Posts for September 2007
Low-cost tech in developing world
Low-cost tech that meets basic needs -- Wow...this is a great overview that starts with the One Laptop Per Child machine but goes far beyond it to highlight some fascinating technologies I wasn't aware of.
thanks to the billblog for the link!
September 29, 2007 permalink | Comments (1)
Music versus control
It's been a big week in digital music, and I spent some time yesterday playing around and enjoying it. Not everything I did was new...I bought some music from the Amie Street music store, which has been around for awhile now. But things have changed...Amazon's entry into this space, in my (and many others) opinion is the straw that's going to break the back of DRM in the music industry. It's the beginning of the end.
Amazon's made most of the right moves here. They have a great brand already that people know and trust, and they used it rather than buying or creating some other service. (Though the URL sucks to copy and paste...can anyone find a short one that resolves, or am I going to have to tinyurl it?) MP3s, of course; no worries with format compatibility or player license renewal. And while I'm not the world's biggest fan of their little helper download app (why not just a zip?), the purpose appears to be to help iTunes and WMP users seamlessly integrate the music into their libraries, and that is a good idea.
In a development that might appear at first glance to be unrelated, Apple's newest iPhone update is removing unauthorized 3rd party apps and has potentially bricked some unlocked phones (it's possible this is eventually fixable...one can hope, for the sake of the device owners). Note: I don't think it's illegal for Apple to do this, based on the Terms of Service...it's just a bad deal for their customers. And it's about control, which is how it relates to the earlier points.
Amazon has made a business calculation that reducing their control over their customers will increase customer satisfaction in a way that will ultimately increase profitability. It's a great move, IMO, and it brings Amazon into good company with folks like Magnatune, MP3tunes, Amie Street, and eMusic. One could argubably add Apple to that group as well, since they're selling MP3s...but I don't.
Apple's focus on consumer satisfaction is legendary, but they do it by increasing their control, not reducing it. In my opinion, they're slowly, slowly painting themselves into a corner that will be really hard to get out of. The iTunes music experience (player, iTunes app, iTMS) is a wonder, as long as you're following all the rules...which are MOSTLY pretty easy to follow. But step outside the boundaries, add unauthorized apps to a player, hack on your library db, etc...and you're on your own. Uncool. Companies like Neuros, Chumby, and OpenMoko are where I hope the future lies; hardware companies that aren't afraid to give the customer control of what they buy. Economies of scale presently give the price advantage to folks like Apple, who can outscale their open hardware competitors, but that gap is ever-diminishing. As it does, more and more people wake up to the advantages of owning, REALLY owning, their own stuff.
And as things change, you can look to the Free Software world to see where this leads us. Great operating systems, applications of all kinds, and development frameworks that are unencumbered by control. We get innovation and choice.
In the meantime, I'll be over here, re-discovering some old favorite songs at Amazon, and trying out new artists at places like Amie Street and Magnatune. I still listen to more podcasts than anything else, but having increasing amounts of music that I can control is great. And I like to code to music, vs. podcasts...isn't choice great?
UPDATE -- Here's a couple of links to share my...um...eclectic? (I like that better than just saying haphazard) musical tastes:
September 29, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
Peter Watts kicks ass
Peter Watts is the man. I love his fiction, and his blog rocks pretty hard too. This latest post is a must-read: You Won't Get Elected If You Don't Speak Klingon -- Both Law and Economics, in other words, are human artifacts. They're like Gibsonian cyberspace, a consensual hallucination that only works because everybody agrees to stay inside the playground. They're Klingon Summer Camp, they're Dungeons and Dragons for geeks with MBAs: beautifully arcane, deeply developed, honed and crafted by decades of game play..
PS: you can get most of his work for free (PDF/online format) via the fiction link above, but PLEASE PLEASE go buy anything you find in print in a store. The more we buy, the more he can sell in the future!
September 26, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
Notable decision on military tribunals
Military commissions' powers broadened -- If I'm reading this correctly, I think I'm pretty happy with this. It is true that the appeals court decided that the technicality preventing the lower court from moving forward (namely, the conclusion that a CSRT [or another competent tribunal] determination of 'unlawful enemy combatant' status was a prerequisite to referral of charges to a military commission) was incorrect. This means that charges can move forward. However...from the first time I read the reasoning on that technicality, I thought it was a bit stretched. And more importantly, I think the appeals court did clarify several good points.
I'm no fan of the Military Commissions Act of 2006; I think that Congress did a terrible, and almost certainly unconstitional, disservice to the rule of law in invalidating habeas challenges by those incarcerated at Guantanamo. That being said, the clarifications by the appeals court within the context of the MCA are important: 1) ...it rejected the Pentagon argument that there was no legal difference between a finding of an enemy combatant
by a CSRT and an unlawful enemy combatant
. The former can be captured and held during a conflict, but cannot be charged with crimes, it ruled. Only an unlawful enemy combatant
may be charged, it concluded, citing the well recognized body of customary international law
. -- That's a big deal, and I'm very glad that we're making some attempt to abide by established international laws that we expect everyone else to adhere to.
2) The appeals court also upheld Judge Brownback's conclusion that the CSRT finding of enemy combatant
was not sufficient to set up a trial before a commission. It thus rejected the Pentagon conclusion that prior statements by President Bush and other high officials were sufficient to turn anyone accused of ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist network or to the Taliban into an unlawful enemy combatant
. -- Very, very important! We actually need to prove our accusations, which is kinda nifty when you're living in a...whatcha call it...yeah, democracy. Winner here, definitely.
3) Moreover, the appeals court said, Congress did not mean to validate all prior CSRT determinations so as to turn those into findings into unlawful status. -- Oy vey. Not a rubber stamp. Whoda thunk?
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the results here (again, assuming I'm not missing anything blatently obvious to a lawyer type). The military legal system (in particular) seems to once again be pretty serious about following the rules, which is something I give them a lot of credit for, for the most part. There have been some exceptions, but they've mostly been in the forefront of trying to do things the right way, and for that I give them credit.
Note: my so-called legal analysis
is piss-poor layman stuff...much better to go read the entire post. Even better...stay up to date on the entire process, as it's an important one.
September 25, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
Sideshow antics
LOL...The Sideshow generally provides some good links, and today was no exception. An excellent example: State legislators go insane, threaten to punish Columbia University for allowing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at their World Leaders Forum. Man, it's busting out all over. (Of course, Ahmadinejad claiming there were no homosexuals in Iran didn't exactly shore up his rep as a statesman. No wonder his own people hate him for being a crackpot.)
And yes, I chose that particular paragraph to point out that while the blog is certainly progressive, it's not some love America's enemies just because
nutfest. Really. I swear. (And, btw, Ahmadinejad is definitely a total crackpot. Yeppers. I just wish he were the only one...*sigh*)
September 25, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
DIY lab scanner made from standard CD drive
Damn. This is cool. -- Fixing two additional light sensors to a normal CD or DVD drive can transform it into a highly accurate scanner for chemical or medical tests, Spanish researchers have shown. The team has developed a modified CD drive that detected tiny quantities of pesticide in samples placed on top of an ordinary compact disk.
Thanks to Hack A Day for the link!
September 25, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
Amazon MP3 looks nice
So, it's open. Amazon MP3 Downloads looks like it's going to start a bit of a price war, as their most popular songs are actually cheaper, rather than more expensive (as proposed by several of the labels). And all DRM-free...here we go! I think the prediction by Gerd Leonhard on fora.tv that all the majors would go DRM-less this year is looking quite prescient.
September 25, 2007 permalink | Comments (4)
Cory on privacy at OSCON 2007
Cory Doctorow gave a great rant on privacy at OSCON 2007, entitled Privacy Isn't Dead -- Let's Not Kill It". He talks about the dangers of letting software control us (and the attendant privacy issues), rather than controlling the software ourselves. Cory is a visionary in this space; listening to him exhort on this subject is eye-opening, if you're not completely up to date on it.
I've long thought that David Brin's Transparent Society was (and is) a great treatise on the dangers of asymmetric control. in fact, I try to re-read it every couple of years (it's almost 10 years old now), just to keep all the memes hot. Cory is another great, great mind writing about this. He has a new book coming out next spring, Little Brother, that I expect will be a wonderful (fiction) entry into this space. Much like his recent short-short Scroogled
, I expect this book will weave a realistic, gripping story out of the consequences of the technological, political, and cultural choices we've made so far this century...hopefully giving us a chance to learn from our mistakes without actually making ALL of them. Can't wait. And Little Brother
is targeted as young adult fiction (though I know I'll be buying it regardless), so maybe it'll make an impact in the younger generations as well.
September 21, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
Avast!
Arrggh....don't forget it's International Talk Like A Pirate Day, ye scallywags! Shiver me timbers...
UPDATE: Huzzah! Some WoW pirate videos for yer viewin' pleasure...don't thank me, mateys, thank WoW Insider!
September 19, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
Two sexy TB
Sweeeeetttt.... HAMMER myshare 2TB Network Hard Drive -- $830.99 as of this writing. This is so freaky crazy cool, it's almost beyond cool. Drives half this size were more than this (1 TB for ~$900) less than a year ago!
Thanks to Kevin for the link!
September 18, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
Scroogled, by Cory Doctorow
Just READ the damn thing; it'll make you think: Scroogled, by Cory Doctorow. Afterwards, if you don't have a little better appreciation of the dangers of wars on abstract nouns, try this: Human Evil and Muddled Thinking. If you're still unconvinced...I'd say the heck with ye
...but I've been re-energized by those guys. Come on by; we'll chat. I'll even try to be nice!
September 15, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
Push tagging to the cloud...doh!
I've solved a nagging blog issue that's been floating around in the back of head, thanks to an incredibly generous blogpost by Jon Udell yesterday, in which he clarifies the process he uses to tag and categorize his blog postings. Many people do this, and many blog platforms (Wordpress, Blogger, etc.) have facilities for tagging a post as you're posting it. I've found Django apps that plug tagging facilities into my db schema, making it almost seamless...yet I've wrestled with setting this up for some time. I haven't quite been able to put my finger on why, but I've resisted. It seemed somehow like too much work for not enough reward, but I couldn't quite explain why, even to myself.
Jon's approach makes it clear to me, though...once I saw his workflow, I was on board. He uses del.icio.us to tag his OWN stuff! I use the heck out of del.icio.us, but it never occurred to me to point it back at myself...*smack*. This closes the loop; I can use tags to personally organize my posts, yet also push metadata about my posts and their tags into the rich cloud soup
that is del.icio.us. Brilliant. Simply brilliant. Thanks, Jon!
So expect my del.icio.us feed to look rather self-indulgent for a bit, whilst I catch up...
September 14, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
Good C-SPAN podcast on the fall session of Congress
The C-SPAN Podcast of the Week often has good content, and I just finished listening to a great discussion: Brookings Institute preview of the fall session of Congress. Very good dialogue, and the panel included two Brookings Fellows (a center-left think tank) as well as a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (a center-right think tank); so there's a least a tendency toward the center, rather than either party's extreme wings. Each panelist gave an overview on the first 7 months of the 110th Congress, and then thoughts on how the fall could go...then Q&A. For policy wonks, this is good stuff!
Here's a working (for now) direct link to the mp3. I don't know how long that will last, but it may hang around longer than the link in the podcast feed (which drops stuff off pretty quickly).
September 13, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
Bam...Reason columnist nails it on Iraq
More False Optimism on Iraq: How many mulligans should we let Iraq war boosters take? -- Yowch. Strong words, but dead on.
September 13, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
Facebook public search considerations
With the annoucement of Public Search Listings on Facebook, I've been trying to decide whether or not to turn off public access to my record (it's on by default for everyone, so it's opt-out, not opt-in). I certainly don't mind being findable; heck, I work at it. The question is one of ownership
...that is, do I want what is potentially one of the highest-ranking search links of my name to be something NOT on my site?
I'd say no...except for the fact that none of the highest-ranks links for that search point to my site right now, because they aren't even to me! With a famous wrestler and a recently deceased computer science pioneer sharing my name (deliberately no links there...*grin*), I sometimes barely make it onto the front page of that search. I do much better with kenzoid; part of the reason I took (and defend) that as my online identity. So, in a sense, any Google juice that I personally get from the Facebook query is good, since my Facebook record points back to here; the center for all that is Ken!
So, I expect I'll probably leave it public, for the reasons listed above. That being said, it may not matter much...Facebook is timing out so much right now that it may be they have to back away from this change while they work on scalability issues.
September 12, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
Cringely on Jobs and the iPhone price cut
The Puppet Master -- I don't know about anyone else, but that's the best theory I've read on the iPhone price drop yet. Honest, straightforward...and it smells right to me. Also validates the fact that I don't own a single piece of Apple hardware; no matter how sexy the toy, I don't like being jerked around like a puppet.
But hey, at least the man is straightforward!
September 8, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
Hack my Zune, please!
iPod Touch looks nice...for someone who doesn't mind the Apple lock-in, it looks like a pretty sweet and cheaper alternative to the iPhone (though the cheaper cost on that will help too). I want a different toy, though...or rather, I want one I already have fixed
...
See, I got a Zune for free at a conference I attended..and I haven't spent more than an hour with the thing since I got it months ago. And most of that was just setting it up and seeing how bad it sucked. Because it sucks....at least mine's not poop brown, though. *grin*
It sucks, and that sucks, because it's nice hardware. When the Zune first dropped, there was scuttlebutt on a Linux install via hack...but AFAIK, it hasn't gone anywhere. Can you imagine how cool that would be? A 30GB wifi-enabled portable storage and sharing device; adhoc AP access to let me store and access data, share music, and automated syncing to the cloud when a hot spot was available. Suh-weet! And for me, cheap...since I already have one. In a closet, I think. Somewhere.
I hack a lot of things, but closed hardware isn't one of my fortes. Somebody, hack my Zune!
September 7, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
Go, Decider...er, Go. Please. Just go.
The Decider Still Doesn't Know Who Disbanded Iraq's Military -- *sigh* I don't even really know why I continue to track these things, other than to just make myself cranky.
UPDATE: Heh...I'm a little behind this week (still catching up from DragonCon), but I do like this story: Envoy’s Letter Counters Bush on Dismantling of Iraq Army. Apparently even Bremer is tired of this crap.
September 7, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
Borgization seems so inadequate now...
Wolbachia cronenbergium -- Wolbachia's code isn't just hanging out in the cell, it's been incorporated into the nuclear DNA of the host itself. [...] This is assimilation: the dicks of Borg drones everywhere should be shriveling with collective performance anxiety.
Great overview, Peter...thanks! And keep swinging for the rafters, btw...I have my copy of Blindsight out for pimpage...er, I mean reading. Your loyal minions keep the flames alive...
September 7, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
It's Save a Baby Squirrel Day!
Yay! Good ending to what could have been REALLY sad. On our way out to run this evening, my wife and I walked down the sidewalk, and I saw what at first appeared to be a squished dead bird or something out of the corner of my eye, right in the curbside edge of the busy street we were walking down. Sometimes that happens, of course...and I don't usually point it out. But as we continued walking, my brain started thinking about what it had seen; no wings, I think no visible damage...and had it moved a bit just as I passed?
I finally stopped about 50 feet along, turned around, and went back to check. It was indeed alive, and not visibly hurt...and in fact, the animal was flailing further into the street! Only about 18 inches from total squishdom. It was definitely a very baby...something. No fur, eyes closed, tiny...not a kitten, I didn't think. But what? And what to do?
So I went back to the house, got a box and some tissues, and we scooped it in. No way I'm letting a baby anything just roll out into traffic! We looked about (without much hope) for a mother animal trying to get to it, but no luck. I tracked down a local 24 hour vet, though, that accepted wild animals for rehabilitation...so even if it wasn't a baby pet, it wouldn't just get killed.
On our way to the vet, we decided it was almost certainly a baby squirrel, and the vet confirmed it. They took the little guy and assured us that it would go to rehab first thing...they have a wildlife rehab specialist on staff that specializes in infants, in fact!
I tossed some money in the Wildlife Fund
for the little guy's future nut stash, and we headed home for a late run. Thanks very much to Cobb Emergency Veterinary Clinic for taking in the little fella!
September 6, 2007 permalink | Comments (1)
Patriot Act Smackdown
Court Strikes Down Key Patriot Act Power Again -- Huh-zah. Indefinite gag orders and prior restraint on speech don't strike me as legal attributes that anyone in the US should be proud of.
Secrecy is not strength, folks; it's a big facet of the corrupting nature of power. It's much, much harder to do wrong when you're standing in the light...but it's still easy to protect those that need protecting. Our government agencies know this, believe it or not; they've just had a bit of a memory lapse. Thanks to Judge Marrero for helping remind them.
September 6, 2007 permalink | Comments (0)
DragonCon: I'm alive, but not recovered
Whew! I must be getting old; DragonCon is taking a bit longer to recover from than it used to. But we had a great time, and got both photos and a couple of short videos to give everyone a taste. Sorry you missed it! Back to the Real World now...*sigh*
September 5, 2007 permalink | Comments (1)
Earlier posts -- Later posts
