Links October 2010

October 14, 2010 | etbe

Bruce Schneier wrote an insightful post about why designing products for wiretapping is a bad idea [1]. It seems that large parts of the Internet will be easy to tap (for both governments and criminals) in the near future unless something is done. The bad results of criminal use will outweigh any benefits of government use.

Sam Watkins wrote an informative post about Android security [2]. Among other things any application can read all stored data including all photos, that’s got to be a problem for anyone who photographs themself naked…

Rebecca Saxe gave an interesting TED talk about how brains make moral judgements [3]. Somehow she managed to speak about the Theory of Mind without mentioning Autism once.

The Guardian has an amusing article by Cory Doctorow about security policies in banks [4]. He advocates promoting statistical literacy (or at least not promoting a lack of it) as a sound government policy. He also suggests allowing regulators to fine banks that get it wrong.

Steven Johnson gave an interesting TED talk about Where Good Ideas Come From [5]. It’s a bit slow at the start but gets good at the end.

Adam Grosser gave an interesting TED talk about a fridge that was designed for use in Africa [6]. The core of the Absorption Refrigerator is designed to be heated in a pot of water in a cooking fire and it can then keep food cool for 12 hours. It’s a pity that they couldn’t design it to work on solar power to avoid the fuel use for the cooking fire.

Josh Silver gave an interesting TED talk about liquid filled spectacles [7]. The glasses are shipped with a syringe filled with liquid at each side that is used to inflate the lenses to the desired refractive index. The wearer can just adjust the syringes until they get to the right magnification, as there are separate syringes the glasses work well with people who’s eyes aren’t identical (which is most people). Once the syringes are at the right spots the user can tighten some screws to prevent further transfer of liquid and cut the syringes off – to give glasses that aren’t overly heavy but which can’t be adjusted any more, I guess that a natural extension to this would be to allow the syringes to be re-attached so that the user could adjust them every year to match declining vision. One thing that this wouldn’t do is counter for Astigmatism (where the lens of the eye doesn’t focus light to a point), but I guess they could make lenses to deal with a few common varieties of Astigmatism so that most people who have that problem can get a reasonable approximation. The current best effort is to make the glasses cost $19, which is 19 days salary for some of the poorest people in the world. Glasses in Australia cost up to $650 for a pair (or a more common cost of $200 or about $100 after Medicare) which would be about one day’s salary.

Eben Bayer gave an inspiring TED talk about one of the ways that mushrooms can save the planet [8]. He has designed molds that can be filled with Pasteurised organic waste (seed husks etc) and then seeded with fungal spores. The fungus then grows mycelium (thin fungal root fibers) through the organic waste making it into a solid structure which fits the shape of the mold. This is currently being used to replace poly-styrene foam for packaging and can apparently be used for making tiles that are fire retardant and sound proof for constructing buildings. The main benefits of the material are that it can be cheaply made without petrochemicals and that it is bio-degradable, I’m not sure how the bio-degradable part would work with constructing buildings – maybe they would just replace the panels every few years.

Annie Lennox gave a TED talk about her Sing foundation to care for women and children who are affected by AIDS [9]. She describes the effect of AIDS in Africa as Genocide.

Robert Ballard gave a very informative TED talk about exploring the oceans [10]. This was one of the most informative TED talks I’ve seen and Robert is also one of the most enthusiastic speakers I’ve seen, it’s really worth watching! We really need more money spent on exploring the oceans.

Jessa Gamble gave an interesting TED talk which suggests that the best thing to do is to go to bed at about sunset and then have a couple of hours of relaxing time during the middle of the night [11]. Apparently the subjects of body-block experiments who live for a month in a bunker without natural light or access to a clock get better sleep in this manner than they ever had in their life and feel fully awake for the first time.

World Changing is a blog that has a lot of interesting articles about climate change and related issues [12]. It’s worth a read.

Cynthia Schneider gave an interesting TED talk about how reality competition TV is affecting reality [13]. Shows that are derived from the American Idol concept are driving a resurgence in some traditional forms of performance art while also promoting equality – among other things it’s apparent that winning is more important than misogyny.

The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer is an interesting concept [14]. I think it would be good to have something similar for Computer Science.

Benjamin Mako Hill wrote an interesting and insightful essay about Piracy and Free Software [15].

Links September 2010

September 29, 2010 | etbe

Kevin Stone gave an interesting TED talk about the biological future of joint replacement [1]. Using stem cells and animal tissue which has been prepared to destroy the chemicals that trigger immune responses the tissues can regrow. Replacing joints with titanium and ceramic lets people walk again, regrowing them with Kevin’s methods allows them to compete at the highest levels of sporting contests!

Derek Sivers gave a brief and interesting TED talk advising people to keep their goals secret if they want to achieve them [2].

The Parrot AR.Drone is an interesting device [3], it’s a four-propeller helicopter that is controlled by WiFi. Apparently there is little security (it binds to the first WiFi client it sees) which is a significant down-side. It returns a video feed to the controlling iPhone as it flys and can hover when it loses it’s connection. It will be interesting to see when people write software for other devices (Android etc). Also I wonder whether there will be open source weapons kits for it. If you could have those devices use either a nerf gun or a lance to attack each other’s turbines then you could have drone jousting.

Don Marti had an interesting new idea for a crime game [4]. The main concept is to use the element of mistrust that is present in real criminal gangs. The new guy you invite to join a job might inform the police and you won’t know for sure. Sometimes a heist will be discovered by the police through bad luck (or good police work) and you will wonder whether there was an informant. The aim is for a simple game design and with the complexity in email discussions between the players.

The C64 isn’t dead, it’s even on the Internet [5], an original C64 is running a web site!

Tan Li gave an interesting TED talk about a new headset to read brain-waves [6]. The device in question can be applied in minutes, requires no gel or abrasion of the scalp, connects to the computer wirelessly and is relatively cheap at $300US. The developer’s kit (which I think includes a headset) is $500US. I wonder if the community can develop a cheaper version of this which is more open.

Lisa Margonelli gave an interesting TED talk about the politics of oil [7]. One of her insightful points is that the subsidies for oil should be shifted from the oil industry to middle-class consumers. But she goes off track a bit by suggesting gradual oil tax increases until 2020, according to the best estimates of groups such as the CSIRO they won’t need to have taxes to give a high oil price in 2020! She is aiming for a 20% reduction in petrol use by 2020, but I’m not aware of any serious group of scientists who have evidence to suggest that the production capacity in 2020 will be close to 80% what it is now.

Slate has a good article about The Innocence Project which uses DNA tests to overturn false convictions [8], it’s scarey how badly the justice system works.

Rachel Sussman gave an interesting talk about the World’s Oldest Living Things [9], nothing less than 2000 years old is included.

Nicholas Negroponte gave an interesting EG 2007 talk about the OLPC project [10]. While some of the content about OLPC production is a little dated the OLPC history is relevant and his personal opinions regarding the benefits that children receive from computers are insightful.

Jayne Poynter gave an interesting TED talk about life in Biosphere 2 [11]. Her work on mini-biospheres is also interesting. Let’s hope we get a permanent Biosphere running outside the Earth sometime soon.

Sheryl WuDunn gave an informative TED talk titled “Our Century’s Greatest Injustice” about the plight of women in most of the world [12].

Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote a good article about the use of ssh-agent [13]. You really should use it to secure your ssh keys.

Mark Shuttleworth has described the development process for the Ubuntu font [14]. This is a very interesting project and IMHO one of the most significant things that Ubuntu has done. Prior to this an entirely closed development process has been used for font development. Now we are getting a major new font family developed with a free and open process and with some new legal developments for a font license! One thing to note that this project appears to have involved a lot of work from professional font designers, it sounds like Canonical spent a significant amount of money on this project.

Links August 2010

August 27, 2010 | etbe

Urban Honking has an insightful article about the Arduino and suggests that it is one of the most important factors for the development of the computer industry in the near future [1]. It compares the Arduino to the Altair.

Wired has an interesting article about a company that provides a satellite kit and a launch into low Earth orbit for $8000 [2]. Arduino in space?

Linux Journal has an interesting article by David Rowe about the “Mesh Potato” which is a Wifi mesh router that also runs VOIP [3]. One particularly interesting aspect of this article is the explanation of the way they designed and tested it.

Susan Shaw gave an informative TED talk about the toxic effects of the attempts to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico [4]. It seems that trying to disperse the oil just makes it worse, and the chemical companies are refusing to disclose the chemicals that are being used.

The New York Times has an interesting article by David Leonhardt about the value of pre-school teachers [5]. Some research on the difference that good teachers can make in economic terms suggests that the make an economic difference to the children to the value of $320,000 per annum (IE a class of 16 children who were taught for a year would on average each receive a benefit of $20,000 over their lifetime). Also there are social benefits which aren’t counted by that study. While I can’t imagine pre-school teachers getting paid $320,000 any time soon, it does seem obvious that good teachers deserve significantly better pay. Of course one problem is how to determine which teachers are good, better test results are not a reliable indication.

Paul Krugman describes America as being “on the unlit, unpaved road to nowhere” due to the policies of saving money by cutting funding for schools, street-lights, and roads [6].

The Chive has an amusing post about how to quit a bad job [7]. It would be good if someone really did this, I’m sure that there are enough creative people who don’t like their job.

Hell Pizza in New Zealand published a zombie themed choose your own adventure on Youtube [8]. Unfortunately the options to choose the next segment don’t work on HTML5 with Chromium so if you don’t have flash you miss out.

AskThePilot.com has an informative essay about airline security written by a commercial pilot [9]. The anecdote about the pilot not being allowed to take the type of knife that is issued to first and business class passengers is rather amusing.

FredOnEverything.net has an interesting analysis of Wikileaks and why the Pentagon and Fox News hate it [10]. Fred is a very skillful writer, while he’s not the first person to say some of these things he may have said it best.

The Wikipedia page on Borosilicate glass (which is best known under the trademark Pyrex) is really interesting [11]. Borsilicate glass was formerly known as “Duran” and it’s main characteristic that makes it suitable for lab use is resistance to Thermal Shock, but it’s also harder and has a higher melting point. Apparently you can get Pyrex drinking glasses, I want some!

Eben Moglen gave an interesting talk “Freedom in the Cloud” about the development of free servers to manage personal data and replace Facebook etc (among many other things) [12]. The Debian Wiki has an articla about designing such a system [13].

The APNIC published an interesting paper on IPv4 background radiation [14]. Apparently some /24’s receive so much random traffic (from broken applications and viruses) that they can’t be delegated. IPv6 will solve this problem by making it infeasible to scan all IP addresses. Also it’s interesting to note the excessive amounts of traffic to 1.0.168.192 which is from applications too broken to correctly send data to 192.168.0.1 which have been installed by sysadmins who are too incompetent to watch what is being sent out of their network.

Links July 2010

July 26, 2010 | etbe

David Byrne gave an interesting TED talk about how changes to architecture drove changes to musical styles [1]. I think he does stretch the point a little. To a certain extent people develop the most complex instruments and the largest music halls that can be supported by the level of technology in their society – people with a hunter-gatherer civilisation play drums because they can build them and can carry them.

The NY Times has an interesting article about paternity leave in Sweden [2]. The Swedish government pays for a total of 13 months leave that can be split between parents for every child. Of those 13 months 2 months can only be taken by the father – and that is likely to increase to a minimum of 4 months of paternity leave after the next election.

Dan Meyer gave an interesting TEDX talk about how the current math curriculum in the US (as well as Australia and lots of other countries that do the same thing) is totally wrong [3]. His main point is that maths problems should be based on real-world use cases where not all needed data is immediately available and there is also useless data that must be discarded. He believes that the most important thing is developing mathematical problem solving skills – basically the things that I did for fun when I was in primary school are skills that need to be taught to high-school students…

The Atlantic magazine has an amusing article by Daniel Byman and Christine Fair about the incompetent Islamic terrorists [4]. In Afghanistan half the suicide bombers kill only themselves and the US government has a lot of evidence of Taliban soldiers practicing bestiality and collecting porn. Islamic extremist groups are staffed by people who are bad soldiers and bad Muslims.

Jon Masters wrote an interesting post titled “What Would Jesus Buy” about ethical purchasing decisions [5]. Jon references The Church of Stop Shopping which isn’t a real religious organisation but a street theatre activist group.

ZeroHedga has an insightful article comparing corporations and the US government to street gangs [6]. The conclusion is that when gangs take over a neighbourhood everyone has to join a gang for their own protection.

Hillel Cooperman gave an interesting TED talk about being obsessed with Lego [7]. He compares Lego fans to Furries and makes a good case for this comparison.

Marian Bantjes gave an interesting TED talk about her graphic art / graphic design work [8]. I’ve never seen anything quite like this.

Business Insider has an interesting article about oil cleanup, it seems that most people who worked on the Exxon Valdez disaster are now dead [9], s opposed to most people who worked in almost every other occupation at that time who are either still working or enjoying their retirement. The current gulf disaster is bigger, will require more workers for the cleanup, and can be expected to have a higher death toll. Some people claim that measures to reduce oil efficiency will impact the economy, how will millions of people who are chronically ill for the rest of their lives impact the economy?

The NY Times has an interesting article on “circle lenses” [10], contact lenses designed to make the eyes look larger. It’s illegal to sell contact lenses in the US without a prescription, but the latest trend is for women to buy them online in a variety of colors. The FDA should probably approve them, it would be better to have the quality controls you expect from a medical supply company instead of having people rely on Malaysian mail-order companies for the safety of their eyes.

Don Marti has written an interesting article about the economic decline in the US, he suggests making pension funds invest in local jobs [11]. Companies are supposed to act on behalf of their stock-holders, but US companies often have the majority of their stock owned by the pension funds of workers but they act on behalf of a small number of rich people who own a minority of the stock. Don’s article was inspired by Andy Grove’s article in Bloomberg about the stagnation in technological development that has been caused by off-shoring the manufacturing [12].

Neil Brown has completed a test release of a new Linux software RAID feature for arrays with multiple redundancy that have bad sectors [13]. When a disk gets a bad sector the current behavior is to kick it out of the array, if you have two such errors on a 3 disk RAID-1 or a RAID-6 array then you lose all redundancy and are at risk of catastrophic failure even though in most cases both disks will still mostly work. With this patch some regions of the disk may be excluded but it can provide redundancy for other stripes. Thanks Neil for your great work here, and all your previous work over the last 10+ years!

The RSPCA has a new campaign titled “Close the Puppy Factories” [14]. Dogs are kept in very poor conditions and forced to churn out puppies for their entire lives to supply pet stores. The RSPCA recommends that people buy puppies from registered dog breeders (not “registered dog breeding companies”) and ask to see the dog’s parents. They also recommend not buying from classified adverts or pet stores. Animal shelters have to euthenise huge numbers of unwanted animals, you can buy a pet dog or cat from an animal shelter for a small fee that covers the expenses related to housing and spaying it – and save that animal from being euthenised!

Maureen Dowd criticises the Catholic Church properly in an article for the New York Times [15]. The Catholic Church officially regards ordaining a woman and raping a child to be equally bad offenses.

Frank Rich wrote an interesting column for the New York Times about Mel Gibson [16]. He describes the destruction of Mel Gibson’s reputation as a symptom of changes in the culture in the US and also links it to the fall of Ted Haggard (who supported Gibson’s most notorious movie The Passion of the Christ).

Links June 2010

June 12, 2010 | etbe

Seth Berkley gave an interesting TED talk about developing vaccines against the HIV and Influenza viruses [1]. The part I found most interesting was the description of how vaccines against viruses are currently developed using eggs and how they plan to use bacteria instead for faster and cheaper production. One of the problems with using eggs is that if the chickens catch the disease and die then you can’t make a vaccine.

Aigars Mahinovs wrote a really good review of Microsoft Azure and compared it to Amazon EC2 [2]. It didn’t surprise me that Azure compared poorly to the competition.

Johanna Blakley gave an insightful TED talk about IP lessons from the fashion industry [3]. She explained how an entire lack of IP protection other than trademark law was an essential part of the success of the fashion industry. She also compared the profits in various industries and showed that industries with little or no IP protection involve vastly larger amounts of money than industries with strong IP protection.

Lisa D wrote an insightful post about whether Autism Spectrum Disorders (such as Asperger Syndrome) should be considered to be disabilities [4]. I don’t entirely agree with her, but she makes some really good points.

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy gave an interesting TED talk about the way the Taliban train young children to become suicide bombers [5]. Apparently the Taliban prey on large poor families, sometimes paying the parents for taking children away to “school”. At the Taliban schools the children are beaten, treated poorly, and taught theology by liars who will say whatever it takes to get a result. Then after being brain-washed they are sent out to die.

Wired has an interesting article about Charles Komanoffâ€™s research into New York traffic problems [6]. He aims to track all the economic externalities of traffic patterns and determine incentives to encourage people to do things that impose less costs on the general economy. His suggestions include making all bus travel free as the externality of the time spent collecting fares is greater than the fare revenue. It’s a really interesting article, his research methods should be implemented when analysing traffic in all large cities, and many of his solutions can be implemented right now without further analysis – such as free buses and variable ticket pricing according to the time of day.

William Li gave an interesting TED talk about starving cancer by preventing new blood vessels from growing to feed it [7]. Drugs to do this have been shown to increase the life expectancy of cancer patients by more than 100% on average. Also autopsies of people who died in car accidents show that half the women in their 40’s had breast cancer and half the men in their 50’s prostate cancer but those cancers didn’t grow due to a natural lack of blood supply, so the aim here is to merely promote what naturally happens in terms of regulating cancers and preventing them from growing larger than 0.5mm^3. There are a number of foods that prevent blood vessels growing to cancers which includes dark chocolate! ;) Also drugs which prevent blood vessel growth also prevent obesity, I always thought that eating chocolate all the time prevented me from getting fat due to the central nervous system stimulants that kept me active…

Graham Hill gave an inspiring TED talk about becoming a weekday vegetarian [8]. Instead of making a commitment to being always vegetarian he’s just mostly vegetarian (only eating meat on Sundays). He saves most of the environmental cost and doesn’t feel guilty if he ever misses a day. It’s an interesting concept.

Cory Doctorow wrote an insightful article for the Guardian about the phrase “Information Wants To Be Free [9]. He points out that really it’s people who want to be free from the tyranny that is being imposed on us in the name of anti-piracy measures. He also points out that it’s a useful straw-man for the MAFIAA to use when claiming that we are all pirates.

The Atlantic has an interesting article about the way that Google is working to save journalistic news [10].

Adam Sadowsky gave an interesting TED talk about creating a Rube Goldberg machine for the OK Go video “This Too Shall Pass” [11]. At the end of the talk they include a 640*480 resolution copy of the music video.

Brian Cox gave an interesting TED talk advocating increased government spending on scientific research [12]. Among other things he pointed out that the best research indicates that the amount of money the US government invested in the Apollo program was returned 14* to the US economy due to exports of new American products that were based on that research. It’s surprising that any justification other than the return on investment for the Apollo program is needed!

Moot gave an interesting TED talk about Anonymity [13]. I don’t think that he made a good case for anonymity, he cited one person being identified and arrested for animal cruelty due to the efforts of 4chan people and also the campaign against the Cult of Scientology (which has not been very successful so far).

Rory Sutherland gave an intriguing TED talk titled “Sweat the Small Stuff” [14]. He describes how small cheap changes can often provide greater benefits than huge expensive changes and advocates corporations having a Chief Detail Officer to take charge of identifying and implementing such changes.

TED Hosted an interesting debate between pro and anti nuclear campaigners [15]. They agreed that global warming is a significant imminent problem but disagree on what methods should be implemented to solve it.

Links May 2010

May 25, 2010 | etbe

AdRevenge is an interesting concept to pay for Google Adsense adverts about how companies suck [1]. If a suitably large group of people pay to warn you about a company then it’s a good signal that the company is actually doing the wrong thing.

A guest post by Mili on Charles Stross’ blog has an interesting analysis of the economcs of “Intellectual Property” and concludes that content is a public good [2].

New Age Terrorists Develop Homeopathic Bomb [3], an amusing satire of medical fraud and security theatre. The sit has a lot of other good satire too.

Mark Shuttleworth wrote an interesting post about new window management changes that will soon go into Ubuntu [4]. He points out that the bottom status bar in applications is a throw-back to Windows 3.1 and notes that a large part of the incentive for removing it (and using the title-bar for the status) is the work on the Netbook version of Ubuntu. This is really ironic given that the resolution of current Netbooks is quite similar to that of desktop systems that were current when Windows 3.1 came out.

Omar Ahmad gave an insightful TED talk about the benefit of using a pen and paper to send a letter to a politician [5].

Sebastian Wernicke gave an amusing and informative TED talk about how to give a good TED talk [6]. His talk gives some useful ideas for public speaking that are worth considering.

Catherine Mohr gave a brief and interesting TED talk about how to build an energy efficient house with low embodied energy [7]. Her blog at www.301monroe.com has the details.

Stephen Wolfram (of Mathematica fame) gave an interesting TED talk [8]. He covers a lot of interesting things that can be done with computers, primarily based on the Wolfram Alpha [9] platform which allows natural language queries of a large data set. He also talks about the search for a Theory of Everything.

Esther Duflo gave an interesting TED talk about using social experiments to fight poverty [10]. She describes how scientific tests have been used to determine the effectiveness of various ways of preventing disease and encouraging education in developing countries. One example of the effectiveness of such research is the DeWormTheWorld.org project which was founded after it was discovered that treating intestinal worms was the most cost effective way of getting African children to spend longer at school.

David L. Rosenhan wrote an interesting research paper “On Being Sane In Insane Places” about pseudo-patients admitted to psychiatric hospitals [11]. It seems that psychiatric staff were totally unable to recognise a sane person who was admitted even though other patients could do so. It also documents how psychiatric patients were treated as sub-human. One would hope that things had improved since 1973, but it seems likely that many modern psychiatric hospitals are as bad as was typical in 1973. It’s also worth considering the issue of the treatment in society of people who have been diagnosed with a mental illness, it seems likely that the way people are treated in the community would have similar bad results to that which was documented for treatment in psychiatric hospitals – even the sanest people will act strangely if treated in an insane manner! Also it seems to me that there could be potential for using a panel of patients assembled via the Delphi Method as part of the psychiatric assessment process as it has been demonstrated that patients can sometimes assess other patients more accurately than psychiatrists!

Simon Sinek gave an inspiring TED talk about how great leaders inspire action [12]. Of course the ideas he describes don’t just apply to great leaders, they should apply to ordinary people who just want to convince others to adopt their ideas.

Stephen Collins write a good article summarising the main reasons why the proposed great firewall of Australia is a bad idea [13].

Lenore Skenazy who is famous for letting her 9yo son catch the metro alone during broad daylight on a pre-planned route home has created a web site about Free Range Kids [14]. She seems to be starting a movement to oppose Helicopter Parenting and has already written a book about her ideas for parenting. The incidence of crime has been steadily increasing, as has the ability of the police to apprehend criminals and recover abducted children. There’s no reason for children to be prevented from doing most of the things that children did when I was young!

Links April 2010

April 25, 2010 | etbe

Sam Harris gave an interesting TED talk about whether there are scientific answers to moral questions [1]. One of his insightful points was that when dealing with facts certain opinions should be excluded – it would be good if journalists who report on issues of science could understand this. Another insight was that religious people most strongly agree with him regarding the issue of whether there are factual answers to moral questions – but they think that God just handed the answers to their ancesters rather than making it an issue that requires consideration. He cites the issue of gay marriage as being a distraction from moral issues such as genocide and poverty. He asks “how have we convinced ourself that every culture has a point of view worth considering?”. He asks how the ignorance of the Taliban on the topic of physics is any less obvious than on the topic of human well-being.

Dan Gilbert gave an insightful TED talk titled “Why Are We Happy?” [2]. One interesting fact he cites is that people who become paraplegic are no less happy in the long term than people who win the lottery. He points out that a shopping mall full of Zen monks is not going to be particularly profitable and uses this fact to explain the promotion of natural happiness over synthetic happiness in our society.

Dan Barber gave an amusing and informative TED talk “How I Fell in Love with a Fish” [3]. He speaks about ecological fish farming and how the fish are more tasty as well as the farm being good for the environment. The farm in question is in the south-west of Spain, hopefully there will be more similar farms in other parts of the world soon.

Gary Lauder gave an interesting brief TED talk about road signs [4]. His main point was to advocate a road sign saying “take turns”, but there are already signs in the US at freeway on-ramps saying that 1 or 2 cars may enter every time the light turns green – which is a similar concept. The innovative thing he did was to estimate the amount of time and petrol wasted by stop signs, add that over a year based on the average income and then estimate that an annuity covering that ongoing expense would cost more than $2,000,000. This makes two stop signs at an intersection have an expense of $1,000,000 each. He suggests that rather than installing stop signs it would be cheaper to buy the adjacent land, chop down all trees, and then sell it again.

Alan Siegel gave an insightful TED talk about simplifying legal documents [5]. He gives an example of an IRS document which was analysed with a Heat Map to show which parts confused the readers – the IRS adopted a new document that his group designed which made it easier for taxpayers. He advocates legislation to make legal documents easier to understand for customers of financial services.

Tim Berners Lee gave an interesting TED talk about Open Data, he illustrated it with some fantastic videos showing how mashups have been used with government data [6] and how the Open Street Map project developed over time.

Martin F. Krafft gave an interesting Debconf talk about Tool Adoption Behavior in the Debian project [7]. One thing that I found particularly interesting was his description of the Delphi Method that he used to assemble a panel of experts and gather a consensus of opinion. The post-processing on this talk was very good, in some sections Martin’s presentation notes are shown on screen with the video of him in the corner. As an aside, I think we really do need camera-phones.

The Big Money has an interesting article comparing the Mafia “Bust Out” with the practices of US banks [8].

Mark Roth gave an exciting TED talk about using Hydrogen Sulphide to trigger suspended animation [9]. They are now doing human trials for suspending people who have serious injuries to reduce tissue damage during the process of surgery.

Pawan Sinha gave an interesting TED talk about how brains learn to see [10]. He started by talking about curing blindness in people who have been blind since birth. But he then ended by showing some research into the correlation between visual processing and Autism, he showed that an Autistic child had significantly different visual patterns when playing Pong to an NT child.

Adora Svitak gave an insightful TED talk about what adults can learn from kids [11]. She made some particularly interesting points about the education system requiring that adults respect children more and expect them to do better than their parents – which is essential for all progress in society.

The NY Times has an interesting article on animal homosexuality [12]. In terms of research it focusses on lesbian relationships between albatrosses. But a large part of the article is devoted to the politics of scientific research into animal sexuality.

BrowserShots.org shows you what your web site looks like in different web browsers [13].

Cory Doctorow wrote an insightful article titles “Can You Survive a Benevolent Dictatorship” about the Apple DRM [14]. He describes the way the Apple Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) doesn’t stop copyright violation but does reduce competition in the computer industry. He is not going to sell his work on the Apple store (for the iPad or iPhone etc) and suggests that customers should choose a more open platform. It’s unfortunate that he didn’t suggest a better platform.

Links March 2010

March 23, 2010 | etbe

Blaise Aguera y Arcas gave an exciting demonstration of new augmented reality mapping software from Microsoft that combines video (including live video) with static mapping data and pictures [1]. This is a significant advance over current mapping systems such as Google Earth – but it’s not released yet either. It will be interesting to see whether Google or Microsoft gets this released first.

The New York Review of Books has an insightful atricle by Garry Kasparov about human/computer chess [2]. It’s surprising the degree to which a combination of human and computer chess playing can give a good result. Amateur human chess players plus regular PCs can beat grandmasters with computers or high-end computers with human help. It’s apparently the quality of human-computer interaction that determines the quality of play. But the article contains a lot more, I recommend reading it.

Daniel Kahneman gave an interesting TED talk about the difference between experiential and memory happyness [3]. As the concept of the moment is so short (about 3 seconds) apparently most people try to optimise their actions for the best memories of being happy. But to do so requires some different strategies. For example a two week vacation gives a memory that’s not much different from a one week vacation. Therefore it seems that you would be better off staying in a five star hotel for a week than a four star hotel for two weeks, and eat dinner at a Michelin Star restaurant at least once per holiday even if it means eating at McDonalds on other occasions due to lack of funds.

Temple Grandin gave an interesting TED talk “The World Needs all Kinds of Minds” [4] which mostly focussed on teaching children who are on the Autism spectrum. She is concerned that autistic children won’t end up where they belong “in Silicon Valley”.

Anupam Mishra gave an interesting TED talk about how the people of India’s Golden desert built structures to harvest and store water [5]. Some of their ideas should be copied in Australia, due to mismanagement and stupidity Australians are failing to survive in much more hospitable places.

Michael Tieman wrote an insightful and well researched article about the OSI’s rejection of the IIPA’s attacks on Open Source [6]. This is worth reading by anyone who wants to make a business or social case for free software.

Mark Shuttleworth wrote an interesting post about the new visual style for Ubuntu and Canonical [7]. Apparently this includes the creation of a new font set which will be available for free use.

Divorced Before Puberty – an informative New York Times article by Nicholas Kristof about the links between treatment of women and terrorism [8].

The New York Times has an interesting article on “Human Flesh Searches” on the Internet in China [9]. It’s basically crowds targetting people to find private information and harass them (similar to what some griefers are known for doing on the English-language part of the Internet). But they seem more interested in vigilante justice than lulz.

The New York Times has an informative article about the Cult of Scientology (Co$) [10]. Among other interesting news it suggests that the number of cult victims in the US has dropped from 55,000 to 25,000 in the 2001-2008 time period. Senator Xenophon has called for an inquiry into the crimes committed by the cult and a review of it’s tax-exempt status [11]. As always Xenu.net is the authoritative source for information on the Cult of Scientology AKA the Church of Scientology.

The New York Times has an interesting article about formally studying the skills related to school teaching [12]. It largely focuses on Doug Lemov’s Taxonomy of Effective Teaching describes 49 techniques that improve school results and some other related research. The article also mentions that increasing teacher salaries is not going to help much due to the large number of teachers, it’s only professions that employ small numbers of people that can potentially have their overall skills improved by increasing salaries.

Andy Wingo wrote an interesting article about Julius Caesar [13] based on the book The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome by Michael Parenti. It seems that Caesar was more of a populist than a despot.

Interesting article in The Register about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) [14]. Apparently one 3.5TeV proton beam has as much energy as a British aircraft carrier running at 8 knots.

Links February 2010

February 16, 2010 | etbe

Popular Mechanics has a good article about 911 [1]. Experts in all the relevant fields were consulted to debunk popular myths. It’s an old article but I hadn’t read it before and learned a lot.

Former CIA analyst Raw McGovern and former FBI attorney/special agent Coleen Rowley, a colleague in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity wrote an interesting article titled “Why Counter-Terrorism Is in Shambles” [2]. Such sanity from people who are associated with the intelligence industry is unusual.

Gizmodo has an amusing and informative poster about the true risks of airline travel post 911 [3].

Reuters has an interesting article about drug smugglers using Gulfstream and 727 aircraft to smuggle cocaine from South America to Africa [4]. They claim a link to al Quaeda, but such a link seems tenuous from the evidence provided, it does seem reasonable to claim that groups who claim affiliation to al Quaeda are involved in smuggling – anyone can claim anything really.

An 8yo boy is on the TSA terrorism “watch list”, he regularly gets frisked when traveling by air [5]. His mother had a security clearance to fly on Air Force 2 when Al Gore was the Vice President, any sane security system would look at the parents rather than an 8yo child – children of that age aren’t going to independently become terrorists.

The Dallas Observer has an interesting article by Kimberly Thorpe about how to beat debt collectors [6]. Apparently most debt collectors break the law in some way and can be sued for damages – with a typical settlement of $3,500. Some debtors are suing multiple debt collectors, after one debt collector is successfully sued the debt is passed to another collector who also breaks the law. What I really like about this is that the community of people who sue debt collectors keep the industry honest and protect the majority of the population who don’t have the time or interest for engaging in law suits.

Read Write Web has an informative article about SourceForge being forced to deny access to people in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria [7]. A problem for free software developers is that we often don’t know the location of the people we collaborate with so it’s best to be as open as possible. This means that the US is not a good place to host servers, probably some part of the EU would be better. Also this sort of thing makes the field of free software development less welcoming to US citizens. Did the congress people learn nothing in high-school? They should know that someone who starts a campaign of ostracism may end up being in the small group.

Google is developing a new Native Client (NaCl) system that seems to be like Microsoft ActiveX [8]. I can’t imagine this doing anything that couldn’t be done with Java, it seems most likely to just marginalise the less popular platforms which isn’t in the best interests of Google.

Kevin Kelly of the Technium wrote an interesting post about 1000 true fans [9]. The concept is that if you are doing creative work you only need 1000 dedicated fans who buy everything you sell to make a living. If you make $20 per year from each of the 1000 fans and you will earn enough to live. Make $100 per year from each of the 1000 fans and you will be earning more money than most people. The updates show that artists who try this aren’t having much success yet, but the Internet population is still increasing dramatically…

PaxStreamline offers an innovation in commercial air-conditioning, apparently a significant amount of electricity is wasted on heating the air after chilling it excessively to remove moisture [10]. So instead of cooling it they use a liquid dessicant to extract the moisture.

Ben Schwartz explains why you should never create files in H.264 or MPEG formats, unless you have a special commercial license then you (and your viewers) will all be liable for patent infringement for any type of commercial use [11]. Note that storing the data on a web site with Google adverts counts as commercial use. I wonder if all those digital cameras and mobile phones that create MPEG videos have appropriate licenses, maybe uploading a file created on your phone breaches the patent.

J. K. Rowling (author of Harry Potter) gave an inspiring speech for Harvard graduates [12]. I particularly liked the following reference to her work for Amnesty International “Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the willfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid“.

Peter Eigen gave an interesting TED talk about the formation of Transparency International and the economic problems that are caused by corruption [13].

The Monthly Review has an interesting article about the failure of the US justice system [14]. The prison industrial complex has captured part of the US government, neo-liberalism is to blame.

59% of Americans agree that “homosexuals” ought to be able to serve in the U.S. military. But 70 percent believe that “gays and lesbians” ought to be able to serve in the military [15]. Apparently 11% of Americans think that gays and lesbians are better than “homosexuals”.

Links January 2010

January 14, 2010 | etbe

Magnus Larsson gave an interesting TED talk about using bacteria to transform dunes into architecture [1]. The concept of making a wall across Africa to stop sand dunes from overtaking farm land is obviously a good one, the idea of using bacteria to convert sand into sandstone to do so cheaply is also good. But making that into houses seems a little risky. I wouldn’t want to live under shifting sand with only bacteria generated sandstone to protect me.

Cory Doctorow gave an interesting speech titled “How to Destroy the Book”, here is the transcript [2]. He talks about how much he loves books and described his opposition to the DRM people who want to destroy the book culture.

Sendmail has a DKIM Wizard for generating ADSP (Domain Signing Policy) records [3]. If I knew that ADSP records were so easy to implement then I would have used them a year ago!

Loretta Napoleoni gave an insightful TED talk about the economics of terrorism [4]. Apparently the US dollar used to be THE currency for international crime, when the PATRIOT act was passed it’s anti-money-laundering provisions encouraged many shady people to invest in Euros instead and thus led to the devaluation of the US currency. It’s also interesting to note that terrorist organisations are driven by economics, if only we could prevent them from making money…

Ryan Lobo gave an interesting TED talk about his photographic work [5]. The effectiveness of the all-women peace-keeping force is noteworthy. The part about the Liberian war criminal who has become an evangelical Christian and who now tours Liberia begging forgiveness from his victims (and their relatives in the case of the people he murdered). Should someone like that be permitted to remain free if his victims forgive him?

Charles Stross has an appealing vision for how Apple and Google can destroy the current mobile telephony market [6]. I can’t wait for the mobile phone market to be entirely replaced by mobile VOIP devices!

James Geary gave an interesting TED talk about metaphors [7]. The benefits of metaphors in poetry are well known (particularly in lyrics), but the impact of metaphors in influencing stock market predictions surprised me.

Shaffi Mather gave an interesting TED talk about his company that makes money from fighting corruption [8]. Instead of paying a bribe you can pay his company to force the official(s) in question to do the right thing. Apparently the cost of doing so tends to be less than 10% the cost of the bribe if you know what you are doing. His previous company was an ambulance service that charges what the patient can afford is also interesting.

John Robb wrote an interesting article about lottery winners and griefers [9]. He suggests that publishing the names, addresses, etc of rich people will be a new trend in Griefing. One thing I’ve been wondering about is the value of the HR database at a typical corporation. A single database typically contains the home addresses, phone numbers, and salaries of all the employees. It would be very easy to do an SQL dump and store it on a USB flash device to carry out of the office. Then it could be sold to the highest bidder. They could probably make a market in the private data about rich people in the same way that there is currently a market for credit card data – maybe they have already done this but it’s kept quiet to stop others from implementing the same idea.

Michael Smith wrote an interesting article for the Washington Times about home schooling and socialisation [10]. It seems that people who were home schooled as children tend to be more academically successful and involved in civic life as well as being happier and having career success.

Richard Seager wrote an interesting article for American Scientist about ocean currents and heat transfer from the tropics [11]. It seems that when the ocean currents shut down the UK and other parts of northern Europe won’t be getting a mini ice-age.

Ian Lance Taylor (most known for the “gold” linker) has written a good summary of the situation in regard to climate change and what must be done about it [12].

The Wrath of the Killdozer – article about how one angry man converted a bulldozer into a tank [13]. This wasn’t a big bulldozer (every mining company has bigger ones) and he didn’t have any serious weapons (only rifles). Imagine what terrorists could do if they started with a mining vehicle and serious weapons…

Simon Singh has written about being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association [14]. The BCA didn’t like his article criticising chiropractors for claiming to be able to treat many conditions unrelated to the spine. Remember, chiropractors are not doctors – all they can do is alleviate some back problems. See a GP if you have any medical condition that doesn’t involve a sore back or neck. Avoid uppity chiropracters who claim to be able to cure all ills.

Nicholas D. Kristof wrote an interesting article for the New York times about how happy the people in Costa Rica are [15]. He claims that the Costa Rican government’s decision in 1949 to dissolve it’s armed forces and invest the money in education is the root cause of the happy population. Maybe if the US government would scale back military spending the US population could be as happy as the Costa Ricans. While there are good arguments for having some sort of military, there are no good arguments for spending more money on the military than the rest of the world combined (as the US does).

etbe – Russell Coker

Linux, politics, and other interesting things

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