worried about these two problems. Meanwhile, other physicists came up with ways to incorporate gravitational phenomena directly into special relativity. This was the reasonable thing to do, for they were building directly on the success of the new theory Einstein had invented. And they succeeded in making the theory consistent. Moreover, their extensions of special relativity agreed with all experiments that had been done. So why did Einstein reject it? His reason was that his colleagues’ approach—incorporating gravity into special relativity rather than crafting a whole new theory—disagreed with his equivalence principle. Einstein understood quickly that there was a key experiment that could distinguish between the incremental approach of the other physicists and his own, radical approach. This was to measure the bending of light by the sun’s gravity, an effect predicted by the equivalence principle. A reasonable person might have waited to see how the experiment came out, and indeed, an opportunity to test the theory came in 1919. By that time Einstein had invented his second theory of relativity, which he called general relativity. The experiment appeared to confirm the new theory’s predictions. The result was announced on the front pages of the world’s newspapers, making Einstein the first scientist to be a star. General relativity is the most radical and challenging of Einstein’s discoveries—so much so that I believe the majority of physicists, even theoretical physicists, have yet to fully incorporate it into their thinking. The flashy stuff, like black holes, gravitational waves, the expanding universe, and the Big Bang are, it turns out, the easy parts of general relativity. The theory goes much deeper: It demands a radical change in how we think of space and time. All previous theories said that space and time have a fixed structure and that it is this structure that gives rise to the properties of things in the world, by giving every object a place and every event a time. In the transition from Aristotle to Newton to special relativity, that structure changed, but in each case the structure remained fixed. We and everything that we observe live in a space-time, with fixed and unchanging properties. That is the stage on which we play, but nothing we do or could do affects the structure of space and time themselves. General relativity is not about adding to those structures. It is not even about substituting those structures for a list of possible new structures. It rejects the whole idea that space and time are fixed at all. Instead, in general relativity the properties of space and time evolve dynamically in interaction with everything they contain. Furthermore, the essence of space and time now are just a set of relationships between events that take place in the history of the world. It is sufficient, it turns out, to speak only of two kinds of relationships: how events are related to each other causally (the order in which they unfold) and how many events are contained within a given interval of time, measured by a standard clock (how quickly they unfold relative to each other). Thus, in general relativity there is no fixed framework, no stage on which the world plays itself out. There is only an evolving network of relationships, making up the history of space, time, and matter. All the previous theories described space and time as fixed backgrounds on which things happen. The point of general relativity is that there is no background. This point is subtle and elusive. I was very fortunate to know the great astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar during his last years. Chandra, as we called him, was the first to discover that general relativity implied that stars above a certain mass would collapse into what we now call a black hole. Much later, he wrote a beautiful book describing the different solutions of the equations of general relativity that describe black holes. As I got to know him, Chandra shocked me by speaking of a deep anger toward Einstein. Chandra was upset that Einstein, after inventing general relativity, had abandoned this masterpiece, leaving it to others to struggle through it. I now believe that Chandra partly missed the point, and he is certainly not alone. The deepest point of general relativity is not that the universe may expand or that there are black holes. To think this way is to believe that general relativity is just another step in the progression of Aristotle to Newton to special relativity. Chandra, in his interest in the solutions of the theory, was, I fear––like so many others—reaching for a beautiful flower but missing the beauty of how it is that flowers come to be. But Chandra was right that in spite of the great triumph general relativity represented, Einstein did not linger long over it. For Einstein, quantum physics was the essential mystery, and nothing could be really fundamental that was not part of the solution to that problem. As general relativity didn’t explain quantum theory, it had to be provisional as well. It could only be a step towards Einstein’s goal, which was to find a theory of quantum phenomena that would agree with all the experiments, but satisfy his demand for clarity and completeness. Einstein imagined for a time that such a theory could come from an extension of general relativity. Thus he entered into the final period of his scientific life, his search for a unified field theory. He sought an extension of general relativity that would incorporate electromagnetism, thereby wedding the large-scale world where gravity dominates with the small-scale world of quantum physics. He tried a variety of means such as adding new dimensions of space-time or loosening somewhat the mathematical structure of general relativity. The irony is that some of these gambits worked, but they still led nowhere. For it turns out, that unified theories are a dime a dozen. There are many ways to generalize general relativity so as to incorporate the laws of electromagnetism. Nor is it much harder, as has been done recently, to extend the theory a bit further to incorporate nuclear forces, and so have a unified theory of all the forces. Indeed, the number of such unified theories keeps increasing. Recent estimates based on results from string theory indicate there are more than 10100 distinct unified field theories. Thus, it is as unclear now as it was for Einstein whether pursuing a unified field theory will lead to real progress in understanding nature. One way to understand this story is to say that theoretical physics has finally caught up to Einstein. While he was shunned in his Princeton years as he pursued the unified field theory, the Institute for Advanced Study where he worked is now filled with theorists who search for new variants of unified field theories. It is indeed a vindication of sorts for Einstein because much of what today’s string theorists do in practice is play with unified theories of the kinds that Einstein and his few colleagues invented. The problem with this picture is that by the end of his life Einstein had to some extent abandoned his search for a unified field theory. He had failed to find a version of the theory that did what was most important to him, which is to explain quantum phenomena in a way that involved neither measurements nor statistics. In his last years he was moving on to something even more radical. He proposed to give up the idea that space and time are continuous. It is fair to say that while the idea that matter is made of atoms goes back at least to the Greeks, few before Einstein questioned the smoothness and continuity of space and time. To one friend, Walter Dallenbäch, he wrote, “The problem seems to me how one can formulate statements about a discontinuum without calling on a continuum as an aid; the latter should be banned from the theory as a supplementary construction not justified by the essence of the problem, which corresponds to nothing ‘real.’ ” However, Einstein made no progress with this new direction. He complained that, “we still lack the mathematical structure, unfortunately.” To another friend, H. S. Joachim, he wrote: “It would be especially difficult to derive something like a spatio-temporal quasi-order from such a schema. I cannot imagine how the axiomatic framework of such a physics would appear, and I don’t like it when one talks about it in dark apostrophes. But I hold it entirely possible that the development will lead there.” So what is Einstein’s real legacy? Are any of us his followers? In this centennial year, there will be many who claim the mantle. That includes the community of relativists, but many of them rarely look beyond the theory. Instead they study it by finding solutions on computers or by looking for gravity waves. There are also a few physicists who follow Einstein in rejecting quantum theory and in searching for an alternative. Einstein would have been happy that some scientists agree with him, but he likely would have been critical that most work in that area ignores the problem of unification. Some string theorists will claim to be Einsteinians, and certainly Einstein would have approved of their search for a unification of physics. But here is how Brian Greene, in his last book, describes the state of the field: “Even today, more than three decades after its initial articulation, most string practitioners believe we still don’t have a comprehensive answer to the rudimentary question, What is string theory? . . . Most researchers feel that our current formulation of string theory still lacks the kind of core principle we find at the heart of other major advances.” Einstein’s whole life was a search for a theory of principles. It is hard to imagine he would have sustained interest in a theory for which, after more than 30 years of intensive investigation, no one is able to put forward any core principles. He may in this regard have been happier with approaches to quantum gravity that stay closer to the core principles of relativity. For example, loop quantum gravity preserves his discovery that space and time have no fixed background, and it also provides an answer to Einstein’s questions of how to go beyond the continuum. But Einstein would have found unacceptable all approaches to quantum gravity that take quantum mechanics as fundamental, including string theory and loop quantum gravity. Einstein never wavered from his rejection of quantum mechanics. His motive for making a unified field theory was not to extend the domain of quantum mechanics; it was rather to find an alternative to quantum mechanics. No research program that accepts quantum mechanics as a given can count itself to be within Einstein’s legacy. I think a sober assessment is that up until now, almost all of us who work in theoretical physics have failed to live up to Einstein’s legacy. His demand for a coherent theory of principle was uncompromising. It has not been reached—not by quantum theory, not by special or general relativity, not by anything invented since. Einstein’s moral clarity, his insistence that we should accept nothing less than a theory that gives a completely coherent account of individual phenomena, cannot be followed unless we reject almost all contemporary theoretical physics as insufficient. So is it possible to follow the path of Einstein? To do so, you cannot be a crank; you must be a well-trained professional physicist, literate in current theories and aware of their limitations, as he was. And you must insist on absolute clarity in your own work, rather than follow any fad or popular direction. Given the pressures of competition for academic positions, to follow Einstein’s path is to risk the price that he paid: unemployment in spite of abundant and obvious talent and skill at the craft of theoretical physics. In my whole career as a theoretical physicist, I have known only a handful of colleagues of whom it can truly be said have followed Einstein’s path. They are driven, as Einstein was, by a moral need for clear understanding. In everything they do, these few strive continually to invent a new theory of principle that could satisfy the strictest demands of coherence and consistency without regard to fashion or the professional consequences. Most have paid for their independence in a harder career path than equally talented scientists who follow the research agendas of the big professors. Let us be frank and admit that most of us have neither the courage nor the patience to emulate Einstein. We should instead honor Einstein by asking whether we can do anything to ensure that in the future those few who do follow Einstein’s path, those who approach science as uncompromisingly as he did, have less risk of unemployment of the sort he suffered at the beginning of his career and less risk of the marginalization he endured at the end. If we can do this, if we can make the path easier for those few who do follow him, we may make possible a revolution in science that even Einstein failed to achieve. A version of this article has previously appeared in the science publication Discover, and is copyrighted by Discover. No portion of this article may be used without the explicit consent of Discover and the author. Lee Smolin, a theoretical physicist, is founding member of and research at th Perimeter Institute, Waterloo, Canada. Smolin is the author of many scientific and general publications, including The Life of the Cosmos and Three Roads to Quantum Gravity.

Total recall boosts PDA writing

By Alfred Hermida Technology editor, BBC News website The software is based on pattern recognition But IBM researchers are betting that tracing letters on a touch screen will become the way to write on a handheld device like a PDA or mobile phone. They have developed software that works by recognising the patterns of words. "In the long run this will be one of the major interaction methods for mobile devices," said IBM researcher Shumin Zhai. Dubbed Shark (Shorthand-Aided Rapid Keyboarding), the team say the software is ready to go into commercial development and could be bundled with PDAs in the coming months. Palm power Handheld computing devices like PDAs and Tablet PCs are getting increasingly powerful. But without a keyboard, taking advantage of the potential of these gadgets can be a struggle. Anyone who has used a handheld device will be familiar with the problem. We realised that people remember patterns and not letters. There is some higher level learning that is encoded in human memory Dr Shumin Zhai, IBM These methods can be cumbersome and slow, as well as being prone to errors, leading Dr Zhai at IBM's Almaden Research Center in California to wonder if there was a better way. "The new problem is when computing takes place outside of the desktop format," he told the BBC News website. "You wanted something that offers both high speed and high accuracy. But on the other hand people don't want to spend a lot of time to learn." Even speech recognition software has its problems. While recording a memo works well, speech is less suited for longer, complete sentences. "The major issue with speech is that speech is a very different process to writing," said Dr Zhai. "Most people cannot speak an essay, an article. The way you speak and you write is very different." Pattern recognition Dr Zhai and his PhD student, Per-Ola Kristensson, took a sideways look at the problem and came up with some surprising results. "We realised that people remember patterns and not letters," explained Dr Zhai. "There is some higher level learning that is encoded in human memory." The Atomik keyboard is designed for letter associations Instead of tapping out letters or writing a word on screen, you trace each letter in a single, fluid stroke. The keyboard on screen shows the shape of the word. The software works with a standard Qwerty keyboard, as well as IBM's experimental Atomik keyboard. The keys in the Atomik keyboard are arranged to maximise letter associations. Dr Zhai reckons that 100 patterns cover about 40% of the words most people write. The software lends a hand by making allowances for mistakes. It uses algorithms to recognise that some letter combinations are more likely to form words than others. In tests, people have reached speeds of around 60 to 70 words per minute. While this is slower than touch-typing, it is much faster than tapping out words with a stylus. "Eventually you reach a high performance level as each time you trace a word, the pattern will start to be remembered," said Dr Zhai. "It will become a recall-based skill." An experimental version of the software has been available as a free download from IBM's Alphaworks site for a year. The team say they are now ready to develop a commercial version that could make it way onto handheld devices in the near future.

* Why is the Sky Dark at Night?

Introduction If you think the answer to this question is obvious, think again. The best minds of physics have studied this question for over a century, and the current answer may surprise you. In 1826, the astronomer Heinrich Olbers asked, "Why is the sky dark at night?" By his time, physicists had learned enough to realize that, in a stable, infinite universe (one not expanding), with an even distribution of stars, the entire universe should gradually heat up. Think about it — if there are stars emitting energy throughout the universe (energy sources), and if there is no way ultimately to dispose of that energy (energy sinks), then all the objects in the universe must rise in temperature, eventually reaching the temperature of the stars themselves. Scientists and physicists had to learn quite a lot about the behavior of energy before they were even prepared to ask Olbers' question. In these pages you will learn the simple physics behind Olbers' question, some of the answers that have been proposed, and the currently accepted answer. You will also discover the connection between a rubber band, your refrigerator, and the universe.

Military exercises 'good for endangered species' : Nature News

Published online 12 August 2005 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news050808-14 News Firing ranges can have more wildlife than national parks. Explosions in military training sites can actually provide habitats for some species. © Punchstock Military exercises are boosting biodiversity, according to a study of land used for US training manoeuvres in Germany. Such land has more endangered species than nearby national parks. The land is uncultivated, but also churned up by tank tracks and explosions. This creates habitat both for species that prefer pristine lands and those that require disturbed ground, explains ecologist Steven Warren of Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Military land can host more species than agricultural land, Warren told a meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Montreal. What's more, its biodiversity can also exceed that of natural parks, where species that need disturbance cannot get a foothold. Warren and his colleague Reiner Büttner of the Institute of Botany and Landscape Ecology in Hemhofen, Germany, surveyed two US military bases at Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels in the southern state of Bavaria. Although the bases represent less than 1% of the state's area, they contain 22% of its endangered species, Warren told the meeting. The national parks cover a similar area but host fewer endangered plants and animals, Warren says. Nature's army "Some people are very anti-military," Warren says. "They assume that there's nothing the military can do that will be beneficial, particularly with relation to ecology." Warren, who doesn't work for the army, used to assume the same himself. "Twenty years ago I looked at military activities as an ecologist and thought 'they need me'. But I guess that's not really so." Warren and Büttner studied several species to try and understand the benefits of military ground. One, the natterjack toad, breeds in water-filled ruts created by tank tracks, they found. The tendency when setting aside a nature reserve is to prevent disturbances such as periodic flooding, says Warren. But this can inadvertently remove some habitats. "[Tanks] replace to some degree the processes that have been stopped," Warren says. The same goes for fires caused by bombing. "We've trained generations of people that fire is bad," he says, "but in fact it's crucial for ecosystems." Trial by fire The number of species on former Soviet training camps around Berlin has dropped since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Warren says, supporting the idea that military activity is good for biodiversity. ADVERTISEMENT "But some military chiefs worry that endangered species may begin to obstruct their exercises." The US Marine Corps has previously complained that the US Endangered Species Act threatens to turn its Camp Pendleton beach in San Diego County, California - home to 18 threatened species - into a nature reserve rather than a training facility. Warren hopes that conservationists could learn from the military, and provide disturbances to help endangered species. One trial project at Tennenlohe, near Nuremberg in Germany, involves cutting up land using an agricultural tool called a ripper in a bid to mimic tank tracks.

Crackdown due on violent web porn

Coutts was obsessed with violent porn sites Methods used to combat child porn are set to be drawn upon and police officers could be given greater powers. A Home Office spokesman confirmed an announcement would be made "shortly", following international talks. British sites carrying illegal sexually violent porn can be closed but images on foreign websites can be accessed. Discussions on such websites have taken place between G8 countries and internet service providers. If something is brought in I will feel that my daughter's death would not have been entirely in vain Liz Longhurst Law hopes for Jane's mother The move comes after Home Secretary Charles Clarke met the mother of 31-year-old teacher Jane Longhurst, from Brighton, who was murdered by Graham Coutts, a friend addicted to sexually violent internet porn. Liz Longhurst, of Reading, Berkshire, was shocked such material was freely available and the new laws may make viewing such images from the UK could now be made an offence. Mrs Longhurst has campaigned for new laws and welcomed reports of a government crackdown on such sites. She told the BBC News website: "If it had not been for the publicity surrounding my daughter's horrendous death, and starting off the trust and the campaign, I think nothing much would have been done. "If something is brought in I will feel that my daughter's death would not have been entirely in vain." International co-operation One of the problems to be tackled is the lack of an international agreement on what constitutes obscene porn, meaning foreign sites with such images can be accessed from the UK. A Home Office spokesman said: "We are looking at ways in which the current law might be strengthened. "We want to do all we can to block access to illegal sites." Officials were in talks with internet firms and other people, he said. UK sites publishing such material faced prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act, but effective action against overseas websites could "be achieved only through international co-operation", he added. "We have made a lot of progress in relation to child pornography and we will look at how lessons can be learned from that."

Nanotech transistor powers up : Nature News

Published online 14 August 2005 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news050808-17 News Carbon nanotubes could make for smaller circuits. The tiny Y-shaped nanotube could mark a big step in electronics. © P. Bandaru/UCSD/Nat. Mater. The first electrical switch made entirely from carbon nanotubes has been unveiled. Its inventors hope that it could help to replace silicon chips with faster, cheaper, smaller components. The device is a Y-shaped nanotube that behaves like a transistor, such as those found in every electronic device in your home. Current flowing from one branch to another can be switched on and off by applying a voltage to the third. The switching is perfect - the current is either on or off, with nothing in between. "The small size and dramatic switching behaviour of these nanotubes makes them candidates for a new class of transistor," says Prabhakar Bandaru, a materials scientist at the University of California, San Diego, who led the team of inventors. The scientists make their Y-shaped nanotubes by adding a titanium-iron catalyst to a pot of straight nanotubes while they are growing. When a catalyst particle sticks to the side of a nanotube, it forms the base of a new branch, they report in Nature Materials1. Smaller chips, bigger leaks Conventional transistors are built from layers of semiconducting materials, such as silicon. Better manufacturing methods have led to ever-smaller chips, packing enormous amounts of computing power into desktop machines. But as the components shrink, they start to leak electrical current. This causes overheating, wastes power, and can make some switches read 'on' when they should be 'off'. It seems that the silicon chip cannot get much smaller. So scientists are looking for ways to make carbon nanotubes do the same job. These rolled up sheets of carbon atoms conduct electricity and take up a lot less room than silicon circuits, measuring just a few billionths of a metre across. Nanotubes can also be made using cheaper chemical methods that avoid the laborious layering and etching used to make today's circuits. "This allows us to go for devices with much smaller size but much more complex functionalities," explains Hongqi Xu, a physicist from Lund University in Sweden. Build gates Scientists have already made logic circuits using nanotubes2,3,4, but these required metal 'gates' to control the flow of charge. Making such devices requires several steps, so it is unlikely that they could compete economically with conventional electronics, says Xu. ADVERTISEMENT But the gates in the new device are part of the nanotube's structure, making it fully self-contained, explains Bandaru. He adds that the catalyst particle sitting at the centre of the nanotube could be tweaked to change the switching properties of the device - making it switch at different voltages, for example. The team is now trying to extend the alphabet of branched nanotubes with T- and X-shapes that could allow different functions. "What really keeps me enthused is that there are so many possibilities," says Bandaru.